Pearl Of Pearl Island Part 32

"Then if no one else dies we'll say the following Wednesday," said Graeme. "And if--well, if anything happens to prevent it, then we must go across to Guernsey and get Mr. Lee to marry us."

"Oh, but that woult not do. We will keep them all alive till you are married. It woult neffer do to disappoint them all when we are all looking forward to it here."

"Very well then, see you all keep alive."

"And you will come to old Mr. Hamon's funeral?"

"H'm! I don't know. We'll see, Mrs. Carre. We'd sooner be at our own wedding, you know, than at anybody else's funeral."

"They woult like it iff you woult. And he was a goot old man. They tell me to ask if you woult be pleased to come."

"If they would like us to come we will come, Mrs. Carre," said Margaret.

And so it came about that instead of kneeling before the altar that Wednesday they stood by the graveside.

X

The Red House and the cottage were centres--nay, whirlpools--of mighty activities for days beforehand.

Mrs. Carre insisted on cleaning down the Red House from top to bottom for the home-coming of the bride, though, to Graeme's masculine perceptions, its panelling of polished pitch pine from floor to ceiling, in which you could see yourself as in a mirror, had always appeared the very acme of cleanliness and comfort, with the additional merit of a tendency towards churchwardly thoughts.

But when he ventured on a mild remonstrance anent the necessity for so gigantic an upsetting, Mrs. Carre laughingly said, "Ach, you are only a man. You woult neffer see"--and whirled her broom to the endangerment of his head.

For Margaret's honeymoon--that, is, such of it as she had not enjoyed before her marriage--was to consist of a change of residence from the cottage, and a walk up the garden and through the hedge of gracious Memories, to the wider--ah, how much wider!--as much wider and larger and more beautiful as wifehood at its best is wider and larger and more beautiful than maidenhood at its best--to the wider accommodation of the Red House. And Mrs. Carre was determined that it should be speckless and sweet, and fit in every way for the coming of so beautiful a bride.

She had found them a young girl, Betsy Lefevre, a niece of her own, to serve as handmaid during their occupancy of the house, but insisted herself on acting as cook and general housekeeper. Miss Penny was to reside at the cottage for a week after the wedding, but was to go up the garden to her meals, and at the end of that time she was to join them at the Red House as an honoured guest.

And the kitchen at the cottage, and the kitchen at the House, and several other kitchens in the neighbourhood, were baking gache enough apparently to feed a regiment, and as the day approached, roasts of beef and mutton, and hams and other substantial fare, were much in evidence. And the kitchens were thronged with ladies in sun-bonnets, which had originally been black but were now somewhat off-colour with age and weather, and all the ladies' faces were as full of importance as if they had been Cabinet ministers in the throes of a crisis.

Among these concentric energies, Margaret and Miss Penny completed their own simple preparations, and Graeme busied himself with the details of the children's feast which was to take place in an adjacent field.

He went down to the harbour to meet the Tuesday morning's boat which was to bring over the fruit and frivolities ordered from Guernsey--strawberries enough to start a jam factory, grapes enough to stock a greengrocer's shop, chocolates, sweets, Christmas crackers and fancy biscuits, in what he hoped would prove sufficiency, but had his doubts at times when he saw the eager expectancy with which he was regarded by every youngster he met.

He was just starting out when Johnnie Vautrin hailed him from his lair in the hedge.

"Heh, Mist' Graeme! I seen--"

"Better not, Johnnie!" he said, with a warning finger. "If it's anything uncomfortable I'll come right over and jump on you and Marrlyou."

"G.o.derabetin, you da.s.sen't!"

"Oh, da.s.sen't I? If you don't see everything good for this week, and fine weather too, you little imp, I'll--"

"Que-hou-hou!" croaked Johnnie, and Marielihou yawned and made a futile attempt to wash behind her ears but found it discomforting to a sore hind-leg, so gave it up and spat at him instead.

"And, moreover, I won't have you at my party."

"Hou-hou! I'm coming. Ma'm'zelle she ask me."

"I'll tell her to send you back-word."

"She wun't, she wun't. Where you goin'?"

"To the harbour, to see if all the good things have come for the other little boys and girls."

"Oh la-la! Good things and bad things come by the boat. Sometime it'll sink and drown 'em all."

"Little rascal!" and he waved his hand and went on.

"Late, isn't she, Carre?" he asked, as he leaned over the sea-wall with the rest.

"She's late, sir."

"I hope nothing's happened to her. I'll never forgive her if she's made an end of my sweet things for the kiddies."

"She'll come."

And she came. With a shrill peal she came round the Burons and made for the harbour.

And Graeme, wedged into the corner of the iron railing where it looks out to sea, to make sure at the earliest possible moment that that which he had come to meet was there, met of a sudden more than he had looked for.

"Well ... I'll be hanged!" he jerked to himself, and then began to laugh internally.

For, standing on the upper deck of the small steamer, and looking, somehow, very much out of place there, was a tall but portly young gentleman, in a bowler hat and travelling coat and a monocle, whose face showed none of the usual symptoms of the Sark lover. To judge from his expression, the little island impressed him anything but favourably. It offered him none of the relaxations and amus.e.m.e.nts to which he was accustomed. It looked, on the face of it, an uncivilised kind of a place, out of which a man might be ejected without ceremony if he chose to make himself objectionable.

Graeme kept out of sight among the other crowders of the quay till the bowler hat came bobbing up the gangway. Then he smote its owner so jovially on the shoulder that his monocle shot the full length of its cord and the hat came within an ace of tumbling overboard.

"h.e.l.lo, Pixley! This _is_ good of you. You're just in time to give us your blessing."

"Aw! h.e.l.lo!" said Charles Svendt, agape at the too friendly greeting.

"That you, Graeme?"

"The worst half of me, my boy. Margaret's up at the house. You'll be quite a surprise to her."

"Aw!" said Charles Svendt thoughtfully, as he readjusted his eyegla.s.s.

"Demned queer place, this!" and he gazed round lugubriously.

"It is that, my boy. Queerer than you think, and queerer people."

"Aw! Is there any--aw--place to stop at?"

"Thinking of stopping over night? Oh yes, several very decent hotels."

"Aw! Which are you at yourself now?"

"I? Oh, I'm a resident. I've got a house here."

"Dooce you have! Well, now, where would you stop if you were me?"