Puck — August 21, 1878 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. (Lynn Wood in Tinstey’s Magazine.) For Better, for Worse? Iconceupno.} PART IV. HOROUGHLY tired out with the vio- lence of her feelings and the long weary day, Florence gradually calmed down, and at last went fast asleep for about an hour. When she awoke she felt much calmer and happier than at any time during the past week, and full of hearty resolutions to retrieve her character in Edgar's eyes. She would win him back, even though he might have a little linger- ing fondness for that Mrs. Aldon. She would study his every wish, and so devote herself to him that he could not help but love her best, even though Mrs. Aldon were ten times more attractive than she was. Alas, poor little Florence, how little didst thou know the heart of man, especially of thy Edgar, that muscular bark in which thou didst invest thy whole treasure of worldly happiness! Had it been only some simple honest man, a plain man with plain feelings, a man whose heart was not filled up with his own idea, he could not have failed to recognize in thee that most precious gift to man, be he of the highest or the lowest—a brave, true-hearted woman— the true gold; one who would iiave gloried in carrying out her marriage vow to the letter, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sick- ness and in health, through good report and evil report. Though he might be faithless, and shame her before the world, yet would her love not have died, but as the mother fondles and caresses the miserable villain whose crimes have brought him to the gallows and her gray hairs to the verge of the grave, so she would have loved him unreservedly while she lived. But Edgar, like so many of his fellow-creatures, knew not his most precious possession. Quietly Florence opened her Bible, a hum- ble little book, which dated almost from her infancy, and had been through life her con- stant companion, and sitting demurely at the table, read and thought over one of its many marked passages for full half an hour, This done, she opened an artful little drawer at the back of her work-table, and abstracted thence a pile of snowy white linen, which, un- der those deft little hands whose whiteness al- most rivaled the material, was gradually assum- ing the form and shape of the most liliputian garments, outlined with lace and frilling ina maddeningly bewitching manner. Who could have looked upon Florence as she toiled without recognizing that most beau- tiful expression a woman’s face ‘can wear? It was nearly eleven o'clock, and Florence rang the bell. It was answered by the model foot- man, James. “You can lock up the house, James, all but the front door, and go to bed. Your. master will be home late to-night. I shall wait up.” James lingered a moment, and would like to have remonstrated; but his bringing up was too much for him, and he retired with the custom- ary grave bow of obedience. ‘Twelve o'clock struck, and Florence was be- ginning to fear all sorts of things for Edgar’s safety, when a cab drove rapidly up, and the truant husband was speedily locked in his wife’s arms. “My own darling Edgar, how dreadfully tired you must be, dear!” He did not answer a word, but followed her mechanically, with au expression of intense speechless fondness in his eyes that was pitiful to behold. Florence was quite frightened, and flung her white arms about him, kissing and fondling him like a mad thing, as if by sheer force of love she would bring him to himself. “Come in, Edgar dear; you are not well. Sit here, dear, in your own chair, and I'll bring you some supper. The servants have gone to bed, but I can get it in a minute. You know, dear, I’m not quite helpless in the kitchen.” With a little half-hysterical laugh she was about to run off down-stairs, when Edgar rose, and speaking for the first time, as if every word were an effort, said: “*No, dear, thank you. You must be very tired.” So they went up—Edgar first, with the same distraught mechanical air, and Florence follow- ing, scarcely able to drag her weary little body up the stairs. Never another word did Edgar utter. Be- fore half an hour had elapsed he was sleeping heavily at her side. Florence, poor child, thoroughly tired out as she was, felt as if she should never rest again. Years it seemed since that bright morning when, clad in all her bravery, she went forth on the expedition so dear to a woman's heart—that of shopping. From the moment when she saw that pretty, smiling, gesticulating thing leave her Edgar, himself all smiles and politeness, the sunlight seemed to have gone out of her life, and the Let’s go to bed. shadows had become broader and deeper, till | now, despite all her brave resolutions, and the calm she had derived from that unfailing little book, she felt full of a nameless terror. Ed- gar’s strange apathy, such a contrast to his usual light-heartedness, was perhaps the princi- pal cause of those vague feats. