"No, I didn't know that. I'm sorry. Geoffrey is a dear really; I'm awfully fond of him."
"So am I. I love him in a way but I can't marry him. I can't face being stuck down in a little house and having to run it and be amiable at breakfast and welcome my husband's friends and be polite to his relations. I simply can't do it."
"Can't you really, Helen? Geoffrey hasn't told me anything about it, but I know he's been miserable about something for months, and I did just think once from something he said, that it might be because of you."
"Well, it's no good anyhow. I'm not going to see him any more after this evening. I do think anything's better than dragging on like this."
"You know, Helen, I honestly think you wouldn't find it so very difficult to be married. You'd be quite rich. You've got some money of your own, and Geoffrey isn't doing so badly; he went into the business very young, so you could have decent maids, who would run the house for you. It makes all the difference if you have enough money not to have to bother."
"Lavinia, your cynical outlook surprises me. But you see it isn't only things like that. It's Geoffrey. Loving him would get so frightfully in the way of my work. I don't believe it's possible to reconcile everything satisfactorily."
She shut her mouth obstinately and Lavinia sighed.
"I really am sorry," she said. "I think you could be perfectly happy, you two; and of course I'd love it from my own point of view, so perhaps I'm prejudiced, but still I do think it's possible."
"It isn't, Lavinia; don't let's talk about it any more. I must go now; I'm going to shut up the studio for a bit; come and see me at home. Mother would love you. She thinks my friends are apt to be a little erratic, and you'd be a welcome change. Goodbye and thanks; don't come down."
As Helen walked home she was racked with uncertainty. Lavinia had shaken instead of strengthening her decision. Nothing of this showed in her manner as she greeted Geoffrey a little later. He looked pale and ill, and when she said, "Sit down and be a little comfortable," he only shook his head, looked at her dumbly, and remained leaning against the mantelpiece.
"Geoffrey dear," she said. "I've been thinking and worrying about us, and I've come to the conclusion that we simply mustn't see each other any more. I'm sorry; I'm sorry for myself, and I'm sorry for you, but it's no good."
"You can't suddenly decide a thing like that; it isn't fair," said Geoffrey, but he spoke without conviction.
"I have decided," she answered. "There's no use going over the same old ground; don't let's discuss it again. I'm going home for a bit, and I don't know whether I'll come back to this studio or not, so there's no reason why we should meet ever if we're reasonably careful to avoid each other. Goodbye, Geoffrey; I'd like you to go now."
She spoke coldly, her plans seemed to be cut and dried, and there was a finality about her words that rang in Geoffrey's aching head.
"All right," he said. "I'll go now; goodbye."
Left alone, Helen began to pack a suitcase. As she threw in coats, shoes, and frocks, tears streamed steadily down her cheeks. Mechanically, she powdered her nose, locked the studio, got out her car and drove to Lowndes Square where she learned that her father and mother were away for the week-end and her sister out to dinner.
"I can easily get you something to eat, Miss Helen, and your room will be ready in a moment," said the parlourmaid pleasantly, accustomed to Helen's sudden arrivals and equally sudden departures.
"I don't want any dinner, thanks. I'll have a hot bath and go straight to bed, and I'd like a bowl of bread and milk in bed, lots of sugar and no crusts."
"Very well, Miss Helen."
The maid disappeared with her case, as Helen went into the library to find a book before following her upstairs. She slept heavily for twelve hours and wakened to a mood of discouragement and lethargy. Life seemed meaningless. The thought of painting did not attract her, she had no particular engagements, there was nothing to do.
Mr. and Mrs. Guest, returning in the evening, were pleased to find her in the library sitting with her hands idle in her lap, but her depression persisted and she answered her Mother's questions with curt monosyllables.
"Yes, I'm all right thanks. No, nothing's wrong. Really, Mother, I'm all right. I know I look tired. I've been working very hard, but please just leave me alone."
In the weeks that followed she was forced to repeat very often her plea to be left alone. Her family were used to the sight of Helen working, but Helen idle and empty-handed was so unusual that they made unceasing efforts to interest her in their varying occupations which she as unceasingly spurned.
A month went past during which she had not lifted a brush and she was in her sitting-room one afternoon wondering dismally if she would ever again be caught by the desire to paint, when Lavinia was announced.
Helen jumped to her feet.
"Do come in, Lavinia. I'm nearly mad with mooning about doing nothing."
"But haven't you been painting?" Lavinia asked a little maliciously. "I thought you'd given up Geoffrey so as to be able to paint."
Helen spread out her hands.
"I haven't done a thing," she said. "Not a single thing and what's more I don't know whether I ever will or not. Sit down and talk to me, Lavinia."
"I can't," said Lavinia. "I'm on my way to Geoffrey now and I thought it just possible that you would like to come with me. You know he's been ill?'
"I haven't heard a thing about him. Tell me, is he really ill? What's wrong with him? I'll come with you at once."
"He's had influenza very badly. He was starting it that day you came to tea with me when Mother was there; he went home that night very seedy and he's really been pretty bad. He's much better now, but he's still in bed, and Mother's going to be out this afternoon so she rang me up to go and amuse him and I thought perhaps you'd come too."
"He may not want to see me," said Helen.
"He does, I asked him," answered Lavinia coolly.
Helen's cheeks were glowing, her eyes shining.
"I'll go and change. Wait here for me, I won't be long," she said imperiously.
"No, I think I'll go on now and you can follow when you're ready," suggested Lavinia.
Helen caught her hand.
"Please no," she said. "Please wait. I don't want to go alone. I'd rather go with you."
"You're shy," said Lavinia accusingly.
Helen was defiant and happy.
"And what if I am?" she said. "I'm going to ask Geoffrey to marry me, and I'd rather have a chaperon there to make it more seemly. Wait here for me."
She rushed upstairs to dress, and came down in the green frock and hat she had worn to Lavinia's wedding.
"Look," she said. "Sheer sentiment made me put this on."
Lavinia looked at her standing in the doorway, tall and upright, the rich green of her frock bringing out all the colour in her hair and skin.
"You're lovely," she said impulsively. "Really lovely. No wonder Geoffrey's quite mad about you."
"Is he?" asked Helen. "I do hope he is, I want him to be. You really think then I needn't be nervous as to whether he'll accept me or not."
She laughed. "Come on, Lavinia," she said. "I can't wait. I've had nothing for a month. Neither my painting nor Geoffrey and evidently I can't have one without the other, so even if they fight I'll have to have both."
Suddenly her face sobered.
"It'll be a cat and dog life. Everything I meant it not to be, but damn it, I can't help it; I can't do without him."
III
If Mrs. Greene was distressed by her son's engagement she concealed it perfectly after the first moment, when, opening the door of Geoffrey's bedroom, she was affronted by the sight of a young woman almost a stranger to her, sitting on the floor beside Geoffrey's bed, one arm round his neck, a long leg sprawling, her little green hat tossed on the hearthrug.
