CHAPTER III.
DR. CAROLLYN'S BRIDE.
Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush, that burns
When I murmur, Love me!—MRS. BROWNING.
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.—TENNYSON.
NEARLY seventeen years before the emigrants of 1860 started on their long journey for Pike's Peak, a young physician of New York was one winter twilight making his way up-town, after a fatiguing round of visits, the number of which was evidence of his rising reputation. His elastic step betrayed health and spirits which no ordinary weariness could depress—indeed, there was a joyous eagerness in his manner which might almost betray to the passing stranger that he was a bridegroom returning to his bride. A husband of three months, for whom the honeymoon was still shining, going home to his own elegant house to meet a beautiful and affectionate wife—it was no marvel that his foot rung on the pavement with such an electric tread.
As he turned the corner of Broadway to go up Bleecker, then one of the fashionable streets, and the one upon which his mansion stood, the lamp-light flashed full in his face, and he felt his hand heartily grasped, at the same instant he extended it, and his own "My dear Maurice! is it possible?" cut short by the enthusiastic greeting of his friend.
"Yes, it's really me, myself. I'm just in on the packet from Havre—making my way home. Mother does not expect me for a month yet, and I'm going to give her a surprise. It seems to me you're looking better than ever, Leger, and that's saying a good deal."
"That's my wife's fault."
"Your wife! You don't say you're married?"
"Didn't you receive my letter?"
"No! and mother certainly did not mention it in her last. Who is the happy lady—and how long since?"
"You remember Annie St. John? Of course you do, for it was you who did me the favor to first attract my attention toward her."
"Annie St. John!" The tone of the young man had changed suddenly—all the warmth had gone out of it—it might be cold or surprised, or doubting or chagrined—a look of pity or contempt swept plainly over his countenance, but was presently banished.
The physician felt the momentary chill, but threw it off, without reflection, for his mind acknowledged no reason for it.
"I wish you joy—much, much happiness," continued his friend, presently, recovering his natural manner. "I came near to marrying Annie once myself. I never told you of that, did I?" with a light laugh. "But I must hurry on; I am delighting myself with the idea of just stepping in and taking a seat at mother's nice tea-table. Of course I shall come and see you—probably to-morrow."
The traveler hurried on toward the home from which he had been two years absent, and the young physician went forward, but with an uncomfortable feeling for which he could hardly account, except by the levity, the actual rudeness of his friend in his manner of speaking of his bride. Leger Carollyn was not the man to permit undue familiarity toward himself, and much less toward the woman he honored as his wife.
And, although Maurice Gurnell was the dearest and most confidential of his friends among his own sex, he felt the impulse to strike him when he spoke those hateful words with such careless gayety:
"I came near to marrying Annie once myself."
A few moments later brought him in front of his own handsome mansion, and his heart gave a bound which sent every unpleasant impression to the winds as he saw the glow of light through the unclosed shutters, and thought of the one who was awaiting him within. Admitting himself with a night-key, he stole through the spacious drawing-room to the boudoir, at the opposite end, where Annie was sure to be waiting, if, indeed, she did not spring at the lightest sound of his approaching step. She did not meet him to-day, but he saw her, sitting by the little ormolu table, and paused to enjoy a stolen glimpse of her loveliness.
Unconscious of observation, she had taken one of those flower-like attitudes, half-drooping and inexpressibly graceful, peculiar to herself. She held a miniature in her hand, upon which she was gazing, the long lashes vailing her downcast eyes, her golden hair rippling around her throat. She wore a blue dress of some rich material—blue was her husband's favorite color, and it did set off the fairness of her shoulders and the rose-hue of her cheeks most daintily.
"How girlish she looks," he whispered to his heart, "and how pure! I do not see how I ever ventured to address her with the words of earthly passion, though the angels know there is more of heaven than earth in our love. My own Annie—my own wife!"
Blending with the odor of a japonica, leaning from a slender vase on the ormolu table, almost kissing the cheek of its human sister, came a refreshing breath of oriental perfume from the supper-room—the breath of the rarest Flower of Delight, steeping in its silver urn. The light, the luxury of his home diffused a sense of physical enjoyment through the physician's nerves, while the sight of his wife, in her fresh and innocent beauty, thrilled his spirit.
