Chapter XII: Bridal Preparations

“Oh, yet we know that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood:

“That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete:

“That not a worm is cloven in vain!
That not a worm, with vain desire,
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.”—_Tennyson._

For the next several days, various notes of preparation as for some joyful coming event, were sounded through the old hall. Servants, within and without the house, pursued their avocations with unusual alacrity. Waggons, with new furniture, arrived from a neighbouring town. In the drawing-room and parlours, Mrs. Vivian directed the operations of the upholsterers, in putting down new carpets, and hanging new curtains, mirrors, &c. On the lawn, and in the garden, Rosalie’s taste presided at the trimming and dressing of vines, shrubs, and flowers; while from one to the other Colonel Ashley flew with a gay, busy interest. They were all evidently playing the prelude to some great family festival. Mark Sutherland remained unenlightened upon the subject, until, one morning, as he walked out upon the piazza, to enjoy the early freshness of the air, he was joined by the two lads, Henry and Richard, who, seizing each a hand, eagerly inquired—

“Are you going to walk out this morning, before breakfast, Mr. Sutherland?”

A nod and smile was his answer. He was depressed, despondent; he felt that he had no part in all that was going on in that house—he felt himself a stranger and an alien. Yet, too generous and benevolent to damp the spirits of the lads by his own gloom, he smiled upon them kindly, and when they asked permission to accompany him, he inquired, gaily, how it happened that, while all were so very busy, in the house and on the grounds, they alone should be idle.

“Oh, Mrs. Vivian drives us out of the way—even Rose won’t let us help her, and father threatens to lock us up if we don’t keep quiet. We’re driven about from post to pillar; and so we came out to walk with _you_. Father and the rest of them making such a fuss! just as if nobody ever got married before St. Gerald!” said Richard, contemptuously.

Another might have rebuked the boy for speaking so disrespectfully; but Mark had little of the tutor spirit in him, after all. Rosalie was right in that.

They left the piazza, crossed the lawn, and took the narrow path leading along the course of the stream-the boys sometimes affectionately holding his hands, and sometimes one or the other suddenly breaking away to pluck and bring him an early violet, or eglantine rose, or to throw a pebble in the stream, where some small fish had started up. At last—

“Making such a fuss!” again complained Richard; “making such a fuss, and driving us about so that we boys can’t have a bit of peace of our lives! Just as if _she_ were so much better than everybody else in the world, that so much trouble must be taken for _her_.”

“Whom are you talking of?” inquired Mr. Sutherland, carelessly.

“Why the young lady St. Gerald is going to marry, to be sure!”

“Ah, then, Mr. Ashley is going to bring home a wife, is he?”

“Why, _of course_ he is!” said Henry, warming up. “He is going to be married to a beautiful young lady, very rich, who was the belle of the city last winter, they say!”

“Oh, she is as rich and as beautiful as a princess in a fairy book; and that’s what all the fuss is about,” sneered Richard.

“Don’t you mind Rich, Mr. Sutherland; he can’t bear to have a word said about anybody but himself!”

“As if I wanted anybody to bother themselves about me—I’m not so much like _you_ as _that_,” retorted Richard. And thereupon arose the usual squabble between the lads, until their tutor interfered and restored order, if not good feeling.

They continued their walk for about a mile along the mountain stream, and then returning by the back hills, got home at the breakfast hour.

Colonel Ashley, Mrs. Vivian, and Rose, were already seated at the breakfast table, and engaged in eager conversation concerning the approaching marriage of the heir of the house, when Mr. Sutherland and the lads entered.

“Good morning, Mr. Sutherland. I hope you have had a pleasant walk—though I would not be bothered with those troublesome boys, if I were you; their company is quite enough in school hours, I should think!” said the old gentleman, banteringly, as they took their places at the board.

Mrs. Vivian and Rosalie smiled a salutation. And then the thread of the conversation was taken up again, as if it had never been broken, and as if Mark Sutherland was already familiar with the premises.

