CHAPTER XXI.

Esmeralda and Lady Ada returned to the drawing-room, where Barker and Lady Wyndover awaited them impatiently, and the awful mystery of robing the bride proceeded.

Esmeralda was rather paler than usual, and her heart was still beating painfully. Why had she not told Trafford of Norman Druce and his love for her?

“What on earth did Trafford want with you?” asked Lady Wyndover. “The idea of his coming round this morning! Men have not the least notion of propriety!”

Ada Lancing, with a glance at Esmeralda, answered for her.

“Norman Druce has just come back, and Lord Trafford wanted to introduce him to Esmeralda,” she said. “But she had met him before.”

Esmeralda flushed momentarily.

“Good gracious, is that all!” remarked Lady Wyndover. “He might have waited until after the ceremony, I should[166] think. But that is just like Lord Trafford. He thinks there is no one like that boy, and no doubt expects Esmeralda to be of the same opinion. Where is the lace, Barker? Turn round this way a little, dear. Why, I declare, your hand is shaking! I hope you are not upset. I wish he had not come!”

“I am all right,” said Esmeralda; and though her voice was low, it did not tremble.

Before the bride was fully attired in the white splendor which would fill half a column of the next morning’s papers, the guests were on their way to the church.

The duke and Lady Lilias and other members of the family had come up to the ducal house in Park Lane, where also was staying the bishop, who was to conduct the ceremony.

When the ducal party drove to the church, they found it almost filled with the other guests and a large number of the uninvited public, some of whom had been waiting for hours for the doors to be opened. For this was, as Lady Wyndover had said, to be the wedding of the season.

The duke, leaning on Lord Selvaine’s arm and his ebony stick, looked extremely well and happy, and the people pointed him out to each other and talked about him in awed and delighted whispers. Lord Selvaine, with his white hair and serene smile, attracted almost as much attention; but serene though it was, there was a touch of triumph in it.

This day was to see the restoration of his house, the rising of the Belfayre ph?nix, and he was happy.

The organ played softly, the long procession of clergy and choir filed into the chancel, a murmur arose, and the marquis, with Lord Ffoulkes, his best man, came up the aisle.

“How handsome he is!” whispered the women, “and how noble looking! Any one could tell he was a Belfayre by his likeness to his father; he will make a splendid duke!”

He stood at the steps of the communion rail, grave and self-possessed, waiting for his bride; and presently the music quickened slightly, and she was seen coming up the aisle leaning upon the arm of Lord Blankyre, who was to “give her way.”

The murmur rose again, and grew almost too loud for a sacred edifice, as she came in sight; and the women whispered among themselves in admiration of her beauty and the magnificence of her dress. It was a splendid procession, a vision of white loveliness accentuated by gleaming pearls and flashing diamonds, and those who had spent hours of weary waiting felt that they were receiving their reward.

[167]

Esmeralda walked up the aisle with downcast eyes, but though she could feel the universal gaze upon her, she was not frightened. Fear had no place in the heart of the pride of Three Star. And as she raised her eyes and saw the crowd, the white-robed clergy, and the tall, commanding figure waiting for her at the altar, she thought of the camp. Only a few months ago she was Esmeralda Howard, a girl of no importance, running wild in a diggers’ camp; and now— Was it all a dream?

The service commenced; it was as elaborate and ornate as a full choir, enthusiastic organist, and a famous bishop could make it, and the spectators felt almost as if they were assisting at a state ceremony.

The ring was slipped on, the hands of the pair were joined, the bishop delivered his little address, and pronounced his blessing in his well-known manner—a mixture of sacerdotal dignity and sweetness—and Esmeralda walked down the aisle the wife of the Marquis of Trafford.

There was a crowd in the vestry, for every one was anxious to inscribe his name in the registry, or at least witness the ceremony of signing.

The duke was the first witness, and when he had written his name rather shakily, he turned to the bride and kissed her, and they all saw that there were tears in his eyes.

Every one thronged round her, and she felt her hand pressed, and sometimes her lips, in a kind of whirl; but through it all she was conscious of Trafford’s nearness, and the words, “My husband,” were singing in her heart.

“I wish you a long and happy life, Lady Trafford,” said the courtly bishop, taking her hand in his soft one and smiling benignantly at her; “and, with God’s blessing, I think my wish, and the wish of many, will be fulfilled.”

There was a large crowd outside, and as the bride emerged upon her husband’s arm, it cheered vociferously, and some children from Belfayre, who had been brought to London, scattered flowers upon her path.

Esmeralda looked at the bright, rosy faces, and for the first time her eyes filled; but the tears were those of happiness, and did not fall.