"How happy I am—how fortunate in every thing! Blessed Annie! In my absence she solaces herself with my picture;" and, thinking to call up the still frequent blush to her face by betraying her in this secret occupation, he stole softly and peeped over her shoulder.
It was not his own face upon which his eyes fell, smiling back at his bride from its framework of jewels—it was that of Maurice Gurnell. And he never knew before that she had such a miniature in her possession; yet now it flashed through his brain that he had seen that very locket in Maurice's own keeping a short time before he left for Europe, and that he, Maurice, had asked him if he thought the likeness good, for he had gotten it painted for his betrothed, if he should ever have one.
Just as these thoughts were printing themselves in letters of fire upon his blank mind, the breath which he caught with a gasp from his breast fluttered his wife's light tresses, and she sprung to her feet, with only a passing look of embarrassment. The next instant she laughed her girlish laugh, and threw her arms about his neck, kissing him twice or thrice without waiting to find if he kissed her in return. The locket at which she had been gazing had disappeared within the folds of her dress, slipped into her pocket, or, perhaps, into the bosom beating against his own.
Dr. Carollyn endured her embraces, but he did not return them; he stood like one in a dream—past, present and future swept over him like the storm-sand over a desert, obliterating all traces of what has been—changing the landscape so that he who had lived there a lifetime can not recognize a familiar feature. It was Annie's arms that he felt about him, and Annie's words of welcome sounding in his ears. But who was Annie? Was she the wife in whose utter absence of guile of every kind he trusted as he trusted in God and immortality? or was it Annie, suddenly revealed to him in a character so different, that he felt toward her as toward a disliked and suspected stranger? His wife—yet his lip could not frame the word—his heart revolted at it.
"What is the matter, Leger? Are you ill?"
"No; only hungry."
She laughed; she was too accustomed to his affection to take offense now at some little passing cloud of ill-temper.
"I believe you are, and weary, too. But you needn't be cross about it. Come, tea has been waiting some time, I believe."
She led him by the hand into the cheerful supper-room, seating herself at the head of the table, and pouring out his tea with that air of dignity so pretty in youthful matrons.
"You said you were hungry, Leger, and yet you eat nothing."
"I meant that I was thirsty;" and he handed back the cup which he had emptied at a draught.
As she prepared his tea he watched every graceful movement—he looked intently into the face beaming with happiness, searching for undiscovered lines about the temples and lips which might betray the guilty secrets hidden in her heart. That face still looked to him as pure as the unclouded heaven at noonday. If he could only believe it! if he could only give himself up to his past confidence again! Oh, God! if he could, he would resign at that moment every dollar of his wealth, every throb of his ambition, and stand with her, outcast from the world, on any remotest island of the sea.
"I was detained a few moments in the street," he observed, presently. "I met an old friend, just returning from abroad."
"Indeed?"
Her voice was pleasant—she showed interest, as she always did when he addressed her, but no agitation.
"Perhaps you can guess who it was?"
"I don't remember who of our friends are away, except Maurice Gurnell."
His keen look did not disconcert her; she seemed only a trifle surprised at his own manner. He exerted himself to appear natural; to force not only calmness but lightness—he did not speak nor look like a man on whose soul happiness was poising herself, ready to take flight forever.
"Perhaps you expected him?"
"Me? Not so soon—that is, not until—why, Leger, what do I know of your friend Maurice's proceedings?"
Her husband's eyes, with a strange and deadly glitter in them, were fixed upon her face. She blushed, she stammered, she admitted that she was expecting him, and then attempted to withdraw from the admission. Pushing his chair back from the table, he said:
"I'm going out, Annie, to spend the evening. Don't sit up for me," and before she could spring to give him a good-by, or to help him with his muffler and gloves, he had seized his hat and coat, and the hall-door rung behind him.
Leger Carollyn bore a reputation for an unblemished moral character which added to the luster of his professional fame, and gave grace to his great mental accomplishments. But from boyhood he had been marked by two great faults, one of which, his unbending pride, was patent to every observer; but the other of which few understood, being one which his pride would enable him to conceal, and which had but few opportunities for making even himself aware of its existence. This second defect, in his otherwise noble nature, was jealousy—a jealousy, strong and terrible, of others, who shared the right of, or who gained by favor, the love of those selected by himself for his devotion.
