Nouna was in a state of the highest excitement all the way to the
City. She had received a letter from her mother, which she showed to
George, after kissing it fervently before she let it go out of her
hand. The Countess, after many pious exhortations and affectionate
congratulations to her daughter, exhorted her in the most emphatic
manner to consult Mr. Angelo in all details connected with her
marriage, and yield to him the most explicit obedience, as she would
do to herself.
George was struck with this portion of the letter, agreeing so
entirely with what the Countess had said to him. The suspicion even
flashed across his mind that there might once have been a closer tie
between the Countess and Mr. Angelo than that of lawyer and client.
When he arrived with his _fiancée_ at the solicitors’ office the
young man was so nervous and excited that Mr. Smith remarked in his
genial and jocular manner that he was anticipating the suffering of
the ordeal. Nouna, on the other hand, to whom marriage meant the
beginning of an era of eternal kisses and shopping, varied by visits
to the Zoo, and unknown delights even more intoxicating, beamed with
happiness, smiled shyly and coquettishly upon the young clerks in the
office, and invaded Mr. Angelo in his sanctum without even knocking at
the door. The old gentleman bore this intrusion well, and beckoned
Lauriston in with an unusually bland expression.
“I suppose, Mr. Lauriston,” he began, after waiting for both his
visitors to seat themselves, “that you are anxious for your marriage
to take place without delay.”
“Yes, yes, he is, we are,” answered Nouna for him readily, tapping on
the floor with her little feet.
“Certainly,” said George, with much more deliberation. “But--” Nouna
turned sharply round and looked at him with aggrieved astonishment.
“But there is one passage in the letter from the Countess which you
forwarded to me this morning that I should like to point out to you
before we go on to other things, as it seems to argue that there has
been some misunderstanding on her part which I can’t account for.”
George got up, and bending down beside Mr. Angelo’s writing-table,
pointed out the passages in the Countess’s letter which referred to
“position” and “presentation at Court.”
“You see, sir, that Madame di Valdestillas seems to think my pecuniary
position is much better than it is, or than it is likely to be,” he
said. “And yet you know how plainly I have stated it.”
“But I don’t want to be presented at Court,” chimed in Nouna, who had
hopped off her chair to read over Mr. Angelo’s shoulder the passages
referred to, and who was evidently in great anxiety lest the
much-coveted prize, a real live husband, should slip through her
fingers. “One of my school-fellows had a sister who was presented, and
she had her dress torn and caught a cold. I would much rather wear my
nice dresses at home, where one can keep warm and not have them
spoilt. Tell mamma, Mr. Angelo, please, that I don’t want to go to
Court.”
The lawyer gave a pale but indulgent little smile.
“I think, Mr. Lauriston, that this little matter will prove no serious
obstacle. The wife of an officer with a career before him, such as I
am sure you have, will certainly be presented in due course; and if
when that time comes, this young lady should wish to indulge in any
special extravagance for the occasion, I feel sure the Countess would
help her daughter to make a becomingly splendid appearance.”
George listened in perplexity, while Nouna swept across the room,
curtseyed low to the iron safe in the corner, and kissed an imaginary
royal hand with graceful and fervent loyalty. Then, attracted by the
sight of a couple of birds perched on a housetop, she stood on tiptoe
to look out of the window, and for a moment left the gentlemen a
chance to converse without her assistance.
“You will, I suppose, be married by licence, as that admits of the
least delay. By taking out a licence at the Vicar-General’s office
to-day, you can be married at your own church on Monday.”
“Yes, I know that,” said George, rather surprised that the lawyer’s
eagerness to get the matter settled should keep pace with his own. “I
was going this morning to a bank in Lombard Street where I keep a
particularly modest account, to get the necessary funds.”
“Ah, very well. As it is Saturday, you will have to make haste to get
there before the banks close. One of my clerks shall go with you, if
you don’t know your way. And in the meantime I think I had better take
this young lady to Doctors’ Commons, where she can make the necessary
statement to get the licence as well as you could yourself. But, my
dear young lady,” he continued, turning to Nouna, who had sprung back
from the window in great excitement at this suggestion, “you must
really control your high spirits a little and carry yourself with more
gravity, or you will certainly be refused the licence on the ground
that you are too young.”
