It was a long way across the park to the nearest point where they could get a cab, and although George half carried her for the greater part of the distance, she fell into his arms with a little exhausted, sobbing cry when at last they got into a hansom, and before they had driven half a mile she was fast asleep. He sat looking down at the red, parted lips, the soft young cheeks, the sweeping eyelashes that defined the voluptuous curve of her long eyelids, with the thoughtfulness of the guardian mingling with the yearning tenderness of the lover. During the long, bright day he had just spent with her it had begun to dawn upon him that some of his dreams of an ideal marriage with this fascinating, tiresome, irresponsible child-woman were very unsubstantial things. If her frivolity were to be improved away, it would take with it a great deal of her charm, if not of her beauty; while underneath all her light-hearted caprice and infectious gaiety, the strongest, stormiest passions would peep out sometimes for a moment and give strange warnings of the tyranny she might exercise over a nature that had not strength and suppleness enough to control hers. Yet for all this, he loved her more than before, while he dreaded the empire she would make a hard struggle to get over him. All the passion of his nature he was holding in leash, feeling that he scarcely yet knew its force, that it was gathering strength with every moment of restraint. Would he be this woman’s ruler and husband, or would he marry her only to be her slave?
He tried to shake off these morbid thoughts, and to reassure himself by looking steadfastly on the beautiful little face that in a few days was to be his own: but he found no comfort there. Capacity for emotion, for passion, he read clearly enough, but of thought or higher feeling no trace. He grew hot, began to be haunted by Rahas’s horrible words: “The women of the East have no souls,” until in a passion of indignation with himself and almost with her he woke her up by a hastily snatched kiss, which, tired as she was, she received with her usual demonstrative responsiveness: and then she insisted on entertaining him with Indian love-songs in a native patois, taught her by Sundran, which she crooned in a low, unequal, but rather sweet voice close to his ear for the rest of the way to Miss Glass’s house, where he left her scarcely wide awake enough to bid him good night.
This was his last day of suspense, for on the following morning George received a long letter forwarded by Messrs. Smith and Angelo, and dated simply from “Paris,” in the thin, pointed feminine handwriting of the last generation. This was the letter:—
“My dear Mr. Lauriston,
“I begin in this way without the formal ‘Dear Sir’ because, although I do not know you personally, those things which I have heard about you, the simple and manly letter I have received from you, have touched my heart and made me feel as I should feel towards the man who asks to become the husband of my daughter. I am in a strange case, Mr. Lauriston—a passionately loving mother kept apart from her child by a paramount duty. I love Nouna as the plant loves the sun; ask her to show you my letters, ask her what she remembers of me, and you will find that no woman among your English friends loves her children as I love my child, nor fulfils every wish of her daughter’s as I do Nouna’s. When you are her husband—for I wish you to become her husband, you are noble-hearted and honourable, and you will take care of her—you will find that her absent mother has a share in all her memories. Her girl’s treasures are all presents sent by me, her prayer-book is marked by my hand, the very clothes in which she will be married to you were partly made by me. Don’t forget this, don’t forget that the innocence and purity you reverence in her are the result of my care. I could not have kept her mind so child-like if she had been always travelling about from country to country as I must do with my husband, who is an invalid. I think she has suffered no harm since she left school. Mrs. Ellis is a good and pious woman who respects me and loves Nouna. As for the Eastern gentleman Rahas, of whom you speak harshly, Nouna and Mrs. Ellis have written to me very openly about him, and I have also received a very respectful explanatory letter from the gentleman himself, and I have come to the conclusion that your dislike to him is probably the result of misunderstanding. I hope and believe this. I am writing fully to you because I wish you to understand and respect the motives of my conduct, that you may look upon me as a mother to you as well as to Nouna, who will pray for the one as for the other, and who hopes at some not far distant time to see you both together. I yearn for that time to come; I am lonely without my child—without my children. I entreat you to look upon Mr. Angelo as my representative in all things; what he wishes I wish, what he sanctions I sanction. I beg that you will leave all matters connected with your marriage in his hands; I have also written to this effect to Nouna. Whatever he tells you to do, do, in the fullest assurance that it is what I wish. He is an old and trusted friend. It is the manner in which he has written of you that makes me write to you like this. He knows that the dearest wish of my heart for many years has been to marry my daughter to an honourable gentleman of good family and position, able to introduce her into the very best society, as I should have done myself if it had not been for the unfortunate delicacy of my husband the Count. May God bless you both is the earnest desire and prayer of
“Your loving mother (per avance),
“Lakshmi di Valdestillas.
“P.S.—I particularly wish that my daughter may be presented at Court as early as possible next season. I regret very much that it is too late for the last drawing-room this year. I will try to be in London for the occasion, but my movements are altogether dependent on the Count’s state of health.”
George Lauriston put this letter down, after reading it through to the end, in a state of paralysing bewilderment. “Position!” “Very best society!” “Presented at Court!” What on earth had he said in his letter to her to cause her to make such a ghastly mistake? For some moments he was too much absorbed by his dismay to notice that an enclosure from Mr. Angelo lay in the envelope that had contained Madame di Valdestillas’ letter. This was the note:—
“George Lauriston, Esq.,
“Dear Sir,
“We shall be glad if you can make it convenient to come with Miss Nouna Weston to our office as quickly as possible on receipt of this,
“We are, dear sir, yours faithfully,
“Smith and Angelo.”
An hour and a half later George and Nouna were in a hansom, driving towards the City as fast as a good horse could take them.
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.