The Coryston Family Part 19

"Yes. Can you manage that stile?"

Marcia tripped over it, scorning his help. But her thoughts were busy with the distant figure. Mrs. Betts, no doubt; the cause of all the trouble and talk in the neighborhood, and the occasion of Corry's outrageous letter to Lord William.

"I think I ought to tell you," she said, stopping, with a look of perplexity, "that Corry is sure to come and talk to me--about that story. I don't think I can prevent him."

"Won't you hand him on to me? It is really not a story for your ears."

He spoke gravely.

"I'm afraid Cony would call that s.h.i.+rking. I--I think perhaps I had better have it out with him--myself. I remember all you said to me!"

"I only want to save you." His expression was troubled, but not without a certain touch of sternness that she perceived. He changed the subject immediately, and they walked on rapidly toward the garden.

Lady William first perceived them--perceived, too, that they were hand in hand. She broke off her chat with Sir Wilfrid Bury under the limes, and rising in sudden agitation she hurried across the lawn to her husband.

The Dean and Sir Louis Ford had been discussing Woman Suffrage over their cigarettes, and Sir Louis, who was a stout opponent, had just delivered himself of the frivolous remark--in answer to some plea of the Dean's on behalf of further powers for the female s.e.x:

"Oh, no doubt, somewhere between the Harem and the Woolsack, it will be necessary to draw the line!"--when they too caught sight of the advancing figures.

The Dean's eyebrows went up. A smile, most humorous and human, played over his round cheeks and b.u.t.ton mouth.

"Have they drawn it? Looks like it!" he said, under his breath.

"Eh!--what?" Sir Louis, the most incorrigible of elderly gossips, eagerly put up his eyegla.s.s. "Do you suspect anything?"

Five persons were presently gathered in the library, and Marcia was sitting with her hand in Lady William's. Everybody except Lady Coryston was in a happy agitation, and trying to conceal it. Even Lord William, who was not without his doubts and qualms, was deeply moved, and betrayed a certain moisture in his eyes, as he concluded his old world speech of welcome and blessing to his son's betrothed. Only Lady Coryston preserved an unbroken composure. She was indeed quite satisfied. She had kissed her daughter and given her consent without the smallest demur, and she had conveyed both to Newbury and his father in a few significant words that Marcia's portion would be worthy of their two families. But the day's event was already thrust aside by her burning desire to get hold of Sir Louis Ford before dinner, and to extract from him the latest and most confidential information that a member of the Opposition could bestow as to the possible date for the next general election. Marcia's affair was thoroughly nice and straightforward--just indeed what she had expected. But there would be plenty of time to talk about it after the Hoddon Grey visit was over; whereas Sir Louis was a rare bird not often to be caught.

"My dear," said Lord William in his wife's ear, "Perry must be informed of this. There must be some mention of it in our service to-night."

She a.s.sented. Newbury, however, who was standing near, caught the remark, and looked rather doubtfully at the speaker.

"You think so, father?"

"Certainly, my dear son, certainly."

Neither Marcia nor her mother heard. Newbury approached his betrothed, but perceived that there was no chance of a private word with her. For by this time other guests had been summoned to receive the great announcement, and a general flutter of laughter and congratulations was filling the room.

The Dean, who had had his turn with Marcia, and was now turning over books, looked at her keenly from time to time.

"A face," he thought, "of much character, promising developments. Will she fit herself to this medieval household? What will they make of her?"

Sir Louis, after paying his respects and expressing his good wishes to the betrothed pair, had been resolutely captured by Lady Coryston. Lord William had disappeared.

Suddenly into the talk and laughter there struck the sound of a loud and deep-toned bell. Lady William stood up with alacrity. "Dear me!--is it really chapel-time? Lady Coryston, will you come?"

Marcia's mother, her face stiffening, rose unwillingly.

"What are we supposed to do?" asked the Dean, addressing Newbury.

"We have evensong in chapel at seven," said Newbury. "My father set up the custom many years ago. It gathers us all together better than evening prayer after dinner."

His tone was simple and matter-of-fact. He turned radiantly to Marcia, and took her hand again. She followed him in some bewilderment, and he led her through the broad corridor which gave access to the chapel.

"Rather unusual, this, isn't it?" said Sir Louis Ford to Lady Coryston as they brought up the rear. His face expressed a certain restrained amus.e.m.e.nt. If there was a convinced agnostic in the kingdom it was he. But unlike the woman at his side he could always take a philosophical interest in the religious customs of his neighbors.

