Читать книгу My Friend Pasquale, and Other Stories - James Selwin Tait - Страница 5

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NOTWITHSTANDING the day’s outward sense of joyousness and rest, in the brilliant sun, softened breeze, and lovely landscape, there was trouble brewing for the peaceful New England home, and one, at least, of its inmates seemed conscious of the fact.

“I wonder,” exclaimed Alice, as she stood before the cheval glass in her dressing-room, attending to those delicate personal adornments with which youthful brides are wont to prepare to receive their lords and masters, “I wonder whether grandma would have told me that terrible story about her wedding-ring if she had known that I had really lost mine?”

This momentous question was asked of her vis-à-vis, her own brilliant reflection in the swinging mirror before her. As the young bride turned with a look of inquiry to her image in the glass, we may be permitted a passing glance at the reflection which met her gaze.

A tall and lissom figure, with all the graceful lines of the stately Grecian form, combined with the warmer and more womanly outlines of the Norman maiden, the youthful matron stood a vision of loveliness which Praxiteles himself might have despaired to reproduce.

As she tossed the burden of brown tresses from her forehead, her pure Grecian profile stood out clear and delicate as a cameo against the curtain of dark hair which fell, a rippling sombre cascade, almost to her feet. The dark eyes smiled back a sympathetic glance from the mirror, and then a weary sigh of anxiety clouded the beautiful eyes with trouble. Why?

The conversation about the removed ring had been resumed in the morning, and in compliance with the husband’s request, the young bride had again taken off her wedding-ring, in order that he might himself replace it on her fair finger; this unfortunately happened on the upper piazza, and in the usual loving conflict with which youthful couples adjust all matters between themselves, the ring had fallen into the garden and mysteriously disappeared.

Search had been made high and low, but unavailingly, and with a feeling of alarm which each concealed from the other, but which, nevertheless, almost bordered on despair, the subject was dropped with mutual consent.

“It is just as well,” said the husband, with simulated cheerfulness; “I will bring you a fresh ring to-night, and I will put that on your finger myself—once for all.”

“Ah, pet, but it won’t be our ring,” the bride had exclaimed with a tremor in her voice, and although the husband had ridiculed the idea that it made any difference, he was painfully conscious of the look of gentle reproach in the outraged eyes of his young wife and of the justice of it.

Punctually at five o’clock the coachman brought around the carriage in which his young mistress was accustomed to drive to the station to meet her husband. The train arrived punctually, but it brought no husband to the waiting wife. It was her first disappointment, trivial in character though it might be, and to the youthful bride it was painful almost beyond expression. As the coachman drove home it required a brave effort to still the quivering lip and to press back the too ready tear.

“Oh, I hope,” she murmured fearfully, “that this is not the beginning of any trouble through the loss of my wedding-ring.” For a moment the thought appalled her, and then a smile of wonderful relief flashed across her face.

“Oh! how silly I am,” she exclaimed, chiding herself, “of course George is late because he has to buy me a new ring.”

This explanation was entirely sufficient, and the once more radiant bride ascended to her room humming a dainty little operatic air, as happy as the mocking-bird which flooded the sunny stairway with melody.

But the shadow returned to the young wife’s face with ever-deepening gloom when the six o’clock and seven o’clock trains arrived and brought no husband with them.

“He is detained on business, dear,” explained her grandma.

“Why couldn’t he telegraph then?”

“There is no office within five miles, love, and no doubt he thought he would get here before his message.”

But another trouble weighed—and heavily—upon the young bride’s mind. The last train was due at eight o’clock, the hour so urgently appointed by her brother for their interview. How could she possibly meet both her husband and her brother at the same time?

This brother was a sad scapegrace, and it had been the one mistake of the bride’s married life not to mention his existence to her husband.

“Why don’t you tell your husband about Tom?” had urged the old lady.

“O, I can’t bear George to know that I have anybody disgraceful so nearly related to me; if ever he misunderstood any of my actions, or if I was not at hand to explain them, he would be certain to think that I was going wrong, like poor Tom, and it would break my heart. Don’t you remember, dear, that night when we were talking about the Wollanders, how scornfully he said: ‘Oh, they couldn’t run straight to save their lives—it is in the blood—the strain is bad.’ That sentence of George’s determined me not to tell him anything.”