In an instant she had flown to a small square looking-glass that was
hanging against the wall in a corner of the room, and had parted the
curly bush of soft hair that shaded her forehead, and flattened it
down into prim unbecoming bands that made her look a couple of years
older.
“That’s what we used to do at school, when we wanted to mimic Mrs.
Somers,” said she grimly.
And she threw open the door to intimate that she was ready to start.
As the old lawyer slowly rose and prepared for the excursion, he said
to George, as he shook his head with would-be pleasantry:
“He need be twice a man, Mr. Lauriston, who weds a child.”
The warning was not needed; George had already begun to be of that
opinion.
When he returned from the bank, George found that Nouna and the lawyer
had come back, and before he could ask any questions about their
expedition, Mr. Smith was begging the young people to come to luncheon
with him, and they were hurried off from the office so quickly that
George had scarcely time to notice a sudden and most unusual gravity
in Nouna, who did not recover her usual high spirits until she found
herself among the garish glories of the Holborn Restaurant.
When they had finished luncheon, and Mr. Smith, with many
congratulations and pretty speeches, had left them, to seek the
domestic delights of his semi-detached villa at Anerley, George
remembered that he had forgotten to ask Mr. Angelo for the licence.
Nouna answered with a sudden womanly gravity which made him laugh--
“Mr. Angelo has it. And he is going to give notice at the church and
everything, so that we shall have nothing to do but to walk in and get
married. I’ve chosen a church Miss Glass told me of, at Kensington.”
George was half amused, half offended, by the scrupulous officiousness
with which the old lawyer carried out his instructions of “seeing to
everything,” but he thought no more seriously about the matter.
The next day he spent with a very vague consciousness of what went on
around him. For he was bound, by a long-standing invitation, to pass
this particular Sunday on the river with Massey, Dicky Wood, and a
fast Guardsman, one Captain Pascoe, who was a far too intimate friend
of the gentle Dicky’s. They would not let him off, as he had wished,
because he was by far the best oarsman among them, and the only one
who could be depended upon to resist the temptations of champagne-cup
sufficiently to keep up the credit of the crew when the sun had been
beating mercilessly down upon river and field for half a dozen hours.
It was a beastly day altogether, as they one and all described it
afterwards. To begin with, when they arrived by train at Maidenhead,
from which place it had been determined to row up to Pangbourne or
Streatley and back, they found that the boat, which was the joint
property of Massey and Wood, had been left at Kingston some days
before by the former, whom the rest fell upon and slanged for his dear
little irresponsible ways. Then there was a general wrangle as to what
they should do, some being for going down to Kingston, some for hiring
a boat, and George being lustily and heartily for going back to town.
However, the matter was settled for all of them by the discovery that
there was no train to anywhere for two hours, so they got a bad old
boat which was the only one at liberty, and started in the worst of
humours all round. The numerous defects of the craft supplied them
with a subject for invective for the first couple of miles, during
which George and Dicky Wood pulled, Captain Pascoe steered, and Massey
baled out the water which they had had the pleasure of discovering at
the bottom of the boat. Long before they reached Marlow George had had
enough of their society, and proposed to tow them up in order that he
might be able to indulge his dreams of coming happiness undisturbed.
Captain Pascoe was a fair-haired, pallid man of thirty-five, always
well-dressed, almost always good-humoured, popular with women of every
rank and of every class, and liked by all men but a few who loathed
him as they would a noxious reptile. He was a man of the world in the
sense of taking the lowest possible view of it, and was familiar with
every phase of fast life; he had any amount of easy philosophy and
indubitable pluck, but was selfish, _blasé_, and corrupt, pointed out
as the hero of half a dozen intrigues with women whose position was
loftier than their virtue, and of whose favours, it was said, he did
not scruple to boast, and at present the slave of one of the most
notorious women in London.
George Lauriston hated him, and would have excused himself from this
excursion if he had known that Captain Pascoe was to be of the party.
