AT THE ALTAR.
The morning broke as brightly as even the most superstitious of brides
could desire. Annie and Mary knocked softly at Olivia’s door as the
first bell rang, and Olivia opened the door herself, fully dressed in
her plain morning-frock.
“Why, dear,” they exclaimed, “up already, and dressed, too! We were
afraid we should wake you.”
“I have been up some time,” said Olivia. She did not add that she
had lain awake all night listening to the hours as they chimed, and
thinking how hideously unlike wedding bells they sounded.
“Isn’t it a lovely morning!” said Annie. “I am so glad, you can’t tell,
dear. I should have hated it to be wet. Don’t you look rather pale this
morning, or is it my fancy, Olly, dear?”
“Am I pale?” said Olivia, glancing at her white face in the glass. “But
it is quite correct, is it not? Brides should be pale, shouldn’t they?”
and she smiled.
The two light-hearted girls looked at her with a slightly puzzled
stare. The change that had come over the subject of their worship
bewildered and troubled them; but they were as far from understanding
it as they could well be.
“Everybody is up early to-day,” said Mary. “The whole house is on the
move. Oh, dear, I begin to feel quite nervous. Is there anything we
can do, dearest? Perhaps you would like to try your dress on again,”
coaxingly.
Olivia shook her head with another forced smile.
“I think not, Mary, dear. I’m afraid we are all rather tired of trying
on the wedding garment.”
“Oh, no, indeed we’re not!” they exclaimed in chorus. “We like it. You
can’t tell how lovely you look in it, Olivia. I should like all the
world to see you,” said Annie, with a pensive sigh. “I wish I were a
man and Mr. Bradstone.”
“I wish you were!” said Olivia, absently.
The girls laughed.
“What a strange speech for a bride-elect, Olly. But, oh, I wanted to
ask you,” said Mary, “is it true that Mr. Faradeane is not coming to
the wedding? We only heard it from Aunt Amelia last night. She came
into our room to look at our dresses.”
Olivia was arranging some flowers which Bessie had brought up in her
hand when she came to prepare the bath, and the two girls could not see
her face or the swift and sudden quiver of her lips.
“No, he is not coming. He is engaged to-day,” she said.
“How vexing!” exclaimed Mary. “I should have particularly liked him to
have seen you. It’s very disagreeable of him not to have put off his
engagement; and it’s not like him to be disagreeable, is it, dear----”
“No,” said Olivia, in a dry voice.
“Perhaps if you asked him----” began Mary, thoughtfully.
Olivia turned upon her with a flash in her lovely eyes, and the look of
one tortured beyond endurance.
“How can you suggest such a thing!” she began; then, at the sight of
the dismay on their faces, her voice softened and she forced a laugh.
“You silly girls, you think everybody must think your goose is a swan,
as you do! What does Mr. Faradeane care about weddings? All men hate
them, and very sensibly, too.”
“Oh, Olly! And he is such a great friend of yours!” said Mary, meekly.
“Is he?” said Olivia, with a laugh that sounded strangely in the
girls’ ears. “Well, all the more reason that we should spare him the
infliction.” She drew a long breath and turned to the window. “Let us
go downstairs into the garden; it seems hot and stifling this morning,”
and she pushed the hair from her forehead with an impatient, weary
gesture.
They went downstairs, the two girls feeling somehow chilled and
perplexed, and found the house, as Mary had said, all alive. His
lordship the bishop was in the garden discoursing on roses to the
squire, who looked grave and preoccupied, for he was thinking that in
a few hours his choicest rose would be taken from him. Aunt Amelia,
in a morning-robe of brilliant hue and Parisian fashion, was hopping
about among the flower-beds, bestowing simpers and smiles upon all and
sundry; and the stir and bustle of an unusual excitement seemed to
pervade the air.
Olivia went up to her father, and kissed him with the tenderness which
seemed to have deepened since her sacrifice, and, with his arm round
her waist, they were leading the way to breakfast, when a footman in
the Bradstone livery rode up, and, touching his hat, delivered a box to
Olivia.
Mary and Annie uttered an exclamation.
“Oh, do open it! It is only tied with string.”
“Allow me,” said the bishop, benignly, and, removing the lid, he
disclosed three bouquets.
One, the largest, was composed of rare, white blossoms, and had a
gold bracelet round the stem, with “Olivia” inlaid in pearls. There
were similar bracelets for the two girls, who fell to exclaiming,
rapturously:
“Oh, they are too lovely, aren’t they, dear? How kind of Mr. Bradstone!
And all alike, too!” and they ran from one to the other to show their
treasures.