This peculiarity had been betrayed, when a child, in his family, and had been the subject of the wisest and gentlest treatment from his excellent mother. His only brother, two years younger than himself, had been a thorn in his side—not because he did not himself love him, nor because he was ungenerous toward him in any other respect—but because he was jealous of every token of affection bestowed on another by the parents he so passionately adored. The proud, reserved and thoughtful child could not call forth those little endearments which the more vivacious nature of his brother provoked, but he longed for them none the less.
However, the gay, handsome boy died—died in his twelfth year—and left Leger the sole idol of his parents. He mourned for his brother deeply, he reproached himself secretly with every unkind thought he had ever entertained—and yet, as the months rolled on, he was conscious that he was happier now that his path was no longer crossed by a rival in the love of his parents. So the fault lay in his nature, undeveloped but not exterminated. It was not a mean jealousy—that is, it never stooped to trouble itself about rivals in fame or position—he never did a dishonorable act toward a rival schoolmate—nor, in later days, threw obstacles in the way of, or judged selfishly, those striving for success in his own profession. It was only that when he loved, he wanted, in return for his own almost startling passion, the whole interest and devotion of its object.
A man of such character would not be apt to flutter among the young ladies of his circle of society, or to fix his choice lightly upon the woman whom he should select to become his wife. So it chanced that at twenty-five he was still unmarried. At this time Dr. Carollyn, his father, passed away, leaving his son inheritor of the family-mansion, of the wealth which a long and lucrative practice had amassed, and of that practice itself, made valuable by the prestige of the parent's name. The mother had died nearly six years before, so that Leger Carollyn stood alone, with no relations either near or dear to him.
He had one friend, Maurice Gurnell, his classmate in college and his equal in society, a member of an old New York family of French extraction, and, as might be expected, the opposite in temperament of the young physician, possessing all the grace and gayety, the fluency of speech, and the love of the world which distinguishes his progenitors. Leger admired and loved his fascinating and brilliant companion, who esteemed and admired him in return; each being best pleased with those traits in the other most contrasted with his own.
While yet weighed down with deep melancholy by the loss of his father, Leger Carollyn was called, one night, to the bedside of a dying woman. The house to which he was summoned stood in a respectable, though not the most fashionable part of the city; the name he recognized as that of a family once well known to his father and always highly regarded by him, although much reduced from former affluence, and not mingling at all with general society for the past few years.
Leger himself had never been to the house, and knew nothing in particular of its inmates. His father had been their physician, and he was now summoned to fill the place of the departed. Upon entering the chamber of the sick lady, he saw at once that she was beyond the aid of humanity; she seemed, herself, to be aware of it, for she said, as he approached her bed:
"I am sensible that you can do nothing for me, Doctor. I would not have troubled you, if my child had not insisted upon it. Annie?"
At the call of that dying voice, strangely thrilling and clear, a young girl upon the opposite side of the bed raised her head from where it had been hidden in the pillow, and looked at him with eyes which asked the question her grieving lips refused to utter. She was the only relative by the bed of death—an old nurse dozing in a chair, and the servant who had admitted him, lingering by the door, as loth to go, being her only attendants.
As he looked at the forlorn young creature and met her despairing eyes, a feeling of pity, that was absolute anguish, seized upon the heart of Dr. Carollyn. The circumstances reminded him so vividly of his own recent bereavement, when he stood sole mourner by a parent's dying bed, that his deepest sympathies were aroused. He passed around to her side, and lifting her nerveless hand pressed it in his own, as he said, in answer to her mute appeal:
"You must resign your mother, my dear child; but God will still be with you."
The dying woman detected the tremble in his tone—it seemed as if some glimpse of the future revealed itself to her in that moment; she said, in the same clear voice:
"You are like your father, Dr. Carollyn. He was always one of my best friends. I hope that you will be a friend to my child, for she has not many. I am willing to trust her to you. She has neither father or brother. She will not be dependent, except for friendship. She is so young, so unused to doing for herself—ah, it is hard to leave you alone, my Annie, but I leave you with God. Annie—Annie—be calm. I am."
The Doctor saw that the final moment would soon arrive, and felt as if he ought not to leave that fragile young thing to bear the shock alone. He remained, until, in the gray dawn, the spirit left earth, and the desolate child sunk fainting into his arms.
When he had revived her, and restored her to the nurse, and to the female servant, who seemed much attached to her, he asked if there were no friends for whom he could send.
