He led her into the church. As he did so, the lone organist struck up the wedding march. The long dolorous notes echoed against the simple groined roof, rolled back to meet the bride. The clergyman waited at the altar, stifling a yawn. There were two young men present, Anthony’s friends.
Adelaide walked up to the altar with her groom, who was certainly committing a faux pas in not waiting for his bride decorously. But the girl did not mind. She saw nothing, felt nothing, but the pressure and strength of Anthony’s hand and the slate-gray eyes fixed so comfortingly and tenderly upon her.
Then it was over. Adelaide faintly remembered words and questions, to which she answered. Then Anthony’s lips were upon hers, and his arms were about her. She burst into inexplicable weeping, and clung to him. The new gold ring upon her finger was a circlet of fire.
In the meantime, two interesting conversations had taken place in the apartments of Louisa and Lavinia.
Rufus Hastings knew that with Lavinia he had to use the utmost tact and guile. She was not naturally suspicious of the motives of others. But he understood well enough that a straightforward suggestion to her of guile and treachery would infuriate her, would elicit nothing but her angry and tumultuous refusal. Now, he reflected, as he sat beside her bed and kissed her warm hand, if she only had the sense of Louisa, who understood everything, and had the subtlety to read the lift of an eyebrow and the lift of a shoulder. Too, there was a conscience hidden under all the noisy violence of Lavinia, and Rufus knew he dared not arouse it. He did not respect his young wife for this conscience, for the inconvenient scruples which she possessed. They only made him impatient, and contemptuous.
So, he began by sighing. Lavinia, none too subtle at the best, never saw what was to be seen until it was thrust directly before her eyes. So she finished up the last of her breakfast with hearty enjoyment, while Rufus increased the tempo of his sighing. Lavinia was feeling exceptionally well this morning, and when she finally discerned that Rufus was in a very low state of mind, her first emotion was impatient annoyance. It was just like Rufus to come in with a long face and spoil her pleasant morning.
“Do stop heaving like a winded horse, Rufe,” she said, wiping her hands vigorously on her napkin. “What’s the matter? Tell me. I don’t like fatal looks, you know that.”
Rufus took her hand again, and smoothed it tenderly, each finger separately. Then he looked up and fixed his green eyes upon her, and shook his head. But all this did not alarm Lavinia. She made a mouth of resigned irritation, and waited.
“Have you noticed how ill your dear Papa is these days?” he asked at last, just when she had reached the explosive point.
She gaped at him, scowling. Now she looked excessively like John, and, in spite of her anger, there was his own vulnerable appearance about her.
“Well, he certainly doesn’t appear to be enjoying bounding health,” she said, with ill-nature. “But one can’t expect it. After all, he is in his forties, and that is quite elderly.”
“It is more than that,” said Rufus, with deep gravity. “I believe he suffers from some affection of the heart. There was my grandfather, you know. He had a similar appearance before his last illness. I might as well confess to you, my dear, that I am seriously concerned about your father. I have had a consultation with Burney. He agrees with me that your Papa needs a long rest, and that the most dangerous consequences might take place if that rest is too long delayed.”
Lavinia knitted her thick black brows together and stared at her husband with gloomy anxiety. She started to say something, then bit her lip.
“Patrick and I have talked with your Papa, but he is adamant. He will not go away. He is suspicious, it seems, of us.” He allowed himself a reflective and melancholy smile. “He thinks we plot, or something. He cannot conceive that we have only the deepest regard for him, and that our protestations that he must rest are genuine.”
“Are they?” asked Lavinia, with that disconcerting bluntness of hers. “Rufe, I know you. You never really felt concern for anybody but yourself. I want the truth.” She snatched her hand away from her husband, and threw herself back against her pillows. Her black eyes were sharp and narrowed points.
Rufus smiled boyishly. He rose. He walked to the window, then returned to the bed. He sat down again. “I will be frank with you, my love,” he said.
“Impossible,” murmured Lavinia, satirically.
