along the guiding current into their tiny port, the trunk floating
high, displaying its white stenciled monogram proudly, the suit
case following, the absurd little chimney-pot ducking and bobbing
in the rear. Suddenly, as the suit case seemed likely to drift
out again, they rushed to the bank, and while Nette dragged the
trunk to shelter Antony strode into the water and gathered in the
smaller craft.
They were all of wicker, with a lining of oiled silk and a covering
of thick waterproof rubber material, and as Nette pulled at the
fastenings of the trunk and flung back the lid it was at once
evident that both these shielding materials had admirably performed
their office: the contents were uninjured. They looked upon a
shallow tray divided into two parts. In one lay what was apparently
a small, fantastically shaped cloud of palest mauve. Upon one side
of this cloud there was fastened with a sort of jewel a long, soft
feather of a slightly deeper tint of mauve. This feather curled
caressingly about the cloud and Antony's experience instructed him
that the object was quite terrestrial--was, in fact, a hat. An
indistinguishable, fluffy, shimmering mass of mauve filled the
other compartment, and in the cover a cunning artificer had set a
fair-sized mirror, surrounded by numerous loops of leather which
held brushes, combs, and other toilet accessories. As Antony
regarded this collection of objects, he was aware of a long, soft
sigh, and turning to his companion he beheld her bowing as in a
trance before them, lost, like the persons in a well-known hymn, in
wonder, love and praise.
"Oh! How perfect!" she breathed, and at the picture of her,
dripping and draggled, shivering and ecstasied, he shook his head
in thoughtful amazement.
"Now, Miss Nette," he said abruptly, "do you know what you are
going to do. This is simply too extraordinary to be anything less
than providential. You are going to follow me into this little shed
and when I have taken the trunk there, you are going to put on
everything you can find in it. If there's anything sensible enough
there, please give yourself a good rub-down with it. Will you take
cold with your hair wet?" he added masterfully.
Either moisture or the sight of the mauve glories had taught her
meekness, for:
"Oh, no, my hair will dry in a few minutes--it dries very quickly,"
she assured him, adding timidly, "but ought I--they are so lovely--
have we any right----"
"I suppose you have a right to avoid pneumonia," he interrupted her
rudely "and as far as the question of rights is concerned, this is
rather late in the day to go into that, I think!"
He marched to the little shed, bearing the trunk, as it had been
the crown regalia, on outstretched arms, and Nette, wringing her
hair and murmurmg incoherent abnegations concerning her
unworthiness of the mauve mysteries, followed nevertheless.
Repeating sternly his injunctions as to the value of thorough
rub-downs, he left her, and falling upon the suit case, which he
prophetically connected with the comforting masculine hat box, he
carried it behind the shed, and at a chivalrous distance opened it
Then in that deserted wood there was a silence, like that which
fell in heaven, for the space of half an hour and, it may be, a
little longer. At the end of this silence there appeared from
behind a large oak a very dignified and handsome young gentleman
attired, perhaps a thought impractically for his surroundings,
in a fleckless frock coat with the appurtenances usually
thereto accredited by our leading metropolitan tailors, such as
stiffly creased grey trousers, patent-leather shoes, and delicate
gloves dangled in the hand. Walking somewhat mincingly, this
gentleman, elaborately backing around the shed and apparently not
observing it, sought a rubber-incased hat box lying on the ground,
and stooping gingerly, unclasped it, drew from it a glossy, black
hat, and after a few affectionate strokings, which, applied to its
surface, could but recall to any student of literature the painting
of the lily, placed the same upon his sleek head with an absorbed
and even slightly terrified expression, which melted slowly into
one of deep satisfaction. After this he coughed politely and
prepared to back again around the little hut. In this operation he
was, however, interrupted by a soft tug at one of his almost
too perfect coat tails.
"I look very well, too, I think," said a hesitating, sweet voice,
and in an instant he was bareheaded before her.
