Chapter LXXVII: The Wedding at Willow Bend

It will be remembered that Mr. Noel was forced by indisposition to leave his guests at the dinner table, on the night that ended in such bitter feeling between the parties left behind. Before morning he became seriously ill, and the next day was pronounced in imminent danger, from one of those acute attacks of a disease which might any moment prove fatal. Another morning found him worse, and the doctor despondent.

In this strait, the sick man had but one overpowering anxiety: his daughter’s welfare. He had consented willingly to her marriage with Waldon, who was so well known as an author and a rising man in public life, that his lack of wealth was of little importance to a person who possessed so much.

Few kinder or more indulgent fathers ever lived than Mr. Noel; and now, when death seemed very near, anxiety to leave his only child under safe protection grew strong within him. He sent for the girl and won from her a half-frightened, half-delighted consent that the marriage should be celebrated then and there in his sick-room.

An hour after Mary Noel gave her consent to this, a young man was galloping at full speed toward Hyde’s plantation.

Young Hyde, being a bachelor, and entire master of himself, led a careless life on the estate his father had bequeathed him. Without much regard to the elegancies of society, he extended a hearty, almost rude hospitality to such friends as chose to make his house their headquarters for lounging, shooting, or any other country amusement that their own ingenuity could devise. With plenty of old family servants ready to bestow their labor upon his guests, a stable full of blood horses, and any amount of empty sleeping-rooms, the Hyde mansion was usually a scene of great hospitality and free living. Guests remained in that house so long as it pleased them, without any idea of restraint. In fact, each one soon became a sort of amateur master. Certainly, the party now assembled under its roof had a jolly, idle, rollicking time of it, and seemed in no hurry to depart.

Hyde and some idle young Virginians from Richmond were lounging around the windows of the smoking-room, half in and half out of doors, at the very time that Mary Noel was giving her consent to a speedy wedding. They had been discussing the unpleasant termination of the dinner, and seemed rather astonished at Waldon’s apathy in the matter; but he sat apart and smoked much, leaning back on one chair with his feet on another, while his friends went into an eager discussion of his duties. He had seen Mary after her interview with Mrs. Forbes, and that young person, having misunderstood the indignant lady entirely, and, as such people will, added a good deal of her own to what had really been said, Waldon was satisfied that, through this underground channel, he had secured an apology from young Fletcher ample as he could wish. Hyde’s interference he chose to ignore entirely. He was well aware that a quarrel with her brother would be sure to enlist Mrs. Forbes against him; and an open rupture with Hyde would have left him without a home, when it was most important that he should be in the neighborhood of Willow Bend.

“Alice never will allow me to run the risk of being shot,” he reasoned. “There is enough left of the old feeling to set her actively to work, and she is a deuced clever woman. In fact, I never took the trouble to please any but clever women until this bit of cream and honey came in my way. I wonder how she will manage it? The fellow is plucky enough, but she can control him, and will. The woman who once loves Waldon never wholly throws off his chains. I shall be in no haste here, but give ample time.”

In this way the man reasoned, while his companions chatted lazily, sending up clouds of smoke among the stags’ heads, foils and fowling-pieces that ornamented the great open hall where they were sitting.

“Let him alone,” said one of the young Virginians, who could not understand this cool way of taking an affront. “He is not likely to put up with an insult like that. New Yorkers are not fond of duelling, but such want of pluck as that would drive him from the clubs.”

Waldon heard this, and was stung by it, as Lane saw with great satisfaction; for a sharp, underground antagonism was going on between these two men, which threatened every moment to break out in an open rupture.

“I think they can leave Waldon to take care of his own honor,” muttered that gentleman, as he caught the drift of this conversation, while he twisted a loose leaf around the end of his cigar, and polished it down with his finger. “I am waiting for that young hound to send me an apology. Wasn’t it a statesman who taught us the value of ‘masterly inactivity?’ There! I have lost my light, and the whole thing isn’t worth that! Boy, bring me a match.”

A young mulatto, who was lolling against a post of the veranda, listening greedily to the talk, went off like a flash, and that moment a horseman appeared in the road, coming full gallop toward the Hyde mansion.

“It is one of Noel’s people, I think,” observed Hyde, leaning forward to get a good view of the approaching horseman, “riding like the mischief. I wonder what is up at the Bend? Old fellow dead, perhaps.”

Waldon set down his chair with a crash, and started up. Hyde laughed, and snapped the ashes from his cigar with vicious emphasis.

“Perhaps it is the apology coming!” he said, with a curl of the lips, as he replaced the cigar between them.

Waldon gave him a glance of fire, and walked forward to meet the man, who rode straight toward them.

“A letter, sar,” said the young fellow, taking off his hat, from which he produced a canary-colored note, on which gleamed a tiny monogram of gold. “Ole marse done sick. Couldn’t send noffin hisself, so young missus done writ it.”

Waldon heard nothing of this, but tore open the note, rending the pretty monogram, in twain, and read it eagerly.

“MY DEAR MR. WALDON:

“Papa is ill; the doctor thinks worse. He is very, very anxious that you should come to the Bend at once. I do not know how to write it, and am blushing all over, but he wishes so much to see us married before he dies. Of course, it is dreadful—without trousseau or anything—and I was just sending to France for such lovely things! But poor, dear papa, how can his own—own child refuse him anything in his dying hour? I have just been looking over my things, and find a white _gaze de Chambery_ that has never been worn but once. My maid is now busy putting new lace on the flounces. She works in breathless haste, and oh, dearest, I shall be ready by the time one of Mr. Hyde’s swiftest horses can bring you here. I don’t know how to subscribe myself, standing on the edge of a precipice to which your noble love has so sweetly led me, but, for the last time, am

“MARY NOEL.”

A flash of haughty triumph brightened Waldon’s face as he came back to his friends with this note in his hand.

“Does he send an apology on canary-colored paper?” Hyde cried out.

“Hyde, pray excuse me,” said Waldon, ignoring the young man’s sneer, because of the swift revenge his words would bring, “it is an extraordinary request; but pray make a speedy toilet without delay, and permit me to order the carriage. A very impatient old gentleman, who thinks himself on his death-bed, is anxious to have me married at once, and the lady is waiting. Will you go with me and witness the ceremony?”

Hyde turned livid; but a guest seized him by the arm before he could speak and hurried him away, startled by the bitter resentment that whitened his face.

“Go!” he said. “Do not let the man see that you feel it so deeply. We will both see him married.”

“He is my guest,” answered Hyde, “I must not forget that.”

Hyde’s carriage drew up in front of the mansion at Willow Bend, and, after a few moments’ delay, the gentlemen were ushered up the broad staircase into Mr. Noel’s chamber, where the physician and a clergyman were in attendance.

The sick man reached forth his hand when Waldon entered, and spoke with him some minutes, while the rest stood apart, waiting.

Waldon seemed greatly impressed, and grasped the hand held out to him with much apparent ardor, as if some sacred promise were confirmed by the act.

Then the door opened, and, with a soft flutter of lace, the bride entered, followed by her maid, who stood just within the room, smiling till her teeth glimmered like ivory.

When the sick man saw his child in all the snowy cloudiness of her bridal array, his hand dropped that of Waldon, and, drawing her gently down to his pillow, he kissed her fair cheek, and left a trace of tears upon it. Then the hands of those two were joined, the clergyman stepped forward, and they were pronounced man and wife.

Then, one by one, those present stole from the room, and the sick man was left alone.