Marcia Schuyler Part 5

"She must be brought back at once at all costs!" he exclaimed. "That rascal shall not outwit us. Fool that I was to trust him in the house!

Tell the men to saddle the horses. They cannot have gone far yet, and there are not so many roads to Was.h.i.+ngton. We may yet overtake them, and married or unmarried the hussy shall be here for her wedding!"

But David raised his head from the mantel-shelf and steadied his voice:

"No, no, you must not do that-father-" the appellative came from his lips almost tenderly, as if he had long considered the use of it with pleasure, and now he spoke it as a tender bond meant to comfort.

The older man started and his face softened. A flash of understanding and love pa.s.sed between the two men.

"Remember, she has said she loves some one else. She could never be mine now."

There was terrible sadness in the words as David spoke them, and his voice broke. Madam Schuyler turned away and took out her handkerchief, an article of apparel for which she seldom had use except as it belonged to every well ordered toilet.

The father stood looking hopelessly at David and taking in the thought.

Then he too bowed his head and groaned.

"And my daughter, _my little Kate_ has done it!" Marcia covered her face with the curtains and her tears fell fast.

David went and stood beside the Squire and touched his arm.

"Don't!" he said pleadingly. "You could not help it. It was not your fault. Do not take it so to heart!"

"But it is my disgrace. I have brought up a child who could do it. I cannot escape from that. It is the most dishonorable thing a woman can do.

And look how she has done it, brought shame upon us all! Here we have a wedding on our hands, and little or no time to do anything! I have lived in honor all my life, and now to be disgraced by my own daughter!"

Marcia shuddered at her father's agony. She could not bear it longer. With a soft cry she went to him, and nestled her head against his breast unnoticed.

"Father, father, don't!" she cried.

But her father went on without seeming to see her.

"To be disgraced and deserted and dishonored by my own child! Something must be done. Send the servants! Let the wedding be stopped!"

He looked at Madam and she started toward the door to carry out his bidding, but he recalled her immediately.

"No, stay!" he cried. "It is too late to stop them all. Let them come. Let them be told! Let the disgrace rest upon the one to whom it belongs!"

Madam stopped in consternation! A wedding without a bride! Yet she knew it was a serious thing to try to dispute with her husband in that mood. She paused to consider.

"Oh, father!" exclaimed Marcia, "we couldn't! Think of David."

Her words seemed to touch the right chord, for he turned toward the young man, intense, tender pity in his face.

"Yes, David! We are forgetting David! We must do all we can to make it easier for you. You will be wanting to get away from us as quickly as possible. How can we manage it for you? And where will you go? You will not want to go home just yet?"

He paused, a new agony of the knowledge of David's part coming to him.

"No, I cannot go home," said David hopelessly, a look of keen pain darting across his face, "for the house will be all ready for her, and the table set. The friends will be coming in, and we are invited to dinner and tea everywhere. They will all be coming to the house, my friends, to welcome us. No, I cannot go home." Then he pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead blindly, and added, in a stupefied tone, "and yet I must-sometime-I must-go-home!"

CHAPTER V

The room was very still as he spoke. Madam Schuyler forgot the coming guests and the preparations, in consternation over the thought of David and his sorrow. Marcia sobbed softly upon her father's breast, and her father involuntarily placed his arm about her as he stood in painful thought.

"It is terrible!" he murmured, "terrible! How could she bear to inflict such sorrow! She might have saved us the scorn of all of our friends.

David, you must not go back alone. It must not be. You must not bear that.

There are lovely girls in plenty elsewhere. Find another one and marry her. Take your bride home with you, and no one in your home need be the wiser. Don't sorrow for that cruel girl of mine. Give her not the satisfaction of feeling that your life is broken. Take another. Any girl might be proud to go with you for the asking. Had I a dozen other daughters you should have your pick of them, and one should go with you, if you would condescend to choose another from the home where you have been so treacherously dealt with. But I have only this one little girl.

She is but a child as yet and cannot compare with what you thought you had. I blame you not if you do not wish to wed another Schuyler, but if you will she is yours. And she is a good girl. David, though she is but a child. Speak up, child, and say if you will make amends for the wrong your sister has done!"

The room was so still one could almost hear the heartbeats. David had raised his head once more and was looking at Marcia. Sad and searching was his gaze, as if he fain would find the features of Kate in her face, yet it seemed to Marcia, as she raised wide tear-filled eyes from her father's breast where her head still lay, that he saw her not. He was looking beyond her and facing the home-going alone, and the empty life that would follow.

Her thoughts the last few days had matured her wonderfully. She understood and pitied, and her woman-nature longed to give comfort, yet she shrunk from going unasked. It was all terrible, this sudden situation thrust upon her, yet she felt a willing sacrifice if she but felt sure it was his wish.

