CHAPTER XLVI.
“SADIE ROCHESTER IS ALREADY MY WIFE!”
Two hours later Salome emerged from her chamber and the careful hands of her maid, and presented herself before her husband.
“Will I do, True?” she quietly inquired, but with a conscious smile wreathing her red lips. It was not one of vanity, either, but of pure pleasure in her beauty for her husband’s sake.
Dr. Winthrop threw down the paper he had been reading and turned eagerly at the sound of her voice.
A low exclamation of delight escaped him.
“Will you do?” he repeated. “Why, Salome, you are absolutely perfect, from the crown of your dainty head to the sole of that tiny pearl-embroidered slipper!”
And truly she was.
Over a rich, lustrous white satin skirt there had been artistically draped an overdress of lace of an exquisite pattern, its folds being caught in various places by masses of gleaming satin ribbons and delicate sprays of frosted silver, representing bleached ferns. The foundation of the corsage was low, but the filmy lace came up high in the neck, except where it sloped away at the front in a V revealing her beautiful neck, which was like ivory.
There were no sleeves, save a fall of lace about a finger in width over the round shoulders, while her long gloves came a little above her elbows, revealing a portion of her perfect arm, around which just below the fall of lace, there was clasped a circlet of frosted gold set with diamonds.
Her hair was arranged as she was in the habit of wearing it, but with great care, and fastened here and there with small crescents of diamonds. Around her neck there was a chain of curiously wrought gold, and suspended from this was a Greek cross set with diamonds as large as peas, while in each ear there gleamed a superb solitaire.
Her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks delicately tinted, her scarlet lips just parted in a smile of anticipation, and she was a creature to make any man’s heart throb with delight, as she stood beneath the brilliantly lighted chandelier waiting to receive her husband’s verdict.
“I never dreamed how beautiful you were, Salome, until this moment,” he breathed, as he bent forward and softly kissed her forehead.
She threw her arms about his neck and laid her head upon his breast. His words of praise were very sweet to her.
“My darling, you will crush your dress,” Dr. Winthrop exclaimed, in fond protest.
“I do not care, now that you have seen me. I would not have had a fold disarranged before,” she said in reply.
She had dressed more for him than for the crowd of brilliant people who were to throng Mrs. Tillinghast’s parlors, and he smiled as he realized how indifferent she was to all other praise. It was evidently her belief that
“She’s adorned Amply that in her husband’s eye looks lovely— The truest mirror that an honest wife Can see her beauty in.”
They were a little late, and the villa was thronged with guests when they arrived.
Salome could not help feeling a pleasurable excitement in anticipation of mingling once more in society; still she dreaded the meeting with the Winthrops and Rochesters.
After she had removed her wrap she stepped across the hall to a small reception-room, and sat down to wait until her husband should come to take her below. But Mr. Tillinghast had met his friend and found so much to say, that the minutes flew by unheeded, and though Salome did not mind the waiting, she wondered what could keep him.
Suddenly she caught the sound of footsteps, and the rush of silken garments. The next instant a cry of dismay rang through the room, and, turning with a start, Salome saw Sarah Rochester standing before her, blank astonishment and terror written on her face, while her mother stood in the doorway just behind her, looking over her shoulder, and as pale as the white cashmere wrap that enveloped her form.
They had just arrived, and had mistaken the direction of the usher at the foot of the stairs, turning to the left instead of the right in their search for the dressing-rooms.
“Salome!” burst from the conscience-smitten girl, in a hoarse, unnatural tone, while Mrs. Rochester staggered inside the room and hastily closed the door, her bump of cautiousness asserting itself even in this emergency.
Salome wondered to find herself perfectly calm and self-possessed.
“Yes,” she said quietly, rising and confronting them, thus fully revealing the elegance and beauty of her costume; “you did not expect to meet me here this evening.”
“Heavens, mamma, it is Salome!” cried Miss Rochester, who had not really known whether it was her hated rival or some one who resembled her in a startling degree.
“Where did you come from?” gasped Mrs. Rochester, and unable to stand longer upon her trembling feet, she sank into the nearest chair.
“From the Hotel Quirinal, a few blocks above here,” Salome calmly responded.
Mrs. Rochester made an impatient gesture.
“But how—how——” she began with terrified impatience.
