THE PERSON IN BLACK.
Behind a rock, not two yards from Captain Gordon’s flat young back,
something stirred--stirring so faintly that even a thrush in its nest
in the hawthorn bush did not hear it. Perhaps the sour-faced person
in black who knelt on the grass, ostensibly digging dandelions for a
complexion salad, had been there for a long time; or, perhaps, it had
not been hard to evade the sentry on the hedge and bring up in good
ear-shot of the two people who were blind and deaf to everything but
themselves.
“Heaps of things can come between us,” Ravenel was retorting dolefully.
“Lady Annesley can. And Tommy says the Umbrella--that beast of a maid
of hers--tells her everything we do.”
The person in black bridled angrily behind her rock. She had come from
curiosity; she would stay now for spite. The Umbrella, indeed!
Gordon laughed.
“Why do you call her that?”
“Oh, because she’s a framework of bones with limp black silk over
them--just like an umbrella shut up! But she’s a vicious wretch, too,
and I hate her.”
The unseen listener’s eyes narrowed in her flat face.
“Well, never mind her; she can’t worry us!” hastily. “This is the only
thing that matters just now. My cousin wired to General Carmichael that
I’d accept his offer, and--got an answer. Nel, I must go in a week!”
“Well?” she did not look at him.
“Well, I’m going!” his handsome face drawn and hard. “But I won’t leave
you like this. I want you to marry me before I go.”
“But you couldn’t take me with you?” a wild hope made her voice shake.
“No! But I could send for you, or come when I could get leave and carry
you off. Look here, my heart,” with gentle strength, “if I must go I
want to leave my wife behind me. Then I shall know nothing can ever
come between us.”
“Oh,” her cheek reddened, “I can’t marry you! How could I?” though the
very thought of being Adrian’s wife made life heaven.
“There’s Tommy.”
Gordon smiled.
“Is that all? Only Tommy! When I come back for you we’ll take Tommy,
too; will that do? Or, do you think you’ll find me an insufferable
husband? Tell me. Why don’t you look at me, sweetheart?”
“Because I don’t want to,” returned Miss Annesley, with scarlet cheeks
and a truthful tongue.
“Say you’ll marry me!” he demanded. “Say yes--unless you don’t love me.”
Very deliberately she looked at him, saw the love and truth in
his eyes, the strength and beauty of his face, that was pale with
earnestness.
“Yes,” she whispered, so that he could hardly hear; but he knew without
hearing--and the silent woman behind the rock knew, too, and strained
her ears.
“Then will you do this?” said Gordon. “The curate at Effingham went to
school with me. He’ll marry us if I get a special license. All you’ll
have to do is to walk over to Effingham--which is really your parish
church, though you don’t go there--with me, and be married. No one
will know, unless you like to tell Tommy. And I’ll bring you straight
home from the church door. But you’ll belong to me, and I can defy her
ladyship or any one else to make trouble between us. Will you do that?”
She nodded, her face like a crimson flower.
“Yes, Adrian,” he prompted; but she spoke with a sudden flash of her
spirit.
“Your wife or no one else’s in the world!” she cried, “unless--you
change your mind and throw me over.”
Gordon caught her up like a child.
“Oh, you silly, silly!” he cried. “I’ll not give you a chance to be any
one else’s wife; don’t flatter yourself. But I’ve no right to so sweet
a thing as you. What you ought to do is refuse me and marry my cousin.”
“I don’t even know his name.”
“That’s a trifle. He has money enough to buy this county and not know
it.”
“He hasn’t money enough to buy me!” with a quick flash of her eyes.
“Oh!” with sudden remembrance of the world about her, “I must go! Look
how long the shadows are.”
“Wait--just one second! I’ve something for you,” he was feeling in his
pocket. “I meant it to be diamonds, but they say these things--though,
of course, it’s nonsense--lose their light if things go wrong with--any
one you care for!”
He drew out a velvet case, and there shone into Ravenel Annesley’s eyes
the green fire of a half-hoop of emeralds, curiously set in a kind of
mosaic of small diamonds and opals. The thing was wonderful in a queer,
barbaric way as it blazed in the sun. The girl who looked at it stood
speechless.
“Don’t you like it?” his face falling, for he had searched London for a
ring unlike any others.
“I--I love it! But----” she stopped with dismay.
Opals--every one knew what luck opals brought. And emeralds all the
world over meant “forsaken.”
