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Read Ebook: Belford's Magazine Vol 2 December 1888 by Various
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Ebook has 1637 lines and 76286 words, and 33 pages
wheeling round, he for the first time descried her; but seeing who it was, and that she was asleep, he was reassured, and replied indifferently:
"Oh, it's all right--nobody but that mischief-making old cat who foists herself upon us six months out of every twelve. You gave me an awful scare. But she's as deaf as an adder when awake, and can't hear thunder when asleep. Come, let's go to the billiard-room and have a game. I feel like a new man, now that I've got a respite from this business until after Christmas."
"Well, I can't forget that it's only a respite, and my anxiety will spoil Christmas for me."
"And so will mine, I suppose, but we must not show it."
"Oh, what a pair of reprobates we are!" groaned Plowden, as his host led him away to the billiard-room, which, as is frequently seen in the South, was a detached structure, at a little distance from the main building.
No sooner had the front door closed behind the gentlemen than Miss Fithian sprang up. Pallid and quivering with wrath, she muttered half audibly:
"So I'm 'a mischief-making old cat,' am I? and I 'foist myself on' you, you villain! do I? and I'm 'deaf as a post and an adder,' am I? Well, I'm not so deaf but what I heard the whole of your vile plot to conceal your crimes; and if I am deaf--you hypocrites! you conspirators! you bigamists!--you shall find that I'm not dumb!"
CHRISTMAS EVE.
Only the persons already mentioned in this narration sat down that afternoon to what was destined to be a fateful Christmas Eve dinner. Smiling faces masked anxious hearts, all round the board. The Wildfens had had a more than usually spirited battle of words just before coming down from their room. Mr. Honey endured the misery of constant effort for the maintenance of a correct deportment, to insure which his wife seemed to fix her gray eyes steadily upon him with a stony glare, while she held an iron-shod heel ever ready to crunch his corns as a silent monition. Edna was still afraid that her husband had not really forgiven her in his heart; and Rutherford's mind was far from easy. Plowden felt that he might just as well be a murderer as a mere bigamist, so conscience-stricken and care-ridden was he. Miss Fithian, osseous, grim, and scowling, looked like "the skeleton at the feast," and felt like "the dread Avenger." The only undisturbed soul present was that of pretty, gentle Mrs. Plowden.
Walnuts and wine were reached at last. Then Mrs. Wildfen remembered how fond Mrs. Honey used to be of making speeches, wherever she might air her oratorical gifts, and in an unlucky moment called upon her to make a speech.
Mrs. Honey was in the act of rising to respond, when Miss Fithian, rudely pushing her down upon her chair, took precedence and demanded of Mrs. Wildfen:
"You want a speech, do you? I'll make you one that will make certain persons here tremble."
There was no doubt about that. Two of them--the conspirators--were trembling already. They felt instinctively that the hour of trouble for them had arrived.
"Cousin Edna," continued the spinster, "I regret the pain I feel it my duty to inflict upon you, but that false husband of yours has again deceived you."
"Silence!" cried Rutherford in a commanding tone to Miss Fithian.
Plowden, who had been struggling with a sudden faintness, suddenly succumbed to it and fell against his wife, who cried out in alarm, "Rob! Rob! what's the matter?"
"What!" cried Mrs. Rutherford, as Mrs. Plowden at the same moment exclaimed: "His daughter! Of course not. He never had a daughter. Had you, ducky?"
"Ducky" was unable to quack a negative, or even to respond when Mr. Rutherford in a stentorian voice called: "Give this woman the lie, Plowden."
"And what if he should," retorted Miss Fithian; "who would believe the word of a bigamist?"
"A bigamist!" cried a chorus of voices.
"Do you mean that my husband is a bigamist?" demanded Mrs. Plowden, jumping to her feet, her eyes flashing.
"I do mean it. Ask him."
"Deny it, Rob, love! Mr. Plowden! Deny it, darling," urged Gertrude, seizing his collar and giving him a shake.
The movement disturbed the doubtful balance of his limp form; he slid from his chair and disappeared under the table, almost unconscious. Surprise at his sudden vanishing-act so startled everybody that a momentary silence ensued, in which sounded sharply the ringing of the front-door bell. Honey instinctively jumped up to answer the summons, but was promptly recalled by his quick-witted wife to a proper realization of his altered social condition. That poised heel came down with such vigor on his toes that he howled with pain.
"Do that 'ere just once more," he yelled, savagely, "han' I'll cut loose from you for good."
"You never can hear a bell ring but you want to run and answer it," she retorted, in an undertone.
At this juncture, Sam, the old darkey factotum, shambled in with a card, for which Honey, in his pain and confusion, unthinkingly stretched out his hand. Sam gave it to him and left the room.
"Who is it? Who is it?" demanded several voices.
"Read it out, Mr. Honey," called Mrs. Wildfen.
"I cawn't, ma'am; hit's writin', an' I cawn't read writin'."
"William!" cried Mrs. Honey, in an awful voice, snatching the card from him and again bringing down that merciless heel upon his already aching toes. Honey sprang to his feet with a cry of anger and pain, half-threatening and half-whining--the vocal outcome of his divided emotions--proclaiming:
"That settles it. I told you I would if you did it wunst more. 'Arriet, I said I would, and I will. I'm a-goin', for wunst and hallways."
As he dashed out of the room, with a ludicrous limp, there was a general cry of "Come back, Honey! come back!" But Mrs. Honey arose and, though very pale, said with much dignity:
A blood-curdling groan nearly froze the blood in the veins of the guests. It came from under the table, whence, simultaneously with it, emerged Plowden, to whom terror lent instant animation and activity.
"My wife!" he breathed, huskily.
"Your wife!" exclaimed Gertrude. "Then it is true! You are a bigamist!"
"Yes! No! She's dead! Save me from her!" he cried incoherently, rushing to the French window overlooking the lawn and throwing it open. "You will forgive me, Gertrude," he declaimed, with his foot upon the window-sill, "when the black waters are surging over my head. Farewell! Farewell forever!" And leaping out into the darkness, he was gone.
"Stop him! stop him, someone!" pleaded Gertrude. "He will drown himself!"
"He can't," sneered Miss Fithian; "the fish-pond is frozen over."
"I would advise you, sir," now remarked Mrs. Rutherford to her husband, in a voice of suppressed passion, "to follow your fellow-criminal."
"I will, madam," he retorted, in a like tone of restrained fury; "and since you actually presume to order me from my own house, I go--never to return." As he spoke, he too passed out through the window.
A momentary awe seemed to oppress those remaining at the table. The silence was soon broken, however, by Wildfen saying to his wife:
"A pretty row you've made all around, haven't you?"
"I!" exclaimed Lydia, in amazement.
"Yes, you."
"How?"
"Why, by giving Mrs. Honey a letter of introduction to Mrs. Rutherford--as you confessed to me you did."
"I'm sure I didn't mean any harm by it."
"You did," persisted the quarrelsome Wildfen. "You're always making mischief and pretending you don't mean to."
"I'm not."
"You are. And I want to tell you, once for all, that I'm tired of your eternally contradicting me. Do it once more, just once, and I'll follow the other gentlemen."
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