"THAT LIP AND VOICE ARE MUTE FOR EVER."
Having pledged herself to remain with her aunt to the end, Christabel
was fain to make the best of her life at Mount Royal, and in order to do
this she must needs keep on good terms with her cousin. Leonard's
conduct of late had been irreproachable: he was attentive to his mother,
all amiability to Christabel, and almost civil to Miss Bridgeman. He
contrived to make his peace with Randie, and he made such a good
impression upon Major Bree that he won the warm praises of that
gentleman.
The cross country rides were resumed, the Major always in attendance;
and Leonard and his cousin were seen so often together, riding, driving,
or walking, that the idea of an engagement between them became a fixture
in the local mind, which held that when one was off with the old love it
was well to be on with the new.
And so the summer ripened and waned. Mrs. Tregonell's health seemed to
improve in the calm happiness of a domestic life in which there was no
indication of disunion. She had never surrendered her hope of
Christabel's relenting. Leonard's frank and generous character--his good
looks--his local popularity--must ultimately prevail over the memory of
another--that other having so completely given up his chances. Mrs.
Tregonell was half inclined to recognize the nobleness of that
renunciation; half disposed to accept it as a proof that Angus
Hamleigh's heart still hankered after the actress who had been his first
infatuation. In either case no one could doubt that it was well for
Christabel to be released from such an engagement. To wed Angus would
have been to tie herself to sickness and death--to take upon herself the
burden of early widowhood, to put on sackcloth and ashes as a wedding
garment.
It was winter, and there were patches of snow upon the hills, and sea
and sky were of one chill slaty hue, before Leonard ventured to repeat
that question which he had asked with such ill effect in the sweet
summer morning, between hedgerows flushed with roses. But through all
the changes of the waning year there had been one purpose in his mind,
and every act of his life had tended to one result. He had sworn to
himself that his cousin should be his wife. Whatever barriers of
disinclination, direct antagonism even, there might be on her side must
be broken down by dogged patience, unyielding determination on his side.
He had the spirit of the hunter, to whom that prey is most precious
which costs the longest chase. He loved his cousin more passionately
to-day, after keeping his feelings in check for six months, than he had
loved her when he asked her to be his wife. Every day of delay had
increased his ardour and strengthened his resolve.
It was New Year's day. Christabel and Miss Bridgeman had been to church
in the morning, and had taken a long walk with Leonard, who contrived to
waylay them at the church door after church. Then had come a rather late
luncheon, after which Christabel spent an hour in her aunt's room
reading to her, and talking a little in a subdued way. It was one of
Mrs. Tregonell's bad days, a day upon which she could hardly leave her
sofa, and Christabel came away from the invalid's room full of sadness.
She was sitting by the fire in the library, alone in the dusk save for
Randie's company, when her cousin came in and found her.
"Why, Belle, what are you doing all alone in the dark?" he exclaimed. "I
almost thought the room was empty."
"I have been thinking," she said, with a sigh.
"Your thoughts could not have been over-pleasant, I should think, by
that sigh," said Leonard, coming over to the hearth, and drawing the
logs together. "There's a cheerful blaze for you. Don't give way to sad
thoughts on the first day of the year, Belle: it's a bad beginning."
"I have been thinking of your dear mother, Leonard: _my_ mother, for she
has been more to me than one mother in a hundred is to her daughter. She
is with us to-day--a part of our lives--very frail and feeble, but still
our own. Where will she be next New Year's day?"
"Ah, Belle, that's a bad look out for both of us," answered Leonard,
seating himself in his mother's empty chair. "I'm afraid she won't last
out the year that begins to-day. But she has seemed brighter and happier
lately, hasn't she?"
"Yes, I think she has been happier," said Christabel.
"Do you know why?"
His cousin did not answer him. She sat with her face bent over her dog,
hiding her tears on Randie's sleek black head.
"I think I know why the mother has been so tranquil in her mind lately,
Belle," said Leonard, with unusual earnestness, "and I think you know
just as well as I do. She has seen you and me more friendly
together--more cousinly--and she has looked forward to the fulfilment of
an old wish and dream of hers. She has looked for the speedy realization
of that wish, Belle, although six months ago it seemed hopeless. She
wants to see the two people she loves best on earth united, before she
is taken away. It would make the close of her life happy, if she could
see my happiness secure. I believe you know that, Belle."
"Yes, I know that it is so. But that can never be."
"That is a hard saying, Christabel. Half a year ago I asked you a
question, and you said no. Many a man in my position would have been too
proud to run the risk of a second refusal. He would have gone away in a
huff and found comfort somewhere else. But I knew that there was only
one woman in the world who could make me happy, and I waited for her.