Rufus ignored this. “As you know, we have access to all your Papa’s affairs. We have discovered that he has not made the slightest outline of a will. We have suggested that he do this. He was quite violent when he advised us to mind our own business. This becomes serious when one remembers that your grandpapa’s will specifically requires that in the event of your Papa’s death the entire estate left to your Papa is to be divided equally among all his children.
“The money left to your Papa is now completely invested in your Papa’s affairs. Now, suppose for a moment that your Papa does not take his necessary rest, and dies suddenly, and very soon. What then? Adelaide, whom we all know is a sly baggage and has nothing but hatred for all of us, can really ruin us if she decides—and well she might—to liquidate that part of her share of the estate invested in your Papa’s enterprises and businesses. And I might as well tell you now, my pet, that such a demand on us by Adelaide would ruin us.
“Moreover, your dear Mama would have her share, her widow’s dower. One-third of the estate. We all know that she is much under Adelaide’s influence. Think, then what it will mean if not only Adelaide demands liquidation of her share, but influences your Mama to do likewise. I can tell you frankly, that everything would collapse. You and Louisa would not inherit enough from the estate to save the businesses.”
He straightened, and drew a deep breath. “Our only hope is to prolong your Papa’s life, and restore him to a state of mental and physical health in which he can reasonably be approached and his duty laid before him. At the present time it is hopeless to approach him with this thought. Therefore, I am asking you now, as his favourite daughter, to induce him to recuperate his health. You have two reasons: your natural affection for your father, and the danger in which we all stand.”
Lavinia, though shrewdly doubting that her husband had told her the complete truth, nevertheless recognized the validity of his arguments. She was consumed by the deepest and most enraged anxiety. She muttered savagely under her breath, and Rufus heard the vicious mention of Adelaide’s name.
Then she said aloud, in her noisy and hectoring voice: “It is a stinking mess. No wonder you are upset, Rufe. But what if he won’t go? You know how obstinate Papa is at times.”
Rufus, delighted at his success, stroked his wife’s dark and vivid cheek.
“He can’t resist you, my love. You have only to weep on his neck, and kiss him hysterically, and beg him to listen to reason. You know how he adores you. When he sees that his obstinacy is causing you such great distress, he will soften. For your sake, he will do as you ask. He can’t help but be touched.”
Lavinia regarded him in brooding and violent silence. Her face had flushed. Then she averted her eyes.
“I do love Papa,” she muttered. “Even without the other—Oh, it is intolerable of Papa! It is odious! He must realize in what jeopardy he has placed us. Still, if it were only that I wouldn’t bother.” She dropped her eyelids. Her husband did not see the thick hot tears that threatened to run over her cheeks.
Rufus smiled secretly.
Now Patrick needed no such subtlety in his approach towards Louisa. (Rufus often wondered into what chaos the business would be plunged had fate been evil enough to have given Lavinia to Patrick as a wife. Their mutual dislike of the ultimate ruthlessness would have betrayed all of them into ruin. People who possessed a furtive generosity and humour could never deal the final murderous blow.)
Patrick came to his pretty and dainty wife, and kissed her with enthusiasm. He adored her immaculate fastidiousness, her graciousness, her apparent pliancy a
nd exquisite manners. Nevertheless, as he looked at her this morning he felt a faint thrill of repellent dislike for her. He would not need, he reflected, to play on her affections for her father, for she had none. He need only talk to her bluntly and cynically, and she would laugh mellifluously and nod her golden head. For this, then, he felt a quite hot and inexplicable dislike.
He did not waste time, therefore, in Rufus’ dramatics. He said, bluntly:
“Look here, my golden bird, I’ve got to talk to you. Straight. No beatings about the bush.”
Louisa smiled at him sweetly, lifted his hand and placed it against her cool fresh cheek. As she did so, the lace dropped back from her arm, and showed it in all its dainty whiteness and smoothness. She was not unaware of the effect. Nor was she unaware, from Patrick’s sudden frown, the sudden heaviness and surliness about his mouth, that he had come on serious business. She detected the uneasiness in him, the angry impatience against himself. Her smile was now hidden. She despised Patrick a little, for she knew there was a rotten spot of weakness in him, a soft spot of conscience. Her astuteness was so keen that she half guessed at what he was about to say.