As Edith Greene stood in the doorway her thoughts were bitter, her expression bleak; but with undeniable gallantry she bowed to the inevitable, twisted her face into a semblance of happy surprise, and coming forward took Helen's hand as she scrambled to her feet.
"My dears," she said, "this is very unexpected. I didn't even know you knew Miss Guest, Geoffrey, but I mustn't call you Miss Guest any longer; it's Helen, isn't it, dear?" She smiled kindly, sat down on the edge of Geoffrey's bed and said: "Now tell me all about it."
It was a magnificent recovery. Geoffrey looked guilty and miserable, but Helen was filled with admiration. She stood up tall and unembarrassed, and leaning against the mantel-piece explained the situation in her quiet voice.
"We really owe you an apology, Mrs. Greene. Of course you must think it quite unseemly for me to be here like this, when I've never been in your house before, but everything has happened very suddenly. It's even been a surprise to us, hasn't it, darling?"
She turned to Geoffrey, and Mrs. Greene's start of annoyance at the last word was unnoticed.
"Geoffrey asked me to marry him a long time ago," she went on. "I wouldn't for several reasons, chiefly my work. Then only to-day I suddenly changed my mind and came to tell him so; at least Lavinia brought me."
"You actually proposed to Helen a long time ago, Geoffrey dear, and yet you've never mentioned her name to me?"
The playful reproach in Mrs. Greene's voice hid successfully the raging resentment in her heart, but before Geoffrey could answer, Helen broke in:
"That was entirely my fault. I felt so uncertain and wretched that the whole thing had to be kept absolutely private."
"Even from Geoffrey's mother," asked Mrs. Greene gently.
In the fading light Helen's young face looked stern, but she, too, spoke gently.
"Yes, even from you, I'm afraid. It was so vitally important to both of us that whichever way it had turned, whether we decided to marry or not to marry, we simply couldn't afford to let in any outside influence."
"I see," said Mrs. Greene slowly. "I've never really thought of myself as 'an outside influence.' My one desire has always been for my children's happiness. That's what comes first with me and always will. Geoffrey knows that; you'll learn it too, dear."
Geoffrey had caught the undertone of acidity that betrayed her real feelings, and he made an effort to placate her.
"You really are amazing, Mother," he said. "I know it must be a shock to you, but as Helen says, it's a shock to us too."
She bent and kissed him.
"My dear Geoffrey," she said, "I'm sure time will prove it to be a pleasant shock, not the reverse; I'm only too glad to have another little daughter."
Geoffrey grinned and said tactlessly:
"Not really a little one, Mother; Helen's quite a bit taller than you are."
Mrs. Greene's armour cracked.
"Don't be silly," she said sharply. "You know quite well I wasn't referring to her size."
Putting a hand on his brow she regained her poise.
"You're quite tired out," she said. "Such a hot head. Now, Helen, I'm only going to give you five minutes and then you must come downstairs and let Geoffrey rest. Come to the drawing-room, will you, and have a little chat before you go?"
"Thank you, I will," said Helen opening the door for Mrs. Greene who turned her head to smile tenderly at Geoffrey, gave Helen's shoulder a little pat, sighed, and left the room.
IV
If Helen was secretly disgusted by all the elaborate preparations for her wedding she disguised her feelings with considerable skill, and took part quite naturally, in endless discussions on trousseaux, red carpets and white satin. Both her mother and Geoffrey's mother were delighted at her unlooked-for docility, and Mrs. Guest admitted quite frankly to Mrs. Greene that Helen's engagement was having a very settling effect on her; to which Mrs. Greene replied firmly:
"Dear Helen. We all expect so much of her that I'm sure it makes her try to live up to our ideals."
There was a slight uneasiness in the air on the evening when Mrs. Greene asked brightly:
"And where are you two thinking of for your honeymoon?"
Helen looked up from some patterns of shot silk that she was considering.
"Oh, the Hague I think," she said casually. "There are some moderns there that I rather want to see, and some quite good old stuff too, I believe."
"Oh really. Yes, that would be very nice I suppose. But of course it's a big town. Don't you think Geoffrey would be happier among beautiful scenery? The Italian lakes, perhaps, or mountains if you want to be energetic."
"I don't know, I'm sure." Helen shrugged her shoulders. "Would you be happier with scenery, Geoffrey?"
"I think I'd like the Hague," he said. "For a week or so, anyhow, and then we can move on."
"You know, dear," said Mrs. Greene reasonably, "your interest in pictures is a very specialised thing. You mustn't expect Geoffrey to feel quite as you do about them. I don't think he knows very much about art."
Helen's face was grim.
"He doesn't," she answered, "but he'll learn." And her mouth shut ominously.
Mrs. Greene got up discreetly and murmuring something about dressing for dinner, went upstairs.
"Darling," said Geoffrey. "Mother thinks we are now about to quarrel fiercely, but we aren't, are we?"
"Of course not. I don't mind your not knowing anything about painting so long as you don't mind my concentrating on it a good deal."
"You know I don't. Tell me, Helen, is all this business driving you to frenzy?"
"No, not a bit. I think it's frightfully obscene, dressing up in white satin and being handed over to you at a given moment, but I can easily cope with it. Isn't there something about 'straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel'?"
"And I'm the camel," said Geoffrey sullenly.
"Yes, you are," Helen answered calmly. "And you understand the position perfectly well. You know I am marrying you quite reluctantly for the simple reason that I love you to distraction."
Geoffrey's face cleared.
"I am a fool," he said. "It's quite all right, Helen, and you're being marvellously good about all this sickening detail."
Helen shook her head.
"It's your mother who's marvellous," she said. "She really is a masterpiece. I've never seen anything so well done as her pose. She is so affectionate and maternal that anyone would think she was delighted with me. In fact she's almost coy, and yet she can't help disapproving of almost everything I say or do."
"No, that isn't true; she's approved of you quite a lot lately."
"Oh well, perhaps she has, but only because I have given way about all sorts of conventional details that go quite against the grain with me."
"Why have you, darling," Geoffrey asked curiously.
"Well, she swallowed me so magnificently in the first place that I felt I had to help to bolster up her attitude. It would be rather pathetic really, if she knew we understood her so well. She is a person who needs to be wrapped in the illusion of success."
"It's kind of you to feel like that, I think, though it would kill her to realise that you knew so much about her that you were simply being decent to her."
"Anyhow it's only a few more weeks now."
"Six weeks and three days, my dearest, and after that we won't see much of them and everything will go quite smoothly."
"Oh, no, it won't, Geoffrey," Helen's eyes flickered dangerously, "it won't go the least smoothly, it will be up and down like a very rough crossing, but perfectly lovely all the same."
