CHAPTER X

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A TIRING DAY.

A week after every fashionable newspaper had a flaring announcement of the approaching marriage of Miss Ravenel Annesley and the Earl of Levallion, which was to take place at once--that “at once” of upholsterers and milliners, which means in a month’s time.

Lady Annesley, with joyful hands, tied up a copy of _The World_ and forwarded it to Adrian Gordon. But if she had known it, her pains were wasted. Trouble had broken out on the Indian northwest frontier and Gordon had moved heaven and earth to get there. The neatly tied newspaper never reached him any more than a note from Levallion himself. Sir Thomas was the other person who remembered Adrian Gordon, but he said nothing about him. As for the bride, the only thing she had in her mind was that the wedding was to be in London, and she need never go back to Annesley Chase again; also that she was paying off that debt of treachery with interest.

“I suppose you know your own mind,” Sir Thomas remarked to his sister the night before the wedding. “So I haven’t said anything. It isn’t me that’s going to be married.”

“You’re going into the army, and you’re going to have the Chase redeemed for you,” she returned wistfully.

“If you’re doing it for that,” he sat up and glared at her, “you can let it alone! I don’t want that kind of rot.”

“I’m doing it because I want to,” her voice sharper than his. “Lord Levallion’s kind; and I’m sick of Sylvia!”

“So am I,” returned Sir Thomas dryly. “But I wouldn’t sell my soul to spite her, all the same.”

“I’m not selling anything,” wearily, for was she not putting behind her the burden of her humiliation?

“Tommy, you’ll stick to me, won’t you? You won’t speak little like this again?”

“Of course, I’ll stick to you.” He got up and kissed her awkwardly. “So will Mr. Jacobs!” and he tried to laugh, conscious of angry tears in his eyes. For it seemed to him that this was no way to get married, to an old man you hardly knew.

“Good old Tommy!” said Ravenel unsteadily. She little knew that he and his dog would be her last chance of salvation in dark days to come; but something in Tommy’s honest face had gone near to shaking her purpose, even on the night before her wedding. What she was doing looked suddenly mean and paltry to her, as she knew it would to Tommy, if he guessed it. She looked at the clock, that marked eleven. Twelve hours more, and not even shame or repentance could undo the wreck she had made of Adrian Gordon’s fortunes. And all that night she sat by her bed and deliberately let those last hours go by, till, at dawn, she said to herself, with cold lips, that, after all, Adrian Gordon’s future was no business of hers.

Lady Annesley--come up to town on Levallion’s money, and almost off her head with the excellent allowance that was to be hers for the future, with escape from Annesley Chase forever--could not believe her eyes when she actually saw her stepdaughter go up the aisle of St. George’s on Sir Thomas’ arm. “It was that white gown!” She bowed her head devoutly as the service began. “It was an inspiration. And the little fool should go on her knees to thank me. That Gordon man could never have given her a wedding like this!”

He could not, indeed.

Ravenel had never lifted her eyes as she passed up the aisle, whiter than death under her lace veil. Adrian Gordon would have taken her to an empty country church, where the scent of the May would have swept through the open windows; where her soul, as she knelt beside him, would have mounted the very steps of heaven--and, now----

For the first time she lifted her head, remembering, with agony, that day in May when she had seen, as in a vision, what her wedding would be with any man but Adrian Gordon.

It was on her; she was in the very center of it. The cold air of the church seemed to strike on her face like a breath from the grave, as in that dreadful prescient moment when the veil seemed lifted from the future. She stood, helpless, just as she had known she would, when Adrian forsook her.

The crowd of smart people, in gorgeous gowns and frock coats, whispering indifferently; the bishop, whose words were chaining her to Levallion forever; the organ pealing through the church; the bride with a heart of stone!

No one ever knew how near that quiet bride came to screaming aloud in a nightmare of terror; nor how she had all but turned and run, frantically, from the very altar.

But something struck her dumb and powerless where she stood.

Only Levallion’s level voice, as he spoke out before all the world, in words that stopped the very blood in her: “I, Adrian, take thee, Ravenel----”

The bride heard no other word of the service. She clutched Levallion’s hand like a vise that she might not fall; a gray mist swam before her eyes. She muttered after the bishop something that meant nothing, but was all of a piece with this awful travesty of marriage that was binding her to an Adrian Gordon she had never loved.

Saddening, the crash of the wedding-march came on her dazed ears; the gray mist lifted, cleared. She was walking by Levallion’s side to the vestry, to sign, for the last time, the name she had grown to hate.

Ravenel Annesley was dead now, and decently buried under a pile of wedding-presents and a bridal wreath. It was the Countess of Levallion who lifted her veil with a hand that was perfectly steady, despite the burden of its new ring; the Countess of Levallion who bent forward that the duchess might kiss her on both cheeks.

If she was a little drawn about the mouth, no one saw it but the bridegroom; and he in a curious, cynical way, was sorry for her.

Curiously, too, he had meant every word he had said at the altar. To his life’s end, Adrian Gordon, Lord Levallion, means to love and cherish his wife.

He was proud of her very listlessness as he led her down the aisle; prouder still of her absolute immobility when something happened that tried even his nerve.

In the porch, blocking the very way of the bridal procession--and to this day Lady Levallion could not tell you the names of her six bridesmaids!--was a woman.

Exquisitely slim and small, she stood waiting, a little boy clinging to her hand. Her dress was black, a lace veil, with a heavy border, hid her mouth, but not her eyes. As she moved, silently, gracefully, to give room to the happy couple, Lord Levallion met those eyes full on his.

“Hester!” almost he said it aloud. “And in black. Can the little fool be going to make a scene?” And for an infinitesimal moment he held his breath. Ravenel, as she passed Mrs. Murray, drew away her skirts. She had obstinately refused to let her be asked to the wedding, and wondered that she should care to stand on the church steps with the curious crowd. But that was all. She never noticed the look the duchess’ friend gave the bridegroom. For just one instant her eyes had held his; the next she and her boy had disappeared in the crowd. Lord Levallion was absolutely sick with relief, as he followed his wife into the carriage; and yet he was not sure that it was relief, for it felt uncommonly like apprehension.

“Hester,” he thought, “to dare to come here with the boy! It’s enough to make all sorts of scandal.” (That only a secrecy like the grave had been able to keep down!) “What can she mean?” He wondered, sharply, if Ravenel had noticed.

“I’m afraid you’re tired. The crowd at the door was so thick,” he said, stupidly for Lord Levallion. “I did not notice,” and, to his huge relief, the words rang true. She had not taken in what to other women would have been plain as print. With a curious respect, Levallion kissed his wife’s hand.

“It has been a tiring day,” he said, almost absently, and put Hester Murray’s melodramatic appearance and her angry eyes determinedly out of his mind. Before he brought his wife home to Levallion Castle, three months later, he had absolutely forgotten both.

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