Chapter XXIX: A Widowed Bride

“For front to front in an hour we stood.
And a hundred horrible, bellowing echoes broke
And thundered up into heaven the Christless code,
That must have life for a blow.” --TENNYSON.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft aglee,” says a Scottish proverb, and Earle Essex learned this truth to his rage and dismay.

He had counted with certainty on being present at the projected wedding. Those limitations with which godly people prefix their intentions, such as, “Providence permitting,” “God willing,” etc., did not enter into his calculations at all. He made no allowance for the uncertainty of railway trains, the probability of accidents, above all, the difficulty of procuring fast teams in the remote Virginia town to which he was hastening, yet, all the same, these delays occurred to him.

To begin with, there occurred an accident that, while involving no loss of life, delayed the train at one station four hours. This proved the prolific parent of other delays, for a telegram from the dispatcher ordered the conductor to lie over an hour or two at various stations in order to avoid collisions with trains running on their regular time.

Mr. Essex fretted, fumed, and swore at this most provoking detention. It was all he could do to restrain himself from entering a saloon and drinking heavily, but he fought down his almost insane passion for liquor, for he knew that his mission required a clear head and steady nerve. The broad gleams of morning saw the train slowing into the obscure station where his journey ended, yet it was necessary to secure a vehicle of some kind to transport him into the country, for he expected to bring a lady back with him.

A lumbering old carriage, with a lame horse, was all he could procure after the most diligent inquiry, and he set off with a lazy black boy as driver, his mind full of misgivings as to whether he could possibly reach Richmond that night in time for the wedding.

* * * * *

While he is still absent, and the hovering wings of night fall over Richmond, let us gaze, my reader, on the brilliant scene to which he hopes to return in the character of a Nemesis.

All is light and gayety in the superb mansion to which the wedding party have come to hold a reception. It is Monsieur Orne’s house. He has insisted on holding the reception there, and Eve assents, proud of its elegance and luxury. Diana is there in the gay throng, grown stouter in the air of her country-home, or perhaps through the agency of old port wine, we are in doubt which.

But certainly Diana is not the pale, fair goddess of old. Her delicate features have put on a fullness and redness not at all becoming, and her blue eyes are not so bright. Charlton Leigh is there, too, but quieter, paler, with eyes that have lost much of their old debonair joyousness.

He is there almost against his will, but through an impelling sense of courtesy, and he wonders idly why Eve chooses to flaunt her diamonds and orange blossoms and her wild gayety in his vicinity so often.

But Eve has gone upstairs now to exchange her white satin for a traveling gown. It is twelve o’clock, and one hour later they will go away on their bridal tour.

She comes down presently, graceful, elegant and smiling, and leaning lightly on the arm of her liege lord makes her adieus to her friends.

Gently and quietly, not to disturb the flow of good wishes, two persons pass down the length of the room, and pause opposite the wedded pair. The man is Earle Essex, looking tired, flushed, and excited. He has stopped in the supper-room and poured down in succession several glasses of wine. A veiled lady by his side every one supposes to be his wife.

“Friends,” Earle Essex exclaims, raising his voice until its loud, deep, excited tones echo clearly through the room, “while you exhaust your good wishes in behalf of Monsieur Orne’s fair bride, pray spare some of your tender sympathies to his injured wife, who stands before you.”

With a deft movement of his hand he threw back his companion’s heavy black veil, and continued, his voice breaking clearly on the sudden silence:

“Monsieur Orne’s legal wife, whom he has kept shut up in a lonely old mansion in a mountainous district of remote Virginia, guarded by servants bribed to do his bidding, and seeing from year to year no faces but her jailer’s--his wife, whom I have delivered from her prison house, and brought here to confront him with his crimes.”

“You lie!” the Frenchman shouted madly, and springing forward struck his accuser sharply in the face.

Earle Essex recoiled at first, then rallying sprang forward, and closed in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict with his assailant. Before the bystanders could part them, amid shrieks of women and outcries of men, a pistol was seen glimmering in the Frenchman’s hand, its muzzle pressed against the temple of Mr. Essex. The latter was unarmed, but before a moment could elapse the doomed man struck up the arm of his assailant with a strength that turned it completely backward. The pistol exploded, burying its fatal ball in the forehead of the Frenchman, who fell instantaneously to the floor dead--dead in one second, in which life and time, sin and weakness, and all earthly belongings were exchanged for death and eternity.