"Dear heart, I'm sure of that; if only I can keep you happy."
"You needn't have any doubts, Geoffrey. I'm perfectly certain that fundamentally we're right for each other."
The next few years proved the truth of Helen's words. Their honeymoon was exhausting, awkward, and ecstatic but not, they decided, more exhausting and awkward than other people's honeymoons, and on the other hand, certainly more ecstatic.
"It's odd how you stimulate me mentally," said Helen a little while after they got home to the house in Cheyne Walk which Mrs. Rodney so often referred as "very bright of course, but rather too bizarre for my taste."
"I don't think it is odd," contradicted Geoffrey, "ever since we met we've acted as mutual goads to each other."
"Yes I know," Helen answered impatiently, "but it was different before we were married. Really you know, I didn't do any decent work between getting to know you and now. You remember that poster I was so pleased with? Well it's quite awful. I was on the wrong tack altogether but now I do know what I'm about, I entirely understand about the unity of angles."
"You don't suggest, do you, that I'm responsible for enlarging your comprehension of angles?" asked Geoffrey laughing.
"No of course not; you hadn't anything to do with it. I only mean that I'm very clear and free in my mind just now, and that is partly because of you. You don't hinder me at all, you help me."
"I'm glad," said Geoffrey, "keep free if you can; there's no need to get in a mess with things."
"I certainly won't." Helen was emphatic. "I know your wretched aunt and all sorts of people expect to be asked here just because I'm newly married and have a new house, but I simply won't do it. And I'm not going to pay any calls either."
"I don't want you to do things like that. Lavinia does it plenty enough for one family, and Hugh's wife, when he has one, is sure to be a model of propriety. But I want you to go on being Helen Guest even if you are Mrs. Geoffrey Greene. Don't fuss about my family."
"You do understand remarkably well, Geoffrey. I'd have to go my own way in any case, but I'm terribly glad you're with me in my policy of being ruthless."
By means of keeping to this policy of ruthlessness life went happily for the young Geoffrey Greenes. There was a period of stress and strain in the second year of their marriage when Helen decided that a frankly futurist style was the only one in which she could express herself sincerely. Her first attempts were almost ludicrously unsuccessful, and Geoffrey was so rash as to burst out laughing as he looked at a canvas in which a large purple cylinder placed on a still larger purple cylinder, and surmounted by a smaller cylinder of shrimp pink faintly spotted, was entitled simply "Country woman."
Helen looked at him coldly.
"Aren't you being a little crude, Geoffrey?" she asked.
"Don't mislay your sense of humour, I do implore you," he urged still laughing, "I expect this is a very important picture, but to the uninitiated eye it's very funny."
"That's just the trouble, Geoffrey. You are uninitiated—almost painfully so. I've been feeling out of sympathy with you for some time. I'm prepared to agree with you that this is bad work, though the idea is perfectly sound, but I think it's bad because of you. I'm being clogged by marriage, it's hampering me appallingly."
"You're working yourself up, Helen," said Geoffrey curtly, "I refuse to be made responsible because you do bad work."
"I'm sorry." Helen's voice was hard. "But the fact remains that indirectly you are responsible. Marriage is not conducive to good work, and I've decided to cut it out for a time anyhow. I'm quite contented to go on living in this house if you will arrange to sleep in your dressing-room and leave me entirely unmolested."
"You're unpardonable. I don't know how you dare use a word like that about me."
"I'll apologise for it if you like, it wasn't the word I meant. But I wish to be quite free and not be expected to sleep with you again."
"Certainly," Geoffrey agreed stiffly, "that is for you to decide."
Their reconciliation a few weeks later was disproportionately trivial. Helen's futurist fever had burned itself out, and she was temporarily high and dry without any interest in art.
Geoffrey came into her studio one night to find her looking ruefully at "Country Woman." She went up to him and kissed him.
"I've been a bloody fool, Geoffrey darling, I'm terribly sorry. You were quite right; it really is a ghastly picture. Let's burn it now."
"You've been awful," said Geoffrey, but his voice was kind.
"I know I have, but I swear I never will again. Come on, let's burn it."
Childishly they cut the canvas into strips, crumpled it up, and crammed it into the fire, and as Helen quoted happily "if thine eye offend thee pluck it out" the last traces of Geoffrey's resentment melted and he held her to him with a passion intensified by the past weeks of restraint. No quarrel marked the end of her next phase, which was a return to the impressionist style of her pre-marriage period.
"It's no good," she proclaimed dismally, "I'm doing rotten work."
"I hope you're not going to blame me and marriage this time?" asked Geoffrey, with a faint accent of anxiety under his light manner.
Helen smiled at him frankly.
"Good God, no," she said, "I know better now. I've got you perfectly in place, Geoffrey. You're the one absolutely necessary thing in my life that I shall probably always stick to. All this stuff," she waved an airy hand round the studio, "is variable, if you know what I mean. I can't do without it, but it changes. Heaven knows it's bad enough now, but sometime I'm going to do something good."
"Do you mean you've arranged your life in compartments, with me in one and your painting in another, and so on?"
"No I don't mean that. I did try it at one time, but it was hopeless. When I got mad with my painting, my rage overlapped out of the painting compartment into yours. But now it's different; you're separate from everything and yet at the bottom of everything. I can't explain quite what I mean, but it works all right."
"Darling, do you mean that in your mind I'm independent of the other things you care about, but in a way they are dependent on me?"
"Yes, I think that's it. Anyhow I'm happy."
"So am I, Helen, really frightfully happy."
"And what's more Geoffrey I think I'll probably be able to fit a child in too."
"Do you mean that you want one? Don't do it for me; I'm perfectly satisfied with things as they are."
Helen came over and sat beside Geoffrey on the sofa, leaning back in her corner and gazing at the fire. She was silent for a few minutes, and Geoffrey looking at the firelight playing over her bright hair wondered vaguely what she was thinking.
"I don't think I specially want one," she said at last, "at least if I do it's for pure idiotic sentimental reasons. But on the other hand I'm not sure that I won't paint better after I've had one; you can't be certain really that every possible experience isn't all to the good."
"I think probably it is," agreed Geoffrey, "Of course I like you to want one for idiotic sentimental reasons; it makes me feel surer of you; but quite apart from that there is your painting. I know you're depressed about it just now and it might start you off working again if you had a child."
"Geoffrey, you're rather sweet to me," said Helen impulsively, "I think it's touching of you to understand that having a baby might make me paint better. It's a topsy turvy idea I know, but I can't help seeing it in that way."
"Sometime I suppose you'll get used to my being able to see things from your point of view," said Geoffrey contentedly.
Helen lifted his hand and kissed it.
"I don't think I'll get too used to you, darling," she said, "I really love you very much."
The telephone rang in the hall before Geoffrey could answer her.
