Greatheart Part 53

WEDDING ARRANGEMENTS

It was certainly not love at first sight that prompted Mrs. Bathurst to take a fancy to Isabel Everard.

Secretly Dinah had dreaded their meeting, fearing that innate antagonism which her mother invariably seemed to cherish against the upper cla.s.s.

But within a quarter of an hour of their meeting she was aware of a change of att.i.tude, a quenching of the hostile element, a curious and wholly new sensation of peace.

For though Isabel's regal carriage and low, musical voice, marked her as one of the hated species, her gentleness banished all impression of pride. She treated Dinah's mother with an a.s.sumption of friendliness that had in it no trace of condescension, and she was so obviously sincere in her wish to establish a cordial relation that it was impossible to remain ungracious.

"I can't feel that we are strangers," she said, with her rare smile when Dinah had departed to fetch the tea. "Your little Dinah has done so much for me--more than I can ever tell you. That I am to have her for a sister seems almost too good to be true."

"I wonder you think she's good enough," remarked Mrs. Bathurst in her blunt way. "She isn't much to look at. I've done my best to bring her up well, but I never thought of her turning into a fine lady. I question if she's fit for it."

"If she were a fine lady, I don't think I should think so highly of her,"

Isabel said gently. "But as to her being unfit to fill a high position, she is only inexperienced and she will learn very quickly. I am willing to teach her all in my power."

"Aye, learn to despise her mother," commented Mrs. Bathurst, with sudden bitterness, "after all the trouble I've taken to make her respect me."

"I should never teach her that," Isabel answered quietly. "And I am sure that she would be quite incapable of learning it. Mrs. Bathurst, do you really think that worldly position is a thing that greatly matters to anyone in the long run? I don't."

It was then that a faint, half-grudging admiration awoke in the elder woman's resentful soul, and she looked at Isabel with the first glimmer of kindliness. "You're right," she said slowly, "it don't matter to those who've got it. But to those who haven't--" her eyes glowed red for a moment--"you don't know how it galls," she said.

And then she flushed dully, realizing that she had made a confidante of one of the hated breed.

But Isabel's hand was on hers in a moment; her eyes, full of understanding, looked earnest friends.h.i.+p into hers. "Oh, I know," she said. "It is the little things that gall us all, until--until some great--some fundamental--sorrow wrenches our very lives in twain. And then--and then--one can almost laugh to think one ever cared about them."

Her voice throbbed with feeling. She had lifted the veil for a moment to salve the other woman's bitterness.

And Mrs. Bathurst realized it, and was touched. "Ah! You've suffered,"

she said.

Isabel bent her head. "But it is over," she said. "I married a man who, they said, was beneath me. But--G.o.d knows--he was above me--in every way.

And then--I lost him." Her voice sank.

Mrs. Bathurst's hand came down with a clumsy movement upon hers. "He died?" she said.

"Yes." Almost in a whisper Isabel made answer. "For years I would not face it--would not believe it. He went from me so suddenly--oh, G.o.d, so suddenly--" a tremor of anguish sounded in the low words; but in a moment she raised her head, and her eyes were s.h.i.+ning with a brightness that no pain could dim. "It is over," she said. "It is quite, quite over. My night is past and can never come again. I am waiting now for the full day. And I know that I have not very long to wait. I have not seen him--no, I have not seen him. But--twice now--I have heard his voice."

"Poor soul! Poor soul!" said Mrs. Bathurst.

It was all the sympathy she could express; but it came from her heart.

She no longer regretted her own burst of confidence. The spontaneous answer that it had evoked had had a magically softening effect upon her.

In all her life no one had ever charmed her thus. She was astonished herself at the melting of her hardness.

"You've suffered worse than I have," she said, "for I never cared for any man like that. I was let down badly when I was a girl, and I've never had any opinion of any of 'em since. My husband's all right, so far as he goes. But he isn't the sort of man to wors.h.i.+p. Precious few of 'em are."

