CHAPTER XLII.
HER LORD AND MASTER
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 have known that 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't cast me off because of that horrid money! I could not bear it now!"
"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, how preposterous! 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 – of you, 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 is I who am seeking you– "
"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 – I can'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. It must vex her to see me acting so – so – "
"So what? No, I don't think it does. She was a 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, but I don'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.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING
"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 for him, 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, Elizabeth did forget 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 really was going 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 I cannot understand 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, from your point 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's fiancé and 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 he could have 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 this life," 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 really living. 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 being too happy – too happy to last," said the girl audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."