On this, the eve of his marriage, when to him the word woman signified
all things pure, all things holy, every glance cast by this _roué_ at
the fair girls in the boats that went by, every slow, soft word with
which he passed an opinion on their looks, seemed to George like a
sting in a sensitive place. So he lighted his pipe and toiled along
bravely in the sun on the towing-path, watching the green trees as
they seemed to quiver in the hot air, the velvet bees and the slender
dragon-flies that flew across his path, the dry cracking earth at his
feet, seeing nothing all the time but a small, ever-changing face,
hearing in the hum of the bees only a young girl’s voice. When they
came to Temple Lock, and he got back into the boat with the rest,
their talk jarred on him more than ever; they were discussing the
attraction of a certain Chloris White, a great star of the
_demi-monde_, to whom Captain Pascoe had introduced the two lads the
evening before.
Massey was, of course, raving about the exquisite taste of her dress,
the charming _chic_ of her manners, the sheen of her golden hair, the
languid glances of her eyes, and a great deal more of the same sort,
giving off as usual in effusive praises the admiration which, if it
had been more contained, might have proved dangerous. But Dicky Wood
said so little and blushed so much, that George, who knew that he was
rich, had heard sensational stories about this woman’s bloodsucking
propensities, and knew that she had helped Pascoe himself to gobble up
his patrimony, had a burst of rage against the latter for introducing
the lads to her. He remained silently and stolidly smoking therefore,
while the others talked. Massey, however, insisted on dragging him
into the conversation.
“Here, I say, Lauriston, haven’t you got anything to say on the
subject? Haven’t you seen Chloris White?” he said, with a gentle kick
at his companion from where he lay stretched at full length in the
bows.
“Not that I know of,” answered George indifferently.
“Lauriston always looks the other way when he sees one of those ladies
coming,” said Captain Pascoe in his soft voice.
“No, I don’t,” said George rather aggressively. “Why should I?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know why you should,” said the other, in the
lazy but effective manner habitual to him, as if he really wished they
wouldn’t give him the trouble of talking, but if they insisted on
bringing it upon themselves, why there it was, you know. “Only I’d
heard you liked something of a milder flavour.”
“You were quite mistaken then,” said George, quietly but with
sledge-hammer sincerity, “I admire them and approve of them just as
the Dutch do of storks. They are a charming feature of the
landscape--what would the park be to look at without them and their
turn-outs?--and they live upon the noxious slimy creatures that would
otherwise become a pest to decent people.”
And he puffed away again at his pipe.
The two younger men laughed awkwardly, rather ashamed of their late
extravagance of adulation, and afraid of Lauriston’s contempt. But
Captain Pascoe, who felt venomously angry, said it was very smart, if
it hadn’t been said before, as he rather fancied. And from that moment
the want of harmony between the elements of the party became more and
more apparent until it is a question whether all did not feel when
they got back to town that it was worth while to have gone through the
day together for the sake of the relief and delight of parting.
George hurried to the street where Nouna was staying, only for the
rapture of gazing upon the dead eyes of the windows behind which she
was sleeping. He walked up and down on the opposite side of the way
for hours, in that irrational ecstasy of anticipation trembling on the
borders of fulfilment which the devotees of long engagements--whatever
their compensating advantages of better knowledge and calmer reason
may be--never know. It was to be a perfect life, this new life of his
and hers, humanised, not vulgarised, by comparative poverty, with no
trials less ennobling than the struggles of his just ambition, and his
endeavours to bring his young wife’s extravagant views into conformity
with the smallness of their fortune. At that moment the prospect
seemed almost too radiant, and George at last went reluctantly away
with a superstitious fear that something must happen on the morrow to
dash down the fabric of so much supernatural happiness.
However, when, on the following morning, after a sleepless night of
feverish imaginings, George fell at last into a doze, and waking
sprang out of bed in crazy terror lest he should have overslept
himself, everything went as smoothly as possible. He was in plenty of
time to go to the apartments he had taken, to see that all was ready
for his bride’s reception, then to be at the church at eight o’clock,
as they had arranged; even as he drove up to the door he saw another
hansom approaching with Nouna and Mr. Angelo, who was to give the
bride away; and, lastly, he had not forgotten the ring. He waited at
the door for them, and helped Nouna to descend with a tremor in his
limbs and a tumultuous upheaval of all the forces of his nature as she
laid her small hand lightly on his arm and sprang to the ground with
indecorous haste, and a face beaming with happy, light-hearted
excitement.
