The morning after the Duchess of Arran's ball Lord Vansittart was seated
at his breakfast, the _Times_ propped up in front of him, when a ring of
the hall-door bell was followed by a man-servant's entrance with a
telegram.
Since his engagement to Joan, he had been singularly nervous--her
changeful moods were hardly calculated to soothe a lover! He regarded
the buff-coloured envelope askance.
Still his tone was cheerful as he said. "No answer." The message was
from Joan; but there was nothing alarming in it. The few words were
merely "Come as early as you can."
In a very few minutes after its delivery at his house, he had given his
brief orders to the household for the day, had carelessly said he did
not know when he should return, or if he would be home before night
except, perhaps, to dress--and without waiting for a conveyance of his
own--there would be delay if he sent down to the stables--he was out,
striding along the pavement until he met a hansom, which he chartered
with promise of an extra tip for quick driving.
"Miss Thorne is in her boudoir, my lord," said the porter, when he
alighted at the house. Evidently the order had been given to that
effect. The groom of the chambers bowed respectfully, but was easily
waved aside. Vansittart crossed the hall and sprang up the stairs as
only one of the family might do without disregard of the _convenances_.
Tapping eagerly at Joan's boudoir door, his attentive ear heard a
footstep, the door was opened by Joan herself. She was in the pink and
white _deshabille_ she had worn the happy day she had first admitted
that she loved him sufficiently to marry him. But now, her beauty
seemed in his fond eyes increased by the natural arrangement of the
wealth of beautiful hair which was unbound and, merely confined with a
ribbon, floated about her shoulders like a veil of golden strands.
She drew him into the room and blushed, as she said she had not expected
him so early.
"I had to write to my bridesmaids about their frocks," she began,
nestling to him. "I meant to have my hair done before you came----"
For answer he seated himself and drawing her to him, kissed the shining
tresses and held them ecstatically in his hand. Their soft touch seemed
to fire his emotions.
"Do you know you seem unreal, you are so beautiful?" he said,
passionately, lifting her chin and gazing intently at her delicate
lovely features and the rich brown eyes which to his delight looked more
calmly than usual into his. "You make me feel--as if--when I get
possession of you--you must vanish into thin air--you are an
impossibility--a mocking spirit, who will disappear with elfish
laughter."
"Don't rave!" she fondly said, returning his kiss. "Or you will make me
rave! And to rave is not to enjoy oneself! Dear, I asked you to come
early--I want to spend every moment of my life with you--from
this--very--minute! Why should we be separated? You know what you told
me--that they were telling each other falsehoods about you at the
clubs--so our being always together will be like killing two birds with
one stone! It will make me happy, and give the lie to their wicked
calumnies! Do you mind?"
"Do--I--mind?" He kissed her brow, lips, hair, again and again. "Am I
not yours--more yours than my own--all yours through time into
eternity?"
"For worse as well as for better?" She had said the words before she
remembered her terrible dream--when the judge who was condemning her to
be hanged had upbraided her for not having fulfilled her wifehood; as
they escaped her lips she recollected, and shuddered. "You think me
better than I am, dearest! I am human--erring----"
"I--know--what you are!" he passionately exclaimed. He was plunged in a
lover's fatuous ecstasy. It was half an hour before Joan could get away
to put on her habit. She meant to ride to Crouch Hill to hear her old
nurse's opinion of what had occurred. Mrs. Todd had not known Victor's
name--she would not have identified "The Southwark Mystery," as the
newspapers termed it, with herself and her wretched entanglements. She
would tell her that Victor was dead, and hear what she would say to it.
While she was dressing, Vansittart went back to his stables, and waiting
while the grooms equipped his now staid, but once almost too mettlesome
grey horse "Firefly," returned to find Joan's pretty "Nora" waiting at
the door, held, as well as his own horse, by her groom. He had barely
dismounted when she issued from the house, a dainty Amazon from head to
foot, and tripped down the steps, smiling at him. "Why did you ride your
old grey?" she asked, as she sprang lightly into the saddle.
"Why?" he repeated, as he arranged her habit, and thrilled as he held
her little foot for one brief moment in his hand. "Because I am so
madly in love with you to-day that I cannot trust myself on any horse
but the soberest and most steady-going in the stables! I am
particularly anxious not to bring my 'violent delights' to a 'violent
end' by breaking my neck!"