The wedding-breakfast—for the old-fashioned feast was kept—was a very great success, and the guests, unusual as was the hour, did not despise the spread. Esmeralda, as she sat by her husband in the center of the side of the table, was pronounced the loveliest bride that had been seen for the last ten[168] years: which is a long time in the annals of beauty; and the men looked from her to Trafford with generous envy.

Esmeralda was rather bewildered at first by the number of the guests and the proportion of strangers, and sat for a time with her long lashes sweeping her cheek, but presently she looked around, and the first face she saw was that of Norman Druce. He was seated almost opposite her. She very nearly started. She had not seen him in the church or in the vestry, and had very nearly forgotten him.

He was not pallid or downcast, as the rejected rival is generally represented; on the contrary, his handsome face was flushed, and he was talking and laughing with what looked like an utter absence of embarrassment; but Esmeralda felt, rather than saw, that he avoided her eyes, and that he carefully looked away from her. It was a brilliant party, and there were many beautiful women present beside the bride. Lady Ada’s delicate, ethereal loveliness looked its best in her bride-maid’s dress, and Lilias seemed more petite and mignonne than ever in her virginal white and lace. Lady Wyndover was now indeed in her seventh heaven of happiness, and, a marvel of artistic make-up, looked little more than a girl as she beamed under the compliments of Lord Selvaine.

“I am continually mistaking you for the bride, Lady Wyndover,” he said; “and, really, this has been so successful a performance that I am almost tempted to arrange a repetition for my own benefit. Would you be very much shocked if I were to propose to you after they have all gone?”

“Take care,” she retorted, with a delighted laugh; “I may hold you to your words. What would you do then?”

“Live happy ever afterward, of course,” he said, with his bland smile. “This sort of thing is terribly contagious. Look at Trafford and Esmeralda. Are they not enough to make any man and woman go and do likewise?”

“Ah, yes!” she sighed, gazing at them with a touch of envy; “but they are so young.”

“I think you are not too young to follow their example,” he said, blandly.

“Get your blushes ready, Esmeralda,” said Trafford. “There are going to be some speeches, and they are an awful ordeal. Look at poor Ffoulkes! I can see his hand trembling from here. He will upset that glass if he does not take care.”

The speeches were, fortunately, not long, and everybody declared them to be most brilliant efforts, from the few words spoken by the duke, in his thin, aristocratic voice, slightly quivering with emotion, to the stammering and broken sentences[169] of the agonized Lord Ffoulkes, who was trembling with nervousness, though he had led a forlorn hope in one of our little wars without a tremor.

There was much laughter, more applause, and a delightful thrill of excitement, and then Lady Wyndover looked significantly at Esmeralda, and she and the bride-maids went to change the magnificent bridal-dress for a traveling costume.

More champagne flowed when the bride had left the room, and the laughter and talking grew louder; but Norman Druce, who had been as joyous as any one, suddenly became quiet and thoughtful. He sat for a few minutes staring vacantly at the table, and answering the remarks of the pretty girl beside him at random, until at last she said:

“I don’t believe you’re listening to a word I’m saying, Lord Druce. What is the matter? If you are really very much in love and can only think of her, whoever she may be, I will let you alone and talk to the bishop.”

Thus adjured, he roused himself, and, with the aid of champagne, which he drank as if it were water, became brilliant once more; indeed, he grew rather too noisy for the young lady who had bantered him, and she turned her attentions to the bishop after all.

Trafford’s health was drunk about fifty times, and he sat patiently smiling and waiting. He had gone through it all extremely well, and had earned the encomiums of the men, who declared that he had played the part like a hero.

“Never broke down or cried once!” said Ffoulkes, with an enthusiasm and admiration born of champagne, and the relief of having got through the speech which had haunted him for weeks past and made his life a burden. “Never saw anything like it. Give you my word that I should have fainted at the very least. Awful ceremony! Enough to keep any thinking man single for the whole of his life. I say, old chap, hadn’t we better be getting our togs together? Won’t do to keep the bride waiting, you know; bad example; though, by gad! they don’t want any example in that business, as a rule.”

Trafford went into the hall for his light overcoat.

“I had a stick somewhere,” he said. “Where did I put it? Oh, I remember, I left it in the anteroom last night.”

“I’ll get it,” said Ffoulkes. “Got to wait on you hand and foot to-day, you know.”

“You wouldn’t find it. Go back into the dining-room—but don’t have any more champagne,” said Trafford, and he laughed.

Lord Ffoulkes nodded and grinned, and Trafford went into[170] the anteroom. The stick was standing where he had left it, and he took it up and was leaving the room when Ada entered.