But David did not seem to know that he must speak. He waited, looking earnestly at her, through her, beyond her, to see if Heaven would grant this small relief to his sufferings. At last Marcia summoned her voice:

"If David wishes I will go."

She spoke the words solemnly, her eyes lifted slightly above him as if she were speaking to Another One higher than he. It was like an answer to a call from G.o.d. It had come to Marcia this way. It seemed to leave her no room for drawing back, if indeed she had wished to do so. Other considerations were not present. There was just the one great desire in her heart to make amends in some measure for the wrong that had been done.

She felt almost responsible for it, a family responsibility. She seemed to feel the shame and pain as her father was feeling it. She would step into the empty place that Kate had left and fill it as far as she could. Her only fear was that she was not acceptable, not worthy to fill so high a place. She trembled over it, yet she could not hold back from the high calling. It was so she stood in a kind of sorrowful exaltation waiting for David. Her eyes lowered again, looking at him through the lashes and pleading for recognition. She did not feel that she was pleading for anything for herself, only for the chance to help him.

Her voice had broken the spell. David looked down upon her kindly, a pleasant light of grat.i.tude flas.h.i.+ng through the sternness and sorrow in his face. Here was comrades.h.i.+p in trouble, and his voice recognized it as he said:

"Child, you are good to me, and I thank you. I will try to make you happy if you will go with me, and I am sure your going will be a comfort in many ways, but I would not have you go unwillingly."

There was a dull ache in Marcia's heart, its cause she could not understand, but she was conscious of a gladness that she was not counted unworthy to be accepted, young though she was, and child though he called her. His tone had been kindness itself, the gentle kindliness that had won her childish sisterly love when first he began to visit her sister. She had that answer of his to remember for many a long day, and to live upon, when questionings and loneliness came upon her. But she raised her face to her father now, and said: "I will go, father!"

The Squire stooped and kissed his little girl for the last time. Perhaps he realized that from this time forth she would be a little girl no longer, and that he would never look into those child-eyes of hers again, unclouded with the sorrows of life, and filled only with the wonder-pictures of a rosy future. She seemed to him and to herself to be renouncing her own life forever, and to be taking up one of sacrificial penitence for her sister's wrong doing.

The father then took Marcia's hand and placed it in David's, and the betrothal was complete.

Madam Schuyler, whose reign for the time was set aside, stood silent, half disapproving, yet not interfering. Her conscience told her that this wholesale disposal of Marcia was against nature. The new arrangement was a relief to her in many ways, and would make the solution of the day less trying for every one. But she was a woman and knew a woman's heart. Marcia was not having her chance in life as her sister had had, as every woman had a right to have. Then her face hardened. How had Kate used her chances? Perhaps it was better for Marcia to be well placed in life before she grew headstrong enough to make a fool of herself as Kate had done.

David would be good to her, that was certain. One could not look at the strong, pleasant lines of his well cut mouth and chin and not be sure of that. Perhaps it was all for the best. At least it was not her doing. And it was only the night before that she had been looking at Marcia and worrying because she was growing into a woman so fast. Now she would be relieved of that care, and could take her ease and enjoy life until her own children were grown up. But the voice of her husband aroused her to the present.

"Let the wedding go on as planned, Sarah, and no one need know until the ceremony is over except the minister. I myself will go and tell the minister. There will need to be but a change of names."

"But," said the Madam, with housewifely alarm, as the suddenness of the whole thing flashed over her, "Marcia is not ready. She has no suitable clothes for her wedding."

"Not ready! No clothes!" said the Squire, now thoroughly irritated over this trivial objection, as a fly will sometimes ruffle the temper of a man who has kept calm under fire of an enemy. "And where are all the clothes that have been making these weeks and months past? What more preparation does she need? Did the hussy take her wedding things with her? What's in this trunk?"

"But those are Kate's things, father," said Marcia in gentle explanation.

"Kate would be very angry if I took her things. They were made for her, you know."

"And what if they were made for her?" answered the father, very angry now at Kate. "You are near of a size. What will do for one is good enough for the other, and Kate may be angry and get over it, for not one rag of it all will she get, nor a penny of my money will ever go to her again. She is no daughter of mine from henceforth. That rascal has beaten me and stolen my daughter, but he gets a dowerless la.s.s. Not a penny will ever go from the Schuyler estate into his pocket, and no trunk will ever travel from here to Was.h.i.+ngton for that heartless girl. I forbid it. Let her feel some of the sorrow she has inflicted upon others more innocent. I forbid it, do you hear?" He brought his fist down upon the solid mahogany bureau until the prisms on a candle-stand in front of the mirror jangled discordantly.

"Oh, father!" gasped Marcia, and turned with terror to her stepmother. But David stood with his back toward the rest looking out of the window. He had forgotten them all.