Chapter XXIII: The Wedding-Bells

Josephine, like the enchanting witch she could be when she chose, lost no time in making up with Delmar, whose heart in secret was yearning for her with a mighty rush of emotion.

A morning call on the convalescent soldier, a moment alone together, a sigh, a melting glance, a little show of humility, and the end was gained.

The glance was caught and answered by her lover, the sigh reechoed, and, thus encouraged, Josephine came very close, faltering:

“You are very cruel, Del. Can you never forgive me for one night’s folly?”

“If I were only sure of your love, Josephine!” he exclaimed in a wistful, pleading tone, and she raised her radiant brown eyes to his face with a glance that melted his heart like snow on fire.

He caught her jeweled hand and drew her close.

Love, tortured and repressed for weary months, could not bear repression now. Delmar clamored for an immediate marriage, without realizing that Josephine herself had artfully put the idea into his head.

“It breaks my heart to see you so thin and pale, my own dear love,” she cried, adding sweetly: “Mama thinks that an immediate change of scene would do you more good than anything else, but--I can never let you go away without me!”

Delmar laughed happily.

“We can be married at once and go together on our bridal-tour.”

And it did not occur to him in his infatuation that he was having a change of scene now in his recent return home from the exciting scenes of war, and that the sweet influences of home were the best adjuncts to his recovery.

He was dazzled by his sudden accession to power and wealth, dazzled by Josephine’s charms, and he saw everything through her cunning eyes.

She was so afraid of her prize slipping through her fingers that she determined to make sure of it as soon as possible.

“What a dreadful hurry you are in to be married,” she cried encouragingly.

“And I mean to have my way!” cried Delmar, seeing clearly that she was fully as eager as himself.

“I would not agree to it only that we have to humor and spoil invalids to aid their recovery,” she said gaily, with a caressing touch on his white brow as he pleaded:

“Then name the day, sweetheart.”

“Suppose we saw next June?” coyly and mischievously.

“Nonsense! this day week.”

“Preposterous!”

“And we can go abroad on a wedding-tour--for a change of scene!”

“Oh, Del, how you tempt me! But--but--perhaps that would be too soon!”

“Well, let us say two weeks hence, my darling. Surely that would give you time enough to get ready?”

“Yes, for I needn’t get my trousseau proper until we reach Paris. Fancy shopping in Paris!” cried Josephine cunningly, for she knew that if there were any trousseau it must come out of Barrington’s coffers, for the Shirley funds were very low.

When they told Barrington what they had decided upon he frowned in surprise.

“There is something that you both seem to have forgotten,” he said gravely.

“What can you mean?” cried Delmar impatiently, and shrugged his shoulders as Byrd replied solemnly:

“Your wife, Maisie, has not been dead a year until April.”

Josephine pouted prettily, and Delmar answered resentfully:

“No, I had not forgotten, but it really does not make any difference. It is just the same as if I had never married Maisie!”

Byrd’s blue eyes flashed with swift indignation.

“I beg your pardon, it makes all the difference in the world, and you are ungrateful if you show this contemplated disrespect to her sweet memory. Remember that to that brief marriage ceremony, so fatal to her life, poor girl, you owe all your present prosperity--love, wealth, happiness!”

Josephine made great eyes of surprise, protesting:

“Why do you make such absurd charges? Del is not rich. We shall be poor together, and I don’t think any one ought to delay our happiness.”

“You may tell her now if you choose, Delmar,” said his brother gravely, so the young soldier took her hand and explained:

“It has been discovered, Josephine, that Maisie was a great heiress, and I inherit all her money. I did not tell you any sooner because I wished to win you as a poor man--to be married for love alone.”

Josephine’s surprise was beautifully acted, and she applauded her lover warmly.

“You were right, and I am glad that I stood the test so well. Of course, I am glad for your sake that you will have Maisie’s money, but I could have loved you quite as dearly as a poor man!”

Delmar thanked her with a radiant glance and neither noticed Byrd’s coldly cynical smile. He knew how false she was, but he held his peace. Delmar loved her and the Barrington love ran its roots deep down into the heart.