"Most unusual!" was the emphatic reply. But there was no help for it. Lady Coryston followed, w.i.l.l.y-nilly.

Marcia, meanwhile, was only conscious of Newbury. As they entered the chapel together she saw his face transfigured. A mystical "recollection,"

shutting him away completely from the outside world, sweeping like a sunlit cloud even between himself and her, possessed it. She felt suddenly forsaken--altogether remote from him.

But he led her on, and presently they were kneeling together under a great crucifix of primitive Italian work, while through the dusk of the May evening gleamed the lamps of the chapel, and there arose on all sides of her a murmur of voices repeating the Confession. Marcia was aware of many servants and retainers; and she could see the soldierly form of Lord William kneeling in the distance, with Lady William beside him. The chapel seemed to her large and splendid. It was covered with painting and mosaic; and she felt the sharp contrast between it and the simple bareness of the house to which it was attached.

"What does all this mean?" she seemed to be asking herself. "What does it mean for _me_? Can I play my part in it?"

What had become of that early antagonism and revolt which she had expressed to "Waggin"? It had not protected her in the least from Newbury's growing ascendancy! She was indeed astonished at her own pliancy! In how short a time had she allowed Newbury's spell upon her to drive her earlier vague fears of his surroundings and traditions out of her mind!

And now it returned upon her intensified--that cold, indefinite fear, creeping through love and joy.

She turned again to look beseechingly at Newbury. But it seemed to her that she was forgotten. His eyes were on the altar--absorbed.

And presently, aghast, she heard her own name! In the midst of the General Thanksgiving, at the point where mention may be made of individual cases, the Chaplain suddenly paused to give thanks in a voice that possessed a natural and slightly disagreeable tremor, for the "happy betrothal of Edward Newbury and Marcia Coryston."

An audible stir and thrill ran through the chapel, subsiding at once into a gulf of intense silence. Marcia bowed her head with the rest; but her cheeks burned, and not only with a natural shyness. The eyes of all these kneeling figures seemed to be upon her, and she shrank under them. "I ought to have been asked," she thought, resentfully. "I ought to have been asked!"

When they left the chapel, Newbury, pale and smiling, bent over her appealingly.

"Darling!--you didn't mind?"

She quickly withdrew her hand from his.

"Don't you dine at half past eight? I really must go and dress."

And she hurried away, without waiting for him to guide her through the unknown house. Breathlessly she ran up-stairs and found her room. The sight of her maid moving about, of the lights on the dressing-table, of the roses, and her dress laid out upon the bed, brought her sudden and unspeakable relief. The color came back to her cheeks, she began to chatter to her maid about everything and nothing--laughing at any trifle, and yet feeling every now and then inclined to cry. Her maid dressed her in pale pink and told her plainly when the last hook was fastened and the last string tied that she had never looked better.

"But won't you put on these roses, miss?"

She pointed to the bunch that Lady William had gathered.

Marcia pinned them into her belt, and stood a moment looking at her reflection in the gla.s.s. Not in mere girlish vanity! Something much stronger and profounder entered in. She seemed to be measuring her resources against some hostile force--to be saying to herself:

"Which of us is to yield? Perhaps not I!"

Yet as soon as Marcia entered the drawing-room, rather late, to find all the party a.s.sembled, the tension of her mood dropped, thawed by the sheer kindness and good will of the people round her. Lord William was resplendent in a b.u.t.ton-hole and new dress-clothes; Lady William had put on her best gown and some family jewels that never saw the light except on great occasions; and when Marcia entered, the friendly affectionate looks that greeted her on all sides set her blus.h.i.+ng once more, and shamed away the hobgoblins that had been haunting her. She was taken in to dinner by Lord William and treated as a queen. The table in the long, low dining-room shone with flowers and some fine old silver which the white-haired butler had hurriedly produced from the family store. Beside Marcia's plate lay a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley which the no less ancient head gardener had gathered and tied with a true-lover's knot, in the interval between chapel and dinner. And opposite to her sat the man she was to marry, composed and gay, careful to spare his betrothed embarra.s.sment, ready to talk politics with Sir Louis Ford and cathedral music with the Dean; yet, through it all, so radiantly and transparently happy that his father and mother, at any rate, could not look at him without melting memories of their own youth, which sometimes, and for a moment, made talk difficult.

After dinner Sir Wilfrid Bury found Lady Coryston in a secluded corner, deep in the evening papers which had just arrived. He sat down beside her.

"Well, how are you feeling?"