AFTER THE WEDDING.
Ann Nettleby, busy in the culinary department, never remembered seeing
her restless sister so exceedingly restless as on this afternoon. When
the clock struck six, and old Mr. Nettleby plodded home from his day's
work, and the two young Mr. Nettleby's came whistling from town, and tea
was ready, Ann came out to call her to partake. But Cherrie impatiently
declined to partake; and still waited and watched, while the sunset was
burning itself out of the purple sky, and the cinnamon roses drooped in
the evening wind. The last amber and crimson flush was paling behind the
blue western hills, when he, so long waited for, came up the dusty road,
twirling a cane in his hand, and smoking a cigar. The unspeakable beauty
and serenity of the summer twilight was no more to him than to her who
watched at the vine-wreathed gate. A handsome man and a pretty
girl--each was far more to the taste of the other than all the beauty of
sky and earth.
Right opposite the cottage were the dark, silent cedar woods. The moment
he came in sight, Cherrie opened the gate, motioning him to follow,
struck into the narrow footpath, winding among the woods. Captain
Cavendish followed, and found her sitting on a little knoll, under the
tree.
"I have been watching for you this ever so long," she breathlessly
began; "I thought you would never come! I have something to tell you,
and I daren't tell you in the house, for father and the boys are there."
Captain Cavendish leaned against a tree, puffed his cigar, and looked
lazily down at her.
"Well, petite, what is it?"
"Oh, it's something dreadfully important. It's about Miss Marsh."
The young captain threw away his cigar, and took a seat beside Cherrie,
interested at once. He put his arm round her waist, too, but this is
by-the-way.
"About Miss Marsh? Have you been listening?"
Cherrie gave him an account how she had gone for Mr. Darcy, and hidden
afterward in Nathalie's room.
"My clever little darling! And what did you hear?"
"You never could guess! O my goodness," cried Cherrie, clasping her
hands, "won't Miss Natty be in a passion, when she finds it out."
"Will she, though? Let us hear it, Cherrie."
"Well," said Cherrie, "you know Miss Natty was to be heiress of Redmon,
and have all Lady Leroy's money when she dies?"
"Yes! well?"
"Well, she isn't to be any longer! Lady Leroy made a new will this
afternoon, and Miss Natty is disinherited!"
Captain Cavendish started with something like an oath.
"Cherrie! are you sure of this?"
"Certain sure!" said Cherrie, with a look and tone there was no
doubting. "I heard every word of it--her telling him so first, and him
reading the will afterward and father and Midge signed it!"
"The--devil!" said Captain Cavendish between his teeth; "but what put
such a freak in the old hag's head?"
"You!" said Cherrie.
"I!"
"Yes--just you! She told Mr. Darcy Natty was engaged to you, and would
not give you up, all she could say; so she meant to disinherit her. She
said Nathalie should never know, unless she married you before she was
dead--if she didn't, she shouldn't find it out until she was in her
grave, and then you would desert her when you found out she was poor,
and Nathalie would be rewarded for her disobedience!"
Captain Cavendish's handsome face wore a scowl so black, and the oath he
swore was so dreadful, that even Cherrie shrank away in something like
terror.
"The old hag! I could throttle her if I had her here! Cherrie, who did
she leave her money to?"
"To her brother--or, in case of his death, to his heirs; and five pounds
to Natty to buy a mourning ring."
"Did you hear her brother's name?"
"Yes, but I forget! It was Harrington, or Harrison, or something like
that. Mr. Darcy scolded like everything, and said it was unjust; but
Lady Leroy didn't seem to mind him. Isn't it good I listened?"
"Cherrie! Cherrie! Cherrie!" called Ann Nettleby, "Where are you,
Cherrie? There's somebody in the house wants you!"
"I must go!" said Cherrie, rising. "You stay here, so Ann won't see you.
Will you be up to-morrow?"
