A QUIET WEDDING ADVOCATED.
"What did that little note mean, Doris?" asked Earle, with a smile. "You
see that I obeyed you implicitly."
Even as he spoke he stood still, lost in admiration of the beautiful
picture before him.
Although it was summer there was a bright little fire in the silver
grate, the lamps were lighted, but lowered, so that the room was filled
with a soft light; the hangings of rich rose silk were drawn, the long
mirrors reflected the light, the flowers filled the air with perfume,
and in the very heart of the rich crimson light sat the Lady Doris. She
was half-buried in a nest of crimson velvet, the firelight had caught
the gleam of her jewels, the sheen of the golden hair, the light in her
eyes, the white dress: it seemed to shine above all on the white jeweled
hands, that lay carelessly clasped on her knee. She had told the
countess Earle would call, and that she wished to speak to him, so that
she knew her _tete-a-tete_ would be quite undisturbed.
Earle looked at her, thinking that there had never been so fair a
picture in all the world; then he repeated his question. She looked up
at him, and he was struck by the unusual expression in her eyes; he
knelt down before her, and took one white hand in his.
"That cruel note," he said, "depriving me of a pleasure I cannot enjoy
too often. What did it mean?"
She did what was very unusual with her; she clasped her arms round his
neck.
"Oh, Earle! Earle! it is strange what rest I feel when you are near me.
I will tell you what the note meant, but you will laugh at me."
"I do not think so, darling; I have laughed with you, but not at you."
"I knew that tiresome Lord Vivianne was coming, and he tries my temper
so; he will admire me, and I do not want his admiration."
"Then why keep me away, darling; I might have saved you from it."
"No; I knew you could not. I was obliged to go down to dinner with him,
and it would have tried my temper too severely if I had been compelled
to sit by him and could not have been with you. You may think it a
stupid, childish reason, Earle, but it is a true one. I was determined
if I could not talk to you, I would not be annoyed by seeing any one
else do so."
He looked slightly puzzled, but, as he said to himself, it was one of
her caprices--why not be content?
"If my staying away pleased you," he said, "I am doubly pleased."
Yet it struck him as he spoke, that she had lost some of her animation
and brightness.
"How beautiful you look in this light, Dora," he said. "Why, my darling,
a king might envy me."
One of the white, jeweled hands rested caressingly on the noble head of
the young poet. He had never seen Dora so gentle before.
"My darling!" he cried, his face glowing with its rapture of happiness.
"My darling, you are beginning to love me so well at last."
"I do love you, Earle," she said, and for some minutes there was silence
between them.
She had a certain object to win, and she was debating within herself how
it was to be won.
"It is like a fairy tale," he said. "Why, my darling, looking at you I
cannot believe my own good fortune; you are the fairest woman in
England; you are noble, you are high in station; you have the wit, the
grace, the noble bearing of a queen. I have nothing but the two titles
you have given me, of gentleman and poet--yet I shall win you for my
wife. It is so wonderful--this love that breaks all barriers; money
could not have brought you to my side--a millionaire might love you, but
you would not care for him; title could not win you--it is love that has
made you all mine! All mine, until death!"
She listened to his impassioned words; she looked at the handsome, noble
face, and a sensation of something like shame came to her that she
should have to maneuver with a love so grand in its simplicity; still
she must save herself. Her arms fell with a dreamy sigh; the firelight
shining on her face showed it to be flushed and tremulous.
"Earle," she said, "do you remember how I used to long for a life like
this? long for gayety, excitement, wealth, pleasure, and perpetual
admiration?"
"I remember it well. I used to feel so puzzled to know how to get it for
you."
"Now I have it--more than even my heart desired. You will not think me
very fickle if I tell you something?"
"I shall never think you anything but most charming and lovable, Doris."
"Well, the truth is, I am rather tired of the life; but I do not like to
say so. I cannot think why it is; sometimes I think it may only be
fancy, that I am not strong as I used to be; perhaps the great change
has been too much for me. Let it be what it may, I am tired of it,
though I cannot say so to any one but you."
"The queen of the season tired of her honors?" said Earle, kissing the
sweet lips and the white brow.
"I am really tired, Earle. Then, though admiration is always sweet to a
woman, I have rather too much of it. That Prince Poermal is making love
to me, the Marquis of Heather made me an offer yesterday, and Lord
Vivianne teases me. Now, Earle, it is tiresome, it is indeed, dear. My
mind, my heart--nay, I need not be ashamed to say it--are filled with
you. I do not want the offers of other men--their love and admiration."
"Declaring our engagement would soon put an end to all that," he said,
thoughtfully.
But that was not what the Lady Doris wanted; she wanted him to urge
their marriage.
"Yes," she said, "we might make it known, but people would not believe
it; it would not save me from the importunities of other men."
He looked wonderingly at her. After all, it was a new feature in her
character--this dread of lovers.
