CHAPTER XI.
Nouna was in a state of the highest excitement all the way to the City. She had received a letter from her mother, which she showed to George, after kissing it fervently before she let it go out of her hand. The Countess, after many pious exhortations and affectionate congratulations to her daughter, exhorted her in the most emphatic manner to consult Mr. Angelo in all details connected with her marriage, and yield to him the most explicit obedience, as she would do to herself.
George was struck with this portion of the letter, agreeing so entirely with what the Countess had said to him. The suspicion even flashed across his mind that there might once have been a closer tie between the Countess and Mr. Angelo than that of lawyer and client. When he arrived with his fiancée at the solicitors’ office the young man was so nervous and excited that Mr. Smith remarked in his genial and jocular manner that he was anticipating the suffering of the ordeal. Nouna, on the other hand, to whom marriage meant the beginning of an era of eternal kisses and shopping, varied by visits to the Zoo, and unknown delights even more intoxicating, beamed with happiness, smiled shyly and coquettishly upon the young clerks in the office, and invaded Mr. Angelo in his sanctum without even knocking at the door. The old gentleman bore this intrusion well, and beckoned Lauriston in with an unusually bland expression.
“I suppose, Mr. Lauriston,” he began, after waiting for both his visitors to seat themselves, “that you are anxious for your marriage to take place without delay.”
“Yes, yes, he is, we are,” answered Nouna for him readily, tapping on the floor with her little feet.
“Certainly,” said George, with much more deliberation. “But—” Nouna turned sharply round and looked at him with aggrieved astonishment. “But there is one passage in the letter from the Countess which you forwarded to me this morning that I should like to point out to you before we go on to other things, as it seems to argue that there has been some misunderstanding on her part which I can’t account for.”
George got up, and bending down beside Mr. Angelo’s writing-table, pointed out the passages in the Countess’s letter which referred to “position” and “presentation at Court.”
“You see, sir, that Madame di Valdestillas seems to think my pecuniary position is much better than it is, or than it is likely to be,” he said. “And yet you know how plainly I have stated it.”
“But I don’t want to be presented at Court,” chimed in Nouna, who had hopped off her chair to read over Mr. Angelo’s shoulder the passages referred to, and who was evidently in great anxiety lest the much-coveted prize, a real live husband, should slip through her fingers. “One of my school-fellows had a sister who was presented, and she had her dress torn and caught a cold. I would much rather wear my nice dresses at home, where one can keep warm and not have them spoilt. Tell mamma, Mr. Angelo, please, that I don’t want to go to Court.”
The lawyer gave a pale but indulgent little smile.
“I think, Mr. Lauriston, that this little matter will prove no serious obstacle. The wife of an officer with a career before him, such as I am sure you have, will certainly be presented in due course; and if when that time comes, this young lady should wish to indulge in any special extravagance for the occasion, I feel sure the Countess would help her daughter to make a becomingly splendid appearance.”
George listened in perplexity, while Nouna swept across the room, curtseyed low to the iron safe in the corner, and kissed an imaginary royal hand with graceful and fervent loyalty. Then, attracted by the sight of a couple of birds perched on a housetop, she stood on tiptoe to look out of the window, and for a moment left the gentlemen a chance to converse without her assistance.
“You will, I suppose, be married by licence, as that admits of the least delay. By taking out a licence at the Vicar-General’s office to-day, you can be married at your own church on Monday.”
“Yes, I know that,” said George, rather surprised that the lawyer’s eagerness to get the matter settled should keep pace with his own. “I was going this morning to a bank in Lombard Street where I keep a particularly modest account, to get the necessary funds.”
“Ah, very well. As it is Saturday, you will have to make haste to get there before the banks close. One of my clerks shall go with you, if you don’t know your way. And in the meantime I think I had better take this young lady to Doctors’ Commons, where she can make the necessary statement to get the licence as well as you could yourself. But, my dear young lady,” he continued, turning to Nouna, who had sprung back from the window in great excitement at this suggestion, “you must really control your high spirits a little and carry yourself with more gravity, or you will certainly be refused the licence on the ground that you are too young.”
