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The Late Mrs. Null, a fiction by Frank R Stockton |
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Chapter 32 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXII The marriage of Junius Keswick and Roberta March was appointed for the fifteenth of January, and Mr Brandon had arranged to be in New York a few days before the event. He intended, however, to leave Midbranch soon after the first of the year, and to spend a week with some of his friends in Richmond. It was on the afternoon of New Year's Day, and Mr Brandon was sitting in his library with Colonel Pinckney Macon, an elderly gentleman of social habits and genial temper, whom Mr Brandon had invited to Midbranch to spend the holidays, and who was afterwards to be his travelling companion as far as Richmond. The two had had a very good dinner, and were now sitting before the fire smoking their pipes, and paying occasional attention to two tumblers of egg-nogg, which stood on a small table between them. They were telling anecdotes of olden times, and were in very good humor indeed, when a servant came in with a note, which had just been brought for Mr Brandon. The old gentleman took the missive, and put on his eye-glasses, but the moment he read the address, he let his hand fall on his knee, and gave vent to an angry ejaculation. "It's from that rabid old witch, the Widow Keswick!" he exclaimed," I've a great mind to throw it into the fire without reading it." "Don't do that," cried Colonel Macon. "It is a New Year present she is sending you. Read it, sir, read it by all means." Mr Brandon had given his friend an account of his unexampled and astounding persecutions by the Widow Keswick, and the old colonel had been much interested thereby; and it would have greatly grieved his soul not to become acquainted with this new feature of the affair. "Read it, sir," he cried; "I would like to know what sort of New Year congratulations she offers you." "Congratulations indeed!" said Mr Brandon; "you needn't expect anything of that kind." But he opened the note; and, turning, so that he could get a good light upon it, began to read aloud, as follows: "MY DEAREST ROBERT." "Confound it, sir," exclaimed the reader, "did you ever hear of such a piece of impertinence as that?" Colonel Pinckney Macon leaned back in his chair, and laughed aloud. "It is impertinent," he cried, "but it's confoundedly jolly! Go on, sir. Go on, I beg of you." Mr Brandon continued: "It is not for me to suggest anything of the kind, but I write this note simply to ask you what you would think of a triple wedding? There would certainly be something very touching about it, and it would be very satisfactory and comforting, I am sure, to our nieces and their husbands to know that they were not leaving either of us to a lonely life. Would we not make three happy pairs, dear Robert? Remember, I do not propose this, I only lay it before your kindly and affectionate heart. "Your own "Martha Ann Keswick." Colonel Macon, who, with much difficulty and redness of face, had restrained himself during the reading of this note, now burst into a shout of laughter, while Mr Brandon sprang to his feet, and crumpling the note in his hand, threw it into the fire; and then, turning around, he exclaimed: "Did the world ever hear anything like that! Triple wedding, indeed! Does the pestiferous old shrew imagine that anything in this world would induce me to marry her?" "Why, my dear sir," cried Colonel Macon, "of course she don't. I know the Widow Keswick as well as you do. She wouldn't marry you to save your soul, sir. All she wants to do is to worry and persecute you, and to torment your senses out of you, in revenge for your having got the better of her. Now, take my advice, sir, and don't let her do it. "I'd like to know how I am going to hinder her," said Mr Brandon. "Hinder her!" exclaimed Colonel Macon. "Nothing easier in this world, sir! Just you turn right square round, and face her, sir; and you'll see that she'll stop short, sir; and, what's more, she'll run, sir!" "How am I to face her?" asked Mr Brandon. "I have faced her, and I assure you, sir, she didn't run." "That was because you did not go to work in the right way," said the colonel. "Now, if I were in your place, sir, this is what I would do. I'd turn on her and I'd scare her out of all the wits she has left. I'd say to her: 'Madam, I think your proposition is an excellent one. I am ready to marry you to-day, or, at the very latest, to-morrow morning. I'll come to your house, and bring a clergyman, and some of my friends. Don't let there be the least delay, for I desire to start immediately for New York, and to take you with me.' Now, sir, a note like that would frighten that old woman so that she would leave her house, and wouldn't come back for six weeks; and the letter you have just burned would be the last attack she would make on you. Now, sir, that is what I would do if I were in your place." Mr Brandon sat down, drained his tumbler of egg-nogg, and began to think of what his friend had said. And, as he thought of it, the conviction forced itself upon him that this idea of Colonel Macon's was a good one; in