Charming as Nette had appeared in her simple walking dress, Antony
was utterly unprepared for the picture she now presented. In the
absurd and yet wonderfully effective setting of the brown, budding
trees, the broken and forbidding rocks, against the dull background
of the dingy, decaying hut, her soft, pale tints of hat and gown
gleamed like some one of the perfumed daintinesses Watteau traced
upon his tricksy, tempting court fans. The whole costume, from the
sweeping cavalier feather to the saucy, buckled slippers, recalled
subtly that delightful pretense at Arcadia, that amusing pastoral
figuring and posturing that broke under a sigh too ardent, a
pressure too fiery, into the scented powder puff and the satin
stays. One looked for a spinet, garlanded with golden cupids, for a
white lamb smelling like Araby the blest, for a wreathed crook with
a tiny mirror artfully set in its curve. To gaze upon that
diabolically contrived simplicity was to produce in the susceptible
breast, and most particularly in the susceptible masculine
breast, an odd tumult of sensations too conflicting in their nature
for description.
Nette's hair ran vine-like under the melting, tender-coloured
plume; her skin glowed softly rosy, and two faint violet shadows
under her brilliant eyes toned sweetly with the colours of her
misleading gown. Around her neck on a slender golden chain was hung
a singularly perfect fresh-water pearl, large, with shifting
colours, utterly unadorned by any jeweller's fancies; an odd and
very elegant bauble that caught Antony's eye instantly.
"Mademoiselle," he began, "you are--you are----" he paused, for
genuine lack of words. "You are absurdly charming," he concluded,
not altogether lamely, after all, and she swept him a graceful
courtesy, her long, pale sash-ends floating out against the rough
bark behind her. Nor was Master Antony displeased at the
satisfaction at his appearance which he surprised in her eyes.
Intrinsically inartistic indeed is the garb of our modern male, and
yet to our accustomed eye there is a fine air of fitness, a grave
elegance, in his sombre bifurcation; an ordered poetry in his
candid vest, his lustrous neck scarf; a twinkling luxuriousness
in his polished and costly footwear. All this appeared to
perfection in Antony's dignified figure, just sufficiently above
the middle height to allow of his being called tall.
"The sleeves," he informed her, "are a little short and I am not
sure that I have not stretched the shoulder seams a little, but the
shoes are exactly my own size. The underwear," he added absently,
"was silk. Apricot colour----"
"My shoes," she began hastily, "are too large, but I think I can
keep them on. The skirt is too long, of course, but I can hold it
up. The hat," she concluded, with softened eyes, "I should like to
be buried in."
"I should dislike to have you buried in it," he said briefly, "and
now," he continued briskly, "the next thing is to get away. I have
put all my things into the suit case and I will, with your
permission, put yours there too. Then we will leave the suit case
and the hat box under a pile of old boughs near where I dressed,
and the trunk--is there anything in the trunk?" he broke off.
"No, I put them all on," she assured him, flushing delightfully.
"There was just enough--of everything."
"I see. Well, I think we'll simply leave it here. Perhaps I might
hide it a little," and he tossed a dusty roll of cocoa matting and
a coil of rope over the receptacle, which being small became from
that moment unnoticed.
"And now," said Antony, when he had conveyed the neat, damp roll
she handed him to its hiding place, "let us get along. We can do no
better than follow this path, which seems to grow broader, if
anything, and it stands to reason we must come out somewhere. I may
as well confess that I have a very poor idea of location, and I
don't as yet find any landmarks. From the moment that we struck off
into that field track I lost my bearings entirely. I should suppose
we were opposite--or almost opposite--Brookdale; perhaps a bit
lower down. We can get a rig and drive back probably--unless we die
of hunger," he ended angrily. "I have only a little change with me
--forgot it when I changed my clothes, of course, this morning. I
suppose, though, I could get some money on this," and he fingered
the scarf pin at his throat. It was a horseshoe of small diamonds
of the purest water, and as Nette's eyes fastened on it she started
suddenly.
"Was that what you had on this morning?" she asked.
"No," he answered, flushing a little. "I found it in a jeweller's
box on the top of the things in the suit case, with a letter. I
have the letter--it says only 'Amory' on it. I put the pin on," a
trifle shamefacedly, "more or less to go with the whole rig, you
know!"
Antony looked very boyish as he made this confession and Nette
could but smile as he fingered the little horseshoe consciously.
This smile was not lost upon the youth, and turning, he walked on
in silence, advancing steadily if delicately along the path, which,
though narrow enough to force them into single file, was
sufficiently clear to afford a certain margin of safety to
Nette's billowy splendours. Antony occasionally held back a
threatening bough, and she from time to time moaned apprehensively
as some projecting stump detained her drapery for a terrifying
second; but for this they exchanged no further conversation.
