The Bay State Monthly. Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885

THE STAB IN THE BACK

A brighter morning for a wedding never dawned. The house was alive with merry voices and the echo of footsteps hurrying to and fro. The most fashionable society of the city was to be present at the ceremony which was to take place at noon. Then would come the festivities, the feast, the dancing, and after that the drive of the newly-married pair to the beautiful house three miles away, that Stephen Archdale had built and furnished for his bride, and that had never yet been a home.

Before the appointed hour the guests began to arrive and to fill the great drawing-room. There each one on entering walked toward the huge fire-place, in which on an immense bed of coals glowing with a brilliancy that outshone the rich red furniture and hangings of the room lay great logs, which blazed in their fervor of hospitable intent and radiated a small circle of comfort from the heat that did not escape up the chimney. The rich attire of the guests could bear the bright sunlight that streamed in through the numberless little panes of the windows, and the gay colors that they wore showed off well against the dark wainscotting of the room and its antique tapestries. The ladies were gorgeous in silks and velvets which were well displayed over enormous hoops. On their heads, where the well-powdered hair was built up in a tower nearly a foot in height, were flowers or feathers. Precious stones fastened the folds of rich kerchiefs, sparkled on dainty fingers, or flashed with stray movements of fans that, however discreetly waved, betrayed their trappings once in a while by some coquettish tremulousness. The gentlemen were resplendent also in gold-laced coats and small clothes, gold, or diamond shoe buckles, powdered wigs and queues, and with ruffles of the richest lace about their wrists. These guests, who were among the people that in themselves, or their descendants, were destined to give the world a new nation, strong and free, showed all that regard to the details of fashion said to characterize incipient decay in races. But with them it was only an accessory of position, everything was on a foundation of reality, it all represented a substantial wealth displaying itself without effort. The Sherburnes were there, the Atkinsons, the Pickerings, Governor Wentworth, the first of the Governors after New Hampshire separated from Massachusetts and went into business for itself, and others of the Wentworth family. Conspicuous among the guests was Colonel Pepperrell who had already proved that the heart of a strong man beat under his laced coat. His wife, well-born and fine-looking, was beside him, and his son, fresh from College honors, and sipping eagerly the sparkling draught of life that was to be over for him so soon; his daughter also, last year a bride, and her husband. These were leaders in that brilliant assembly called together to the marriage of Katie and Stephen Archdale.

While waiting for the event of the morning they talked in low tones among themselves of the wedding, or more audibly, of personal, or of political affairs.

"It wants only ten minutes of the hour," said one lady, "perhaps our good parson may not come this morning."

"What do you mean?" asked her companion.

"Why, this; that his wife, perhaps, will lock his study door upon him as she did one Sabbath when we all went to the house of God and found the pulpit empty. There’s no end to all the malicious tricks she plays him. Poor, good man."

"Do you know," said a beruffled gentleman in another part of the room to his next neighbor, "what a preposterous proposal that ragged fellow, Bill Goulding, made to Governor Wentworth last week? He is a good-for-nothing, and the whole scheme is thought to have been merely a plan to talk with the Governor, whom he has wanted to see for a long time. It gave him access to the fine house, and he stalked about there an hour looking at the pictures and the splendid furniture while its owner was taking an airing. The general opinion is that the object of his visit was accomplished before his Excellency’s return."

"Poor fellow! One can’t blame him so very much," returned the listener with a complacent smile, offering his gold-mounted snuff-box to the speaker before helping himself generously from it. "But what was his scheme?"

"Something the most absurd you ever listened to. He proposed, if other people would furnish the money, to establish a public coach from this city to Boston, to run as often as once a week, and, after the first expense, to support itself from the travellers it carries; each one is to pay a few shillings. Where did he expect the travellers to come from? Gentlemen would never travel in other than private conveyances?" And these representatives of conservatism threw back their heads and laughed over the absurdity of the lightning express in embryo. Governor Wentworth standing before the fire was commenting on some of Governor Shirley’s measures, giving his own judgment on the matter, with a directness more bold than wise, and the circle about him were discussing affairs with the freedom of speech that Americans have always used in political affairs, when a stir of expectation behind them made them take breath, and glance at the person entering the room. It was the minister.