In an instant she had flown to a small square looking-glass that was hanging against the wall in a corner of the room, and had parted the curly bush of soft hair that shaded her forehead, and flattened it down into prim unbecoming bands that made her look a couple of years older.
“That’s what we used to do at school, when we wanted to mimic Mrs. Somers,” said she grimly.
And she threw open the door to intimate that she was ready to start.
As the old lawyer slowly rose and prepared for the excursion, he said to George, as he shook his head with would-be pleasantry:
“He need be twice a man, Mr. Lauriston, who weds a child.”
The warning was not needed; George had already begun to be of that opinion.
When he returned from the bank, George found that Nouna and the lawyer had come back, and before he could ask any questions about their expedition, Mr. Smith was begging the young people to come to luncheon with him, and they were hurried off from the office so quickly that George had scarcely time to notice a sudden and most unusual gravity in Nouna, who did not recover her usual high spirits until she found herself among the garish glories of the Holborn Restaurant.
When they had finished luncheon, and Mr. Smith, with many congratulations and pretty speeches, had left them, to seek the domestic delights of his semi-detached villa at Anerley, George remembered that he had forgotten to ask Mr. Angelo for the licence. Nouna answered with a sudden womanly gravity which made him laugh—
“Mr. Angelo has it. And he is going to give notice at the church and everything, so that we shall have nothing to do but to walk in and get married. I’ve chosen a church Miss Glass told me of, at Kensington.”
George was half amused, half offended, by the scrupulous officiousness with which the old lawyer carried out his instructions of “seeing to everything,” but he thought no more seriously about the matter.
The next day he spent with a very vague consciousness of what went on around him. For he was bound, by a long-standing invitation, to pass this particular Sunday on the river with Massey, Dicky Wood, and a fast Guardsman, one Captain Pascoe, who was a far too intimate friend of the gentle Dicky’s. They would not let him off, as he had wished, because he was by far the best oarsman among them, and the only one who could be depended upon to resist the temptations of champagne-cup sufficiently to keep up the credit of the crew when the sun had been beating mercilessly down upon river and field for half a dozen hours.
It was a beastly day altogether, as they one and all described it afterwards. To begin with, when they arrived by train at Maidenhead, from which place it had been determined to row up to Pangbourne or Streatley and back, they found that the boat, which was the joint property of Massey and Wood, had been left at Kingston some days before by the former, whom the rest fell upon and slanged for his dear little irresponsible ways. Then there was a general wrangle as to what they should do, some being for going down to Kingston, some for hiring a boat, and George being lustily and heartily for going back to town. However, the matter was settled for all of them by the discovery that there was no train to anywhere for two hours, so they got a bad old boat which was the only one at liberty, and started in the worst of humours all round. The numerous defects of the craft supplied them with a subject for invective for the first couple of miles, during which George and Dicky Wood pulled, Captain Pascoe steered, and Massey baled out the water which they had had the pleasure of discovering at the bottom of the boat. Long before they reached Marlow George had had enough of their society, and proposed to tow them up in order that he might be able to indulge his dreams of coming happiness undisturbed.
Captain Pascoe was a fair-haired, pallid man of thirty-five, always well-dressed, almost always good-humoured, popular with women of every rank and of every class, and liked by all men but a few who loathed him as they would a noxious reptile. He was a man of the world in the sense of taking the lowest possible view of it, and was familiar with every phase of fast life; he had any amount of easy philosophy and indubitable pluck, but was selfish, blasé, and corrupt, pointed out as the hero of half a dozen intrigues with women whose position was loftier than their virtue, and of whose favours, it was said, he did not scruple to boast, and at present the slave of one of the most notorious women in London.
