Chapter XVI: La Messe De Requiem

“Married, married, and not to me!
Is it a dream, or can it be
That the tie is bound forever?
Back to the gay world’s busy mart
I go with a pang in my aching heart
But love shall fill it, never!”

Vivian’s engagement proved satisfactory all around. Judge Leigh had hoped not to lose his daughter so soon, but he consents of course, for the match seems unexceptionable, even for _his_ daughter. He does not even take into consideration the young man’s weakness for the wine cup. He will sober down after marriage, of course, so he gives the pair his blessing with a sigh that the time has come so soon, and Earle Essex stays two weeks longer--long enough to persuade the bride-elect to set the wedding for September.

Diana, in Eve’s phraseology, has made her market, too, this summer, and is engaged to a rich old widower whose fine estate is in the neighborhood of Leigh Place. Diana is placidly content, and Eve sinks into insignificance in the new importance of the engaged maidens, but she is a comfort to Charlton, who is sarcastic on the subject, and seeks less sentimental society.

In truth Charlton is surprised and--chagrined at his sister’s haste to be “off with the old love and on with the new.” If there is to be “marrying and giving in marriage,” he much prefers that his favorite, Max Verne, should be the happy man. He has trusted to time to reunite the estranged lovers, and is vexed and sorry that it is now forever out of the question. Outwardly, however, he says nothing, for he has found out by a fine intuition that Vivian does not like to discuss the matter. Max Verne’s name, once a household word, has become by common consent a dead letter in the family. Diana and Eve might enlighten him as to Viva’s real feelings if they chose. Their keen eyes see plainly through Viva’s mask, and read her secret. But Charlton, who loves his little sister more than any one else on earth, who would give anything to shield her from sorrow, is blind, and does not read the handwriting on the wall, laughs at woman’s fickleness, and lifts no hand to stay the fatal hour that rushes on so fast.

But perhaps, of all the surprised ones, Earle Essex is the most surprised. He does not know that Vivian believes Max Verne married to another, and that her acceptance of his suit was prompted by pique and despair. Hard as he had schemed to separate her from her young lover, he had scarcely dared hope for success. But, believing that he caught her heart in the rebound, he rejoices accordingly. Eve wins the necklace and a bracelet besides, and is first bridesmaid at Viva’s wedding.

At her wedding--yes, for the fatal day came swiftly. With the bridal _trousseau_ from New York comes sister Viola, the rich Mrs. Huntington, to honor the occasion.

The occasion honors her, it is so brilliant. Judge Leigh spares no expense, and his youngest daughter’s wedding is the boast of the country, even when years have come and gone. All the arrangements are on a grand scale, and many friends from Richmond are invited guests. On this point Viva and Charlton have one memorable disagreement.

But Charlton wants to invite Max Verne, and she flatly refuses her consent.

“But why, my dear little sister? It is not right to exclude his name from the list of invitations. Our old friend, too! Surely you will not carry your silly little spite about the wine to such a ridiculous length.”

“Pray leave me alone, Charlton. I will not have Max Verne at my wedding.”

“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I don’t understand your whims of late, Viva. Essex has fairly turned your weak little brain,” and he flings out of the room in a passion.

* * * * *

But Max Verne is not in Richmond to feel slighted by his omission from the wedding guests.

He is wooing pleasure by the sea, and to him there comes no knowledge, that moonlight night as he paces “the sea-beat shore” in pensive reverie and fancies that the waves have a sound of human sorrow in their moaning, that the stars are shining on Vivian’s bridal hour--his lost little love “in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,” breathing the solemn vows that make her his rival’s bride.

The next day he goes home to the marriage of his uncle, the next day he leaves for New York, then to Europe. It is only when he receives in Paris a budget of papers from home that he reads the news--first the elaborate account of his uncle’s wedding, ending with the item that his nephew, Doctor Max Verne, sailed the ensuing day for Europe to pursue a course of medical study in Paris.

The next society item details at length the grandeurs of Miss Leigh’s wedding at her country home, expatiating on the beauty of the bride and the elegance of the home Mr. Essex has prepared for his wife.

The room grows too small for Max after this. He cannot breathe; he must seek the open air.

He jams his hat down over his eyes, and going out, chance leads him before a vast cathedral, whence comes a sound of music ineffably sad and sweet. Some great and good Catholic is dead, and a solemn requiem mass is being chanted in Latin by the choir.

Max follows the crowd, and asks a gamin on the steps:

“What is going on? Is anybody being married here?”

“_Non, monsieur, c’est la messe de requiem_,” the gamin replies, smiling at the foreign gentleman’s mistake.

But it is all like a dream to Max, and he never even knows what great and good man that funeral chant bewailed. To his dazed mind, in its cruel pain, it was then and ever afterward a funeral dirge for the Vivian who was now dead to him forever.