More than once during the week that ensued after his proposal of
marriage to Madaline, Lord Arleigh looked in wonder at the duchess. She
seemed so unlike herself--absent, brooding, almost sullen. The smiles,
the animation, the vivacity, the wit, the brilliant repartee that had
distinguished her had all vanished. More than once he asked her if she
was ill; the answer was always "No." More than once he asked her if she
was unhappy; the answer was always the same--"No."
"You are miserable because your husband is not here," he said to her one
day, compassionately. "If you had known how much you would have missed
him, you would not have let him go."
There was a wondrous depth of pain in the dark eyes raised to his.
"I wish he had not gone," she said; "from the very depths of my heart I
wish that." Then she seemed to recover her natural gayety. "I do not
know, though, why I should have detained him," she said, half
laughingly. "He is so fond of yachting."
"You must not lose all your spirits before he returns, Philippa, or he
will say we have been but sorry guardians."
"No one has ever found fault with my spirits before," said the duchess.
"You are not complimentary, Norman."
"You give me such a strange impression," he observed. "Of course it is
highly ridiculous, but if I did not know you as well as I do, I should
think that you had something on your mind, some secret that was making
you unhappy--that there was a struggle always going on between something
you would like to do and something you are unwilling to do. It is an
absurd idea, I know, yet it has taken possession of me."
She laughed, but there was little music in the sound.
"What imaginative power you have, Norman! You would make your fortune as
a novelist. What can I have to be unhappy about? Should you think that
any woman has a lot more brilliant than mine? See how young I am for my
position--how entirely I have my own way! Could any one, do you think,
be more happy than I?"
"No, perhaps not," he replied.
So the week passed, and at the end of it Lady Peters went with Madaline
to St. Mildred's. At first the former had been unwilling to go--it had
seemed to her a terrible _mésalliance_, but, woman-like, she had grown
interested in the love-story--she had learned to understand the
passionate love that Lord Arleigh had for his fair-haired bride. A
breath of her own youth swept over her as she watched them.
It might be a _mésalliance_, a bad match, but it was decidedly a case of
true love, of the truest love she had ever witnessed; so that her
dislike to the task before her melted away.
After all, Lord Arleigh had a perfect right to please himself--to do as
he would; if he did not think Madaline's birth placed her greatly
beneath him, no one else need suggest such a thing. From being a violent
opponent of the marriage, Lady Peters became one of its most strenuous
supporters. So they went away to St. Mildred's, where the great tragedy
of Madaline's life was to begin.
On the morning that she went way, the duchess sent for her to her room.
She told her all that she intended doing as regarded the elaborate and
magnificent _trousseau_ preparing for her. Madaline was overwhelmed.
"You are too good to me," she said--"you spoil me. How am I to thank
you?"
"Your wedding-dress--plain, simple, but rich, to suit the occasion--will
be sent to St. Mildred's," said the duchess--"also a handsome traveling
costume; but all the rest of the packages can be sent to Beechgrove. You
will need them only there."
Madaline kissed the hand extended to her.
"I shall never know how to thank you," she said.
A peculiar smile came over the darkly-beautiful face.
"I think you will," returned the duchess "I can imagine what blessings
you will some day invoke on my name."
Then she withdrew her hand suddenly from the touch of the pure sweet
lips.
"Good-by, Madaline," she said; and it was long before the young girl saw
the fair face of the duchess again.
Just as she was quitting the room Philippa placed a packet in her hand.
"You will carefully observe the directions given in this?" she said; and
Madaline promised to do so.
The time at St. Mildred's soon passed. It was a quiet, picturesque
village, standing at the foot of a green hill facing the bay. There was
little to be seen, except the shining sea and the blue sky. An old
church, called St. Mildred's, stood on the hill-top. Few strangers ever
visited the little watering-place. The residents were people who
preferred quiet and beautiful scenery to everything else. There was a
hotel, called the Queen's, where the few strangers that came mostly
resided; and just facing the sea stood a newly-built terrace of houses
called Sea View, where other visitors also sojourned.