"Ah, botheration," said the weeping servant, "there's nobody nigher'n cousins, and they're far away. But there's friends and neighbors enough, as will come if they're wanted. I'll go for 'em meself."
That morning Dr. Carollyn was aroused from the slumber into which he had dropped, after his night's unrest, by the entrance of his friend, whom the servants had orders to admit at all seasons.
"In bed yet? Were you up last night? I'm glad I'm not a physician—I like my ease too well."
"Yes, Maurice, I attended a dying lady last night. I've been dreaming about it. It was so sad. She left a daughter not more than sixteen, and without a relative in the world."
"Was it any one we knew?"
"It was Mrs. St. John—her husband was a scientific man, and wasted much of their property in experiments. So I've heard my father say, who liked him very much—their tastes were similar."
"St. John? and the daughter's name is Annie? I know the family. Paul St. John has displayed many a chemical wonder to me, in days gone by, when I was a boy and used to steal visits to his laboratory. Annie was a wee thing, then, golden-headed and blue-eyed. I've met her occasionally of late days—she's one of the sweetest flowers that e'er the sun shone on—and dark blue is her e'e, and for bonnie Annie St. John, I'd lay me down and dee. That is, I wouldn't—for I'm not given to such things—but you would, Leger, after you've known her awhile. Yes," he resumed after a pause, during which he had stood by the window in a reverie unusually long for his butterfly nature, "Annie St John is the girl for you, Leger. You are so exacting—you want the whole heart and soul of some woman, and she's just the one. She is situated like yourself—not a near relative to dispute your place in her affections. She'd worship you, I know she would—it's in her! By George, but she's beautiful; and she must be accomplished, for her mother was one of the rarest women I ever knew. Ha! ha! Leger, wouldn't it disappoint some of our brilliant belles, if you should go outside the conservatory and gather such a dainty flower?"
"Hush, Maurice, don't talk in this manner, while that poor young thing is breaking her heart beside her mother's corpse."
"It's not because I'm not sorry for her," said Maurice, more soberly. "But I saw such a pretty romance developing."
"As usual, you're building your castles out of nothing but air," responded his friend, gravely, and began talking of other subjects; and this one was never again resumed between them.
It was not many months after this that Maurice Gurnell resolved upon spending a year or more in Paris—his mother had relatives there, and the prospect was pleasing to one of his tastes. He tried hard to persuade Dr. Carollyn to go with him, urging that the benefit and pleasure he would derive from a study of his science in Paris would amply repay him. But the doctor had, in his father's lifetime, spent a year in that city, and did not now feel like deserting his large circle of patients for so long a time.
There was, also, a dearer interest binding him; but of this, in the reticence of his proud nature, he as yet said nothing.
He was following up his acquaintance with Annie St. John. Under the sanction of that friendship which her dying mother had desired and which his universal reputation upheld, he was studying the mind and heart of the child-woman, and drawing her on, first to respect and confide in him, then to feel his strong nature a help and a necessity, then to fully and unreservedly love, to passionately adore him—even as he already fully loved and trusted her.
It was not until he felt certain that her soul was absorbed in his, that he spoke of his love to its object. The response he got was such as to satisfy his exacting nature. He had indeed no rivals, not even in the admiration of general society; for Annie, though fitted to shine among the fairest, a woman of whom he knew he should be proud, had lived a secluded life, owing to the tastes of her father, and the necessity of economy which he had occasioned even before his death. Her few friends were all among refined and cultivated people, who loved and appreciated her, but these were few and of the quiet kind. The small property left her kept her independently as a boarder with one of her mother's friends, and furnished her with a handsome trousseau when she came to prepare for her marriage.
When Dr. Carollyn was known to be repairing and refurnishing the family mansion, fitting it up richly with more than its pristine splendor, report said, of course, that it was for a bride. But who the bride was to be, not half-a-dozen persons knew, until she was presented to his friends in the drawing-room of her new home as Mrs. Dr. Carollyn.
Her beauty and accomplishments could not be caviled at by the most envious of disappointed belles—her family was unexceptionable, if not wealthy and as for those lovely traits of character which made her what she was, the husband cared not to have the world guess at half her worth. It was enough for his pride that when in society she received the most distinguished consideration; and enough for his love, that at home she made him the happiest man in the world. The three months of their wedded life had been all that we like to imagine for youth and beauty, hightened by every favoring circumstance of worldly prosperity.