"You are thinking of clothes, of course."
"No, I am not thinking of clothes. I am thinking of what people will say. You can have no idea of the extraordinary tales that will get about. I must consider Elizabeth."
"Iconsider Elizabeth," he said. "And before Mr. Brion makes his communication, whatever it may be, I should like to have it settled and understood that the arrangements she and I have made will be permitted to stand." He paused, and stood looking at Mrs. Duff-Scott, with an air that impressed her with the hopelessness of attempting to oppose such a man as that.
"I don't know what to say," she said. "We will talk it over presently."
"No, I want it settled now. Elizabeth will do whatever you desire, but I want her to please me." The major chuckled, and, hearing him, Mr. Yelverton laughed for a moment, and then bent his emphatic eyes upon the old man sitting silent before his unopened papers. "I want you and everybody to understand that whatever is to be said concerns my wife and sisters, Mr. Brion."
"Very good, sir," said Mr. Brion. "I am delighted to hear it. At the same time I would suggest that it might be wiser not to hurry things quite so much."
At this point Patty, who had been laughing and crying in her handkerchief, and clinging to Eleanor, who had come round the table and was hanging over her, suddenly broke into the discussion. "Oh, let them, let them, let them!" she exclaimed eagerly, to the bewilderment of the uninitiated, who were quite sure that some social disability was about to be attached to the bride elect, from which her lover was striving to rescue her. "Do let them be married to-morrow, dear Mrs. Duff-Scott, if Mr. Yelverton wishes it. Elizabeth knows why she consents—I know, too—so does Nelly. Give them your permission now, as he says, before Mr. Brion goes on—how can anyone say anything against it ifyouapprove? Let it be all settled now—absolutely settled—so that no one can undo it afterwards." She turned and looked at the major with such a peculiar light and earnestness in her face that the little man, utterly adrift himself, determined at once to anchor himself to her. "Look here," he said, in his gentle way, but with no sign of indecision, "I am the head of the house, and if anybody has any authority over Elizabeth here, it is I. Forgive me, my dear"—to his wife at the other end of the table—"if I seem to take too much upon myself, but it appears to me that I ought to act in this emergency. Mr. Yelverton, we have every reason to trust your motives and conduct, and Elizabeth's also; and she is her own mistress in every way. So you may tell her from my wife and me that we hope she will do whatever seems right to herself, and that what makes her happy will make us so."
Mrs. Duff-Scott got up from her chair proudly, as if to leave the room where this outrage had been put upon her; but she sat down again and wept a few tears instead. At the unwonted sight of which Patty flew round to her and took her majestic head into her young arms. "Ah! how ungrateful weseemto hurt and vex you," she murmured, in the tone of a mother talking to a suffering child, "but you don't know how it is all going to turn out. If you give them your consent now, you will see how glad you will be in a little while."
"It doesn't seem that anybody cares much whether I give my consent or not," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. But she wiped away her tears, kissed her consoler, and made an effort to be cheerful and business-like. "There, there—we have wasted enough time," she said, brusquely. "Go on, Mr. Brion, or we shall have dinner time here before we begin."
"Shall I go on?" asked Mr. Brion, looking round.
Mr. Yelverton, who was very grave, nodded.
And Mr. Brion went on.
It was not much after three o'clock when Elizabeth walked slowly upstairs to her room, bearing single-handed her own responsibilities. Now that she was alone and undisturbed, she began to realise how great they were. She sat down on her little bed to think what she was doing—to look back upon the past, and forward into the future—until her head spun round. When she could think no more, she slid down upon her knees and prayed a fervent, wordless prayer—rested her over-weighted soul on the pillars of the universe, which bore up the strange little world in which she was but an infinitesimal atom—and, feeling that there was a strong foundation somewhere, and perhaps even feeling dimly that she had touched her point of contact with it only just now when she touched her true love's lips, she felt less intolerably burdened with the charge of herself. She rose up with her nerves steadied and her brain composed. What was done was done, and it had been done for the best. "We can but do our best, and leave it," he had said; and, thinking of his words, a sense of his robust faith, which she did not call faith, permeated her unsettled mind and comforted her with the feeling that she would have support and strength in him. She could not repent. She could not wish anything to be altered. She loved him and needed him; and he loved and needed her, and had a right to her. Yes, he had a right to her, independently of that fortune which was hers and which she dared not take away from him while he was using it so much better than she could, he was her mate and lord, and she belonged to him. What reason was there against her marrying him? Only one; Mrs. Duff-Scott's reason, which even she had abandoned, apparently—one obligation of duty, which conscience, left to its own delicate sense of good and evil, refused to insist upon as such. And what reason was there against marrying him to-morrow, if he desired it, and by doing which, while they would be made so happy, no one else could be made unhappy? She was unlearned in the social views and customs concerning such matters, and said in her simple heart there was no reason whatever—none, none.
So she set to work on her preparations, her eyes shining and her hands trembling with the overwhelming bliss of her anticipations, which awed and dazzled her; beset at intervals with chill misgivings, and thrills of panic, dread and fear, as to what effect upon her blessed fortune that afternoon's work at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house might have. She took off her pretty gown, which he had sanctified by his approval, and laid it tenderly on the bed; put on a loose wrapper, pulled out drawers and opened cupboards, and proceeded to pack her portmanteau for that wedding journey which she still could not believe was to be taken to-morrow. If such a sudden demand upon the resources of her wardrobe had been made a few months ago, she would have been greatly perplexed to meet it. Now she had, not only a commodious portmanteau (procured for their country visit), but drawers full of fine linen, piles of handkerchiefs, boxes of gloves, everything that she could need for an indefinite sojourn either in the world or out of it. When Mrs. Duff-Scott had gained their consent to be allowed to become a mother to them, she had lost no time in fitting them all out as became her adopted daughters, in defiance of any scruples or protests that they might make. Elizabeth's trousseau, it seemed to her, as she filled one side of the portmanteau with dainty underclothes delicately stitched and embroidered and frilled with lace, had been already provided for her, and while her heart went out in gratitude to her munificent friend, she could not help feeling that one of the dearest privileges of being rich was to have the power to acknowledge that munificence suitably. Only that very day, for the first time, she had seen an indication that tended to confirm her and Patty's instinctive sense that they had made a mistake in permitting themselves to accept so many favours. Eleanor, feeling herself already rich and the potential possessor of unlimited fine clothes, had put on her Cup dress and bonnet to walk out with Mr. Brion; and Mrs. Duff-Scott, when she met her in the Exhibition grounds, and while thrown for a moment off her usual even balance, had looked at the girl with a disapproving eye, which plainly accused her of extravagance—in other words, of wasting her (Mrs. Duff-Scott's) substance in riotous living. That little incident, so slight and momentary as it was, would have been as terrible a blow to them as was Paul Brion's refusal of their invitation to tea, had it not been that they were no longer poor, but in a position to discharge their obligations. She thought how Mrs. Duff-Scott would come to Yelverton by-and-bye, and to the London house, and how she (Elizabeth) would lavish the best of everything upon her. It was a delightful thought.