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and every- thing without sparkled with frosty rime. A nar- row side-window had inadvertently been left with | the blind drawn up, permitting the moon to throw one sheaf of green-white beams upon the floor. This quivering brilliant bar had a strange fascination for poor wakeful Florence. In vain she strove to direct her gaze to other things, to keep her eyes closed. With an irresistible fa- tality her gaze returned to this part of the room. At last it began to play tricks with her, rising from the floor in the semblance of a wo- man dressed in bridal white. _It was surely her own self; but no—not herself, it was altering; it was—yes, it was Mrs. Aldon, smiling, as she always did. Now she was gone; and Florence found herself sitting up in bed bathed inacold perspiration, and looking intently at the patch of moonlight, cold, uncertain, unaltered. Un- altered? No! There was a little white some- thing lying there scarcely perceptible. Was it there before? Of course, it must have been, and she must have dozed for a few minutes. Yet it was in fear and trembling that the little snow-clad creature, following the impulse of an unquenchable curiosity, crept from her nestling- place, and picked up the mysterious article. It was a handkerchief, a dainty lace-bordered handkerchief. That it was none of hers she knew at once, and at the same moment her crushed aching heart told her who was the owner. She need not have found the delicately embroidered initials C. A. to discover that. Noiseless, and in the crouching attitude of some poor beaten animal, she crept back to her place, lying with wide-open eyes encircled by such dark rings, and two white hands clasped tightly beneath her cheek. She was looking straight through the past fifteen months of married life, through the short and happy woo- ing, straight back to the time when all her life was to please her father, to make up to him as far as in her lay for the loss of his wife her mo- ther, his life-long grief. She remembered little tete-a-tetes, little jokes he had -made, the many pet endearing terms he was wont to lavish upon her. All these things crowded upon her mind with an intensity of pathos, yet her eyes were dry, and her heart felt cold and hard. “ Poor Florence! Poor Florence! Poor Florence!” Whence came these words? Could she have spoken them? she asked herself, in an awe- struck whisper. Again, ‘ Poor Florence! Poor Florence!” fell upon her ear in a low moaning wandering voice, like the soughing of the wind round a doomed dwelling. It was Edgar, talk- ing in his sleep. Again he spoke in the same disjointed manner, throwing himself round, so that she could see his handsome face, of which the features were working with some mysterious excitement. “If he should—kill me. Poor Florence! Poor—poor Flor—" For a few seconds Florence lay asinatrance, whilst a mysterious hand limned before her mind’s eye the shape and form of this unknown catastrophe. Then, with the protective in- stinct of a mother, she threw her arms about her husband, vowing a silent vow that, how- ever unworthy he might be, no danger should come to him that did not reach her first. ‘The tardy light—loth it seemed to usher in such a dismal day—at length dispelled the denser gloom, substituting for it a dim sort of twilight, which we in this favored isle, dnring most of the winter months, are fain to call daylight. It had drizzled for a week, and con- tinued to drizzle with dogged perseverance. Any man would have felt low-spirited, if only on account of the weather; and Edgar was low-spirited—undoubtedly so. From the mo- ment when he awoke, and kissed the little wife sleeping quietly at his side, to the moment when he stood bidding her good-bye in the hall, a tear had stood in each of his eyes, and the few quiet commonplaces he had spoken were uttered in that would-be extremely firm oice which betrayed itself at every syllable to Florence's highly-strang senses. She now clung to him as though she could never let him part from her; and he—well, it is no newthing fora man to weep unrestrainedly as he did; yet it is always most painful, and is usually the result of violent emotion long suppressed. At last he tore himself away; and Florence, with bursting heart and. streaming eyes, followed him down the road till there was absolutely no- thing more of him to be seen. For a minute she stood there motionless; then, as if seized with a sudden impulse, she rushed up to her bedroom, threw on a waterproof and a light summer bonnet that happened to be lying near, drew a thick black veil across her face, aud followed quickly in Edgar's steps. It was a good ten minutes’ walk to the station, and she soon came within sight of him. Just before he entered the doors, a tall soldierly man stepped up and tapped him smartly on the shoulder, at the same time whispering something in his ear. Edgar drew himself up haughtily, made some answer in return, and the stranger moved away. Up came the train, and Edgar jumped into a carriage without noticing the waterproof-clad little figure, who was helped into another com- partment at the last minute by the guard. When they arrived at the London station she got out and followed him as before, keeping herself unobserved. He went towards his own chambers, but did not enter them. She never expected he would. Passing on to the next doorway, he went up to the second floor, and after a few minutes, during which she leant for support against the wet dripping side of the tree that had become so engraven on her me- mory, Edgar came down again, talking earn- estly with another gentleman—a stranger to Florence, but who was no other than Mr, Jones, He, poor man, seemed quite in a fluster, and not a little frightened. He looked about him, in fact, as though he would have run away if he had dared, She followed them to a gunsmith’s and then they returned to the station. As it happened, comicbooks.com