At that the gay din redoubled, but Flora, with the little grandmother vainly gripping her arms, flashed between the two.
"Anna!" she cried, "I don"t bil-ieve!"
Whether it was true or false Mandeville cared nothing, but--"Yes, "tis true!" he cried in Flora"s face, and then to the detective--"Doubtlezz to phot-ograph it that"s all you want!"
The detective said little, but Anna a.s.sured Flora that was all. "He wants to show it at the trial!"
"Listen!" said Flora.
"Here"s Captain Irby!" cried Mrs. Callender--Constance--half a dozen, but--
"Listen!" repeated Flora, and across the curtained veranda and in at the open windows, under the general clamor, came a soft palpitating rumble. Did Hilary hear it, too? He was calling:
"Adolphe, where"s your man--the minister? Where in the--three parishes--?" and others were echoing, "The minister! where"s the minister?"
Had they also caught the sound?
"Isn"t he here?" asked Irby. He drew his watch.
"Half-hour slow!" cried Mandeville, reading it.
"But have you heard noth--?"
"Nothingg!" roared Mandeville.
"Where"d you leave him?" sharply asked Kincaid.
His cousin put on great dignity: "At his door, my dear sir, waiting for the cab I sent him."
"Oh, sent!" cried half the group. "Steve," called Kincaid, "your horse is fresh--"
"But, alas, without wings!" wailed the Creole, caught Hilary"s shoulder and struck a harkening pose.
"Too late!" moaned Flora to the detective, Madame to Constance and Miranda, and the battery lads to their girls, from whose hands they began to wring wild good-byes as a peal of fifes and drums heralded the oncome of the departing regiment.
Thus Charlie Valcour found the company as suddenly he reappeared in it, pushing in to the main group where his leader stood eagerly engaged with Anna.
"All right, Captain!" He saluted: "All done!" But a fierce anxiety was on his brow and he gave no heed to Hilary"s dismissing thanks: "Captain, what"s "too late"?" He turned, scowling, to his sister: "What are we too late for, Flo? Good G.o.d! not the wedding? Not your wedding, Miss Anna? It"s not too late. By Jove, it sha"n"t be too late."
All the boyish lawlessness of his nature rose into his eyes, and a boy"s tears with it. "The minister!" he retorted to Constance and his grandmother, "the minister be--Oh, Captain, don"t wait for him! Have the thing without a minister!"
The whole room was laughing, Hilary loudest, but the youth"s voice prevailed. "It"ll hold good!" He turned upon the detective: "Won"t it?"
A merry nod was the reply, with cries of "Yes," "Yes," from the battery boys, and he clamored on:
"Why, there"s a kind of people--"
"Quakers!" sang out some one.
"Yes, the Quakers! Don"t they do it all the time! Of course they do!" With a smile in his wet eyes the lad wheeled upon Victorine: "Oh, by S"n" Peter! if that was the only--"
But the small, compelling hand of the detective faced him round again and with a sudden swell of the general laugh he laughed too. "He"s trying to behave like Captain Kincaid," one battery sister tried to tell another, whose attention was on a more interesting matter.
"Here!" the gray man was amiably saying to Charlie. "It"s your advice that"s too late. Look."
Before he had half spoken a hush so complete had fallen on the company that while every eye sought Hilary and Anna every ear was aware that out on the levee road the pa.s.sing drums had ceased and the bra.s.s--as if purposely to taunt the theatrical spirit of Flora--had struck up The Ladies" Man. With military curtness Kincaid was addressing the score or so of new cannoneers:
"Corporal Valcour, this squad--no, keep your partners, but others please stand to the right and left--these men are under your command. When I presently send you from here you"ll take them at a double-quick and close up with that regiment. I"ll be at the train when you reach it. Captain Mandeville,"--he turned to the married pair, who were hurriedly scanning the license Miranda had just handed them,--"I adjure you as a true and faithful citizen and soldier, and you, madam, as well, to testify to us, all, whether that is or is not the license of court for the marriage of Anna Callender to Hilary Kincaid."
"It is!" eagerly proclaimed the pair.
"Hand it, please, to Charlie. Corporal, you and your men look it over."
"And now--" His eyes swept the throng. Anna"s hand, trembling but ready, rose shoulder-high in his. He noted the varied expressions of face among the family servants hurriedly gathering in the doors, and the beautiful amaze of Flora, so genuine yet so well acted. Radiantly he met the flushed gaze of his speechless cousin. "If any one alive," he cried, "knows any cause why this thing should not be, let him now speak or forever hereafter hold his peace." He paused. Constance handed something to her husband.
"Oh, go on," murmured Charlie, and many smiled.
"Soldiers!" resumed the lover, "this fair G.o.dmother of your flag agrees that for all we two want just now Kincaid"s Battery is minister enough. For all we want is--" Cheers stopped him.
"The prayer-book!" put in Mandeville, pushing it at him. The boys harkened again.
"No," said Kincaid, "time"s too short. All we want is to bind ourselves, before Heaven and all mankind, in holy wedlock, for better, or worse, till death us do part. And this we here do in sight of you all, and in the name and sight and fear of G.o.d." He dropped his glance to Anna"s: "Say Amen."
"Amen," said Anna. At the same moment in one of the doors stood a courier.
"All right!" called Hilary to him. "Tell your colonel we"re coming! Just a second more, Captain Irby, if you please. Soldiers!--I, Hilary, take thee, Anna, to be my lawful wedded wife. And you--"
"I, Anna," she softly broke in, "take thee, Hilary, to be my--" She spoke the matter through, but he had not waited.
"Therefore!" he cried, "you men of Kincaid"s Battery--and you, sir,--and you,"--nodding right and left to Mandeville and the detective,--"on this our solemn pledge to supply as soon as ever we can all form of law and social usage here omitted which can more fully solemnize this union--do now--"
Up went the detective"s hand and then Mandeville"s and all the boys", and all together said:
"p.r.o.nounce you man and wife."
"Go!" instantly rang Kincaid to Charlie, and in a sudden flutter of gauzes and clink of trappings, with wringing of soft fingers by hard ones, and in a tender clamor of ba.s.s and treble voices, away sprang every cannoneer to knapsacks and sabres in the hall, and down the outer stair into ranks and off under the stars at double-quick. Sisters of the battery, gliding out to the veranda rail, faintly saw and heard them a precious moment longer as they sped up the dusty road. Then Irby stepped quickly out, ran down the steps, mounted and galloped. A far rumble of wheels told the coming of two omnibuses chartered to bear the dancers all, with the Valcours and the detective, to their homes. Now out to the steps came Mandeville. His wife was with him and the maidens kindly went in. There the detective joined them. At a hall door Hilary was parting with Madame, Flora, Miranda. Anna was near him with Flora"s arm about her in melting fondness. Now Constance rejoined the five, and now Hilary and Anna left the other four and pa.s.sed slowly out to the garden stair alone.
Beneath them there, with welcoming notes, his lone horse trampled about the hitching-rail. Dropping his cap the master folded the bride"s hands in his and pressed on them a long kiss. The pair looked deeply into each other"s eyes. Her brow drooped and he laid a kiss on it also. "Now you must go," she murmured.
"My own beloved!" was his response. "My soul"s mate!" He tried to draw her, but she held back.
"You must go," she repeated.
"Yes! kiss me and I fly." He tried once more to draw her close, but still in vain.
"No, dearest," she whispered, and trembled. Yet she clutched his imprisoning fingers and kissed them. He hugged her hands to his breast.
"Oh, Hilary," she added, "I wish I could! But--don"t you know why I can"t? Don"t you see?"