“What an anxious little face! I know he would approve it, Neva. My blessed little darling, mine own, whom no one can take from me!” cried Lord Towyn passionately. “I am going home to dine with Sir John, and I will call upon you this evening. I am going to exact a lover’s privilege of seeing you when I please, without the cold, prying eyes of Mrs. Artress devouring me. I will be prudent and secret, Neva, since you insist upon it, but oh, if my month of probation were over and I might proclaim my happiness to the world!”
They parted near the lodge gates, and Neva returned slowly toward the house, while her young lover vaulted into his saddle and rejoined his friends with a countenance so rapturous that they could not avoid knowing that he had confessed his love to Neva and had not been rejected.
While they overwhelmed him with congratulations, which he tried to disclaim as altogether premature, Neva’s mind was divided between joy and grief, and she murmured:
“What shall I do? What is right for me to do? I love Arthur, and life will not be complete without him. Shall I, for the sake of that love, disregard papa’s last wishes which I vowed to accept as sacred commands? Oh, if I only knew what to do!”
CHAPTER XX.
WAS IT A DREAM?
As the time appointed for the marriage of Lady Wynde and Craven Black drew near, great preparations were entered upon for its celebration. One would have thought, from the scale of the arrangements on foot, that the heiress of Hawkhurst was to be the bride, rather than the baronet’s widow. Dress-makers came down from London, boxes were sent to and fro, new jewels from Emanuel’s or Ryder’s, were selected to replace the Wynde family jewels, which Mr. Atkins had compelled the handsome widow to yield up to her step-daughter, and Artress made a special trip to Brussels for laces, and to Paris for delicate and sumptuous novelties in attire. One or two of Madame Elise’s best work women spent several days at Hawkhurst in fitting robes, and Lady Wynde, with Neva, Artress and two maids, spent a week in London at the long-closed town house of Sir Harold.
The eventful day came at last, and was one of the mellowest of all that mellow October. The sun flooded the little village of Wyndham in waves of golden light. The pretty little stone church in which the marriage ceremony was to be performed was beautifully decorated with flowers. A floral arch vailed the door-way. A carpet of red roses, from the glass-houses at Hawkhurst, strewed the path the bride must traverse in going from her carriage to the church door.
Inside the church, myrtles and red roses festooned the walls, and were suspended above the spot where the bride and groom would stand, in the form of a marriage bell. The breath of roses filled the air with perfume sweeter than “gales from Araby.”
Long before eleven o’clock, the villagers and the tenants of Hawkhurst began to assemble at the church. They were all in gala attire, for Lady Wynde, with an insatiable vanity, had decreed that her third marriage-day was to be a gala-day for the retainers of the Wynde family. The villagers and tenants were all invited to a grand out-door feast at Hawkhurst, where a hogshead of ale, it was said, was to be broached, and deers and pigs roasted whole. A brass band from Canterbury had been engaged for the evening, and there would be colored lanterns suspended from the trees, and dancing on the terrace and on the lawn.
Soon after eleven, the carriages of various county families began to arrive at the church. Sir John and Lady Freise, with their seven blooming daughters whose ages ranged from eighteen to thirty-five, were among the first comers. One of the white-gloved ushers, with a bridal favor pinned to his coat, showed them into a reserved seat. Other acquaintances and friends, some curious, some full of condemnation, made their appearance, and were similarly accommodated. Lord Towyn and Mr. Atkins came in together.