"Yes," said Captain Cavendish; and Cherrie flitted away rapidly in the
growing dusk. For once he was glad to be rid of Cherrie--glad to be calm
and think, and the late-rising moon was high in the sky before he left
the wood, and walked back to Speckport.
Cherrie's visitor turned out to be Charley Marsh, who received the
reverse of a cordial welcome from his fickle-minded lady-love, who was
more than a little provoked at his shortening her interview with one she
liked better. She seated herself by the window, with her eyes fixed on
the cedar wood, rapidly blackening now, waiting for her lover to emerge;
but when his tall dark figure did at length stride out through the dark
path, night had fairly fallen, and it was too late to see what
expression his face wore.
Whatever the young Englishman's state of mind had been on leaving the
wood that night, it was serene as mood could be when, next morning,
Sunday, Miss Nettleby, _en grande tenue_, gold chain and all, made her
appearance in Speckport, and met him as she turned out of Redmon road.
Miss Nettleby was going to patronize the cathedral this morning,
confirmation was to take place, with all the magnificent and poetical
ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and Cherrie would not have missed it
for the world. Neither would Captain Cavendish, who went partly from
curiosity, partly to kill time, partly to show himself in full uniform,
and partly to hear Nathalie Marsh play and sing. Out of the great organ
she was drawing such inspiring strains as Captain Cavendish thought he
had never heard before; rolling out in volumes of harmony over the ears
of people below, and grand and grateful were the notes the instrument
gave forth to her master-hand. In front of the altar all the youthful
aspirants for confirmation were seated, the girls robed in snowy white,
and wearing vails and wreaths on their bowed heads, like young brides.
But now the bishop, in mitre and chasuble, with a throng of attendant
priests, in splendid vestments, preceded by a score of acolytes in
scarlet soutanes, and white lace surplices, bearing candles and crozier,
are all on the altar, and the choir have burst forth as with one voice,
into the plaintive cry "Kyrie Eleison," and pontifical high mass has
begun. High over all that swelling choir, high, clear and sweet, one
soprano voice arises, the voice of the golden-haired organist: "Gloria
in Excelsis!" Something in the deep solemnity of the scene, in the
inspiring music, in the white-robed and flower-crowned girls, in the
silent devotion of the thousands around him, stirred a feeling in the
soul of the man, that he had never felt since, in early boyhood, before
he knew Eton or Voltaire, he had knelt at his mother's knee, and
learned there his childish prayers. He forgot, for a brief while, his
wickedness and his worldliness, forgot the black-eyed girl by his side,
and the blue-eyed girl whose voice vibrated through those lofty aisles,
and, with dreamy eyes, and a heart that went back to that old time,
listened to the sermon of the aged and white-haired priest, grown gray
in the service of that God whom he, a poor atom of the dust, dared
deride. It was one of those moments in which the great Creator, in his
infinite compassion for his lost sheep, goes in search of us to lead us
back to the fold, in which our good angel flutters his white wings about
us, and tries to lift us out of the slime in which we are wallowing. But
the sermon was over, the benediction given, the last voluntary was
playing, and the vast crowd were pouring out. Captain Cavendish took his
hat and went out with the rest; and before he had fairly passed through
the cathedral gates was his old, worldly, infidel self again, and was
pouring congratulations and praise into the too-willing ears of Nathalie
Marsh, on her admirable performances, while Charley went home with
Cherrie.
All that day, and the next, and the next, Captain Cavendish never came
near Redmon, or the pretty cottage where the roses and sweetbriers grew;
but Mr. Johnston, a pleasant-spoken and dapper young cockney, without an
h in his alphabet, and the captain's confidential valet, came back and
forth with messages, and took all trouble and suspicion off his master.
