A Tale of Surprises.
by Arabella Kenealy.
Originally published in The Novel Magazine (C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.) vol.2 #8 (Nov 1905).
The extraordinary matrimonial adventures of an heiress.
The Bride sat embowered amid wedding presents. She glanced at her reflection in a tall mirror.
"I look like a person keeping a shop," she said peevishly, seeing her reflected form with its glittering background of jewels and silver.
She tapped the toe of an irritable foot upon the carpet. She frowned. She pouted.
"Don't I? Don't I? Don't I?" she demanded in a passionate crescendo of the only person in the room.
The only person in the room was her Bridegroom-elect. With a pleased air he was reviewing the array of presents. The wedding was to take place on the morrow. To-day the second of two wedding receptions had been held. The bride's mother, almost too fatigued to respond to the "good-byes."of the last guest, had retired to another room.
The bride and bridegroom were alone amid their host of gifts. The bride was tired and cross. The bridegroom happy and serene.
To her sharp crescendo of "Don't I's?" he responded drily:
"Your customers would be very few if you were to frown on them as you are doing."
"Frown!" she repeated. "Who wouldn't frown? I'm absolutely sore from being stared at. I feel like a two-headed person in a sixpenny booth."
He smiled across at her—a smile not one woman in fifty could have withstood. A man who had not known her equally well would have crossed the room to kiss her. But this one knew her.
"It was rather a bore," he agreed. "I'm awfully sorry, little girl. I suppose indirectly it's my fault, although if I had the managing of weddings I would cut all such fuss and paraphernalia. However, it is all over now."
"All over," she protested. "Are you forgetting to-morrow?"
"No," he said gravely. "I am not likely to forget to-morrow."
"It will be a million times worse to-morrow," she insisted. "There will be a church and streets full of starers."
"There will be compensations," he said.
Now he crossed the room to stand beside her. He remained looking down at her from his fine height—looking down with masterful fondness.
"To-morrow," he continued, "they can stare as they please." His voice dropped. "For to-morrow I shall take you right away from them, away from everything and everybody. For a divine fortnight, Sylvia, you and I will be alone together."
She was in a wicked humour. A great heiress and a beautiful girl, she had been spoilt from her cradle. She was surfeited with life's good things. She was like a child grown sick from living upon sweet-meats.
"We shall bore one another to death," she cried. "Before three days are out we shall have exhausted all our wit and cleverness. We shall be hating one another."
He kept his patience. He knew that she was fond of him. He had already faced the circumstance that his wife-elect suffered from the serious drawback of a very bad temper. But few men of spirit are intimidated by the temper of a sweetheart, although the boldest of them shrink before the temper of a wife.
"The best of being in love," he said, "is that wit and cleverness are superfluous. I shan't ask you to be smart, Sylvia. Let us be just a couple of exquisite fools, dear, as foolish and as happy as the days will be long."
She was not appeased.
"The days will be long enough in all conscience," she retorted, "and as to playing the fool, I for one have not the slightest inclination for the rôle."
"Don't be cross," he appealed, with admirable control. "I know you've had a lot to stand of late with frocks and bonnets and dolmans and things to try on. But it is all over now. You have only the pleasure of wearing them before you. Cheer up, old girl. By this time to-morrow, it will all be over. And you and I will be en route for Paris."
"I would rather be going on an Arctic expedition," she insisted, flashing her angry dark eyes.
He smiled whimsically. "I have known bridal trips that were as frigid," he returned, "but I don't promise you anything in that line."
She turned upon him.
"Oh! I wonder if you really care for me!"
"Don't!" he said. "It is superfluous."
"Shall I tell you what I overheard Maud Lindsay say this afternoon?"
His eyes met hers. He saw by her face that Maud Lindsay's remark and not merely fatigue was at the source of her temper.
"No," he said. "I'll answer for it that it isn't worth repeating."
"It might be true," she insisted in a voice that seemed wrung out of her—a voice compounded of rage and pain.
"It might, of course," he said. "But, on the other hand, it might not, seeing that Maud Lindsay said it."
"You're afraid to hear it," she accused him. "Perhaps you know it is true."
