Christians Mistake | Page 7

to
something safer and higher than self-suppression--self-control. When
Mr. Ferguson came in, he rose and began to speak about the weather
and local topics as men do speak to one another--and better that they
should!--even at such crises as weddings or funerals.
And Christian his wife?
She had run up stairs--ran almost with her former light step, for her
heart felt lightened with the childish smile of little Oliver--to the attic
which for the last nine months she had occupied--the nursery, now
made into a bedroom, and tenanted by herself and the two little
Fergusons. No special sanctity of appropriation had it; a large,
somewhat bare room, in which not a thing was her own, either to miss
or leave behind. For, in truth, she had nothing of her own; the small
personalities which she had contrived to drag about with her from
lodging to lodging having all gone to pay debts, which she had insisted
--and Dr. Grey agreed--ought to be paid before she was married. So he
had taken from her the desk, the work-table, and the other valueless yet
well-prized feminine trifles, and brought her, as their equivalent, a sum
large enough to pay both these debts and all her marriage expenses,
which sum she, ignorant and unsuspicious, took gratefully, merely
saying "he was very kind."
She now looked round on her sole worldly possessions--the large trunk
which contained her ordinary apparel, and the smaller one, in which
were packed all she needed for her fortnight's marriage tour. Her
traveling dress lay on the bed--a plain dark silk--her only silk gown
except the marriage one. She let Mrs. Ferguson array her in it, and then,

with her usual mechanical orderliness, began folding up the shining
white draperies and laying them in the larger trunk.
"Shall I send that direct to the Lodge, my dear?"
Christian looked up absently.
"To Saint Bede's Lodge--you know--that it may be ready for you when
you come home?"
Home--that blessed word which should send a thrill to the heart of any
bride. Alas! this bride heard it quite unheeding, saying only, "Do what
you think best, Mrs. Ferguson."
And then she proceeded to fasten her collar and complete the minutiae
of her dress with that careful neatness which was an instinct with
Christian, as it is with all womanly women, though how this poor
motherless girl had ever learned womanliness at all was a marvel. She
answered chiefly in soft monosyllables to the perpetual stream of Mrs.
Ferguson's talk, till at last the good soul could no longer restrain
herself.
"Oh, my dear, if you would only speak--only let out your feelings a
little; for you must feel this day so; I'm sure I do, just as if it were my
own wedding day, or Isabella's, or Sarah Jane's. And when they do
come to be married, poor lambs! I hope it will be as good a match as
you are making--only, perhaps, not a widower. But I beg your pardon.
Oh, Miss Oakley, my dear, we shall miss you so!"
And the good woman, who had a heart--and hearts are worth
something--clasped the orphan-bride to her broad bosom, and shed over
her a torrent of honest tears.
"Thank you," Christian said, and returned the kiss gently, but no tears
came to her eyes.
"And now," added Mrs. Ferguson, recovering herself, "I'll go and see
that every thing is right; and I'll get my warm tartan shawl for you to

travel in. It is a terrible snowy day still. You'll come down stairs
presently?"
"Yes."
But the instant Mrs. Ferguson was gone Christian locked the door. The
same look, of more than pain--actual fear--crossed her face. She stood
motionless, as if trying to collect herself, and then, with her hands all
shaking, took from her traveling-trunk a sealed packet. For a second
she seemed irresolute, and only a second.
"It must be done--it is right. I ought to have done it before--Good-by
forever."
Good-by to what--or to whom?
All that the fire revealed, as she laid the packet on it, stirring it down
into a red hollow, so that not a flickering fragment should be left
unconsumed, were four letters--only four--written on dainty paper, in a
man's hand, sealed with a man's large heraldic seal. When they were
mere dust, Christian rose.
"It is over now--quite over. In the whole world there is nobody to
believe in--except him. He is very good, and he loves me. I was right to
marry him--yes, quite right."
She repeated this more than once, as if compelling herself to
acknowledge it, and then paused.
Christian was not exactly a religious woman--that is, she had lived
among such utterly irreligious people, that whatever she thought or felt
upon these subjects had to be kept entirely to herself--but she was