Doubly false

Cora Lander ran down stairs into the parlor, whose frescoed ceiling, dove-tinted walls and thickly carpeted floors were lighted up for the first time, and there, standing as it were in the midst of an enchanted bower, was Seymour, her bridegroom.

“Great Heavens, how beautiful you are!” he exclaimed, coming forward with both hands extended. “So radiant and so lovely, all for me!”

She placed her two gloved hands in his, and stood before him blushing and with downcast eyes. Her hands shook and quivered in his like young birds caught among the roses.

“Oh! Seymour, do you love me? Shall this last through our whole lives?”

“So long as we live, Cora Lander, I will love you for better for worse, in good or evil, in holiness or sin. You and I belong to each other. Nothing but death shall part us, so help me God.”

Why did her hands cease their happy flutter and grow cold in his clasp? What was it that sent the blood from her face and neck till they were white as the pearls on her bosom?

“Why, love, how white you are!”

“Your love is savage, Seymour. It half frightens me.”

“My love frighten you! What have I said, dearest, only that I would love you forever and ever?”

“But you spoke sternly.”

“Solemnly, sweet one, not sternly.”

“I am very foolish to let the tone of your voice wound me so.”

“Yes, darling; but it is over now. There, there, lean your head on my shoulder, so; and let me kiss the roses back to these lips.”

They sat down on a sofa near the window. Her lips had got back their redness; her cheek, warm with a flush of happiness, lay close to his. She half clouded him with her bridal veil.

“And you, Cora, will it be always thus with you?” he whispered. “Will my love content you forever?”

“It contents me now, Seymour—I am supremely happy—nothing comes between my heart and yours. In this place we can be happier than mortals ever were before.”

“And is this to be our home?” said Seymour, glancing around the sumptuous room.

“Yes, it is our home; I give it to you. Thank Heaven, my love does not come empty handed!”

Seymour gently released her from his arm, and moving to a window, looked out. The little garden in front was flooded with moonlight; drops from the fountain were shooting through it in bright flashes and raining back upon the flowers, which repaid them with perfume. It was indeed a little Paradise that his bride had created for him. There every sense could be gratified. The most refined idea of beauty must be satiated in a place like that—a creation of love itself.

Was he satisfied? I think not. This man, with all his faults—and he had more than the reader yet knows of—was proud in his way, and it is in the nature of proud men, good or bad, to give benefits to the women they love; to receive them entirely wounds all sense of manhood. In the first abandon of her love, Cora had felt great pleasure in the idea of bestowing benefits on the man who was to be her husband. In her short-sighted egotism, she expected every new benefit conferred on him to add another link to the chain of flowers which was to bind their lives together. She was generous to him, because at that time, she considered his destiny as her own, and it was simply being generous to herself. She made no calculation for change, either in herself or him. The rash, impetuous passion that carried her selfish nature out of itself she really believed would last forever. It pleased her to be munificent with him—to make his life one dream of Paradise was her ambition. But it was to be a Paradise she was to give him and share with him.

Did she expect gratitude for this or a greater harvest of affection? Yes, in simple truth, this was what lay in her heart. With all her ability, her craft and daring, the young girl sitting there in her bridal dress knew little of human nature, or she would not have attempted to humiliate the man she loved with obligations with which it was his place to endow her. From every point of earth she, with her money, had gathered materials of enjoyment for him, exulting in the power of thus proving her love. The result was that he stood there by the window, moody, and with a clouded brow. Was he, too, an appendage? Did she wish to overshadow him with her wealth—crush him down with her munificence?

She came to the window where he stood and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“You look sad, darling. Why is it? I expected to see you all joy.”

“And so I am, dearest girl. Why should you think otherwise? No woman ever gave her pet macaw a more glittering cage.”

He spoke with something of bitterness. She had been too lavish of her superior gifts, and he felt it.

“You have taken a dislike to my house—our house—and I—I thought it so beautiful,” she said with tears in her eyes.

She was keenly disappointed. After all, objects of material beauty are very uncertain things when we depend on them to perfect our happiness.

He looked down upon her and relented. Other and deeper causes of regret lay in his heart; but he crowded them back and allowed all the warm tenderness of his love to answer that tearful look.

“It is beautiful,” he said, “but how can I think of that with you by my side? Come closer to the window, love, and let us watch for the man who will make you my wife.”

She drew close to his side and allowed him to circle her with his arm as they stood looking out upon the moonlight.

“How lovely and how still it is,” she said; “we can almost hear the bell-like tinkle of those water drops as they fall back into the fountain. Softer and sweeter music never heralded in a wedding. Will you accept the omen, Seymour?”

“I can accept nothing that does not promise happiness with you so close to my heart, Cora.”

A sharp click of the iron latch startled them both. The gate fell to with a clang that struck those two young creatures like a blow. Then, like a spectre, came the dark form of the clergyman, sweeping the moonlight from the flowers with its shadow.

