Nothing could exceed Zara's dignity, when they reached the drawing-room
above. They at first stood in a group by the fire in the larger room,
and Emily and Mary tried to get a word in and say something nice in
their frank girlish way. They admired their future sister-in-law so
immensely, and if Zara had not thought they were all acting a part, as
she herself was, she would have been touched at their sweetness. As it
was she inwardly froze more and more, while she answered with
politeness; and Lady Ethelrida, watching quietly for a while, grew
further puzzled.
It was certainly a mask this extraordinary and beautiful young woman was
wearing, she felt, and presently, when Lady Coltshurst who had remained
rather silently aloof, only fixing them all in turn with her long
eyeglasses, drew the girls aside to talk to her by asking for news of
their mother's headache, Ethelrida indicated she and Zara might sit down
upon the nearest, stiff, French sofa; and as she clasped her thin, fine
hands together, holding her pale gray gloves which she did not attempt
to put on again, she said gently:
"I hope we shall all make you feel you are so welcome, Zara--may I call
you Zara? It is such a beautiful name I think."
The Countess Shulski's strange eyes seemed to become blacker than
ever--a startled, suspicious look grew in them, just such as had come
into the black panther's on a day when Francis Markrute whistled a
softly caressing note outside its bars: what did this mean?
"I shall be very pleased if you will," she said coldly.
Lady Ethelrida determined not to be snubbed. She must overcome this
barrier if she could, for Tristram's sake.
"England and our customs must seem so strange to you," she went on. "But
we are not at all disagreeable people when you know us!" And she smiled
encouragingly.
"It is easy to be agreeable when one is happy," Zara said. "And you all
seem very happy here--_sans souci_. It is good."
And Ethelrida wondered. "What can make you so unhappy, you beautiful
thing, with Tristram to love you, and youth and health and riches?"
And Zara thought, "This appears a sweet and most frank lady, but how can
I tell? I know not the English. It is perhaps because she is so well
bred that she is enabled to act so nicely."
"You have not yet seen Wrayth, have you?" Ethelrida went on. "I am sure
you will be interested in it, it is so old."
"Wr--ayth--?" Zara faltered. She had never heard of it! What was Wrayth?
"Perhaps I do not pronounce it as you are accustomed to think of it,"
Ethelrida said kindly. She was absolutely startled at the other's
ignorance. "Tristram's place, I mean. The Guiscards have owned it ever
since the Conqueror gave it to them after the Battle of Hastings, you
know. It is the rarest case of a thing being so long in one family, even
here in England, and the title has only gone in the male line, too, as
yet. But Tristram and Cyril are the very last. If anything happened to
them it would be the end. Oh! we are all so glad Tristram is going to be
married!"
Zara's eyes now suddenly blazed at the unconscious insinuation in this
speech. Any one who has ever watched a caged creature of the cat tribe
and seen how the whole gamut of emotions--sullen endurance, suspicion,
resentment, hate and rage, as well as contentment and happiness--can
appear in its orbs without the slightest aid from lids or eyebrows,
without the smallest alteration in mouth or chin, will understand how
Zara's pools of ink spoke while their owner remained icily still.
She understood perfectly the meaning of Ethelrida's speech. The line of
the Tancreds should go on through her! But never, never! That should
never be! If they were counting upon that they were counting in vain.
The marriage was never intended to be anything but an empty ceremony,
for mercenary reasons. There must be no mistake about this. What if Lord
Tancred had such ideas, too? And she quivered suddenly and caught in her
breath with the horror of this thought.
And who was Cyril? Zara had no knowledge of Cyril, any more than of
Wrayth! But she did not ask.
If Francis Markrute had heard this conversation he would have been very
much annoyed with himself, and would have blamed himself for stupidity.
He, of course, should have seen that his niece was sufficiently well
coached, in all the details that she should know, not to be led into
these pitfalls.
Ethelrida felt a sensation of a sort of petrified astonishment. There is
a French word, _ahuri_, which expresses her emotion exactly, but there
is no English equivalent. Tristram's fiancé was evidently quite ignorant
of the simplest facts about him, or his family, or his home! Her eyes
had blazed at Ethelrida's last speech, with a look of self-defence and
defiance. And yet Tristram was evidently passionately in love with her.
How could such things be? It was a great mystery. Ethelrida was thrilled
and interested.