She closed the door, and stood looking at him, her face white, her lips tightly compressed.

“I—I have been watching,” she said, with a catch in her breath. “I knew—felt—that you would want to say ‘Good-bye.’”

Trafford looked down gravely, remorsefully; he had not thought of her. He did not know what to say, so, of course, he said the unwisest thing.

“Is—is Esmeralda ready?”

Her cheeks flushed and her eyes gazed at him reproachfully.

“Let us forget her for—for these last few moments,” she said, painfully. “We shall have a few moments only for this, the parting of our lives.”

She drew nearer to him, and laying her hand upon his arm, looked up into his face with a yearning misery which made his heart ache; for what man can look unmoved upon the face of a woman whose unhappiness he has caused?

“I am very sorry,” he said in a low voice; and the trite, commonplace words seemed altogether inadequate.

She tried to smile, but the smile was more pathetic than tears.

“It could not be helped,” she said, almost huskily. “It is fate—fate. You are lost to me forever now, Trafford—forever! The words have rung in my ears all day! Ah, God, what I have suffered!” She put her hand to her lips as if to stifle the cry of anguish, and her fingers tightened upon his arm. “You will never know, never understand, for a man’s love, even at its best and fiercest, is not like a woman’s!”

“Hush!” he said, pityingly and warningly; and he glanced at the door which led into the drawing-room. “Be calm, Ada! For God’s sake— I think I heard some one in that room!”

“There is no one there,” she said, with the recklessness of despair.

He took a step toward the door, then stopped, for her hand detained him. If he had gone to the door he would have discovered a girlish form standing, with white face, behind it; would have found Esmeralda herself.

A few minutes after Ada had left the dressing-room, and just as Barker was putting on her mistress’s hat, Esmeralda missed her golden heart, the present from Three Star.

“My heart!” she cried.

[171]

“Good heavens! Your heart! Do you feel ill? You are not going to faint, now it is all over!” exclaimed Lady Wyndover, with fright.

“No, no!” said Esmeralda. “It is the heart they sent me from Three Star! I have lost it.”

“Oh, that!” said Lady Wyndover, immensely relieved. “Never mind; we will look for it after you have gone. Where did you have it last?”

Esmeralda stood quite still, thinking.

“I know,” she said; “I remember. I heard something drop in the drawing-room as I came through just now. I thought it was a jewel or something and didn’t mind— If I’d known it was my heart— I must go down for it; I know exactly where it fell.”

“Let Barker go,” said Lady Wyndover.

“No—no,” said Esmeralda, impetuously. “She will look everywhere but in the right place, and I know the exact spot where it fell. I will go; wait here for me; I will not be a moment.”

She ran out of the room even as she spoke, and Lady Wyndover laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

“She is just a girl,” she said to Lady Lilias.

“Yes, the dearest, sweetest of girls,” said Lilias. Esmeralda ran down the stairs—the hall was empty, for the guests were in the dining-room, and the servants feasting below—and into the drawing-room. She found her precious gift just where she expected, and was turning to run back, when she heard voices in the adjoining anteroom.

She paused half mechanically, a thrill running through her as she recognized Trafford’s—her husband’s!—and was about to leave the room when the words Ada said smote her ear; literally smote, for they fell almost like a physical blow that half stunned her. She stood rooted to the spot, the color fading from her face, her lovely eyes slowly distending with fear and horror.

She could hear every word, for the door was slightly ajar; by moving a little she could have looked in upon the two; but she was powerless to move; powerless to do anything but stand and listen with horror and a gradual, slowly growing sense of calamity and utter misery.

“Such love as mine lasts for a whole life, Trafford,” said Lady Ada. “It can never die. But you know that. I didn’t come to tell you that I should never change; only to say good-bye and—and to hear you say once more, and for the last time, that you—you love me!”

[172]

He stood looking at her, with knit brows.

“You know my heart, Ada,” he said. “Why do you torture yourself—and me—to no purpose?”

“Yes; it is to no purpose, I know,” she said, bitterly. “You are married now. You have married this girl for her money; she has slipped into my place, and it is all over—all over and done with, and I must live out my life as best I can. But you will not forget me, Trafford. Promise me that—promise me. It is not too much to ask, seeing that—” Her voice broke and her head drooped upon his shoulder.

“I shall not forget you,” he said, hoarsely. Her anguish, her utter abandon, was torture to him. He forgot that he was just married to a girl who loved him with all her pure heart’s passionate devotion; at that moment he remembered only this woman whom he had loved and who still loved him.

“Ah, do not,” she said. “It will comfort me as nothing else could do. To remember that, had I possessed her wealth, I should have stood in her place to-day!”

