The Following of the Star Part 21

"Well, shoo him off the mat," said Diana, "and hustle him into the lift!

I decline to receive letters from a person who comes into the room heralded by hair-oil.... All right! Don't look so distressed. Sit down in this comfy chair, and we will see what surprise Uncle Falcon has prepared for us. Really, when one comes to think of it, a letter from a person who has been dead a year is a rather wonderful thing to receive."

Diana seated herself on the sofa, after pushing forward an armchair for the old lawyer. Then, in the full blaze of the electric light, she opened the sealed envelope, and drew out a letter addressed to herself, in her uncle's own handwriting. A folded paper from within it, fell unheeded on her lap.

She read the letter aloud to Mr. Inglestry. As she read her grey eyes widened; her colour came and went; but her voice did not falter.

And this was Uncle Falcon's letter:

"MY DEAR NIECE:

"If Ford does his duty--and most men do their duty for fifty guineas--you will be reading these words either on the eve of your wedding-day, or on the eve of the day on which you will be preparing to leave Riverscourt, and to give up all that which, since my death, has been your own.

"Feeling sure that I was right, my dear Diana, in our many arguments, and that I have won in the contest of our wills, I would bet a good deal--if betting is allowed in the other world--that you are reading this on the eve of your wedding-day--am I right, Inglestry, old chap?--having found a man who will soon teach you that wifehood and motherhood and dependence on the stronger s.e.x are a woman's true vocation, and her best chance of real happiness in life.

"If so, look up, honestly, and say: 'Uncle Falcon, you have won'; and I hereby forgive Inglestry all his fuss and bl.u.s.ter, and you, the obstinacy of years--and may Heaven bless the wedding-day.

"But--ah, there's a 'but' in all things human! Perhaps the world where I shall be, when you are reading these lines, is the only place where buts cease to be, and where all things go straight on to fulfilment.

"But--your happiness, my own dear girl, is of too much real importance for me to risk it, on the possible chance of the right man not having turned up; or of you--true Rivers that you are--proving obstinate to the end.

"Therefore--enclosed herewith you will find a later codicil than that known to you and Inglestry, duly witnessed by Ford and his clerk, nullifying the other, and leaving you my entire property as stated in my will, subject to no conditions whatsoever.

"Thus, my dear Diana, if you are on the eve of preparing to leave Riverscourt, you may unpack your trunks, and stay there, with your uncle's love and blessing. It is all your own.

"Or--but knowing you as I do, I hardly think this likely--if you are on the eve of making a marriage which is not one of love, and which is causing you in prospect distress and unhappiness--why, break it off, child, and send the man packing. If he is marrying you for your money, he deserves the lesson; and if he loves you for your splendid self, why he is not much of a man if he has been engaged to such a girl as my niece Diana, without having been able to win her, before the eve of the wedding-day!

"Anyway, you now have a free hand, child; and if my whim of testing fate for you with the first codicil, has put you in a tight place, old Inglestry will see you through, and you must forgive your departed uncle, who loves you more than you ever knew,

"FALCON RIVERS."

Diana dropped the letter, flung herself down on the sofa cushions, and burst into a pa.s.sion of weeping.

Mr. Inglestry, helpless and dismayed, took off his gla.s.ses and polished them with his silk pocket-handkerchief; put them on again; leaned forward and patted Diana's shoulder; even ventured to stroke her shining hair, repeating, hurriedly: "It can all be arranged, my dear. I beg of you not to upset yourself. It can all be arranged."

Then he picked up the codicil, and examined it carefully. It was correct in every detail. It simply nullified the private codicil, and confirmed the original will.

"It can all be arranged, my dear," he repeated, laying a fatherly hand on Diana's heaving shoulder. "Do not upset yourself over this unfortunate marriage complication. I will undertake----"

"It is not that!" cried Diana, sitting up, and pushing back her rumpled hair. "Oh, you unimaginative old thing! Can't you understand? All these months it has been so hard to have to think that Uncle Falcon's love for me had really been worth so little, that, in order to prove himself right on one silly point, he could treat me as he did in that cruel codicil. He could not have foreseen the simply miraculous way in which Providence and my Cousin David were coming to my rescue, at the eleventh hour. Otherwise it must have meant, either a hateful marriage, or the loss of home, and money, and everything I hold most dear. But by far the worst loss of all was to lose faith in the truest love I had ever known.

In my whole life, no love had ever seemed to me so true, so faithful, so completely to be trusted, as Uncle Falcon's. To have lost my belief in it, was beginning to make of me a hard and a bitter woman. That codicil was costing me more than home and income. And now it turns out to have been merely a test--a risky test, indeed! Think if either of us had told Rupert of it, before the time specified; or if I had been going to marry Rupert or any other worldly-minded man, who would have made endless trouble over being jilted! But--dear old thing! He didn't think of that.

