Yes, one week more, and the final scene in this life-drama will have been played. One turn more of Fortune’s wheel, and we will ring the curtain down upon these reminiscences of an ugly girl’s life.
CHAPTER XVI.
“Life and thought have gone away.”
Never had such a brilliant company been assembled within the walls of Moorbye Church. It was Belle’s wedding-day, and the sun shone kindly upon the face of nature. Only a few family friends had been invited down, but the little church was filled to overflowing by the gentlefolks of the neighborhood, who did not think it infra dig. to undergo a lot of crowding and elbowing for the privilege of witnessing an earl’s wedding.
Belle looked superb in her pearl-embroidered satin gown as she walked up the aisle with my father, and her bearing must have struck the onlookers as unusually calm and dignified. I fancied that I could detect a sign of anxiety in the hurried glance she cast around in search of Cyril, and that her face paled on discovering that he had not yet arrived. Possibly she thought of that other bridal morning, when the bridegroom did not put in an appearance. As yet, however, there was no need for uneasiness. The train by which the Earl of Greatlands was to come from town was only just due, and it might possibly be a little late.
“I feel very anxious,” said Lady Elizabeth to me, in a voice low enough only to be heard by myself. “Cyril ought to have contrived to be here first. He has behaved very strangely altogether of late, and I cannot help thinking that something must be wrong with him. I hope he is not ill.”
Alas! I knew what was wrong with him, and by this time my fears exceeded Lady Elizabeth’s own. When I say that I feared, I speak advisedly. For it had seemed to me that an interruption to this marriage was a thing to be dreaded, for everybody’s sake. True, real happiness was not to be expected for either Belle or her husband. But it was more fitting that these two, who had sinned together, should spend the rest of their conscience-haunted days together, than that either of them should be left at liberty to cast a shadow upon the life of any one else. Perhaps it was very presumptuous of me to constitute myself judge in such a case as this; for to encourage criminals in the achievement of that for which they have schemed and planned hardly seems a justifiable way of making the punishment fit the crime. Certainly the demands of justice would appear to point to a very different ending to our family troubles. But what woman in my place would not have tried to pit silence and oblivion against naked justice?
It was a relief to us all when the Earl of Greatlands, accompanied by Mr. Alwyn Gardener, his best man, hurriedly entered the church and walked toward the altar. But Mr. Gardener appeared flushed and troubled, and the bridegroom seemed to me to be looking like one demented. For at one moment he bit his lip and clinched his hand with all the air of one who is doing a thing that is distasteful to him. The next he was smiling at Belle, and gazing at her with the exultant admiration of a proud and happy bridegroom.
Presently Mr. Garth and his two chosen assistants began the marriage service, and the interest of the onlookers was quickened in an endeavor to hear the responses. Even yet I felt apprehensive of interruption. But, so far, my fears were unfounded, for the ceremony was concluded, and soon all was smiles and congratulation. The bride was kissed by relatives and bridemaids, and I hoped that, among all the fuss and excitement, the fact that I neither kissed my sister nor shook hands with my brother-in-law would pass unnoticed.
There was to be a reception after the wedding, and then the newly-married pair were to go to Scotland for their honeymoon. We were quite a merry party at the Grange, and even I, who was so much behind the scenes, felt as if I almost dared hope that the family troubles were now over.