fact, a splendid one. Now that he came to look upon the matter more clearly than he had done before, he saw that this persecution on the part of the Widow Keswick was not only base, but cowardly. He had been entirely too yielding, had given way too much. Yes, he would face her! By George! that was a royal idea! He would turn round, and make a dash at her, and scare her out of her five senses. Pens, ink, and paper were brought out; more egg-nogg was ordered; and Mr Brandon, aided and abetted by Colonel Macon, wrote a letter to Mrs Keswick. This letter took a long time to write, and was very carefully constructed. With outstretched hands, Mr Brandon met the old lady on the very threshold of her proposition. He stated that nothing would please him better than an immediate wedding, and that he would have proposed it himself had he not feared that the lady would consider him too importunate. (This expression was suggested by Colonel Macon.) In order that they might lose no time in making themselves happy, Mr Brandon proposed that the marriage should take place in a week, and that the ceremony should be performed in Richmond. (The colonel wished him to say that he would immediately go to her house for the purpose, but Mr Brandon would not consent to write this. He was afraid that the widow would sit at her front door with a shot-gun and wait for him, and that some damage might thereby come to an unwary neighbor.) Each of them had many old friends in Richmond, and it would be very pleasant to be married there. He intended to start for that city in a day or two, and he would be rejoiced to meet her at eleven o'clock on the morning of the fifth instant, in the corridor, or covered bridge, connecting the Exchange and Ballard hotels, and there arrange all the details for an immediate marriage. The letter closed with an earnest hope that she would accede to this proposed plan, which would so soon make them the happiest couple upon earth; and was signed "Your devoted Robert." "By which I mean," said Mr Brandon, "that I am devoted to her destruction." The letter was read over by Colonel Macon, and highly approved by him. "If you had met that woman, sir, when she first came to you," he said to Mr Brandon, "with the spirit that is shown in this letter, you would have put a shiver through her, sir, that would have shaken the bones out of her umbrella, and she would have cut and run, sir, before you knew it." The messenger from Howlett's was kept at Midbranch all night, and the next morning he was sent back with Mr Brandon's note. Two days afterward Colonel Macon and Mr Brandon started for Richmond, and in the course of a few hours, they were comfortably sipping their "peach and honey" at the Exchange and Ballard's. The next day was most enjoyably spent with a number of old friends; and in reminiscences of the past war, and in discussions of the coming political campaign, Mr Brandon had thrown off every sign of the annoyance and persecution to which he had lately been subjected. "By George, sir!" said Colonel Macon to him the next morning, "do you know that you are a most untrustworthy and perfidious man?" "Sir!" exclaimed Mr Brandon, "what do you mean?" "I mean," replied Colonel Pinckney Macon, with much dignity, "that you promised at eleven o'clock to-day to meet a lady in the corridor connecting these two hotels. It wants three minutes of that time now, sir, and here you are reading the 'Dispatch' as if you never made a promise in your life." "I declare," said Mr Brandon, rising, "my conduct is indefensible, but I am going to my room, and, on my way, will keep my part of the contract." "I will go with you," said the colonel. Together they mounted the stairs, and approached the corridor; and, as they opened its glass doors, they saw, sitting in a chair on one side of the passage, the Widow Keswick. If Mr Brandon had not been caught by his friend he would have fallen over backwards. Regaining an upright position, he made a frantic turn, as if he would fly, but he was not quick enough; Mrs Keswick had him by the arm. "Robert!" she exclaimed. "I knew how true and faithful you would be. It has just struck eleven. How do you do, Colonel Macon?" And she extended her hand. There was no one in the corridor at the time but these three, but the place was much used as a passageway, and Colonel Macon, who was very pale, but still retained his presence of mind, knew well, that if any one were to come along at this moment, it would be decidedly unpleasant, not only for his friend, but himself. "I am glad to meet you again, Mrs Keswick," he said. "Let us go into one of the parlors. It will be more comfortable." "How kind," murmured Mrs Keswick, as she clung to the arm of Mr Brandon, "for you to bring our good friend, Colonel Macon." They went into a parlor, which was empty, and where they were not likely to be disturbed. Mr Brandon walked there without saying a word. His face was as pallid as its well-seasoned color would allow, and he looked straight before him with an air which seemed to indicate that he was trying to remember something terrible, or else trying to forget it, and that he himself did not know which it was. Colonel Macon did not stay long in the