Lake, who had dropped in--we amused ourselves with music and games in the other room.
"What do you think of the bridegroom, Johnny Ludlow?" suddenly demanded Miss Cattledon, who had sat down by me. "I hear you saw him at Malvern."
"Think of him! Oh, he--he is a very fine man; good-looking, and all that."
"That I have seen for myself," retorted Cattledon, pinching her hands round her thin waist. "When he was staying in London, two or three weeks ago, we spent an evening in Gloucester Place. Do you _like_ him?"
She put the "like" so very pointedly, staring into my face at the time, that I was rather taken aback. I did _not_ like Captain Foliott: but there was no particular necessity for telling her so.
"I like him--pretty well, Miss Cattledon."
"Well, I do not, Johnny Ludlow. I fancy he has a temper; I"m sure he is not good-natured; and I--I don"t think he"ll make a very good husband."
"That will be a pity. Helen is fond of him."
Miss Cattledon coughed significantly. "Is she? Helen is fond of him in-so-far as that she is eager to be married--all girls are--and the match with Captain Foliott is an advantageous one. But if you think she cares for him in any other way, Johnny Ludlow, you are quite mistaken.
Helen Whitney is no more in love with Captain Foliott than you are in love with me."
At which I laughed.
"Very few girls marry for love," she went on. "They fall in love, generally speaking, with the wrong person."
"Then what do they marry for?"
"For the sake of being married. With the fear of old-maidism staring them in the face, they are ready, silly things, to snap at almost any offer they receive. Go up to Helen Whitney now, tell her she is destined to live in single blessedness, and she would be ready to fret herself into a fever. Every girl would not be, mind you: but there are girls and girls."
Well, perhaps Miss Cattledon was not far wrong. I did not think as she did then, and laughed again in answer: but I have learned more of the world and its ways since.
In every corner of the house went Helen"s eyes when we got back to Gloucester Place, but they could not see Captain Foliott. She had been hoping against hope.
III.
Wednesday. Young women, bringing in huge band-boxes, were perpetually ringing at the door, and by-and-by we were treated to a sight of the finery. Sufficient gowns and bonnets to set up a shop were spread out in Helen"s room. The wedding-dress lay on the bed: a glistening white silk, with a veil and wreath beside it. Near to it was the dress she would go away in to Dover, the first halting-place on their trip to Paris: a quiet shot-silk, Lady Whitney called it, blue one way, pink another.
Shot, or not shot, it was uncommonly pretty. Straw bonnets were the mode in those days, and Helen"s, perched above her travelling-dress, had white ribbons on it and a white veil--which was the mode for brides also. I am sure Helen, in her vanity, thought more of the things than of the bridegroom.
But she thought of him also. Especially when the morning went on and did not bring him. Twelve o"clock struck, and Sir John Whitney"s solicitor, Mr. Hill, who had come up on purpose, was punctual to his appointment.
Sir John had thought it right that his own solicitor should be present at the reading and signing of the settlements, to see that they were drawn up properly.
So there they sat in the back-parlour, which had been converted into a business room for the occasion, waiting for Captain Foliott and the deed with what patience they had. At one o"clock, when they came in to luncheon, Sir John was looking a little blue; and he remarked that Captain Foliott, however busy he might have been, should have stretched a point to get off in time. Appointments, especially important ones, ought to be kept.
For it was conclusively thought that the delay was caused by the captain"s having been unable to leave the previous day, and that he was travelling up now.
So Mr. Hill waited, and Sir John waited, and the rest of us waited, Helen especially; and thus the afternoon pa.s.sed in waiting. Helen was more fidgety than a hen with one chick: darting to the window every instant, peeping down the staircase at the sound of every ring.
Dinner-time; and no appearance of Captain Foliott. After dinner; and still the same. Mary Seabright, a merry girl, told Helen that her lover was like the knight in the old ballad--he loved and he rode away. There was a good deal of laughing, and somebody called for the song, "The Mistletoe Bough." Of course it was all in jest: as each minute pa.s.sed, we expected the next would bring Captain Foliott.
Not until ten o"clock did Mr. Hill leave, with the understanding that he should return the next morning at the same hour. The servants were beginning to lay the breakfast-table in the dining-room, for a lot of sweet dishes had been brought in from the pastry-cook"s, and Lady Whitney thought they had better be put on the table at once. In the afternoon we had tied the cards together--"Mr. and Mrs. Richard Foliott"--with white satin ribbon, sealed them up in their envelopes with white wax, and directed them ready for the post on the morrow.