Neither had Miss Nettleby made her appearance in Speckport; she had
spent the chief part of her time about the red-brick house, but had
learned nothing further by all her eavesdropping. In a most restless and
excited state of mind had the young lady been ever since Monday morning,
in a sort of inward fever that grew worse and worse with every passing
hour. She got up and sat down, and wandered in and out, and tried to
read, and sew, and net, and play the accordion, and threw down each
impatiently, after a few moments' trial. She sat down to her meals and
got up without eating anything; her cheeks burned with a deep, steady
fever-red, her eyes had the unnatural brightness of the same disease,
and Ann stared at her, and opined she was losing her wits.
In rain and gloom the wedding-day dawned at last. Cherrie's fever was
worse--she wandered from room to room of the cottage all day long, the
fire in her eyes and the hectic on her cheek more brilliant than ever.
The sky was like lead, the wind had a warning wail in its voice, and the
rain fell sullenly and ceaselessly. But the rain could not keep the girl
in-doors; she went out and wandered around in it all, returning dripping
wet, three or four times, to change her drenched clothes. The girls had
the cottage to themselves; old Nettleby was out in the shed, mending his
gardening-tools, and the boys were in Speckport. The dull day was ending
in a duller and rainier twilight, and Ann Nettleby was bustling about
the tidy kitchen, getting tea, and wondering if Cherrie had gone to bed
in her room up-stairs, she had been so quiet for the last half-hour. She
did not go up to see; but set the tea to draw, laid the table, and lit
the lamp. The wet twilight had now closed in, in a black and dismal
night, when Ann heard a carriage stop at the gate, and, a moment after,
a loud knock at the front door. Before she could open it, some person
without did so, and Ann saw Mr. Val Blake, wrapped in a mackintosh, and
waiting at the gate a cab, with a lighted lamp.
"How are you, Ann?" inquired Mr. Blake. "Is Cherrie in?"
"Yes, here I am!" a voice called out, and Cherrie herself came running
down stairs, her heart beating so fast and thick she could hardly speak.
"I thought you would like a drive this evening, Cherrie," said Val;
"it's wet, but you won't mind it in the cab, and I'll fetch you back
before ten. Run and wrap up and come along."
It was not the first time Ann Nettleby had heard such impromptu
invitations given and accepted, and it was none of her business to
interfere. Cherrie was off like a flash, and down again directly, in
out-door dress, her vail down, to hide her flushed and excited face.
Ann Nettleby, standing in the cottage-door, watched the cab drive away
through the rainy night, and then, closing the door, went back to the
kitchen, to give her father his tea. She took her own with him, setting
the teapot back on the stove, to keep hot for her brothers. Old Nettleby
fell asleep immediately after tea, with his pipe in his mouth, and Ann
went back to her netting, wondering once more what Cherrie was about,
and wishing she could have such fine times as her elder sister. Could
she only have seen in some magic mirror what was at that moment going on
in a humble little Wesleyan chapel in a retired street of the town! The
building dimly lighted by one flickering candle; a minister, or what
looked like one, in white neckcloth and clerical suit of black; the tall
and distinguished man, wearing a shrouding cloak, and the little girl,
who trembled and quivered so fearfully, standing before him, while he
pronounced them man and wife; and that other tall young man, with his
hands in his coat-pockets, listening and looking on! Could Ann Nettleby
only have seen it all, and known that her pretty sister was that very
night a bride!
Val Blake was certainly the soul of punctuality. As the clock on the
kitchen-mantel was striking ten, the cab stopped once more at the
cottage-door, and she heard his unceremonious voice bidding Cherrie
good-night. Ann opened the door, and Cherrie, her vail still down,
brushed past her without saying a word, and flitted up the staircase to
her own room.
It was half an hour later when Ann Nettleby's two brothers came,
dripping like water-dogs, home from town; and Ann having admitted them,
went yawningly up-stairs to bed.
"I say, father," said Rob Nettleby, pulling off his wet jacket, "was
there company up at Redmon to-day?"
"No," replied the old man. "Why?"
"Oh, because we met a carriage tearing by just now, as if Old Nick was
driving. I wonder what it was about?"