CHAPTER V

.

HER WEDDING-DAY.

Half-past two o’clock, and her wedding-day!

Ravenel Annesley looked at herself in the glass curiously as at another person. She had on a clean white duck dress--having looked with a shudder at yesterday’s unlucky silk and muslin--nothing of her stepmother’s should go to her adorning on her wedding-day! But in her plain white gown she was lovely, and with a keen thrill of joy she knew it. Thank God, Adrian’s bride was pretty, even if she went to him in a cotton gown!

And in half an hour she would see him; tell him of her lost ring--for, think as she might, she could not see how either Lady Annesley or her maid could have taken or even seen it; her cotton slip bodice had been carefully buttoned over it--of yesterday’s party, and of how she had waited vainly for him. She opened her door and stole through the house. She would not take Tommy. She would go alone to church with Adrian; all alone, would promise and vow to be his always. She hurried through the garden and down to the back gate.

It was early still, and silly to expect him; yet she had a foolish pang of disappointment as she looked up and down the empty white road outside.

“He’ll be here in a minute,” she said to herself confidently, “and then I’ll feel happy again. I hope he won’t be angry about that ring. And I wish I knew how I lost it!”

She sat down in the shade just inside the gate and lost herself in a happy dream. Some day--soon perhaps--Adrian would come back from India, and carry her and Tommy off under her ladyship’s nose, who could go anywhere she pleased, for the Chase was certain to be sold over her head.

“And I shouldn’t care. I’ve been too wretched here,” she thought passionately. And then something startled her.

The stable clock had rung. Why was Adrian late, who was always so early?

“I never knew how awful it was to wait!” she cried, springing up. “I feel as if I couldn’t sit still. I’ll walk up and down till I count a thousand steps, and then I’ll look at the road again.”

But she paced a thousand steps, and a thousand again; there was no sign of Adrian Gordon.

“Oh!” in spite of herself she trembled, “it can’t be going to be like yesterday. He must be coming.”

Her heart quaking, she wished she had brought Tommy. This was too awful. The tears came to her eyes. She could not walk any longer, yet how could she sit still? She shivered in the hot, sweet sun.

“Oh, Adrian, hurry!” she whispered childishly, as if he must hear her; and then sat down on the green bank by the road as if she were suddenly weak. For the stable clock had struck four.

It was a long lane, and no one passed by to see a girl in a white frock sitting on the grass, careless of greening the spotless whiteness of her wedding-gown; no one looked with a wondering eye at the sick despair in her face, as she sat dumb and motionless--waiting for the man who by this time should have been her husband.

When the slow clock rang six, Ravenel Annesley got up, steadying herself carefully. She was chilly and stiff, and though she did not know it, broken-hearted.

Truth and honor and love, dead letters to her, she looked once more down the quiet lane to the quarry, where she and Adrian Gordon had kissed with lips that were quick and kind. Well, he had spoken the truth when he said she would have but a poor wedding-day!

She crept home at last, white as her cotton gown. With only one thought--to get unseen to her own room--she went into the house through the open window of the drawing-room, where no one ever sat. But to-day it was, for once, occupied.

Fairly inside the French window before she saw the two people in the room, she turned whiter than ever.

Lady Annesley, in her best tea-gown, drinking tea; and beside her, the low sun full on his handsome, sneering face, the strange man who had driven her home last evening. Ravenel, by instinct, put up her hand to cover her trembling lip. In her white gown, with her whiter face, she looked like a ghost as she stood staring.

Lord Levallion had the grace not to look at her as he came forward, and took her cold, indifferent hand. Lady Annesley put down her cup pettishly.

“Why do you never come in by the door like a Christian?” she said. “You quite startled me. Lord Levallion has come over to ask how you are--after yesterday!”

Lord Levallion? So this was he. Well, it was all one to her! There was only one man in all the world who mattered to Ravenel Annesley, and he had forsaken her. She turned to go, stumbling on the window-sill.

“Come and sit down. You look tired to death,” commanded Lady Annesley, and the taunt stung her stepdaughter. If her world had gone to pieces like a pack of cards, there was no reason that her ladyship should know it! She turned, sat down on the first chair she came to, and met Lord Levallion’s eyes turned on her curiously.

“Have you been walking? It’s too hot to walk,” he observed languidly. “I got up early this morning and took my exercise: rode over to have breakfast with Captain Gordon of the ---- Hussars. Do you know him?”

Lady Annesley was livid in her fright. She had not dared confide in Levallion--and what was going to be the result?

“Yes, I know him,” Ravenel said evenly. She had her hat in her lap and was playing with the pin out of it.

“You know he went off to India to-day, then, by the first train for Southampton. I rather took him by surprise, for he left me in London. I can’t say I had a cheerful breakfast. Every one seemed so cast down at his leaving--but I enjoyed my ride.”

Thank God she could not get any paler! And the Annesleys were ever proud. This one, who was but a child and hurt to the heart, kept her face steady.

“Yes,” she said, and her voice sounded quite natural, for she heard it as though it were some one else’s. “Why? Was Captain Gordon dull?”

“Extremely noisy, on the contrary. Delighted, evidently, to be getting away.”

But she heard Levallion’s answer through the whirl of a hundred thoughts that seemed to sound and move in her head. Adrian had gone to India!--gone without a word of good-by, broken all his promises, forsaken her with a false, lying letter. Oh, Adrian, Adrian!

