Olivia

The announcement of Olivia’s approaching marriage caused almost as much excitement as the news of her engagement.

She had insisted upon the ceremony being as quiet a one as possible, and, for a wonder, Bartley Bradstone assented.

At least a score of young ladies were desirous of acting as bridesmaids upon so famous an occasion, but Olivia desired to limit the number to two, and chose Annie and Mary, much to their delight and Aunt Amelia’s chagrin.

“My dear Olivia,” she remonstrated in her most dignified manner. “Only two bridesmaids! Why, the veriest pauper has three or four! Let me beg of you to remember your position, and what is due to it! I’ve nothing to say against Annie and Mary, but I cannot forget that there are others who have a claim upon us. For instance, there are those six dear girls of the duchess’. Now, why—I ask, why—cannot you choose them?”

But Olivia remained as firm over this point as she did upon the question of her trousseau. Aunt Amelia had looked forward to a visit to town, resulting in an extensive outfit, in which costly lace, and still more costly furs and tailor-made dresses should figure largely, and was proportionately disgusted when Olivia announced that she intended buying her things at Wainford, and evidently meant to confine her purchases to very narrow limits.

“Really, my dear Olivia,” said Aunt Amelia, “one would think your father hadn’t a penny to bless himself with! I call it ridiculous. If you have no proper pride in your own appearance you might at least show some regard for him.”

And Olivia, with an aching heart, had to meet the old lady’s reproaches with a smile.

On one thing at least she was resolved—that she would not spend one single sovereign more than was absolutely necessary of the money which she knew her father could so ill spare; and perhaps the sharpest pang she endured was felt by her on the morning when he called her into the study and gave her a handsome set of pearls.

“This is my present, dear,” he said, his eyes dwelling on her with tender love and pride. “Your mother’s jewels are yours by right, and I shall give them to you on the morning of your marriage; but this is my present. It is not”—he faltered for a moment—“it is not so rich as I should like, but——”

She stopped him by putting her arms round his neck and drawing his worn face to hers.

“Why did you buy me anything, dear?” she murmured. “I only want what I have got—your love!” and she strained him to her with an almost protecting embrace. But though the squire’s eyes filled with tears as he bent over her, hers were dry and hot, and wore a restless, feverish expression.

Restless would indeed best describe her state of mind since the day had been fixed for the wedding.

As Aunt Amelia said, reproachfully, it seemed as if she could not remain in one place for five minutes together, or settle to any one occupation. She wandered about the house and grounds during the day, and paced her room at night, her eyes fixed with a restless unquiet upon vacancy. But she wore the mask before the world so well that not even Faradeane could read the anguish and misery which tortured her; and if at times the ordeal through which she must pass seemed too terrible to be endured, the thought of her father and the peace she would purchase for him nerved her for the sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Bartley Bradstone had filled The Maples with an army of upholsterers, and new and luxurious as the place was already, it was to be made still more gorgeous for the reception of his bride.

Two days before the wedding, which was to take place on the Wednesday, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet got a best man; and, promoted by a malicious desire to make the most of his triumph, he proposed that Faradeane should occupy that position.

They were sitting at lunch, and Faradeane had walked across to the Grange, and allowed himself to be persuaded to stay.

“I want you to be my best man on Wednesday, Faradeane,” said Bradstone in an offhand way, and with a sidelong glance at Olivia. She kept her eyes fixed upon her plate, and did not see the swift change which came over Faradeane’s face. For a moment he was silent, and Bartley Bradstone, taking it for consent, went on, airily, “It isn’t a difficult part, I believe; anyway, I’m sure you’d play it capitally—wouldn’t he, squire?”

The squire looked at the grave face, which had grown paler even than usual, but was perfectly calm and self-possessed.

“Will you, Faradeane?” he said in his quiet way.

Faradeane, carefully avoiding looking in Olivia’s direction, shook his head.

“I feel honored by Bradstone’s request, sir, but I am sorry to say that I am engaged on Wednesday.”

“What!” exclaimed Bartley Bradstone. “You don’t mean to say that you are not coming to the wedding? Why, I should fancy you will be the only man in the county who won’t be there—won’t he, Olivia?”

She made a slight gesture which might mean anything, but did not raise her eyes.

“Then my room will be more acceptable than my company,” said Faradeane, with a smile. “You will have no difficulty in getting some one to fill so honorable a post, Bradstone. I am sorry I cannot.”

“Oh, but you must manage to come to the wedding and the breakfast—or whatever they call it now; it can’t very well be breakfast at half-past three o’clock in the afternoon. You must come, Faradeane—mustn’t he, Olivia?”

She looked up for a moment, and past Faradeane, avoiding his eyes.

“Mr. Faradeane says he is engaged,” she said, quietly.