“He is coming,” whispered Cora, chilled, she knew not why.

Seymour did not speak, but be strained her to his bosom so violently that she gasped for breath.

“Have you no fear of me—no questions to ask? It is not too late.”

“Fear of you,” she answered, clinging to him tenderly when his arm would have released her. “Fear of you—I should as soon fear the flowers around that fountain. Questions—why should I ask questions just as our two lives are trembling together? Hark, he is ringing the bell!”

They left the window and sat down upon the couch, waiting for the clergyman. He came in, after some delay, smiling blandly and rubbing his white hands over each other, while he paused on the threshold and cast a wandering glance over the room. Then his observation fell on the young couple. He moved forward and greeted them cordially.

“Then it is to be a wedding, after all,” he said, glancing at the costume of the bride. “I was not prepared for that.”

“No,” said Cora, blushing under his gaze. “There will be no one present but ourselves.”

The minister smiled, glanced at her a second time, with a look that bespoke as much admiration as clerical eyes are ever permitted to express, and answered still more blandly:

“And the witnesses, dear lady—we must have witnesses.”

The young people looked at each other in dismay.

“Alice Ruess might do for one,” said Cora, in a low voice. “But the other?”

“My boy, Brian Nolan; I wish I had brought him; he might be of use, he is sufficiently intelligent.”

“Is he trustworthy?” asked Cora, in a whisper.

“I would trust him with a secret that held my life, if needful,” answered Seymour. “But we have no one to send for him.”

“No,” said Cora. “But the Frenchman—he will do.”

A few minutes after, Alice Ruess and Lubin came into the room and stood near the couple while they were married.

Then the clergyman kissed the bride on her burning cheek, shook hands with Seymour, pledged them in a glass of amber-hued wine, and went away for richer than he had expected to become that night, leaving a wedding certificate behind, and any amount of warm congratulations. The name of the bride written on that certificate was Virginia Cora Lander, and the bridegroom’s name was written out in full, Alfred Nolan Seymour.

Cora scarcely stopped to read the document, but put it in her bosom, afraid to trust it away from her own heart, so precious did it seem to her.

Seymour did not think of the fact then, but he afterward had cause to remember it. The clergyman was an utter stranger to him. Alice Ruess had employed a friend to engage him, and so he came personally unknown to them all. His name was signed to the certificate, but no one cared to examine that just as the man was going away.

That little supper had been served in the dining-room, and Lubin, the French cook, was in an ecstasy of impatience lest his favorite dishes would be spoiled. The clergyman had been a little late, having met with some difficulty about finding the house. Then he had lingered awhile after the ceremony, charmed by the sprightliness and beauty of the bride, lured, as even clergymen will be sometimes, by the sparkle and flavor of rare wines, taken in moderation, and therefore slowly.

Thus it happened that Lubin’s supper was put back, and Lubin himself almost driven to despair. He stood ready to serve out his own rich viands—for, to secure that pleasure, he was willing to give up any amount of dignity—waiting for some signal of the clergyman’s departure. But, as I have said, the good man was in no haste, and Lubin had plenty of time to survey the round table, rich with gold and silver plate, glittering with cut crystal and crowned by a swelling mound of flowers covered by a glass shade, so transparent that it seemed a film of woven air. Thus the poor fellow stood with a snow-white vest contrasting with his black clothes, kid gloves, spotless as the vest, half broken-hearted and ready to cry with vexation. The chandelier over his head was one blaze of gas; the ceiling to which it hung was aglow with flowers, that seemed to burst into fresh bloom under that blaze of light and open out new folds of beauty. A carpet, thick and soft as forest turf spread away from the table and met the edges of the room in a heavy rope of flowers that coiled all around it, chaining in a broad medallion in the centre.

All this was new, and thus had a claim on the Frenchman’s imagination; but he had neither heart nor eye for anything but the dishes left under black Hagar’s care, which he knew were losing something of their perfection every instant. At last he heard the front door close, and Alice came into the dining-room to say that Madame and Monsieur were ready for supper.

Into this blaze of lights and glory of flowers the young couple came and seated themselves at their first home repast. In his travels, once, Seymour had passed through a forest twenty miles deep, haunted with birds and full of wild deer that had never heard the crack of a hunter’s gun. In the very heart of this forest, close by the corduroy road, stood a log cabin, so newly built that tufts of hemlock and pine still clung to the green bark of the logs. Two or three acres of land were cleared around this rude dwelling, but a great walnut tree had been left to shelter it, and morning glories were already creeping toward its tiny windows. The door of this dwelling was open as he rode by, and at a small table, covered with a cloth white as snow, he saw a young couple eating bread and milk. Seymour thought of that picture and sighed as he sat down to the exquisite little supper with his wife.