CHAPTER III
A PROVIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE
On Wednesday the eleventh of April, John Ashforth rose from his bedfull of a great and momentous resolution. There is nothing very strangein that, perhaps it is just the time of day when such things come to aman, and, in ordinary cases, they are very prone to disappear with therelics of breakfast. But John was of sterner stuff. He had passed arestless night, tossed to and fro by very disturbing gusts of emotion,and he arose with the firm conviction that if he would escape shipwreckhe must secure his bark by immovable anchors while he was, though notin honor, yet in law and fact, free; he could not trust himself.Sorrowfully admitting his weakness, he turned to the true, the right,the heroic remedy.
"I'll marry Mary to--day fortnight," said he. "When we are man and wifeI shall forget this madness and love her as I used to."
He went down to breakfast, ate a bit of toast and drank a cup of verystrong tea. Presently Mary appeared and greeted him with remarkabletenderness. His heart smote him, and his remorse strengthened hisdetermination.
"I want to speak to you after breakfast," he told her.
His manner was so significant that a sudden gleam of hope flashed intoher mind. Could it be that he had seen, that he would be generous? Shebanished the shameful hope. She would not accept generosity at theexpense of pain to him.
Miss Bussey, professing to find bed the best place in the world, was inthe habit of taking her breakfast there. The lovers were alone, and,the meal ended, they passed together into the conservatory. Mary satdown and John leant against the glass door opposite her.
"Well?" said she, smiling at him.
It suddenly struck John that, in a scene of this nature, itill-befitted him to stand three yards from the lady. He took a chairand drew it close beside her. The thing had to be done and it should bedone properly.
"We've made a mistake, Mary," he announced, taking her hand andspeaking in a rallying tone.
"A mistake!" she cried; "oh, how?"
"In fixing our marriage----."
"So soon?"
"My darling!" said John (and it was impossible to deny admiration tothe tone he said it in), "no. So late! What are we waiting for? Why arewe wasting all this precious time?"
Mary could not speak, but consternation passed for an appropriateconfusion, and John pursued his passionate pleadings. As Mary felt hisgrasp and looked into his honest eyes, her duty lay plain before her.She would not stoop to paltry excuses on the score of clothes,invitations, or such trifles. She had made up her mind to the thing;surely she ought to do it in the way most gracious and most pleasing toher lover.
"If Aunt consents," she murmured at last, "do as you like, John dear,"and the embrace which each felt to be inevitable at such a crisispassed between them.
A discreet cough separated them. The butler stood in the doorway, withtwo letters on a salver. One he handed to Mary, the other to John, andwalked away with a twinkle in his eye. However even our butlers do notknow everything that happens in our houses (to say nothing of ourhearts), although much they may think they do.
John looked at his letter, started violently and crushed it into hispocket. He glanced at Mary; her letter lay neglected on her lap. Shewas looking steadily out of the window.
"Well, that's settled," said John. "I--I think I'll have a cigar, dear."
"Yes, do, darling," said Mary, and John went out.
These second letters were unfortunately so long as to make itimpossible to reproduce them. They were also very affecting, Dora'sfrom its pathos, Charlie's from its passion. But the waves of emotionbeat fruitlessly on the rock-built walls of conscience. At almost thesame moment, Mary, brushing away a tear, and John, blowing his nose,sat down to write a brief, a final answer. "We are to be marriedtoday fortnight," they said. They closed the envelopes without amoment's delay and went to drop their letters in the box. The servantwas already waiting to go to the post with them and a second later thefateful documents were on their way to Cannes.
"Now," said John, with a ghastly smile, "we can have a glorious longday together!"
Mary was determined to leave herself no loophole.
"We must tell Aunt what--what we have decided upon this morning," shereminded him. "It means that the wedding must be very quiet."
"I shan't mind that. Shall you?"
"I shall like it of all things." she answered. "Come and find AuntSarah."
Miss Bussey had always--or at least for a great many yearsback--maintained the general proposition that young people do not knowtheir own minds. This morning's news confirmed her opinion.
"Why the other day you both agreed that the middle of June would doperfectly. Now you want it all done in a scramble."
The pair stood before her, looking very guilty.
"What is the meaning of this--this (she very nearly said 'indecent')extraordinary haste?"
Miss Bussey asked only one indulgence from her friends. Before she dida kind thing she liked to be allowed to say one or two sharp ones. Herniece was aware of this fancy of hers and took refuge in silence.John, less experienced in his hostess's ways, launched into theprotests appropriate to an impatient lover.
"Well," said Miss Bussey, "I must say you look properly ashamed ofyourself [John certainly did], so I'll see what can be done. What afluster we shall live in! Upon my word you might as well have made ittomorrow. The fuss would have been no worse and a good deal shorter."
The next few days passed, as Miss Bussey had predicted, in a fluster.Mary was running after dress makers, John after licenses, Cook'stickets, a best man, and all the impedimenta of a marriage. Theintercourse of the lovers was much interrupted, and to this Miss Busseyattributed the low spirits that Mary sometimes displayed.
"There, there, my dear," she would say impatiently--for the cheerfulold lady hated long faces--"you'll have enough of him and to spare byand by."
Curiously this point of view did not comfort Mary. She liked John verymuch, she esteemed him even more than she liked him, he would, shethought, have made an ideal brother. Ah, why had she not made a brotherof him while there was time? Then she would have enjoyed his constantfriendship all her life; for it was not with him as with that foolishboy Charlie, all or nothing. John was reasonable; he would not havethreatened--well, reading--his letter one way, Charlie almost seemed tobe tampering with propriety. John would never have done that. And thesereflections, all of which should have pleaded for John, ended inweeping over the lost charms of Charlie.