You must own that I have been patient, have I not, Belle?"
"You have been very devoted to your dear mother--very good to me. I
cannot deny that, Leonard," Christabel answered gravely.
She had dried her tears, and lifted her head from the dog's neck, and
sat looking straight at the fire, self-possessed and sad. It seemed to
her as if all possibility of happiness had gone out of her life.
"Am I to have no reward?" asked Leonard. "You know with what hope I have
waited--you know that our marriage would make my mother happy, that it
would make the end of her life a festival. You owe me nothing, but you
owe her something. That is sueing _in formâ pauperis_, isn't it, Belle?
But I have no pride where you are concerned."
"You ask me to be your wife; you don't even ask if I love you," said
Christabel, bitterly. "What if I were to say yes, and then tell you
afterwards that my heart still belongs to Angus Hamleigh."
"You had better tell me that now, if it is so," said Leonard, his face
darkening in the firelight.
"Then I will tell you that it is so. I gave him up because I thought it
my duty to give him up. I believed that in honour he belonged to another
woman. I believe so still. But I have never left off loving him. That is
why I have made up my mind never to marry."
"You are wise," retorted Leonard, "such a confession as that would
settle for most men. But it does not settle for me, Belle. I am too far
gone. If you are a fool about Hamleigh, I am a fool about you. Only say
you will marry me, and I will take my chance of all the rest. I know you
will be a good wife; and I will be a good husband to you. And I suppose
in the end you will get to care for me, a little. One thing is certain,
that I can't be happy without you; so I would gladly run the risk of an
occasional taste of misery with you. Come, Belle, is it a bargain," he
pleaded, taking her unresisting hands. "Say that it is, dearest. Let me
kiss the future mistress of Mount Royal."
He bent over her and kissed her--kissed those lips which had once been
sacred to Angus Hamleigh, which she had sworn in her heart should be
kissed by no other man upon earth. She recoiled from him with a shiver
of disgust--no good omen for their wedded bliss.
"This will make our mother very happy," said Leonard. "Come to her now,
Belle, and let us tell her."
Christabel went with slow, reluctant steps, ashamed of the weakness
which had yielded to persuasion and not to duty. But when Mrs. Tregonell
heard the news from the triumphant lover, the light of happiness that
shone upon the wan face was almost an all-sufficing reward for this last
sacrifice.
"My love, my love," cried the widow, clasping her niece to her breast.
"You have made my last earthly days happy. I have thought you cold and
hard. I feared that I should die before you relented; but now you have
made me glad and grateful. I reared you for this, I taught you for this,
I have prayed for this ever since you were a child. I have prayed that
my son might have a pure and perfect wife: and God has granted my
prayer."
After this came a period of such perfect content and tranquillity for
the invalid, that Christabel forgot her own sorrows. She lived in an
atmosphere of gladness; congratulations, gifts, were pouring in upon her
every day; her aunt petted and cherished her, was never weary of
praising and caressing her. Leonard was all submission as a lover. Major
Bree was delighted at the security which this engagement promised for
the carrying on of the line of Champernownes and Tregonells--the union
of two fine estates. He had looked forward to a dismal period when the
widow would be laid in her grave, her son a wanderer, and Christabel a
resident at Plymouth or Bath; while spiders wove their webs in shadowy
corners of the good old Manor House, and mice, to all appearance
self-sustaining, scampered and scurried behind the panelling.
Jessie Bridgeman was the only member of Christabel's circle who
refrained from any expression of approval.
"Did I not tell you that you must end by marrying him?" she exclaimed.
"Did I not say that if you stayed here the thing was inevitable?
Continual dropping will wear away a stone; the stone is a fixture and
can't help being dropped upon; but if you had stuck to your colours and
gone to Leipsic to study the piano, you would have escaped the
dropping."
As there was no possible reason for delay, while there was a powerful
motive for a speedy marriage, in the fact of Mrs. Tregonell's precarious
health, and her ardent desire to see her son and her niece united before
her fading eyes closed for ever upon earth and earthly cares, Christabel
was fain to consent to the early date which her aunt and her lover
proposed, and to allow all arrangements to be hurried on with that
view.
So in the dawning of the year, when Proserpine's returning footsteps
were only faintly indicated by pale snowdrops and early violets lurking
in sheltered hedges, and by the gold and purple of crocuses in all the
cottage gardens, Christabel put on her wedding gown, and whiter than the
pale ivory tint of the soft sheeny satin, took her seat in the carriage
beside her adopted mother, to be driven down into the valley, and up the
hilly street, where all the inhabitants of Boscastle--save those who had
gone on before to congregate by the lich-gate--were on the alert to see
the bride go by.