“What gravity,” she murmured. She leaned back against her cushions and regarded him with the blue luminosity of her eyes. Her golden hair framed her lovely face. It was an angel’s face, rapt and innocent.
“It is grave,” he said, and his dislike for her increased, for he knew that however brutal he might be, however despicable, she would not really care.
He said: “I want you to get your father away from the city for a long time. Frankly, he is ill. Burney has already told me that he needs a prolonged rest. If he doesn’t the consequences can be quite terrible. Fatal.”
The angel’s face became meditative, with a curious sharpness about the faultless features, a curiously wizened tightness around the soft rosy mouth.
“And,” she said, musically, “if he does die, that will leave us all in a very precarious state, won’t it? With no will at all? I know all that. I know the conditions of grandpapa’s will. I know Adelaide’s influence on Mama. A quite dangerous influence. Yes, I see.”
Patrick rose abruptly, with a really unreasonable gesture of disgust, considering that he ought to have been relieved by Louisa’s acumen, which had spared him much uneasy maneuvering. He actually glared down at his pretty wife.
“Yes,” he said, shortly. “That’s it.”
Louisa dropped the too revealing light of her blue eyes. She played with a ruffle of lace on her peignoir. Patrick was absurd, she reflected, with contemptuous amusement. He did not appreciate a clever wife. He really meant all sorts of skullduggery, cruelty and malignancy, and yet, because she did not fall into what he conceived was her proper attitude, because she would not pretend to female alarm over her father and perhaps swoon a little, daintily, he disliked her and resented her. What weak hypocrites gentlemen were, to be sure. They had their preconceived notions of feminine reactions, and if women were too clever, too honest, to carry out those notions, the gentlemen were quite annoyed. They seemed to think a female was hard if she were astute.
It was very tedious, but there was nothing to do but pretend, she reflected. So she lifted her lace handkerchief and put it to her eyes. She allowed her soft breast to become momentarily agitated. Seeing all this, a vast relief flooded Patrick. He sank down again on the edge of the chaise longue and put his arm about his wife.
“I’m sure that your Papa will recover his health completely, if he takes the recommended rest,” he urged, elaborately consoling her. What a dear little thing it was, to be sure. How he had misjudged her. She was so delicate, so defenseless. He loved her passionately again.
She dropped her kerchief and looked at him radiantly through a freshet of adorable tears. She put her head on his shoulder.
“Dear Papa,” she sighed, the music in her voice breaking effectively. “I really must persuade him to go away for a while. What should I do without him?”
Patrick pressed her to him with an ardour in which there was as much gratitude as love. And against the breadth of his handsome shoulder Louisa smiled. Had Patrick seen that smile he would surely have hated her.
CHAPTER 46
When Adelaide returned, she climbed up the great stairway to her cramped and uncomfortable quarters where the servants lived. She had lost all ability to feel now, at least emotionally. She could experience only those sensations appertaining to her body, and these were all strangely and frighteningly painful and confused. The stairway stretched far before her, winding and curving like a stairway of mist and smoke, without end or beginning, and without substance. She could feel its tenuous webs of fog swaying under her feet. Her head roared, seemed to expand enormously, to contract to a pinpoint, all in a horrible rhythm. Moreover, a trembling weakness had laid hold of her legs, and a spinning emptiness whirled within her.
She had reached halfway to the top, when she halted, clutching the balustrade, and for the first time she said to herself, in fear: I am not just excited. I am ill.
She was quite overwhelmingly frightened, for she had never been truly ill before, and she had no memory of fortitude. Nor was she able to gauge how severe was her illness. She found herself sitting on the stairs with her head in her hands. She had removed her bonnet, and it lay on the step beside her. Because of the complete misery that was in and about her, she forgot everything, forgot the circlet on her finger and the withering nosegay on her bodice, and the fact that she had married Andrew Bollister only an hour ago.