George Lauriston hated him, and would have excused himself from this excursion if he had known that Captain Pascoe was to be of the party. On this, the eve of his marriage, when to him the word woman signified all things pure, all things holy, every glance cast by this roué at the fair girls in the boats that went by, every slow, soft word with which he passed an opinion on their looks, seemed to George like a sting in a sensitive place. So he lighted his pipe and toiled along bravely in the sun on the towing-path, watching the green trees as they seemed to quiver in the hot air, the velvet bees and the slender dragon-flies that flew across his path, the dry cracking earth at his feet, seeing nothing all the time but a small, ever-changing face, hearing in the hum of the bees only a young girl’s voice. When they came to Temple Lock, and he got back into the boat with the rest, their talk jarred on him more than ever; they were discussing the attraction of a certain Chloris White, a great star of the demi-monde, to whom Captain Pascoe had introduced the two lads the evening before.
Massey was, of course, raving about the exquisite taste of her dress, the charming chic of her manners, the sheen of her golden hair, the languid glances of her eyes, and a great deal more of the same sort, giving off as usual in effusive praises the admiration which, if it had been more contained, might have proved dangerous. But Dicky Wood said so little and blushed so much, that George, who knew that he was rich, had heard sensational stories about this woman’s bloodsucking propensities, and knew that she had helped Pascoe himself to gobble up his patrimony, had a burst of rage against the latter for introducing the lads to her. He remained silently and stolidly smoking therefore, while the others talked. Massey, however, insisted on dragging him into the conversation.
“Here, I say, Lauriston, haven’t you got anything to say on the subject? Haven’t you seen Chloris White?” he said, with a gentle kick at his companion from where he lay stretched at full length in the bows.
“Not that I know of,” answered George indifferently.
“Lauriston always looks the other way when he sees one of those ladies coming,” said Captain Pascoe in his soft voice.
“No, I don’t,” said George rather aggressively. “Why should I?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know why you should,” said the other, in the lazy but effective manner habitual to him, as if he really wished they wouldn’t give him the trouble of talking, but if they insisted on bringing it upon themselves, why there it was, you know. “Only I’d heard you liked something of a milder flavour.”
“You were quite mistaken then,” said George, quietly but with sledge-hammer sincerity, “I admire them and approve of them just as the Dutch do of storks. They are a charming feature of the landscape—what would the park be to look at without them and their turn-outs?—and they live upon the noxious slimy creatures that would otherwise become a pest to decent people.”
And he puffed away again at his pipe.
The two younger men laughed awkwardly, rather ashamed of their late extravagance of adulation, and afraid of Lauriston’s contempt. But Captain Pascoe, who felt venomously angry, said it was very smart, if it hadn’t been said before, as he rather fancied. And from that moment the want of harmony between the elements of the party became more and more apparent until it is a question whether all did not feel when they got back to town that it was worth while to have gone through the day together for the sake of the relief and delight of parting.
George hurried to the street where Nouna was staying, only for the rapture of gazing upon the dead eyes of the windows behind which she was sleeping. He walked up and down on the opposite side of the way for hours, in that irrational ecstasy of anticipation trembling on the borders of fulfilment which the devotees of long engagements—whatever their compensating advantages of better knowledge and calmer reason may be—never know. It was to be a perfect life, this new life of his and hers, humanised, not vulgarised, by comparative poverty, with no trials less ennobling than the struggles of his just ambition, and his endeavours to bring his young wife’s extravagant views into conformity with the smallness of their fortune. At that moment the prospect seemed almost too radiant, and George at last went reluctantly away with a superstitious fear that something must happen on the morrow to dash down the fabric of so much supernatural happiness.
However, when, on the following morning, after a sleepless night of feverish imaginings, George fell at last into a doze, and waking sprang out of bed in crazy terror lest he should have overslept himself, everything went as smoothly as possible. He was in plenty of time to go to the apartments he had taken, to see that all was ready for his bride’s reception, then to be at the church at eight o’clock, as they had arranged; even as he drove up to the door he saw another hansom approaching with Nouna and Mr. Angelo, who was to give the bride away; and, lastly, he had not forgotten the ring. He waited at the door for them, and helped Nouna to descend with a tremor in his limbs and a tumultuous upheaval of all the forces of his nature as she laid her small hand lightly on his arm and sprang to the ground with indecorous haste, and a face beaming with happy, light-hearted excitement.