“But,” he said gravely, “surely you will agree with me, Josephine, that Delmar owes a year, at least, of mourning to Maisie’s memory.”

The girl laughed heartlessly:

“As to a year, I don’t think Del ever gave her a day of mourning. He hated her for coming between our hearts, for taking advantage of his moments of reckless despair. But, of course, if he wishes to make a pretense of grief, I am too proud to offer any protest. If I let him persuade me into an early marriage it was for his own good; not that--that----” she broke down and sobbed, and Barrington understood she was pretending to be jealous of the dead.

“Byrd, I don’t thank you for fretting my darling so!” Delmar cried, with a convalescent’s sharp impatience. “I shall not let any sentimental fad over Maisie’s death hinder my happiness. It was all a grievous mistake, but a year’s mourning would not bring her back--nor do I want her back.”

“You are more heartless than I could have believed,” Byrd cried hotly, in his anger.

“Not heartless--only half-way ill yet, and very much in love--and a man in love is always half a fool, isn’t he?” rejoined Delmar, smiling at Josephine, who was now emerging from behind her lace handkerchief with bright, triumphant eyes.

They remained at Castellane till after Christmas, and each day was the scene of some joyous festivity, while not a sorrowful thought flew to the dead save from two hearts--Byrd’s and tender old Aunt Constance.

They two, in the cold of the Christmas morn, slipped from their guests for a little while to the lonely cemetery lying under a shroud of glistening white snow, to bear the rarest floral treasures from the conservatory to the dead, and their bitterest tears fell on Maisie’s grave, while Aunt Constance sobbed:

“Last Christmas she was with us--so beautiful, so sweet--poor little one! Ah, Byrd. I can’t help wishing she might have loved and married you! How different all might have been now!”

“How different!” he echoed bitterly, while deep down in his heart ran the thought:

“Even if I had taken her at her word that day in the library, how different it might have been! Who knows but that, freed from Delmar, I might have caught her heart in the rebound. Alas, in my eagerness to be just to my brother I made a terrible, an irretrievable mistake!”

So, from the lonely little grave under the white drifting snow, he turned sorrowfully away, whispering to the flowers he kissed as he laid them down: “I will go back to them in their happiness, darling, but all my heart I leave behind with you.”

He led Aunt Constance back to the carriage, and they were soon at home again, their absence scarcely missed by Delmar and Josephine, who could think of no one but each other, though the bride often thought within herself:

“He is not nearly so handsome as he was before he went to the war! How pale his face is still, and how hollow his big, dark eyes! And they are not gay and laughing as of yore, but have a solemn gaze as if somehow in the dreadful war they looked on things that took all the gladness out of them. Of course, I am proud that he is a lieutenant now, but I had as lief that he had never gone to the war and come back so altered for the worse.”

It was pitiful to see so shallow a nature, and so fickle a heart given in exchange for Delmar’s devoted love that recked of nothing but its idol.

But he was happy in his blindness. How pitiful would be the awakening if it ever came; how he would curse the hour he first saw her fair, luring face.

But that time was not yet, and Delmar was very happy in his honeymoon--the first week at least, for when they sailed, the last week in December, Josephine was so ill of sea-sickness all the way over that she was a positive thorn in the flesh, peevish, petulant, and irritable; a sore trial to her husband, who, still weak and ailing himself, preferred not to divide the privileges of invalidism with another. He would have been bitterly disappointed of all the care and coddling he needed if it had not happened that Byrd and Aunt Constance bore them company.

The old lady had taken a sudden notion to the trip, but would not agree to go without Byrd, to whom she confided, privately:

“Delmar needs more care and petting than he will ever get from his spoiled little wife, and I ought to go along to watch over him, I think, but I should be lonely without you. Please come, dear Byrd.”

He had never denied her a wish in his life, and he could not now, so they joined the bridal-party, not obtrusively, but for Delmar’s sake.

The hand of fate was in it, for Maisie had sailed with the Warrens three days after her ill-fated visit to Castellane.