"Damn," she said getting up lazily, "I'm sure that's your mother, she always rings up at this time of night because she feels sure of getting us both at once."
She shut the door, and the one-sided conversation was too subdued to interrupt Geoffrey's thoughts. They were entirely pleasant. His marriage satisfied him mentally and delighted him physically. His occasional fierce quarrels with Helen seemed mere surface disturbances; they did not affect in the slightest their mutual love, though they undoubtedly eradicated in Geoffrey any tendency towards complacency.
He lay stretched out luxuriously on the sofa, and looking back, found that the storms and agonies that had preceded his engagement were dim in his memory. They belonged to a stage that was definitely over.
Helen came back into the studio, her eyes dancing.
"You needn't tell me," said Geoffrey, "I can see by your face that you've been talking to mother. What's she done now?"
"Oh, Geoffrey, it really is gorgeous. She's got the most perfect idea. You know Hugh and Jessica are coming back on Tuesday? Well, she proposes to have a party the Friday after for your grannie and great-aunt Sarah and aunt Dora and Jessica and me. All six of us do you see? And such husbands as there are, naturally."
"It sounds monstrous. Must we go?"
"Of course we must, and it isn't monstrous at all. I do wish you appreciated your mother; she'll be at her best stage-managing a thing like that. It will be a perfect puppet show; she'll pull the wires and we'll dance."
"Darling, why do you dance? Is it pure malice?"
"No it isn't. A little bit, yes. I do love to see how far she'll go. When we talk about art, for instance, I give her cues to see if she'll take them, and she does every time. Out she trots the same old clichés; it never fails. But mostly it's because I really admire her; she's so consistently unreal, she isn't a person at all, she's a peg hung with old worn out conventions and traditions, and yet she comports herself as if she were more real than any one else in the world."
"I'm her son; am I unreal too?" Geoffrey asked soberly.
"My darling, you're not."
Helen stood away from him, looking down at him serenely, her hands clasped loosely in front of her, her manner serious.
"You're real to me, just as I expect she and your father are real to each other. I'm an individualist. I suppose I'm what people would call temperamental, but I'm not entirely imbecile. I appreciate quite clearly that I have an enormous lot in common with your mother. As regards the ordinary practical things of life we do just the same as your parents did. I don't mean only things like marrying, and having children, and dying. But we're the product of the same education and very much the same kind of home. We have the same income, and move in much the same set. The differences between us are mainly superficial and illusionary. Your mother, for instance, has an illusion about motherhood and all that, and I have one about art, but we're both in the tradition of suitable wives for the male Greene."
"It is odd to hear you talk like that. I should have thought that you would have passionately repudiated any sort of kinship with mother. And surely the differences between people are very sharp? Whatever you may say, you're very distinct from other people."
"Not now," said Helen positively. "When I was very young, yes, and when I'm old then I'll be Helen Guest again, but now I'm just beginning on the middle years and your mother's just getting to the end of them, but we've all the experiences of life in common, even if we do approach them from a totally different stand-point."
"I see what you mean. But you won't change will you, Helen? You won't be less yourself if you have a baby?"
"Yes, I think I'll change; I don't think I'll be less myself but anyhow you'll have to risk that."
"I don't want you any different," said Geoffrey very quietly.
Helen threw back her head and laughed.
"You don't know," she said, "I may become too awful, or I may improve enormously; the only single certain thing is that within the next year or two I'm going to do some good work."
"You're like mother in one way anyhow: in your brutally uncompromising optimism."
"And in another way too," Helen countered swiftly, "that I do most genuinely love one of the Mr. Greenes."
MRS. HUGH BECKETT GREENE
MRS. HUGH BECKETT GREENE
I
Jessica Deane wakened very early on her wedding morning and got up at once to look at the weather. The sun was slowly climbing up a clear sky, and there was a cold frostiness in the air that matched her mood. She looked out westwards over the roofs in the direction of the Greenes' house, and wondered whether Hugh were asleep or awake, and if awake whether he were feeling like her, keenly strung up, and exquisitely expectant, or only nervous and worried at the thought of dressing up to face a crowded church and a still more crowded reception.
She crossed over to the long mirror and studied her face at close range. It would be awful to have a spot on my chin, she thought anxiously, even the smallest beginning of a spot would spoil my nerve, or a bloodshot eye, or hiccups at the last minute. What appalling things might happen to destroy me to-day.
The mirror faithfully reflected back her own expression of dismay as she thought of all the depressing contingencies that might arise, and as she looked at it her face broke into a smile. Satisfied that even a close scrutiny showed no blemish, she stepped back a pace and looked at herself in detail.
My hair grows well, she thought dispassionately, I'm glad it's so fair and goes back like that off my forehead, but I think my eyes are too wide apart, and really my chin is almost negligible, it fades away to nothing. In fact twenty years ago I would have been plain, it's pure luck that my kind of face happens to be in the mode at present. It's lucky too that Hugh is so dark; we ought to look nice together.
Her mind plunged forward a few hours; and she laid a nervous hand on her heart beating so lightly and quickly under the lace of her nightgown as she thought of herself and Hugh standing at the flowered altar with rows and rows of massed curious faces behind.
Seized by a sudden desire to reassure herself by a sight of her wedding frock, Jessica went quietly into the spare bedroom where frock, train and veil were spread out on the bed. She lifted the white sheet that protected them and looked at the shining gold tissue of frock and train, and the old ivory veil lent by her godmother; then suddenly picking them up she bore them off to her room.
Of course it's desperately unlucky to try on your frock when it's quite finished—she argued with herself—but Hugh and I don't need luck and I'm not superstitious, and I would terribly like to make sure that it's as nice as I think it is. Taking off her nightgown she put on a new vest of yellow silk to match the frock, gold stockings and the pointed gold shoes that were to carry her up the aisle as Jessica Deane and down again as Jessica Greene.
Just as she slipped the frock over her head, and struggled into the long close-fitting sleeves, a voice from the doorway said, "Darling, are you mad? I heard you bumping about and thought I'd better come and see if you were having a nerve storm or something."
"Do come and help me, Drusilla, it's a frightfully difficult dress to get into. Pull it down all round will you; I just suddenly felt I had to put it on."
Jessica's face, faintly flushed from her struggle, appeared out of a swirl of gold, and she blushed deeper with embarrassment as she confronted her sister's cool, critical gaze.
"I suppose I am silly," she said defiantly, "In fact I know it's silly to be trying on my wedding dress at this unearthly hour in the morning, but brides are always allowed to behave idiotically on their wedding day."
"Not this sort of idiocy, though," said Drusilla calmly, "tears and hysterics, and changing your mind at the last minute if you like, but not just pure vanity. I think that's all right now."
Drusilla, who was kneeling to pull down the long skirt, leaned back on her heels and fingered its stiff folds.