“How did I manage to escape from Dr. Arnot’s mad-house?—is that what you want to know, Mrs. Rochester?” Salome demanded, meeting the woman’s glance with a stern, direct look. “I can only answer that a merciful Providence delivered me from the horrible fate to which you had doomed me.”
“I had doomed you!” repeated Mrs. Rochester, in a shaking voice, great fear contending for the mastery within her.
“Yes, madam; it is useless for you to pretend ignorance, or to deny your agency in the matter, for Dr. Arnot confessed it,” Salome asserted.
“Dr. Arnot confessed it,” the frightened woman whispered with pale lips.
“Mamma, how could it have happened?” Sarah Rochester wildly exclaimed. “How could she have escaped? Who has helped her? And see her! She is dressed like an empress, or rather, like the bride of a prince! That dress is fit for a duchess; those diamonds are almost priceless! What does it mean? Where did you get them?” and she turned savagely upon Salome as she put this last question.
“The diamonds were the gift of a friend, who is dead; the dress was purchased at Worth’s in Paris,” the young wife placidly returned.
“That is very definite,” sneered Miss Rochester, who was beginning to recover herself somewhat. “You are evidently in a mysterious mood to-night. But I would like a straightforward answer to one question: Who brought you here to Rome?—for surely you did not follow us hither alone.”
Salome began to feel a trifle uncomfortable; for she knew that it would be a terrible shock to them when they should learn that Dr. Winthrop had rescued her from the prison to which they had doomed her, and brought her to Rome. Badly as they had treated her, wicked and hardened as they were, she could not help pitying them for the despair which she knew must overwhelm them when they should learn the truth.
“Girl, why don’t you answer?” angrily demanded Mrs. Rochester, as she hesitated to reply; “who brought you to Rome?”
“Her husband, madam,” said a stern, yet familiar voice behind them, and both women, turning at the sound, saw Dr. Winthrop just entering the room.
They could not have been whiter or more motionless if they had been statues hewn from marble, as they for a moment gazed with horror upon him, and realized at last the blasting truth.
Dr. Winthrop went forward to his wife’s side and drew her hand within his arm, with an air which betrayed how fondly devoted he was to her.
“I need not tell you,” he continued in the same tone, “that everything has been discovered—all your treachery—all your plotting and crime. I found my wife while visiting Dr. Arnot’s lunatic asylum in the pursuit of information regarding diseases of the brain. Madam, do you know the penalty for such a crime as yours?” the young physician demanded, in a voice which seemed to freeze the blood in her veins.
Oh, why had she never thought of such a contingency as this? She might have known that Dr. Winthrop would be going about to visit the various hospitals—why had she not authorized Dr. Arnot to keep Salome confined in a room by herself, and allow no one to see her?
Such thoughts flitted through her brain and drove her nearly to despair; but she was not one to be easily cowed, and she soon rallied her scattered wits, and resolved to put a bold front on the matter.
“But Salome is my daughter. I have committed no crime. As her guardian, I had a perfect right to put her where I chose,” she spiritedly retorted.
“Do you imagine that such an argument would be entertained for one moment by a jury, madam? You know very well that it would not, if I proclaimed Salome as my wife, and revealed why you had been guilty of such a crime.”
Mrs. Rochester sank back again, appalled by the mention of a jury, but his words had angered her daughter beyond endurance.
She realized that she had lost everything in the game that she had been playing, while Salome had won. The knowledge of her rival’s triumph and of her own defeat made her both desperate and reckless.
“Your wife!” she sneered. “Perhaps you may yet find yourself mistaken in that assertion; you may yet regret that you ever brought the girl here to-night to introduce her as Mrs. Winthrop when Rome shall ring with a bit of scandal which shall make your ears tingle.”
“I understand you, Miss Rochester,” Dr. Winthrop quietly returned; “but your contemptible spite will never be gratified to that extent; you will never receive the decree of divorce which you attempted to secure, for all proceedings were stopped before any harm was done. A few words of explanation in a cable message were sufficient to achieve that.”
The girl turned with a gesture of despair to her mother.
“We are beaten, mamma—miserably beaten!” she cried with white lips, and sinking into a chair she buried her face in her hands.
Dr. Winthrop led his wife quietly from the room, and closed the door upon the two wretched women.
