King of the Castle Part 93

She nodded quickly.

"And--you don't think me ridiculous?"

"I think you the truest, most honest gentleman I ever saw," she sobbed; "but--"

"Ah!" he said, with a pleasant little satisfied laugh, "that settles it, then. The impossibility has gone like smoke. Mary dear, I never hoped to be so happy as you have made me now."

His great arms enfolded her for a moment, during which she lay panting on his breast, then, struggling to free herself, she caught and kissed one of his hands.

"Hah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "now we must think of some one else."

He led her gently back to her chair, and bent down to kiss her forehead.

Then, returning to his seat as calmly as if nothing had happened--

"I can talk freely to you now, Mary," he said. "Is not this a great mistake?"

"Yes," she said, with an arch look, full of her newly-found joy.

"No, no; you know what I mean. We must be very serious now. I don't like this Mr Glyddyr."

"I hate him," cried Mary.

"Well, that's honest," he said, smiling. "But it was her father's wish, and I suppose it is to be."

"Yes; it is to be. Nothing would turn her now."

John Trevithick did not say, "And is this to be soon?" but he thought it, and set the idea aside.

"No," he said to himself; "we must wait." And soon after, calm, quiet and business-like, he went away to draw up the marriage settlements tightly on Claude's behalf, and wandered whether he could ever manage to trace that missing cash.

He took out a pocket-book, and turned to a certain page covered with figures, and ran it down.

"Only a few of these notes have reached the bank. Well, some day I may come upon a clue in a way I least expect.

"Impossible, eh?" he said, with a smile of content. "Bless her sweet eyes! I won't believe in the impossible now."

Volume Three, Chapter XIV.

"AND THIS IS BEING MARRIED."

"You are sure you don't mind me talking about it, sir?"

"Mind! Oh, no, Mrs Sarson, say what you like."

"Well, you see, sir, even if one is a widow and growing old, one can't help feeling interested in weddings. I suppose it's being a woman.

Everybody's dreadfully disappointed."

"Indeed," said Chris coldly.

"And, yes, indeed, sir. No big party; no wedding breakfast and cake; no going away in chaises and fours. If poor Mr Gartram had been alive, it wouldn't have been like this. Why, do you know, sir, the quarry folk were getting ready powder and going to fire guns, and make a big bonfire on the cliffs; but Mr Trevithick, the lawyer, went to them with a message from Miss Claude, sir, asking for them to do nothing; and they're just going to the church and back to the big house, and not even going away."

"Indeed!"

"Oh, yes, sir, and I did hear that Miss Claude actually wanted to be married in black, but Miss Mary Dillon persuaded her not. I heard it on the best of authority, sir."

Chris made no reply, and, finding no encouragement, Mrs Sarson cleared her lodger's breakfast things away, and left the room.

The moment he was alone, Chris started from his chair to stand with his back to the light; his teeth set hard and fists clenched as a spasm of mental agony for the moment mastered him.

"No," he said, after a few moments, with a bitter laugh, "this won't do.

What is it to me? I can bear it now like a man. She shall see how indifferent I am."

For it was the morning of the ill-starred wedding--a morning in which Nature seemed to be in the mood to make everything depressing, for the wind blew hard, bringing from the Atlantic a drenching shower, through which, with Gellow for his best man, Glyddyr would have to drive to the little church. Meanwhile, he was having so severe a shivering fit at the hotel where he had been staying, that his companion had become alarmed, and suggested calling in the doctor.

"Bah! nonsense! Ring for some brandy."

"And I'll take a flask to the church," said Gellow to himself, "or the brute will breakdown. We're going to have a jolly wedding seemingly.

Only wants that confounded Frenchwoman to get scent of it, and come down, and then we should be perfect."

"That's better," said Gellow, after the brandy had been brought. "But what a day! What a cheerful lookout! I say, Glyddyr, am I dreaming?

Is it a wedding this morning or a funeral?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it looks more like the latter. I say: Young Lisle won't come and have a pop at you in the church?"

Glyddyr turned ghastly.

"You--you don't think--"

"Bah! My chaff. You are out of sorts; on your wedding-day, too. Hold hard with that brandy, or it will pop you off, and not Lisle. Steady, man, steady."

"Gellow, it's all over," gasped the miserable man. "I shall never be able to go through with it."

"Oh, if I can only get this morning over," said Gellow to himself; and then aloud--

"Nonsense, my dear boy, you're a bit nervous, that's all. I suppose a man is when he's going to be married. You're all right. Come, have a devilled kidney or a snack of something. You don't eat enough."

"Eat?" said Glyddyr, with a shudder. "No; I seem to have no appet.i.te now."

"Come on, and let's get it over. Here's the carriage waiting. Steady, man, steady. No; not a drop more."

"The carriage is at the door, sir," said the waiter; and striving hard to be firm, and to master a tremulous sensation about his knees, Glyddyr walked out into the hall, where a buzzing sound that was heard suddenly ceased till the pair were in the carriage, from whose roof the rain was streaming. Then, after banging too the door, the waiter dashed back under shelter, the dripping horses started off, and the carriage disappeared in the misty rain.

"Looks as if he was going to execution," said the man, with a laugh, as he dabbed the top of his head with his napkin. "Well, it do rain to-day."

At the Fort everything had gone on that morning in a calm, subdued way that seemed to betoken no change. Claude came down to breakfast as usual, and sat looking dreamily before her, while Mary, red-eyed and sorrowful, had not the heart to speak.