She was most oddly dressed in white mull muslin draperies that appeared to be kept together only by a broad sash of soft white silk that was swathed several times round her body, and the wide ends of which hung on the left side nearly to her feet. Long white silk gloves covered her arms and met the hanging draperies, while her head was crowned, not covered, by a white silk fez. Her dark skin glowed with an unusual and beautiful tinge of pink, her black eyes danced with excitement, and between her vividly crimson lips two straight rows of strong ivory teeth gleamed as she laughed. A handsome, graceful, untamed creature, with all the instincts and scarcely more than the capacity for thought of a healthy young animal, skipping into a Christian church to bind herself with lifelong vows in exactly the same spirit with which she had entered the draper’s shop the week before to enjoy the delicious excitement of buying a new bonnet.
A baker’s boy, who happened to be passing, put down his basket to watch her in open-mouthed admiration and astonishment. George himself, intoxicated as he was by his passion, felt a sudden misgiving, not as to the wisdom, but as to the generosity, of entering with this eager child into a compact, the nature and terms of which, it now occurred to him for the first time, she did not in the least understand. Instead of sobering her by its solemn significance, marriage seemed to be turning her head, and to have by anticipation dispersed even those pretty little moods of dignity and of languid silence with which she had formerly varied the monotony of her childish gaiety. Her very greeting was sufficiently suggestive of her views of the impending ceremony.
“You see I’m all in white,” she began as she sprang down upon the pavement. “I thought you would like me to be dressed in white, so I made this dress myself last night, and sat up so late making the cap—for I made it all myself, fancy that!—that I overslept myself this morning and was nearly late. What would you have done if I hadn’t come at all?”
“I should have come and fetched you,” said George, as he shook hands with Mr. Angelo, and then drew the little bride’s hand through his arm to lead her into the church.
“Isn’t this a queer wedding?” she chattered on as they went through the great outer door which the pew-opener had just thrown open, and by which she now stood curtseying. “I’ve been thinking how hard it seems that I should be married without any cake or any bridesmaids, and mamma not here, nor anybody I know. But I’m not going to cry, no, I’m not going to cry.” As they got inside the church she looked up from George’s arm to his face and saw that his eyes were moist. “Why, it’s you who are crying, and you are trembling too! What’s the matter?” she whispered anxiously.
“Nothing, my darling,” he whispered back, as he pressed her hand against his side, “I was only thinking how good I must be to you, to make up for your having neither mother, nor cake, nor bridesmaids.”
They were walking up the middle aisle by this time and, perhaps for a moment a little awed by Lauriston’s solemn manner, or by the cold hollow bareness of the large, almost empty church, Nouna made no further remark until they reached the altar-rails, when she took an exhaustive look round, and observed that there was “a very funny window.” The pew-opener, who had followed them up the aisle as quickly as decency permitted, now suggested to the bridegroom that he and the lady should seat themselves in one of the front pews until the vicar, who had not yet arrived, should be ready. But the bride dismissed her with dignity, saying, “No, we will wait, so tell him to make haste”; and George, who felt that Nouna would look upon any inclination to take advantage of the suggestion as a desire to retract, stood up manfully with his back to the few spectators who at this early hour had trickled in to see the wedding, and began in the midst of his nervous excitement to be tormented by a fear of being late for parade. Mr. Angelo, who had, according to his own and the Countess’s express wish, arranged all the details of the marriage, now appeared from the vestry with the clergyman, who looked blue about the chin and rather cross, as if he had come out in a hurry, without having had time to shave or breakfast.
Just as George turned at the sound of their footsteps, he caught sight of a figure among the scanty congregation which made him start forward, forgetful of everything else. A low but indignant “St, st, what is the matter with you, sir?” from the clergyman, who glared at him in a manner which seemed to say that if they couldn’t keep their minds on what they were about he wouldn’t marry them at all, recalled him to himself, and the service began.
