"Well, as the house isn't burned down," said Lady Knox, cutting short
my details, "perhaps you would kindly find out if I could see Mrs.
Knox."
Lady Knox's face was many shades redder than usual. I began to
understand that something awful had happened, or would happen, and I
wished myself safe at Shreelane, with the bedclothes over my head.
"If 'tis for the misthress you're looking, me lady," said Denis's voice
behind me, in tones of the utmost respect, "she went out to the kitchen
garden a while ago to get a blasht o' the fresh air afther the night.
Maybe your ladyship would sit inside in the library till I call her?"
Lady Knox eyed Crusoe suspiciously.
"Thank you, I'll fetch her myself," she said.
"Oh, sure, that's too throuble----" began Denis.
"Stay where you are!" said Lady Knox, in a voice like the slam of a
door.
"Bedad, I'm best plased she went," whispered Denis, as Lady Knox set
forth alone down the shrubbery walk.
"But is Mrs. Knox in the garden?" said I.
"The Lord preserve your innocence, sir!" replied Denis, with seeming
irrelevance.
At this moment I became aware of the incredible fact that Sally Knox
was silently descending the stairs; she stopped short as she got into
the hall, and looked almost wildly at me and Denis. Was I looking at
her wraith? There was again a sound of wheels on the gravel; she went
to the hall door, outside which was now drawn up Mrs. Knox's
donkey-carriage, as well as Lady Knox's brougham, and, as if overcome
by this imposing spectacle, she turned back and put her hands over her
face.
"She's gone round to the garden, asthore," said Denis in a hoarse
whisper; "go in the donkey-carriage. 'Twill be all right!" He seized
her by the arm, pushed her down the steps and into the little carriage,
pulled up the hood over her to its furthest stretch, snatched the whip
out of the hand of the broadly-grinning Norris, and with terrific
objurgations lashed the donkey into a gallop. The donkey-boy grasped
the position, whatever it might be; he took up the running on the other
side, and the donkey-carriage swung away down the avenue, with all its
incongruous air of hooded and rowdy invalidism.
I have never disguised the fact that I am a coward, and therefore when,
at this dynamitical moment, I caught a glimpse of Lady Knox's hat over
a laurustinus, as she returned at high speed from the garden, I slunk
into the house and faded away round the dining-room door. "This minute
I seen the misthress going down through the plantation beyond," said
the voice of Crusoe outside the window, "and I'm afther sending Johnny
Regan to her with the little carriage, not to put any more delay on yer
ladyship. Sure you can see him making all the haste he can. Maybe
you'd sit inside in the library till she comes."
Silence followed. I peered cautiously round the window curtain. Lady
Knox was looking defiantly at the donkey-carriage as it reeled at top
speed into the shades of the plantation, strenuously pursued by the
woolly dog. Norris was regarding his horses' ears in expressionless
respectability. Denis was picking up the entrée-dishes with decorous
solicitude. Lady Knox turned and came into the house; she passed the
dining-room door with an ominous step, and went on into the library.
It seemed to me that now or never was the moment to retire quietly to
my room, put my things into my portmanteau, and----
Denis rushed into the room with the entrée-dishes piled up to his chin.
"She's diddled!" he whispered, crashing them down on the table. He
came at me with his hand out. "Three cheers for Masther Flurry and
Miss Sally," he hissed, wringing my hand up and down, "and 'twas
yerself called for 'Haste to the Weddin'' last night, long life to ye!
The Lord save us! There's the misthress going into the library!"
Through the half-open door I saw old Mrs. Knox approach the library
from the staircase with a dignified slowness; she had on a wedding
garment, a long white burnous, in which she might easily have been
mistaken for a small, stout clergyman. She waved back Crusoe, the door
closed upon her, and the battle of giants was entered upon. I sat
down--it was all I was able for--and remained for a full minute in
stupefied contemplation of the entrée-dishes.
Perhaps of all conclusions to a situation so portentous, that which
occurred was the least possible. Twenty minutes after Mrs. Knox met
her antagonist I was summoned from strapping my portmanteau to face the
appalling duty of escorting the combatants, in Lady Knox's brougham, to
the church outside the back gate, to which Miss Sally had preceded them
in the donkey-carriage. I pulled myself together, went down stairs,
and found that the millennium had suddenly set in. It had apparently
dawned with the news that Aussolas and all things therein were
bequeathed to Flurry by his grandmother, and had established itself
finally upon the considerations that the marriage was past praying for,
and that the diamonds were intended for Miss Sally.
We fetched the bride and bridegroom from the church; we fetched old
Eustace Hamilton, who married them; we dug out the champagne from the
cellar; we even found rice and threw it.
The hired carriage that had been ordered to take the runaways across
country to a distant station was driven by Slipper. He was shaved; he
wore an old livery coat and a new pot hat; he was wondrous sober. On
the following morning he was found asleep on a heap of stones ten miles
away; somewhere in the neighbourhood one of the horses was grazing in a
field with a certain amount of harness hanging about it. The carriage
and the remaining horse were discovered in a roadside ditch, two miles
farther on; one of the carriage doors had been torn off, and in the
interior the hens of the vicinity were conducting an exhaustive search
after the rice that lurked in the cushions.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT
THE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS.