A PRE-NUPTIAL CONTRACT.
Though the passing of each hour brought her nearer to her hateful
marriage, Olive felt relieved now that the celebration of her coming
of age was over. She was little disposed for gaiety or for company of
any kind. Her thoughts were continually with Laurence. She missed him
daily, hourly. His face was constantly before her, and his words
echoed everlastingly in her ears. It was not surprising that, on
meeting Lord Aldean in the village, she should question him as to
Mallow's return. "I sometimes wonder if he is coming back at all," she
finished hastily.
"Oh, Mallow's coming back right enough," said Aldean. "He is certain
to return before your marriage."
"Please don't speak of my marriage, Lord Aldean," she cried
impetuously. "Have you heard from Mr. Mallow since he left?"
"Only once, Miss Bellairs. He is well and busy."
"In Athelstane Place?"
Jim was not a little taken aback by this last question. He was in
total ignorance of what had taken place on the Downs. "What do you
know, may I ask, about Athelstane Place?" he said, looking sharply at
the girl.
"Mr. Mallow told me something about it, and about Mr. Carson."
"Oh, that is one of Mallow's crazy notions," said Aldean, vexed. "I
suppose he told you that Carson was an impostor? Then, believe me, it
is all nonsense, Miss Bellairs. Mallow has built up this theory on a
foolish remark I happened to let drop. His idea is that the real
Carson was murdered, and this fellow has stepped into his shoes."
"You don't believe that?" cried Olive, breathlessly. "Certainly not,"
replied Jim' vehemently; "and please don't repeat what I say. I have a
horror of scandal. Carson is Carson right enough. This is only a mad
idea of Mallow's."
"But why should Mr. Mallow persist in such a strange idea?"
Lord Aldean shrugged his shoulders. "The dead man's clothes were
perfumed with sandal-wood, and Carson's, you know, have the same
smell--it is on this ground I think that Mallow goes chiefly. He
fancies there must be some connection between the two."
"And is there?" asked Olive.
"No; but Mallow is ready to grasp at straws to stop your marriage."
Miss Bellairs reddened and turned away. "That is impossible," she said
in a low voice.
"Yes, if it is to be stopped only by proving Carson to be an impostor,
I agree with you. Don't worry your head about such folly."
"Perhaps I ought to tell Mr. Carson," said Olive thoughtfully.
"No, for goodness' sake don't; you'll only cause unnecessary trouble
by doing that. There is no doubt about Carson being the genuine
article. He carries the trade mark of this Indian bangle, and Mrs.
Purcell describes him exactly in her letter; besides, Mr. Brock
recognised him from his resemblance to his father."
Miss Bellairs said no more on the subject. She saw that it annoyed
Aldean not to be able to defend Mallow in this eccentricity of his.
But on returning home she asked her aunt for Mrs. Purcell's letter,
and read it through most carefully. She copied out verbatim the
portions relating to Angus Carson, and committed them to memory, so
that when he called in the afternoon she was able to view him through
Mrs. Purcell's spectacles. A stealthy and careful examination
convinced her that Mallow's fancies were moonshine. Without doubt
Carson of Casterwell resembled Carson of Bombay in every particular.
The graphic sketch of Mrs. Purcell was an admirable portrait of the
man as he stood there unconscious of her scrutiny. Whatever way of
escape from this detested marriage might open out to her, it was not
here, and Olive resigned herself to her fate predestined. Her eyes
followed her future husband with a look of contempt as he crossed the
room with a cup of tea for Tui. His weak good nature and incessant
amiability were aggressive to her. She might compel herself to marry
him, but she felt that she could never feel the least respect for his
character. The mere sight of his ever-smiling complacency made her
resent her position more and more. Overbearing, rough, or even brutal
he might have been, and she might have resigned herself to him with
more content. At least he would have been a man. She thought of Pope's
cruel portrait of Lord Hervey:--
----"that thing of silk
Spurns that mere white curd of asses' milk."
If, as Mrs. Purcell declared, he possessed a powerful will, he
concealed it only too effectually. "A stubborn nature" and "a full
confidence in his own judgment" he might have--they were more in
harmony with his weakness. Still, he was to be her husband--that was
certain--and it only remained for her to make the best of it and of
him.
"Penny for your thoughts, Miss Bellairs," said Semberry at her elbow.
"They are not worth it," retorted Olive, taking the cup of tea he held
out to her. "I'll sell them as bankrupt stock. Can I give you another
cup of tea?"
"If you please," and the Major took his seat beside her, much to her
satisfaction, for she felt that she would rather talk to him than to
his friend.
"By the way, Miss Bellairs," said Semberry, "other day you said
something about a maid."
"Yes, I want a new maid; I am looking for one now."
"Friend of mine wants to find a situation for a good maid."
"Thank you very much, but I think I shall have no difficulty in
finding one to suit me in Casterwell."
"But this is a London girl; very smart," urged the Major; "wants to
live in country; friend recommends her no end."
"Who is your friend, may I ask?"
"Mrs. Arne; fashionable woman; clever woman. Thinks a lot of this
maid. Wouldn't part with her, only girl wants to live in th' country.
Spoke to me; said I'd speak to you."
"It is very kind of you to trouble about it, Major," she said, "very
kind indeed; you must let me think the matter over, will you?"
"Pleasure," replied Semberry, scribbling on a page of his pocket-book,
and tearing it out. "Here is Mrs. Arne's address. Write soon; might
lose the girl."
