STELLA'S BETROTHAL FEAST
That evening Rodney Elmore was at a dinner given at a famous
restaurant in honour of his engagement to Stella Austin, quite a
different sort of meal from that at which he had assisted at the
Misses Claughton's house in Kensington. If in his manner there was an
unusual touch of nervousness, it was not unbecoming; the bride that
was to be was not entirely herself. He met her as, with her father and
mother, she entered the hall. She said to him, as he fell in by her
side:
"I did hope, Rodney, that you would have come to fetch me."
"My dear, it's only by the skin of my teeth that I've got here myself!
Do you think that I wouldn't have come if I could?"
She said nothing in reply, but as she passed towards the ladies'
cloak-room there was a look on her face which almost suggested tears.
Her mother's manner, as she greeted him, was not too genial:
"So you are here? Well, I suppose that's something!"
Mr. Austin, as he deposited his hat and coat with the attendant,
seemed very much in the same key.
"We should have been here some minutes ago, only Stella would have it
you were coming to fetch her; we should have been waiting for you
still if she had had her way. How was it you didn't come? She's quite
disappointed; rather a pity that the evening should have begun with a
misunderstanding of that sort."
Rodney drew the gentleman aside.
"I take it, Mr. Austin, that you haven't heard the news?"
"To what news do you refer?"
"It is now stated that my uncle did not commit suicide, but was
murdered."
"But I thought the coroner's jury had returned a verdict of suicide."
"That is so; but this afternoon a man named Parker gave himself up to
the police, on his own confession, as having murdered my uncle. You
will understand that I--I have had rather a trying day."
"On his confession? Is the man a lunatic?"
"That's just it; he is, yet it seems only too likely that--he did what
he says he did."
"But how came he to make his confession in your presence? Do you know
the man?"
"Not I; he's an entire stranger to me; but I'll tell you all about it
later. I don't want you to say anything to the ladies or anyone; I
only mention it to you because I want you to understand how it is that
I am not in such--such good fettle as I might be for an occasion of
this kind; and also because I want you, if needs be, to help me with
Stella."
"My dear boy, of course I will. It is only natural that, at a time
like this, a girl should think that there's nothing of much
consequence except her own affairs; but I'll stand by you, never fear.
I rather wish that the whole thing had been postponed, but Stella
wouldn't hear of it. There's Tom not at all himself; he wanted Mary
Carmichael to come, and Stella wanted her to come, in fact, we all
wanted her to come, but she hasn't. I've been told nothing, but I can
see there's some trouble there. Altogether the evening doesn't look as
if it were going to be quite such a merry one as I had hoped it would
have been; however, we must make the best of it. Cheer up, lad; put
your troubles behind you for this night only."
That was a prescription which at any rate the prescriber's son did not
seem at all disposed to follow, as Rodney quickly learnt when Tom
appeared a little tardily. Tom's naturally good-humoured face wore an
expression of unwonted gloom, and there was that in his air and
general bearing which accorded ill with a time of feasting and making
merry.
"You know, old chap, I oughtn't to be here, I really didn't. I shall
queer the whole show. Unless I drink too much, and put my spirits up
that way, I shall give everyone the hump; and when I start on that lay
I'm apt to get my spirits up a bit too much, so I don't know that that
will have a good effect either."
Rodney laughed as he put his hand on the speaker's shoulder.
"Why, Tom, what's wrong?"
"I don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. I do know that.
When the governor told me about this kick-up to-night, I wrote to Mary
and told her all about it, and asked her to come up, and so on, and
said I'd run down to Brighton this morning to bring her up, and told
her the train I'd come by, and asked her to meet me at the station.
She didn't meet me at the station--that was shock number one; and then
when I got to the house, if you please, the servant didn't want to let
me in--she wanted to make me believe that Mary was out. I wasn't
taking that; I would go in, and I saw her old aunt--she's an old dear,
she is. After a while, and she'd told no end of them, she owned up
that Mary was in all the time she'd been telling them. She was up in
her bedroom, and had given word that if I called she wouldn't see me.
You might have bowled me over with an old cork."
"The lady wasn't well."