“Extremely handsome,” said the bishop, smiling. “Really, so generous a
bridegroom deserves to be happy!”
Olivia said nothing for a moment; then, as if suddenly remembering,
said:
“I am glad you like them,” and as Bessie passed near she called her,
and was giving the bouquet and bracelet to her, when Mary exclaimed:
“Oh, Olly, dear! How can you part with it, even for a moment! I mean to
keep mine beside my plate and stare at it all breakfast-time.”
And Olivia, with a faint smile of resignation, retained the bouquet and
walked toward the house.
His lordship the bishop would have been rather surprised if he could
have seen the bridegroom at that moment, for Mr. Bartley Bradstone
looked anything but happy.
He, too, had lain awake and listened perforce to the record of the
slowly moving hours, and all night he had seen the defiant, mocking
face of the woman called Bella, and heard the scornful tones of her
voice.
He had promised to meet her at four o’clock, and he lay there and
cursed himself and her, for he knew that he dared not break the
promise. Four o’clock! and the wedding was to take place at two. How
should he manage to get away from the party and keep this appointment?
For hours he tossed to and fro, scheming and planning, the mocking face
of the woman dancing before him. He must slip away somehow, if only for
half an hour.
Now and again a shudder of terror ran through him, and he sat up and
shook as if with some horrible fear. Then he would fling himself down
again, wiping the perspiration from his forehead and muttering: “No,
I’ll go through with it. It’s too late to draw back now.”
When his valet came to him at nine, he found his master looking, as
he expressed it afterward, “like a man who had been drinking all
night,” and Bartley Bradstone bore out the resemblance by ordering a
soda-and-brandy, which he took with a hot and shaking hand.
Then he went downstairs and drank a cup of coffee, and made a pretense
of eating some breakfast; but the face of the woman hovered between him
and the dish the butler handed to him, and his throat seemed dry and
parched.
After breakfast he went into the library, and unlocking the safe which
he had so delicately pointed out to his tool--Mr. Mowle--he got out a
cash-box, and, counting out two hundred pounds in notes, placed them
in his pocketbook. As he was putting the cash-box back he pushed some
small, heavy article from a shelf, and, picking it up, saw that it was
a revolver.
It was one of the silver-plated toys which nearly every man possesses,
but, for all its smallness, it was deadly and dangerous.
He held it in his hot hand, looking down at it absently for a minute or
two; then he tossed it back into the safe with a suddenness and force
that made the iron side ring again, and shut the door with a clang.
Then he packed and sent off the bouquets, and, taking up his hat,
walked into the garden and stood watching the groom as he rode down the
road toward the Grange.
He stood a long time looking in the direction of the village with a
half-fearful, dreading gaze, then turned and paced about the grounds,
but always returned toward the gate and his nervous watchfulness of the
road; and the face of the woman still danced mockingly before his eyes.
One o’clock struck, and with a start he went back to the house.
Luncheon was laid. He made no pretense of eating this time, but tossed
off a glass of brandy-and-water, and, going upstairs, sent for his
valet.
The man appeared with the wedding garments, and dressed his master in
the regulation blue frock-coat and lilac trousers.
For once Bartley Bradstone seemed quite indifferent to the effect
produced by his clothes, and stared at the glass with lack-lustre eyes.
He scarcely spoke, took the handkerchief and his various rings and
jewelry from the man without a word, and when he had left the room,
sank into a chair and let his head droop on his breast, his eyes fixed
with a strange expression upon the carpet.
A quarter of an hour afterward the valet came in again.
“The carriage is at the door, sir!” he said.
Bartley Bradstone looked up with a start, and the valet, who hated
him--as all the servants did--glanced at his white face curiously.
“Shall I get you something before you start, sir?” he said.
“No--yes,” was the response. “Get me a glass of champagne. Bring it
here. And”--he hesitated a moment--“and ask the butler if any one has
been here this morning. Any man--or woman--to see me,” he added, with
assumed carelessness.
The man came back with the champagne.
“No one has been, sir.”
Bartley Bradstone drank the wine and drew a long breath.
“It’s fearfully hot,” he said; “and I had a bad night. If--if any one
should come, tell her--I mean him--that I will see him later in the
day.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man; “any name?”
Bartley Bradstone interrupted him with a curse.
“Just do as I tell you, will you?” he said, angrily. “That’s enough for
you to do!”
Then, pushing past him, he went downstairs.
As his foot was on the step of the brougham he paused, stood for a
moment or two looking at the ground, then turned, and, re-entering the
house, went into the library.
He came out again almost immediately, and, getting into the carriage,
was driven to the church.
A crowd had collected round the ivy-covered porch, and lined the path
to the church door. All the villagers were in their Sunday best, and
some of the young men had spent the early morning in decking the road
with flags and banners.