Antony's faculties, stretched to their utmost since morning,
unfortified by food, absolutely refused to rally around him on this
occasion, and though he cudgelled his brains for a solution of the
probabilities of his conduct when they should emerge from the wood,
it was a useless performance. He was capable of walking erectly
through the trees, of keeping his shoes bright, of shielding his
hat from indignity--and of nothing more. Thus oblivious to all but
the sensations of the moment, he plodded steadily on, and it was
with an expression of positive stupor that he burst all at once and
without the slightest transition of the foliage out of the rude
woods into a trim gravel road flanked by incredibly artificial
Lombardy poplars. In front of him swept a terraced lawn; far across
it rose a lordly Elizabethan mansion composed, apparently, of
weathered oak and gay window boxes; a marvellously rolled
tennis court swam before his dazzled eyes. As he felt Nette at his
side and opened his lips to speak, a loud, triumphant shout burst
upon the air and a carriage and pair stationed at the end of the
drive sprang into rapid motion towards them.
"'Ere you are, sir! 'Ere! Just in time, sir, jump in! All right,
sir--I knew by the lady's dress--could you h'open the door
yourself, sir? Mr. Richard said he knew you'd try the old road--
'owever did you get over the old bridge, sir? I doubt we can make
it this late, but we'll try. Excuse me, sir, but there's no time
for talk--in you go, sir!"
Under the piercing eye of the garrulous old servant Nette slipped
into the brougham and Antony after her, as one in a dream. The fat
bays literally galloped along the crushed stone, whirled through an
elaborate iron gateway, and devoured the stretch of country road
whose scattered houses Antony tried in vain to identify.
"Where are we going?" Nette asked fearfully, but he could only
shake his head.
"Somewhere near a railroad station, I hope," he answered; "we
couldn't very well walk along the road dressed like this.
Evidently this old idiot knows your dress--that's very
unfortunate."
"He cannot know it," she insisted, "for it has never been worn. I
am sure of it."
"Nonsense," said Antony brutally, and at her incredulous
displeasure he softened only so far as to demand:
"Then how did he know you?"
"I don't know," she admitted, and they drew up suddenly among a
crowd of carriages and motor-cars gathered around a quaint stone
church.
"Now we'll slip out," Antony began, when all at once a slender
young man sprang to the door of the brougham, wrenched it open,
seized Antony's hand, and burst into a torrent of language.
"Well, you took your time, didn't you? At last! Ritchie was sick
with rage--till we got the telegram. How's Auguste? Car gave
out, of course. Poor Emily felt dreadfully. Miss---excuse me, but
all I can think of is Gertrude, you can just get in--dash over to
the cloister and they've left a place, _So_ glad to have met you--
yes, indeed. This is Williamson. Please ask for mother's carriage
directly the ceremony is over--we're going to form an arch or
something at the house. Hurry up, old man--I had all your work. The
rest are in by this time, but I have to attend to the carriages and
you are to take in the late ones. Family on left of white ribbons--
for heaven's sake, Miss Gertrude--_run!_"
He dragged Nette from the step and raced her toward the church; she
lifted her skirts and skimmed like a swallow beside him. Antony
stumbled to the puffing old coachman, pulled all the silver out of
his pocket and handed it to him mechanically.
"Thank you kindly, sir--I did my best. So many not knowing either
you or the young lady, sir, it was 'ard for us, but I did my best.
She looks beautiful, they tell me--h'isn't that some one waving for
you, sir?"
Antony ran wildly towards the church door, whence issued a pompous
and familiar peal from the organ; a strongly accented march, to
whose measures, he reflected dizzily, no one whom he had yet
encountered had ever been able to adapt his steps. He peered up the
little, crowded aisle. Half-way along it paced a solemn party of
young men; four visions of mauve and feathers followed them, and
even as he removed his hat four more hurried past him and entered
the door. They were in couples, each bearing a great armful of
white and purple sweet peas, and the maiden nearest him in the last
couple, flushed and panting, with one bare arm, was none other than
poor Uncle Julius's godmother's own daughter's stepdaughter! She
moved demurely, her eyes downcast, the great pearl rising with her
quick breath, and Antony wiped the troubled sweat from his brow. A
stir behind him, a murmured, sighing tribute, and the bride was
passing by. White as the lilies in her hands, a frostlike veil
falling over her glistening train, she glided beside her portly
father, and the crowded little church turned to mark her passage as
a hedge of sunflowers seeks the sun.
