Mildred Arkell Volume I Part 11

"People will say you might have made a better."

"I don't care if they do," returned Mr. William, firing up. "I have a right to please myself, and I will please myself. I am not taking a wife for other people, meddling mischief-makers!"

The outburst seemed unnecessary. It struck Mildred that he must have seriously feared opposition from some quarter, the tone of his voice was so sore a one. She looked up with questioning eyes.

"I have plenty of money, you know, Mildred," he added, more quietly. "I don't want to look out for a fortune with my wife."

"Very true," murmured Mildred.

"I wonder whether she has brought it out to my father?" resumed William, nodding towards his mother at the card-table. "I don't think she has; he seems only just as usual. She'll make it the subject of a curtain-lecture to-night, for a guinea!"

Mildred stole a glance at her uncle. He was intent on his cards, good old man, his spectacles pushed to the top of his ample brow.

"Do you know, Mildred, I was half afraid to come to the point with them," he presently said. "I dreaded opposition. I----"

"But why?" timidly interrupted Mildred.

"Well, I can't tell why. All I know is, that the feeling was there--picked up somehow. I dreaded opposition, especially from my mother; but, as I say, I cannot tell why. I never was more surprised than when she said I had made her happy by my choice--that it was a union she had set her heart upon. I am not sure yet, you know, that my father will approve it."

"He may urge against it the want of money," murmured Mildred; "it is only reasonable he should. And----"

"It is not reasonable," interposed William Arkell, in a tone of resentment. "There's nothing at all in reason that can be urged against it; and I am sure you don't really think there is, Mildred."

"And yet you acknowledge that you dreaded opening the matter to them?"

"Yes, because fathers and mothers are always so exacting over these things. Every crow thinks its own young bird the whitest, and many a mother with an only son deems him fit to mate with a princess of the blood-royal. I declare to you, Mildred, I felt a regular coward about telling my mother--foolish as the confession must sound to you; and once I thought of speaking to you first, and getting you to break it to her.

I thought she might listen to it from you better than from me."

Mildred thought it would have been a novel mode of procedure, but she did not say so. Her cousin went on:--

"We must have the wedding in a month, or so; I won't wait a day longer, and so I told my mother. I have seen a charming little house just suitable for us, and----"

"You might have consulted me first, William, before you fixed the time."

"What for? Nonsense! will not one time do for you as well as another?"

Miss Arkell looked up at her cousin: he seemed to be talking strangely.

"But where is the necessity for hurrying on the wedding like this?" she asked. "Not to speak of other considerations, the preparations would take up more time."

"Not they," dissented Mr. William, who had been accustomed to have things very much his own way, and liked it. "I'm sure you need not raise a barrier on the score of preparation, Mildred. You won't want much beside a dress and bonnet, and my mother can see to yours as well as to Charlotte's. Is it orthodox for the bride and bridesmaid to be dressed alike?"

"Who was it fixed upon the bridesmaid?" asked Mildred. "Did you?"

"Charlotte herself. But no plans are decided on, for I said as little as I could to my mother. We can go into details another day."

"With regard to a bridesmaid, Mary Pembroke has always been promised----"

"Now, Mildred, I won't have any of those Pembroke girls playing a conspicuous part at my wedding," he interrupted. "What you and my mother can see in them, I can't think. Provided you have no objection, let it be as Charlotte says."

"I think Charlotte takes more upon herself than she has any cause to do," returned Mildred, the old sore feeling against Miss Travice rising again into prominence in her heart.

"I'll tell her if you don't mind, Mildred," laughed William. "But now I think of it, it was not Charlotte who mentioned it, it was my mother.

She----"

"Mr. Peter Arkell."

The announcement was Tring's. It cut off William's sentence in the midst, and also any further elucidation that might have taken place.

Peter came forward in his usual awkward manner, and was immediately pressed into the service of cribbage, in the place of Miss Travice, who never "put out" to the best advantage, and could not count. As Peter took her seat, he explained that his early appearance was owing to his having remained but an hour with Mr. Arthur Dewsbury, who was going out that evening.

Charlotte Travice sat down to the piano, and William got his flute.

Sweet music! but, nevertheless, it grated on Mildred's ear. His whole attention became absorbed with Charlotte, to the utter neglect of Mildred. Now and then he seemed to remember that Mildred sat behind, and turned round to address a word to her; but his whispers were given to Charlotte. "It is not right," she murmured to herself in her bitter pain; "this night, of all others, it is not surely right. If she were but going back to London before the wedding!"

Supper came in, for they dined early, you remember; and afterwards Mrs.

Dan and Mildred had their bonnets brought down.

"What a lovely night it is!" exclaimed Peter, as he waited at the hall door.

"It is that!" a.s.sented William, looking out; "I think I'll have a run with you. Those stars are enough to tempt one forth. Shall I go, Mildred?"

"Yes," she softly whispered, believing she was the attraction, not the stars.

But Mrs. Dan lingered. The fact was, Mrs. Arkell had drawn her to the back of the hall.

"Did you speak to her, Betty?"

"I spoke to her as soon as she came home. It was that that made us late."

"Well? She does not object to William?"

"Not she. I'll tell you a secret," continued Mrs. Dan; "I could see by Mildred's agitation when I told her to-day, that she already loved William. I suspected it long ago."

Mrs. Arkell nodded her head complacently. "I noticed her face when he was talking to her as they sat apart to-night; and I read love in it, if it ever was read. Yes, yes, it is all right. I thought I could not be mistaken in Mildred."

"I say, Aunt Dan, are you coming to-night or to-morrow?" called out William.

"I am coming now, my dear," replied Mrs. Dan; and she walked forward and took her son's arm. William followed with Mildred.

"Now, Mildred, don't you go and tell all the world to-morrow about this wedding of ours," he began; "don't you go chattering to those Pembroke girls."

"How can you suppose it likely that I would?" was the pained answer.

"Why, I know all young ladies are fond of gossiping, especially when they get hold of such a topic as this."

"I don't think I have ever deserved the name of gossip," observed Mildred, quietly.

"Well, Mildred, I do not know that you have. But it is not all girls who possess your calm good sense. I thought it might be as well to give even you a caution."

"William, you are scarcely like yourself to-night," she said, anxiously.