“Opals aren’t lucky,” she said hastily, and left the green stones out
of the question; “but this is too beautiful to bring bad luck. And I
suppose it’s all nonsense really! Adrian, do you know, I never had a
ring in my life?” shaking from her the senseless dread she felt of this
one.
“You’re going to have two now. This to-day and another next week,” he
was slipping the fiery-green wonder on her third finger. “‘Till death
do us part,’” he quoted softly. “That belongs to the next ring, but I
can say it with this one.”
“Death, or Lady Annesley!” sharply, her eyes full of quick tears. “She
hates me, Adrian, and she doesn’t like you.”
“It can’t hurt either of us, Nel!” with the little backward jerk of his
head the girl loved.
“Why do you never call me Ravenel?” she said irrelevantly, for there
was no sense in wasting good time talking about her ladyship.
“Not like you!” promptly. “Means some one quite different. Mind you,
never let any one call you Nel till I come back again,” with a sudden
curious jealousy.
“No one will want to,” dolefully. “Oh! Adrian; do you really mean to go
next week?”
“I must,” his face grew dark, hard-bitten; for it was like dying to
leave her. “And the worst of it is I’ll be so busy. I’ll have to go
to London to get my kit, and say a decent word to my cousin, and sit
through a farewell dinner at mess--that’ll be about as lively as a
funeral!--the night before I leave, when I shall be mad to be with you.
But we’ll have one day together if everything goes undone. And you’ll
go with me to Effingham, Miss Annesley, and come back Nel Gordon!”
But she sat pale and quiet.
“It seems so mad, so impossible!” she said at last, as if it were wrung
from her. “And I believe my stepmother would kill me if she found out.”
“That’s about the only thing she couldn’t do,” shortly. “Do you think I
won’t take care of her claws for you? Look here, besides, the day we go
to Effingham there’ll be the duchess’ garden-party. I’ll manage to get
there. If I can’t, I’ll send you a note to say what day I am coming to
take you to Effingham. After that, sweet, we can laugh at her ladyship.”
“You’ll be gone! We won’t be able to laugh at anything!” forlornly.
“You’ll be my wife,” something flashed into his eyes that boded no good
to any one that dared lift a finger against Adrian Gordon’s dearest.
“I’ll be able to write to you and you to me. Some day I’ll come and
carry you off, no matter what Lady Annesley may be pleased to say.
The only thing is,” a sudden pity in the masterful protecting hand on
hers, “it’s a pretty poor match for you, my Nel. And a doleful wedding
in an empty church to a man who can’t even keep you is a selfish bit
of work--it makes me feel a beast! You ought, you know, to marry a
lord--with a choral service, and two bishops, and a church full of fine
people to make it all proper,” his voice was jesting, but his eyes were
sad enough, and he held her hand as if he never could let it go.
“Don’t talk like that!” she cried sharply. “It makes me feel as if some
one were walking over my grave. What have I got to do with lords and
bishops at my wedding? I’d be miserable. I’d----” she could not go on.
What made her see, as if in a vision, a strange church, filled with
sweet people, whispering indifferently while the organ pealed, and the
bride, all in white--with a heart of stone--came up the aisle on feet
that would hardly carry her, since it was not Adrian Gordon who waited
at the altar? There was a look on her face as she stared in front of
her, wide-eyed, that made Gordon catch her to him. A prescient look,
as of one who sees for a shuddering moment the curtain lifted from the
future.
“What’s the matter? You’re not afraid?” he whispered. “I’ll take care
of you, my sweet; you know that! May God treat me as I treat you, my
wife.”
Lip to lip, soul to soul, they kissed each other. She was shaking when
he let her go; afterward it was small comfort to him to remember it,
nor the real terror in her voice when she spoke.
“Oh! I’ve stayed too late. And the ring, I daren’t wear it. You
mustn’t come with me. She mustn’t know you were here.” She dragged up
her neck-ribbon and put the ring on it, slipping it round her neck,
inside her collar, pushing it out of sight with miserable care. And the
watcher behind the rock--who was stiff and much fatigued--saw her do it.
“Rings!” she reflected, coming cautiously out as the pair vanished,
and rubbing one foot that had gone to sleep, “and weddings at
Effingham--we’ll see!” pins and needles adding vigor to her thoughts.
“Old Umbrella, indeed!” and her ladyship’s confidential maid moved
stiffly off in a devious direction that took her to Annesley Chase
quite unobserved.