Olivia

The morning broke as brightly as even the most superstitious of brides could desire. Annie and Mary knocked softly at Olivia’s door as the first bell rang, and Olivia opened the door herself, fully dressed in her plain morning-frock.

“Why, dear,” they exclaimed, “up already, and dressed, too! We were afraid we should wake you.”

“I have been up some time,” said Olivia. She did not add that she had lain awake all night listening to the hours as they chimed, and thinking how hideously unlike wedding bells they sounded.

“Isn’t it a lovely morning!” said Annie. “I am so glad, you can’t tell, dear. I should have hated it to be wet. Don’t you look rather pale this morning, or is it my fancy, Olly, dear?”

“Am I pale?” said Olivia, glancing at her white face in the glass. “But it is quite correct, is it not? Brides should be pale, shouldn’t they?” and she smiled.

The two light-hearted girls looked at her with a slightly puzzled stare. The change that had come over the subject of their worship bewildered and troubled them; but they were as far from understanding it as they could well be.

“Everybody is up early to-day,” said Mary. “The whole house is on the move. Oh, dear, I begin to feel quite nervous. Is there anything we can do, dearest? Perhaps you would like to try your dress on again,” coaxingly.

Olivia shook her head with another forced smile.

“I think not, Mary, dear. I’m afraid we are all rather tired of trying on the wedding garment.”

“Oh, no, indeed we’re not!” they exclaimed in chorus. “We like it. You can’t tell how lovely you look in it, Olivia. I should like all the world to see you,” said Annie, with a pensive sigh. “I wish I were a man and Mr. Bradstone.”

“I wish you were!” said Olivia, absently.

The girls laughed.

“What a strange speech for a bride-elect, Olly. But, oh, I wanted to ask you,” said Mary, “is it true that Mr. Faradeane is not coming to the wedding? We only heard it from Aunt Amelia last night. She came into our room to look at our dresses.”

Olivia was arranging some flowers which Bessie had brought up in her hand when she came to prepare the bath, and the two girls could not see her face or the swift and sudden quiver of her lips.

“No, he is not coming. He is engaged to-day,” she said.

“How vexing!” exclaimed Mary. “I should have particularly liked him to have seen you. It’s very disagreeable of him not to have put off his engagement; and it’s not like him to be disagreeable, is it, dear——”

“No,” said Olivia, in a dry voice.

“Perhaps if you asked him——” began Mary, thoughtfully.

Olivia turned upon her with a flash in her lovely eyes, and the look of one tortured beyond endurance.

“How can you suggest such a thing!” she began; then, at the sight of the dismay on their faces, her voice softened and she forced a laugh. “You silly girls, you think everybody must think your goose is a swan, as you do! What does Mr. Faradeane care about weddings? All men hate them, and very sensibly, too.”

“Oh, Olly! And he is such a great friend of yours!” said Mary, meekly.

“Is he?” said Olivia, with a laugh that sounded strangely in the girls’ ears. “Well, all the more reason that we should spare him the infliction.” She drew a long breath and turned to the window. “Let us go downstairs into the garden; it seems hot and stifling this morning,” and she pushed the hair from her forehead with an impatient, weary gesture.

They went downstairs, the two girls feeling somehow chilled and perplexed, and found the house, as Mary had said, all alive. His lordship the bishop was in the garden discoursing on roses to the squire, who looked grave and preoccupied, for he was thinking that in a few hours his choicest rose would be taken from him. Aunt Amelia, in a morning-robe of brilliant hue and Parisian fashion, was hopping about among the flower-beds, bestowing simpers and smiles upon all and sundry; and the stir and bustle of an unusual excitement seemed to pervade the air.

Olivia went up to her father, and kissed him with the tenderness which seemed to have deepened since her sacrifice, and, with his arm round her waist, they were leading the way to breakfast, when a footman in the Bradstone livery rode up, and, touching his hat, delivered a box to Olivia.

Mary and Annie uttered an exclamation.

“Oh, do open it! It is only tied with string.”

“Allow me,” said the bishop, benignly, and, removing the lid, he disclosed three bouquets.

One, the largest, was composed of rare, white blossoms, and had a gold bracelet round the stem, with “Olivia” inlaid in pearls. There were similar bracelets for the two girls, who fell to exclaiming, rapturously:

“Oh, they are too lovely, aren’t they, dear? How kind of Mr. Bradstone! And all alike, too!” and they ran from one to the other to show their treasures.

“Extremely handsome,” said the bishop, smiling. “Really, so generous a bridegroom deserves to be happy!”