"Her health was all right; the old girl owned as much. She said Mary
was perfectly well, but beyond that she wouldn't say anything; and she
made out that she couldn't; and she wouldn't send a message up, or a
note, or anything. She said that she knew her niece well enough to be
sure that that would be no use. But when she saw that I was set, she
said that if I chose I might go up and try my luck. So, if you please,
up I went, and rapped at her bedroom door."
"Summoned her to surrender, quite in the good old style; and she did?"
"Not much she didn't. I spoke to her through the bedroom door, I
called out to her, I as nearly as possible howled; I daresay I rapped
as many as twenty times--I know I made my knuckles sore But she took
not the slightest notice, not a sound came from the other side; she
might have been stone deaf or dead. In fact, I wanted to tell her that
I felt sure that something dreadful had happened, and that if she
wouldn't speak I should have to break down the door to see what was
wrong. But the old girl wouldn't have it. She said that she had had
enough of that folly, and when I talked about camping out on the
door-mat she marched me off downstairs, feeling all mops and brooms,
and all over the place. Then it came out that when I was at the front
door she had told the old girl that she wouldn't see me, and nothing
would make her see me, and had rushed up to her bedroom and locked
herself in. So I came back from Brighton all alone, and the wonder is
I didn't start to drink and keep on at it; only I had a sort of
feeling that if I began by being squiffy when I got here things
wouldn't be so very much brighter; besides, there's always time to
start that sort of thing if you are set on it."
"My dear old chap, you've done something to upset the lady's
apple-cart; you'll have a letter telling you all about it in the
morning."
"I hope so, but I doubt it; I might have known I was feeling too much
bucked up. You know she never said exactly yes; she sort of let me
take it for granted, and perhaps I took it a little too much for
granted; I feel that perhaps that's how it is. But if she's off with
me, I'm done--clean. She could make a man of me, even the kind of
article the governor thinks a man; but no one else could. If she won't
have me, I shall emigrate, that's what I shall do; I shall go to one
of those cheery spots where you get knocked out by blackwater fever,
or sleeping sickness, or something nice of that sort, three months
after you've landed."
Notice being given that dinner was ready, Rodney led Stella into the
private room in which it was to be served cheerfully enough, bestowing
on her admiring glances and whispering what he meant to be sweet
things into her pretty ear as they went.
"My hat! that's a duck of a frock you're arrayed in; you do look
scrumptious."
"I'm glad you think so."
The maid's manner was a trifle prim; she plainly wished him to
understand that she was still a little out with him. He smiled at her.
"I don't know what you're laughing at."
"Would you rather I cried?"
"I'm afraid poor Tom feels like crying. Isn't it strange Mary not
coming, and sending no message, or anything--nothing to explain? Have
you heard how she treated Tom?"
They had reached the dinner-table, and were settling themselves in
their places.
"Stella, be so good as to understand, once for all, that there's only
one subject to-night, and that's you. All other subjects are tabooed.
Are you quite comfortable? Don't put your chair too far off; so that,
if you feel like it, you can put your baby foot out towards mine and
with your wee slipper crush my favourite corn."
"Rodney, I'm glad you are going to talk to me at last, though I don't
suppose you have thought of me once all day."
"Shall I tell you what I've been looking for ever since I came?"
"I expect for somewhere to smoke."
"I've been looking for--say, a curtained nook, where I can have you
alone for about five minutes, and have a few of those kisses of which
I have been dreaming this livelong day."
"If you had come and fetched me you might have had one kiss--in the
cab."
"I'll have one kiss when I take you back--one!"
"Oh, you are going to take me back?"
"I am; and I'm going to eat you on the way; then you'll understand
what you escaped by my not fetching you."
"You're not to talk like that; people will hear you."
"Let 'em. Fancy if you'd arrived here with that lovely frock all
crumpled--two in a cab! People would have wondered what you had been
doing."
"Rodney, if you will talk like that I shall crush your favourite
corn."
"Crush it!"
"Please pass me the salt."
Whether, while he passed her the salt, she did crush it, there was
nothing to show.
The feast passed off better than, at one time, it had promised to do.
There were about twenty people present. Mr. Austin had whipped up, at
a moment's notice, various relations, and also certain persons who
were intimately connected with the firm of which he was head; he
desired to introduce to them not only his future son-in-law, but also
the probable partner in his business. Most of these people were very
willing to be entertained, simple souls, easily pleased, and the
dinner was a good one. Even Tom, who found himself next to a girl with
mischievous eyes and a saucy tongue, was inclined to shed some of his
melancholy before the menu was half-way through.
