And what Mr. Wycherley saw was a substantial boat rowed by four of Mr.
Minifie's attendants; and in the bow of the vessel sat that wounded
gentleman himself, regarding Wycherley and Lady Drogheda with some
disfavor; and beside the younger man was Mistress Araminta Vining.
It was a perturbed Minifie who broke the silence. "This is very
awkward," he said, "because Araminta and I are eloping. We mean to be
married this same night at Milanor. And deuce take it, Mr. Wycherley!
I can't leave you there to drown, any more than in the circumstances I
can ask you to make one of the party."
"Mr. Wycherley," said his companion, with far more asperity, "the
vanity and obduracy of a cruel father have forced me to the adoption of
this desperate measure. Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling,
nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most profound contempt. My
aunt will, of course, accompany us; for yourself, you will do as you
please; but in any event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious
pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and hideous
obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you in order to be Queen of
England."
"Miss Vining, I had hitherto admired you," the beau replied, with
fervor, "but now esteem is changed to adoration."
Then he turned to his Olivia. "Madam, you will pardon the awkward but
unavoidable publicity of my proceeding. I am a ruined man. I owe your
brother-in-law some L1500, and, oddly enough, I mean to pay him. I
must sell Jephcot and Skene Minor, but while life lasts I shall keep
Bessington and all its memories. Meanwhile there is a clergyman
waiting at Milanor. So marry me to-night, Olivia; and we will go back
to Bessington to-morrow."
"To Bessington----!" she said. It was as though she spoke of something
very sacred. Then very musically Lady Drogheda laughed, and to the eye
she was all flippancy. "La, William, I can't bury myself in the
country until the end of time," she said, "and make interminable
custards," she added, "and superintend the poultry," she said, "and for
recreation play short whist with the vicar."
And it seemed to Mr. Wycherley that he had gone divinely mad. "Don't
lie to me, Olivia. You are thinking there are yet a host of heiresses
who would be glad to be a famous beau's wife at however dear a cost.
But don't lie to me. Don't even try to seem the airy and bedizened
woman I have known so long. All that is over now. Death tapped us on
the shoulder, and, if only for a moment, the masks were dropped. And
life is changed now, oh, everything is changed! Then, come, my dear!
let us be wise and very honest. Let us concede it is still possible
for me to find another heiress, and for you to marry Remon; let us
grant it the only outcome of our common-sense! and for all that, laugh,
and fling away the pottage, and be more wise than reason."
She irresolutely said: "I cannot. Matters are altered now. It would
be madness----"
"It would undoubtedly be madness," Mr. Wycherley assented. "But then I
am so tired of being rational! Oh, Olivia," this former arbiter of
taste absurdly babbled, "if I lose you now it is forever! and there is
no health in me save when I am with you. Then alone I wish to do
praiseworthy things, to be all which the boy we know of should have
grown to. . . . See how profoundly shameless I am become when, with
such an audience, I take refuge in the pitiful base argument of my own
weakness! But, my dear, I want you so that nothing else in the world
means anything to me. I want you! and all my life I have wanted you."
"Boy, boy----!" she answered, and her fine hands had come to Wycherley,
as white birds flutter homeward. But even then she had to deliberate
the matter--since the habits of many years are not put aside like
outworn gloves,--and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to him, her
foot tapped on that wetted ledge.
Presently her lashes lifted. "I suppose it would be lacking in
reverence to keep a clergyman waiting longer than was absolutely
necessary?" she hazarded.