CHAPTER XXX.
NO CARDS.
Love will make oar cottage pleasant,
And I love thee more than life.
Tennyson.
A dense November fog ushered in the dawn of the following day. Bluebell had been awake for hours. Some men were mending the streets, and, as she listened to the monotonous blows of their pickaxes and hammers, a lugubrious fancy crossed her that just such sounds would a criminal hear when workmen were erecting the gallows that was to close his mortal career. By ten o'clock a new page of her life would be turned over, if, nervous and unstrung as she was, she were able to carry out the first part of the drama. Suppose the captain should object to her walking abroad, or offer again to accompany her! And even if she effected a start, might he not, his suspicions awakened, quickly follow! The eight o'clock breakfast bell rang, and Bluebell came down with a white, scared face and dark rims to her eyes. The captain appeared unobservant. To tell the truth, the stolen kiss, which he probably considered "naughty, but nice," had made him somewhat conscious. So he looked demure and rather sly; but the girl had forgotten the circumstance.
The old Dutch clock ticked louder than ever, and, as usual, recorded the quarters with an internal convulsion. At half-past nine the boys would go to school, and, in the commotion of their departure, Bluebell resolved to pass from the threshold and go forth to her fate. She got her hat,—unnoticed and unquestioned was in the street, and groping her way through the fog with swift, unsteady steps. In two turnings from the door Dutton met her, a relieved, triumphant smile lighting his features as he placed her in a cab. The man, previously instructed, drove rapidly off to the register office. Bluebell, now the die was cast, felt almost fainting; but Harry's strong arm was round her, and in less than a quarter of an hour these two youthful lunatics were as securely and irrevocably married as though the ceremony had been performed by an archbishop in full canonicals. The gold circlet was on her finger, with a pearl one to guard it—of no great value, for Harry was aware there would be sundry demands on his ready money. Bluebell, of course, could have no luggage, and he had put himself in the hands of a patronizing lady in an outfitting establishment, and procured her a small stock of necessaries. He had received his pay, and not long since a liberal cheque from Lord Bromley; so the "sinews of war" were not wanting for the present. They drove straight from the register office to the station, and were in the train and far on their journey before Bluebell had the least idea where they were going to; indeed, if she had known, she would scarcely have been wiser, all places in England being equally strange to her.
Dutton, rapturously in love, now that his schemes were successful, was in a state of exulting happiness almost overwhelming to Bluebell, secretly oppressed with a sense of the irrevocable. She even caught herself, when they stopped at stations, wishing that some one would get in. Very different was the first-class carriage from the long cars, containing sixty or seventy persons, that she had previously travelled in. But yet there were four vacant seats, which in spite of the rush for places, continued unoccupied. Now and then their door was hastily clutched by some passenger, but a guard seemed invariably to turn up and bear the individual away to another carriage. About three o'clock they stopped at a very small station, where only one or two persons got out.
"Here we are, Bluebell," cried Harry, grasping rugs, sticks, and umbrellas, and throwing them to the porter.
She sprang up and looked around with intense interest. They were nearing her first pied-à-terre as a married woman. But the journey was not yet ended, and they transferred themselves to a fly, in which an old grey horse waited sleepily.
"Lucky I thought of ordering it," said Harry; "it is the only one here, of course."