While she was building air castles, she sorted and folded her clothes methodically, and with motherly care turned over those belonging to her sisters, to see that they were well provided for and in need of nothing for the time of her brief absence. While investigating Patty's wardrobe, she thought much of her dear companion and that next-door neighbour, still in their unreconciled trouble, and still so far from the safe haven to which she was drawing nigh; and she was not too selfish in her own happiness to be unable to concern herself anxiously about theirs. Well, even this was to be set right now. She and Kingscote, with their mutually augmented wisdom and power, would be able to settle that matter, one way or another, when they returned from their wedding journey. Kingscote, who was never daunted by any difficulties, would find a way to solve this one, and to do what was best for Patty. Then it occurred to her that if Patty and Paul were married, Paul might want to keep his wife in Australia, and the sisters, who had never been away from each other, might be doomed to live apart. But she persuaded herself that this also would be prevented, and that Paul, stiff-necked as he was, would not let Patty be unhappy, as she certainly would be if separated by the width of the world from herself—not if Kingscote were at hand, to point it out to him in his authoritative and convincing manner. As for Nelly, she was to comfort Mrs. Duff-Scott for awhile, and then she was to come, bringing the fairy godmother with her, to Yelverton, to live under her brother-cousin's protection until she, too, was married—to someone better, far better, than Mr. Westmoreland. Perhaps the Duff-Scotts themselves would be tempted (by the charms of West-End and Whitechapel society, respectively) to settle in England too. In which case there would be nothing left to wish for.
At five o'clock she had finished her packing, put on her dress—not the wedding dress, which was laid smoothly on a cupboard shelf—and sat down by the sitting-room window to wait for her sisters, or for somebody, to come to her. This half-hour of unoccupied suspense was a very trying time; all her tremulous elation died down, all her blissful anticipations became overcast with chill forebodings, as a sunny sky with creeping clouds, while she bent strained eyes and ears upon the street, watching for the news that did not come. In uncontrollable excitement and restlessness, she abandoned her post towards six o'clock, and set herself to prepare tea in the expectation of her sisters' return. She spread the cloth and set out the cups and saucers, the bread and butter, the modest tin of sardines. As the warm day was manifestly about to close with a keen south wind, she thought she would light a fire in the sitting-room and make some toast. It was better to have something to do to distract her from her fierce anxieties, and, moreover, she wished the little home nest to be as cosy and comfortable as possible to-night, which might be the last night that the sisters would be there together—the closing scene of their independent life. So she turned up her cuffs, put on gloves and apron, and fetched wood and coals from their small store in the back-yard; and then she laid and lit a fire, blew it into as cheerful a blaze as the unsatisfactory nature of city fuel and a city grate permitted, and, having shaken down her neat dress and washed her hands, proceeded to make the toast. She was at this work, kneeling on the hearthrug, and staring intently into the fire over a newly-cut slice of bread that she had just put upon the fork, when she heard a sound that made her heart stand still. It was the sound of a cab rattling into the street and bumping against the kerb at her own gate. Springing to her feet and listening breathlessly, she heard the gate open to a quiet, strong hand that belonged to neither of her sisters, and a solid tread on the flags that paved a footpath through the little garden to the door. At the door a quick rapping, at once light and powerful, brought the servant from her underground kitchen, and a sonorous, low voice spoke in the hall and echoed up the stairs—the well-known voice of Kingscote Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton, unaccompanied by anybody else—paying his first visit to this virgin retreat, where, as he knew very well, his sweetheart at this moment was alone, and where, as he also knew, the unchaperoned male had no business to be. Evidently his presence announced a crisis that transcended all the circumstances and conventionalities of every-day life.
He walked upstairs to her sitting-room, and rapped at the door. She could not tell him to come in, for her heart seemed to be beating in her throat, and she felt too suffocated to speak; she stumbled across to the door, and, opening it, looked at him dumbly, with a face as white as the white frills of her gown. He, for his part, neither spoke to her nor kissed her; his whole aspect indicated strong emotion, but he was so portentously grave, and almost stern, that her heart, which had fluttered so wildly at the sight of him, collapsed and sank. Taking her hand gently, he shut the door, led her across the room to the hearthrug, and stood, her embodied fate, before her. She was so overwhelmed with fear of what he might be going to say that she turned and hid her face in her hands against the edge of the mantelpiece, that she might brace herself to bear it without showing him how stricken she was.
"Well," he said, after a little pause, "I have been having a great surprise, Elizabeth. I little thought what you were letting me in for when you arranged that interview with Mr. Brion. I never was so utterly out of my reckoning as I have found myself to-day."
She did not speak, but waited in breathless anguish for the sentence that she foreboded was to be passed upon her—condemning her to keep that miserable money in exchange for him.
"I know all about the great discovery now," he went on. "I have read all the papers. I can testify that they are perfectly genuine. I have seen the marriage register that that one was copied from—I can verify all those dates, and names, and places—there is not a flaw anywhere in Mr. Brion's case. You are really my cousins, and you—you, Elizabeth—are the head of the family now. There was no entail—it was cut off before my uncle Patrick's time, and he died before he made a will: so everything is yours." After a pause, he added, brokenly, "I wish you joy, my dear. I should be a hypocrite if I said I was glad, but—but I wish you joy all the same."
She gave a short, dry sob, keeping her face hidden; evidently, even to him, she was not having much joy in her good fortune just now. He moved closer to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"I have come now to fetch you," he said, in a low, grave tone, that was still unsteady. "Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted to come herself, but I asked her to let me come alone, because I have something to say to you that is only between ourselves."
Then her nervous terrors found voice. "Oh, tell me what it is!" she cried, trembling like a leaf. "Don't keep me in suspense. If you have anything cruel to say, say it quickly."
"Anything cruel?" he repeated. "I don't think you are really afraid of that—from me. No, I haven't anything cruel to say—only a simple question to ask—which you will have to answer me honestly, Elizabeth."
She waited in silence, and he went on. "Didn't you tell me"—emphasising each word heavily—"that you had been induced by something outside yourself to decide in my favour?"
"Not altogether induced," she protested; "helped perhaps."
"Helped, then—influenced—by outside considerations?"
"Yes," she assented, with heroic truthfulness.
"You were alluding to this discovery, of course?"
"Yes."
"And you have consented to marry me in order that I may not be deprived of my property?" She did not speak immediately, from purely physical incapacity, and he went on with a hardening voice. "I will not be married on those grounds, Elizabeth. You must haveknownthat I would not."
For a moment she stood with her face hidden, struggling with a rising tide of tears that, when these terrible words were spoken, would not be kept in check; then she lifted her head, and flung out her arms, and clasped him round his great shoulders. (It is not, I own, what a heroine should have done, whose duty was to carry a difficulty of this sort through half a volume at least, but I am nevertheless convinced that my real Elizabeth did it, though I was not there to see—standing, as she did, within a few inches of her lover, and with nothing to prevent their coming to a reasonable understanding.) "Oh," she cried, between her long-drawn sobs, "don'tcast me off because of that horrid money! I could not bear itnow!"
"What!" he responded, stooping over her and holding her to his breast, speaking in a voice as shaken as her own, "is it really so? Is it for love of me only, my darling, my darling?"—pouring his long pent-up passion over her with a force that seemed to carry her off her feet and make the room spin round. "Would you have me if there was no property in the question, simply because you feel, as I do, that we could not do without each other? Then we will be married to-morrow, Elizabeth, and all the world shall be welcome to brand me a schemer and fortune-hunter if it likes."
She got her breath in a few seconds, and recovered sufficient consciousness to grasp the vanishing tail of those last words.
"A fortune-hunter! Oh, howpreposterous!A fortune-hunter!"
"That is what I shall seem," he insisted, with a smile, "to that worthy public for whose opinion some people care so much."