“I am sorry for them,” Salome said, with a sigh as they went slowly downstairs.
“They do not deserve a particle of your sympathy,” her husband said, with rigidly compressed lips.
He had been obliged to put a severe curb upon himself during the recent interview, lest in his hot indignation he should forget that he was dealing with women.
“But wrong-doing brings far more misery than wrong-bearing,” the gentle girl returned.
“And why should it not, dear?” Dr. Winthrop asked. “It is a double sin, for it wrongs one’s self and others also. Now, my darling, let me see no clouds on your face to-night, for I want my friends to believe that my wife is happy.”
“I am, True; only——”
“Only you have such a tender heart, you wish to bear the burdens of others as well as your own,” he interposed, smiling. “Now, dear,” he added, “I do not mean to be too hard upon those two sinful women, but surely they do need to be brought to a sense of their guilt. When they manifest a proper spirit, then we will do as One of old taught us—tell them to ‘go and sin no more.’”
“O True! will you?” Salome said eagerly. “Then you do not mean to bring them before a jury—you will not pursue them—you will not openly disgrace them?”
“No, love, if they show themselves disposed to do what is right.”
Salome’s brow cleared at this assurance, and she exerted herself to appear her brightest for her husband’s sake.
He led her directly to their hostess, and after introducing her to the members of the family, he left her with Mr. Tillinghast, while he went to seek his mother.
He did not care to have her shocked in the presence of witnesses, but he wanted her to learn that night that he had found his wife; he wanted her to realize also, how she had been plotting against the very woman whom she had been so anxious he should marry.
He knew that she was there, for Mr. Tillinghast had told him that she was among the first to arrive, and he found her at last, conversing with a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman.
Madame Winthrop started, and her face lighted with sudden joy as she caught sight of him—her favorite son.
“My dear boy!” she exclaimed, as she clasped his hand; “when did you arrive?”
“This afternoon, and Tillinghast claimed me at once, telling me that I should meet you here,” Dr. Winthrop explained for the benefit of her companion, who, he thought, might wonder why he had not sought his mother first.
She introduced him then to the gentleman, who was a well-known and successful artist, and who, after conversing for a few moments, politely excused himself, and left the mother and son together.
Madam noticed at once that there was a great change in him—his manner was more animated, his face brighter and happier; there was in his tones a glad ring which she had not heard for years, while instead of those sternly compressed lines about his mouth, which had troubled her so long, his lips were constantly wreathed with genial smiles.
“Why have you come upon us so suddenly, True?—why did you not write and let us know when to expect you?” she asked, after the artist had left them.
“I have been very much engaged,” he replied evasively, but with a glow upon his face that made her marvel.
“Now that you are here, you will remain through the winter with us, will you not?” she asked wistfully.
“Perhaps—that will depend upon circumstances, however,” he answered.
“What circumstances?” she queried archly. “Does that mean if your wife is willing to remain in Rome?”
“Yes,” he gravely returned, but knowing well enough that she would interpret his reply far differently from what he meant. Then he added:
“Take my arm, mother, and let us get out of the crowd. I want to talk with you alone.”
She obeyed him, flushing with triumph as they passed from the room.
At last her fondest hopes were to be realized—at last the Rochester-Hamilton fortunes would be united, and life henceforth would be _couleur de rose_ for her.
Alas! she had no idea of the humiliation which the consummation of these anticipations would bring upon her.
“Do you really mean it, True?” she asked, in a glad low tone, as they reached the conservatory leading from the rear of the grand hall, “that you are ready to marry Sadie Rochester at last?”
“When I leave Rome my wife will accompany me,” he remarked, while he tried to think of the best way to break the truth to her.
“That will be delightful! Does Sadie know—is it all settled between you?” and the woman’s joyous face was a study.
“Yes, Sadie Rochester is already my wife,” he announced with startling abruptness.
“Truman! What—what can you mean?” madam exclaimed, amazed, as she anxiously searched his face.
“Just what I have said, mother.”
“You must be crazy then, True, unless you have been married since eight o’clock, for I left Sadie dressing for this reception when I came from home, and apparently the thought of your presence in the city had not entered her mind. I wish you would not joke upon the subject,” madam concluded, in a displeased tone.
