Ralph Wilton's weird Part 25

"And may I not marry in gray; but if it is right I shall be very pleased to have a pretty new dress and bonnet; I have quite money enough, you know."

"Well, I must say it is aggravating that we can't have a regular spread, and carriages and favors; wouldn't that nasty, humbugging, stuck-up-thing, Mrs. Lewis, over the way, that is always insinuating that I haven't laid down new stair-carpeting because I couldn't spare the money--wouldn't she be ready to eat her own head off because she wouldn't be asked to step across?"

But in spite of Major Moncrief and Mrs. Kershaw, Ralph Wilton had his way, and they were married on the appointed day. The major was so far mollified that he stood by his favorite "boy" on the memorable occasion; nay, more, with some hesitation he produced a pair of lump gold ear-rings, largely sprinkled with turquoise, as a small and appropriate gift to his friend's bride, when, to the dismay of all present, it was found that the pretty little ears they were destined to adorn had never been pierced.

"It is no matter," said Ella, taking his hand in both hers, "I should rather keep them, just the very things you thought of, than let them be changed! You like me for his sake now; you may yet like me for myself."

To this the major gravely replied that he did not doubt it, and watched her with observant eyes during the ceremony. The keen old soldier was touched and impressed by the steady composure of her manner, the low, clear music of her firm tones. It seemed to him as if she had considered the value of each vow, and then took it willingly; he was surprised when the service was concluded, and he again took her hand to find that, although outwardly calm, she was trembling from head to foot.

They returned to Mrs. Kershaw's house, where that excellent housewife had provided a comfortable and appetizing luncheon--the major having the honor of escorting her back. "I can tell you, sir," he used to say in after-years, when recounting the episode, "I felt devilish queer when I handed the landlady into the brougham and took my place beside her. If she had been a buxom widow, or a gus.h.i.+ng spinster, I could have stood it better; but she was such a metallic female! her hair curled up so viciously, and there was such a suspicious, contemptuous twist in her nose, as if she was perpetually smelling a rat, that I was afraid to speak to her. I know I made an a.s.s of myself. I remember saying something about my friend's good luck, thinking to propitiate her, but she nearly snapped my head off, observing that time would show whether either of them was in luck or not."

The luncheon, however, was duly appreciated by the mollified major, Mrs.

Kershaw herself, and, we regret to add, the bridegroom, who was in radiant spirits. There was something contagious in his mood--something inspiriting in the joy that rioted in his bright brown eyes--even Mrs.

Kershaw lit up under his influence, and for awhile forgot the suspicious character of the human race. But the repast was soon over. Wilton was anxious to catch the tidal train, and Ella went obediently to don her bonnet and travelling-gear.

"Look at this, Moncrief," said Wilton, when they were alone, holding out a miniature in a slightly-faded morocco case; "it is a picture of Ella's father."

Moncrief scrutinized it with much interest. An exquisitely painted portrait, it represented a dreamy, n.o.ble face, dark as a Spaniard, with black-blue eyes, closely resembling his daughter's, a delicately-cut, refined mouth, unshaded by moustache, and a trifle too soft for a man; the turn of the head, the whole bearing more than conventionally aristocratic, picturesquely grand.

"There is no question about it, Wilton, this man looks every inch a gentleman. Have you any idea who the mother was?"

"Not the most remote. I do not think Ella has an idea herself; she says she had a charming picture of her mother, but it disappeared soon after they came to London, and she has never been able to find it. She has a box full of letters and papers up stairs, and, when we return, I shall look through them and try to trace her father's history, just to satisfy my sister and yourself. Ella will always be the same to me, ancestry or no ancestry."

"By-the-way, where are you going?" said the major.

"Oh! to Normandy--to a little out-of-the-way place within a few miles from A----, called Vigeres. There is very good salmon-fis.h.i.+ng in the neighborhood, and we shall be quiet."

"When shall you be back?"

"I cannot tell; I suppose I must not take more than six weeks' holiday."