"But you don't care?"
"No; I don't care."
She considered a moment, with her tall head at rest on his tall shoulder; then new lights dawned on her. "But I must care for you," she said, straightening herself. "I must not allow anything so unjust—so outrageous—to be said of you—ofyou, and through my fault. Look here"—very seriously—"let us put off our marriage for a while—for just so long as may enable me to show the world, as I very easily can, that it isIwho am seekingyou—"
"Like a queen selecting her prince consort?"
"No, like Esther—seeking favour of her king. I would not be too proud to run after you—" She broke off, with a hysterical laugh, as she realised the nature of her proposal.
"Ah, my darling, that would be very sweet," said he, drowning her once more in ineffable caresses, "but to be married to-morrow will be sweeter still. No, we won't wait—Ican't—unless there is an absolute necessity for it. That game would certainly not be worth the candle. What is the world to me if I have got you? I said we would be married to-morrow; I told Mrs. Duff-Scott so, and got her consent—not without some difficulty, I must own—before Mr. Brion opened his budget. I would not hear what he had to say—little thinking what it was I was going to hear!—until I had announced my intentions and the date of our wedding. Think of my cheek! Conceive of such unparalleled impudence! But now that everything is square between us, that date shall be kept—it shall be faithfully kept. Come, then, I must take you away. Have you done your packing? Mrs. Duff-Scott says we are to bring that portmanteau with us, that she may see for herself if you have furnished it properly. And you are not to come back here—you are not to come to me to the Exhibition to-morrow. She was terribly scandalised at that item in our programme."
"In yours," said Elizabeth, ungenerously.
"In mine. I accept it cheerfully. So she is going to take charge of you from this hour until you are Mrs. Yelverton, and in my sole care for the rest of your life—or mine. Poor woman, she is greatly cut up by the loss of that grand wedding that she would have had if we had let her."
"I am sure she must be cut up," said Elizabeth, whose face was suffused with blushes, and whose eyes looked troubled. "She must be shocked and vexed at such—such precipitancy. It really does not seem decorous," she confessed, with tardy scrupulousness; "do you think it does?"
"Oh, yes, I think it is quite decorous. It may not be conventional, but that is quite another thing."
"It is like a clandestine marriage—almost like an elopement. Itmustvex her to see me acting so—so—"
"So what? No, I don't think it does. Shewasa little vexed at first, but she has got over it. In her heart of hearts I believe she would be disappointed now if we didn't do it. She likes a little bit of innocent unconventionalism as well as anybody, and the romance of the whole thing has taken hold of her. Besides," added Mr. Yelverton, "you know she intended us for each other, sooner or later."
"You have said as much before, butIdon't know anything about it," laughed Elizabeth.
"Yes, she told me I might have you—weeks ago."
"She was very generous."
"She was. She was more generous than she knew. Well"—catching himself up suddenly—"we really must go to her now, Elizabeth. I told her I would only come in here, where I have no business to be to-day, for half a minute, and I have stayed more than half an hour. It is nearly dinner time, and I have a great deal to do this evening. I have more to do even than I bargained for."
"Why more?" she asked, apprehensively.
"I am going to have some papers prepared by Mr. Brion and the major's lawyers, which you will have to sign before you surrender your independence to-morrow."
"I won't sign anything," said Elizabeth.
"Oh, won't you! We'll see about that."
"I know what it means. You will make me sign away your freedom to use that money as your own—and I won't do it."
"We'll see," he repeated, smiling with an air which said plainly that if she thought herself a free agent she was very much mistaken.
"Now, where is that portmanteau?"
"It is in my room."
"Strapped up?"
"Yes."
"Let me take it down to the cab. Have you anything else to do?"
"Only to change my dress."
"Don't be long about it; it is seven o'clock. I will wait for you downstairs."
Mr. Yelverton walked into the passage, possessed himself of the portmanteau, and descended the stairs to the little hall below. The wide-eyed maid-of-all-work hastened to offer her services. She had never volunteered to carry luggage for the Miss Kings, but she seemed horrified at the sight of this stalwart gentleman making a porter of himself. "Allow me, sir," she said, sweetly, with her most engaging smile.
"Thank you, my girl; I think I am better able to carry it than you are," he said, pleasantly. But he scrutinised her face with his keen eyes for a moment, and then took a sovereign from his pocket and slipped it into her hand. "Go and see if you can help Miss King," he said. "And ask her if there is anything you can do for her while she is away from home."
"Oh, sir"—simpering and blushing—"I'm sure—anything—" and she rushed upstairs and offered her services to Elizabeth in such acceptable fashion that the bride-elect was touched almost to tears, as by the discovery of a new friend. It seemed to her that she had never properly appreciated Mary Ann before.
Mr. Yelverton meanwhile paced a few steps to and fro on the footpath outside the gate, looking at his watch frequently. Paul Brion was at home, listening to his father's account of the afternoon's events and the news of the imminent marriage, with moody brow and heavy heart; it was the end of the romance forhim, he felt, and he was realising what a stale and flat residuum remained in his cup of life. He had seen Mr. Yelverton go to No. 6 with fierce resentment of the liberty that the fortunate lover permitted himself to take with those sacred rights of single womanhood which he, Paul, had been so scrupulous to observe; now he watched the tall man pacing to and fro in the street below, waiting for his bride, with a sense of the inequalities of fortune that made him almost bloodthirsty. He saw the portmanteau set on end by the cabdriver's seat; he saw Elizabeth come forth with a bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other, followed by the servant with an ulster and a bonnet-box. He watched the dispossessed master of Yelverton, who, after all, had lost nothing, and had gained so much, and the great heiress who was to know Myrtle Street and obscurity no more, as they took their seats in the vehicle, she handed in by him with such tender and yet masterful care. He had an impulse to go out upon the balcony to bid her good-bye and God-speed, but he checked it proudly; and, surveying her departure from the window of his sitting-room, convinced himself that she was too much taken up with her own happiness to so much as remember his existence. It was the closing scene of the Myrtle Street drama—the last chapter of the charming little homely story which had been the romance of his life. No more would he see the girls going in and out of the gate of No. 7, nor meet them in the gardens and the street, nor be privileged to offer them his assistance and advice. No more would he sit on his balcony of nights to listen to Beethoven sonatas and Schubert serenades. The sponge had been passed over all those pleasant things, and had wiped them out as if they had never been. There were no longer any Miss Kings. And for Paul there was no longer anything left in life but arid and flavourless newspaper work—the ceaseless grinding of his brains in the great mill of the Press, which gave to the world its daily bread of wisdom, but had no guerdon for the producers of that invaluable grist.
In truth, Elizabethdidforget all about him. She did not lift her eyes to the window where he sat; she could see and think of nothing but herself and her lover, and the wonderful circumstances that immediately surrounded them. When the cabman closed the door upon them, and they rattled away down the quiet street, it was borne in upon her that she reallywasgoing to be married on the morrow; and that circumstance was far more than enough to absorb her whole attention. In the suburbs through which they passed it was growing dusk, and the lamps were lighted. A few carriages were taking people out to dinner. It was already evening—the day was over. Mrs. Duff-Scott was standing on her doorstep as they drove up to the house, anxiously looking out for them. She had not changed her morning dress; nor had Patty, who stood beside her. All the rules of daily life were suspended at this crisis. A grave footman came to the door of the cab, out of which Mr. Yelverton helped Elizabeth, and then led her into the hall, where she was received in the fairy godmother's open arms.