"It's lovely," she said, "I'm glad you had it long enough to touch your toes, and I'm glad it's a picture frock too. I know they're overdone, but they do suit us, we're just the type."
She got up and stood in her green dressing-gown beside Jessica in her formal gold tissue.
"We're absurdly alike," said Jessica looking in the mirror at their two faces, with the same broad foreheads, grey eyes, pointed chins, and backward springing yellow hair, "If anything, I think you're prettier than me."
"I don't know," said Drusilla, complacently. "You vary more of course, but at your best I think you're a little better than me. Anyhow we'll both be all right to-day."
"I do hope so. You know I really feel looks matter frightfully. I feel so entirely right about Hugh, and I would like to look as dazzling as I feel, but it simply isn't possible."
"Are you really as much in love as all that?" Drusilla asked curiously.
"Yes, I am," answered Jessica, her face intent and serious, "I'm madly in love and so is Hugh, and we think we can pull off a really lovely marriage."
Drusilla sighed.
"You're a funny whole-hearted little creature," she said. "It's queer that I'm two years older than you, and I've never been the least bit in love."
"Do just get me out of this," said Jessica, but as she began to pull the long sleeves over her hands a sudden shaft of sunlight struck across the room, and lit up her yellow hair and her gold gown.
"Oh look, Drusilla, how beautifully lucky; what a proper omen."
She twisted herself so that the sun caught her shining train.
"I think it is rather lucky," Drusilla assented, "here, let me take it off before you tear it on anything."
"Drusilla, let's go and look at the presents again," said Jessica, as she carefully hung the discarded frock over a chair, and put on her dressing-gown.
"You really are crazy, I think; you've seen them a thousand times."
"Yes I know, but never in the early morning, and they'll look quite different. Besides, two came last night and I want to put them with the others in the billiard-room."
"Come on then if you must, but for goodness sake be quiet. Mother will be unhinged if she thinks you're awake so early. You're supposed to be having breakfast in bed at ten, aren't you?"
Very quietly Jessica and Drusilla crept downstairs, turning to smile at each other when a step creaked, with an expression of childish guilt for the clandestine little expedition. As they reached the bottom of the stairs the banisters cracked loudly. Jessica seized Drusilla's hand, giggled and ran across the hall into the billiard-room, where the presents in a glittering mass covered the large table and smaller tables placed round the walls.
"Do you know, I believe I'm rather excited," said Jessica, giggling again, "I never meant to be and I don't expect I will be after breakfast, but at present I feel just silly."
"You're light-headed I think. But it will wear off later on. And it's better than being gloomy. Do you remember how awful Marjorie was? I shall never forget how you and I spent the whole morning propping her up, and talking endlessly about all sorts of imbecile things, because as soon as we stopped she cried."
Drusilla and Jessica laughed out loud at the thought of their eldest sister's wedding four years ago when the bride had gone to the altar as if to a sacrifice, with tears and forebodings.
"How ugly our bridesmaids' frocks were too," said Jessica reminiscently. "You know it's funny how unlike us Marjorie is; you and I always laugh at the same things, and take the same things seriously, and we look alike too, but Marjorie is hopelessly different; so very homespun somehow."
"You're not quite homespun enough you know; I often wonder how you'll stay the course."
"Oh Drusilla, don't be so sinister I implore you, or I'll go all weepy like Marjorie. Besides I'm not half so trivial and erratic as you think. I'm pretty solid really; it's only when I think of Hugh I feel like a gas-filled balloon."
"This is a ghastly thing," said Drusilla inconsequently lifting up a heavy silver cake stand and turning it about to see if there was any angle at which it could be considered anything but ugly.
"Yes, isn't it atrocious. But at least it's silver. Just think of the Blakes giving us that awful electro-plate tea-pot when they are as rich as Crœsus too. I think it's pretty stingy of them, and it's a hideous shape too."
"Well they don't like you, you know," said Drusilla calmly, "They think you're aggressively modern and probably rather fast, so really it was very good of them to give you anything."
"I don't see that at all. They only did give it me because they like Mother and Daddy; it was nothing to do with me at all. Drusilla, isn't it funny how people show off with wedding presents? That huge china jar from the Carters I mean, obviously chosen for its bulk, and I'd simply have loved it if it had been so small you could hardly see it; about as big as a thimble perhaps."
Jessica wandered down the long table, touching the silver objects carelessly, but gently stroking the china. Drusilla, who was draping a Spanish shawl more elegantly over a screen, looked up and laughed at her.
"You really are impossible," she said, "How could you want a jar the size of a thimble. That one will be useful for umbrellas too."
Jessica clasped her hands passionately.
"I know," she said, "I know one must have umbrellas, and things must be big, but I'd like to be a dwarf and live in an exquisite little Japanese garden. Small things are so very rare."
"Not really," Drusilla disagreed, "they're often very mean and cunning."
"How vile you are to disagree with me to-day," said Jessica happily. "Oh, Drusilla, just look at this! Four sets of coffee cups all cheek by jowl! How shockingly tactless! All the people who gave me coffee cups will have their feelings terribly hurt, and wish they had given me mustard pots instead. I must rearrange them. One here and one there wouldn't be so noticeable."
Drusilla picked up a small jeweller's box and looked at the long string of jade curled round on the white velvet lining.
"A gorgeous present," she commented, "Jade is lovely stuff, and it suits you too. Really I think it very decent of old Mrs. Hugh to give you a personal present like that."
"I like her; she's rather a pet. And I like Hugh's Grannie too, she's frightfully nice. I do hope she likes me because I know she loves Hugh and I'd hate to come between them. It's only Hugh's mother I'm frightened of, though I like her too. You know, sooner or later I'm bound to shock her. She thinks I'm a child, and Hugh and I are a pretty little couple and so on, and if I said something was bloody—and I might easily, even with her there—she'd have a fit."
"You probably will give her a shock some time. She's absolutely wrapped in illusions as far as I can see, especially about her children."
"I know she is," Jessica sighed, "you know, Drusilla, I'd like to have a good many children, especially boys I think, but I'd rather drown them at birth than live on them as Mrs. Greene does."
"How do you mean?"
Jessica relapsed into vagueness. "I don't know," she said, "only she seems so mixed up with them somehow, and Hugh is so utterly exquisite when you think of him as an isolated identity."
"He is rather, but you'd better not think of him as an isolated identity; he isn't ever likely to be, he's part of a very compact family and you'll be part of it too."
"I know, I'll have to get used to it, and it doesn't really matter. I'd swallow a clan of Jews from Whitechapel to get Hugh, if I had to."
The hall clock struck seven.
"Haven't you finished fussing over the presents yet," said Drusilla. "You must have spaced out the coffee cups by now, and I do think you ought to go back to bed again for a bit."