"I never did meet a girl who says such things as you do," he told her,
with a frankness which was perhaps meant for laudation. "You are quite
too altogether."
"You see," she said, with her eyes fixed demurely on her plate, "it
doesn't matter what one does say to some people, does it?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Of course some people don't count, do they?"
"By that I suppose you mean that I'm a----"
She did not wait for him to finish.
"Oh, not at all."
She looked at him with innocence in her glance, which was too perfect
to be real.
"How many times have you been ploughed?"
"Who's been telling you tales about me?"
"I was only thinking that it doesn't matter if one hasn't brains so
long as one has looks, and you have got those, haven't you?"
Tom's face, as the minx said this, in a voice which was just loud
enough to reach his ears, would have made a good photographic study.
Beyond a doubt he was in a fair way to lose some of his sadness, at
least for the time.
When the cloth had been removed the giver of the feast, getting on to
his feet, made the usual half jovial, half sentimental references to
the occasion which had brought them together; and, in wishing the
young couple well, made special allusion to the fact that he was not
only welcoming a son, but also a colleague. The toast he ended by
proposing could not have been better received. Then, while the young
maiden sat blushing, the young man stood up, and, in a brief yet deft
little speech, told how happy they all had made him, how the hopes
which he had cherished for years had at last been realised, how dear
those hopes had been to him, how unworthy he was of all the good gifts
which had descended on him. But of this they might be sure, that if he
had health and strength--and at present he was very well and pretty
strong, thanking them very much--he would do his very best in the
years to come to prove that he could at least appreciate those things
which Providence had bestowed on him. The young man sat down on quite
a pathetic note, and the girl by his side pressed his hand and looked
as if this were indeed one of those moments of which she had dreamed.
Then there were other speeches and all sorts of kind things were said,
which, at such times, one takes it for granted should be said. The
young man was made much of, and the maiden, if possible, even more.
And when the feast was really ended, and all the good wishes had been
wished again and again, and there came the time of parting, even Mr.
Austin was obliged to confess to himself that everything could
scarcely have gone off better. His wife was radiant, some of the
shadows had gone from Tom's face; apparently the young lady with the
mischievous eyes had in some subtle way, the secret of which she only
possessed, acted the part of the sun in dispelling the clouds; Stella
could not by any possibility have looked happier or Rodney prouder.
Tom, it is believed, saw the young lady with the mischievous eyes home
in one cab, and it is certain that Rodney was with Stella in another.
What took place during that journey in the cab between the restaurant
and Kensington it is not perhaps easy to determine precisely, but
beyond a doubt Rodney had that one kiss which had been spoken of, and
probably others; for when the house in Kensington was reached, and the
young lady ran up the steps to the front door, she was in a state of
the most delightful agitation. And in the house there was the final
parting, which occupied a considerable time, for they had to say to
each other the things which they had already said more than once, and
which Rodney at least could say so well and to which the girl so loved
to listen.
"I think that, after all, to-night has made up for to-day. Do you
know, Rodney," and she looked up into his face with something shining
in her pretty eyes, "that to-day I have had the most curious fancies?
I was actually frightened; I don't know at what, but I do know that
somehow it was because of you. Wasn't it silly?"
"I am not sure that it's ever silly for you to be frightened because
of me; I'm in the most delicious terror all day, and sometimes all
night, because of you; but you are a goose."
Then he held her perhaps a little closer, and whispered:
"It has been something of a night, hasn't it? For the first time in my
life I feel as if I were a person of some importance. You couldn't
have your betrothal feast again to-morrow, could you?"
She smiled.
"I doubt it; but we might have a silver betrothal feast as well as a
silver wedding. Hasn't that sort of thing ever been done?"
He laughed at the conceit, and when the parting really did come she
was looking forward as through a dim mist, towards that silver time at
which he had hinted; and when she went upstairs she prayed that after
five-and-twenty years of married life she might be as happy as she was
then. And all night she slept sweetly, dreaming the happiest dreams of
all that took place during the passage of the years, through which she
walked with the husband whom she loved so dearly, ever heart in heart
and hand in hand. That night was to her a halcyon time.