"Take care of her," he said to Patty, "and make her rest herself. I will come back about nine or ten o'clock."
Patty nodded. Mrs. Duff-Scott tried to keep him to dinner, but he said he had no time to stay. So the cab departed with him, and his betrothed was hurried upstairs to her bedroom, where there ensued a great commotion. Even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had tried to stand upon her dignity a little, was unable to do so, and shared the feverish excitement that possessed the younger sisters. They were all a little off their heads—as, indeed, they must have been more than women not to be. The explanations and counter-explanations, the fervid congratulations, the irrepressible astonishment, the loving curiosity, the tearful raptures, the wild confusion of tongues and miscellaneous caresses, were very bewildering and upsetting. They did, in fact, bring on that attack of hysterics, the first and last in Elizabeth's life, which had been slowly generating in her healthy nervous system under the severe and various trials of the day. This little accident sobered them down, and reminded them of Mr. Yelverton's command that Elizabeth was to be made to rest herself. The heiress was accordingly laid upon a sofa, much against her wish, and composed with sal-volatile, and eau-de-cologne, and tea, and fans, and a great deal of kissing and petting.
"But Icannotunderstand this excessive, this abnormal haste," Mrs. Duff-Scott said, when the girl seemed strong enough to bear being mildly argued with. "Mr. Yelverton explains it very plausibly, but still I can't understand it, fromyourpoint of view. Patty's theory is altogether untenable."
"I don't understand it either," the bride-elect replied. "I think I had an idea that it might prevent him from knowing or realising that I was giving him the money instead of his giving it to me—I wanted to be beforehand with Mr. Brion. But of course that was absurd. And if you can persuade him to put it off for a few weeks—"
"O dear no!—I know him too well. He is not a man to be persuaded. Well, I am thankful he is going to let you be married in church. I expected he would insist on the registry office. And he has promised to bring you back to me at the end of a fortnight or so, to stay here all the time till you go home. That is something." The fairy godmother was certainly a little huffy—for all these wonderful things had come to pass without her permission or assistance—but in her heart of hearts, as Mr. Yelverton had suspected, she was charmed with the situation, and as brimful of sympathy for the girl in her extraordinary circumstances as her own mother could have been.
They had a quiet dinner at eight o'clock, for which the major, who had been despatched to his solicitors (to see about the drawing up of that "instrument" which Miss Yelverton'sfiancéand cousin required her to sign on her own behalf before her individuality was irrevocably merged in his), returned too late to dress, creeping into the house gently as if he had no business to be there; and Elizabeth sat at her host's right hand, the recipient of the tenderest attentions and tit-bits. The little man, whose twinkling eye had lost its wonted humour, was profoundly touched by the events that had transpired, and saddened by the prospect of losing that sister of the three whom he had made his own particular chum, and with the presentiment that her departure would mean the loss of the others also. He could not even concern himself about the consequences to his wife of their removal from the circle of her activities, so possessed was he by the sad vision of his house left desolate. Perhaps the major felt himself getting old at last, and realised that cakes and ale could not be heaped upon his board for ever. He was certainly conscious of a check in his prosperous career, by the translation of the Miss Kings, and a feeling of injury in that Providence had not given him children that hecouldhave kept around him for the solace of his declining years. It was hard to have just learned what it was to have charming daughters, and then to be bereaved of them like this, at a moment's notice. Yet he bore his disappointment with admirable grace; for the little major, despite all the traditions of his long-protracted youth, was the most unselfish of mortals, and a gentleman to the marrow of his bones.
In the evening he went to town again, to find Mr. Yelverton. Mrs. Duff-Scott, when dinner was over, had a consultation with her cook, and made arrangements for a festive luncheon for the following day. The girls went upstairs again, and thither their adopted mother presently followed them, and they spent an hour together in Elizabeth's bedroom, absorbed in the sad but delightful business of overhauling her portmanteau. By this time they were able to discuss the situation with sobriety—a sobriety infused with much chastened emotion, to be sure, but still far removed from the ferment of hysterics. Patty, in particular, had a very bracing air about her.
"Now I call thislife," she said, flourishing open the skirt of one of Elizabeth's dresses to see if it was fit to be worn on a wedding journey; "I call this reallyliving. One feels as if one's faculties were given for some purpose. After all, it is not necessary to go to Europe to see the world. It is not necessary to travel to gain experience and to have adventures. Is not this frock too shabby, Mrs. Duff-Scott—all things considered?"
"Certainly," assented that lady, promptly. "Put in her new cashmere and the Indian silk, and throw away those old things now."
"Go and get the Indian silk, Nelly. It is in the wardrobe. And don't hang over Elizabeth in that doleful manner, as if she were going to have her head cut off, like Lady Jane Grey. She is one of the happiest women on the face of the earth—or, if she isn't, she ought to be—with such a prospect before her. Think of it! It is enough to make one gnash one's teeth with envy."
"Let us hope she will indeed realise her prospects," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, feeling called upon to reprove and moderate the pagan spirit that breathed in Patty's words. "Let us hope she will be as happy in the future as she is now."
"Oh, she will—she will! Let us hope she will have enough troubles to keep her from beingtoohappy—too happy to last," said the girl audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."
"You may say what you like, but it is a rash venture," persisted the matron, shaking her head. "She has known him but for such averyshort time. Really, I feel that I am much to blame to let her run into it like this—with so little knowledge of what she is undertaking. And hehasa difficult temperament, Elizabeth. There is no denying it—good and nice as he is, he is terribly obstinate about getting his own way. And if he is sonow, what will he be, do you suppose, presently?"
Patty, sitting on her heels on the floor, with her sister's clothes spread around her, looked up and laughed.
"Ah! that is one safeguard against too much happiness, perhaps. I do think, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, that you have met your master, my dear."
"I don't think it," replied Elizabeth, serenely. "I know I have."
"And you are quite content to be mastered?"
"Yes—by him."
"Of course you are. Who would marry a chicken-hearted milksop if she could get a splendid tyrant like that?" exclaimed Patty, fervently, for the moment forgetting there were such things as woman's rights in the world. "I wouldn't give a straw for a man who let you have your own way—unless, of course, he was no wiser than you. A man who sets up to domineer when he can't carry it out thoroughly is the most detestable and contemptible of created beings, but there is no want of thoroughness abouthim. To see him standing up at the table in the library this afternoon and defying Mrs. Duff-Scott to prevent him from marrying you to-morrow did one's heart good. It did indeed."
"I daresay," said the fairy godmother. "But I should like to seeyouwith a man like that to deal with. It is really a pity he did not take to you instead of Elizabeth. I should have liked to see what would have happened. The 'Taming of the Shrew' would have been a trifle to it."
"Well," said Patty, "he will be my brother and lawful guardian to-morrow, and I suppose I shall have to accept his authority to a certain extent. Then you will see what will happen." She was silent for a few minutes, folding the Indian silk into the portmanteau, and a slow smile spread over her face. "We shall have some fights," she said, laughing softly. "But it will be worth while to fight with him."
"Elizabeth will never fight with him," said Eleanor.
"Elizabeth!" echoed Patty. "She will be wax—she will be butter—simply. She would spoil him if he could be spoiled. But I don't think he is spoilable. He is too tough. He is what we may call an ash tree man. And what isn't ash-tree is leather."