"That is not all, Earle," she said, clasping her soft, warm fingers
round his hands. "I tell you--no one but you--this life is a little too
much for me. Before I had recovered from the great shock of the change,
I was plunged into the very whirlpool of London life. Do not imagine I
have joined the list of invalids, or that I have grown nervous, or any
nonsense of that kind: it is not so; but at times I feel a great failure
of strength, a deadly faintness or weakness that is hard to fight
against--a horrible foreboding for which I cannot account."
Her face grew pale, and her eyes seemed to lose their light as she
spoke.
"I am sure," she continued, "that it is from over-fatigue. Do you not
think so, Earle?"
"Yes," he replied; "now, what is the remedy?"
"I know the remedy. It would be to give all up for a time, and take a
long rest--a long rest," her voice seemed to die away like the softest
murmur of a sighing wind.
Earle felt almost alarmed; this was so completely novel, this view of
Doris, who had always been bright, piquant, and gay.
"You shall go away, darling," he said, tenderly.
"But, Earle," she said, "my father and Lady Linleigh are enjoying the
season so much, they have so many engagements, I cannot bear to say
anything about going."
"Then I will say it for you. I shall tell Lord Linleigh, to-morrow, that
you have exhausted yourself, and that you must have a few weeks of quiet
at Linleigh Court."
"What will he say, Earle?"
"If I judge him rightly, darling, he will say little, but he will act at
once; before this time next week you will be at Linleigh."
"Do you really think so? I am so glad," yet she shivered again as she
spoke. "I long to go to Linleigh, Earle, yet I have such a strange
feeling about it, a strange presentiment, a foreboding; surely no evil,
no danger awaits me at Linleigh. Do you know, I could fancy death
standing at the threshold waiting with outstretched arms to catch me."
Again her voice died away with a half-hysterical sob.
Earle bent over her and kissed her.
"My darling, you are fanciful, you are tired. I am so glad you have
trusted me; it is high time you were attended to. These nervous fancies
are enough to drive you mad; the evil has gone further than I thought.
Doris, my love, my sweet, it is only the reaction from over-fatigue that
gives you these ideas, nothing else; what awaits you but a future bright
as your own beauty? What shall I live for except to love and to serve
and to shield you?"
"Earle," she cried suddenly, "do you know what I wish?"
A long shining tress of golden hair had fallen over her shoulders, and
she sat twining it round her white fingers.
"Do you know what I wish?" she repeated.
"No; if I did I should do it, you may be quite sure, Doris."
"I wish that we--you and I--were married; that I was your wife, and that
we had gone far away from here, away where no one knows us, where we
could be quite happy, alone and together."
"Do you really wish that, Doris?" he asked.
Her face flushed slightly, but her voice did not tremble.
"I do really wish it," she replied. "If papa were willing we would be
married this summer, and we could go away, Earle, to some far-off land;
then--when we had been happy for some time--we could come home again. I
should have grown quite strong by then, and I should have found health,
strength, and peace, all with you."
There was a strange mingling of doubt and rapturous happiness on his
face.
"Do you really mean this, Doris?" he asked. "Would you--the queen of the
season, the fairest object of man's worship--would you give up all your
triumphs, all your gayeties, and prefer to live in quiet and solitude
with me?"
There was a slight hesitation for one half moment; he was so noble, so
true. It was pitiful to use his great love for the obtaining of her own
ends; but she must save herself--she must do that.
"You may believe me, Earle," she replied, gently; "if it could be, I
would far rather it were so."
"Then, darling, it shall be--my head grows dizzy with the thought of
it--you, my peerless, my beautiful Doris, will be my own wife when the
summer comes. Why, Doris, listen! oh, listen, love! Do you know that I
never fully realized that I was to make you my wife, though I have loved
you so passionately and so well? You have always seemed of late far
above me, like a bright shining star to be worshiped, hardly to be won.
When I said to myself, that at some time or other you should be my wife,
it has been like a dream--a bright, sweet, unreal dream. I do not know
that I ever fancied you, sweet, with bridal veil and orange-blossoms;
yet now, you say, you will marry me in the summer!"
"That I will, Earle," she replied.
"Heaven bless you, my own darling! Heaven speed the happy summer. Why,
Doris, I can see the gold on the laburnums, I can hear the ring-doves
cooing, I can see the smile of summer all over the land! Mine in the
summer, dear; Heaven, make me worthy!"
"There is but one thing, Earle," she said; "I--you will think I have
changed, but I cannot help that--I want a quiet marriage. It would
please me best if nothing were said, even about our engagement, but if
we could go quietly to Linleigh and keep the secret of our marriage to
ourselves; that is what I should really like, Earle."
"Then it shall be so, my darling! Now, do not give yourself one moment's
anxiety. Shut those beautiful eyes and sleep all night, dreaming only of
summer roses and your lover, Earle. I shall see your father to-morrow,
and I shall tell him; he will be quite willing, I am sure."
"You are very good to me, Earle," she said, gratefully. "How foolish I
was ever to think that I did not care for you, and to run away from you,
was I not?"
"That is all forgotten, love," he said, and she felt that she would have
given the whole world if it had never happened.