Part 26 (2/2)
”Here is trouble!” I said, sighing to myself. ”Trouble that gold cannot gild, nor the sparkle of diamonds hide. Alas! alas! that a human soul, in which was so fair a promise, should get so far astray!”
I met Mr. Floyd half an hour later. His face was pale and troubled, and his eyes upon the ground. He did not see me--or care to see me--and so we pa.s.sed without recognition.
Before night the little warning sentence, written by the Saratoga correspondent, was running from lip to lip all over S----. Some pitied, some blamed, and not a few were glad in their hearts of the disgrace; for Mrs. Dewey had so carried herself among us as to destroy all friendly feeling.
There was an expectant pause for several days. Then it was noised through the town that Mr. Dewey had returned, bringing his wife home with him. I met him in the street on the day after. There was a heavy cloud on his brow. Various rumors were afloat. One was--it came from a person just arrived from Saratoga--that Mr. Dewey surprised his wife in a moonlight walk with a young man for whom he had no particular fancy, and under such lover-like relations, that he took the liberty of caning the gentleman on the spot. Great excitement followed. The young man resisted--Mrs. Dewey screamed in terror--people flocked to the place--and mortifying exposure followed. This story was in part corroborated by the following paragraph in the Herald's Saratoga correspondence:
”We had a spicy scene, a little out of the regular performance, last evening; no less than the caning of a New York sprig of fas.h.i.+on, who made himself rather more agreeable to a certain married lady who dashes about here in a queenly way than was agreeable to her husband. The affair was hushed up. This morning I missed the lady from her usual place at the breakfast-table. Later in the day I learned that her husband had taken her home. If he'll accept my advice, he will keep her there.”
”Poor Mrs. Floyd!” It was the mother's deep sorrow and humiliation that touched the heart of my Constance when this disgraceful exposure reached her. ”She has worn to me a troubled look for this long while,” she added. ”The handsome new house which the Squire built, and into which they moved last year, has not, with all its elegant accompaniments, made her any more cheerful than she was before. Mrs. Dean told me that her sister was very much opposed to leaving her old home; but the Squire has grown rich so fast that he must have everything in the external to correspond with his improved circ.u.mstances. Ah me! If, with riches, troubles so deep must come, give me poverty as a blessing.”
A week pa.s.sed, and no one that I happened to meet knew, certainly, whether Mrs. Dewey was at home or not. Then she suddenly made her appearance riding about in her stylish carriage, and looking as self-a.s.sured as of old.
”That was a strange story about Mrs. Dewey,” said I to a lady whom I was visiting professionally. I knew her to be of Mrs. Dewey's set.
Don't smile, reader; we had risen to the dignity of having a fas.h.i.+onable ”set,” in S----, and Mrs. Dewey was the leader.
The lady shrugged her shoulders, drew up her eyebrows, and looked knowing and mysterious. I had expected this, for I knew my subject very well.
”You were at Saratoga,” I added; ”and must know whether rumor has exaggerated her conduct.”
”Well, Doctor,” said the lady, dropping her voice, and putting on the air of one who spoke in confidence. ”I must say that our friend was not as discreet as she might have been. Nothing wrong--that is, criminal--of course. But the truth is, she is too fond of admiration, and encourages the attentions of young men a great deal more than is discreet for any married woman.”
”There was an actual rencontre between Mr. Dewey and a person he thought too familiar with his wife?” said I.
”Oh, yes. Why, it was in the newspapers!”
”How was it made up between the parties?”
”It isn't made up at all, I believe; There's been some talk of a duel.”
”A sad affair,” said I. ”How could Mrs. Dewey have been so thoughtless?”
”She isn't prudent, by any means,” answered this intimate friend. ”I often look at the way she conducts herself at public places, and wonder at her folly.”
”Folly, indeed, if her conduct strikes at the root of domestic happiness.”
The lady shook her head in a quiet, meaning way.
I waited for her to put her thoughts into words, which she did in a few moments after this fas.h.i.+on:
”There's not much domestic happiness to spoil, Doctor, so far as I can see. I don't think she cares a farthing for her husband; and he seems to have his mind so full of grand business schemes as to have no place left for the image of his wife. At least, so I read him.”
”How has this matter affected their relation one to the other?”
”I have not seen them together since her return, and therefore cannot speak from actual observation,” she replied.
There was nothing very definite in all this, yet it revealed such an utter abandonment of life's best hopes--such a desolation of love's pleasant land--such a dark future for one who might have been so n.o.bly blest in a true marriage union, that I turned from the theme with a sad heart.
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