"You are not complimentary," said Nelly, fearing that Elizabeth's feelings might be hurt by what seemed an allusion to the bridegroom's complexion.
"Pooh! He is not the sort of man to compliment. Elizabeth knows what I mean. I feel inclined to puff myself out when I think of his being our own kith and kin—a man like that. I shall have ever so much more confidence in myself now that I know I have his blood in my veins; one can't be so near a relation without sharing some of the virtue of it—and a little of that sort ought to go a long way. Ha!"—lifting her finger for silence as she heard a sound in the hall below—"there he is."
Mrs. Duff-Scott's maid came running upstairs to say, "Please'm, could you and the young ladies come down to the library for a few minutes?" She was breathless and fluttered, scenting mystery in the air, and she looked at Elizabeth with intense interest. "The major and Mr. Yelverton is 'ome," she added, "and some other gentlemen 'ave come. Shall I just put your 'air straight, Miss?"
She was a little Cockney who had waited on fine ladies in London, and was one of Mrs. Duff-Scott's household treasures. In a twinkling she had "settled up" Elizabeth's rather dishevelled braids and twitched her frills and draperies into trim order; then, without offering to straighten any one else, she withdrew into the background until she could safely watch them go downstairs to the hall, where she knew Mr. Yelverton was waiting. Looking over the balustrade presently, she saw the four ladies join him; three of them were passing on to the library, as feeling themselvesde trop, but were called back. She could not hear what was said, but she saw what was done, to the very best advantage. Mr. Yelverton fitted a substantial wedding-ring upon Miss King's finger, and then, removing it, put another ring in its place; a deeply-interested and sympathetic trio standing by to witness the little ceremony. The maid slipped down by the back-stairs to the servants' hall, and communicated the result of her observations to her fellow-servants. Mr. Yelverton meanwhile led Elizabeth into the library, where were seated at the same table where Mr. Brion had read his documents earlier in the day, three sedate gentlemen, Mr. Brion being one of them, with other documents spread out before them. The major was languidly fetching pens and ink from the writing-table in the window, and smiling furtively. He seemed to be amused by this latest phase of the Yelverton affair. His eyes twinkled with sagacious humour politely repressed, when he saw the betrothed couple enter the room together.
He hastened forward to put a chair for the interesting "client," for this one night his ward, at the head of the table; the girls and Mrs. Duff-Scott grouped themselves before the hearth to watch the proceedings, and whisper their comments thereupon. The bridegroom took his stand at Elizabeth's elbow, and intimated that it was his part to direct her what to do.
"Why should I do anything?" she inquired, looking round her from face to face with a vague idea of seeking protection in legal quarters. "It cannot make the least difference. I know that a woman's property, if you don't meddle with it, is her husband's when she is married"—this was before the late amendment of the law on this matter, and she was, as one of the lawyers advised her, correctly informed—"and if ever it should be so, it should be so inourcase. I cannot, I will not, have any separate rights. No"—as Mr. Yelverton laid a paper before her—"I don't want to read it."
"Well, you need not read it," he said, laughing. "Mr. Brion does that for you. But I want you to sign. It is nothing to what you will have to do before we get this business settled."
"Mr. Yelverton is an honourable man, my dear," said Mr. Brion, with some energy—and his brother lawyers nodded in acquiescence—as he gave her a pen.
"You need not tell me that," she replied, superbly. And, seeing no help for it, she took the pen and signed "Elizabeth Yelverton" (having to be reminded of her true name on each occasion) with the most reckless unconcern, determined that if she had signed away her husband's liberty to use her property as he liked, she would sign it back again when she had married him.
And this was the last event of that eventful day. At midnight, lawyers and lover went away, and the tired girls to bed, and Elizabeth and Patty spent their last night together in each other's arms.
After all, Elizabeth's wedding ceremonies, though shorn of much customary state, were not so wildly unconventional as to shock the feelings of society. Save in the matter of that excessive haste—which Mr. Yelverton took pains to show was not haste at all, seeing that, on the one hand, his time was limited, and that, on the other, there was absolutely nothing to wait for—all things were done decently and in order; and Mrs. Duff-Scott even went so far as to confess, when the bride and bridegroom had departed, that the fashion of their nuptials was "good art;" and that these were not the days to follow stereotyped customs blindfold. There was no unnecessary secrecy about it. Overnight, just, and only just, before she went to bed, the mistress of the house had explained the main facts of the case to her head servants, who, she knew, would not be able to repeat the story until too late for the publication of it to cause any inconvenience. She told them how the three Miss Kings—who had never been Miss Kings after all—had come in for large fortunes, under a will that had been long mislaid and accidentally recovered; and how Miss Elizabeth, who had been engaged for some considerable time (O, mendacious matron!), was to be married to her cousin, Mr. Yelverton, in the morning—very quietly, because both of them had a dislike to publicity and fuss. And in the morning the little Cockney lady's-maid, bringing them their tea, brought a first instalment of congratulations to the bride and her sisters, who had to hold alevéein the servants' hall as soon as they went downstairs. The household, if not boiling over with the excitement inseparable from a marriageà la mode, was in a pleasant simmer of decorous enjoyment; and the arrangements for the domestic celebration of the event lacked nothing in either completeness or taste. The gardener brought his choicest flowers for the table and for the bride's bouquet, which was kept in water until her return from church; and the cook surpassed himself in his efforts to provide a wedding breakfast that should be both faultless and unique. The men servants wore bits of strong-scented orange blossom in their button-holes, and the women white ribbons in their caps. They did what they could, in short, to honour the occasion and the young lady who had won their affection before she came into her inheritance of wealth, and the result to themselves and the family was quite satisfactory.
There was a great deal of cold weather in the last month of 1880, summer time though it was, and this special morning was very cold. Elizabeth had not the face to come down to the early breakfast and a blazing fire in the gown she had worn the day before, and Mrs. Duff-Scott would not hear of her going to church in it. "Do you suppose he is quite an idiot?" she indignantly demanded (forgetting the absolute indifference to weather shown in the conventional bridal costume), when the bride gave an excuse for her own unreasonableness. "Do you suppose he wants you to catch your death of cold on your wedding day?"
"What does it matter?" said Patty. "He won't care what you have on. Put it in the portmanteau and wear it at dinner every night, if he likes to see you in it. This morning you had better make yourself warm. He never expected the day to turn out so cold as this."
And while they were talking of it Mr. Yelverton himself appeared, contrary to etiquette and his own arrangements. "Good morning," he said, shaking hands impartially all round. "I just came in to tell you that it is exceedingly cold, and that Elizabeth had better put a warm dress on. One would think it was an English December day by the feel of the wind."
She got up from the breakfast-table and went out of the room, hurried away by Mrs. Duff-Scott; but in a minute she came back again.
"Did you come for anything in particular?" she asked, anxiously.
"No," he said, "only to take care that you did not put on that thin dress. And to see that you were alive," he added, dropping his voice.
"And we really are to be married this morning?"
"We really are, Elizabeth. In three quarters of an hour, if you can be at the church so soon. I am on my way there now. I am just going round to Myrtle Street to pick up old Brion."
"Pick up young Brion, too," she urged earnestly, thinking of Patty. "Tell him I specially wished it."
"He won't come," said Mr. Yelverton; "I asked him yesterday. His father says his liver must be out of order, he has grown so perverse and irritable lately. He won't do anything that he is wanted to do."