Vaguely, as she sat there, she had a faint memory of his last words: “Only a little while, and then you come to me. Only a little while.”
Now her head hummed and screamed the refrain, until it lost all meaning.
She did not know how much time had passed, but she came to herself with a shivering start. The day was dark; the wind and the rain had increased. She forced herself to her feet, her one desire to reach her bedroom and collapse upon the bed. She could see it before her, white and cool and quiet. Her flesh burned like fire. She heard herself sobbing heavily. She hungered for her bed with an almost savage desire.
She had reached the second floor when a door opened, and Lavinia’s French maid, Eloise, accosted her with a superior expression. “Ah, there you are, Mamselle. Madame Hastings wishes you at once, in her sitting-room.”
Then Adelaide, to her intense astonishment, said: “Please give Madame my compliments, and tell her to go to hell.”
The girl’s expression became so ludicrously blank and shocked at this remark that Adelaide began to laugh wildly. The girl stared at her, retreated a step. Adelaide’s face, so white and so strange, with the spots of bright red colour on the cheek-bones, her eyes blazing with fever, was a most peculiar sight to Eloise, and a terrifying one. Her hair was damp and rumpled; the soft brown roll sprawled on her shoulders.
This is absurd, thought Adelaide. I must be mad. She controlled herself, and said in a hoarse weak voice: “Don’t mind, Eloise. I’ll be down directly.”
Still controlling herself, gritting her teeth against the waves of faintness and giddiness that attacked her, she reached her own room. She looked at her face in the mirror. The room was dim, and the image cast back at her seemed entirely normal. But bubbles of laughter kept rising to her parched lips, so that she giggled senselessly. She changed her clothing to a frock of black silk, fastened the lace collar, and combed her hair. Then, glancing at her trembling hands, she saw the golden ring.
Her heart seemed to pause in its beating. Tears dazzled her eyes. She kissed the ring frantically, and something painful and yearning opened in her like a wound. “O Tony,” she murmured, catching her breath. “O Tony, Tony,” and now the tears were hot and scalding. There was such a sorrow and a pang in her breast, such a bitterness of longing and desire.
She removed the ring, placed it under a pile of her underclothing in the great chest between the windows. Then, drawing her courage and fortitude together with a truly physical effort, sh
e went downstairs to her sister’s sitting-room.
By the time she had reached the door, the shivering had subsided, the trembling had gone. Now her body was incandescent with heat, her mind pretematurally sharp and clear, so that the door, the door handle, the very carpet under her feet, the figures on the wallpaper, were so vivid, so imminent, that new fright took hold upon her. She seemed to float as she walked. She touched the molding of the door, and its substance seemed too solid, immovable to her. She wondered if she would have the strength to open the door.
When she entered Lavinia’s sitting-room, she found her sisters and mother in what had apparently been a heated and tempestuous conversation. At least, Lavinia’s bold beautiful face was black and violent, Lilybelle was in weak and copious tears, and Louisa’s usually sweet calm expression betrayed impatient annoyance.
“Oh, there you are,” said Lavinia, angrily. “What a sneak you are, Addy. Slipping off like an eel just when I need you most. Miss Gurtz could not come this morning, and the sewing is simply miles high. One can’t rely upon any one these days. Do sit down and sort over those petticoats and chemises.”
Lilybelle, upon seeing her dearest daughter, wept again, rocking back and forth on her ample haunches, and rubbing her eyes frenziedly with a ball of a handkerchief. She was never any match for her daughters, who cowed her ruthlessly. Her bright masses of hair were in disorder, and showed faded streaks and threads of gray, and she revealed a blotched and piteous face to Adelaide, who went to her instinctively. Lilybelle clutched her with her big fat hands, and her large ripe mouth shook.
“Really, Adelaide, you are so inconsiderate,” murmured Louisa, crossly, lifting her lovely blue eyes to her sister. “And we’ve so needed you, with Mama. Mama is being very difficult.”
“You aren’t surely asking Addy’s opinion?” cried Lavinia, flinging herself back in her chair. “As if that counted, with Papa.”