parlor. There was that in the air of Mrs Keswick which made him understand that there were other places in Richmond where he would be much more welcome than in that room. He went down into the large hall where the gentlemen generally congregate; and there, in great distress of mind, he paced up and down the marble floor, exchanging nothing but the briefest salutations and answers with the acquaintances he occasionally encountered. The clerk, behind his desk at one side of the hall, had seen men walking up and down in that way, and he thought that the colonel had probably been speculating in tobacco or wheat; but he knew he was good for the amount of his bill, and he retained his placidity. In about half an hour, there came down the stairs, at one end of the hall, an elderly person who somewhat resembled Mr Brandon of Midbranch. The clothes and the hat were the same that that gentleman wore, and the same heavy gold chain with dangling seal-rings hung across his ample waistcoat; but there was a general air of haggardness and stoop about him which did not in the least suggest the upright and portly gentleman who had written his name in the hotel register the day before yesterday. Colonel Macon made five strides towards him, and seized his hand. "What," said he, "how----?" Mr Brandon did not look at him; he let his eyes fall where they chose; it mattered not to him what they gazed upon; and, in a low voice, he said: "It is all over." "Over!" repeated the colonel. Mr Brandon put a feeble hand on his friend's arm, and together they walked into the reading room, where they sat down in a corner. "Have you settled it then?" asked Colonel Macon with great anxiety. "Is she gone?" "It is settled," said Mr Brandon. "We are to be married." "Married!" cried Colonel Macon, springing to his feet. "Great Heavens, man! What do you mean?" Not very fluently, and in sentences with a very few words in each of them, but words that sank like hot coals into the soul of his hearer, Mr Brandon explained what he meant. It had been of no use, he said, to try to get out of it; the old woman had him with the grip of a vise. That letter had done it all. He ought to have known that she was not to be frightened, but it was needless to talk about that. It was all over now, and he was as much bound to her as if he had promised before a magistrate. "But you don't mean to say," exclaimed the colonel in a voice of anguish, "that you are really going to marry her?" "Sir," said Mr Brandon, solemnly, "there is no way to get out of it. If you think there is, you don't know the woman." "I would have died first!" said the colonel. "I never would have submitted to her!" "I did not submit," replied Mr Brandon. "That was done when the letter was written. I roused myself, and I said everything I could say, but it was all useless, she held me to my promise. I told her I would fly to the ends of the earth rather than marry her, and then, sir, she threatened me with a prosecution for breach of promise; and think of the disgrace that that would bring upon me; upon my family name; and on my niece and her young husband. It was a mistake, sir, to suppose that she merely wished to persecute me. She wished to marry me, and she is going to do it." The colonel bowed his face upon his hands, and groaned. Mr Brandon looked at him with a dim compassion in his eyes. "Do not reproach yourself, sir," he said. "We thought we were acting for the best." But little more was said, and two crushed old gentlemen retired to their rooms. In the days of her youth, Mrs Keswick had been very well known in Richmond; and there were a good many elderly ladies and gentlemen, now living in that city, who remembered her as a handsome, sparkling, and somewhat eccentric young woman, and who had since heard of her as a decidedly eccentric old one. Mr Brandon, also, had a large circle of friends and acquaintances in the city; and when it became known that these two elderly persons were to be married--and the news began to spread shortly after Mrs Keswick reached the house of the friend with whom she was staying--it excited a great deal of excusable interest. Mrs Keswick, according to her ordinary methods of action, took all the arrangements into her own hands. She appointed the wedding for the eighth of January, in order that the happy pair might go to New York, and be present at the nuptials of Junius and Roberta. Mr Brandon had thought of writing to Junius, in the hope that the young man might do something to avert his fate, but remembering how utterly unable Junius had always been to move his aunt one inch, this way or that, he did not believe that he could be of any service in this case, in which all the energies of her mind were evidently engaged, and he readily consented that she should attend to all the correspondence. It would, indeed, have been too hard for him to break the direful truth to his niece and Junius. He ventured to suggest that Miss Peyton be sent for, having a faint hope that he might in some manner lean upon her; but Mrs Keswick informed him that her niece must stay at home to take charge of the place. There were two women in the house, who were busy sewing for her, and it would be impossible for