“By Jove!” he said to himself, trying to laugh, and finding with surprise that he was quite cold, and that his teeth were chattering, “here’s a pretty face for a bridegroom. If I were to give Nouna, my poor little Nouna, my first kiss with lips as blue as that,” and he peered at himself mockingly close to the glass, “she’d think she’d married a corpse.”
And he pulled himself together, drew down the ends of his moustache, and rearranged his light satin tie, telling himself that he had been a fool to chase the fellow at all instead of going straight to Nouna to learn whether the wretch had really called and attempted to annoy her. But a blight had fallen upon his ecstatic happiness, and he broke off in an attempt to sing as he ran up stairs to the first floor.
As he went he heard voices, which ceased suddenly when his footsteps sounded on the landing; then there was a slight rustling, and a noise as of something thrown over in a hurry. He considered a moment, and then, the key of the bedroom door being on the outside, he quietly turned it in the lock before entering the sitting-room.
CHAPTER XIII.
The apartments George Lauriston had taken for his wife were two bright and pleasantly furnished rooms, not large, but sufficiently lofty, with no aggressive blue glass or china ornaments, crochet antimacassars, or other cherished relics of the professional landlady. There was a piano, not likely to be much of a resource, perhaps, to the player with “an ear”: there was a handsome carved oak book-case, carefully locked, which contained, sandwiched in with old-fashioned trashy gift-books and much futile evangelical literature, some tempting back volumes of the Cornhill and Blackwood, and a beautifully preserved set of Scott’s novels. The mantelpiece was draped with an inexpensive but harmonious imitation of tapestry, the worn places on the carpet were covered with unlined goat-skins, there was the inevitable sideboard with doors that would not keep closed without a neat little wedge of newspaper, there were modern spindle-legged, handsomely covered chairs, and a plush-hung table, and there was a big, broad, luxurious Chesterfield settee, which had evidently been bought a bargain because it was inconveniently large, and on which Lauriston had again and again, during the last few days, pictured the ease-loving Nouna reclining. To add to the attractions of her new home for his bride, George had taken care to fill every available corner with flowers—mignonette and geraniums in pots on the sill of the two windows, cut roses and carnations, sweetpeas and purple and golden heartsease—crammed into every vase and glass the landlady could spare.
On the table he had caused to be spread a wedding-breakfast such as Oberon might have served to Titania. For this great human goose would have shrunk from the suggestion that a healthy girl of sixteen can generally eat anything, and lots of it; and that rounds of bread and butter cut pretty thick, a plentiful helping of dried haddock, or a couple of eggs and a rasher of bacon, all washed down with immoderate draughts of weak tea, will form an acceptable meal at nine in the morning to our fairest maids, and that your delicate appetite—alas, that it should be so!—is generally the result of sickly health. Piled high in the centre was a pyramid of giant strawberries, and round about were plates with French pastry, bonbons, game sandwiches thin as wafers, bananas, limes and a pineapple; the whole guarded by a white porcelain elephant, out of whose houdah small ferns were growing in an unlikely manner. This last introduction was a happy thought of Lauriston’s, and was supposed to remind his bride gracefully of the land of her birth.
He had been extravagant certainly; what churl would not be for his wedding day? But what happiness those preparations had given him! How he had frowningly scrutinised the rooms, to be quite sure that no single corner presented a less pleasing appearance than could by any possible ingenuity be given to it! How, in imagination, he had followed her with his eyes as she tripped through the rooms in her bird-like way, stopping to hover over the flowers, to eat a strawberry, to draw aside the curtains and peep out from her new nest into the street! How he had stood at the door of the bedchamber as in a sanctuary, with his heart full of a wish, devout as a prayer, that the child-woman who was coming to his arms might know no sorrow from which a strong man’s love could save her!
And now by some shadowy calamity that he did not yet understand, it was all changed, the sweet home-coming was spoilt, and he stood before his newly-made wife with no absorbing tenderness in his eyes, but with anxiety, suspicion, and fear struggling under the mask of apparent sternness, which was the outward sign of his efforts at self-control.
Nouna was alone, lying on the couch as he had so often by anticipation pictured her. She was curled up prettily enough, her head back upon the side, which was soft enough to serve for a cushion. The drapery of her arms was drawn carefully down, but the left hand, with its tiny gold ring, was placed proudly en évidence against her white sash. She looked flushed, shy, and rather frightened, and gave a little nervous laugh and a timid smile as he came in, which would have enchanted him but for the unexplained sights and sounds which had preceded his entrance.
“Who was that with you, Nouna?” he asked gently enough, but without coming nearer to her than the door, which he had just shut.