"Well, I would not write to old St. George till you come back."

"I am not sure about that; I--"

"Here is Miss--I mean Mrs. Wilton," interrupted Moncrief.

With sweet, grave simplicity, Ella offered a parting kiss to her husband's friend. Mrs. Kershaw stepped jauntily to open the door. A hearty hand-pressure from Moncrief, whose rugged countenance was sorrowfully sympathetic, and the newly-wedded pair were away.

"Won't you step in, sir, and take another gla.s.s of wine?" said Mrs.

Kershaw, with startling hospitality, to the uneasy major, who felt in comparative captivity, and by no means equal to the occasion.

"No; I am much obliged to you," said the major, edging toward the door.

"A little bit of pigeon-pie, or a mouthful of cheese, or a drop of stout to wind up with," persisted Mrs. Kershaw. "You may say what you like, there's nothing picks you up like a drop of stout."

"No, I thank you; nothing more."

"I hope everything was to the colonel's satisfaction?" resumed Mrs.

Kershaw, with an angular smile.

"He would have been hard to please if he had not been satisfied,"

returned the major, with grovelling servility; and, taking up his hat, tried, by a flank movement, to get between the enemy and his line of retreat.

"I am sure he is a real gentleman, and knows how to behave as sich. It is a pleasure to deal with liberal, right-minded people, what isn't forever haggling over sixpences and s.h.i.+llings. But, between you and me, sir, though I am none of your soft-spoken, humbugging sort, I never did meet the match of Miss Ella--Mrs. Wilton, I mean--she is that good and steady, a wearin' of herself to the bone for any one that wants. And for all the colonel's a fine man, and a pleasant man, and an open-handed man, if ever he takes to worriting or bla'guarding, I would help her through the divorce-court with the last s.h.i.+lling that ever I've sc.r.a.ped together rising early and working hard; you mind that."

With these emphatic words, Mrs. Kershaw flung the door suddenly wide open, and the major, bowing, hastily shot into the street, with a rapidity more creditable to Mrs. Kershaw's eloquence than his own steadiness under fire.

CHAPTER XI.

Oh! the bliss of those early days! The strange sweetness of their new companions.h.i.+p! The weather, too, was propitious--balmy and mild, though spring was yet young, with unutterable freshness and hope in its breath and coloring. The delicious sense of safety from all intruders; the delight of being at home with Ella; of winning her complete confidence.

Never before had Wilton tasted the joy of a.s.sociating with a woman who was neither a toy nor a torment, but a true, though softer, comrade, whose every movement and att.i.tude charmed and satisfied his taste, and whose quick sense of beauty, of character, and of the droll sides of things, gave endless variety to their every-day intercourse.

Theirs was no mere fool's paradise of love and kisses. Sketching and fis.h.i.+ng, the days flew by. Wilton had decided that the little inn at Vigeres was too noisy and uncomfortable to be endured, and Ella had found lodgings in the house of a small proprietor, who sometimes accommodated lovers of the gentle craft, and, moreover, found favor in the eyes of the landlord and his bright-eyed, high-capped Norman cook and house-keeper, her fluent French and knowledge of foreign housewifery exciting admiration and respect. It was a straggling, gray-stone edifice, just outside the village, with a very untidy yard behind, and a less untidy garden in front, where a sun-dial, all mossed and lichen-covered, was half buried in great, tangled bushes of roses and fuchsias; on this a large, scantily-furnished _salon_ looked out, and beyond the garden on an undulating plain, with the sea and Mont St.

Michel in the blue distance, with a dark ma.s.s of forest on the uplands to the south--a wide stretch of country, ever changing its aspect, as the broad shadows of the slow or quick-sailing clouds swept over it, or the level rays of the gradually lengthening sunset bathed it with the peculiar yellow, golden spring light, so different from the rich red tinge of autumn. Winding round the base of the abrupt hill on which Vigeres, like so many Norman villages, was perched, was a tolerably large stream, renowned in the neighborhood, and, though left to take care of itself, still affording fair sport. It led away through a melancholy wood and some wide, unfenced pasturage, to the neglected grounds of a chateau, with the intendant of which, Wilton, aided by Ella, held many a long talk on farming, politics, and every subject under the sun.