"He has come, you see," whispered the lady to her neighbor of the forebodings. After greeting him, the group about the fire went back to their discussions. It had been the good parson’s horse then, which they had heard tearing up the road in hot haste; they had not dreamed that so much speed was in the nag. But Master Shurtleff was probably a little late and had been afraid of keeping the bride and groom waiting for him. Master and Mistress Archdale were there; all the company, indeed, but the four members of it most important that morning, Katie and Stephen, the bridesmaid, Mistress Royal, and the best man, a young friend of Archdale’s. After a few moments in which conversation lagged through expectancy, the door opened again.

"Ah! here they are. No, only one, alone. How strange!"

Every eye was turned upon Elizabeth Royal as she came in with a face too concentrated upon the suggestion under which she was acting to see anything about her. Without sign of recognition she glanced from one to another, until her eyes fell upon good Parson Shurtleff watching her with a gentle wonder in his face. It was for him that she had been looking. She went up to him immediately, and laid a tremulous hand upon his arm. She tried to smile, but the effort was so plain and her face so pale that an anxiety diffused itself through the assembly; it was felt that her presence here alone showed that something had happened, and her expression, that it was something bad. She did not seem even to hear the minister’s kind greeting, and she was as little moved by the wonder and scrutiny about her as if she had been alone with him. At Mistress Archdale’s reiterated question if Katie were ill, she shook her head in silence. Some thought held her in its grasp, some fear that she was struggling to speak.

"It is a cruel jest," she cried at last, "but it must be only a jest. The man’s horse is blown, he came so fast. And he insisted on seeing me and would give this only into my own hands; his message was that it was life and death, that I must read it at once before the—" She stopped with a shudder, and held out a paper that she had been grasping; it was crumpled by the tightening of her fingers over it. There was a sound of footsteps and voices in the hall; the minister looked toward the door, and listened. "You must read it now, this instant, before they come in," cried Elizabeth: "it must be done; I don’t dare not to have you; and tell me that it has no power, it is only a wicked jest; and throw it into the fire. Oh, quick, be quick."

Parson Shurtleff unfolded the paper with the haste of age, youth’s deliberateness, and began to read at last. At the same instant a hand outside was laid on the latch of the door. The room was in a breathless hush. The door was swung slowly open by a servant and the bride and bridegroom came in, stopping just beyond the threshold as Katie caught sight of Elizabeth, and with a wondering face waited for her to come to her place. But the minister, not glancing up, went sternly on with the paper; and Elizabeth’s gaze was fixed on his face; she had drawn a step away from him; and her hands were pressed over one another. All at once he uttered an exclamation of dismay, and turned to her, a dread coming into his face as he met her eyes.

"What does it mean?" he gasped. "Heaven help us, is it true?"

"Oh, it can’t be, it can’t be," she cried. "Give me the paper. I had to show it to you, but now you’ve seen that it must be all false. Give it to me. Look, they are coming," she entreated. "Think of her, be ready for them. Oh, burn this. Can’t you? Can’t you?" and her eyes devoured him in an agony of pleading.

"Stop!" he said, drawing back his hand. Then in a moment, "Is any of it true, this wicked jest at a sacred thing? Was that all so?"

"Yes."

By this time the scene had become very different from the programme so carefully arranged. The bride and groom had indeed gone across the room and were standing before the minister. But the latter, so far from having made any preparations to begin the ceremony, stood with his eyes on the paper, his face more and more pale and perplexed.

"What is it?" cried Master Archdale, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, what does it all mean?" asked the Colonel, advancing toward the minister, and showing his irritation by his frown, his flush, and the abruptness of his speech usually so suave.

"I hardly know myself," returned Shurtleff looking from one to the other.