He laughed. "How can I know it is true, when I haven't a notion what it is?"
"It's about me, I suppose, then," he added. "Oh, well, fire away. I can bear it. If you really think it worth repeating, shoot."
He drew himself up with a laugh. He squared his soldier-chest like a man braving a death-volley.
She shot. "I heard her tell Colonel Newborough that she knew for certain—from things that you had said—that you were marrying me for my horrible money. There now, you have it."
He had jestingly assumed the attitude of a man about to meet a death-volley. If you had seen his face, you might have supposed a real bullet had found him. For a moment he stood rigid, his skin like white paper. Then he said:
"And you believe it!"
"Oh, I do, and I don't. How can I judge? She told him she knew for certain—for certain—from things you had said."
"From things I had said," he repeated. "Does a man go about representing himself as a blackguard?" At last she had succeeded in ruffling him. Now he was angrier than she—far angrier—with a white-hot rage of which she was incapable.
"Oh, it isn't regarded so seriously," she said with a curt laugh. "People consider it natural enough. I have such a horrid lot of money, I suppose it is a temptation." Her voice faltered. She ended with a sob. Her anger was exhausted. Now she was ready to be kissed and comforted.
But she had gone too far. He was in no mood for kisses.
"We must have this out," he said in tense and quiet tones. "Tell me, do you honestly believe your money tempted me? Do you believe that if you had been penniless I should not have asked you to marry me?"
Frequently when his temper had succumbed to her attacks, she had coaxed him back to amiability by extravagant nonsense. Now she tilted her chin in raillery.
"Of course not," she cried. "If I had been penniless I should have gone in rags. And with men dress is half the battle."
"Don't trifle," he insisted. "Seriously, Sylvia, do you think your money weighed with me?"
She glanced at him between her lashes, as though seeking to learn how much further she might go. His face was calm, though ashen. It did not sufficiently warn her.
"Why, of course, I know it did," she retorted. "One must have money, although I call it horrid. And, of course, you could never have married on your pay," she added practically.
She clothed the practicality in a smile. But strychnia administered in honey is none the less deadly. Without a word he turned and walked from the room.
She sprang to her feet. She followed him into the hall. She was not quick enough. The door slammed before she could reach it.
She stood in an attitude of indignation. "Did one ever see such a shocking temper!" she protested.
Then she returned to the drawing-room and wept.
"My wicked tongue deserves to be removed with red-hot pincers," she confided to a silver rose-bowl. "Still, of course," she added, drying her eyes, "of course, he really couldn't have married on his pay. At all events, he couldn't have married me!"
* * * *
The trouble was more serious than she had supposed.
While she and her mother were dining that evening a note and a small packet, addressed in his hand, were brought to her. She opened the note with ostentatious carelessness, having let it lie some minutes beside her plate, albeit her fingers ached to disclose its message. As she read, she gave a sharp little cry.
"Heavens!" her mother said. "What is the matter?"
She recovered herself. Her quick eyes flashed out of her ghastly pallor to find excuse.
"James looks so absurdly solemn," she said with a queer little laugh, her eyes on the old butler. "One might think there was going to be a funeral."
"Why do you look so absurd, James?" his mistress protested irritably. "There is nothing to be solemn about."
"Certainly not, ma'am," James returned, with an offended dignity which was rather a disclaimer of absurdity in his appearance than of seriousness in the impending function.
"You are as white as a ghost," Mrs. Decies accused her daughter.
"If I am," her daughter insisted petulantly, "it is only the reflection from the table-cloth."
"It may be that," her mother agreed. She did not seem to realise that Sylvia's countenance had been subject to the influence of the table-cloth for the previous half hour, while her pallor was a thing of moments.
Soon it was replaced by a burning flush. Her mouth set wickedly. Her eyes flamed. She talked fast and loud.
"What spirits you have," her mother told her, missing the hardness and pain of her eyes.
During the evening there was a continuous scribbling and reading of notes, which her maid, with an air of profound secrecy, carried and brought. At breakfast next morning she observed:
"Prepare yourself for a little shock, mother."