He was so sure his plan would lead to my making a happy marriage, notwithstanding my prejudices and my principles. He was wrong, of course. But the main point brought out by this second codicil is: that he really cared. I can forgive him all the rest, now I know that Uncle Falcon loved me too well really to risk spoiling my life."

Diana dried her eyes; then raised her head, snuffing the air with the keenness of one of her own splendid hounds.

"Oh, Mr. Inglestry," she said; "do go and see if that person is still on the mat! I have been talking at the top of my voice, and I believe I scent hair-oil!"

The old lawyer tiptoed to the door, opened it cautiously, and looked up and down the brightly lighted corridor. From the distance came the constant clang of the closing of the elevator gates, and the sharp ting of electric bells.

He shut the door, and returned to his seat.

Diana was reading the codicil.

"I wonder why he called in that Ford creature," she said. "Why did he not intrust this envelope to you?"

"My dear," suggested Mr. Inglestry, "knowing my affection for you, knowing how deeply I have your interests at heart, your uncle may have feared that, if I saw you in much perplexity, in great distress of mind over the matter, I might have let fall some hint--have given you some indication----"

"Why, of course!" said Diana. "Think how you would have caught it to-day, if you hadn't. You would have been much more afraid of me, on earth, than of Uncle Falcon, in heaven!"

Mr. Inglestry lifted his hand in mute protest; then took off his gla.s.ses, and polished them. The remarks of Miss Rivers were so apt to be perplexing and unanswerable.

"Let us leave that question, my dear young lady," he said. "Your uncle adopted a remarkably shrewd course for attaining the end he desired.

Meanwhile, it remains for us to deal with the present situation. I advise that we send immediately for your cousin, David Rivers. Of course this marriage of--of convenience, need not now take place."

Diana looked straight at the old lawyer for a few moments, in blank silence. She turned the ring upon her finger, so that the diamond was hidden. Then she said, slowly:

"You suggest that we send for David Rivers, and tell him that--this second codicil having turned up--we shall not, after all, require his services: that he may sail for Central Africa to-morrow, without going through the marriage ceremony with me?"

"Just so," said Mr. Inglestry, "just so." Something in Diana's eyes arresting further inspiration, he repeated rather nervously: "Just so."

"Well, I absolutely decline to do anything of the kind," flashed Diana.

"Think of the intolerable humiliation to David! After overcoming his own doubts in the matter; after disposing of his first conscientious scruples; after making up his mind to go through with this for my sake, and being so faithful about it. After all the papers we have signed, and the arrangements we have made! To be sent for, and calmly told his services are no longer required! Besides--though I don't propose to be much to him, I know--I am all he has in the world. He will sail to-morrow feeling that at least there is one person on this earth who belongs to him, and to whom he belongs; one person to whom he can write freely, and who cares to know of his joys or sorrows; his successes or failures. Poor boy! Could I possibly, to avoid a little bother to myself, rob him of this? I--who owe him more than I can ever express?

Besides, he could never--after such a slight on my part--accept the money I am giving to his work. In fact, I doubt if he would accept so much, even now, were it not that he believes I owe my whole fortune to the fact of his marriage with me."

Diana turned the ring again; and the diamond shone like a star on her hand.

"No, Mr. Inglestry," she said, with decision. "The marriage will take place to-morrow, as arranged; and my Cousin David must never know of this new codicil."

The lawyer looked doubtful and dissatisfied.

"The fact of the codicil remains," he said. "Your whole property is now safely your own, subject to no conditions whatever. You have nothing to gain by this marriage with your cousin; you might--eventually--have serious cause to regret the loss of liberty it will entail. I do not consider that we are justified in allowing the ceremony to take place without informing him of the complete change of circ.u.mstances, and acquainting him with the existence of this second codicil."

"Very well," said Diana.

With a sudden movement, she rose to her feet, whirled round on the hearthrug, tore the codicil to fragments, and flung them into the flames.

"There!" she cried, towering over the astonished little lawyer in the large armchair. "Now, no second codicil exists! I can still keep my restored faith in the love of Uncle Falcon; but I shall owe my home, my fortune, and all I possess, to my husband, David Rivers."

CHAPTER XVI

IN OLD ST. BOTOLPH'S

At twenty minutes past ten, on the morning of the Feast of Epiphany, David Rivers stood in the empty church of St Botolph's, Bishopsgate, awaiting his bride.