from belgrave square the walk to and from st. cyprian's ordinarily takes about fifteen minutes. allowing, say, another ten on account of the snowy weather, and it will be seen that the valet should have returned with george after the lapse of twenty-five minutes. twenty-five minutes passed, however, thirty, thirty-five, and yet george and the valet failed to put in an appearance—a circumstance that caused the guests to look at each other in wonder.
"what can detain them?" muttered my uncle. "if george is at the church, why does he not come here? and if he has not yet arrived, why doesn't hall hurry back and tell us so, instead of keeping us in this suspense? confound the fellow!" he added; "i could have gone and come twice over in the time that he has taken."
he walked to the window and looked out. the snow was still falling. so thick and heavy were the whirling flakes that the air was quite darkened by them. still the bridegroom came not. the conversation languished, the guests yawned, and daphne's face assumed an anxious look.
"it doesn't matter about going to the church to-day," she said in a trembling voice, in answer to a question from a friend, "if i only have george here safe and[pg 46] well. i do wish he would come!" she said, her lip quivering. "something must have happened to him."
"no, no, little woman, you mustn't get that idea into your head," her father said hastily. "his friends in that case would have——"
at last!
there was a ringing of the door-bell, a rush of feet to the hall, and twenty voices exclaimed:
"here they are!"
the plural pronoun, however, was not justified by the event, for, on opening the door, only one person was visible, and that was my uncle's valet.
"why, what! how's this? where's the captain?" exclaimed my uncle. "speak low," he added, pointing to the drawing-room, as a sign he did not wish daphne to hear.
"captain willard is not at the church, sir," whispered the man.
"not—at—the—church?" repeated my uncle, pausing with astonishment between each word.
"no, sir. at least he hadn't arrived by the time i left. i have been waiting for him, and that's what has made me so long."
"what time did you leave the church?"
"quarter past ten."
"and he was to have been there at half past nine!" cried my uncle.
"the vicar wishes to know what you are going to do," said the valet. "is he or his curate to come and perform the ceremony here?"
"that's a question that cannot be settled without george," replied my uncle. "of course he's only being delayed through the snow. it's extremely awkward. what are we to do?"
he paused a moment to reflect, and then said:
[pg 47]
"go to the church again. if the captain is not there tell the verger to send him on here as soon as he arrives; and ask the vicar or his assistant to step over here. then hasten at once to the métropole, and see whether—whether any accident has happened to my nephew. hurry!"
we returned to the drawing-room and explained matters to daphne, my uncle striving to put the best complexion he could upon the case.
"it's only the stress of weather that's delaying him," he remarked. "george very likely spent last night with a friend—a brother officer, probably—who lives in the suburbs. the cab ordered to convey him this morning is unable to proceed, and so he's obliged to tramp on foot through twenty-five inches of snow. no wonder he's late, then. there's nothing to be alarmed at, little woman."
i leave the reader to imagine my state of excitement. could it be that george was actually deserting daphne? was fate after all reserving her for me?—a thought that caused my blood to course like a swift fire through vein and artery. i turned my flushed face to the bride. poor daphne! she sat there, silent and pale, with her hand clasping that of an aged lady-friend who was trying to assure her that there was nothing to be alarmed at. my selfish heart was touched by the sad picture. had the time come for me to give an account of my meeting with george at dover? not yet. i resolved to await the return of the valet first.
dark, and ever darker grew the gloom outside. it was impossible to keep up a pretence of conversation. silence fell over us all, and soon nothing was to be heard but the sound of the embers glowing and crackling in the grate, and the painful ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. the waxen tapers in the [pg 48]chandeliers twinkled gaily to their reflections in the mirrors, as if they enjoyed the victory they were gaining over the daylight without. and still the bridegroom came not.
presently there was another furious ring of the bell at the hall door, and again there was a rush of feet and a score of voices exclaiming "here they are!"
"who is it?" said daphne, trembling like a leaf.
"i think," replied i, "that i can hear them saying a name that sounds very like chunda."
"chunda? that's george's native servant. ask him to come here, frank."
the visitor, having shaken the snow from his garments, was conducted—almost pushed—into the drawing-room, and turned out to be a dusky hindoo in english garb. he was followed by my uncle's valet, who had met him on the way.
"chunda," said daphne, addressing the hindoo, "where is captain willard?"
"i do not know, miss daphne," returned he, in a tone in which surprise and perplexity were blended. "is he not here? he has been absent from the hotel all night."
"absent from the hotel all night?"
"yes, miss daphne. he left the métropole about seven o'clock last night, saying he was going to spend the evening in belgrave square, and would be back about eleven. he never came back."
"then he must be at sydenham," said daphne.
"so i thought," continued the hindoo; "and as he had told me that he had some orders which he particularly wished me to attend to before the wedding took place, i set off for sydenham, and waked up the housekeeper. but the captain wasn't there, she said. i walked back to london—cold work it was, too,[pg 49] through the snow. but the captain was not at the hotel when i got there; and had not been in while i was there, the hall-porter said. i found his bed untouched. i waited some time, and then, thinking there must be something wrong, i came here."
the artist now stepped forward into the circle which had been gradually forming around the hindoo.