"Ah, poor boy! We must look after him, you and I, when we come back. Where are we going, Kingscote?"
"My darling, I fear you will think my plans very prosaic. I think we are just going to Geelong—till to-morrow or next day. You see it is so cold, and I don't want you to be fagged with a long journey. Mount Macedon would have been charming, but I could not get accommodation. At Geelong, where we are both strangers, we shall be practically to ourselves, and it is better to make sure of a good hotel than of romantic scenery, if you have to choose between the two—for the present, at any rate—vulgar and sordid as that sentiment may appear. We can go where we like afterwards. I have just got a telegram to say that things will be ready for us. You left it to me, you know."
"I am only too happy to leave everything to you," she said, at once. "And I don't care where we go—-it will be the same everywhere."
"I think it will, Elizabeth—I think we shall be more independent of our circumstances than most people. Still I am glad to have made sure of a warm fire and a good dinner for you at your journey's end. We start at twenty minutes past four, I may tell you, and we are to get home—home, my dear, which will be wherever you and I can be together, henceforth—at about half-past six. That will give you time to rest before dinner. And you will not be very tired, after such a little journey, will you?"
"Elizabeth!" called a voice from the corridor above their heads, "send Mr. Yelverton away, and come upstairs at once."
So Mr. Yelverton departed in his cab, to pick up old Brion and await his bride at the nearest church; and he was presently followed by the major in his brougham, and a little later by Mrs. Duff-Scott's capacious open carriage, containing herself and the three sisters, all in woollen walking dresses and furs. And Elizabeth really was married, still to her own great surprise. She stood in the cold and silent church, and took Kingscote, her lover, to be her lawful husband, and legally ratified that irrevocable contract in the clearest handwriting. He led her out into the windy road, when it was over, and put her into the brougham—the major taking her place in the other carriage, and on their way back both bride and bridegroom were very serious over their exploit.
"You have the most wonderful trust in me," he said to her, holding her still ungloved hand, and slipping the wedding ring round on her finger—"the most amazing trust."
"I have," she assented, simply.
"It rather frightens me," he went on, "to see you taking me so absolutely for granted. Do you really think I am quite perfect, Elizabeth?"
"No," she replied, promptly.
"Well, I am glad of that. For I am far from it, I assure you." Then he added, after a pause, "What are the faults you have to find with me, then?"
"None—none," she responded fervently. "Your faults are no faults to me, for they are part of you. I don't want you perfect—I only want you to be always as I know you now."
"I think I am rather a tyrant," he said, beginning to criticise himself freely, now that she showed no disposition to do it, "and perhaps I shall bully you if you allow me too much latitude. I am too fond of driving straight at everything I want, Elizabeth—I might drive over you, without thinking, some day, if you give me my own way always."
"You may drive over me, if you like, and welcome," she said, smiling.
"You have no consideration for your rights as a woman and a matron?—no proper pride?—no respect for your dignity, at all?"
"None whatever—now."
"Ah, well, after all, I think it is a good thing for you that I have got you. You might have fallen into worse hands. You are just made to be a victim. And you will be better off as my victim than you might have been as another man's victim."
"Much better," she said. "But I don't think I should have been another man's victim."
When they reached Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, Patty and Eleanor, who had arrived a few minutes earlier, met their brother and sister, kissed them both, and took Elizabeth upstairs, where they tenderly drew off her furs and her bonnet, and waited upon her with a reverential recognition of her new and high estate. During their absence, Mr. Yelverton, Mr. Brion, and their host and hostess stood round the drawing-room fire, talking over a plan they had hatched between them, prior to taking leave of the old lawyer, who had to depart for his country home and business by an afternoon boat. This plan provided for a temporary disposal of that home and business at an early date, in order that Mr. Brion might accompany the entire party—the major and his wife, Mr. Yelverton and the three sisters—to England as the legal adviser of the latter, it having been deemed expedient to take these measures to facilitate the conveyance and distribution of the great Yelverton property. The old man was delighted at the prospect of his trip, which it was intended should be made both profitable and pleasant to him, and at the certainty of being identified for some time longer with the welfare of his young friends. Mrs. Duff-Scott was also ardent in her anticipation of seeing Elizabeth installed at Yelverton, of investigating the philanthropical enterprises of Elizabeth's husband, and of keeping, during the most critical and most interesting period of their career, the two unappropriated heiresses under her wing. The major was pleased to join this family party, and looked forward with some avidity to the enjoyment of certain London experiences that he had missed from his cup of blessings of late years.
"And the dear girls will not be separated, except for this little week or two," said the fairy godmother, wiping away a surreptitious tear. "How happy that will make them!"
They entered the room as she spoke, clinging together; and they sat down round the hearthrug, and were drawn into the discussion. Yes, it did make them happy, they said; it was the sweetest and brightest of plans and prospects. Only Patty, thinking of Elizabeth and Nelly going and Paul Brion left behind, felt her heart torn in two.
The wedding breakfast was the mid-day lunch, to which they were summoned by the butler with his bridal favour in his button-hole. The little party of seven, when they went into the dining-room, found that apartment decorated with flowers and evergreens in a manner wonderful to behold, considering the short notice that had been given. The table was glorious with white blossoms of every description, the orange predominating and saturating the air with its almost too strong fragrance; and the dishes and the wines would have done honour to the bridal banquet of a princess. Little did anyone care for dishes and wines, except the host and hostess, who would have been less than mortal had they not felt interested therein; and most of them were glad to get the meal over. Some healths were drunk in the major's best dry champagne, and three little speeches were delivered; and then Mr. Brion respectfully begged to be excused, said good-bye all round, made his Grandisonian bow, and departed.
"Tell Paul," said Elizabeth (she could call him Paul now), "that we have missed him to-day."
"I will, my dear, I will," said the old man. And when he delivered that message half-an-hour later, he was hurt to see in what a bad spirit it was received. "I daresay!" was Paul's cynical comment.
When Mr. Brion was gone, the little family returned to the drawing-room, and again sat round the bright fire, and behaved themselves as if nothing had happened. Elizabeth spread out her hands to the warmth, and gazed at her thick wedding ring meditatively: and the girls, who hung about her, gazed at it also with fascinated eyes. Mr. Yelverton sat a little apart, and watched his wife furtively. Mrs. Duff-Scott chatted, recalling the topography and notable features of Geelong. They had afternoon tea, as usual (only earlier than usual), in the familiar precious teacups, out of the familiar Queen Anne teapot. There was an every-day homeliness about this quiet hour, and yet it seemed that years had come and gone since yesterday. Presently Mr. Yelverton's watch-case was heard to shut with a sharp click, and the bride turned her head quickly and looked at him. He nodded. And as she rose from her low chair, holding out her hand to the faithful Patty, the wheels of the brougham crunched over the gravel in front of the windows. It was time to go.