Whereat Isabel laughed, a soft, sad laugh. "That is why worldly position matters so little," she said. "If by chance the right man really comes, nothing else counts. He is just everything."

"Maybe you're right," said Mrs. Bathurst, with gloomy acquiescence.

"Anyhow, it isn't for me to say you're wrong."

And this was why when Dinah brought in the tea, she found a wholly new element in the atmosphere, and missed the customary sharp rebuke from her mother's lips when she had to go back for the sugar-tongs.

She had been disappointed that her friend Scott had not been of the party. Isabel's explanation that he had gone home at Eustace's wish to attend to some business had not removed an odd little hurt sense of having been defrauded. She had counted upon seeing Scott that day. It was almost as if he had failed her when she needed him, though why she seemed to need him she could not have said, nor could he possibly have known that she would do so.

Sir Eustace was in her father's den. She was sure that they were getting on very well together from the occasional bursts of laughter with which their conversation was interspersed. They were not apparently sticking exclusively to business. And now that Isabel had won her mother, deeply though she rejoiced over the conquest, she felt a little--a very little--forlorn. They were all talking about her, but if Scott had been there he would have talked to her and made her feel at ease. She could not understand his going, even at his brother's behest. It seemed incredible that he should not want to see her home.

She sat meekly in the background, thinking of him, while she drank her tea; and then, just as she finished, there came the sound of voices at the door, and her father and Sir Eustace came in. They were laughing still. Evidently the result of the interview was satisfactory to both.

Sir Eustace greeted his hostess with lofty courtesy, and pa.s.sed on straight to her side.

She turned and tingled at his approach; he was looking more princely than ever. Instinctively she rose.

"What do you want to get up for?" demanded her mother sharply.

Sir Eustace reached his little trembling _fiancee_, and took the eager hand she stretched to him. His blue eyes flashed their fierce flame over her upturned, quivering face. "Take me into the kitchen--anywhere!" he murmured. "I want you to myself."

She nodded. "Don't you want any tea? All right. Dad doesn't either. I'll clear away."

"No, you don't!" her mother said. "You sit down and behave yourself!

You'll clear when I tell you to; not before."

Sir Eustace wheeled round to her, the flame of his look turning to ice.

"With your permission, madam," he said with extreme formality, "Dinah and I are going to retire to talk things over."

He had his way. It was obvious that he meant to have it. He motioned to Dinah with an imperious gesture to precede him, and she obeyed, not daring to glance in her mother's direction.

Mrs. Bathurst said no more. Something in Sir Eustace's bearing seemed to quell her. She watched him go with eyes that shone with a hot resentment under drawn brows. It took Isabel's utmost effort to charm her back to a mood less hostile.

As for Dinah, she led her _fiance_ back to her father's den in considerable trepidation. To be compelled to resist her mother's will was a state of affairs that filled her with foreboding.

But the moment she was alone with him she forgot all but the one tremendous fact of his presence, for with the closing of the door he had her in his arms.

She clung to him desperately close, feeling as one struggling in deep waters, caught in a great current that would bear her swiftly, irresistibly,--whither?

He laughed at her trembling with careless amus.e.m.e.nt. "What, still scared, my brown elf? Where is your old daring? Aren't you allowed to have any spirit at all in this house?"

She answered him incoherently, straining to keep her face hidden out of reach of his upturning hand. "No,--no, it's not that. You don't understand. It's all so new--so strange. Eustace, please--please, don't kiss me yet!"

He laughed again, but he did not press her for the moment. "Your father and I have had no end of a talk," he said. "Do you know what has come of it? Would you like to know?"

"Yes," she murmured shyly.

He was caressing the soft dark ringlets that cl.u.s.tered about her neck.

"About getting married, little sweetheart," he said. "You want to get it over quickly and so do I. There's no reason why we shouldn't in fact. How about the beginning of next month? How about April?"

"Oh, Eustace!" She clung to him closer still; she had no words. But still that sense of being caught, of being borne against her will, possessed her, filling her with dread rather than ecstasy. Whither was she going?

Ah, whither?