To do them justice, they gave him no further trouble. Nouna had studied her part in the service, had not only taken off her left glove without being told, but had tucked up the draperies that formed her sleeve, and left her arm bare to the shoulder as if ready to be vaccinated. She tripped off her part of the service glibly, in a clear, bright voice, without waiting for the clergyman, and then looked up at George with a tiny movement of the head that was almost a nod, as much as to say: “You see I’m determined to do you credit.” The only thing that puzzled her was the difficulty of knowing when to kneel down and when to stand up; in this, and in this alone, she was obliged to accept the clergyman’s guidance, and for this she kept her eyes fixed carefully upon him all the time.
Lauriston’s nervousness, increased by the sight of the figure he felt sure he recognised as that of Rahas, was so great that he became the victim of what he believed to be a most strange delusion of the ear. It seemed to him that every word of the prayers of the service was repeated, as the clergyman uttered it, in a soft, distinct tone, away in the body of the church behind them. As soon as the service was over, the bridegroom turned round with machine-like rapidity, and was just in time to see the figure he had noticed go down the further end of the south aisle and out at the door. Although the man wore a European overcoat and carried in his hand an English hat, George felt more than ever convinced that it was Rahas. He was accompanied by a woman, of whose appearance Lauriston could only note two details: she wore dark clothing and was small of stature. It was not Mrs. Ellis, certainly. Sundran? He thought not. While the young man stood, as if transfixed, staring after these two disappearing figures with straining eyes, unmindful of the touch of his newly-made wife on his arm, Mr. Angelo’s precise tones, close at his ear, roused him from his stupefaction.
“Come, Mr. Lauriston,” he said in a low but rather peremptory tone, “we have to go into the vestry.”
The old lawyer’s face was, as usual, impassive; but it occurred to Lauriston, a man rendered by his profession observant of details, that the steadiness with which Mr. Angelo ignored his persistent stare at the side-door argued that he was himself aware of the objects of interest there. He said nothing, however, but followed the clergyman into the vestry, and signed his name in the register.
“Come, now it’s your turn, little one,” he said tenderly to Nouna, who had slipped from his arm and was standing very quietly beside Mr. Angelo.
She glanced up at the old lawyer, who gave her his arm with great ceremony, led her to the desk, and turned immediately to the bridegroom.
“You saw, or thought you saw some one you knew among the congregation, I fancy,” said he in his quiet dry manner.
Lauriston looked up quickly from the page over which he was bending.
“Yes, I certainly did think so, in fact I am almost sure of it,” he said, turning to notice the old man’s expression.
“I imagined that to be the case from your expression as we left the altar,” said the lawyer, keeping Lauriston’s eyes fixed by the steady gaze of his own. “Who do you think it was?”
“I feel sure it was Rahas,” said George in a low voice, still watching the face of the lawyer, who now took Nouna’s place to sign the register as a witness to the marriage. “Did you see him too?”
The old gentleman did not answer at once; he was bending low over the open page before him to finish his signature with a careful flourish. When he had done this, he placed the blotting-paper over it, put his arm through that of the bridegroom, and moved away with him.
“My eyes are not as good as yours, Mr. Lauriston,” he said; “I should not know my own son at that distance.”
“There was a lady—a woman with him,” said George.
“A woman whom you know?” asked the lawyer, whose interest in the matter, however, seemed to have diminished.
“I think not.”
“Then there is nothing extraordinary in the circumstance.”
“What does the man want at my wedding?”
“All friends of the parties find weddings interesting. Perhaps you misjudge this Eastern gentleman. He has called at my office to give me a letter for the Countess, and he expressed the most kindly sentiments towards you. See, Mrs. Lauriston seems impatient.”
The two gentlemen were conversing in a low voice just within the vestry door. Nouna had slipped past them into the body of the church, and stood in an unusually quiet and pensive mood gazing at the altar where she had lately knelt. George shook himself free from a crowd of bewildering questions that were forcing themselves into his mind, and called to her.
“Nouna, come and sign the register.”
“I’ve done it,” “She has done so,” answered she and the lawyer together.
“I didn’t see you.”
“I did it while you were talking,” said she, quickly.
“Yes, yes, it’s all right; the lady signed her name,” broke in the vicar, who thought he was never going to get rid of them.
So George, hurried away by wife, lawyer, and vicar, did not see Nouna’s first and last signature of her maiden name.