It was just the place for lovers' dreams--a shining sea, golden sands,
white cliffs with little nooks and bays, pretty and shaded walks on the
hill-top.
Madaline's great happiness was delightful to see. The fair face grew
radiant in its loveliness; the blue eyes shone brightly. There was the
delight, too, every day of inspecting the parcels that arrived one after
the other; but the greatest pleasure of all was afforded by the
wedding-dress. It was plain, simple, yet, in its way, a work of art--a
rich white silk with little lace or trimming, yet looking so like a
wedding-dress that no one could mistake it. There were snowy gloves and
shoes--in fact everything was perfect, selected by no common taste, the
gift of no illiberal hand. Was it foolish of her to kiss the white folds
while the tears filled her eyes, and to think of herself that she was
the happiest creature under the sun? Was it foolish of her to touch the
pretty bridal robes with soft, caressing fingers, as though they were
some living thing that she loved--to place them where the sunbeams fell
on them, to admire them in every different fold and arrangement?
Then the eventful day came--Lord Arleigh and Madaline were to be married
at an early hour.
"Not," said Lord Arleigh, proudly, "that there is any need for
concealment--why should there be?--but you see, Lady Peters if it were
known that it was my wedding-day, I have so many friends, so many
relatives, that privacy would be impossible for us; therefore the world
has not been enlightened as to when I intended to claim my darling for
my own."
"It is a strange marriage for an Arleigh," observed Lady Peters--"the
first of its kind, I am sure. But I think you are right--your plan is
wise."
All the outward show made at the wedding consisted in the rapid driving
of a carriage from the hotel to the church--a carriage containing two
ladies--one young, fair, charming as a spring morning, the other older,
graver, and more sedate.
The young girl was fair and sweet, her golden hair shining through the
marriage vail, her blue eyes wet with unshed tears, her face flushed
with daintiest rose-leaf bloom.
It was a pleasant spectacle to see the dark, handsome face of her lover
as he greeted her, the love that shone in his eyes, the pride of his
manner, as though he would place her before the whole world, and defy it
to produce one so graceful or so fair. Lady Peters' face softened and
her heart beat as she walked up to the altar with them. This was true
love.
So the grand old words of the marriage-service were pronounced--they
were promised to each other for better for worse, for weal for
woe--never to part until death parted them--to be each the other's
world.
It was the very morning for a bride. Heaven and earth smiled their
brightest, the sunshine was golden, the autumn flowers bloomed fair, the
autumn foliage had assumed its rich hues of crimson and of burnished
gold; there was a bright light over the sea and the hill-tops.
Only one little _contretemps_ happened at the wedding. Madaline smiled
at it. Lord Arleigh was too happy even to notice it, but Lady Peters
grew pale at the occurrence; for, according to her old-fashioned ideas,
it augured ill.
Just as Lord Arleigh was putting the ring on the finger of his fair
young bride, it slipped and fell to the ground. The church was an
old-fashioned one, and there were graves and vaults all down the aisle.
Away rolled the little golden ring, and when Lord Arleigh stooped down
he could not see it. He was for some minutes searching for it, and then
he found it--it had rolled into the hollow of a large letter on one of
the level grave-stones.
Involuntarily he kissed it as he lifted it from the ground; it was too
cruel for anything belonging to that fair young bride to have been
brought into contact with death. Lady Peters noted the little incident
with a shudder, Madaline merely smiled. Then the ceremony was over--Lord
Arleigh and Madaline were man and wife. It seemed to him that the whole
world around him was transformed.
They walked out of the church together, and when they stood in the
sunlight he turned to her.
"My darling, my wife," he said, in an impassioned voice, "may Heaven
send to us a life bright as this sunshine, love as pure--life and death
together! I pray Heaven that no deeper cloud may come over our lives
than there is now in the sky above us."
These words were spoken at only eleven in the morning. If he had known
all that he would have to suffer before eleven at night, Lord Arleigh,
with all his bravery, all his chivalry, would have been ready to fling
himself from the green hill-top into the shimmering sea.