"Heaven bless you, my bonnie bird," says a trembling voice.
It is an hour and a half later, and Lauraine, in her shimmering satin
robe, and with her bridal wreath upon her brow, stands before a bent,
aged figure, supporting itself on a crutch, looking with dim and most
loving eyes at the beautiful vision.
"Ah," goes on the quavering old voice, "may long life and happiness
be aye yours, my dearie. It's auld Nannie will pray for it every day
she lives, though she never thoct to see you mated wi' sic a
bridegroom, nor wearing a face so sad on your ain wedding morn. Ah!
if Maister Keith were here the day he'd be carrying a sair heart in
his breast, I'm thinking."
"Hush, nurse!" said the girl gently. "I can't stay a minute. I've
only come to tell you some news. Master Keith is coming here--coming
to-day; and if he calls when we are at--at church, I want you to see
him, and--and tell him about this. Will you, nursie? And make it as
pleasant as you can. Tell him that I am very happy ... Oh,
nurse!--nurse!"
The brave clear voice gives way, a sob bursts from the girl, and,
regardless of the beautiful dress, the costly lace, she throws
herself at the old woman's feet, and burying her face in her lap,
bursts into tears.
"Whist, whist, my lamb!" cries the old woman, terrified at such
unexpected emotion. "What for are ye taking on in sic a way? There,
dry your eyes, my bonnie bairn. You needn't greet on your
wedding-day, surely; and, oh! if your leddy mither comes and sees
that braw goon all sae crushed and crookit, what will she be saying?
There, there--rest ye quiet now. What is it ye're greeting for? Ye
tell't me but yester e'en ye were aye quite content wi' yersel'."
"Ah!" says the girl, rising to her feet, and dashing the tears away
with a half-ashamed energy, "perhaps I did; but then, nursie, that
was yesterday."
"Ye were always a queer bit bairn," says the old woman, looking
proudly and fondly at her beautiful charge. "Heaven make yer life
gang straight, my dearie. My heart misgies me sore for you the day,
though I oughtn't to speak sae despondingly. Still I will e'en hope
for the best, and pray for ye while there's aye a breath left in my
auld body to do it."
"Aye, do," answers the girl softly, as she presses her fresh young
lips to the withered cheek. "Who knows, nurse, I may need your
prayers yet?"
"Dinna ye speak sae sadly, my bairn," says the old woman. "Keep up a
brave heart, and aye trust in Providence. You're a braw bride, my
dearie, and maybe he'll be a gude mon to ye, for didn't he swear to
worship the verra ground ye walk on?"
"Don't let us talk of him," answers the girl pettishly. "I feel
quite wicked, nurse, when I think of what I am doing. It seems to
come home to me so terribly now. But it's too late to help
anything--too late!"
"Dinna say those words; they have a wearyful sound on your bonnie
lips," says the aged woman tenderly. "Maybe, it will turn out better
than ye think; and the mistress's heart was just set upon it, you
know, and she was always a masterful woman in her way. Ay--ay, my
bairn, it's ill to greet o'er spilt milk, and all the kye in the
byrne. There, now, they'll e'en be calling you. Yes, I'll remember
about Maister Keith, and he'll hear it as gently as my auld lips can
tell him. Ye may trust Nannie for that. Run ye doon now, my dearie,
and God bless your bonnie face, and give you a' the happiness He sees
fit."
There is a hurried embrace, and then the girl takes up her long,
floating train in her left hand, and so goes out of the room and down
the stairs, and enters her own chamber once more.
"What a time you have been!" exclaims her mother impatiently; "and
Henriette is waiting to put on your veil. Sit down; the carriage
will be here directly."
Without a word the girl seats herself before the glass, and the deft
fingers of the French maid fastens the filmy lace on the beautiful
head, and like a transparent cloud it seems to float over and envelop
the lovely figure in its misty folds.
She looks so exquisitely lovely that both mother and maid hold their
breath for one moment, and then murmur rhapsodies of admiration. The
girl looks quietly at herself, and says nothing. She knows she is
beautiful; she has proved it often enough in her three seasons of
London life, but to-day she cares very little about that beauty, for
her heart is troubled and her peace has fled. If only that letter
had not come!