The sound of laughter came from the dining-room; it sounded in Esmeralda’s ears like open mockery. She put her hand to her head, and then covered her eyes. Surely she must be dreaming. Yes, that was it. She was asleep, and this was a nightmare, not reality. But Trafford’s voice awakened her to a sense of the reality. She was awake, and it was Lady Ada and Trafford who were in the room there.

“Go now, Ada,” he said, and his voice was almost harsh through the intensity of his emotion. “There is no use in staying. Some one will come in.”

“Yes, I will go,” she said. “But, after all, it need not be good-bye forever, Trafford.” Her tone was piteous and imploring. “We shall see each other often—often. Why should we not? Trafford, you will still need me, though—though you are married to her. She can not be all in all to you, as I should have been.” She drew a long sigh. “She can not even be a companion for you. She is ignorant and uncultivated; she knows nothing of the things that go to make up our lives. You will need sympathy—you will come to me, Trafford.”

Even under the stress and strain of his emotion he was not quite a fool.

“Will it be wise, Ada?” he said, gravely.

“Yes, yes!” she urged. “I will—I will keep watch and ward on myself. This is the last time that—that you will hear me speak of my love. I will be careful, even when we are alone. Trafford, I can’t—I can’t lose you altogether. I[173] must see you sometimes. Why do you hesitate? Do you think it will be unfair to her?”

His face flushed slightly.

Her eyes flashed.

“You think more of her than of me. You—you think that she is a marvel of innocence and purity, that she has never loved any one but you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, with something like sternness in his tone.

Lady Ada bit her lip. It was not the time to refer to Norman Druce; she would keep that as a trump card to be played at the proper moment.

“Nothing, nothing; do not be impatient with me. I only mean that she may not be so guileless as you think. But—ah, what does it matter? We are not to part, Trafford? You will come to me when anything troubles you, just as you have been used to do? Oh, my love, my love, is it too much to ask? Think—think of all I have surrendered to-day; think—” Her voice broke.

“Let it be so,” he said after a pause, during which Esmeralda could picture him bending over her. She shuddered, and her hand pressed against her heart.

“I will go now,” said Lady Ada. “Good-bye, Trafford. Remember, though you are lost to me forever, my love is never dead, can never die. How could it, while I remembered that though she bought you with her accursed money she has not bought your heart. That is still mine, Trafford. Say it; bend down and whisper it, oh, my love, my love!”

Esmeralda felt choking, fainting, the desire to cry aloud almost overmastered her. She covered her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket to stifle the shriek that threatened to express the agony of tortured love and womanly shame that burned like a consuming fire in her bosom. She staggered toward the drawing-room door, but her feet refused to support her, and she sunk on to a couch. There she sat, breathing painfully a moment or two, then she struggled to her feet and went slowly upstairs, supporting herself by the balustrade. Outside the dressing-room door she paused to recover something of her self-possession, then she entered.

They were waiting for her impatiently.

“Well, have you got it, dear?” asked Lady Wyndover, with her back to her.

“Got what?” she asked.

At the sound of her voice, hollow and strained, Lady Wyndover[174] swung round, and she uttered an exclamation as she saw the white, drawn face.

“Good heavens, child! what is the matter? Barker, the—the water—some brandy! Are you ill—do you feel faint? Oh, dear, dear!”

They gathered round her, and Barker sprung to a table for water, and held it to Esmeralda’s lips.

She put it from her gently and set her teeth hard. At any cost they must not know anything; they must not even know that she was suffering.

“I am all right,” she said, forcing a smile. “I feel a little faint just now. Yes, give me some wine—brandy—anything.”

Barker flew out of the room and returned with some champagne, and Esmeralda drank a glass slowly. They all saw that she shook like a leaf. Lilias knelt beside her and held her hand.

“What is it, dear?” she asked, with loving anxiety. “You have kept up so well until now.”

“That is it,” said Lady Wyndover, hovering over them with sal volatile in one hand and a fan in the other. “I said that such calmness and sang-froid were—were unnatural, and I felt sure that she would pay for it and break down later on. Well, it’s better that it should come now, that it is all over, than in the middle of the ceremony.”

“All over! Yes, it is all over; it is too late now,” thought Esmeralda.

“I am better now,” she said aloud, and with the same faint smile. “It is so hot, and—and I suppose I was tired—that is all.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lilias, anxiously.

“Yes; what else should there be the matter with me?” responded Esmeralda, doggedly. Her strength was coming back to her; the horrible faint feeling, that was akin to death itself, was passing away. “Is it time to go? I am quite ready, am I not? What are we waiting for?”

She asked the question almost fiercely.

Lady Ada came into the room.