“Miss Violet; your father is dead!” And the bride dropped like a stone before Aymer at her side, or Merton just behind, could grasp her arm. She was down upon the cold stone floor, her wedding-dress all crumpled up, her wreath fallen off, the light of life and love gone from her eyes, the happy glow from her cheek. Even in that moment the clergyman’s heart smote him. His impious prayer! That this one because of her beauty should be spared—and struck down before his very eyes in the midst of her joy and triumph. All that they could see in the body of the church was a shapeless heap of satin where but a moment before had stood the most envied of them all.
Aymer knelt and lifted her head; it lay helpless upon his hands. As he did so the wedding-ring, which he had ready, slipped unnoticed from his grasp and was lost. When it was missed, days afterwards, and a search was instituted, it could not be found, and this the superstitious treasured up as a remarkable fact.
Merton raised her up; her frame was limp and helpless in their arms. They carried her to the vestry and brought water. Miss Merton, trembling as she was, did not faint; but, good, brave girl, did her best.
In the excitement over the bride, even the man who had brought this awful news was for the moment forgotten. When they looked for him he was leaning against the altar-rails, as if about to fall, and some of the blood was spotted on the sacred altar-cloth. The men rushed at him; the women, afraid, held back and watched what new harm must come. They deemed that it was some horrible creature; they could not believe that it was only the old gardener at The Place—Waldron’s oldest servant.
Only the gardener. He was as helpless as themselves. He had overexerted himself running to the church with his dreadful tidings, and being subject to heart disease, he could barely stand, and only gasp out that “Master was killed, and quite dead!”
The men, finding nothing could be got from him, ran out, and made direct for The Place. Some leapt on their horses, but those on foot crossing the meadow, as the gardener had done, got there first. All the men made for The Place—all the women stayed to see what would become of the bride.
It was a dead faint, but it was not long before she came to, and immediately insisted upon being taken home. They would have detained her in the vestry till at least confirmation of the dreadful intelligence had arrived. But no, she begged and prayed them to take her; and fearing lest uncertainty should do more harm than certainty, they half-led, half-carried her from the church.
There was not a dry eye among the sympathising women who had remained—not one among those rude, half-educated people whose heart was not bursting with sorrow for the poor shrinking form that was borne through their midst.
But a few short moments since, and how proud and happy had she been advancing up the aisle! The children were gone from the churchyard; their flowers cast away, not in the pathway of the bride, but on the graves. In their haste, they had trod upon the scarlet cloth laid down, and discoloured and stained it. The ringers had deserted the bell-ropes, the village street was empty and silent—only the unconscious flag waved upon the tower, and the arch stood for them to pass beneath, with its motto—now a bitter mockery—“Joy be with you!”
The carriage rolled along the road, and as they approached The Place, Merton began to recover his professional calm; and the return of his mind to a more normal state was marked by doubt—Was it true?
But no sooner had they entered the garden than he saw it was. The faces of the knots of men, their low, hushed voices, all told but one tale—death had been there!
They tried to get Violet to go upstairs to her own room, but she would not. “I must see him!” was her cry. “I must see him!”
She pushed through them. All gave way before her. Not there, surely? Yes, there—in the very room where the wedding-breakfast was laid out, where the cake stood upon the table, and the champagne-bottles at the side; there, in the place of joy, was the dead—dead in his armchair, close to the window, with a ghastly wound upon the once-peaceful brow!
She threw up her hands—she uttered a great cry. Those that heard it say it rings even now in their ears. She threw herself upon him. The crimson blood dyed her veil, as it hung loose and torn, and tinged the innocent pearls around her neck with its terrible hue. She fainted the second time, and would have fallen, but Aymer caught her; and they bore her upstairs, unconscious even of her misery.
The Place was silent. The guns were not fired, the bells were stilled. Men moved with careful footsteps, women hushed their voices, and in the stillness they heard the church clock slowly striking the hour of noon. At that moment she should have been returning, radiant and blissful in triumph, to meet the welcome from her father’s lips.
There was one that could not understand it—one dumb beast that could not be driven away. It was Dando, the mastiff dog. Strangely enough, he avoided the chamber of the dead, and crouched at the door of Violet’s room.
When Merton saw it he said, “Let the dog go in; maybe, he will relieve her a little.”
But Violet, lying on a couch, conscious now and tearless, despairing in the darkened room, motioned him away. “Take him away,” she said. “If he had been faithful, he would have watched and guarded.”
It was a natural thought, but it was not just. Poor Dando, like the rest, had gone to the church with the crowd; and just at the moment when he was most wanted, then he was absent