"What is her name?"
"Lord! 'fraid don't know, Miss Bellairs. Never trouble 'bout these
things as a rule. Mere chance I heard of this. Thought you'd like to
know. Hallo! who's this? By George! that Radical doctor. Can't stand
the man."
Dr. Drabble bustled noisily into the drawing-room. He announced his
own arrival in a stentorian voice. With his cunning grey face and
close-cropped red hair and lean hungry aspect, he resembled nothing so
much as a prowling winter fox sniffing round a hen-roost.
"How are you, Miss Bellairs? There's nothing much the matter with you,
that's easily seen," he roared, gripping her hand. "Miss Ostergaard,
you look like yourself."
"People generally do, don't they, doctor?"
"Ha, ha! very good; but I'm paying you the hugest possible compliment,
if you only knew how to take it. And where is Miss Slarge?"
"She is engaged, doctor," said Olive, resigning herself too, with a
sigh, to the company of this bull. "Will you take some tea?"
"Thank you, thank you; no sugar."
"Should advise sugar, Drabble," growled the Major, insolently.
"Sweeten your nature."
"My nature, sir, is that of primeval man--simple, childlike----"
"And lawless!" put in Carson, smiling.
The doctor mounted his hobby at once. "If by lawless you mean the
obedience of man to the dictates of his own noble nature independent
of a tyrannical government, then I am lawless," he said, oratorically.
"I and my fellow-workers wish to reinstate the simplicity of primeval
days."
"I thought you went even further," said Olive, "and wished to revive
chaos."
"Chaos reigns now," proclaimed the reformer. "Chaos means disorder;
and what is the world now but a disordered mass? Look at the military
burdens of Europe, at the overtaxed poor, at the insolent rich; and
tell me if things are as they should be."
"No one said they were, doctor," remarked Carson; "but it is not by
pitching bombs at people that you are going to mend them."
"Bombs, sir? There is no such word; there are no such articles in my
scheme of reform. I would enlighten those in power by pen and speech.
If they will not listen, then their blood must be upon their own
heads; for the masses will rise and sweep them from out their
counting-houses; hurl them from their thrones; tear them from the
bench of justice on which they sit to administer evil laws. To stamp
out tyranny the earth, as it now is, must be churned up, deluged with
the blood of the unjust; devastated, in short, from pole to pole."
"You bring, a torch for burning, but no hammer for building," quoted
Olive, who had read her Carlyle and remembered him.
"The torch first, the hammer to follow. To build up we must first pull
down, and on the ruins of the past build--Utopia."
"Another name for dreamland," muttered Semberry.
Olive grew rather tired of Drabble and his diatribes. Not so Tui,
however. She listened to the doctor's cheap philanthropy with parted
lips and eager eyes. She hung upon his every word, and, seeing that he
had at least one sympathetic listener, Drabble addressed his
conversation almost exclusively to her. Observing this, Olive slipped
out on to the terrace, where, much to her disgust, she was speedily
joined by Carson.
"I thought you liked listening to Dr. Drabble?" she said coldly.
"No; he talks commonplaces. I prefer romance."
"Romance?" echoed Olive, thinking of their relative positions, so far
removed as they were from the ideal. "Romance here?"
"And where else will you find it if not in this rose-garden? Tell me,
Olive," he went on, without waiting for her reply, "why do you avoid
me? Have I offended you?"
"You?" she replied with contempt; "you could not offend any one. I
never knew so harmless a being."
"It is better surely to be harmless than harmful?" said Carson,
complacently. "I shall make you a good husband."
"You shall never be my husband," retorted Olive, flushed with anger.
Carson looked scared. "I understood we were to be married in a
fortnight," he said under his breath.
"So we are! I marry you not because I love you, but because I respect
the wish of my father. I can be a wife to you in name only."
"Olive, what do you mean?"
"What I say. Cannot you comprehend plain English? When we are married,
you and I can be no more to one another than we are at this moment."
"And if I refuse?" he said, with a faint show of anger.
"Then I cannot marry you," answered Olive quietly. "My desire is to
carry out to the letter the will of my father; and, by becoming your
wife, give you the control of this fifty thousand pounds. More than
this I cannot do. I pay you this money for my freedom. You are free to
accept it or refuse it as you will."
Angus looked mortified and indignant. A flush was across his weak but
handsome face. "Do you then hate me?" he demanded angrily.
"I am indifferent to you. I do not love you; for that reason I make my
bargain."
"I understand. You love that insolent Mallow?"
"I should advise you to make no assertions and to mention no names,"
replied Olive, keeping her temper. "What I say I intend to do. You
marry me on these terms or not at all."
"I will marry you," said Carson, frowning, "if only to humble you."
Olive turned on him. "You--you humble me? You, a foolish weak----Go
away, Angus, or I may say much we may both regret."
"I will not go away," he said, the latent obstinacy of his nature
asserting itself. "Let us make our bargain once and for all. I will
marry you----"
"And be my husband in name only?"
"Yes," he whispered, with so strange a glance that she started back,
"in name only. I agree to your terms--for my own private reasons. But,
should this Mallow return----"
"Leave Mr. Mallow's name out of our conversation," interrupted Olive
imperiously; "there is nothing between us that you need trouble about.
I do not conceal things."
"Do I?" asked Carson, with bland inquiry.
"Ask yourself, Angus." She looked at him hard. "What do you know about
Athelstane Place?"