"All right, I'll come now. The maids will be up in a minute, and we'd better creep back now before they hear us."
They stole quietly upstairs and Jessica got into bed again.
"Stay a minute, Drusilla, sit on the bed and let's talk," she said, and immediately fell silent. Drusilla waited.
"Well, what about it?" she asked at last.
"I don't know," said Jessica seriously, "there really is nothing to say at all. Here I am sort of suspended in mid-air between never-been-married, and never-again-be-unmarried, and I'm not sure that I'll ever feel anything much lovelier than this, just waiting till I see Hugh this afternoon at 2.30 exactly."
"Darling, you're all agog. It is nice. I wish I could fall in love like that."
"I used to think you were a little fond of Stephen Wilcox, weren't you?" asked Jessica curiously, "but don't say so if you'd rather not; it's an indelicate question." She blushed furiously, but Drusilla answered quite unmoved.
"Well, yes, I was rather, but one night at a dance he kissed me a lot, and got very worked up, and it struck me as just funny and rather clumsy. I didn't have the faintest thrill, so I knew it wouldn't do."
"I'm not at all like that," Jessica spoke with solemn emphasis. "I get the most extraordinary thrills when Hugh kisses me. He musses all my clothes and untidies my hair, and my face gets all blotched and red, and I simply love it. In fact I think I'm very passionate, and it's a good thing if I am, because Hugh says he is."
"God knows how he manages it with those parents, but I should think he may be all the same, he's so good-looking." Drusilla yawned. "I think I'd better go now," she said, "you look sleepy, and I am too, and it's still nearly two hours till breakfast."
"Oh don't go yet, stay one more minute," Jessica begged, "I do like talking to you. Drusilla; I feel most awfully glad I'm a virgin. Isn't it lucky? It would be terrible to have a past, don't you think, so disappointing somehow."
"You're being incredibly Victorian; all worked up and excited and old-fashioned, and besides, my girl, you have a past. What about that awful boy Richardson when you were seventeen?"
Jessica's face and neck crimsoned slowly.
"Don't tease me about that," she said, "I can hardly bear to think of it, it was so undignified and vulgar, and when Mother found us kissing in the garage it was absolute Hell. I can hardly believe it's two years since it happened; it feels like yesterday."
"I'm sorry I teased you then," said Drusilla smiling, "honestly I thought you'd have forgotten all about it by now. Anyhow it's not important in the least I promise you." She stood up and looking down at Jessica added "Really you're not to fuss about it now; Hugh is charming, and you'll be married to him in a minute and live happily ever after."
"I know I will," said Jessica lazily, and as Drusilla shut the door she turned over and smoothed her pillow happily conscious that the next morning Hugh's dark head would be lying on it, beside her. Darling Hugh, she thought drowsily, and fell asleep regardless of the sunlight on her face.
II
The sound of her mother's voice woke her for the second time.
"My dear child, do you know it's half past ten? I really thought I'd better wake you to have some breakfast."
She was followed by a maid carrying a tray, and as Jessica pushed back her hair, rubbed her eyes and sat up, Mrs. Deane took the tray, put it on a table and sat down on the bed. She kissed Jessica and smiled.
"You know I feel quite sentimental," she said, "and a little excited too. After all, here you are, my youngest daughter on her wedding day, a most thrilling event for any mother."
"You're every bit as bad as I am, Mother. Do you know when I was awake before, I felt so silly that I couldn't stop giggling! Do you know the feeling?"
"Of course I do, but oh, my dear"—Mrs. Deane caught her breath—"I'm going to miss you terribly. The house will be as quiet as a tomb without you. When I sit in the front pew this afternoon watching you and your father come up the aisle, I shall shed tears into my bouquet."
"You mustn't darling, really you mustn't. I'll be completely mortified if you do. I can't have you weeping at my wedding. I know Marjorie will, and that'll be bad enough, heaven knows."
"Well, you must have your breakfast now, anyhow," said Mrs. Deane getting up decisively to pour out the coffee, "but I warn you that whatever you say, I shall shed a tear or two. What I shall do when Drusilla marries I can't think. Thank goodness I've still got her."
"By that time you'll have shoals of grandchildren to console you," Jessica suggested comfortably.
"My dear Jessica——" began Mrs. Deane, but broke off suddenly and continued, "Oh well I suppose you young things know your own business best, but I could never even have thought a thing like that on my wedding morning."
"No darling, I don't suppose you could, but then your generation was so stuffy, wasn't it?" said Jessica gently.
"Some of us were very happy anyhow," retorted Mrs. Deane, kissing Jessica again, "I couldn't want anything better for you than to be as happy with Hugh as I've been with your father. But really, my dear, it's very naughty of you to keep me here gossiping. I have a hundred and one things to see to, in fact I must go this minute and see if the bouquets have arrived yet. Eat a proper breakfast and don't hurry."
As Mrs. Deane opened the door Drusilla appeared on the threshold.
"Oh Mother," she said with an accent of the deepest reproach, "you're no good at all. You ought to have been having a serious talk with Jessica. I've been eavesdropping for hours, hoping you would begin to instruct her in the facts of life, and all I heard was her telling you you were stuffy!"
When Mrs. Deane blushed she looked like both her daughters, and now she twisted her fingers in a gesture that Jessica, too, was betrayed into in moments of embarrassment.
"Really you are terrible," she said distractedly, "both of you. I don't know which of you is the most indelicate. I shall go and take refuge with the caterers and the furniture men. They have much nicer minds than either of my daughters. Good-bye, darlings."
She hurried out and Drusilla took her place on Jessica's bed.
"I'm holding a series of audiences this morning," said Jessica, "Obviously it's the proper thing for all the family to tip-toe in and peep at me ghoulishly to make sure I haven't faded away in the night. Isn't mother a duck?"
"Yes, she's rather sweet," answered Drusilla, "and frightfully competent too. You know there is a vast amount of arranging to be done for a show like this, and you and I haven't done a hand's-turn to help, have we?"
Jessica's white forehead wrinkled into a frown.
"It's rather worrying," she began. "Of course I shan't have to bother about anything on my honeymoon. Hugh is marvellous about trains and arrangements and he can do it all, but I suppose in a month when we come home I'll have to settle down and be a proper person, and everyone will criticise me."
"Not any more than they do now surely?"
"Yes, far more. A few of the Greene relations may swallow me, but most of them will think everything I do is wrong, and they'll be sorry for Hugh, and you know quite well, Drusilla, that I shall never be able to scold the servants."
"I think that probably comes with practice," Drusilla reassured her, "and, anyhow, you aren't going to be living so far away that we can't keep an eye on you."
"I know. That does help of course. But Drusilla I do feel I must go on letting Hugh be a Greene; I mustn't try to absorb him into our family. I really have a scruple about it."
