Interference

The days that ensued, how busy they were, and how fast they flew. Mrs. Redmond, with a deadened conscience and an active brain, fired up into a final blaze of energy and intrigue. She drew out—although it was as agonising as extracting her teeth—a considerable amount of her savings, to pay for Belle’s extravagant outfit. It was one of her few remaining pleasures to see her idol fittingly adorned, and to superintend dress rehearsals of future social triumphs.

She dashed off dozens of letters to her former friends, announcing her daughter’s approaching wedding in fitting terms; and as Belle was apparently making an excellent match, presents followed in thick and fast. Mrs. Malone endowed her future relative with her own wedding veil. Cuckoo sent a case of scissors, Miss Dopping a looking-glass in an antique silver frame, with a bye word to Betty that “it would remind the bride of what she loved best in the world.” And there were many other offerings, from a small diamond brooch to a large silver button-hook, and on the whole Belle considered that she had done remarkably well. Betty was invaluable at this period. She planned and sewed, and toiled from morning till night, and was quite feverishly busy—in constant bodily occupation was her only opiate for mental anguish. The shock of the first realisation of George’s baseness, had resolved itself into a continuous ache, that would always stir and throb as long as his memory might rouse her pride; her lover had forsaken her, and the bitterness of abandonment was in her heart. Many people remarked that she was looking thin and out of spirits, that her eyes were hollow, and her laugh was rare, but attributed this—including the fair damsel herself—to Belle’s approaching departure. She accompanied her radiant cousin in wild and hasty raids on Dublin shops. She folded and unfolded, tried on and altered, many of the smart gowns that came pouring in by the carrier’s cart. She “hurried up” the Dooleys, and the hum of her sewing machine might be heard for hours. But late at night, whilst Belle slept soundly, and dreamt happy dreams of India, at the other side of the thin partition wall, Betty, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, and with streaming hair, was wandering restlessly up and down, and flinging herself on her knees with clasped and outstretched hands. “He has forgotten,” she would murmur—“Oh, if I could but forget,” and then she would sob—repressed strangling sobs, lest the sound should penetrate to her sleeping cousin. No wonder that she looked pale and haggard, and very different from the gay and beaming Betty of a year ago!

She worked very hard, whilst restless, excitable Belle found a number of excellent reasons for doing nothing, and roamed about the house, singing snatches of songs, and waltzes, and talking incessantly of India, herself and George. “It’s a curious thing, Betty,” she remarked one day, as she lolled beside her busy companion, “that, although George was so desperately fond of me, as you know, he never said anything, never even hinted at an offer, or committed himself by word or look; and I am sure I gave him heaps of openings. Do you remember how I used to sing:

And she laughed a shameless laugh.

“I told him over and over again, that it was the dream of my life to see India, and yet he never said one syllable; he did not think it honourable to ask a girl to share a life of poverty. No wonder they call him ‘Gentleman George,’ eh?”

“No wonder!” echoed Betty rather faintly.

“I am so glad he likes you, Bet, he often said so, and always sent you messages in his letters, kind remembrances and that sort of thing. Some day you must come out and pay us a visit. I am certain you would marry well out in India, where girls are scarce; you have such lots of ‘go’ in you, and really your eyes and figure are not so bad. I believe George rather admired you!”

“Tell me one thing, Belle,” said the other, shielding with her hand her poor quivering face. “Do you love him very much? I know he is not your first love.”

“Pooh!” interrupted the bride-elect, “nor my twenty-first; I had my first love at eleven years of age, a delightful school-boy, who ruined himself in lockets and chocolates for my sake, and now at twenty-nine (though I don’t look it) I have my last, I suppose! I don’t believe in frantic love, such as you read of in books, where girls walk about all night wringing their hands and weeping,”—Betty became scarlet—“and where men—well, now I come to think of it—the men don’t care! they swear they will shoot themselves, and they fall in love with the next pretty face. Love, such as poets rave about, blazes up quickly like straw, and then goes out, and leaves unpleasant ashes; great emotions wear people down, and age them frightfully.”

“If you don’t believe in love, what do you believe in?” said Betty, suddenly laying down her work.

“I believe in a presentable, gentlemanly husband, with good connections, and a full purse. I believe in gold, incense and freedom. I believe in a delightful life in India, in lots of amusement and going about, I——”

“But——” began her listener interrogatively.

“Yes, I know what you are going to say, of course I like George very much, but not so much as he likes me. That is always the way; one is saddled and bridled, and the other is booted and spurred—I infinitely prefer the latter rôle! Look at Mrs. Malone! Of course she was a fool, but what a life she led. Well, she will be a harmless mother-in-law, that’s one comfort! Only think, Bet, this day week I shall be on the high seas, and this day month I shall probably be Mrs. Holroyd, and you will no longer be Miss Betty, but Miss Redmond. I have promised mother to send a wire, so that it may appear in the papers at once. I always think it looks so well and so important, to see an announcement concluding with ‘By Telegram.’”

Mrs. Redmond seemed entirely oblivious of the part she had enacted in the domestic drama, and treated the engagement as if it were quite a bonâ-fide affair, and had possibly brought herself to believe that it was so. She received numerous visitors, to whom she expatiated eloquently on the ancestors, and the acres, of the Holroyds, and the great match Belle was making—to which plain-spoken Miss Dopping had remarked, that it might turn out to be a Lucifer match yet!—and I am truly concerned to add, was disagreeably exultant to the mothers of unmarried daughters. Her conscience was now, so to speak, dead. She had assured it, in its last dying struggles, that she was merely doing evil that good might come. What was a lie? merely an intellectual evasion of a difficulty! She had lied to Belle, boldly and successfully, and were she to confess now, and repair her error, Belle would perhaps end her days in a madhouse. She had only given destiny a little push, that was all!

In spite of Dr. Moran’s angry expostulations, Mrs. Redmond made a great effort, and accompanied her daughter to London, saw her on board the Nankin in the Victoria Docks, handed her over to the charge of Colonel and Mrs. Calvert, and then bade her good-bye for ever. Belle hugged her and kissed her many times, and wept herself to the very verge of hysterics, but her tears were dry, and she had smoothed her hair, and changed her hat, and was chatting merrily—long before the Nankin had passed Gravesend.

Her day, she told herself, was just rising, and she was resolved to make the most of it, whilst the poor old lady, rumbling back to London in a four-wheeler, and sobbing as if her heart would break, felt that her life was over—she had practically done with existence when she closed the door of Belle’s cabin.