Desperately, like a savage, Ravenel stuck her steel hat-pin straight into her finger, and the sharp pain steadied her. She must not--dare not--think of him now. Whatever happened she must be brave before her ladyship and Levallion. And that wild cry at her heart was stifling her. Oh, Adrian--Adrian!

“What’s the matter? Have you cut your hand?” cried her stepmother shrilly. Levallion was no fool; he had probably put two and two together already! She was thankful to see a tangible reason for the girl’s strange pallor and quietude.

Ravenel nodded. Not for anything in the world could she have spoken without giving voice to that cry in her soul to Adrian Gordon, who was on the sea.

If Sylvia Annesley had known it, nothing else in the world would have so softened Lord Levallion’s heart to the girl she meant him to marry as the sight of her sitting pale as death and as proud.

“God! there’s stuff in the child!” he reflected swiftly. “And I’ll help her. Madam Sylvia’s been up to some low trick with her, I’ll lay my life!” but his voice was cooler than usual as he quietly cut off another question from that much-tried woman.

“That pin has gone through your finger, Miss Annesley,” he interposed quietly. “You should go at once and bathe it with hot water. They are nasty things--hat-pins,” and he rose composedly and opened the door for Ravenel to leave the room.

If any one had told her three days ago that she would ever have been grateful to Lord Levallion she would have laughed in their face. But now she looked at him as a caged bird might do when suddenly set free; like the bird, slipped through the door he had opened for her, dumb and dazed, but--thank God!--safe away from Sylvia’s eyes.

Lord Levallion returned to his seat.

“What have you been doing to that child, Sylvia?” he inquired harshly. “You have delicately suggested you would like me to marry her, but I warn you it is no use trying to force either her or me into it. If I want to marry her I shall, but it’s not any too likely. And the more you scheme the less I shall probably oblige you.”

“What makes you think anything so absurd?” angrily.

“My dear lady, I put two and two together. First, you write to me, and I have not heard from you for years. Then you are eager that I should meet the girl. Last, I come here, and find you poor--unbearably poor, for you! And a good marriage for the girl would mean a competence for you, and I am the only man you know with money. So you find out I am staying with the duchess, dress your lamb for the slaughter, and make her life miserable so that she will fly to my arms. Eh, Sylvia?” slowly.

Lady Annesley grew redder than her rouge. Levallion was too shrewd for once, and overshot himself. But it was better he should think Ravenel unhappy at home than suspect she was sick for the sight of Adrian Gordon.

“I--we--don’t get on! It is a grief to me,” she said prettily.

Levallion smiled. Any other man would have laughed outright; but he was not given to laughter. Fancy Sylvia--Sylvia!--scheming and match-making for him. It was better than any play. She had been clever, too, to have found out that he was thinking of marrying. He was forty-seven years old, and had no one to inherit either title or estates but his second cousin. If Lady Annesley had known her peerage better, she might have thought twice of meddling with Adrian Gordon’s love-affairs.

“I should advise you to try and get on--while I am here,” he broke the pause abruptly. “I do not like jars and tears.”

Lady Annesley trembled. She saw her dreams of Levallion’s country houses and a comfortable allowance--above all, a position as Lady Levallion’s mother--fading into thin air.

“The girl is dull here,” she said. “I can’t help it. She wants a change, I suppose, and I can’t give it to her.”

“Take her to town for a week.”

Her ladyship looked at him, her beautiful delicate face for once sincere.

“Walk there, camp in Piccadilly, walk home again!” she observed. “What a delightful program! That is the only way I could manage it.”

“Perhaps so,” returned Lord Levallion equably, and rose to go. He had his own thoughts on the subject, but as yet they did not burn to be made public. He meant to come over again before he went to town himself, but he did not mention that, either. He would not come to see Sylvia, nor did he wish to be considered her ally.

Sir Thomas Annesley, from a convenient post on the stairs, watched the visitor’s exit, and then repaired with haste to his sister’s room.

“Ravenel, let me in, I say!” he demanded, pounding on the door.

But he got no answer.

Ravenel, face down, lay on her bed convulsed with rage and shame to think that she should be crying herself sick for Adrian Gordon, who had left her like a dog he was tired of--left her with lying promises he had not cared to keep--and taken the best part of her with him.

“Ravenel, let me in, can’t you? I want to speak to you!” Sir Thomas’ persistent pounding reached her deaf ears at last.

She got up trembling and began to bathe her stained face with cold water.

“I can’t, Tommy! I--I’m washing,” she called out angrily.

“Well, hurry up and I’ll wait!”

Ravenel, sponge in hand, flung the door open.

“Come in and be done!” she cried. “What is it?”

Her face was blotched and patchy with crying, and the boy’s eyes kindled as he saw it.

“What’s that brute Levallion been saying to you?” he demanded. “And what’s Gordon gone off for like this?”

“He’s gone off because he’s sick of me; he’s thrown me over.” She spoke brutally. She was not going to gloss things over to Tommy. “And Lord Levallion hasn’t done anything. He’s the only decent person I know,” with which the door banged once more in Sir Thomas’ face.

Gordon sick of her--and Levallion decent! The boy was dumb with amazement. She would be praising her ladyship next. He went slowly away and sought Mr. Jacobs.

“My good dog,” he said disgustedly to that villainous animal, “there’s going to be trouble!”

##