"Well, I don't think you need have. There isn't the faintest chance of Hugh being disassociated from his family. But anyhow you're full of contradictions; only this morning you said you thought of him as an isolated fragment or something."
"Really Drusilla, you're very dense sometimes," said Jessica a little piqued, but Drusilla only laughed.
"You can't possibly understand," began Jessica, but at the sound of a car drawing up at the front door below with a good deal of unnecessary hooting, she stopped and sat bolt upright, a scarlet patch of excitement on either cheek.
"Drusilla, that's Hugh!" she said, and jumping out of bed she darted over to the window, pushed it up and hung out, waving wildly.
Drusilla leaned over her shoulder, and saw Hugh standing on the steps below carrying two huge parcels and smiling up at Jessica.
"Darling, come up and see me," called Jessica, "it's most unseemly of you to be here on our wedding day, but since you are here you must come up. What have you come for anyhow?"
"Two important presents from two important people," said Hugh gaily, "Mother wants them shown in most conspicuous places, and incidentally she thought she'd better give me a job to keep my nerves steady."
"Oh are you nervous, Hugh? Do come up at once, dearest. Why does nobody let you in?"
"I don't suppose you've rung, have you?" Drusilla called down.
"Heavens, I forgot," said Hugh laughing, "I was just going to when Jessica appeared for the balcony scene."
He laid down one parcel, and rang the bell, still looking up.
"Couldn't you throw me a flower or something romantic?" he asked.
Jessica tore a small bow of gold ribbon off the shoulder of her nightgown, kissed it and flung it down to him.
"There you are," she called, watching it flutter slowly and uncertainly down to the street, "my God, it's going down into the area; it'll be wasted on cook. No it isn't; it's all right."
As her shrill excited tones followed the flight of the light scrap of ribbon, a shocked and inquisitive face appeared at the window opposite, and at the same moment she heard her mother's voice behind her.
"Jessica, come in at once. This is really too much; you must not lean out of the window in your nightgown; Drusilla, you shouldn't have allowed her."
Jessica waved airily to Hugh, blew a kiss to the face in the opposite house, drew in her head and shut the window.
"It's Hugh, Mother," she said as if that explained the whole situation, "he's down below with two important parcels from two important people."
"Well, that makes it worse," said Mrs. Deane severely, "you were hanging half out of the window and all the top of your nightgown is transparent lace. Really I feel quite cross with you both."
"Don't be cross, darling," implored Jessica. "My trousseau nighties are far more indecent than this, and look, I'll put on a dressing-gown before he comes up."
"He is certainly not coming up, Jessica. It would be most unsuitable."
Jessica flung her arms round her mother's neck and kissed her.
"Very well, darling," she said, "We won't outrage you any more; he shan't come up; I'll go down to him instead."
Laughing, she snatched up her dressing-gown and ran out of the room and downstairs, her bare feet flashing white over the green carpet.
Mrs. Deane laughed reluctantly.
"I'm perfectly helpless with Hugh and Jessica," she said, "It's no use hoping for any sense from either of them. Jessica is like a child; she's quite fey with excitement."
"It's really all right Mother," Drusilla soothed her. "She's frightfully happy and they do suit each other well. I honestly think Hugh understands her perfectly."
"Yes, I feel that too," said Mrs. Deane, going out on to the landing, "It's very satisfactory because Jessica is so temperamental."
She leaned over the banisters and then turned smiling to Drusilla.
"Just look at them on the landing; they wouldn't mind if the servants and the caterers and all the furniture men were drawn up in rows to look at them."
Quickly sensitive to the watching eyes above, Hugh looked up.
"I say, Mrs. Deane," he said apologetically, "I know I oughtn't to be here, but Mother sent me round with a couple of presents, and now I am here I must talk to Jessica for a minute."
"Yes, of course, my dear," agreed Mrs. Deane, entirely forgetting her conventional qualms, "go into my sitting-room; it's the only room in the house that isn't upside-down. But really you can only have ten minutes and then Jessica must come upstairs."
She turned to Drusilla.
"Do go down and talk to your father, dearest. The servants have chased him from room to room, and now he's pacing round the billiard table in a terrible state of nerves. He ought to have gone to his office; it would have been much more sensible, but he had a feeling that Jessica might want him."
"All right, Mother; what are you going to do?"
"I'm just going to see that all her things are properly packed. But you know, Drusilla, I do not think she should have said her nightgowns were indecent."
"My dear Mother," said Drusilla decisively, going downstairs, "if you take seriously any one thing Jessica may say to-day you will forfeit all my respect and admiration."
"I hope she'll be serious in church at least," retorted Mrs. Deane, and went into the spare bedroom to look a little mournfully at Jessica's strapped trunks.
III
In the sitting-room Hugh and Jessica sat down on the rug in front of the fire. Hugh suddenly noticed her bare toes.
"My sweet," he said, "did you come running downstairs to me, all in your bare toes?"
Jessica leaned restfully against him as she answered: "Of course I did. I didn't dare wait in case Mother would stop me, and anyhow, I forgot about slippers."
She took his hand and gently flexed the fingers one by one.
"I've been mad with excitement all morning," she said. "And now you are with me I feel quite comfortable and easy and peaceful."
"We ought always to be together," said Hugh emphatically. "I hate to think I'll have to leave you alone every day when I go to the office."
"Oh, but that's years away. A whole month at least before we need think about it. All the same I would rather like to be a typist, or perhaps something a little grander, in your office. Couldn't it be arranged?"
"It could not, darling; not possibly; but anyhow it will be good coming home to you in the evenings."
"It's a pity there are so many magazine stories," said Jessica hazily, gazing into the fire. "You know the sort of stuff: bright eyes at the window, or the little woman at the garden gate. Now I shall be forced to stay on the sofa in my elegant yellow drawing-room and when you come in I shall just look up from my book in a casual way, and say, 'Hello Hugh!'"
"If you do wait like that I'll know you don't love me any more. You never wait for people you love, or even people you like; you always rush to meet them."
"Yes, but I'm going to be quite different now. When I'm a young matron—isn't it a ghastly expression?—I shall behave like a young matron and put away childish things and stop looking through a glass darkly."
"All at once, sweetheart? Jessica, I do love you so."
Hugh caught her to him and kissed her, but she gently warded him off.
"I love you too, Hugh; I adore you, but you mustn't spoil my face. It isn't vanity, but I do want to look lovely for you to-day."
"My dearest, you will. You couldn't look lovelier than you do now all rumpled and crumpled, but still I've often looked forward to your coming up the aisle to me in the gold frock and train that I've never seen, with a veil all over your darling face."
"I'm not wearing it over my face; it didn't go with my kind of naked forehead. It just falls back from a thing they call a fillet. Have you really imagined that, Hugh?"