These rambles had an inexpressible charm--a mingled sense of freedom and occupation. Then the repose of evening, as night closed in; the amus.e.m.e.nt of watching Ella at her work or drawing; to lead her on to unconsciously picturesque reminiscences; to compare their utterly different impressions and ideas--for Ella was not self-opinionated; though frank and individual, she was aware her convictions were but the echo of those she had heard all her life, and she listened with the deepest interest to her husband's, even while she did not agree. These pleasant communings were so new to Wilton, so different from all his former experience, that perhaps time has seldom sped on so lightly during a honeymoon. Ella was utterly unconventional, and yet a gentlewoman to the core, transparently candid, and, if such a term can be permitted, gifted with a n.o.ble homeliness that made affectation, or a.s.sumption, or unreality of any kind, impossible to her. Whether she made a vivid, free translation from some favorite Italian poet at Wilton's request, or took a lesson from him in tying flies, or gave him one in drawing, or dusted their sitting-room, or (as Wilton more than once found her) did some bit of special cooking in the big, brown kitchen, while Manon looked on, with her hands in her ap.r.o.n-pockets, talking volubly, she was always the same--quiet, earnest, doing her very best, with the inexpressible tranquillity of a single purpose. Then the shy tenderness and grace of her rare caresses--the delicate reserve that had always something yet to give, and which not even the terrible ordeal of wedded intimacy could scorch up--these were elements of an inexhaustible charm--at least to a man of Wilton's calibre.

It was evening--the evening of a very bright, clear day. Wilton had started early on a distant expedition, with a son of their host for a guide, and had returned to a late dinner. It had been too long a walk for Ella to undertake, and now she sat beside her husband under the window of their _salon_, in the violet-scented air of an April night, as it grew softly dusk. Wilton was enjoying pleasant rest, after just enough fatigue to make it welcome, and watching, with a lazy, luxurious sense of satisfaction, the movements of Ella's little deft fingers, as she twisted some red ribbon into an effective bow, and pinned it upon an edifice of lace, which Wilton could not quite make out.

"What can that thing be for, Ella? You are not going to wear it?" he asked, at last.

"Wear it? Oh, no! It is for Manon; she begged me to make her a Parisian cap. I advised her to keep to her charming Norman head-dress; but no!

Monsieur le Cure's house-keeper has a cap from Paris, and Manon is not to be outdone; so she gave me the lace, and I contributed the ribbon.

Do you know, this lace is very lovely? Look at it."

"I suppose it is; but I am glad to find you admire lace; I was afraid you were above dress."

"Indeed I am not; but I always liked--I had almost said loved--lace. I would prefer lace to jewels, if the choice were offered me. And then a hat or a bonnet is a source of joy, if they suit me."

"And we have been here nearly a month--"

"A month yesterday," observed Ella, softly, with a happy smile.

"Time pa.s.ses quickly in paradise," said Wilton, leaning caressingly toward his companion.--"But, I was going to say, we have been here a month, and you have never had a chance of shopping. It is a dear delight to shop, is it not?"

"I do not know," replied Ella, laughing, and turning her work to view it on all sides. "I never had any money to spend in shops."

"I should like to see you under fire--I mean in temptation. Suppose we go over to A---- for a day or two: that is the nearest approach to a dazzling scene we can manage?"

"As you like; but, dear Ralph"--looking wistfully out over the garden--"I love this place, and am loath to take even a day from the few that remain to us here. I suppose we must soon leave for London?"

"You would like to stay here always?"

"No," returned Ella, "certainly not; stagnation would not suit either of us, though I deeply enjoy this sweet resting-place. It will soon be time to move on."