"Thoroughly, Harry."
"You know I love you with all my heart?"
"Yes, Harry," she replied, with her hands in his.
"Then you will not think me strange if I say to you I don"t want to be married yet?"
"N-no," said Cynthia, with just a suspicion of hesitation.
"Then I"m going to speak out plainly, darling. I"m stupid in some things, but I"m as sharp as a needle concerning anything about you, and I couldn"t help seeing that the Rector and mamma thought that our wedding might take place at the same time as Julia"s."
"Ye-es," faltered Cynthia.
"Well, then," said Artingale, "I would rather for several reasons it did not."
He waited for a few moments, but Cynthia did not speak.
"I"m not going to talk nonsense about being like brothers," he continued, "and loving James Magnus; but, Cynthy, dear, I never yet met a man whom I liked half so well, and--and I"d do anything for poor old Jemmy. Well," he continued, "for one thing, it seems horrible to me to make that the happiest day of my life which will be like that which kills his last hope."
Cynthia did not speak, but nestled closely to him.
"Then it gives me a sensation like having a cold douche to think of going up the church with that fellow, for I know he"ll be dressed up like a figure in an old picture, with his sisters and friends like so many animated pre-Raphaelites in an idyllic procession attending the funeral of a fay."
"I say, Harry," cried Cynthia, "that"s not your language, sir. Where did you pick it up?"
"Oh, out of Perry-Morton"s new poems, as he called them. "Pon my word, you know, I should feel as if it was a sort of theatrical performance.
Oh, Cynthy, I should like to have you in white, and take you by the hand, and walk into some out-of-the-way little church in the country, where there was a nice, pleasant old parson, who"d read the service and say G.o.d bless us both; and then for us to go away--right away, where all was green fields and flowers, and birds singing, and all the confounded nonsense and fuss and foolery of a fashionable wedding was out of my sight; and Cynthy, darling, let"s make a runaway match of it, and go and be married to-morrow--to-day--now; or let"s wait till poor Julia has been sold. There, pet, hang it all! it makes me wild."
He jumped up and began to pace the room, and Cynthia went up to him and put her arm through his.
"Harry, dear," she said softly, "you"ve made me very happy by what you have told me. Let"s wait, dear. I should not like to be married then.
I should like--should like--" she faltered, with her pretty little face burning--"our wedding to be all happiness and joy; and on the day when Julia is married to Perry-Morton, I shall cry ready to break my heart."
PART TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE.
LAMBENT LOVE.
A certain small world, of which Mr Perry-Morton was one of the shining lights, was deeply agitated, moved to its very volcanic centre, and gave vent to spasmodic utterances respecting the approaching marriage of their apostle to Julia, eldest daughter of the Rev Eli Mallow, Rector of Lawford. There were no less than four paragraphs in as many papers concerning the bride"s _parure_ and _trousseau_, and the presents she was receiving.
"But I thought it would have excited more notice," said the Rev Eli, mildly, after a discussion with the invalid, wherein he had firmly maintained his intention not to invite Cyril and his wife to the wedding.
The papers devoted to art gave a description of the interior of Mr Perry-Morton"s new mansion in Westminster, and dwelt at great length upon the artistic furnishing, and the additions being made of art tapestry, carpets, and curtains manufactured by the well-known firm of Gimpsley and Stough, from the designs of Smiless, A.R.A., and the wealthy bridegroom himself. The golden beetle conventionally treated was the leading _motif_ in all the designs, and a yellow silk of a special orange-golden hue had been prepared for the purpose, the aniline dye being furnished by Judd, Son and Company. The carpets were so designed that on at-home nights the guests would be standing in the midst of gorgeous bugs, as an American friend termed them--beetles whose wings seemed to be moving beneath the feet of those who trod thereon.
But the great feature of the salon was the central ottoman, which was a conventional rendering of a bank of flowers supporting golden beetles, amidst which were a few places upon which the so-inclined might rest and fancy the insects were alive.
Columns of chat were written in praise of Perry-Morton and his place, and copies of the papers in which they were, somehow found their way into a great many houses through the length and breadth of the land.
There was only one drawback to the joys of the stained-gla.s.s sisters, as they showed their friends through the house, and posed in graceful att.i.tudes all over the carpets and against the hangings, in whose folds they almost wrapped themselves in their sweetly innocent delight--there was only one drawback, and that was, that another season was gliding by, and they were still on the matrimonial house-agents" books--these two eligible artistic _cottages ornees_ to let.
Stay: there was another drawback. When dear Perry was married they would have to go, for unless dearest Julia pressed them very, very much indeed to continue their residence there, of course they could not stay.
These were busy times for Perry-Morton, who, in addition to the almost herculean labours which he went through in planning and designing, so as to make his home worthy of his G.o.ddess, had to beam every evening in Parkleigh Gardens.
This beaming was a very beautiful performance. Some men love with their eyes and look languishing, dart pa.s.sionate glances, or seem to ask questions or sympathy from the fair one of their worship. Others, more manly and matter-of-fact, love with their tongues, and if clever in the use of this speaking organ, these generally woo and win, for most women love to be conquered by one who is their master in argument and pleading. There are others, again, who do not woo at all, but allow themselves to be fished for, hooked, and--and--what shall we say?