Antony sighed and turned to confront a massive lady swathed in
rose-coloured satin and variously adorned with precious stones of
all colours. She fixed him with a protruding grey eye and directed
toward him a hissing whisper.
"I am the bride's Aunt!" she declared. Antony stared vaguely at
her.
"And I hope there is a seat well to the front," she continued
severely, if hoarsely.
With a shock of comprehension Antony thrust forward his arm.
"I am sure that there is, madam," he said politely, "pray come with
me."
And so it happened that he led the massive satin creature up the
aisle in the wake of that mystic procession, outwardly a mask of
courtly solicitude, but within him the premonitions of whirling
mania. He was literally faint with hunger; the strong sweetness
of the lilies and other aromatic plants disposed about the church
for its decoration affected him almost unpleasantly with their
cloying odours, and the menacing fear that with every step he was
involving himself further in a list of crimes so confused as to be,
perhaps, yet uncatalogued in the annals of the law, shadowed his soul.
"_I, Emily Hildegarde, take thee, Richard_----"
the tones of the frost-like bride were as clear and silvery as her
veil. Richard would encounter a certain amount of self-possession,
it appeared. But perhaps young women were all self-possessed, now.
Antony could not recall a bride that had trembled in his
experience.
The solemn service hastened to its conclusion. Suppose the marriage
should prove to have been invalid because of a fraudulent and
criminal usher? It might be possible. . . .
"I am sorry, but the church is filled," he murmured suavely to a
beseeching violet-scented pair, marvelling at his own self-command.
It was over. Mendelssohn announced it and his echoes shook the
windows. Two more hopeful voyagers had launched out upon life,
arm in arm down the smiling, tearful aisle; two more combatants
with armour scarcely buckled smiled boastfully on entering the
field, nor noted that it was strewn with the breakage of their
predecessors!
Thus cynically did Antony muse as the glowing pair swept by, when
all at once a soft voice murmured close to his ear:
"Ask for Mrs. Williamson's carriage!"
She was gone. They were all gone, in a perfumed cloud of mauve, and
with a bound he cleared the three entrance steps and ran to the
crowd of vehicles that began to move about.
"Is Mrs. Williamson's carriage here?" he called loudly, and, as a
one-horse coupe drew up to him, the odour of sweet peas was wafted
across his nostrils and she swept in beside him, jealously guarding
her skirts from harmful contacts. Obedient to her imperative
gesture, he took his seat beside her, and feeling unable to combine
into any intelligible sentence his emotions and apprehensions,
gazed questioningly into her flushed and sparkling countenance. She
pressed the sweet peas to her breast, and as the carriage moved off
at a rapid pace she looked deep into his eyes and spoke.
"Wasn't she lovely?" she said dreamily.
Antony opened his mouth and closed it, opened it again and again
closed it. For a moment it seemed to him that his mind was reeling
from its foundations; that perhaps, after all, he was the
legitimate usher of Emily's wedding and that this lustrous-eyed
creature with him was Gertrude . . . and then a wholesome rage came
to his assistance.
"For heaven's sake," he cried, "talk reasonably! Where are we
going? What town is this? Do you realise the awful situation we are
in? I shall go raving mad if this thing keeps up much longer!"
She laid a small gloved hand on his knee and spoke calmly to the
quivering youth.
"Listen," she said, "I do not see that we can do better than
go on to the house. It is a very big wedding and we can mix very
easily in the crowd if only I can get another dress--or a long
coat, somewhere. Perhaps I can. Especially now, when hardly any one
is here yet. Then you can get hold of a carriage and we can drive
to the station. We can at least get something to eat, for I know
how hungry you are. Nobody knows who half the people are at a
wedding--it is the safest place in the world for--for----"
"For escaping criminals," he concluded bitterly, yet with an
unreasonable lightening of heart. "It is true, nobody will know me.
And perhaps I can find out where we are."
"And who we are," she reminded him, smiling kindly.
He was amazed at the almost maternal gentleness, the sweet poise of
her manner. She might have been the very bridesmaid she simulated.
"Did any one speak to you?" he asked curiously.