“Oh, but——” began Bradstone; but Faradeane stopped him with a certain compression of the lips which Bartley Bradstone remembered seeing on his face when he seized him by the arm outside the terrace.

“It is impossible,” he said, almost curtly.

Bartley Bradstone shrugged his shoulders.

“I counted upon you,” he said. “But if you can’t, you can’t, and there’s an end of it. I’m awfully disappointed, and so’s Olivia, I’m sure.”

Olivia said nothing, but, directly lunch was over, rose to leave the room. As she did so Faradeane took a morocco case from his pocket.

“You must be quite tired of presents, Miss Vanley,” he said, “but I have ventured to bore you with one, if you will accept it,” and he placed the case in her hand, and turned aside to speak to Bradstone.

“Eh?” said the squire, “let us see what it is, my dear,” and he put up his eyeglasses.

She opened the case, her hands trembling and her color coming and going, and revealed a superb necklet of gems in an antique setting.

It was no “wedding present” of the commonplace type, but evidently a rare and costly, perhaps priceless, specimen of ancient jewelry.

The squire uttered an exclamation.

“Why, Faradeane, this is—isn’t this rather too big a present for my little girl?” he said, with a smile, but a grateful and affectionate light in his eyes. “If she had been a princess, instead of the daughter of a country squire, you could not have been more generous.”

“Miss Olivia is a princess to all of us, sir,” he said in the half-sad and melodious voice which rendered even his commonplaces significant. “It is an old relic I have had by me for some time, and I thought that Miss Vanley would forgive its old-fashionedness.”

“Which I expect increases its value; and that must be great, apart from the antiquity of the thing. These stones are very large and very lustrous. Look at this, Bradstone!”

“Yes?” said Faradeane, carelessly. “I am no judge of gems. None could be too pure for Miss Vanley.”

“Yes, very jolly,” said Bartley Bradstone. “Put it on and let Faradeane see how you look in it.” She did not offer to comply, but stood with the necklet in her hands; and he took it from her and put it round her neck, and struck an attitude. “What do you think of it, Faradeane?” he exclaimed.

Faradeane looked at her for a moment and smiled.

“The old gems were never so honored before,” he said; and, though he tried to speak lightly, there was a perceptible quiver in his voice.

“They are very beautiful,” said the squire. “Take care of them, my dear. I am sure they are extremely valuable, although Mr. Faradeane treats them so cavalierly.”

Olivia put up her hands to unfasten the necklet, but could not do so.

“Let me try,” said Bradstone. “They like you so well that they don’t care about parting from you. I can’t do it! Where’s the spring, Faradeane, do you know? Just come and see, will you?”

Faradeane came slowly forward, and as he did so Olivia put up her hands again.

“I—I think I can do it,” she said, with a strange tremor in her voice.

“Don’t you try,” said Bradstone, with a malicious enjoyment of her embarrassment. “Let Faradeane do it; he knows the trick of the fastening, I dare say.”

“It is very simple,” said Faradeane; “will you allow me?” and he forced his voice into a tone of ordinary politeness.

She bent her head, and he touched the hidden spring lightly; but, as the necklet parted, his fingers touched her, and her face and neck grew crimson as she raised her eyes to his face.

Then she took the necklet from his hand, and without waiting to put it in its case, left the room.

Bartley Bradstone thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked after her, and then at Faradeane’s pale, set face.

“What ingratitude!” he said, half-mockingly and with a loud laugh. “She didn’t even say ‘Thank you!’”

Olivia went up to her own room, her heart beating, her neck still burning where Faradeane’s fingers had touched, and as she opened the door she started and uttered an exclamation. But it was only Bessie who rose to meet her.

“Bessie!” she exclaimed. “How you startled me!” and she sank into a chair, panting.

Bessie looked at her gravely, and brought her a bottle of sal volatile from the dressing-table; but Olivia put it away with a faint laugh.

“No, no; I am not so badly frightened as that,” she said; “but I did not expect to see any one, and”—with a piteous little smile—“I have grown nervous lately, Bessie.”

“I am so sorry, miss,” said Bessie, meekly. “They told me to come upstairs and wait as usual——”

“Yes, yes; quite right,” said Olivia, quickly, “and I am very glad to see you. Take your things off and let us have some tea. Have you come to say ‘good-by’ to me, Bessie?” and she smiled again.

“No, not good-by, miss,” replied Bessie; “I’ve come to ask you to take me with you.”

“To take you with me! Why——”

“Yes, miss,” she went on, with downcast eyes, “I am going out into service, and I’ve come to ask you if you’ll engage me for your maid.”

“Why, Bessie!” exclaimed Olivia, catching at her arm and drawing her toward her. “You are going out to service! I thought your father could not spare you?”

“Yes, he can now, miss,” she said, as if she were repeating a well-rehearsed speech. “He has got my cousin Polly to keep house for him, and he wishes me to go out.”

