Wife in Name Only Part 31

After all, Lord Arleigh had a perfect right to please himself--to do as he would; if he did not think Madaline's birth placed her greatly beneath him, no one else need suggest such a thing. From being a violent opponent of the marriage, Lady Peters became one of its most strenuous supporters. So they went away to St. Mildred's, where the great tragedy of Madaline's life was to begin.

On the morning that she went way, the d.u.c.h.ess sent for her to her room.

She told her all that she intended doing as regarded the elaborate and magnificent _trousseau_ preparing for her. Madaline was overwhelmed.

"You are too good to me," she said--"you spoil me. How am I to thank you?"

"Your wedding-dress--plain, simple, but rich, to suit the occasion--will be sent to St. Mildred's," said the d.u.c.h.ess--"also a handsome traveling costume; but all the rest of the packages can be sent to Beechgrove. You will need them only there."

Madaline kissed the hand extended to her.

"I shall never know how to thank you," she said.

A peculiar smile came over the darkly-beautiful face.

"I think you will," returned the d.u.c.h.ess "I can imagine what blessings you will some day invoke on my name."

Then she withdrew her hand suddenly from the touch of the pure sweet lips.

"Good-by, Madaline," she said; and it was long before the young girl saw the fair face of the d.u.c.h.ess again.

Just as she was quitting the room Philippa placed a packet in her hand.

"You will carefully observe the directions given in this?" she said; and Madaline promised to do so.

The time at St. Mildred's soon pa.s.sed. It was a quiet, picturesque village, standing at the foot of a green hill facing the bay. There was little to be seen, except the shining sea and the blue sky. An old church, called St. Mildred's, stood on the hill-top. Few strangers ever visited the little watering-place. The residents were people who preferred quiet and beautiful scenery to everything else. There was a hotel, called the Queen's, where the few strangers that came mostly resided; and just facing the sea stood a newly-built terrace of houses called Sea View, where other visitors also sojourned.

It was just the place for lovers' dreams--a shining sea, golden sands, white cliffs with little nooks and bays, pretty and shaded walks on the hill-top.

Madaline's great happiness was delightful to see. The fair face grew radiant in its loveliness; the blue eyes shone brightly. There was the delight, too, every day of inspecting the parcels that arrived one after the other; but the greatest pleasure of all was afforded by the wedding-dress. It was plain, simple, yet, in its way, a work of art--a rich white silk with little lace or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, yet looking so like a wedding-dress that no one could mistake it. There were snowy gloves and shoes--in fact everything was perfect, selected by no common taste, the gift of no illiberal hand. Was it foolish of her to kiss the white folds while the tears filled her eyes, and to think of herself that she was the happiest creature under the sun? Was it foolish of her to touch the pretty bridal robes with soft, caressing fingers, as though they were some living thing that she loved--to place them where the sunbeams fell on them, to admire them in every different fold and arrangement?

Then the eventful day came--Lord Arleigh and Madaline were to be married at an early hour.

"Not," said Lord Arleigh, proudly, "that there is any need for concealment--why should there be?--but you see, Lady Peters if it were known that it was my wedding-day, I have so many friends, so many relatives, that privacy would be impossible for us; therefore the world has not been enlightened as to when I intended to claim my darling for my own."

"It is a strange marriage for an Arleigh," observed Lady Peters--"the first of its kind, I am sure. But I think you are right--your plan is wise."

All the outward show made at the wedding consisted in the rapid driving of a carriage from the hotel to the church--a carriage containing two ladies--one young, fair, charming as a spring morning, the other older, graver, and more sedate.

The young girl was fair and sweet, her golden hair shining through the marriage vail, her blue eyes wet with unshed tears, her face flushed with daintiest rose-leaf bloom.

It was a pleasant spectacle to see the dark, handsome face of her lover as he greeted her, the love that shone in his eyes, the pride of his manner, as though he would place her before the whole world, and defy it to produce one so graceful or so fair. Lady Peters' face softened and her heart beat as she walked up to the altar with them. This was true love.

So the grand old words of the marriage-service were p.r.o.nounced--they were promised to each other for better for worse, for weal for woe--never to part until death parted them--to be each the other's world.

It was the very morning for a bride. Heaven and earth smiled their brightest, the sunshine was golden, the autumn flowers bloomed fair, the autumn foliage had a.s.sumed its rich hues of crimson and of burnished gold; there was a bright light over the sea and the hill-tops.