She shook her head.
"I was so late. I think I am _her_ friend, and they don't seem to
know each other so very well. The first four are friends, but
my four, no. Still, I can't very well see them again, for she will
ask about me--oh, who can this be?"
They had turned in at a different gate from the one by which they
had left and were following a driveway that led along a series of
stables and offices. From one of these a house-maid ran out,
stopping the carriage with a gesture. At her embarrassed request
Antony opened the carriage door.
"I was to ask the first one that came by this way, if you please--
you are an usher, aren't you, sir?"--Antony nodded grimly--"to go
to the laundry, right here, sir, and pick out the best arches.
They're in the tubs. The other gentlemen will help carry them in.
Mr. Richard thought the ladies would know best about the arches,"
she added shyly, Smiling graciously, Nette stepped lightly from the
coupe, and as Antony followed her she nodded to the coachman,
"You may go back now," she said, "we will walk up to the
house in a few moments."
He touched his hat and drove on, the house-maid hastened in the
same direction, and Nette, followed by her companion, stepped into
the laundry. There indeed were the arches, twined with purple and
white sweet peas; the dim, damp room reeked and bloomed with them.
As they confronted each other uncertainly, a high, excited voice
floated toward them, evidently nearing rapidly.
"We must have every carriage guarded and the trains watched, that's
all. They must be in the house, and they had no luggage, so how can
they change their clothes? That dress will mark the woman
absolutely. They will try for a motor, of course."
Steps were at the laundry door. In an agony of terror Antony
dragged the girl into a back room, and hardly knowing what he did,
beckoned her up a narrow, dingy stair. Like shadows they fled up
it, and crouched at its head listening to the tramping feet of what
was evidently a group of men: young men from their tone and manner.
"It's perfectly clear," began the unmistakable voice of Williamson,
"they are, of course, that same couple that got off with
three big touring cars last season. It's their specialty. The man
drives like a demon, and the woman is the coolest little devil that
ever walked. They have Amory's car, they got the clothes, and by
coming so late they actually put the thing through. I hope no
jewelry is gone, but we mustn't alarm the guests at any cost--Emily
would never forgive us."
"The woman is marked--I know all the bridesmaids now, and I shall
make it my business to locate the eighth. Harvey, will you stay
with the presents? Ritch, like a fool, refused to have a
detective."
"What did he look like, Williamson?" some one demanded.
"Kick me, if you want to, Harvey, I couldn't tell to save my
life I--I was so excited, and he was so decent about it--he's just
like anybody else. And I'm the only one that said a word to him--
it's maddening! We'll have to let him go--we can't grab every man
we see, and nobody knows who half these people are. But watch the
dining-room. Amory ought to be here any minute. He's nearly crazy,
I suppose."
"Oh, I don't know," drawled a third voice. "If his precious
Gertrude is with him, what's a scarf pin more or less to Ammy?"
"Nevertheless, I'm sorry for the man that took that car," said
Williamson curtly, and Antony bit his lip nervously on the stairs
as he listened to the low murmur of assent that followed.
"Well, don't let us stay here all night," Williamson began again
fussily. "Grab some of these damned wreaths, you fellows, and see
if we can get them up to the house without sitting down in them!"
They bustled out, arguing over the best methods of tracking down
their victims, who cowered miserably above them. Fear, insensate,
reasonless fear, had laid his quivering, livid fingers on their
shoulders, and chilled the blood in their veins. To get away--
to get away, at any cost!
Antony, stooping over the crouching figure by his side, whispered
in her ear:
"I'll step down and look about a bit. There must be some way--I'll
get you a coat somewhere and we can slip out. Wait here."
All was empty and silent in the laundry, but as he stopped a moment
behind the door before peering out, a hand knocked gently on it and
a boy's voice questioned softly.
"Are ye' there, then? Are ye, sir?" Instinctively and before he
could catch back the word, Antony whispered hoarsely:
"Yes!"
"I'll be puttin' this in the durway, then, and Miss Delia Nolan
said for me to say for ye to please wait an hour for her, an' she'd
surely come. She does be needed in the bedrooms upstairs to watch
the ladies' clothes f'r fear they'd be stolen, she says. But if
ye'll wait the hour, she'll be with you, with more, maybe, if she
can get it. Trust me for the horses, sir!"