"i am afraid," he said, "that i must make a statement now that i would have made before but for the fear of agitating miss leslie; it is this: last night, about twelve o'clock, happening to be at charing cross station, i saw captain willard take the express for dover. before i could get near enough to speak with him the train was off. i was surprised to see him taking such a journey only a few hours before his intended wedding. 'but perhaps,' i thought, 'he has some urgent business to do at dover connected with the marriage, and will return by an early train.'"
"it is true," i said in a voice too low to reach daphne's ear. "as i was landing from the packet-boat this morning i saw george on the pier at dover, but not to speak to. he avoided me—fled from me, in fact."
my wondering uncle gazed at angelo and myself, as if not quite comprehending the import of our words.
"do you mean to say that george has deserted her?" he gasped. "i will not believe it."
once more the hall-bell rang, causing an additional wave of excitement to pass over the company. alas! it was not george who rang, but that bearer of joy and sorrow, the postman, with a letter directed to "miss d. leslie."
"it is george's handwriting," said daphne. "read it for me, papa."
my uncle took the letter, and turned it over as [pg 50]suspiciously as cardinal de medici may have done with an epistle from pope borgia in the old italian days when clerical dignitaries enlivened the monotony of their ecclesiastical duties by taking off their enemies with poison concealed in a glove, a flower, or a letter. at length, breaking the seal amid a deep silence, he proceeded to unfold the letter, and as he mastered its contents his face darkened.
"what does george say?" asked daphne, with her hand pressed to her beating heart.
"he says," replied her father, not wishing to let the whole truth burst on her at once, "that he regrets having to defer his wedding for a few days, but as soon as——"
"that's not it! you are deceiving me, papa! give me the letter. i will have it—it is mine!"
with difficulty she rose to her feet, trembling all over, and before my uncle could prevent her she had snatched the letter from him, and, oblivious of the company, read out each word aloud:
"dearest daphne—break not your heart over what is as sad to me as you. that has occurred which compels me to leave you forever. what the terrible circumstance is that forces me to this step i dare not say. it has occurred only within the past hour. i can never hope to look upon your face again. we must part forever. by the time you receive this i shall be crossing the channel. do not seek for me: you will never find me. in some secluded part of europe i shall live out my days a lonely recluse. try to believe that this is all for the best, and forget that there ever lived such a one as
"george willard."
daphne would have fallen to the floor if some one had not caught her in his arms. she lay cradled[pg 51] within the artist's embrace, her fair face resting on his breast, and his arms wound round her slender figure. brief as was this embrace, it was nevertheless of sufficient duration to make me hate him—for a time, at least.
tenderly he laid the figure of my cousin on an ottoman. the ladies of the assembly crowded round, and applied such remedies as were at hand to restore her from her swoon. angelo stood by the couch with folded arms, gazing at the prostrate form with a wistful look.
"beautiful! what a model for an artist!" he murmured.
he must have had a strange taste in the selection of his subjects if he could have found pleasure in painting daphne as she was just then. her face had parted with its bright, fresh beauty, and had assumed the sharp and careworn look of age. her bridal dress seemed almost to have lost its sheen: the white flowers in her hair to have become emblems of death.
presently the artist raised his eyes with a light as of triumph in them; they met mine, and for a few seconds we stood looking at each other; and then i learned that some one besides myself had been wishing that george would never return. at length daphne opened her eyes and spoke:
"it can't be true, it can't be true! george would never treat me like this. oh, what shall i do?" and at last she broke down in a passion of tears, terrible to witness, and we men, conscious of our impotence in face of such overwhelming grief, stole from the room and left her to the women.
much as the guests would have liked to relieve my uncle of the embarrassment of their presence in these unforeseen circumstances of sorrow, they were[pg 52] prevented from doing so by the storm, which, having raged for many hours, rendered locomotion out of doors extremely difficult. my uncle made no excuses for his withdrawal from the company, and as soon as i could do so, i too followed him to his library, where i found him sitting with angelo vasari.
"i suppose," the latter was saying, "that captain willard is not very well known in paris or london?"
a curious question this! what could it possibly matter to the artist whether george was or was not well known in paris or london? yet here he was putting the question with a similar show of eagerness as when asking me to study the twelve facial sketches.
"i doubt," replied my uncle, "whether there are six people in europe who know him—know him intimately, that is. as a young man he graduated at upsala——"
"in sweden, you know," i interjected, for the enlightenment of the artist, who seemed to resent this attempt of mine to teach him geography.
"and then," continued my uncle, "after a brief interval in england he sailed for india, where he has been ever since till the last two months."
"and it was during that brief interval in england, i suppose," said angelo, "that he became engaged to miss leslie?"
"just so."
"and captain willard did not return to england, you say, till the preparations for his marriage brought him over?"
"you have it. daphne and i took a voyage to india last winter, and spent several weeks with george at poonah; and a very happy time we had of it, too.[pg 53] none could ever have guessed that their engagement would come to such an ending as this."