"Often. I've lain awake at nights thinking about it, till sometimes I got so wide awake that I had to get up and walk about and hang out of the window, and sometimes I got so drugged with my own thoughts that I went to sleep thinking it was really happening."
"It's queer that you should love me so much, Hugh, but I should die at once if you didn't."
The door opened, and a housemaid came in to see to the fire.
"Go away, Mary," said Jessica, dreamily. "We've only got ten minutes together; we can't be interrupted."
"I'm so sorry, Miss Jessica," said Mary. "I'll see that nobody else disturbs you. The fire can wait."
She closed the door very softly, and went downstairs to inform the other servants that the sitting-room fire could await Miss Jessica's pleasure.
"Wouldn't it be appalling, Hugh, if we really had only ten minutes and then you had to leave me to go to China or some place."
"Awful!" said Hugh shortly, an expression of pain on his face.
"But we needn't worry," Jessica consoled him. "We've got all the time there is, haven't we?"
"Darling, we'll need it; I can't ever have enough of you."
Jessica suddenly shivered.
"Are you cold, my sweet?" he asked anxiously.
"Not a bit. I suddenly thought of something."
Jessica fell silent.
"What did you think of to make you shudder like that? Tell me, darling."
Hugh held her more closely, but Jessica did not answer for a moment, and when she did, she spoke jerkily and nervously.
"I was thinking of that terrifying play 'Hassan.' Do you remember how the two lovers could either be free and never see each other again, or else have one night together and then die in torture? I often think of that and I know I should choose to have the night with you even if I did have to be tortured, but still it does frighten me."
"Darling, don't think of it. We're fools to sit and frighten each other with idiotic impossibilities. Besides, every minute of to-day belongs to me and I insist on you being happy."
Hugh spoke gaily, but as he looked down at Jessica, he saw two tears hanging on her eyelashes.
"Jessica, dear," he said. "Nothing is really wrong, is it? You haven't changed your mind about marrying me, have you?"
Jessica held him convulsively, and smiled, though her tears fell.
"No, of course not," she said. "Nothing is wrong. I'm just a damned fool. I love you so and I get into dreadful panics about losing you and not having you any more."
"I'll keep you safe, I promise," Hugh spoke earnestly. "I'll always take care of you, my only love."
"I know you will, Hugh. It's all right really; I do feel safe with you. Sometimes I lose my nerve, that's all, and the other day Mother said something about not putting all my eggs in one basket."
"How silly." Hugh laughed scornfully. "What would be the use of scattering them about in dozens of baskets. Besides your Mother did it herself, and very successfully too; she adores your father."
Jessica sprang to her feet.
"Oh, Hugh," she exclaimed conscience-stricken. "I've never seen Daddy all day, and I know he'll be feeling utterly miserable about losing me. I must go to him at once."
"You're a vain creature; and anyhow, you don't want to go dashing off this minute to look for him. I'll have to go soon and you can find him then."
"Oh, dear, I suppose it's all right. I'll wait till you go."
Jessica sat down again, drew Hugh's arm round her, and leaned back comfortably on his shoulder.
"I'm not vain," she said. "But Daddy really is different. He needs me quite badly just as I need him, and often I feel guilty for marrying you and leaving him."
"But, darling, I need you frightfully. Honestly I need you more than your father. I know he loves you, but, my dear, I do more than that; I couldn't live without you."
"I'm glad," said Jessica. "We're both in the same boat then."
Forgetting to care about her complexion she turned her face to Hugh to be kissed. As Drusilla came in they broke apart from each other, but Jessica still kept her arms linked around Hugh's neck.
"Must he go now?" she asked, vaguely. "How terribly cruel."
"Yes, I'm afraid he must," said Drusilla. "Its nearly twelve and it will take you all that time to bathe and dress and have some sort of meal. But it isn't really so very cruel you know, Jessica, you've only got to wait about three hours till you have him for good."
"It is cruel," Jessica persisted wildly. "He'll never have me again as Jessica Deane. It will all be quite different and it's been so lovely up till now."
"But I'm longing for the end of Jessica Deane," said Hugh laughing.
"Don't laugh at me; you can't be certain that everything will be all right; don't laugh at me," said Jessica brokenly.
Hugh took her in his arms.
"My darling," he said soberly. "I am certain that everything will be all right. It won't be any different, only a million times better."
"Are you sure, Hugh? Are you really sure?"
"I promise you I am. Listen, sweet, I must go now and Drusilla will help you to dress and look after you, won't you, Drusilla?" He looked appealingly over Jessica's head. "And I'll be waiting for you when you come up the aisle with your father, and you must tip me a little wink when you get to me just to show me you're all right."
"Oh, darling, of course I'm all right," said Jessica happily. "I am, Drusilla, aren't I? I'm only a little crazed to-day, it's all so queer and lovely. I don't know what got me, I just suddenly felt sad for a minute. I think it was thinking about Daddy, but I'll go and comfort him a little when you've gone. Goodbye, my own dear love."
"I believe this is the only time I've ever said good-bye to you without getting an actual physical pain in the pit of my stomach."
"My dears," interrupted Drusilla, still waiting in the doorway, "I don't want to interrupt you, but—
"All right, Drusilla, I've gone; better do it quickly."
Hugh kissed Jessica, ran downstairs and in a moment the slam of the front door echoed through the house.
Jessica stood still where he had left her, staring vacantly after him.
"Jessica, are you asleep?" Drusilla asked her.
She shook her head and her eyes lightened.
"No, I'm not. I'm awake and blissfully happy. Tell me, shall I go and talk to Daddy now, or have my bath first? I haven't seen him all morning."
"I honestly think you ought to start dressing first. Daddy's all right. He is prowling round the house with everyone falling over him and carrying dishes and things round him."
"Poor darling," said Jessica tenderly. "Don't let me have too hot a bath," she warned Drusilla on the way upstairs. "I must be careful not to let my hair go limp."
IV
Dressing was pure delight. Jessica put on for the second time that day the yellow silk vest, the long gold silk stockings, and the narrow gold shoes, but added, this time, yellow silk knickers and a pair of gold garters.
As she stepped back to look at herself before putting on her frock, she said earnestly: "I do hope Hugh will like my shape."
"But surely you know he does," said Drusilla reassuring. "He thinks you're lovely and you are rather to-day."
"But he's never seen me stark," said Jessica simply. "It makes a difference. I think I'm too boyish-looking. I'd like to be frightfully feminine just for once."
"But you are in that frock. It really is charming. Do let me get you into it now. I ought to go and dress now myself. And here's Mother."
"I'm all ready, darling," said Mrs. Deane. "I just came to help to finish you off. Where's Marchmont?"
"We sent her away because Drusilla was helping me and I hate a crowd."
"Well, I'll slip your frock on for you, my dear, but Marchmont had better arrange the veil, I think."