her to come to Richmond. Her correspondence kept the Widow Keswick very busy. She decided that she would be married in a church which she used to attend in her youth; and to all of her old friends, and to all those of Mr Brandon whose names she could learn by diligent inquiry, invitations were sent to attend the ceremony; but no one outside of Richmond was invited. The old lady did not come to the city with a purple sun-bonnet and a big umbrella. She wore her best bonnet, which had been used for church-going purposes for many years, and arrayed herself in a travelling suit which was of excellent material, although of most antiquated fashion. She discussed very freely, with her friends, the arrangements she had made, and protuberant candor being at times one of her most noticeable characteristics, she did not leave it altogether to others to say that the match she was about to make was a most remarkably good one. For years it had been a hard struggle for her to keep up the Keswick farm, but now she had fought a battle, and won a victory, which ought to make her comfortable and satisfied for the rest of her life. If Mr Brandon's family had taken a great deal from her, she would more than repay herself by appropriating the old gentleman, together with his possessions. After the depression following the first shock, Mr Brandon endeavored to stiffen himself. There was a great deal of pride in him, and if he was obliged to go to the altar, he did not wish his old friends to suppose that he was going there to be sacrificed. He had brought this dreadful thing upon himself, but he would try to stand up like a man, and bear it; and, after all, it might not be for long; the Widow Keswick was a good deal older than he was. Other thoughts occasionally came to comfort him; she could not make him continually live with her, and he had plans for visits to Richmond, and even to New York; and, better than that, she might want to spend a good deal of time at her own farm. "For the sake of my name, and my niece," he said to himself, "I must bear it like a man." And, in answer to an earnest adjuration, Colonel Pinckney Macon solemnly promised that he would never reveal, to man or woman, that his friend did not marry the Widow Keswick entirely of his own wish and accord. It was the desire of Mrs Keswick that the marriage, although conducted in church, should be very simple in its arrangements. There would be no bridesmaids or groomsmen; no flowers; no breakfast; and the couple would be dressed in travelling costume. The friends of the old lady persuaded her to make considerable changes in her attire, and a costume was speedily prepared, which, while it suggested the fashions of the present day, was also calculated to recall reminiscences of those of a quarter of a century ago. This simplicity was the only thing connected with the affair which satisfied Mr Brandon, and he would have been glad to have the marriage entirely private, with no more witnesses than the law demanded. But to this Mrs Keswick would not consent. She wanted to have her former friends about her. Accordingly, the church was pretty well filled with old colonels, old majors, old generals, and old judges, with their wives and their sisters, and, in a few cases, their daughters. All the elderly people in Richmond, who, in the days of their youth, had known the gay Miss Matty Pettigrew, and the handsome Bob Brandon, felt a certain rejuvenation of spirit as they went to the wedding of the couple, who had once been these two. The old lady looked full of life and vigor, and, despite the circumstances, Mr Brandon preserved a good deal of his usual manly deportment. But, when in the course of the marriage service, the clergyman came to the question in which the bride-groom was asked if he would have this woman to be his wedded wife, to love and keep her for the rest of their lives, the answer, "I will," came forth in a feeble tone, which was not wholly divested of a tinge of despondency. With the lady it was quite otherwise. When the like question was put to her, she stepped back, and in a loud, clear voice, exclaimed: "Not I! Marry that man, there?" she continued in a higher tone, and pointing her finger at the astounded Mr Brandon. "Not for the world, sir! Before he was born, his family defrauded and despoiled my people, and as soon as he took affairs into his own hands, he continued the villainous law robberies until we are poor, and he is rich; and, not content with that, he basely wrecks and destroys the plans I had made for the comfort of my old age, in order that his paltry purposes may be carried out. After all that, does anybody here suppose that I would take him for a husband? Marry him! Not I!" And, with these words, the old lady turned her back on the clergyman, and walked rapidly down the centre aisle, until she reached the church door. There she stopped, and turning towards the stupefied assemblage, she snapped her bony fingers in the air, and exclaimed: "Now, Mr Robert Brandon of Midbranch, our account is balanced." She then went out of the door, and took a street car for the train that would carry her to her home. [THE END] _ |
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