Olivia said nothing for a moment; then, as if suddenly remembering, said:

“I am glad you like them,” and as Bessie passed near she called her, and was giving the bouquet and bracelet to her, when Mary exclaimed:

“Oh, Olly, dear! How can you part with it, even for a moment! I mean to keep mine beside my plate and stare at it all breakfast-time.”

And Olivia, with a faint smile of resignation, retained the bouquet and walked toward the house.

His lordship the bishop would have been rather surprised if he could have seen the bridegroom at that moment, for Mr. Bartley Bradstone looked anything but happy.

He, too, had lain awake and listened perforce to the record of the slowly moving hours, and all night he had seen the defiant, mocking face of the woman called Bella, and heard the scornful tones of her voice.

He had promised to meet her at four o’clock, and he lay there and cursed himself and her, for he knew that he dared not break the promise. Four o’clock! and the wedding was to take place at two. How should he manage to get away from the party and keep this appointment? For hours he tossed to and fro, scheming and planning, the mocking face of the woman dancing before him. He must slip away somehow, if only for half an hour.

Now and again a shudder of terror ran through him, and he sat up and shook as if with some horrible fear. Then he would fling himself down again, wiping the perspiration from his forehead and muttering: “No, I’ll go through with it. It’s too late to draw back now.”

When his valet came to him at nine, he found his master looking, as he expressed it afterward, “like a man who had been drinking all night,” and Bartley Bradstone bore out the resemblance by ordering a soda-and-brandy, which he took with a hot and shaking hand.

Then he went downstairs and drank a cup of coffee, and made a pretense of eating some breakfast; but the face of the woman hovered between him and the dish the butler handed to him, and his throat seemed dry and parched.

After breakfast he went into the library, and unlocking the safe which he had so delicately pointed out to his tool—Mr. Mowle—he got out a cash-box, and, counting out two hundred pounds in notes, placed them in his pocketbook. As he was putting the cash-box back he pushed some small, heavy article from a shelf, and, picking it up, saw that it was a revolver.

It was one of the silver-plated toys which nearly every man possesses, but, for all its smallness, it was deadly and dangerous.

He held it in his hot hand, looking down at it absently for a minute or two; then he tossed it back into the safe with a suddenness and force that made the iron side ring again, and shut the door with a clang.

Then he packed and sent off the bouquets, and, taking up his hat, walked into the garden and stood watching the groom as he rode down the road toward the Grange.

He stood a long time looking in the direction of the village with a half-fearful, dreading gaze, then turned and paced about the grounds, but always returned toward the gate and his nervous watchfulness of the road; and the face of the woman still danced mockingly before his eyes.

One o’clock struck, and with a start he went back to the house. Luncheon was laid. He made no pretense of eating this time, but tossed off a glass of brandy-and-water, and, going upstairs, sent for his valet.

The man appeared with the wedding garments, and dressed his master in the regulation blue frock-coat and lilac trousers.

For once Bartley Bradstone seemed quite indifferent to the effect produced by his clothes, and stared at the glass with lack-lustre eyes.

He scarcely spoke, took the handkerchief and his various rings and jewelry from the man without a word, and when he had left the room, sank into a chair and let his head droop on his breast, his eyes fixed with a strange expression upon the carpet.

A quarter of an hour afterward the valet came in again.

“The carriage is at the door, sir!” he said.

Bartley Bradstone looked up with a start, and the valet, who hated him—as all the servants did—glanced at his white face curiously.

“Shall I get you something before you start, sir?” he said.

“No—yes,” was the response. “Get me a glass of champagne. Bring it here. And”—he hesitated a moment—“and ask the butler if any one has been here this morning. Any man—or woman—to see me,” he added, with assumed carelessness.

The man came back with the champagne.

“No one has been, sir.”

Bartley Bradstone drank the wine and drew a long breath.

“It’s fearfully hot,” he said; “and I had a bad night. If—if any one should come, tell her—I mean him—that I will see him later in the day.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man; “any name?”

Bartley Bradstone interrupted him with a curse.

“Just do as I tell you, will you?” he said, angrily. “That’s enough for you to do!”

Then, pushing past him, he went downstairs.

As his foot was on the step of the brougham he paused, stood for a moment or two looking at the ground, then turned, and, re-entering the house, went into the library.

He came out again almost immediately, and, getting into the carriage, was driven to the church.

A crowd had collected round the ivy-covered porch, and lined the path to the church door. All the villagers were in their Sunday best, and some of the young men had spent the early morning in decking the road with flags and banners.