"Oh, I am prepared," her mother retorted: "For the last two years—since you've been out—I have prepared myself for nothing else. I'm very fond of you, Sylvia, but you're too much of a responsibility. When you have a husband to be responsible for you I shall like you all the better. One can never depend on you for two hours together. Now, this morning, when I had looked forward to you being the prettiest bride of the season, you are a perfect fright. I don't believe you closed your eyes all night. They're as red as—a prize-fighter's. You can't blame the table cloth for that!
"Well, now, what is the shock?" she resumed. "I suppose you are not going to be married after all."
"Oh, but I am," Sylvia snapped. "I have only changed my bridegroom. Cyril and I had a quarrel yesterday. I got a note from him last night at dinner saying the wedding was "off" so far as he was concerned. He couldn't think of marrying me under the circumstances."
Mrs. Decies threw up her handsome be-ringed hands.
"Gracious goodness! What a scandal! That you should live to be a deserted bride! I declare he ought to be whipped. And he always pretended to be so nice."
"Oh, well," Sylvia defended him, "I suppose I ought not to have told him he was marrying me for my money. But how was one to know he would take it so huffly?"
"If you told him so it is you who should be whipped," her mother cried, turning upon her, distracted. "The lawyers couldn't get him to accept a penny. He was as obstinate as a mule. He would live on his pay, he kept repeating, as though he were one of those phonograph things that could say nothing else. Well, I tell you I shall not face it. You must manage and explain things for yourself. I shall retire to my rooms. To have everybody condoling with me because my daughter stands at the altar deserted—a bride without a bridegroom! I would rather be cremated."
"But there will be a bridegroom: Your daughter will not stand deserted," Sylvia protested. She emptied half-a-jar of marmalade upon her plate and began to spread it upon chicken sandwiches with as much care as though she harboured the intention of eating them.
"Are you going to marry the sexton or the pew-opener?" Mrs. Decies demanded sarcastically.
"I am going to marry Bertie Lathom. You always wished it, so that I might have a title. Now it will come off. I arranged it last night. I was not going to be a public laughing-stock."
"Oh, well," her mother said, when she had recovered from the shock, "so long as you are going to marry somebody I can manage to bear it. Still, it's a shocking scandal. And I'm sorry for Cyril. He is so nice and cared so much for you. But, as it has happened, I suppose I ought to congratulate myself that you are marrying a man of rank. With you one could never tell. It might have been the postman."
By half-past two there were no traces of tears. Everybody agreed that they had never known a more amazing situation or a calmer bride.
A special license was procured by a friendly motorist, who arrived only just in time for the ceremony to begin. He and his car were so begrimed with dust that the crowd about the church agreed that nothing less than an extreme of drunkenness could explain his coming to a wedding in such trim. The impression was strengthened by the fact of a policeman hanging on behind, although the latter alleged no worse offence than that of driving ninety-nine miles an hour by the stop-watch in his pocket.
* * * *
When Carter, Sylvia's maid, on the eve of the wedding, delivered her mistress' note at Sir Bertram's bachelor chambers, "I've just taken him one already," his man informed her. "If this is a staggerer like that, I'll carry him a whiskey-and-soda on the same tray.
"I never pry into other people's letters," Carter answered loftily. "Please to give it to Sir Bertram and say the lady is waiting for an answer."
"You the lady?" the man inquired, with a facetious grin.
"Of course I am," the maid retorted.
But Sir Bertram, sitting with a grave expression caused by his previous note, broke into loud laughter on perusing this.
"Just my infernal luck," he said. He took up a pen. Before he had written half a-dozen words, he set it down. His face changed.
"I'll ring when the answer is ready," he told his man. The man went out.
He read the notes again:
"Can't live till morning!"
"Marry me to-morrow!"
"Jove I've a mind to risk it. Nobody has a suspicion of the truth."
His mind worked rapidly. On the one hand was a very slough of debts. On the other a quarter of a million and a charming wife.
He had always been fond of his cousin Sylvia. And she knew it. She had credited him with a sensitive pride that forbade him to propose to her, for the reason that he was poor. The truth was he had a wife already.