They rode off through the sweet summer morning, he so bathed in actual
joy, as well as fired by the anticipatory delights of life with Joan for
his wife, that in his blissful mood he could have enwrapt the whole of
humanity in one vast embrace--Joan abandoning herself with all the force
of her will to the natural instincts that underlay all ordinary,
acquired emotions.
During her long self-colloquy she had deliberately burrowed, mentally,
below her civilized being, and sought these. She had told herself that
the primary instincts of woman were wifedom and motherhood. For the
present--until she was reassured anent her safety by time and the course
of events--she would listen to no others.
The two lovers--so near in seeming, so far asunder in reality, divided
as they were by a hideous secret--rode gleefully on, rejoicing in their
youth and love, making delicious plans for their future together,
gloating over their coming joys from different standpoints, but with
equal ardour.
"And for to-day," said Joan, as they rode under a canopy of boughs in
one of the country lanes still undesecrated by the ruthless hands of the
suburban builder, "and not only for to-day, but most days, I want to see
how the other half of humanity lives, dearest! Before I am Lady
Vansittart, I want to see the life that commoners enjoy! I want to dine
out with you, at restaurants, and go to the theatre with you, and, in
fact, be alone with you in crowds who neither know nor care who we are,
or what we are doing!"
Vansittart, albeit slightly puzzled, readily acquiesced. When they drew
rein at Mrs. Todd's cottage, it was settled that they were to use a box
he had taken for the first night of a new play brought out by a manager
who was an acquaintance of his, dining first at a restaurant Joan
selected as being one not affected by their circle.
Joan entered the cottage and saw the dark old woman totter to meet her,
eagerness in her trembling limbs and brilliant, searching eyes, with a
feeling of sickly dismay. Last time she stood here Victor was alive;
since then she had killed him! Involuntarily she gave a little moan of
pain.
"My dearie, my lamb, what is it?" The aged nurse was terribly agitated
as she caressed and tried to console the only creature she really loved
on earth, who had sunk crouching at her feet. "Is it--come, tell
Nana--you know I would die this minnit for you, lambie--tell me if that
fellow is alive and annoying you in any way, for, as I sit here, if he
is, I'll tell of him! I'll set the police upon him!"
"Don't," said Joan, chokingly, clasping her knees. For the first time
she seemed to realize what she had done. "He is dead!"
"Thank God for that!" cried the old woman, in an access of fervour. "He
is just, I will say that, if He's sent that blackguard to the only place
he's fit for, instead of leaving him here to worry innocent folks as 'ud
do their Maker credit if they was only let alone! And now you can be my
Lady, and go to Court with as big a crown and as long a train as the
best of the lot, duchesses and all! And you can bring little lords and
ladies into the world to be brought up proper by head nurses and then
send them to colleges, and make real gentlemen of 'em! The Lord knows
what he is about! There ain't a God for nothin'!"
After the first thrill of something akin to horror at Mrs. Todd's
grotesque rejoicing, Joan put aside her questioning as to "how the brute
came to his end" by asking her if she would like to see Vansittart, and
he, in his rapt adoration, eager to have to do with every detail of his
beloved one's life, was only too ready to be curtsied to and
congratulated and blest.
"She is a good old soul, darling, we must look after her," he feelingly
said, as he waved farewell presently to the tall old crone watching them
from her doorstep as they rode slowly up the road. "And now, where
shall we go?"
After one of Joan's scampering rides they returned home, spent the
afternoon in sweet talk in her boudoir, then Joan retired to
dress--donning her plainest black evening frock and simplest
ornaments--and he paid a flying visit to his house to dress also,
returning to fetch her, as she had bidden him, in an ordinary hansom.
"I mean to enjoy myself to-night!" she gaily said. She insisted on
feeling gay--insisted to herself. Presents were arriving in battalions,
boxes of exquisite garments were delivered with a monotonous regularity.
She had chosen the restaurant they would dine at, she was also to select
the menu. As they alighted at the door, a man, who was about to enter,
halted, and smiled as he lifted his hat.
"Who is that?" she asked as they went in.
"A very clever fellow, the dramatic critic of the _Parthenon_," he
returned. "I will introduce him to you."