As the brougham pulled up there was a stir of excitement, and when
Bartley Bradstone got out a cheer rose, but it was forced and faint,
and his appearance did not increase the enthusiasm.
“D--n me, if he don’t look as if he was going to be hanged instead of
wed,” said one man, in an almost audible whisper.
He looked around him with a sickly smile, and with the restless
suspicion more marked than ever in his glance, and, just raising his
hat, went into the church. The clergyman and the clerk were in the
vestry, and the latter greeted him with the stereotyped remarks:
“The bridegroom first! Quite right, Mr. Bradstone. Ah! here they are!
The bells are just starting. What a lovely morning! ‘Happy is the
bride,’ etc.,” and he laughed.
Bartley Bradstone went to the door, stood a moment till the first
carriage came dashing up, then returned to the vestry and paced up and
down.
Other carriages followed, the little room began to fill, and guests
were taking their places in the pews near the altar.
Bartley Bradstone shook hands with one and another, and a faint flush
began to rise on his face; but it still looked haggard and anxious,
and several times the remark which the man in the crowd had made was
echoed by the young fellows who envied him.
Presently a cheer, loud and hearty, burst from the crowd outside, and
the bishop, with a bland smile, said:
“The bride.”
A moment afterward, amidst still more cheering and cries of “God bless
you, Miss Olivia!” the squire entered, with the bride on his arm.
There was an instantaneous movement toward them, and amidst the excited
whispering they entered the vestry. She carried in her hand the bouquet
he had sent; but the snow-like flowers were not whiter than her face,
and she clung to her father’s arm with a clasp which seemed as if it
could never be loosened.
With downcast eyes she stood for a moment, scarcely seeming to breathe,
more like a lovely statue than a living woman; then Bartley Bradstone,
who had been standing in the center of a group, came toward her.
“Have you got what I sent you?” he said in a low voice.
She raised her eyes and looked at him as if she scarcely heard him.
“Do you mean this?” she said, raising the bouquet.
“Yes, and inside it,” he said.
She looked at him as if she did not yet understand, and, taking the
flowers from her hand, he parted them and showed her an envelope lying
half hidden in their midst.
“You did not examine it very closely,” he whispered, with an attempt at
a smile. “Open it; come this way.”
Slowly, reluctantly, she drew her arm from her father’s and followed
him. Those near delicately drew back and moved away, leaving the two
alone. She opened the envelope and looked at the paper it had inclosed.
It was a formal acknowledgment of fifty thousand pounds having been
paid into the Wainford Bank in her name.
For a second, a second only, the deep pallor of her face changed, and
her lips quivered, and with a look--not at him, but at her father--she
thrust the paper in the bosom of her dress.
“Are you satisfied?” he whispered, bending over her as if to look at
the bouquet.
Her lips opened, but no sound came; and, with the same vacant
expression in the lovely eyes, she got away from him to the protection
of her father’s arm again.
“Are we all--er--ready?” asked the smooth voice of the bishop.
“Quite ready,” said Bartley Bradstone, his voice sounding harsh and
dry.
The bishop inclined his head, and the procession started for the altar.
White to the lips, with the look in her eyes of one from whom all that
life holds of good or bad had passed forever, Olivia stood and uttered
her marriage vows.
Only once throughout the ceremony did she show any sign of feeling or
of life itself, and that was at the moment when Bartley Bradstone’s
hand took hers. Then, unseen by any one but himself, a shudder ran
through her, causing the hand he held to shake as if with palsy. It was
only for a moment; the next she was the statue again, and she walked
with firm, unfaltering steps down the church to the vestry.
There was the usual crowd round the register, every one being anxious
to sign, but the business was accomplished at last, and, with her arm
in her husband’s, Olivia passed out of the church.
They stood for a second at the door. The sun blazed down upon them and
the cheering crowd, and Bartley Bradstone put up his hand to screen
his eyes, and looked round upon the excited people. As he did so his
restless, suspicious glance fell upon what he expected: there in the
second rank of the living lane stood the woman whose face had haunted
him all the past night and all the morning, and even as he stood beside
his bride at the altar.
With her hands on her hips, her black eyes all aglow with mocking
derision, she stood and stared at him. As his eyes met hers she broke
into a laugh that seemed to him to ring above the din of the cheers,
and, pushing herself into the front rank, stooped and snatched up some
flowers which had been thrown on the path.
“Here’s wishing you and your bride every happiness, Mr. Bradstone!” she
shouted, and flung the flowers in his face. Then, with a laugh, she
slipped back again, and was lost in the crowd.