One evening, just a week before the wedding, she roused herself fromsome such sad meditations, and, duty-driven, sought John in thesmoking-room. The door was half open and she entered noiselessly. Johnwas sitting at the table; his arms were outspread on it, and his faceburied in his hands. Thinking he was asleep she approached on tiptoeand leant over his shoulder. As she did so her eyes fell on a sheet ofnote-paper; it was clutched in John's right hand, and the encirclinggrasp covered it, save at the top. The top was visible, and Mary,before she knew what she was doing, had read the embossedheading--nothing else, just the embossed heading--Hotel de Luxe,Cannes, Alpes Maritimes.
The drama teaches us how often a guilty mind rushes, on some triflingcause, to self-revelation. Like a flash came the conviction thatCharlie had written to John, that her secret was known, and John'sheartbroken. In a moment she fell on her knees crying, "Oh, how wickedI've been! Forgive me, do forgive me! Oh, John, can you forgive me?"
John was not asleep, he also was merely meditating; but if he had beena very Rip Van Winkle this cry of agony would have roused him. Hestarted violently--as well he might--from his seat, looked at Mary, andcrumpled the letter into a shapeless ball.
"You didn't see?" he asked hoarsely.
"No, but I know. I mean I saw the heading, and knew it must be fromhim. Oh, John!"
"From him!"
"Yes. He's--he's staying there. Oh, John! Really I'll never see orspeak to him again. Really I won't. Oh, you can trust me, John. See!I'll hide nothing. Here's his letter! You
see I've sent him away?"
And she took from her pocket Charlie's letter, and in her noblefidelity (to John--the less we say about poor Charlie the better)handed it to him.
"What's this?" asked John, in bewilderment. "Who's it from?"
"Charlie Ellerton," she stammered.
"Who's Charlie Ellerton? I never heard--but am I to read it?"
"Yes, please, I--I think you'd better."
John read it; Mary followed his eyes, and the moment they reached theend, without giving him time to speak, she exclaimed, "There, you see Ispoke the truth. I had sent him away. What does he say to you, John?"
"I never heard of him in my life before."
"John! Then who is your letter from?"
He hesitated. He felt an impulse to imitate her candor, but prudencesuggested that he should be sure of his ground first.
"Tell me all," he said, sitting down. "Who is this man, and what has heto do with you?"
"Why don't you show me his letter? I don't know what he's said aboutme."
"What could he say about you?"
"Well he--he might say that--that I cared for him, John."
"And do you?" demanded John, and his voice was anxious.
Duty demanded a falsehood; Mary did her very best to satisfy itsimperious commands. It was no use.
"Oh, John," she murmured, and then began to cry.
For a moment wounded pride struggled with John's relief; but then aglorious vision of what this admission of Mary's might mean to himswept away his pique.
"Read this," he said, giving her Dora Bellairs's letter, "and thenwe'll have an explanation."
Half an hour later Miss Bussey was roused from a pleasant snooze. Johnand Mary stood beside her, hand in hand. They wore brother and sisternow--that was an integral part of the arrangement--and so they stoodhand in hand. Their faces were radiant.
"We came to tell you, Auntie dear, that we have decided that we're notsuited to one another," began Mary.
"Not at all," said John decisively.
Miss Bussey stared helplessly from one to the other.
"It's all right, Miss Bussey," remarked John cheerfully. "We've had anexplanation; we part by mutual consent."
"John," said Mary, "is to be just my brother and I his sister. Oh, andAuntie, I want to go with him to Cannes."
This last suggestion, which naturally did not appear to anywell-regulated mind to harmonize with what had gone before, restoredvoice to Miss Bussey.
"What's the matter with you? Are you mad?" she demanded.
John sat down beside her. His friends anticipated a distinguishedParliamentary career for John; he could make anything sound reasonable.Miss Bussey was fascinated by his suave and fluent narrative of whathad befallen Mary and himself; she could not but admire his justremarks on the providential disclosure of the true state of the casebefore it was too late, and sympathized with the picture of sufferingnobly suppressed which grew under his skilful hand; she was inflamedwhen he ardently declared his purpose of seeking out Dora; she wastouched when he kissed Mary's hand and declared that the world held nonobler woman. Before John's eloquence even the stern facts of a publicengagement, of invited guests, of dresses ordered and presentsreceived, lost their force, and the romantic spirit, rekindled, heldundivided sway in Miss Bussey's heart.
"But," she said, "why does Mary talk of going to Cannes with you?"
"Mr. Ellerton is at Cannes, Aunt," murmured Mary, shyly.
"But you can't travel with John."
"Oh, but you must come too."
"It looks as if you were running after him."
"I'll chance Charlie thinking that," cried Mary, clasping her hands inglee.
Miss Bussey pretended to be reluctant to undertake the journey, but shewas really quite ready to yield, and soon everything was settled on thenew basis.
"And now to write and tell people," said Miss Bussey. "That's the worstpart of it."
"Poor dear! We'll help," cried Mary. "But I must write to Cannes."
"Wire!" cried John.
"Of course, wire!" echoed Mary.
"The first thing tomorrow."
"Before breakfast."
"Mary, I shall never forget----."
"No, John, it's you who----." and they went off in a torrent of mutuallaudation.
Miss Bussey shook her head.
"If they think all that of one another why don't they marry?" she said.