She was most oddly dressed in white mull muslin draperies that
appeared to be kept together only by a broad sash of soft white silk
that was swathed several times round her body, and the wide ends of
which hung on the left side nearly to her feet. Long white silk gloves
covered her arms and met the hanging draperies, while her head was
crowned, not covered, by a white silk fez. Her dark skin glowed with
an unusual and beautiful tinge of pink, her black eyes danced with
excitement, and between her vividly crimson lips two straight rows of
strong ivory teeth gleamed as she laughed. A handsome, graceful,
untamed creature, with all the instincts and scarcely more than the
capacity for thought of a healthy young animal, skipping into a
Christian church to bind herself with lifelong vows in exactly the
same spirit with which she had entered the draper’s shop the week
before to enjoy the delicious excitement of buying a new bonnet.
A baker’s boy, who happened to be passing, put down his basket to
watch her in open-mouthed admiration and astonishment. George himself,
intoxicated as he was by his passion, felt a sudden misgiving, not as
to the wisdom, but as to the generosity, of entering with this eager
child into a compact, the nature and terms of which, it now occurred
to him for the first time, she did not in the least understand.
Instead of sobering her by its solemn significance, marriage seemed to
be turning her head, and to have by anticipation dispersed even those
pretty little moods of dignity and of languid silence with which she
had formerly varied the monotony of her childish gaiety. Her very
greeting was sufficiently suggestive of her views of the impending
ceremony.
“You see I’m all in white,” she began as she sprang down upon the
pavement. “I thought you would like me to be dressed in white, so I
made this dress myself last night, and sat up so late making the
cap--for I made it all myself, fancy that!--that I overslept myself
this morning and was nearly late. What would you have done if I hadn’t
come at all?”
“I should have come and fetched you,” said George, as he shook hands
with Mr. Angelo, and then drew the little bride’s hand through his arm
to lead her into the church.
“Isn’t this a queer wedding?” she chattered on as they went through
the great outer door which the pew-opener had just thrown open, and by
which she now stood curtseying. “I’ve been thinking how hard it seems
that I should be married without any cake or any bridesmaids, and
mamma not here, nor anybody I know. But I’m not going to cry, no, I’m
not going to cry.” As they got inside the church she looked up from
George’s arm to his face and saw that his eyes were moist. “Why, it’s
you who are crying, and you are trembling too! What’s the matter?” she
whispered anxiously.
“Nothing, my darling,” he whispered back, as he pressed her hand
against his side, “I was only thinking how good I must be to you, to
make up for your having neither mother, nor cake, nor bridesmaids.”
They were walking up the middle aisle by this time and, perhaps for a
moment a little awed by Lauriston’s solemn manner, or by the cold
hollow bareness of the large, almost empty church, Nouna made no
further remark until they reached the altar-rails, when she took an
exhaustive look round, and observed that there was “a very funny
window.” The pew-opener, who had followed them up the aisle as quickly
as decency permitted, now suggested to the bridegroom that he and the
lady should seat themselves in one of the front pews until the vicar,
who had not yet arrived, should be ready. But the bride dismissed her
with dignity, saying, “No, we will wait, so tell him to make haste”;
and George, who felt that Nouna would look upon any inclination to
take advantage of the suggestion as a desire to retract, stood up
manfully with his back to the few spectators who at this early hour
had trickled in to see the wedding, and began in the midst of his
nervous excitement to be tormented by a fear of being late for parade.
Mr. Angelo, who had, according to his own and the Countess’s express
wish, arranged all the details of the marriage, now appeared from the
vestry with the clergyman, who looked blue about the chin and rather
cross, as if he had come out in a hurry, without having had time to
shave or breakfast.
Just as George turned at the sound of their footsteps, he caught sight
of a figure among the scanty congregation which made him start
forward, forgetful of everything else. A low but indignant “St, st,
what is the matter with you, sir?” from the clergyman, who glared at
him in a manner which seemed to say that if they couldn’t keep their
minds on what they were about he wouldn’t marry them at all, recalled
him to himself, and the service began.