Alas! it is too late now for regrets or repentance. The moments
hurry on--hurry on as if they would drag her to her doom with flying
wings, not creep along leaden-footed, as her own reluctance would
have had them. How is it she feels like this now--now when it is so
useless, so vain? A few days--nay, even a few hours ago, and she was
content enough; but there seems no content possible now, and the
nearer the hour approaches, the greater grows her dread.
"One moment, mother," she says, as Mrs. Douglas turns to leave the
room. "Henriette, you may go."
The maid retires, and the girl, her face growing very white, comes
close to her mother again, and lays her hand on her arm.
"_Must_ I go through with it?" she says almost wildly. "Could I not
take back my word--even now?"
"Good heavens! are you mad?" ejaculates Mrs. Douglas. "Go back at
the last moment, and the breakfast ready, and the carriages waiting,
and every one at the church, and your _trousseau_ not even paid for
on the strength of the credit of this marriage! My dear Lauraine,
you must be a perfect idiot!"
The girl's face grows cold, her hand falls to her side. "I dare say
I am," she says bitterly. "I feel it now."
"Your nerves are shaken--you are getting hysterical," exclaims Mrs.
Douglas. "Of course it is a very trying time, my dear. You must
have some sal volatile before you start. For Heaven's sake don't
make a scene in church, or break down, or do anything ridiculous.
You always are so odd. Now, any other girl would be thinking how she
looked and----"
"What a good price those looks had fetched," interrupts Lauraine
sarcastically. "Yes--thank goodness, I have some sense of shame
left. I do not feel proud of my position to-day, or my part in this
heartless barter."
"Barter! What makes you use such absurd words!" exclaims her mother
angrily. "After all I have done for you--after all my sacrifices!"
"Hush!" the girl says wearily, "don't let us discuss that subject
now. I think none of your sacrifices would look very great before
this of mine, if it came to a question of comparison. But it is no
matter. Of course you are right; an _esclandre_ now would be too
terrible."
She turns coldly away, and takes up the beautiful bouquet that Sir
Francis has sent her an hour ago. The smell of the white roses and
orange blossoms turns her faint and sick. All her life long, she
thinks, that scent will, fill her with just such shuddering horror as
she feels now. She lets the bouquet fall and clasps her hands
despairingly together.
"I did not think it would be so bad as this," she moans. "O God! is
there no escape?"
But in the sunny, luxuriantly appointed chamber all is silence. A
few minutes after, and down the crimson-carpeted steps a white and
radiant figure floats to the waiting carriage.
"How lovely! How young! How beautifully dressed!"
These are the murmurs that fall from an admiring crowd, kept in check
by an officious policeman, as they press around the awning that has
sheltered the bride's passage. "Lor! if she oughtn't to be happy."
Unconscious of the comments, heedless of the observations, Lauraine
is driven off to the fashionable church where her future husband
awaits as sad and reluctant a bride as ever the martyrdom of Fashion
and the exigencies of Society have sacrificed to the God of Mammon.
The bride's carriage has scarcely disappeared round the corner when a
hansom cab dashes up, and is arrested at the awning. A young man
jumps out, pays the cabman, and gives a startled glance at the
carpeted steps, the gaping crowd, the unwonted stir and bustle around
the house. He is not a wedding-guest evidently; there is nothing
very festive about his appearance, but for all that he passes up the
crimson-carpeted steps and into the hall, and there has an interview
with one of the footmen, who, having received instructions on the
matter, conducts the visitor into a small room at the back of the
house, where sits an old woman with a snowy mutch on her head, and a
stick in her hand by which she helps herself to rise.
"My lad, my dear young maister!" she cries, and he comes straight up
and gives her a hearty kiss and a boisterous hug.
"How are you, Nannie? Why, you look just the same as ever, I do
declare! Not a day older. So you see I've come back."