Only one little _contretemps_ happened at the wedding. Madaline smiled at it. Lord Arleigh was too happy even to notice it, but Lady Peters grew pale at the occurrence; for, according to her old-fashioned ideas, it augured ill.

Just as Lord Arleigh was putting the ring on the finger of his fair young bride, it slipped and fell to the ground. The church was an old-fashioned one, and there were graves and vaults all down the aisle.

Away rolled the little golden ring, and when Lord Arleigh stooped down he could not see it. He was for some minutes searching for it, and then he found it--it had rolled into the hollow of a large letter on one of the level grave-stones.

Involuntarily he kissed it as he lifted it from the ground; it was too cruel for anything belonging to that fair young bride to have been brought into contact with death. Lady Peters noted the little incident with a shudder, Madaline merely smiled. Then the ceremony was over--Lord Arleigh and Madaline were man and wife. It seemed to him that the whole world around him was transformed.

They walked out of the church together, and when they stood in the sunlight he turned to her.

"My darling, my wife," he said, in an impa.s.sioned voice, "may Heaven send to us a life bright as this sunshine, love as pure--life and death together! I pray Heaven that no deeper cloud may come over our lives than there is now in the sky above us."

These words were spoken at only eleven in the morning. If he had known all that he would have to suffer before eleven at night, Lord Arleigh, with all his bravery, all his chivalry, would have been ready to fling himself from the green hill-top into the shimmering sea.

Chapter XXIV.

It was the custom of the Arleighs to spend their honeymoon at home; they had never fallen into the habit of making themselves uncomfortable abroad. The proper place, they considered, for a man to take his young wife to was home; the first Lord Arleigh had done so, and each lord had followed this sensible example. Norman, Lord Arleigh, had not dreamed of making any change. True, he had planned with his fair young bride that when the autumn month had pa.s.sed away they would go abroad, and not spend the winter in cold, foggy England. They had talked of the cities they would visit--and Madaline's sweet eyes had grown brighter with happy thoughts. But that was not to be yet; they were to go home first, and when they had learned something of what home-life would be together, then they could go abroad.

Lady Peters went back to Verdun Royal on the same morning; her task ended with the marriage. She took back with her innumerable messages for the d.u.c.h.ess. As she stood at the carriage-door, she--so little given to demonstration--took the young wife into her arms.

"Good-by, Madaline--or I should say now, Lady Arleigh--good-by, and may Heaven bless you! I did not love you at first, my dear, and I thought my old friend was doing a foolish thing; but now I love you with all my heart; you are so fair and wise, so sweet and pure, that in making you his wife he has chosen more judiciously than if he had married the daughter of a n.o.ble house. That is my tribute to you, Madaline; and to it I add, may Heaven bless you, and send you a happy life!"

Then they parted; but, as she went home through all the glory of the sunlit day, Lady Peters did not feel quite at ease.

"I wish," she said to herself, "that he had not dropped the Wedding-ring; it has made me feel uncomfortable."

Bride and bridegroom had one of the blithest, happiest journeys ever made. What cloud could rise in such a sky as theirs. They were blessed with youth, beauty, health; there had been no one to raise the least opposition to their marriage; before them stretched a long golden future.

The carriage met them at the station, it was then three in the afternoon, and the day continued fair.

"We will have a long drive through the park, Madaline," said Lord Arleigh. "You will like to see your new home."

So, instead of going direct to the mansion, they turned off from the main avenue to make a tour of the park.

"Now I understand why this place is called Beechgrove," said Madaline, suddenly. "I have never seen such trees in my life."

She spoke truly. Giant beech-trees spread out their huge boughs on all sides. They were trees of which any man would have been proud, because of their beauty and magnificence. Presently from between the trees she saw the mansion itself, Lord Arleigh touched his young wife's arm gently.

"My darling," he said, "that is home."

Her face flushed, her eyes brightened, the sensitive lips quivered.

"Home!" she repeated. "How sweet the word sounds to me!" With a tremulous smile she raised her face to his. "Nor man," she said, "do you know that I feel very much as Lady Burleigh, the wife of Lord Burleigh, of Stamford-town, must have felt."

"But you, Madaline," he laughed, "are not quite the simple maiden--he wooed and won. You have the high-bred grace of a lady--nothing could rob you of that."

"She must have been lovely and graceful to have won Lord Burleigh," she remarked.

"Perhaps so, but not like you, Madaline--there has never been any one quite like you. I shall feel tempted to call you 'Lady Burleigh.' Here we are at home; and, oh, my wife, my darling, how sweet the coming home is!"