By return of post Angela received her strange agreement, duly copied
and signed, and after this the preparations for the marriage went on
rapidly. But where such a large transaction is concerned as the sale of
between three and four thousand acres of land, copyhold and freehold,
together with sundry rent-charges and the lordship of six manors,
things cannot be done in a minute.
Both George and Philip and their respective lawyers—Sir John would have
nothing to do with the matter—did their best to expedite matters, but
unfortunately some legal difficulty arose in connection with the
transfer, and who can hurry the ponderous and capricious machinery of
the law?
At length it became clear to all concerned, except Angela, that it
would be impossible for the marriage to take place before the eighth of
June, and it also became clear that that was the last possible day on
which it could take place. George begged Philip (by letter, being too
ill to come and see him) to allow the marriage to be gone through with
at once, and have the business transactions finished afterwards. But to
this Philip would not consent; the title-deeds, he said, must be in his
possession before it took place, otherwise he would have no marriage.
George had therefore no option but to accept his terms.
When Angela was told of the date fixed for the ceremony—she would not
allow the word marriage to be mentioned in connection with it—she at
first created considerable consternation by quietly announcing that she
would not have it performed until the tenth of June. At last, however,
when matters were growing serious, and when she had treated all the
pressure that it was possible to put upon her with quiet
indifference—for, as usual, her father declined to interfere, but
contented himself with playing a strictly passive part—she suddenly of
her own mere motion, abolished the difficulty by consenting to appear
before the registrar on the eighth of June, as George wished.
Her reasons for having objected to this date in the first instance will
be easily guessed. It was the day before the anniversary of Arthur’s
departure, an anniversary which it was her fancy to dedicate solely to
his memory. But as the delay appeared—though she could not altogether
understand why—to put others to great inconvenience, and as George’s
state of health had become such as to render postponement, even for a
couple of days of doubtful expediency, and as, moreover, she decided on
reflection that she could better give her thoughts to her dead lover
when she had gone through with the grim farce that hung over her, she
suddenly changed her mind.
Occasionally they brought her documents to sign, and she signed them
without a question, but on the whole she treated the affair with
considerable apathy, the truth being that it was repugnant to her mind,
which she preferred to occupy with other and very different thoughts.
So she let it go. She knew that she was going to do a thing which was
dreadful to her, because she believed it to be her duty, but she
comforted herself with the reflection that she was amply secured
against all possible contingencies by her previous agreement with
George. Angela’s knowledge of the marriage-law of her country and of
what constituted a legal document was not extensive.
For this same reason, because it was distasteful, she had never said
anything of her contemplated marriage to Pigott, and it was quite
unknown in the neighbourhood. Since the Miss Lee scandal and his
consequent disinheritance, nobody had visited Philip Caresfoot, and
those who took interest in him or his affairs were few. Indeed the
matter had been kept a dead secret. But on the seventh of June, being
the day previous to the ceremony, Angela went down to her nurse’s
cottage and told her what was about to be done, suppressing, however,
from various motives, all mention of her agreement with George. It
added to her depression to find that Pigott was unaccountably disturbed
at the news.
“Well, miss,” she said,—“Lord, to think that I sha’n’t be able to call
you that no longer—I haven’t got nothing in particular to say agin it,
seeing that sure enough the man’s a-dying, as I has on good authority
from my own aunt’s cousin, her that does the servants’ washing up at
the Hall, and mighty bad she does it, begging of her pardon for the
disparagement, and so he won’t trouble you for long, and somehow it do
seem as though you hadn’t got no choice left in the matter, just as
though everybody and everything was a-quietly pushing you into it. But,
miss, somehow I don’t like it, to be plain; a marriage as ain’t no
marriage ain’t altogether natural like, and in an office, too, along
with a man as you would not touch with a pair of tongs, and that man on
his last leg. I’m right down sorry if I makes you feel uncomfortable,
dearie; but, bless me, I don’t know how it is, but, when a thing sticks
in my mind, I’m as bound to hawk it up as though it were a bone in my
throat.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, nurse, but perhaps you don’t
understand all about the property being concerned, and about its having
to pass away from my father, if I don’t do this. I care nothing about
the property, but he left it to ‘my generosity!’ Arthur is dead; and he
left it to ‘my generosity,’ nurse. What could I do?”
“Well, miss, you’re acting according to what you thinks right and due
to your father, which is more nor I does; and poor, dead Mr. Arthur up
in Heaven there will make a note of that, there ain’t no manner of
doubt. And somehow it do seem that things can’t be allowed to go wrong
with you, my dear, seeing how you’re a-sacrificing of yourself and of
your wishes to benefit others.”
This conversation did not tend to put Angela into better spirits, but
she felt that it was now too late to recede.
Whilst Angela was talking to Pigott, Sir John and Lady Bellamy were
paying a call at Isleworth. They found George lying on the sofa in the
dining-room, in which, though it was the first week in June, a fire was
burning on the hearth. He bore all the signs of a man in the last stage
of consumption. The hollow cough, the emaciation, and the hectic hue
upon his face, all spoke with no uncertain voice.
“Well, Caresfoot, you scarcely look like a bridegroom, I must say,”
said little Sir John, looking as pleased as though he had made an
eminently cheerful remark.