“I am not joking; I have simply made a truthful statement that Miss Rochester is already my wife. She is here in this house; I have but just introduced her to Mrs. Tillinghast,” Dr. Winthrop affirmed, with a positiveness which alarmed his mother.
“My son, there is some mystery about this, and I beg that you will explain yourself. When were you married?”
“Two years ago next month.”
“What do you mean?” cried madam, in despair, and beginning to fear that the hard study of the last two months had turned his brain.
“Mother, listen!” the young man commanded. “Sadie Rochester and Sarah Rochester are two different persons. Sadie Rochester ran away from her step-mother because she ill-treated her. She fled to Boston, where she applied for a situation as nurse in the City Hospital. Then a little later she gave up some—too much—of her life-blood to save the life of your son, who afterward fell in love with her and married her. Mother, Salome Howland Rochester was the true Sadie Rochester, and the girl who has tried to palm herself off upon me as such is a contemptible impostor.”
Madame Winthrop had begun to comprehend the truth soon after her son had commenced to explain, and her face grew deathly white, her eyes almost wild with fear and mortification, as he proceeded to announce his startling facts.
“I—I cannot believe it,” she gasped, when he paused as above; “and besides—Salome is dead.”
“Salome is not dead; she saved herself from that fire,” Dr. Winthrop replied. “But learning afterward, that she was supposed to have been one of the victims, she let it be so understood, since she wished to be dead to her enemies and the husband, who, she had been led to believe, had disowned her.”
Madam’s proud head began to droop here, but her son went on:
“She became companion to a lady named Leonard; she won her heart by her goodness and loveliness. They came abroad after a time, were in Paris at the time the cholera broke out; Miss Leonard was attacked with it and died in the convent of the gray nuns, after having bequeathed her handsome fortune to Salome. My darling then adopted the dress of the gray nuns and resumed her old vocation of nursing. She was the means of doing an inestimable amount of good; she saved many lives. Mother, she was known as Sister Angela!”
“True! O True!” and the tone was full of agony and humiliation. “It cannot—cannot be!”
“It is every word true,” Dr. Winthrop went on relentlessly. “Salome, my wife, is one of the loveliest women on earth, and you and Evelyn have much to answer for, for your treatment of her. It is no fault of yours that she was not driven to her death—that both our lives were not irretrievably ruined. What if you had succeeded in making me marry that woman’s daughter—that impostor! Think of the disgrace, the misery which must have ensued! I should have lost, not only those fortunes, which you have been so determined to win at all costs, but my wife, my self-respect, and everything worth living for; you would have made a bigamist of me, and burdened me with a woman who is utterly without feeling or principle—who is false to the very core of her nature. Oh, my mother, why could you not have conquered your unworthy pride and ambition, and allowed the sweetness and nobility of that lovely girl to win you? All the wretchedness of these two long years need never have come to us. Think how beautifully Salome received and entertained you when you returned so suddenly from abroad; her conduct was simply perfect, both as a hostess and as a daughter, and she would have loved you tenderly if you had but opened your heart to her. Instead, you offered her scorn and slights. She bore all with the utmost sweetness, never showing the slightest retaliation, but denied herself in every possible way to conciliate you and Evelyn. What a contrast to these two women, to whom you have cringed and fawned, hoping to gratify your insatiable ambition. Think of what they are guilty! They have discovered Sister Angela’s identity.”
“What!” exclaimed Madame Winthrop, startled for the moment out of her shame and humiliation, “do they know?”
“Yes, they found her out while you and Evelyn were away from the chateau. She was suddenly taken ill, and in trying to restore her they learned her secret. They hid her in their own rooms, waiting upon her themselves until she was able to be moved, and then, with the cunning of devils, trapped her into a mad-house in Paris, where they hoped to bury her alive, and thus enable them to carry out their purpose of marrying Mrs. Rochester’s daughter to me. Do you realize what the success of such a plot would have involved? Do you realize the crimes that you have been aiding and abetting?—theft upon a wholesale scale, abduction and bigamy?”
Madame Winthrop threw out her hand with a gesture of horror at these ugly names.
“This is plain language, I know, mother,” Dr. Winthrop went on, “but you deserve to have the unvarnished truth set before you, and I want you to understand that if you had succeeded in accomplishing your purpose, the very end for which you have schemed would have been frustrated; the truth must surely have been revealed eventually, and then, ah! the shame and misery of it all!”