At first I could hardly bear to sit down at the same table with Sidney Vandyke; but as time went on, I found an impish pleasure in watching him, in staring openly, as a baby stares. I had the satisfaction of feeling that he was disturbed by my gaze, and that he knew, even when not looking, that my eyes were on him. Sometimes in the midst of talk he would break down and forget what he had meant to say next. I affected him with a kind of aphasia, erasing the words he wanted from his brain. But otherwise my tactics were changed. I was no longer rude to my future brother-in-law. I wished to study him, and I didn't object to his knowing that I studied him.
A silent battle was being fought between us under a smooth surface of civility, and Sidney might easily have complained to Diana that my owl stare was "getting on his nerves," even though he could have brought no other complaint. If he had spoken to her she would have made some excuse to scratch me off her list of bridesmaids. I hoped she would, and save me trouble! But perhaps Sidney felt that I was yearning for him to "squeal," and resolved not to please me. In any case, nobody not in the secret of our hearts could have guessed that anything was wrong. And I had to play at spraining my ankle in order to escape being one of the eight.
It was well to be civil in word and deed, and "bide my time," but to be in at the death, and marry my sister to a man who'd stolen her from Eagle March and ruined him, was a different thing. I drew the line at that.
It's quite simple for a girl vowed to the conscientious life and no fibs to wrench her ankle, if she'll wear high heels. All she has to do when walking in the street is to look out for banana peel; or an apple paring may do at a pinch. She launches herself upon it, with a skating movement. Her foot turns, and the deed is done. She can in this way produce a "strain," if not a "sprain"; and only doctors know the difference. The difficult part comes in remembering to limp. I was so fearful of forgetting in some moment of excitement, that I took to wearing shoes which were not mates. They were actually incompatible. One had a Louis Quinze heel and the other had none at all; but my dresses by this time were so "grown up" and long that nobody noticed. Besides, though refusing to see a doctor, I stopped in bed for days, and hypnotically impressed the idea of a sprain on every one.
Those who didn't know why I wouldn't for the world be bridesmaid to Diana sat by my bedside and sympathized, among others Mrs. Dalziel and Milly, who had followed us in time to have all the season's fun in London before the wedding. Tony hoped to get leave and arrive for "the great day." Afterward he and his mother and sister planned a motor tour through Belgium, and Luxemburg, and France, before the time when Tony must rejoin his regiment. I had a sneaking idea that they meant me to go, too; but at that moment—before other things had happened—I told myself that I would do nothing of the kind. I was homesick for Ireland and Ballyconal.
The date of Di's wedding wasn't definitely settled until after Sidney came. Then it was fixed for the ninth of July, and the bride and bridegroom were to have four weeks' motoring in the north of England. When the honeymoon was officially over they were to make country-house visits in Scotland for the shooting season. Sidney Vandyke boasted of being a crack shot, and Diana hoped to be proud of her American husband among British sportsmen.
Meanwhile they had some time before the wedding in which to find a town house, and choose furniture and things so that they might be "at home" in the autumn. I think Di really loved Sidney the day he consented to buy a house—a very expensive though small house—in Park Lane. She had set her heart upon Park Lane; for, you see, there was always something rootedly Victorian about Di; such as being convinced that Park Lane was the Mount Olympus of London, and that you couldn't be properly married except at St. George's. She was, and is, up-to-date only on the surface, in such details as clothes and hats, and tango, and the latest slang. Probably Di had never been so happy as in gathering together materials for her future frame; and if Sidney was chagrined because Father didn't offer to lend for the honeymoon our ancestral castle (to which he and Di had frequently alluded in America) he kept his feelings to himself. He would have been twice as much chagrined by the castle could he have seen it before Kitty Main got in her deadly work. The Trowbridges of Chicago would have rejoiced to tell him what it was really like.
I don't quite know why it is the fashion for brides to shut themselves up and not "go out" for days before the wedding; but perhaps they are supposed to pass their close time in prayer and maiden meditation, thanking heaven for what it has provided, and dwelling on the responsibilities of the future. Di spent her days in being fitted for frocks (goodness knew who would pay for them, unless Sidney, on ceasing to be a bridegroom and turning into a husband), receiving wedding presents, having photographs taken, and giving discreet interviews to journalists. She told the male ones what a heroic person Major Vandyke was; and to the female ones she showed her dresses. There wasn't an illustrated daily or weekly paper in London that didn't produce a picture of Sidney in uniform, looking dashing, and Di looking down, all modesty and eyelashes.
The last night she went out to anything big before the wedding was to a dinner at the Russian embassy; and though nothing which seemed to us sensationally interesting happened that night, something was led up to later. It came through Milly Dalziel, for whom Father and Di had contrived to get an invitation. She met Captain Count Stefan Stefanovitch, the military attaché of the Russian Embassy.
There is something irresistible to some natures about a Russian count; and to Russian counts about American heiresses, particularly those with red hair. When the two had seen each other three times they were engaged, subject to the consent of the count's father. Everybody in that family was a count or countess, a delicious prospect for Milly when she wished to talk of her Russian relatives. Stefan was to stay and see Milly in her bridesmaid's dress; then he was going to make a dash for Petrograd (we called it St. Petersburg then!) armed with her photograph and substantial accounts of her father's bank balance, returning as soon as the consent was insured. There seemed to be something almost feudally old-fashioned about Russians, Milly thought, for a mere wire to her father had been considered adequate. But then, Tony Senior wasn't a count or a "vitch," or anything exciting like that.