And in ten minutes more they were gone. Like that monarch who went into his own kingdom and shut the door, Elizabeth went into hers—to assume the crown and sceptre of a sovereignty than which no woman can boast a greater, let her be who she may—passing wholly into her strong husband's keeping without one shadow of regret or mistrust left in her heart, either for herself or him. They were driven to Spencer Street, where, while they waited a few minutes for their train, people who knew them stared at them, recognising the situation. They paced up and down the platform, side by side, she in her modest cloth dress and furs; and, far from avoiding observation, they rather courted it unconsciously, in a quiet way. They were so proud of belonging to each other, and from the enclosure of their own kingdom the outside world seemed such an enormous distance off. They went to Geelong in a saloon car full of people—what did it matter to them?—and at the seaside station found a carriage waiting for them. And by half-past six, as her husband said, Elizabeth reached home. There was a bright and cosy sitting-room, with a table prettily set for theirtête-à-têtedinner, and a bright fire (of wood and not coal—a real bush fire) crackling on the hearth. In an inner room there was a fire too; and here, when her portmanteau had been unstrapped, and while Kingscote was consulting with the landlord, she hastily threw off her wraps and travelling dress, twisted up her fine hair afresh, put on that delicate gown that she had worn yesterday morning—could it possibly, she asked herself, have beenonlyyesterday morning?—and made herself as fair to look upon as she knew how. And, when she opened the door softly, trembling with excitement and happiness, he was waiting for her, standing on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire—looking at her as he had looked that day, not so very long ago, when they were in the cave together, he on one side of the gulf and she on the other. He held out his arms again, and this time she sprang into them, and lifted her own to clasp his neck. And so they stood, without moving or speaking—"resting before dinner"—until the waiter, heralding his approach by a discreet tap at the door, came in with the soup-tureen.
The bride and bridegroom did not return to Melbourne until the day before Christmas—Friday the 24th, which was a warm, and bright, and proper summer day, but working up for a spell of north winds and bush fires before the year ran out. They had been wandering happily amongst the lovely vales and mountains of that sequestered district of Victoria which has become vaguely known as the "Kelly Country," and finding out before they left it, to their great satisfaction, that Australia could show them scenery so variously romantic as to put the charms of the best hotels into the shade. Even that terrestrial paradise on the ferny slopes of Upper Macedon was, if not eclipsed, forgotten, in the beauty of the wilder woodland of the far Upper Murray, which was beyond the reach of railways. They had also been again to visit the old house by the sea and Mr. Brion; had dawdled along the familiar shore in twilight and moonlight; had driven to the caves and eaten lunch once more in the green dell among the bracken fronds; had visited the graves of that other pair of married lovers—that Kingscote and Elizabeth of the last generation—and made arrangements for the perpetual protection from disturbance and desecration of that sadly sacred spot. And it was only on receipt of an urgent telegram from Mrs. Duff-Scott, to remind them that Christmas was approaching, and that she had devised festivities which were to be more in honour of them than of the season, that they remembered how long they had been away, and that it had become time to return to their anxious relatives.
They arrived in Melbourne by the 3.41 train from Ballarat, where they had broken a long journey the evening before, and found Patty and Eleanor and the major's servants waiting for them at Spencer Street. The meeting between the sisters, after their first separation, was silent, but intensely impressive. On the platform though they were, they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes, unconscious of the attention they attracted, unable to find words to express how much they had missed each other and how glad they were to be reunited. They drove home together in a state of absolute happiness; and at home Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major were standing on their doorstep as the carriage swept up the broad drive to the house, as full of tender welcomes for the bride as any father or mother could have been, rejoicing over a recovered child. Elizabeth thought of the last Christmas Eve which she and her sisters, newly orphaned and alone in the world, poor in purse and destitute of kith and kin, spent in that humble little bark-roofed cottage on the solitary cliff; and she marvelled at the wonderful and dazzling changes that the year had brought. Only one year out of twenty-nine!—and yet it seemed to have held the whole history of her life. She was taken into the drawing-room and put into a downy chair, and fed with bread and butter and tea and choice morsels of news, while Patty knelt on the floor beside her, and her husband stood on the hearthrug watching her, with, his air of quiet but proud proprietorship, as he chatted of their travels to the major. It was very delightful. She wondered if it were really herself—Elizabeth King that used to be—whose lines had fallen on these pleasant places.
While the afternoon tea was in progress, Eleanor fidgetted impatiently about the room. She was so graceful and undulating in her movements that her fidgetting was only perceived to be such by those who knew her ways; but Elizabeth marked her gentle restlessness, in spite of personal preoccupations.
"Do you want me to go upstairs with you?" she inquired with her kind eyes, setting down her teacup; and Nelly almost flew to escort her out of the room. There was to be a large dinner party at Mrs. Duff-Scott's to-night, to "meet Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton on their return," all Melbourne having been made acquainted with the romance of their cousinship and marriage, and the extent of their worldly possessions, during their absence.
"It is to be so large," said Patty, as her brother-in-law shut the drawing-room door upon the trio, "that even Mrs. Aarons will be included in it."
"Mrs. Aarons!" echoed Elizabeth, who knew that the fairy godmother had repaid that lady's hospitality and attentions with her second-best bit of sang-de-boeuf crackle and her sole specimen of genuine Rose du Barry—dear and precious treasures sacrificed to the demands of conscience which proclaimed Mrs. Aarons wronged and insulted by being excluded from the Duff-Scott dinner list. "And she is really coming?"
"She really is—though it is her own right to receive, as I think Mrs. Duff-Scott perfectly remembered when she sent her invitation—accompanied, of course, by Mr. Aarons."
"And now," said Nelly, looking back, "Patty has got her old wish—she reallyisin a position to turn up her nose, at last."
"Oh," said Patty, vehemently, "don't remind me of that wicked, vulgar, indecent speech! Poor woman, who am I that I should turn up my nose at her? I am very glad she is coming—I think she ought to have been asked long ago. Why not? She is just as good as we are, every bit."
Eleanor laughed softly. "Ah, what a difference in one's sentiments does a large fortune make—doesn't it, Elizabeth? Patty doesn't want to turn up her nose at Mrs. Aarons, because, don't you see, she knows she can crush her quite naturally and comfortably by keeping it down. And, besides, when one has got one's revenge—when one has paid off one's old score—one doesn't want to be mean and barbarous. Oh," exclaimed Nelly, rapturously, "I never thought that being rich was so delicious as it is!"
"I hope it won't spoil you," said Elizabeth.
"I hope it won't spoilyou," retorted the girl, saucily. "You are in far greater danger than I am."
By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Eleanor, who had led the way, opened the door, not of Elizabeth's old bedroom, but of the state guest-chamber of the house; and she motioned the bride to enter with a low bow. Here was the explanation of that impatience to get her upstairs. Elizabeth took a few steps over the threshold and then stood still, while the tears rushed into her eyes. The room had been elaborately dressed in white lace and white ribbons; the dressing-table was decorated with white flowers; the bed was covered with an æsthetic satin quilt, and on the bed was spread out a bridal robe—white brocade, the bodice frilled with Brussels lace—with white shoes, white gloves, white silk stockings, white feather fan, white everythingen suite.
"This is your dress for to-night," said Patty, coaxing it with soft hands. "And you will find lots more in the wardrobe. Mrs. Duff-Scott has been fitting you up while you have been away."
Upon which Nelly threw open the doors of the wardrobe and pulled out the drawers, and displayed with great pride the piles and layers of new clothes that the fairy godmother had laboriously gathered together; the cream, or, to speak more correctly (if less poetically), the butter, churned from the finest material that the Melbourne shops could produce, and "made up" by a Collins Street mademoiselle, whose handiwork was as recognisable to the local initiated as that of Elise herself. The bride had been allowed no choice in the matter of her own trousseau, but she did not feel that she had missed anything by that. She stood and gazed at the beautiful garments, which were all dim and misty as seen through her tears, with lips and hands trembling, and a sense of misgiving lest such extravagant indulgence of all a woman's possible desires should tempt Fate to lay hands prematurely upon her. Then she went to find her friend—who had had so much enjoyment in the preparation of her surprise—and did what she could by dumb caresses to express her inexpressible sentiments.