There--cooked, for there is no more expressive way of describing their fate.
But Perry-Morton was none of those. He was like the Archduke in the French comic opera, nothing unless he was original; and it was only reasonable to suppose that he would bring his great artistic mind to bear upon so important a part of his life as the choice of an Eve for his modern-antique paradise. He did his wooing, then, in a way of his own, and came nightly to beam upon the object of his worship.
This he did in att.i.tudes of his own designing, while Cynthia felt as if, to use her own words, she should like to stick pins in the man"s back.
For Perry-Morton"s love seemed to emanate from him in a phosph.o.r.escent fashion. He became lambent with softly luminous smiles. His plump face shone with a calm ethereal satisfaction, and of all men in the world he seemed most happy.
He did not trouble Julia much, only with his presence. He would lay a finger on the back of her chair, and pose himself like a sculptor"s idea of one of the fat G.o.ds in the Greek Pantheon--say Bacchus, before too much grape-juice had begun to interfere with the proper working of his digestive organs. Or before the first wanderings of his very severe attacks of D.T., which must have caused so much consternation and dismay in Olympus" pleasant groves, and bothered Aesculapius, who applied leeches, because he would not own to his ignorance of the new disease.
He never kissed Julia once, so Cynthia declared. It is open to doubt whether he ever pressed her hand. His was the kiss-the-hem-of-the-lady"s-garment style of love, and he once terribly alarmed Julia by gracefully reclining at her feet, with one arm resting upon a footstool, and gazing blandly in her face.
At other times he seemed to love her from a distance--getting into far-off corners of the room, and gazing from different points of view, standing, sitting, lying on sofas--always gracefully and in the most sculpturesque fashion. In fact, Artingale in great disgust wondered why he did not try standing on his head: but that was absurd.
As the day fixed for the wedding drew near, Perry-Morton was most regular in his visits--most devoted, and his lambent softness seemed to pervade the parental drawing-rooms.
Meanwhile Julia went about like one in a dream. She was less hysterical and timid than she had been for many weeks past, and finding that her lover troubled her so little, she bore his presence patiently, delighting him, as he confided to Cynthia, by her "heavenly calm."
"I don"t think she"s well," said Cynthia, shortly.
"Not well?" he said, with a pitying smile. "My sweet Cynthia, you cannot read her character as I read it. Do you not see how, for months past, our love has grown, rising like some lotus out from the cool depths of an Eastern lake till it has reached the surface, where it is about to unfold its petals to the glowing sun. Ah, my sweet child, you do not see how I have been forming her character, day by day, hour by hour, till she has reached to this sweet state of blissful repose. Look at her now."
This conversation was going on in the back drawing-room, on the evening preceding the wedding-day, every one being very tired of the visitors and congratulations, and present-giving, the Rector especially, and he confided to Mrs Mallow the fact that after all he would be very glad to get away back to Lawford and be at peace.
"Yes," said Cynthia, rather ill-humouredly, for Harry had not been there that evening, "I see her, and she looks very poorly."
"Poorly? Unwell? Nay," said Perry-Morton serenely, "merely in a beatific state of repose. Ah, Cynthia, my child, when she is my very own, and Claudine has imparted to her some of the riches of her own wisdom on the question of dress, I shall be a happy man."
Cynthia seemed to give every nerve in her little body a kind of s.n.a.t.c.h, but the lover did not perceive it; he only closed his eyes, walked to the half-pillar that supported the arch between the two rooms, leaned his shoulder against it, crossed his legs, gazed at poor listless Julia for a few moments from this point of view, and then turning his half-closed eyes upon Cynthia, beckoned to her softly to come.
"Oh," whispered the latter to herself, as she drew a long breath between her teeth, "I wish I were going to be married to him to-morrow instead of Julia. How I would bring him to his senses, or knock something into his dreadful head, or--there, I suppose I must go. Julia must be mad."
"Yes," she said, as she crossed to where her brother in prospective stood.
"There," he said; "look now. Could there be a sweeter ideal of perfect repose? Good--good night, dear Cynthia, I am going to steal away without a word to a soul. I would not break in upon her rapturous calm; and the memory of her sweet face, as I see it now, will soothe me during the long watches of the peaceful night. Good night, Cynthia. Ah, you should have changed names. Yonder is Cynthia in all her calm silvery beauty. Good night, sweet sister--good night--good night."
There was something very moonlike in his looks and ways as he softly stole from the room and out of the house, leaving Cynthia motionless with astonishment.
"I want to know," she said to herself at last, "whether those two are really going to be married to-morrow, or whether it is only a dream.
But there, I wash my hands of it all; I feel to-night as if I hate everybody--papa, mamma, Harry for not killing that horrible jelly-fish of a creature. Oh, he"s dreadful! And Julia, for letting herself be led as she is, when she might have married dear James Magnus, and been happy. No! poor girl, I must not blame her. She felt that she could not love him, and perhaps she is right."
"Good night, Julia darling; I"m going to bed," she whispered, and, seating herself by her sister, she clasped her waist, and placed her lips against her cheek.