Bothwell was almost beside himself with gladness for the rest of the day; but good-feeling impelled him to restrain his exuberance, and to be grave and quiet in the presence of the patient sufferer, whose pale calm face told but little of mental struggle or bodily pain. The evening was spent in Julian Wyllard's room. There was a good deal of conversation, and Hilda sang some of her favourite songs; a sacred song of Gounod's, "There is a green hill far away," which Dora especially loved, and again, "Ave Maria," by the same composer. Bothwell sat in a corner by the pretty little cottage piano, listening to the rich full voice of his beloved, watching her slender fingers as they strayed over the keys, ineffably happy. He had no thought of evenings in the years that were gone, when he had listened to another singer, and watched other hands, delicate nervous fingers, glittering with diamonds. The voice of that old time was a thinner voice, a somewhat reedy soprano, and those tapering fingers had something of a bird's claws in their extreme attenuation; but he had thought the thin voice passing sweet in the days that were gone, and the hand of the siren had seemed to him a thing of beauty.
He left Penmorval soon after daybreak next morning, to ride back to Trevena. He was to return on the following Saturday to take up his abode there until the wedding-day; while Hilda was to go back to The Spaniards almost immediately, to collect her belongings, and make herself ready for her new life. All the business of furnishing could be done after the wedding, in that interval which the young couple were to spend at Penmorval.
Hilda was up in time to watch from her bedroom window while her lover rode away in the misty morning; but she was much too shy to go downstairs and wish him good-bye. She would have quailed before the awful eye of Stodden, the butler, had she ventured to show herself at such an unseemly hour, unchaperoned, unsanctioned by the presence of a matron. So she hid behind the window-curtain, and watched her true knight's departure, and did not even fling him a flower by way of love-token.
When horse and rider were out of sight, Hilda went to her desk and wrote to her brother, urging him to come back without delay, explaining and apologising for the early date named for her wedding—reminding him as to her marriage-settlement that she wished Bothwell to profit as much as possible by her small independence—an altogether womanly letter, brimming over with love for her betrothed.
She went home that morning, and she and Fräulein Meyerstein began immediately to busy themselves with preparations for the wedding. It would naturally be the quietest of weddings, since Mr. Wyllard's condition forbade all festivity. Hilda said she would have the twins for her bridesmaids, and no others. They were to be dressed exactly alike, and all in pure white, like biscuit-china figures; they were to have little Pompadour frocks and petticoats and mob-caps. There was a tremendous consultation that Monday afternoon with the chief dressmaker of Bodmin, a person of high reputation among those steady old-fashioned people who liked to spend their money in their own town, and who were naturally looked down upon by that other section of county society which had all its clothes from London or Paris. The dressmaker had made Hilda's frocks ever since she was a baby, and was inclined to be doleful at the idea of this trousseaux-less entrance into matrimony; but on being put upon her mettle she declared that the neat little white satin wedding-gown and the handy little olive cloth travelling-gown should be perfection after their kind; and then came a lengthy discussion about sleeves and velvet waistcoat, and the all-important question of buttons was treated exhaustively. Miss Pittman, the dressmaker, had been told of Doré and of Redfern, and had lain awake of a night thinking of their productions; she had been shown dresses from Swan & Edgar and from Lewis & Allenby; but she believed that for the hang of a skirt or the fit of a sleeve she could hold her own with any house in London. And then she favoured Hilda and the Fräulein with a little lecture upon the righteous and the unrighteous manner of making and putting in a sleeve, which was eminently interesting from a technical point of view.
The first three days of that week seemed to Hilda to pass like a dream. She managed to maintain an outward aspect of supreme calmness; but her brain seemed to her in a whirl all the time. She went in and out of the house, and wandered about the gardens without knowing why; she went hither and thither, half her time hardly conscious where she was. She began one thing after another, and never finished anything. She was always waiting for Bothwell's letters, which came by every post, albeit a third person might have supposed that he could find very little to write about. For Hilda the letters were full of interest, and she made as much haste to answer them as if she and Bothwell had been heads of parties carrying on the business of the nation at a crisis. She was anxious to receive her brother's answer to her letter; but when it came, though satisfactory upon some points, the reply was not altogether agreeable.
"Mrs. Wyllard is quite justified in saying that I left the arrangement of your wedding in her hands," wrote Heathcote. "You could have no kinder friend or wiser counsellor, and to her decision, as to the date of your marriage, I bow. But I regret to say that I shall not be present at the ceremony. I have business which still detains me in Paris; and I have other reasons which hinder my being a witness of your wedding. You must not suppose that this decision on my part arises from any unfriendly feeling to Bothwell Grahame. I have reconciled myself to his marriage with you; and I shall do my uttermost in the future to prove myself his friend as well as yours. He will find that the instructions I have sent as to your settlement are framed with a due regard to his interests.
"There is one thing, however, in which I desire to alter Mrs. Wyllard's scheme, kind and hospitable as her idea is—namely with regard to your residence after your marriage. I cannot allow you to spend the first few months of your married life under Mr. Wyllard's roof, while your brother's house is more than large enough to hold you and your husband. It is my wish, therefore, that Bothwell should bring you back to The Spaniards after your honeymoon, and that you and he should live there till your new home is ready for you. You will, in all probability, be very little troubled with my company, as I am likely to remain in Paris for some time to come; and you and Bothwell can ride my hunters and consider yourselves master and mistress of everything. I must beg that upon this question my wishes shall be regarded, and that you will carry out my plan, even at the hazard of offending Mrs. Wyllard, whom you know I esteem and respect above all other women.
"And now, my dear girl, I have nothing to do but to wish you all the blessings which a good and true-hearted woman deserves when she marries the man of her choice, and to request your acceptance of the enclosed cheque for your house and your trousseau.—Your very affectionate brother,
"EDWARD HEATHCOTE."
The cheque was for two hundred and fifty pounds; but liberal as the gift was, it did not reconcile Hilda to the idea of her brother's absence on her wedding-day.
"It is extremely unkind of him not to come," she said, throwing the letter and enclosure into her desk. "And it is not kind of him to alter Dora's plans. I know she looked forward to having us at Penmorval. But I shall go and see her every day, poor darling."
This idea of her brother's absence on her wedding-day—that most fateful day in a woman's life—cast a shadow across the sunlight of Hilda's bliss. She could think of nothing else after the receipt of Heathcote's letter; and she was full of wonder as to his reasons for thus absenting himself upon an occasion when duty and good feeling both demanded his presence.