Francis Markrute guessed the ladies' lonely moments would be most
difficult to pass, so he had curtailed the enjoyment of the port and old
brandy and cigars to the shortest possible dimensions, Tristram aiding
him. His one desire was to be near his fiancé.
The overmastering magnetic current which seemed to have drawn him from
the very first moment he had seen her now had augmented into almost
pain. She had been cruelly cold and disdainful at dinner whenever she
had spoken to him, her contempt showing plainly in her eyes, and it had
maddened and excited him; and when the other men had all drunk the
fiancés' health and wished them happiness he had gulped down the old
brandy, and vowed to himself, "Before a year is out I will make her love
me as I love her, so help me God!"
And then they all had trooped up into the drawing-room just as Ethelrida
was saying,
"The northern property, Morndale, is not half so pretty as Wrayth--"
But when she saw them enter she rose and ceded her place to Tristram who
gladly sank into the sofa beside his lady.
He was to have no tête-à-tête, however, for Jimmy Danvers who felt it
was his turn to say something to the coming bride came now, and leant
upon the mantelpiece beside them.
"I am going to be the most severe 'best man' next Wednesday, Countess,"
he said. "I shall see that Tristram is at St. George's a good half-hour
before the time, and that he does not drop the ring; you trust to me!"
And he laughed nervously, Zara's face was so unresponsive.
"Countess Shulski does not know the English ceremony, Jimmy," Tristram
interrupted quickly, "nor what is a 'best man.' Now, if we were only
across the water we would have a rehearsal of the whole show as we did
for Darrowood's wedding."
"That must have been a joke," said Jimmy.
"It was very sensible there; there was such a lot of fuss, and
bridesmaids, and things; but we are going to be quite quiet, aren't we,
Zara? I hate shows; don't you?"
"Immensely," was all she answered.
Then Sir James, who felt thoroughly crushed, after one or two more
fatuous remarks moved away, and Zara arose in her character of hostess,
and spoke to Lady Coltshurst.
Tristram crossed over to the Duke and rapidly began a political
discussion, but while his uncle appeared to notice nothing unusual, and
entered into it with interest, his kind, old heart was wrung with the
pain he saw his favorite nephew was suffering.
"Mr. Markrute, I am troubled," Lady Ethelrida said, as she walked with
the host to look at an exquisite Vigée le Brun across the room. "Your
niece is the most interesting personality I have ever met; but,
underneath, something is making her unhappy, I am sure. Please, what
does it mean? Oh, I know I have promised what I did at dinner, but are
you certain it is all right? And can they ever be really at peace
together?"
Francis Markrute bent over, apparently to point to a _bibelot_ which
lay on a table under the picture, and he said in a low, vibrating tone.
"I give you my word there is some one, who is dead--whom I loved--who
would come back and curse me now, if I should let this thing be, with a
doubt in my heart as to their eventual happiness."
And Lady Ethelrida looked full at him and saw that the man's cold face
was deeply moved and softened.
"If that is so then I will speculate no more," she said. "Listen! I will
trust you!"
"You dear, noble English lady," the financier replied, "how truly I
thank you!" And he let some of the emotion which he felt, gleam from his
eyes, while he changed the conversation.
A few minutes after this, Lady Coltshurst announced it was time to go,
and she would take the girls home. And the Duke's carriage was also
waiting, and good nights were said, and the host whispered to Jimmy
Danvers,
"Take Tancred along with you, too, please. My niece is overtired with
the strain of this evening and I want her to go to bed at once." And to
Tristram he said,
"Do not even say good night, like a dear fellow. Don't you see she is
almost ready to faint? Just go quietly with the rest, and come for her
to-morrow morning to take her to your mother."
So they all left as he wished, and he himself went back upstairs to the
big drawing-room and there saw Zara standing like a marble statue,
exactly as they had left her, and he went forward, and, bending, kissed
her hand.
"Most beautifully endured, my queenly niece!" he said; and then he led
her to the door and up to her room. She was perfectly mute.
But a little while afterwards, as he came to bed himself, he was
startled and chilled by hearing the _Chanson Triste_ being played in her
sitting-room, with a wailing, passionate pathos, as of a soul in
anguish.
And if he could have seen her face he would have seen her great eyes
streaming with tears, while she prayed:
"_Maman_, ask God to give me courage to get through all of this, since
it is for your Mirko."