Then in course of time these upsetting incidents were got over, and cheerful calmness supervened. As the night drew on, Mrs. Duff-Scott retired to put on her war paint. Nelly also departed to arrange her own toilet, which was a matter of considerable importance to her in these days. The girl who had worn cotton gloves to keep the sun from her hands, a year ago, had developed a great faculty for taking care of her beauty and taking pains with her clothes. Patty lingered behind to wait on Elizabeth. And in the interval before the bridegroom came up, these two had a little confidential chat. "What have you been doing, my darling," said the elder sister, "while I have been away?"
"Oh, nothing much," said Patty, rather drearily. "Shopping about your things most of the time, and getting ready for our voyage. They say we are to go as far as Italy next month, because January is the best time for the Red Sea. And they want the law business settled. It is dreadfully soon, isn't it?" This was not the tone of voice in which Italy was talked of a year ago.
"And you haven't—seen anybody?"
"No, I haven't seen anybody. Except once—and then he took off his hat without looking at me."
Elizabeth sighed. She was herself so safe and happy with her beloved that she could not bear to think of this other pair estranged and apart, making themselves so miserable.
"And what about Nelly and Mr. Westmoreland?" she inquired presently.
"Nelly is a baby," said Patty, with lofty scorn, "and Mr. Westmoreland is a great lout. You have no idea what a spectacle they are making of themselves."
"What—is it going on again?"
"Yes, it is going on—but not in the old style. Mr. Westmoreland has fallen in love with her really now—as far as such a brainless hippopotamus is capable of falling in love, that is to say. I suppose, the fact of her having a great fortune and high connections makes all the difference. And she is really uncommonly pretty. It is only in these last weeks that I have fully understood how much prettier she is than other girls, and I believe he, to do him justice, has always understood it in his stupid, coarse way."
"And Nelly?"
"Nelly," said Patty, "has been finding out a great deal lately. She knows well enough how pretty she is, and she knows what money and all the other things are worth. She is tasting the sweets of power, and she likes it—she likes it too much, I think—she will grow into a bit of a snob, if she doesn't mind. She is 'coming the swell' over Mr. Westmoreland, to use one of his own choice idioms—not exactly rudely, because she has such pretty manners, but with the most superb impertinence, all the same—and practising coquetry as if she had been beset with abject lovers all her life. She sits upon him and teases him and aggravates him till he doesn't know how to contain himself. It istooridiculous."
"I should have thought he was the last man to let himself be sat upon."
"So should I. But he courts it—he obtrudes his infatuated servility—he goes and asks her, as it were, to sit upon him. It has the charm of novelty and difficulty, I suppose. People must get tired of having their own way always."
"But I can't understand Nelly."
"You soon will. You will see to-night how she goes on, for he is coming to dinner. She will tantalise him till he will forget where he is, and lose all sense of decency, and be fit to stamp and roar like a great buffalo. She says it is 'taking it out of him.' And she will look at the time so sweet and serene and unconscious—bah! I could box her ears," concluded Patty.
"And Mrs. Duff-Scott encourages him still, then?"
"No. That is another change. Mrs. Duff-Scott has withdrawn her gracious favour. She doesn't want him now. She thinks she will make a pair of duchesses of us when she gets us to London, don't you see? Dear woman, I'm afraid she will be grievously disappointed, so far as I am concerned. No, ever since the day you went away—which was the very day that Mr. Westmoreland began to come back—she has given him the cold shoulder. You knowwhata cold shoulder it can be! There is not a man alive who could stand up against it, except him. But he doesn't care. He can't, or won't, see that he is not wanted. I suppose it doesn't occur to him thathecan possibly be unwelcome anywhere. He loafs about the house—he drops on us at Alston and Brown's—he turns up at the theatre—at the Exhibition—at Mullen's—everywhere. We can't escape him. Nelly likes it. If a day passes without her seeing him, she gets quite restless. She is like a horrid schoolboy with a cockroach on a pin—it is her great amusement in life to see him kicking and struggling."
"Perhaps she really does care about him, Patty."
"Not she. She is just having her revenge—heartless little monkey! I believe she will be a duchess, after all, with a miserable old toothless creature for her husband. It would be no more than she deserves. Oh, Elizabeth!"—suddenly changing her voice from sharps to flats—"howbeautifulyou do look! Nelly may be a duchess, and so might I, and neither of us would ever beat you forpresence. I heard Mrs. Duff-Scott the other day congratulating herself that the prettiest of her three daughters were still left to dispose of. I don't believe we are the prettiest, but, if we are, what is mere prettiness compared with having a head set on like yours and a figure like a Greek statue?"
Elizabeth had been proceeding with her toilet, in order to have leisure to gossip with her husband when he came up; and now she stood before her long glass in her bridal dress, which had been composed by Mrs. Duff-Scott with an unlimited expenditure of taste and care. The material of it was exceptionally, if not obtrusively, rich—like a thick, dull, soft silk cloth, covered all over with a running pattern of flowers severely conventionalised; and it was made as plain as plain could be, falling straight to her feet in front, and sweeping back in great heavy folds behind, and fitting like a pliant glove to the curves of her lovely shape. Only round the bodice, cut neither low nor high, and round her rather massive elbows, had full ruffles of the lace that was its sole trimming been allowed; and altogether Mrs. Yelverton's strong points were brought out by her costume in a marvellously effective manner.
There was a sound at this moment in the adjoining room, on hearing which Patty abruptly departed; and the bride stood listening to her lord's footsteps, and still looking at herself in the glass. He entered her room, and she did not turn or raise her eyes, but a soft smile spread over her face as if a sun had risen and covered her with sudden light and warmth. She tried to see if the waist of her gown was wrinkled, or the set of it awry, but it was no use. When he came close to her and stooped to kiss her white neck, she lost all recollection of details.
"You want," he said, about ten minutes afterwards, when he had himself turned her round and round, and fingered the thick brocade and the lace critically, "you want diamonds with such a stately dress."
"Oh, no," she said; "I won't have any diamonds."
"Youwon't, did you say? This language tome, Elizabeth!"
"The diamonds shall go in beer and tobacco, Kingscote."
"My dear, they can't."
"Why not?"
"Because the Yelverton diamonds are heirlooms."
"Oh, dear me! Are there Yelverton diamonds too?"
"There are, I grieve to say. They have been laid up under lock and key for about forty years, and they must be very old-fashioned. But they are considered rather fine, and they are yours for the present, and as you can't make any use of them they may as well fulfil their purpose of being ornamental. You must wear them by-and-by, you know, when you go to Court."
"To Court?" reproachfully. "Is that the kind of life we are going to lead?"
"Just occasionally. We are going to combine things, and our duties to ourselves and to society. It is not going to be all Buckingham Palace, nor yet all Whitechapel, but a judicious blending of the two."
"And Yelverton?"
"And Yelverton of course. Yelverton is to be always there—our place of rest—our base of operations—our workshop—our fortress—our home with a capital H."
"Oh," she said, "we seem to have the shares of so many poor people besides our own. It overwhelms me to think of it."
"Don't think of it," he said, as she laid her head on his shoulder, and he smoothed her fine brown hair with his big palm. "Don't be afraid that we are destined to be too happy. We shall be handicapped yet."