Chapter XC: The Servants’ Festival

Diamond Island was running over with joyous life that day. Tables of rough boards were arranged in the form of a horse-shoe around that open space of forest turf just within the shadow of the woods. Around these, a crowd of servants were busy as ants, spreading delicate damask linen, forcing masses of gorgeous flowers into Aunt Celia’s broken pitchers and cracked mugs, rattling plates, jingling glasses, and building up pyramids of cut tissue paper, in which great sugar ox-eyes, frosted drop-cakes, and balls of parched corn, tinted red, yellow and green, were arranged with tempting splendor.

In this way some hours passed, when a distant sound of music came floating down the river. Directly a convoy of boats and barges, full to overflowing, appeared, steering for the island, with a burst of music loud and lively enough to make the heart leap in an anchorite’s bosom.

“Dey’s cumin! Dey’s cumin!” rose in a shout from all sides.

The great flag was run up a bare liberty pole, around whose base it had till now been lying in masses of rich drapery.

A swivel gun went off, giving a grand military dash to the occasion, and, at the same moment, warning the men who had charge back in the woods that it was time to bestir themselves.

The servants crowded down to the shore, and formed double lines of dusky faces and waving hats, through which the bride and bridegroom walked to the seats prepared for them.

The festival had reached its sublimest point when that haughty man landed from the boat, and led his bride, in her sumptuous array of soft lace and rustling silk, up those double rows of retainers, whose greeting might have satisfied a queen. From the crown of her blonde head to the sole of her pretty gaiter boot, the fair creature was perfect.

Thus the party from Willow Bend and some neighboring plantations moved up the island and formed on the greensward for a dance, while the servants looked on, or busied themselves at the tables.

From the moment that swivel fired, the excitement down by the woods became intense.

One table, reserved for the bride, at the curve of the horse-shoe, soon became a marvel of culinary ingenuity. At each end, two pigs, with lemons in their mouths, and their heads lifted high, knelt, each upon his broad china dish, in a marsh of curling parsley, set thick with water lilies, cut from young turnips, and looking like nature.

Besides all this, vases of flowers, rush baskets of summer fruits, and an immense cake, surmounted by a temple overran with sugar Cupids, formed a centre group in honor of the bride.

When she was led to her seat, spread with crimson cushions, and canopied by a young larch tree, the glory of the occasion was complete. A new band, that had come down with the white party, swelled the music into a perfect jubilee, and, for once in his life, the craving vanity of Russell Waldon was satisfied.

Toasts were offered by some of the guests which embodied this grand idea. Waldon arose to answer. Never had his heart been so uplifted with pride—never had his grandly handsome face glowed with such triumph. He spoke in a voice deep, sonorous and mellow with feeling. The eloquence of his words carried a wonderful power with them. The faces of his friends lighted up with enthusiasm. The servants went wild, occasionally interrupting him with shouts. Even old Sam and Celia joined in lustily, as if the whole thing had been a camp-meeting, and the bridegroom a preacher.

Another person seemed to have been drawn by the fascination of that voice, closer and closer to the bride’s table, until she stood at the foot of it, with her pale face uplifted, and her great, wild eyes fixed on the speaker. That person was the girl, Lydia.

Waldon closed his speech amid the wildest enthusiasm. The bride’s face was one glow of pleasure. She took a half-open moss-rose, blood-red as it came from the stalk, from her own bosom, and gave it to him. He kissed the bud, fastened it in his coat, just over the heart, with a whispered compliment, and standing erect, held up a foaming glass of champagne, calling out:

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, I offer a toast to the dearest wife and fairest lady—”

That toast was never finished. The sharp crack of a pistol cut it short in his throat. The red rose on his bosom was cleft in twain, and through his heart a bullet tore its way, taking life with it, and sending him down upon the green sward a dead man!

Amid the shrieks and consternation that followed this awful act, the girl, Lydia, walked slowly through the crowd, and reached the log bridge. There, standing conspicuously, she waited a full minute; but, in the confusion, no one followed her; then, casting one long, wistful look back on the crowd, she leaped over the bridge, landing in the “Firefly,” which lay rocking in its shadow, and urged it down the inlet, still without haste or apparent fear.

Some men saw her as she swept into the open stream, and running down to the shore, pushed off a boat in pursuit. One of these men held the pistol she had flung to the earth after it had done its work, and threatened, in a voice that swept over her like a trumpet, to shoot her if she did not stop.

The girl flung down her oars, and stood up in the boat, still and white, like a marble statue, her fearfully brilliant eyes bent on the man that threatened her, and her lips apart, waiting to be struck.

The man had no heart to murder the young thing who gave herself up with such quiet heroism. The muzzle of his weapon dropped, and he only urged the oarsmen to swifter pursuit.

Lydia saw this cruel mercy with a despairing groan; but one thing was left for her now. She clasped her hands, lifted them high above her head, and plunged into the stream, where its current was both deep and swift.

The “Firefly,” half filled with water by the force of that death-leap, drifted slowly downward. The pursuing boat came up, and waited, ready to capture the girl when her head should appear above water.

But never, in this world, living or dead, was that poor, faithful girl seen again!