At twelve o"clock a move was made to go upstairs to bed; and until that hour we had still been expecting Captain Foliott.
"I feel positive some dreadful accident has happened," whispered Helen to me as she said good-night, her usually bright colour faded to paleness. "If I thought it was carelessness that is causing the delay, as they are cruelly saying, I--I should never forgive him."
"Wait a minute," said Bill to me aside, touching Tod also. "Let them go on."
"Are you not coming, William?" said Lady Whitney.
"In two minutes, mother."
"I don"t like this," began Bill, speaking to us both over our bed-candles, for the other lights were out. "I"ll be hanged if I think he means to turn up at all!"
"But why should he not?"
"Who is to know? Why has he not turned up already? I can tell you that it seems to me uncommonly strange. Half-a-dozen times to-night I had a great mind to call my father out and tell him about what you heard in the train, Tod. It is so extraordinary for a man, coming up to his wedding, not to appear: especially when he is bringing the settlements with him."
Neither of us spoke. What, indeed, could we say to so unpleasant a topic? Bill went on again.
"If he were a man in business, as his uncle, old Foliott, is, I could readily understand that interests connected with it might detain him till the last moment. But he is not; he has not an earthly thing to do."
"Perhaps his lawyers are in fault," cried Tod. "If they are backward with the deeds of settlement----"
"The deeds were ready a week ago. Foliott said so in writing to my father."
A silence ensued, rendering the street noises more audible. Suddenly there came a sound of a horse and cab dashing along, and it pulled up at our door. Foliott, of course.
Down we went, helter-skelter, out on the pavement. The servants, busy in the dining-room still, came running to the steps. A gentleman, getting out of the cab with a portmanteau, stared, first at us, then at the house.
"This is not right," said he to the driver, after looking about him.
"It"s next door but one."
"This is the number you told me, sir."
"Ah, yes. Made a mistake."
But so sure did it seem to us that this late and hurried traveller must be, at least, some one connected with Captain Foliott, if not himself, that it was only when he and his luggage had disappeared within the next house but one, and the door was shut, and the cab gone away, that we realized the disappointment, and the vague feeling of discomfort it left behind. The servants went in. We strolled to the opposite side of the street, unconsciously hoping that luck might bring another cab with the right man in it.
"Look there!" whispered Bill, pointing upwards.
The room over the drawing-room was Lady Whitney"s; the room above that, the girls". Leaning out at the window, gazing now up the street, now down, was Helen, her eyes restless, her face pale and woe-begone in the bright moonlight.
It was a sad night for Helen Whitney. She did not attempt to undress, as we knew later, but kept her post at that weary window. Every cab or carriage that rattled into view was watched by her with eager, feverish anxiety. But not one halted at the house, not one contained Captain Foliott. Helen Whitney will never forget that unhappy night of tumultuous feeling and its intolerable suspense.
But here was the wedding-morning come, and no bridegroom. The confectioners were rushing in with more dishes, and the dressmakers appearing to put the finishing touches to Helen. Lady Whitney was just off her head: doubtful whether to order all the paraphernalia away, or whether Captain Foliott might not come yet. In the midst of the confusion a little gentleman arrived at the house and asked for Sir John. Sir John and he had a long conference, shut in alone: and when they at length came out Sir John"s nose was a dark purple. The visitor was George Foliott, the mill-owner: returned since some days from the Cape.
And the tale he unfolded would have struck dismay to the nose of many a wiser man than was poor Sir John. The scamp spoken of in the train was Richard Foliott; and a nice scamp he turned out to be. Upon Mr.
Foliott"s return to Milltown the prospective wedding had come to his ears, with all the villainy encompa.s.sing it; he had at once taken means to prevent Mr. Richard"s carrying it out, and had now come up to enlighten Sir John Whitney.
Richard Foliott had been a scamp at heart from his boyhood; but he had contrived to keep well before the world. Over and over again had Mr.
Foliott paid his debts and set him on his legs again. Captain Foliott had told the Whitneys that he quitted the army by the wish of his friends: he quitted it because he dared not stay in. Before Mr. Foliott departed for the Cape he had thrown Richard off; had been obliged to do it. His fond foolish mother had reduced herself to poverty for him. The estate, once worth ten thousand pounds, which he had made a pretence of settling upon Helen, belonged to his mother, and was mortgaged about a dozen deep. He dared not go much abroad for fear of arrest, especially in London. This, and a great deal more, was disclosed by Mr. Foliott to Sir John; who sat and gasped, and rubbed his face, and wished his old friend Todhetley was at hand, and thanked G.o.d for Helen"s escape.