“It is wonderful!” said Olivia, more brightly than she had spoken for weeks. “And you came to me, of course! How good of you! Of course I will take you—and how gladly! Fancy you being my maid! Why, it is too good to be true! I nearly engaged a girl from Wainford yesterday—my old one went to-day. How glad I am I didn’t do so quite! And you only just made up your mind to go into service! How fortunate I am!”

“It is me that’s fortunate, miss.”

“And when will you come?” asked Olivia, eagerly.

“Now, miss,” said Bessie, quietly. “I presumed so far as to bring my box, for he said I was to stay if you’d let me.”

“You dear, thoughtful girl!” exclaimed Olivia, pressing her arm. “But who is ‘he’—your father? How kind——” She stopped short, noticing that Bessie’s face had suddenly grown crimson. “What is the matter? Who is ‘he’?” she repeated, fixing her lovely eyes on the girl’s downcast face. “Answer me, Bessie! Of whom do you speak?”

“Must I tell?” whispered Bessie.

“Certainly you must,” replied Olivia. “I don’t understand——”

“It was Mr. Faradeane, miss,” said Bessie, in a low voice.

Olivia drew her hand from the girl’s arm, and sank back in the chair.

“Mr. Faradeane!” she said, almost inaudibly.

Bessie dropped down beside her.

“Yes, miss. It was he who brought me to think of it. He said he’d heard that your maid was going, and he said to me how nice it would be for you to have some one—he said some friend—with you in that big, new house of Mr. Bradstone’s, and he put it in my head to come and ask you. He knows how I love you, Miss Olivia! Nothing escapes him—he thinks of everything! Are you angry, miss?” she half-whimpered.

Olivia put her hand from her forehead, and turned her face—it was very pale—to the girl.

“Angry? No, Bessie. And so it was Mr. Faradeane who sent you? Yes, it was very thoughtful.”

“Yes, miss,” said Bessie, with a sigh of relief. “He said that you might feel lonely when you were away on your travels abroad and when you get back to The Maples, and that you’d like to have some one you knew and loved, he said, to be near you, and—and I came at once. We all do whatever Mr. Faradeane says,” she added, with a little, suppressed sigh.

“Yes, it was very thoughtful, and I am very much—obliged—to him,” said Olivia in a low voice. “And now go and get some tea; bring it up here, and—and keep near me. Yes, it was like him to think of it!”

And long after Bessie had left the room, her mistress sat with her hands tightly clasped, her eyes fixed on the necklet in her lap.

The following day was one of bustle and excitement. Some of the wedding guests, connections of the Vanleys, were coming from a distance, and had been asked to sleep at the Grange; Annie and Mary, who were also to stay the night, arrived soon after breakfast, and at once plunged into the business in hand with infinite gusto and enjoyment. The wedding feast was preparing in the kitchen, and upstairs the dressmaker was working frantically at the finishing of the wedding garments.

In the afternoon the bishop—Aunt Amelia had insisted upon a bishop—arrived, and he and the squire wandered about the place in the aimless, shiftless manner peculiar to males on these occasions.

“I’m sure I don’t know whether you’ll get any dinner to-night, my lord,” said the squire, “the whole place is in such confusion.”

“I dare say we shall have something to eat,” said his lordship, with bland conviction. “You must remember that I am used to this kind of thing. Let me see! the last time I saw Miss Vanley she was in short frocks. She was very pretty then, she is beautiful now. I think this Mr.—Mr.—What’s-his-name?—Bradstone, thanks—is a very lucky young man. He is very rich, is he not?”

“Yes,” said the squire.

“Well,” said the courtly bishop, “he will not have in all his treasure-house a more precious gem than your sweet child. By the way, I think I have seen him before.”

“Indeed!” said the squire.

“Yes; I met him as I was driving in, I think. He was riding a remarkably good horse; a tall and exceedingly handsome young man, with a rather grave and pale face. The kind of man that attracts one’s attention. It was a dark chestnut horse.”

“No, that was not Bradstone,” said the squire; “that was a very great friend of mine—Mr. Faradeane.”

The good bishop looked puzzled.

“Dear me! A tall man with a mustache, and a—er—certain distinguished bearing?” he said.

“Yes, that was Mr. Faradeane,” said the squire. “Do you think you have seen him before?”

His lordship stopped and knit his brows.

“I could have been certain of it, if you had not mentioned his name; but I suppose I must be mistaken, for I do not remember it. And it was not your future son-in-law?”

“No, no,” said the squire. “You will see him this evening; I have asked him to dine with us.”

“Yes, yes, delighted,” purred the worthy bishop. “Strange mistake of mine, and yet I felt quite sure I had seen this Mr.——”

“Faradeane,” supplied the squire.

“Thanks, yes. I don’t remember the name in the least, and, as you may be aware, I pride myself on never forgetting a name. Who and what is this Mr. Faradeane? One of the local magnates?”

