“When you get to Ambleside, as I suppose you will do before us, will you give orders to have everything ready for our party. You can do this before you drive over to Bowness. You can come over to dinner if you like. I suppose you and Joy will want to see something of each other—all you can indeed, before the wedding comes off. That can be as soon as you like after you have got the license.” To this he had replied:
“I should like to—and shall—do anything I can, sir, to meet your wishes. But I cannot promise to do anything now, on quite my own initiative. You see our dear girl has to be consulted; and I need not tell you that her wishes must prevail—so far as I am concerned!”
“Quite right, my boy! Quite right!” said the old man. “Then we shall leave the orders to her. Here, Joy!” she came over, and her father put his suggestion to her. She hesitated gravely, and paused before she spoke; she evidently intended that there should be no mistake as to her deliberate intention:
“No! Daddy, that won’t do; I’m going with my husband!” She took his arm and clung to him lovingly, her finger tips biting sweetly into his flesh. “But, Daddy dear, we’ll come over to-morrow and lunch or breakfast with you, if we may. Call it early lunch or late breakfast. We shall be over about noon. Remember we have to come from Bowness!”
Athlyne seemed to float in air as he heard her. There was something so sweetly—so truly wifely, in her words and attitude that it won to his heart and set him in a state of rapture.
The late breakfast at Ambleside next day, though ostensibly a mere family breakfast, was hardly to be classed in that category. It was in reality regarded by all the family at present resident in that town as a wedding breakfast. They had one and all dressed themselves for the occasion. Not in complete marriage costume, which would have looked a little overdone, but in a modified form which sufficiently expressed in the mind of each the prevailing spirit of rejoicing. A few seconds before noon the “toot toot” of Athlyne’s powerful hooter was heard some distance off. All rushed to the windows to see the great red car swing round the corner. The chauffeur was driving; the bride and groom sat in the tonneau. As Athlyne was not driving he wore an ordinary morning dress—a well-cut suit of light grey which set out well his tall, lithe powerful figure. Joy was wrapped in a huge motor coat of soft grey, with her head shrouded in a veil of the same colour. In the hall they both took off their wraps, Athlyne helping his wife with the utmost tenderness. When they came into the room they made a grey pair, for with the exception of Athlyne’s brown eyes and hair and a scarlet neck tie, and Joy’s dark hair and a flash of the same scarlet as her husband’s on her breast, they were grey—all grey. It would seem as if the whole colour-scheme of the couple had been built round Joy’s eyes. She certainly looked lovely; there was a brilliant colour in her cheeks, and between her scarlet lips her teeth, when she smiled, flashed like pearls. She was in a state of buoyancy, seeming rather to float about than to move like a being on feet. She was all sweetness and affection, and flitted from one to another, leaving a wake of beaming happiness behind her.
Athlyne too was manifestly happy; but in quieter fashion, as is the way of a man. He was not overt or demonstrative in his attention to Joy; but his eyes followed her perpetually, and his ears seemed to hear every whisper regarding her. Her eyes too, kept turning to him wherever she might be or to whom speaking. Judy at first stood beaming at the pair with a look of proprietary interest; but after a while she began to be a trifle nettled by the husband’s absorption in her niece. This feeling culminated when as Joy tripped slightly on the edge of the hearth-rug her husband started towards her with a swift movement and with that quick intake of breath which manifests alarmed concern. Judy’s impulsiveness found its expression in a semi-humorous, semi-sarcastic remark:
“Why Athlyne you seem to look on the girl as if she was brittle! You weren’t like that yesterday when you flashed her away from us at sixty miles an hour!” For a moment there was silence and all eyes were fixed on Joy who looked embarrassed and turn rosy-red. Athlyne to relieve her drew their attention on himself:
“No, my dear Judy—I’m not ever going to call you anything else you know. She wasn’t my wife then!”
“Wasn’t she!” came the answer tartly spoken. “She was just as much your wife then. She had been married to you only twice! And the first marriage was good enough for anything. I know that is so, for my sheriff says so!—Oh …” The ejaculation was due to the shame of sudden recognition of her confession. She blushed furiously; the Sheriff, looking radiantly happy, stepped over to her, took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it.