"ah!"
my uncle's replies seemed to have given great satisfaction to the artist.
"you are quite a prophet," i said to the latter. "your wedding gift, the picture, seems like a prediction of what happened to-day. were you prepared for the event?"
"to a certain extent—yes," replied angelo.
"had you any reason for your belief other than george's strange appearance at charing cross last night?"
"well, a day or two after i was introduced to captain willard, i congratulated him on his approaching marriage. his face changed at once from gay to grave. 'don't allude to it,' he said; 'it may, perhaps, never take place.' i thought this strange language from one who had come all the way from india to be married, and asked him to explain himself, but he was silent. since then, on one or two occasions when i have alluded to the wedding he would become melancholy in an instant; and i began to surmise that all was not right."
"your surmises were only too well founded," i said.
and i began to tell the story of my night adventure. for a long time we sat discussing the affair, and devising all kinds of theories to account for george's flight.
"i can't understand it at all," said my perplexed uncle. "there was nothing strange or unusual in his manner last night when he left us. he talked in the most natural way of the wedding—said he would be at the church by 9:30 prompt. and yet he must have written that letter soon after he parted from us, for[pg 54] he left here about ten o'clock, and it is dated, you see, just an hour later."
"and he must have posted it before midnight, too," said angelo, "or it would not have arrived here by the morning post. strange things must have happened in those two hours to change the current of his life."
shortly afterwards he rose, saying with a smile, "art is long, and time is fleeting."
"il divino cannot leave his easel, you see," remarked my uncle, after the departure of the artist, "not even for one day."
"il divino? who's he?" i returned stupidly.
"angelo, to be sure."
"is that his nom—de—de—brush?" i couldn't think of the french word, so i used the english one instead.
"it's a nickname his enemies have given him by antiphrasis, because he's so unlike raphael."
"can't leave his easel," i said, repeating my uncle's words. "do you mean to say he is going to work on a gloomy day like this? why, he won't be able to see, let alone paint."
"nulla dies sine linea, you know. he lives in his studio, and can hardly be persuaded to leave it. it's a marvel he remained here so long this morning. he's dying to make a name."
"do you think he will?"
"can't say, i'm sure. it will not be for want of toil and study if he doesn't. he is occupied now on a great work which he fondly hopes will reverse the previous judgment of art-critics respecting his abilities."
"what is this great work?"
"'the fall of c?sar' i think he calls it, or 'the[pg 55] triumph of c?sar,' or—or something of the sort. i know it's a classical subject."
and after this we relapsed into silence.
i shall never forget the melancholy and gloom of that day as we sat, my uncle and i, in the darkening room, each occupied with his own thoughts. the non-return of my brother did not afford me the happiness i had expected, for it was counterbalanced by daphne's exquisite grief, which was a source of real pain to me. having wished so earnestly that the marriage might not come off, i felt as if i were in some way responsible for my brother's non-appearance.
next day i took an early train for dover, with the intention of calling at the strange house, and of questioning its silver-haired occupant, who, i was now inclined to believe, knew more of the mystery than he had cared to reveal. not till i had reached the kentish sea-town was it suddenly forced upon me that in my haste and excitement i had forgotten to note the name of the street in which the strange house was situated; nor did i even know which way to turn on leaving the station.
the cranial development known to phrenologists as the bump of locality is not my strong point. for several hours i walked the streets of the town, knocking at the door now of this house and now of that, vainly believing that at last i had discovered what i sought. i lived at the hotel a week, and spent a considerable portion of each day in the streets, and on the pier and cliffs, thinking i might meet the old man taking his walks abroad; but all my endeavors to discover him were attended with failure. the silver-haired old man, the mysterious house, the veiled lady, my brother george—all were gone, and seemed now to have had[pg 56] no more reality than the shadows of a dream. once they were, now they are not.
i will not weary the reader with an account of the investigations carried on for many weeks by my uncle and myself. it will be sufficient to say that our endeavors to discover the cause of george's flight and to trace his whereabouts were fruitless.
"heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." daphne's morning, however, was a long time in coming and my uncle proposed to hasten its advent by foreign travel.
"a continental tour will do her good," he remarked to me. "we will visit france, spain, italy. the glitter of foreign cities will perhaps help to remove her grief. you must come with us, frank; we shall need you. a young fellow like you will be able to enliven and interest her more than any lady companion could do—certainly more than her old father, who is often prosy and dull, i fear. being her cousin, you can talk to her with a freedom and an ease that in any other young man would be familiarity. and for heaven's sake try to make her forget her grief. her sad face and thin wasted figure cut me to the heart. you do not mind giving up heidelberg for a time?"
it would require no great sacrifice on the part of any young man to leave the cloisters of a university in order to escort a beautiful girl through europe, so i gladly assented to my uncle's proposition, resolving, for my own sake, to try to make daphne forget her grief. she yielded a willing acquiescence to the project of a continental tour. poor girl! she was in so dull and passive a state of mind that if we had proposed a voyage of discovery to the north pole she[pg 57] would have offered no objection. so, late in march, we left england, and by the end of the summer had signed our names in half the hotel books of europe.