Only a few men (out of novelettes) are secretly married. He was one of the few. At twenty he had married a music-hall singer. At twenty-one she had left him for a lion-tamer—who, however, like many another valiant person, had signally failed to tame the feminine of his own kind.
For twelve years her husband had lost sight of her, albeit an occasional demand for money had prevented him from too far congratulating himself upon his release.
A week before the date arranged for Sylvia Decies' wedding, a message, scribbled on a doctor's card, summoned him to a bedside.
His wife lay dying of consumption in squalor and starvation, her lion-tamer having long previously deserted her. She was in high fever and did not know him. She had not betrayed her relation to him. She was passing under her professional name of Signora Birdie Montmorency.
He had had her placed in comfort, but had kept out of the way. She had given his name to the doctor as that of an old acquaintance likely to befriend her.
Then, on the eve of Sylvia's wedding, a note from the doctor had arrived, informing him that if he wished to see her again alive he must come at once. It was impossible that she could live till morning.
He had no wish to see her again alive. He merely cursed the fate that had made Sylvia Decies' marriage three months too early—or his wife's death three months too late.
While so engaged Sylvia's note—a bolt from the blue—was brought to him. She and Capt. Manson had quarrelled on the eve of their wedding, and had separated for ever, it told him. He (Sir Bertram) and she had been chums all their lives. He had always led her to believe he was fond of her. He positively must now come to the rescue and save her from the unspeakable humiliation of facing her world in the rôle of a deserted bride. She would be eternally grateful to him and would try to be an affectionate wife. She wound up with an agonised P.S.
Do, Bertie. There's a darling. I couldn't face it, and I know my money will be useful to you. You have such extravagant tastes.
Over the notes his thoughts were long. A spendthrift and man of the world, he had always acted strictly up to the code of his club, the sole creed of men of his type. And the code of his club forbade the thing he was contemplating. Yet, little as his creed exacted, it failed him now.
He shrugged his shoulders, set his teeth, read aloud that sentence cf the doctor's, "impossible that she can live till morning," and sat down to write to Sylvia that her note had made him the happiest man in the world. He had always loved her. She might rely on him to take that unspeakable fool Manson's place at half-past two the following day.
"After all, I have more than fulfilled my obligations to poor Birdie," he observed, as he sealed up his note. "And I shan't be injuring her or anyone."
Nevertheless, his sins were soon to discover him. For, first of all, upon finding himself alone with Sylvia in driving from the church, she transformed herself into a fiend when he attempted to take her hand. Why, she accused him vehemently, had he consented to this horrible exchange? Had she not been mad she could never have proposed so abominable a plan. She loved Cyril with all her heart and soul—and she had married him. Of course she had never meant to live with him. When the people had gone she would write him a cheque for half her fortune and would never, never again see him.
I will not say it was fruitless for him to expostulate. It was impossible. The most attenuated word of protest could not have inserted itself edgewise between the press of hysterical adjectives she hurled at him. He bore it quietly. He knew something of the ways of women. He did not doubt but that when the hour for their departure should arrive his bride would be ready to accompany him, clad in her right mind and her travelling-dress.
But before this time a trouble still more serious was to meet him. It lay in the eyes of the doctor who attended his dying wife, and who it turned out was one of the invited wedding guests. He arrived late. He had missed the ceremony. Lathom saw him come. He watched him as he learnt of the amazing shuffle of bridegrooms. Then their glances met. The doctor's bespoke consternation, indignation, proper anger. It told him as eloquently as speech that the brain behind it knew his secret. Birdie then had betrayed him at the last. Well! Had she not always betrayed him?
Presently the doctor came up to him and demanded to speak with him alone. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Isn't it useless?" he demurred cynically.
"It is imperative," the doctor insisted in thunderous tones.
Then: "Come into the garden," Lathom said.
When they were alone Dr. Begbie faced him sternly. "I have just come from the death-bed of your wife, sir," he said.
"She told you the truth, then," Lathom answered. "I confess it seems rather indecent haste on my part. But really she had forfeited every claim to my consideration. And, of course, you must know that my marriage to-day was not premeditated."