“No, but I am stronger than I look; marriage will cure me.”
“Humph! will it? Then you will be signally fortunate.”
“Don’t croak, Bellamy. I am happy to-day—there is fire dancing along my
veins. Just think, this time to-morrow Angela will be my legal wife!”
“Well, you appear to have given a good price for the privilege, if what
Anne tells me is correct. To sell the Isleworth estates for fifty
thousand, is to sell them for a hundred and fifty thousand less than
they are worth. Consequently, the girl costs you a hundred and fifty
thousand pounds—a long figure that for one girl.”
“Bah! you are a cold-blooded fellow, Bellamy. Can’t you understand that
there is a positive delight in ruining oneself for the woman one loves?
And then, think how she will love me, when she comes to understand what
she has cost me. I can see her now. She will come and kiss me—mind you,
kiss me of her own free will—and say, ‘George, you are a noble fellow;
George, you are a lover that any woman may be proud of; no price was
too heavy for you.’ Yes, that is what she will say, that sort of thing,
you know.”
Sir John’s merry little eye twinkled with inexpressible amusement, and
his wife’s full lips curled with unutterable contempt.
“You are counting your kisses before they are paid for,” she said.
“Does Philip come here this afternoon to sign the deeds?”
“Yes; they are in the next room. Will you come and see them?”
“Yes, I will. Will you come, John?”
“No, thank you. I don’t wish to be treated to any more of your
ladyship’s omens. I have long ago washed my hands of the whole
business. I will stop here and read the _Times_.”
They went out, George leaning on Lady Bellamy’s arm.
No sooner had they gone than Sir John put down the _Times_, and
listened intently. Then he rose, and slipped the bolt of that door
which opened into the hall, thereby halving his chances of
interruption. Next, listening at every step, his round face, which was
solemn enough now, stretched forward, and looking for all the world
like that of some whiskered puss advancing on a cream-jug, he crept on
tiptoe to the iron safe in the corner of the room. Arrived there, he
listened again, and then drew a little key from his pocket, and
inserted it in the lock; it turned without difficulty.
“Beau-ti-ful,” murmured Sir John; “but now comes the rub.” Taking
another key, he inserted it in the lock of the subdivision. It would
not turn. “One more chance,” he said, as he tried a second. “Ah!” and
open came the lid. Rapidly he extracted two thick bundles of letters.
They were in Lady Bellamy’s handwriting. Then he relocked the
subdivision, and the safe itself, and put the keys away in his trousers
and the packets in his coat-tail pockets, one in each, that they might
not bulge suspiciously. Next he unbolted the door, and, returning, gave
way to paroxysms of exultation too deep for words.
“At last,” he said, stretching his fat little fist towards the room
where George was with Lady Bellamy, “at last, after twenty years of
waiting, you are in my power, my lady. Time _has_ brought its revenge,
and if before you are forty-eight hours older you do not make
acquaintance with a bitterness worse than death, then my name is not
John Bellamy. I will repay you every jot, and with interest, too, my
lady!”
Then he calmed himself, and, ringing a bell, told the servant to tell
Lady Bellamy that he had walked on home. When, an hour and a half
later, she reached Rewtham House, she found that her husband had been
suddenly summoned to London on a matter of business.
That night in her desolation Angela cast herself upon the floor with
outstretched arms and wept for her dead lover, and for the shame which
overshadowed her. And the moon travelling up the sky, struck her,
shining coldly on her snowy robe and rounded form—glinting on the
stormy gold of her loosed hair—flooding all the room with light: till
the white floor gleamed like a silver shrine, and she lay there a
weeping saint. Then she rose and crept to such rest as utter weariness
of body and mind can give.
All that night, too, George Caresfoot paced, hungry-eyed, up and down,
up and down the length of his great room, his gaze fixed on the windows
which commanded Bratham, like that of some caged tiger on a desired
prey.
“To-morrow,” he kept muttering; till the first ray of the rising sun
fell blood-red upon his wasted form, and then, bathing his thin hands
in its beams, he sank down exhausted, crying exultingly, “not
to-morrow, but _to-day_.”
That night Lady Bellamy sat at an open window, rising continually to
turn her dark eyes upon the starry heavens above her.
“It is of no use,” she said at last, “my knowledge fails me, my
calculations are baffled by a quantity I cannot trace. I am face to
face with a combination that I cannot solve. Let me try once more! Ah,
supposing that the unknown quantity is a directing will which at the
crisis shatters laws, and overrides even the immutability of the
unchanging stars! I have heard of such a thing. Let me change the
positions of our opposing planets, and then, see, it would all be clear
as day. George vanishes, that I knew before. She sails triumphant
through overshadowing influences towards a silver sky. And I, is it
death that awaits me? No, but some great change; there the pale light
of my fading star would fall into her bright track. Bah, my science
fails, I can no longer prophesy. My knowledge only tells me of great
events, of what use is such knowledge as that? Well, come what may,
fate will find one spirit that does not fear him. As for this,” and she
pointed towards the symbols and calculations, “I have done with it.
Henceforth I will devote myself to the only real powers which can
enlighten us. Yet there is humiliation in failure after so many years
of study. It is folly to follow a partial truth of which we miss the
keynote, though we sometimes blunder on its harmonies.”