As the brougham pulled up there was a stir of excitement, and when Bartley Bradstone got out a cheer rose, but it was forced and faint, and his appearance did not increase the enthusiasm.

“D—n me, if he don’t look as if he was going to be hanged instead of wed,” said one man, in an almost audible whisper.

He looked around him with a sickly smile, and with the restless suspicion more marked than ever in his glance, and, just raising his hat, went into the church. The clergyman and the clerk were in the vestry, and the latter greeted him with the stereotyped remarks:

“The bridegroom first! Quite right, Mr. Bradstone. Ah! here they are! The bells are just starting. What a lovely morning! ‘Happy is the bride,’ etc.,” and he laughed.

Bartley Bradstone went to the door, stood a moment till the first carriage came dashing up, then returned to the vestry and paced up and down.

Other carriages followed, the little room began to fill, and guests were taking their places in the pews near the altar.

Bartley Bradstone shook hands with one and another, and a faint flush began to rise on his face; but it still looked haggard and anxious, and several times the remark which the man in the crowd had made was echoed by the young fellows who envied him.

Presently a cheer, loud and hearty, burst from the crowd outside, and the bishop, with a bland smile, said:

“The bride.”

A moment afterward, amidst still more cheering and cries of “God bless you, Miss Olivia!” the squire entered, with the bride on his arm.

There was an instantaneous movement toward them, and amidst the excited whispering they entered the vestry. She carried in her hand the bouquet he had sent; but the snow-like flowers were not whiter than her face, and she clung to her father’s arm with a clasp which seemed as if it could never be loosened.

With downcast eyes she stood for a moment, scarcely seeming to breathe, more like a lovely statue than a living woman; then Bartley Bradstone, who had been standing in the center of a group, came toward her.

“Have you got what I sent you?” he said in a low voice.

She raised her eyes and looked at him as if she scarcely heard him.

“Do you mean this?” she said, raising the bouquet.

“Yes, and inside it,” he said.

She looked at him as if she did not yet understand, and, taking the flowers from her hand, he parted them and showed her an envelope lying half hidden in their midst.

“You did not examine it very closely,” he whispered, with an attempt at a smile. “Open it; come this way.”

Slowly, reluctantly, she drew her arm from her father’s and followed him. Those near delicately drew back and moved away, leaving the two alone. She opened the envelope and looked at the paper it had inclosed.

It was a formal acknowledgment of fifty thousand pounds having been paid into the Wainford Bank in her name.

For a second, a second only, the deep pallor of her face changed, and her lips quivered, and with a look—not at him, but at her father—she thrust the paper in the bosom of her dress.

“Are you satisfied?” he whispered, bending over her as if to look at the bouquet.

Her lips opened, but no sound came; and, with the same vacant expression in the lovely eyes, she got away from him to the protection of her father’s arm again.

“Are we all—er—ready?” asked the smooth voice of the bishop.

“Quite ready,” said Bartley Bradstone, his voice sounding harsh and dry.

The bishop inclined his head, and the procession started for the altar.

White to the lips, with the look in her eyes of one from whom all that life holds of good or bad had passed forever, Olivia stood and uttered her marriage vows.

Only once throughout the ceremony did she show any sign of feeling or of life itself, and that was at the moment when Bartley Bradstone’s hand took hers. Then, unseen by any one but himself, a shudder ran through her, causing the hand he held to shake as if with palsy. It was only for a moment; the next she was the statue again, and she walked with firm, unfaltering steps down the church to the vestry.

There was the usual crowd round the register, every one being anxious to sign, but the business was accomplished at last, and, with her arm in her husband’s, Olivia passed out of the church.

They stood for a second at the door. The sun blazed down upon them and the cheering crowd, and Bartley Bradstone put up his hand to screen his eyes, and looked round upon the excited people. As he did so his restless, suspicious glance fell upon what he expected: there in the second rank of the living lane stood the woman whose face had haunted him all the past night and all the morning, and even as he stood beside his bride at the altar.

With her hands on her hips, her black eyes all aglow with mocking derision, she stood and stared at him. As his eyes met hers she broke into a laugh that seemed to him to ring above the din of the cheers, and, pushing herself into the front rank, stooped and snatched up some flowers which had been thrown on the path.

“Here’s wishing you and your bride every happiness, Mr. Bradstone!” she shouted, and flung the flowers in his face. Then, with a laugh, she slipped back again, and was lost in the crowd.