The doctor seemed labouring to speak. Lathom had a horrible suspicion.
"Tell me," he cried. "She is dead? Your letter--"
"Yes," the doctor said: "She is dead."
Lathom mopped his brows. "Thank Heaven for that!"
"But," the doctor continued with a shocked face, "she did not die till half-past three to-day—more than half-an-hour after the ceremony."
Sir Bertram broke into a vehement exclamation. "You wrote me—" he began.
"She rallied," the doctor said. "It is never safe to prognosticate the exact duration of expiring life."
"Just my luck!" groaned Lathom. "Did anything ever happen so unfortunately?"
He was a person of resource, however. After a minute he pulled himself together.
"Well," he said, "when all is said and done, it will resolve itself into a second ceremony."
"I am an old friend of the family," the doctor said in a determined voice. "The bride must not leave her mother's house until she is legally your wife."
Lathom laughed curtly. "She expressed her intention of not leaving it at all," he said.
With the inconsistency of woman, she was none the less piqued, however, that he assented so readily to her proposal.
"Now I have indeed been married for my money," she reflected bitterly, when he presently took his departure with the other guests.
"I shall come to see you early to-morrow," he told her with a grave face. "I have something serious to say."
"It will be utterly useless," she protested, supposing that his something serious would be a demand for the customary rendering of the matrimonial menage.
The guests were not surprised that the reversion to barbarism, which expresses itself in hurling shoes and confetti, was for this occasion denied them.
"Sylvia never did do things like other people," they observed. "Her conduct wouldn't be tolerated if she were a penny poorer. And, of course, it is more decent for her to take time for a few breaths between such a lightning change of husbands."
They smiled sweetly as they kissed her (those of her own sex, that is) and hoped she would be very happy. After all, they reflected privately, she had not acted so irrationally as at first appeared. For although Manson was nice and very handsome, Lathom was a baronet!
When they had all gone she sat down to write a letter.
"DEAR CYRIL," she wrote "(of course, I may no longer call you dearest, although you always, always will be), I know I have behaved like a Beast. But, of course, I couldn't face standing up at the altar without a bridegroom, so there was nothing left to me to do but what I did. Oh, how could you behave so? You must have known I never meant it. You know I believed you all that was noble. Only my silly pride and horrid temper wouldn't let me acknowledge it. Oh, you should have made allowance for my horrid temper. I can no more help it than I can prevent my nose from turning up.
"If you really, really loved me (of course, I know you loved me too much to marry me for my money), but if you had really and truly loved me you would have loved my temper just as you always said you loved my turn-up nose. Both are the defects of my qualities. And really I have some rather nice qualities when I am not cross. Now I shall never again be anything but cross.
"Still, I mean to be true to you, because, although we can never now be anything to one another, I take this last miserable opportunity of telling you I never did and never shall love anybody else. And I shall never be really Bertie's wife. I shall stop at home with mother and spend my time and my abominable money in detestable good works. And then perhaps in the next world you will forgive your heart-broken, repentant "SYLVIA."
Lathom, calling next morning to explain the situation, braced himself for a scene. But Sylvia made no scene. He scarcely knew her. She had neither smiles nor dimples. Even her charming tilted nose had taken on the austere expression of a Roman one. Her hair was plastered smoothly on her head. She wore a gown which he believed she must have borrowed from a housemaid. Her curves and charm and buoyancy, her rippling laughter and her dancing gait had vanished.
"Good gracious, Sylvia!" he cried in a shocked voice. "Are you ill?"
"No," she said. "I am only unhappy. Bertie," she appealed, "I have made the most horrible bungle a woman ever made of her life. In a fit of temper I sent away the best and dearest man, the only man I shall ever care for. In another fit of temper, rather than honestly face the consequences of my act, I asked you to take his place. I have behaved abominably to both of you. Now I can never be the wife of the man I love. And I will never be your wife—except in name."
She would not let him speak. In the same dejected, miserable voice she assured him her mind was made up. As some sort of reparation for the wrong she had done him, she proposed to give him half her fortune. This only on condition that he allowed her to go her way.
