‘I am sorry it is not to be a grand wedding with lots of fine company. I should have enjoyed that. But, all the same, it will be a great change for me and Mary. Miss Raeburn said we were to choose our own dresses. Do you know, we have never chosen anything for ourselves before?’
‘I am going to Edinburgh to-morrow or the next day to order my own clothes,’ said he. ‘I have chosen stuffs already. I shall wear claret-coloured cloth with a buff waistcoat and a satin stock. That ought to look well, I think.’
‘We are to wear white, and white fur tippets and Leghorn bonnets with pink rosettes. Papa gave Mary the money to pay for what we chose, for mamma would have nothing to do with it. It is a good thing, for she would not have given us nearly so much. Will there really be no one but ourselves and Uncle Fullarton at the wedding, Crauford?’
‘There will be our cousin Frederick Bumfield, who is to be best man, and my friend Mr. Barclay of Kaims. He is the Fullarton man of business and a mighty pleasant fellow. Frederick and I are to stay at his house for the wedding. Then there are a Captain and Mrs. Somerville whom Miss Raeburn’—he always spoke of Cecilia as ‘Miss Raeburn,’ even to his family—‘has invited, I cannot understand why; they are dull people and the lady is not over genteel in her connections, I believe. Morphie Kirk is a very small place for a wedding but Miss Raeburn has made a particular point of being married there. I often accompanied her to it when Lady Eliza was alive and I can guess (though she has not told me) that she feels the suitability of our being married there for that reason. It is a pretty feeling on her part,’ said Crauford.
Her fancy for Speid could not really go very deep, he reflected, as this little sentiment of hers came into his mind. The meddlesome old woman who had brought such a story to Captain Somerville might have known how hysterical women were when there was a question of weddings. Cecilia simply did not know her own mind.
He would see her in Edinburgh and do his best to persuade her to settle a new date for their marriage, even should it be only a few days earlier than the old one. And he would buy her some jewels—they would help on his request.
[CHAPTER XXVII
THE SKY FALLS ON GILBERT]
GILBERT SPEID sat in the house just outside Madrid, which had represented home to him for most of the eighteen months of his sojourn in Spain; he was newly returned from Granada. It had been Mr. Speid’s custom to pass a part of each year there, and it was there that he had, according to his wish, been buried. Gilbert had gone to look at the grave, for the decent keeping of which he paid a man a small yearly sum, and had found his money honestly earned; then, having satisfied himself on that point, he had wandered about in haunts familiar to him in his youth and early manhood. It was not three years since he had set foot in them last and he was not much more than thirty-two years old, but it seemed to him that he looked at them across a gulf filled with age and time. He returned to Madrid wondering why he had left it, and finding a certain feeling of home-coming in his pleasure at seeing his horses.
He made no pretence of avoiding his fellow-creatures and no efforts to meet them; and as, though he spoke perfect Spanish, he had always been a silent man, there was little difference in his demeanour. But it was universally admitted among old acquaintances that his Scottish life had spoiled him. He rode a great deal and frequented the same company; and he would often stroll down to the fencing-school where he had learned so much to practise with his old master, or with any new light which had risen among the foils since he left Spain. He felt the pressing need of settling to some definite aim in life, but he put off the trouble of considering it from week to week and from month to month.