"Let us have the ceremony at once, then," said Master Archdale authoritatively. "Why should we delay?"

"I cannot, until I have looked into this," answered the minister in a respectful tone.

"Nonsense," cried the Colonel with an authority that few contested. "Proceed at once."

"I cannot," repeated the minister, and his quiet voice had in it the firmness, almost obstinacy, that often characterizes gentle people. His opposition had seemed so disproportioned and was so gently uttered that the hearers had felt as if a breath must blow it away, and interest heightened to intense excitement when it proved invincible.

"What is all this?" demanded Stephen, holding Katie’s arm still more firmly in his own and facing Mr. Shurtleff with eyes of indignant protest. As he received no immediate answer, he turned to Elizabeth. "Mistress Royal," he said, "can you explain this unseemly interruption?"

Then all the company, who for the moment had forgotten her share in the transaction, turned their eyes upon her again.

"That wicked jest that we had all forgotten," she said, looking at him an instant with a wildness of pain in her eyes. Then she turned to Katie’s fair, pale face full of wonder and distress at the unguessed obstacle, and with a smothered cry dropped her face in her hands, and stood motionless and unheeded in the greater excitement. For now Mr. Shurtleff had begun to speak.

"You ask me," he said, "why I do not perform the ceremony and marry these two young people whose hearts love has united. I do not dare to do it until I understand the meaning of this strange paper I hold in my hand. What do you remember," he said to Stephen, "of a singular game of a wedding ceremony played one evening last summer?"

The young man looked uncomprehending for a moment, then drew his breath sharply.

"That?" he said, "Why, that was only to give an example of something we were talking about; that was nothing. Mistress,"—he stopped and glanced at Elizabeth who, leaning forward, was hanging upon every word of his denial as if it were music—"Mistress Royal knows that was so."

"Yes," cried Elizabeth, "indeed I do."

"Nevertheless," returned Mr. Shurtleff, "it may have been a jest to be eternally remembered, as all light-minded treatment of serious matters must be. I hope with all my heart that a moment’s frivolity will not have life-long consequences of sorrow, but I cannot proceed in this happy ceremony that I have been called here to perform until the point is settled beyond dispute."

"See how habit rules him like a second nature," whispered Colonel Pepperrell aside to the Governor. "Nobody but a minister would stop to give a homily with those poor creatures before him in an agony of suspense."

"My dear," said his wife softly in a tone of reproof, laying her hand warningly on his arm.

"Stephen Archdale isn’t the man to stand this," retorted the Governor in a higher key than he realized. But the words did not reach their object, for he had already laid hold of the paper in Mr. Shurtleffs hand.

"If this paper explains your conduct, give it to me," he said haughtily.

The other drew back.

"I will read it to you and to the company," he answered. "There can be no wedding this morning. I trust there will be soon. But first it is my personal duty to look into this matter."

Katie, whose face had grown rigid, swung heavily against Stephen.

"She has fainted," her mother cried coming forward.

"Take her away," commanded the Colonel. "This is no place for her." But the girl clung to Stephen.

"I will stay," she said, with a tearless sob. "I must listen. I see it all, and what he meant, too, that evil man."

"Master Shurtleff," cried the Governor, "I command you to make all this clear to us at once. If that paper in your hand tells us the cause of your refusal to marry these young people, I bid you read it to us immediately."

The parson, bowing with respect, cleared his throat and began, premising that Governor Wentworth’s commands had been his own intention from the first.

"It is a confession," he said, "made by one whom many of us have welcomed to our homes as a gentleman of blameless character and honorable dealing. Why it was sent to Mistress Royal instead of to Master Archdale, or the bride, I am at a loss to understand."

Elizabeth raised her head with a flash in her eyes, but anger died away into despair, and she stood silent with the others, and listened to the fate that fell upon her with those monotonous tones, each one heavy as lead upon her heart. She wondered if it had been sent to her because it had been feared that Stephen Archdale would keep silence.

CHAPTER VII.