"It will be the way of slumming, Bertie," she said, "and not at all to your taste. It is my selfish life of ease and pleasure that has spoilt me. As for you," she added, with the faint resuscitation of a smile, "you had always a taste to be a bachelor, or you would long since have proposed to me."
He told her the facts. He called himself a blackguard.
When she realised the facts, she caught at a table to steady herself. After a minute a miraculous change appeared in her. The colour rushed to her cheeks, the curves returned. Her eyes blazed with joy. For answer and sentence on his crime she lifted her face, and for the first time kissed the blackguard.
"Heaven arranged it, Bert," she gasped. "Heaven has delivered me from the penalties of my wickedness that I might marry the man I love. For I will never marry you, dear."
"Then it's an infernally bad business for me," he said gloomily. "I've always been fond of you, and should have asked you long ago, had I been free."
She insisted upon paying his debts, and on further presenting him with a substantial cheque.
For a while he demurred. To accept would be to transgress the code of clubs. Finally, however, he consented. His affairs were, as he expressed it, in an infernal muddle. And, after all, the clubs would never hear of it!
When he had gone Sylvia instructed Carter to fluff up the plastered slabs of hair. Her eyes were dancing.
"After all, I don't think the style suits me," she observed demurely.
"Why, that was the reason you gave me for plastering it," Carter retorted. It had made her seasick, she had said, to perpetrate such a coiffure. Her deft hands revelled now in the silken ripples of her mistress' beautiful hair. She achieved a masterpiece.
"There, now you look like a picture," she cried when she had finished. "The other way made you look as though you was going into a decline."
"Put me into my prettiest frock and hat," Sylvia bade her. "I am going out."
"Your travelling gown, ma'am?"
Sylvia blushed. "No," she said, dimpling demurely. "I may want that—for a more important occasion."
"So she is going away with Sir Bertram after all," Carter reflected, well-pleased: She liked the notion of being maid to "my lady." Moreover, she liked my gentleman's gentleman.
When the parlourmaid at Mrs. Manson's house announced "Miss Decies" to her mistress' son, she did so with a mystified face. For had not "Miss Decies" the previous day been transformed into Lady Lathom?
He was reading Sylvia's letter for the fiftieth time.
"Oh, what an ass I have made of myself and what a muddle she has made of every thing," he was reflecting for the hundredth time. He rose and stood quietly facing her, waiting until the maid should quit the room, and she should explain herself. The maid closed the door.
"I wish she'd have given me time to warn him so that he might have smoothed out his hair," she reflected, with the spirit of a partisan. But Sylvia had given her no time, lest he might deny himself to her. He smothered a groan, seeing her stand so fresh and beautiful before him. She could have kissed him for his disordered hair, and for the fact that he was minus a necktie.
"I supposed you were far away," he said stiffly—"perhaps in Paris," he added bitterly.
"You mistake me for Lady Lathom," she returned. "Cyril, I am still Sylvia Decies—your Sylvia."
He eyed her for symptoms of further insanity. "What in the name of Heaven do you mean?"
She flew to him, laughing and crying. "Not until you've kissed me," she protested.
He drew away. "Are you mad? You are another man's wife. Sylvia, have you left him?"
With sobs and tears, with laughter and dimples, the explanation came.
"Cyril, dear," she sobbed. "Heaven interfered to save me for you. Heaven knew it was only my temper and not my heart that was bad."
When at last he was convinced:
"Oh, Sylvia, Sylvia," he reproached her, "if you had behaved rationally, you and I would now be honeymooning."
She laid her blushing cheek to his.
"We might be next week," she said, "and this is Saturday. We can just slip into a church with only mother for a witness, and leave mother to explain things afterwards."
He held her from him to look into her eyes.
"It shall not be a day later than Monday," he insisted.
"Monday would do," she assented demurely. "To wait longer would give time for my frocks and hats to go out of fashion."
He kissed her and sent her way. "I will go this minute for the license." He made for the door.
She drifted there before him. She turned on the threshold. She kissed her hand to him. Her face was beautiful to see.
"First go and brush your untidy hair, my dear," she cried gaily.