"And a braw welcome to ye, laddie," says the old Scotchwoman, looking
up at the tall well-built figure and handsome face, with a world of
love and pride and admiration in her dim and loving eyes. "Hech,
sir, but it's strong and fine ye look the day, and none the worse for
all the foreign countries where ye've stayed sae long. Aye, and it's
proud I am to see ye back. Sit ye doon, sir--sit ye doon, and tell
me a' the news. My auld heart's been just sair for word o' ye this
mony a day."
"I will tell you about myself by-and-by, Nannie," the young fellow
says impatiently. "Meanwhile tell me what's going on here. Is it a
morning party, or a reception, or some new-fangled social rubbish?
Where's Lauraine?"
"Miss Lauraine is awa' at the kirk," says the old woman gently.
"Canna ye tell what it's a' aboot, dearie?"
"Church"--falters the young man.
Then the idea flashes across him, his bronzed face falls, an evil
light comes into the blue eyes under the shade of their long lashes.
"She's not--not married, Nannie?"
The old woman nods her head and lays her hand gently on his arm.
"Ay, laddie, wedded this morn. She bade me tell ye, with her love,
that she was happy; that she hoped to see ye, her auld friend and
playmate--and would ye wait here till her return?"
"Happy is she?" His voice is very cold and stern. His blue eyes
flash angrily. Then a short harsh laugh escapes his lips. "Well,
I'm glad to hear it, though the news is unexpected. Married--Lorry
married! God! What a fool I've been!"
He gets up and walks over to the window and looks out, though nothing
does he see of the objects on which he gazes so intently. "Married!"
so run his thoughts; "and to-day, too! Couldn't she have waited?
Couldn't she have told me? It is three months since I wrote to her
mother, and not a line. And I--like an idiot--taking silence for
consent, and rushing back here as fast as steam could take me.
Married! Good Heaven! I can't believe it. Lorry, my darling little
playmate, my sweetheart--the girl who vowed to be true to me for
ever--married! Never to be mine--another man's wife! O God! What
am I to do?"
He groans aloud at this juncture, and the sympathizing old woman
comes to him and her heart aches for her nursling's sorrow. "Dinna
take on so," she says; "ye were but bairns togither; ye could na'
tell how ye're minds would agree in time to come."
He turns away from the window, and walks to his seat and flings
himself moodily back. It is too early to accept consolation, but he
takes refuse in hot anger. He rails against womankind--their wiles
and ways, their treachery and fickleness, until poor old Nannie is
bewildered. His fury vents itself in this manner for the space of a
good half-hour, during which time Nannie listens and agrees and
consoles to the best of her ability, but with very poor results.
Then there comes a stir, a bustle--the noise of feet--the sound of
voices. Nannie sits up erect and listens.
"They're coming back," she says.
He turns very white again, then looks appealingly at the old woman.
"I can't face them all--it's impossible," he says. "But if I could
see her alone--just for five minutes. Oh, Nannie, manage it for me!
I know you can."
"I'll e'en do my best," she says, rising and hobbling away on her
stick, her grey silk gown rustling, her snowy cap, with its lavender
ribbons, carried very erect on her white head. "But ye'll nae be
cross to the bonnie bairn. I canna have her frightened and disturbed
on sic a day. Ye'll mind?"
"Oh yes--yes. I'll mind!" he says impatiently. "Only send her here."
He never knows if the time is long or short that he waits--waits with
his heart beating so hard and fast that he can hear it above all
those other sounds without. Waits in a sort of sullen desperation,
knowing that his pain will be but the fiercer, his anger but the
hotter, for the interview he has demanded.
Then there comes a faint rustle of silken skirts, the door opens,
there is a sweet subtle perfume of orange-flowers and roses, and
before him stands the loveliest vision of womanhood that his eyes
have ever rested on.
One moment he looks at her, and all his anger melts away, and an
unutterable reproach speaks in his eyes, that are "bad" blue eyes no
longer, but only very sad and very haunting.
"Oh, Lauraine!" he says, and his arms go out to clasp her as in the
old sweet days that are gone for ever, and sobbing wildly, the girl
falls upon his breast.