Mrs. Tregonell was paler than her niece, the fine regular features
blanched with that awful pallor which tells of disease--but her eyes
were shining with the light of gladness.
"My darling," she murmured, as they drove down to the harbour bridge, "I
have loved you all your life, but never as I love you to-day. My
dearest, you have filled my soul with content."
"I thank God that it should be so," faltered Christabel.
"If I could only see you smile, dear," said her aunt. "Your expression
is too sad for a bride."
"Is it, Auntie? But marriage is a serious thing, dear. It means the
dedication of a life to duty."
"Duty which affection will make very light, I hope," said Mrs.
Tregonell, chilled by the cold statuesque face, wrapped in its cloudy
veil. "Christabel, my love, tell me that you are not unhappy--that this
marriage is not against your inclination. It is of your own free will
that you give yourself to my boy?"
"Yes, of my own free will," answered Christabel, firmly.
As she spoke, it flashed upon her that Iphigenia would have given the
same answer before they led her to the altar of offended Artemis. There
are sacrifices offered with the victim's free consent, which are not the
less sacrifices.
"Look, dear," cried her aunt, as the children, clustering at the
school-house gate--dismissed from school an hour before their
time--waved their sturdy arms, and broke into a shrill treble cheer,
"everybody is pleased at this marriage."
"If you are glad, dearest, I am content," murmured her niece.
It was a very quiet wedding--or a wedding which ranks among quiet
weddings now-a-days, when nuptial ceremonies are for the most part
splendid. No train of bridesmaids in æsthetic colours, Duchess of
Devonshire hats, and long mittens--no page-boys, staggering under
gigantic baskets of flowers--no fuss or fashion, to make that solemn
ceremony a raree-show for the gaping crowd. The Rector of Trevalga's two
little girls were the only bridesmaids--dressed after Sir Joshua, in
short-waisted dove-coloured frocks and pink sashes, mob caps and
mittens, with big bunches of primroses and violets in their chubby
hands.
Mrs. Tregonell looked superb in a dark ruby velvet gown, and long mantle
of the same rich stuff, bordered with darkest sable. It was she who gave
her niece away, while Major Bree acted as best man for Leonard. There
were no guests at this winter wedding. Mrs. Tregonell's frail health was
a sufficient reason for the avoidance of all pomp and show; and
Christabel had pleaded earnestly for a very quiet wedding.
So before that altar where she had hoped to pledge herself for life and
till death to Angus Hamleigh, Christabel gave her submissive hand to
Leonard Tregonell, while the fatal words were spoken which have changed
and blighted some few lives, to set against the many they have blessed
and glorified. Still deadly pale, the bride went with the bridegroom to
the vestry, to sign that book of fate, the register, Mrs. Tregonell
following on Major Bree's arm, Miss Bridgeman--a neat little figure in
silver grey poplin--and the child bride-maids crowding in after them,
until the small vestry was filled with a gracious group, all glow of
colour and sheen of silk and satin, in the glad spring sunshine.
"Now, Mrs. Tregonell," said the Major, cheerily, when the bride and
bridegroom had signed, "let us have your name next, if you please; for I
don't think there is any of us who more rejoices in this union than you
do."
The widow took the pen, and wrote her name below that of Christabel,
with a hand that never faltered. The incumbent of Minster used to say
afterwards that this autograph was the grandest in the register. But the
pen dropped suddenly from the hand that had guided it so firmly. Mrs.
Tregonell looked round at the circle of faces with a strange wild look
in her own. She gave a faint half-stifled cry, and fell upon her son's
breast, her arms groping about his shoulders feebly, as if they would
fain have wound themselves round his neck, but could not, encumbered by
the heavy mantle.
Leonard put his arm round her, and held her firmly to his breast.
"Dear mother, are you ill?" he asked, alarmed by that strange look in
the haggard face.
"It is the end," she faltered. "Don't be sorry, dear. I am so happy."
And thus, with a shivering sigh, the weary heart throbbed its last dull
beat, the faded eyes grew dim, the lips were dumb for ever.
The Rector tried to get Christabel out of the vestry before she could
know what had happened--but the bride was clinging to her aunt's
lifeless figure, half sustained in Leonard's arms, half resting on the
chair which had been pushed forward to support her as she sank upon her
son's breast. Vain to seek to delay the knowledge of sorrow. All was
known to Christabel already, as she bent over that marble face which was
scarcely whiter than her own.