“No,” replied the squire. “He has purchased a small house here—there it is, you can see the chimneys—and settled among us. I like him extremely.”

“I should like to meet him,” said the bishop, amiably. “I very seldom forget a face, and his seems familiar to me.”

“If you’ll come with me to his cottage, I’ll ask him to dine with us to-night. He is a most charming companion,” said the squire, eagerly.

The bishop inclined his head, and the two men walked toward The Dell. As they did so they saw Faradeane in the garden, pacing up and down the gravel walk, and the squire stopped at the gate, and called to him.

Faradeane walked toward them, but at sight of the bishop stopped suddenly. It was only for a moment, however, and he came and unlocked the gate.

“Good-afternoon,” said the squire. “Let me introduce you to the Bishop of Latham, Faradeane.”

Faradeane raised his hat, and the bishop followed suit, and smiled.

“We have met before, Mr. Faradeane, have we not?” he said, pleasantly.

Faradeane looked him straight in the face.

“Your lordship mistakes me for a better man, I hope,” he said, with a smile.

The bishop bowed with ready courtesy and self-possession.

“It is not so, then. Pray forgive me.”

“Dine with us to-night, will you, Faradeane?” said the squire, with affectionate familiarity.

Faradeane hesitated a moment, then shook his head.

“Not to-night,” he said.

The squire knew him too well to dream of pressing him; and the bishop, having exchanged a few words with him, he and the squire turned homeward.

Half-an-hour later Bartley Bradstone left The Maples to walk to the Grange. Most men are nervous and restless on the day before their marriage, but Mr. Bartley Bradstone was nervous and restless to a remarkable degree. He had wandered about his huge house all day, bullying the workmen and the servants, and it was not until his brougham had been brought to the door that he had suddenly decided that it would do him good to walk instead of ride to the Grange.

He had got himself dressed in his evening suit with even more than his usual care, as his badgered valet, driven almost to distraction, could testify, and he lit up a cigar at starting to steady his nerves. He had also drunk a full glass of brandy-and-water for the same reason.

There was a short-cut through the wood—the same wood in which Faradeane had pleaded for Bertie—and, the moon lighting up every inch of the way, Mr. Bartley Bradstone decided to go through the wood.

Many another man would have been struck by the beauty of the scene, the soft light throwing the shadow of every leaf upon the ground in a delicate tracery, and silvering every branch of the grand old oaks which had been the pride of generations of Vanleys; but Mr. Bartley Bradstone was too fully occupied with thoughts of to-morrow to bestow any attention upon scenery.

“Only a few hours more,” he muttered, “only a few hours! I’m a plucky devil, and I deserve to win; and I will, too! She’s plucky, too. Lord! it’s wonderful what a girl will do to save her father. How beautiful she is, and how proud! But I’ll cure her of that, I rather think. I’ll let her know who’s master, once I’ve got her safe and tight. I’ll have no more of that fellow Faradeane, for one thing. She thinks a great deal too much of him—a great deal. If he fancies he is going to hang about her skirts after she’s my wife, as he’s been doing lately, he’ll find his mistake out. That Faradeane’s a beast, and I hate him!”

He repeated this charming sentiment twice, and with such energy that he let his cigar go out.

Flinging it away, he took out his case, and, after selecting another, lit a match. As he did so he heard a rustling among the undergrowth, but, thinking it was a chance rabbit, took very little notice; but suddenly, as the match was falling from his fingers, the figure of a woman slipped out from among the shadows and stood right in his path.

He stepped back with a start of surprise, and stared at her; and she, with a quick movement, flung the shawl she was wearing from before her face and laughed.

It was only a woman’s laugh, but it made Bartley Bradstone shrink back trembling and shaking like a leaf; the cigar fell from his fingers, and he stood—or, rather, leaned—against a tree like a man who is suddenly confronted with a ghost.

The woman, planting her feet firmly on the path, stared at him for a moment in silence, then burst into another loud, mirthless laugh.

“Why, it’s you!” she exclaimed, and her laugh rang through the wood. “You! Well, this beats anything! You of all men!” and she struck her hands on her hips and laughed again.

Bartley Bradstone’s tongue seemed to cling to the roof of his mouth, and his face, ashen pale, was distorted like a man’s in mortal agony.

“Bella!” he said at last.

“Yes, that’s me,” retorted the woman. “Oh, I’m no ghost, though you look as if you thought I was! Great goodness, fancy meeting you—and here! Well, wonders will never cease. You! Why, I thought you were thousands of miles away, and you ain’t. By Heaven, I’m in luck! Come, man, pull yourself together; I’m not a ghost, I tell you, not me! Don’t pretend you forget Bella. How are you, Mr. Bradstone?” and with a mocking smile she held out her hand.