“Yes; St. Gerald writes me that the marriage will come off at an early hour of the day, and that immediately after the ceremony they will set out from Washington for this place. It will take them two days to reach here, so that we may expect the party on Thursday evening. Rosalie, my dear, bear that in mind, if you please, and be ready. Mrs. Vivian, my dear lady, I do not want _two_ cups of chocolate at once—this, I think, is intended for Mr. Sutherland!” said the old gentleman, passing the cup to Mark.

Mrs. Vivian’s mind was certainly absent and distracted, as her manner was disconcerted, and her beautiful countenance troubled.

After breakfast, the family party separated as usual. Colonel Ashley went to his study, to write letters; Mrs. Vivian and Rosalie to their work-table, in the parlour; and Mark to his school-room, with the boys.

The ladies had scarcely seated themselves, before a servant entered to say that Mr. Robert Bloomfield had come with the ponies, and wished to know if Miss Rosalie would ride.

“Don’t go, Rose; send an excuse. Cut this companionship firmly and kindly off, at once and forever,” said Mrs. Vivian, in a low voice.

“Tell him, William, that I am very much obliged for his kindness, but I cannot ride to-day,” said Rosalie, and, as the servant left the room, she added, “That was a very unkind, ungrateful message, mamma.”

“Nonsense! What kindness or gratitude do you owe to Robert?” answered the lady, with an apparent harshness of sentiment that her heart did not by any means justify.

But, before Rosalie could reply again, Robert Bloomfield entered the room, flushed and in haste; and, without even seeing Mrs. Vivian, hurried up to the young girl, exclaiming—“Rose! Rose! how _is_ this? Three times I have called here, as usual—as a matter of course—to ride with you, and each time I have been met by your servant, and told—I don’t know what, except that I could not see you, Rose. Dear Rosalie, have I offended you in any way? Dear Rosalie, speak to me! Say! Say, are you angry with me?” he persisted, seeing that she did not answer.

“Now, what on earth should I be angry with you about, Robert? Of course, I am not angry.”

“You are offended with me. You are, I feel you are—I know you are; I see it in your face, Rosalie,” he persisted, gazing on her troubled countenance, and reading, but not aright, its sorrowful expression.

“Indeed, I am not displeased with you, dear Bob. How could I possibly be, when you never in your life gave me cause for any other feeling towards you than esteem and thankfulness?”

“‘Esteem and thankfulness!’ I told you before, Rosalie, if you persisted in talking that way you’d drive me out of my senses!”

Here Mrs. Vivian hemmed, to give notice of her presence; and Robert Bloomfield turned, and perceived her for the first time. If he had not observed the lady before, he did not care about her now. He bowed; and then, forgetting her, turned, and resumed his conversation with Rosalie, in the same impatient, impassioned tone.

Mrs. Vivian, with a cold, offended air, arose and left the room. But as soon as the door closed behind the lady, and Robert found himself alone with Rosalie, he certainly betrayed a great sense of relief, for his manner became more earnest and vehement, and he pleaded anew the hopeless suit so often and so decidedly rejected. His tongue was loosened, and words flowed, without let or hindrance, in that impetuous torrent of eloquence inspired only by passion; and Rosalie listened with emotion scarcely less than his own, for every word he uttered gave expression to the vague, deep, unspoken yearning of her own heart.

She heard him out patiently; yes, she let him begin again, and go over the whole matter a second and a third time, before she could find courage to destroy his hopes. At last she said—

“I have deeply wronged you, Robert. I did not mean it, Heaven knows; but I _have_ wronged you. Robert, I am very sorry. I shall never forgive myself.”

“I don’t understand you, Rosalie—I—_do_ tell me what you mean!”

“I mean that I have not been frank enough with you, Robert. I have not had the courage,” said Rosalie, in a faltering voice, for she still deeply pitied him.