To do them justice, they gave him no further trouble. Nouna had
studied her part in the service, had not only taken off her left glove
without being told, but had tucked up the draperies that formed her
sleeve, and left her arm bare to the shoulder as if ready to be
vaccinated. She tripped off her part of the service glibly, in a
clear, bright voice, without waiting for the clergyman, and then
looked up at George with a tiny movement of the head that was almost a
nod, as much as to say: “You see I’m determined to do you credit.” The
only thing that puzzled her was the difficulty of knowing when to
kneel down and when to stand up; in this, and in this alone, she was
obliged to accept the clergyman’s guidance, and for this she kept her
eyes fixed carefully upon him all the time.
Lauriston’s nervousness, increased by the sight of the figure he felt
sure he recognised as that of Rahas, was so great that he became the
victim of what he believed to be a most strange delusion of the ear.
It seemed to him that every word of the prayers of the service was
repeated, as the clergyman uttered it, in a soft, distinct tone, away
in the body of the church behind them. As soon as the service was
over, the bridegroom turned round with machine-like rapidity, and was
just in time to see the figure he had noticed go down the further end
of the south aisle and out at the door. Although the man wore a
European overcoat and carried in his hand an English hat, George felt
more than ever convinced that it was Rahas. He was accompanied by a
woman, of whose appearance Lauriston could only note two details: she
wore dark clothing and was small of stature. It was not Mrs. Ellis,
certainly. Sundran? He thought not. While the young man stood, as if
transfixed, staring after these two disappearing figures with
straining eyes, unmindful of the touch of his newly-made wife on his
arm, Mr. Angelo’s precise tones, close at his ear, roused him from his
stupefaction.
“Come, Mr. Lauriston,” he said in a low but rather peremptory tone,
“we have to go into the vestry.”
The old lawyer’s face was, as usual, impassive; but it occurred to
Lauriston, a man rendered by his profession observant of details, that
the steadiness with which Mr. Angelo ignored his persistent stare at
the side-door argued that he was himself aware of the objects of
interest there. He said nothing, however, but followed the clergyman
into the vestry, and signed his name in the register.
“Come, now it’s your turn, little one,” he said tenderly to Nouna, who
had slipped from his arm and was standing very quietly beside Mr.
Angelo.
She glanced up at the old lawyer, who gave her his arm with great
ceremony, led her to the desk, and turned immediately to the
bridegroom.
“You saw, or thought you saw some one you knew among the congregation,
I fancy,” said he in his quiet dry manner.
Lauriston looked up quickly from the page over which he was bending.
“Yes, I certainly did think so, in fact I am almost sure of it,” he
said, turning to notice the old man’s expression.
“I imagined that to be the case from your expression as we left the
altar,” said the lawyer, keeping Lauriston’s eyes fixed by the steady
gaze of his own. “Who do you think it was?”
“I feel sure it was Rahas,” said George in a low voice, still watching
the face of the lawyer, who now took Nouna’s place to sign the
register as a witness to the marriage. “Did you see him too?”
The old gentleman did not answer at once; he was bending low over the
open page before him to finish his signature with a careful flourish.
When he had done this, he placed the blotting-paper over it, put his
arm through that of the bridegroom, and moved away with him.
“My eyes are not as good as yours, Mr. Lauriston,” he said; “I should
not know my own son at that distance.”
“There was a lady--a woman with him,” said George.
“A woman whom you know?” asked the lawyer, whose interest in the
matter, however, seemed to have diminished.
“I think not.”
“Then there is nothing extraordinary in the circumstance.”
“What does the man want at my wedding?”
“All friends of the parties find weddings interesting. Perhaps you
misjudge this Eastern gentleman. He has called at my office to give me
a letter for the Countess, and he expressed the most kindly sentiments
towards you. See, Mrs. Lauriston seems impatient.”
The two gentlemen were conversing in a low voice just within the
vestry door. Nouna had slipped past them into the body of the church,
and stood in an unusually quiet and pensive mood gazing at the altar
where she had lately knelt. George shook himself free from a crowd of
bewildering questions that were forcing themselves into his mind, and
called to her.
“Nouna, come and sign the register.”
“I’ve done it,” “She has done so,” answered she and the lawyer
together.
“I didn’t see you.”
“I did it while you were talking,” said she, quickly.
“Yes, yes, it’s all right; the lady signed her name,” broke in the
vicar, who thought he was never going to get rid of them.
So George, hurried away by wife, lawyer, and vicar, did not see
Nouna’s first and last signature of her maiden name.