“THE BRIDE-ELECT.”
“Was ever maid so used as I?”
--UPTON.
The days that ensued, how busy they were, and how fast they flew.
Mrs. Redmond, with a deadened conscience and an active brain, fired
up into a final blaze of energy and intrigue. She drew out--although
it was as agonising as extracting her teeth--a considerable amount
of her savings, to pay for Belle’s extravagant outfit. It was one of
her few remaining pleasures to see her idol fittingly adorned, and to
superintend dress rehearsals of future social triumphs.
She dashed off dozens of letters to her former friends, announcing her
daughter’s approaching wedding in fitting terms; and as Belle was
apparently making an excellent match, presents followed in thick and
fast. Mrs. Malone endowed her future relative with her own wedding
veil. Cuckoo sent a case of scissors, Miss Dopping a looking-glass
in an antique silver frame, with a bye word to Betty that “it would
remind the bride of what she loved best in the world.” And there were
many other offerings, from a small diamond brooch to a large silver
button-hook, and on the whole Belle considered that she had done
remarkably well. Betty was invaluable at this period. She planned and
sewed, and toiled from morning till night, and was quite feverishly
busy--in constant bodily occupation was her only opiate for mental
anguish. The shock of the first realisation of George’s baseness,
had resolved itself into a continuous ache, that would always stir
and throb as long as his memory might rouse her pride; her lover had
forsaken her, and the bitterness of abandonment was in her heart.
Many people remarked that she was looking thin and out of spirits,
that her eyes were hollow, and her laugh was rare, but attributed
this--including the fair damsel herself--to Belle’s approaching
departure. She accompanied her radiant cousin in wild and hasty raids
on Dublin shops. She folded and unfolded, tried on and altered, many
of the smart gowns that came pouring in by the carrier’s cart. She
“hurried up” the Dooleys, and the hum of her sewing machine might be
heard for hours. But late at night, whilst Belle slept soundly, and
dreamt happy dreams of India, at the other side of the thin partition
wall, Betty, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, and with streaming
hair, was wandering restlessly up and down, and flinging herself on
her knees with clasped and outstretched hands. “He has forgotten,”
she would murmur--“Oh, if _I_ could but forget,” and then she would
sob--repressed strangling sobs, lest the sound should penetrate to her
sleeping cousin. No wonder that she looked pale and haggard, and very
different from the gay and beaming Betty of a year ago!
She worked very hard, whilst restless, excitable Belle found a number
of excellent reasons for doing nothing, and roamed about the house,
singing snatches of songs, and waltzes, and talking incessantly of
India, herself and George. “It’s a curious thing, Betty,” she remarked
one day, as she lolled beside her busy companion, “that, although
George was so desperately fond of me, as _you_ know, he never said
anything, never even hinted at an offer, or committed himself by word
or look; and I am sure I gave him heaps of openings. Do you remember
how I used to sing:
‘Si vous n’avez rien à me dire.’”
And she laughed a shameless laugh.
“I told him over and over again, that it was the dream of my life to
see India, and yet he never said one syllable; he did not think it
honourable to ask a girl to share a life of poverty. No wonder they
call him ‘Gentleman George,’ eh?”
“No wonder!” echoed Betty rather faintly.
“I am so glad he likes _you_, Bet, he often said so, and always sent
you messages in his letters, kind remembrances and that sort of thing.
Some day you must come out and pay us a visit. I am certain you would
marry well out in India, where girls are scarce; you have such lots of
‘go’ in you, and really your eyes and figure are not so bad. I believe
George rather admired you!”
“Tell me one thing, Belle,” said the other, shielding with her hand her
poor quivering face. “Do you love him very much? I know he is not your
first love.”
“Pooh!” interrupted the bride-elect, “nor my twenty-first; I had my
first love at eleven years of age, a delightful school-boy, who ruined
himself in lockets and chocolates for my sake, and now at twenty-nine
(though I don’t look it) I have my last, I suppose! I don’t believe in
frantic love, such as you read of in books, where girls walk about all
night wringing their hands and weeping,”--Betty became scarlet--“and
where men--well, now I come to think of it--the men don’t care! they
swear they will shoot themselves, and they fall in love with the next
pretty face. Love, such as poets rave about, blazes up quickly like
straw, and then goes out, and leaves unpleasant ashes; great emotions
wear people down, and age them frightfully.”
“If you don’t believe in love, what do you believe in?” said Betty,
suddenly laying down her work.
“I believe in a presentable, gentlemanly husband, with good
connections, and a full purse. I believe in gold, incense and freedom.
I believe in a delightful life in India, in lots of amusement and going
about, I----”
“But----” began her listener interrogatively.
“Yes, I know what you are going to say, of course I like George very
much, but not so much as _he_ likes me. That is always the way;
one is saddled and bridled, and the other is booted and spurred--I
infinitely prefer the latter _rôle_! Look at Mrs. Malone! Of course
_she_ was a fool, but what a life she led. Well, she will be a harmless
mother-in-law, that’s one comfort! Only think, Bet, this day week I
shall be on the high seas, and this day month I shall probably be Mrs.
Holroyd, and you will no longer be Miss Betty, but Miss Redmond. I have
promised mother to send a wire, so that it may appear in the papers
at once. I always think it looks so well and so important, to see an
announcement concluding with ‘By Telegram.’”
Mrs. Redmond seemed entirely oblivious of the part she had enacted in
the domestic drama, and treated the engagement as if it were quite a
_bonâ-fide_ affair, and had possibly brought herself to believe that
it was so. She received numerous visitors, to whom she expatiated
eloquently on the ancestors, and the acres, of the Holroyds, and the
great match Belle was making--to which plain-spoken Miss Dopping had
remarked, that it might turn out to be a _Lucifer_ match yet!--and I
am truly concerned to add, was disagreeably exultant to the mothers of
unmarried daughters. Her conscience was now, so to speak, dead. She had
assured it, in its last dying struggles, that she was merely doing evil
that good might come. What was a lie? merely an intellectual evasion of
a difficulty! She had lied to Belle, boldly and successfully, and were
she to confess now, and repair her error, Belle would perhaps end her
days in a madhouse. She had only given destiny a little push, that was
all!
In spite of Dr. Moran’s angry expostulations, Mrs. Redmond made a
great effort, and accompanied her daughter to London, saw her on board
the _Nankin_ in the Victoria Docks, handed her over to the charge of
Colonel and Mrs. Calvert, and then bade her good-bye for ever. Belle
hugged her and kissed her many times, and wept herself to the very
verge of hysterics, but her tears were dry, and she had smoothed her
hair, and changed her hat, and was chatting merrily--long before the
_Nankin_ had passed Gravesend.
Her day, she told herself, was just rising, and she was resolved to
make the most of it, whilst the poor old lady, rumbling back to London
in a four-wheeler, and sobbing as if her heart would break, felt that
her life was over--she had practically done with existence when she
closed the door of Belle’s cabin.