He did not look like an object of pity, just then; all his countenance suddenly brightened with joy. He seized her hand, exclaiming—“Do I comprehend? Do I hear you right? Do you mean, after all, that you like me a little better than you said you did?”

“No. Oh! Robert, what a sanguine nature yours must be, to interpret every word which is not positive, in your own way. No, Robert! I mean, that I have thoughtlessly accepted all your kind services, knowing full well that I never, never can repay the smallest of them. I mean, too, that I have let you tell me, again and again, of your regard, knowing all the while that I can never, never return it in the way you wish. I have wronged you, by not telling you this with sufficient firmness before!”

“Cruel! cold! hard! heartless!”

“It is my misfortune that I cannot accept you, Robert. My reason is telling me all the time, just as any prudent old lady could tell me—that if I _could_ like you, I should have an enviable lot in life; not because you are wealthy, and all that, of course, Robert, but because I really do know you are—so good, so disinterested, so true, and because your dear mother and sisters are just like you, and I could love them as if they were my own relatives.”

“In mercy, Rosalie, why do you talk to me so, if you never mean to accept me?”

“Why, indeed? Because I cannot reject this kindness, for which I am indeed most sincerely grateful, in any other but the humblest manner, and with every circumstance to assure you, that I feel how much good I reject in rejecting you, Robert. Dear Robert, there is certainly destiny, as well as duty, in these matters; and, well as I like you, I could not love you enough to marry you, if my salvation depended on it; indeed I could not. I am not destined to so easy a life, Robert. I begin to have a foreshadowing that my lot will be a very rough one, Robert; that I shall not be left to bask in the sunshine, but shall have to face and weather the storm.”

“You—you fragile snow-drop! What do you mean now? _You_ meet the storms of life! Has the Planters’ Own Bank broken, or have all the slaves on the plantation run off in a body?”

“Neither one nor the other, Robert. And if I ‘rough it’ in the world, it will be my own free choice.”

“I confess I do not understand you—except that you make me wretched; that is plain enough, but as to the rest, I am all in the dark.”

“It is my own secret, Robert.”

“One thing I do know; that is, you are too delicate for a rough life.”

“Robert, there are many delicate natures that have been cherished, and nursed, and petted to miserable weakness and death. My flower garden has taught me that lesson.”

“I should like to know how a flower garden could teach you a lesson like _that_!”

“Oh! should you? I can tell you, then. Last year, when I came here, I found a new flower growing in the garden. I don’t know botany, and I don’t know what the flower was, or how it came there; but I suppose the wind brought the seed. My flower was so feeble and withered, that it had lost all beauty and comeliness, and every charm, except a delightful odour. I weeded and worked around it, and watered it regularly, and nursed and cherished it, but it faded faster and faster, yielding a dying fragrance. I said it was too exposed and cold, and I took it up and transplanted it to the conservatory. There it wilted and fell, and I gave it up for lost. But now mark the sequel. A few days after, I took a ride up to the mountain top, and left my horse, for a ramble on foot. A fresh, delicate, delicious odour greeted me. I looked about, and lo! there, in a cleft of the rock on the mountain top, where it would be exposed to all the snow, and wind, and hail of winter, and burning rays of summer, was my strange hothouse plant! There it grew and flourished, swaying to and fro in the wind, and filling all the air with the freshness of its fragrance! Now what do you think I did, Robert? You will laugh at me, of course, for everybody laughed. The very next day I took my poor flower, that was dying in the conservatory—and that I pitied as if it had been a sick, caged bird—and I carried it up the mountain, and planted it in the evening. Thunder gusts and showers the next day prevented my ride; but the third day I visited my protege. It was living! It had plucked up a spirit and intended to live. I am like that plant, Robert! And now, to come back to yourself. We must part, Robert, as friends—kindly—but not to meet again, except as mere acquaintances, until you have outgrown the present weakness of your heart.”

She extended her hand—he pressed it to his lips, seized his cap, and hastily left the house.