by Joan Smith
Chapter Eighteen
No one had thought to pray for fine weather for the wedding, and that perhaps accounted for the mizzle that greeted the bride’s eyes when she awoke on her wedding day. But the gloom was all confined to the outdoors. In the church, and afterwards at Chanely, it was as merry a wedding as ever took place. The bride looked beautiful, the groom happy, the captain very military, the bridesmaid resigned, and the guests appreciative. With so small a party, and in mourning, too, no dancing was held, but in speeches, compliments and good-natured raillery there was nothing more to be desired. Jonathon dogged the side of Miss Milmont, and it took considerable perseverance on the part of Sir Hillary to get her alone for a moment. She was peculiarly blind to his every effort, till he had at last to ask her point-blank if she would come with him to the morning parlor a moment to give her opinion on something he had picked up in London.
Her heart beat a little faster when he carefully closed the door behind them and sighed, “At last,” with weary relief.
“You are happy to have them married?” Claudia asked. “It must have been troubling you, since their running away.”
“That’s not why I lured you in here.”
“You wanted to show me something you got in London. Pray, what is it?”
He extracted a small blue velvet box from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to her. On a bed of white satin, a quite large diamond sparkled. Her beating heart went into palpitations. She licked her lips and said, “Is—is it Luane’s wedding gift? She will like it very much. My, it must have been very expensive.”
“Unlike the Trump, I haven’t the knack of picking them up at a bargain, but in this case it made no difference. It has been in the family for some years. I brought it from my bank in London.”
“Oh, you mean to give her a family heirloom. I should have thought—but it is very fine. She will surely like it.”
“This has nothing to do with Luane. Do you like it?”
She looked a question at him, looked again at the ring, and swallowed in discomposure. “Yes, it’s very nice,” she said, and made no move to take it or even touch it.
“Try it on,” he said, lifting the ring from its box and taking her left hand. The emerald he slid off very easily and transferred to her right hand, before pressing the diamond onto her third finger. “Now I have an even worse question to pester you,” he said softly, aware of her shyness. “Will you wear it?”
“But why . . .”
“You have forgotten your lines, darling,” he said, taking her two hands in his. “I particularly asked you to rehearse them. I made sure you would have them by heart at this late date. Two whole days, and your part is really very simple. ‘I am honored, sir, to accept your kind offer’ was what you had intended saying, wasn’t it?”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” she asked hopefully.
“Good God! Am I doing my part so badly as that? I shall end up taking a lesson of the captain. Certainly I am asking you to marry me.” She stared and said nothing for a full thirty seconds. “And you ought really, in kindness, to give me an answer, too. It is the custom.”
“But Loo doesn’t need an abigail now. She’s married.”
“I had noticed that. You have understood my oblique hints regarding nasty strings, I see. Yes, that excuse for a hasty wedding has been snatched from us. We must find another. I don’t mean to wait any six months.”
“There can be no need for you to marry me now.”
“Claudia!” he said impatiently. “As though I haven’t four aunts, two uncles, and any number of cousins that could have taken Loo in. I only left her at Swallowcourt this long to have an excuse for you and your mother to remain. Being an abigail was a pretext. Well, it wasn’t even that, for you would certainly not have been her abigail, but I thought at first we might have her stay with us till she married, and we could chaperone her. Certainly that was not why I want to marry you.”
“Why then?”
“Why do you think?” He grabbed her into his arms and tightened his hold till she was firm against his chest. “Because I have loved you forever,” he said into her ear.
“You have not known me for two weeks,” she pointed out.
“Not even eleven whole days. About two hundred and fifty-six hours in fact.”
“Have you counted them?” she laughed in a quaking voice.
“Did Jonathon not tell you what a keen accountant I am? I have counted every one, wondering what number would remove the taint of a too-hasty offer. Well, actually I didn’t count the first five or six. Till you came dripping into my study with your hair plastered to your head, wearing those distinguished moth-eaten trousers, and asking whether I could wield a torch, I was not convinced we should suit. But I see what it is. You are waiting for a proper proposal in form. I shall follow my own advice and go down on bended knee.” He released her, drew an immaculate handkerchief from his pocket and shook out its folds.
“Don’t be so absurd,” she said, taking the handkerchief from his hands, and mangling it between her nervous fingers. He removed the mussed muslin and tossed it aside on a chair.
“It is not absurd to want an answer to my question, however.” Of the answer he was in little doubt, but of her ability to utter it, there seemed some question, so he encouraged her by drawing her into his arms again and placing his lips lightly on hers. He was surprised, but by no means dismayed, to feel an instinctive response in her. The fear that her puritanical upbringing might have curbed her natural impulses was removed, and he then embraced her like the confirmed heathen he was.
After several moments spent in this manner, he stepped back and said, “I trust that means ‘yes,’ darling?”
“Yes! Oh yes! I wouldn’t let myself believe you meant to ask me.”
“I can’t imagine how else you interpreted, my heavy-handed wooing. I thought I was being singularly obvious in my attentions for some days past.”
“No, you were never obvious. Letting on it was your mama’s scarf and . . . and everything.”
“Ah, that was foolish, but I did want to see you in something other than those grayish things your grandmama selects for you, and you said you like pretty things. So your uncertainty accounts for not having your lines ready. But you cannot have failed to notice my fit of jealousy when I caught Jonathon on his knees at your feet.”
“You were very hard on poor Jonathon.”
“I wasn’t sure what encouragement he had received from you, but I won’t be hard on him any more. How soon can you be ready to move into my Palace Beautiful?”
“I am ready now.”
He kissed her forehead. “Good girl. Shall we be married first, for the looks of it?”
“Sir Hillary! That is what I meant, of course. You cannot think me so abandoned as that.”
“And still I am Sir Hillary, Lady Thoreau.”
“Imagine! Whoever thought I would end up a lady?”
“Yes, there seemed a time when you were in some danger of becoming a man, but what I had hoped to convey was that we might now address each other by our given names with propriety, Claudia. Though why propriety should bother us on that one small point I can’t imagine, wallowing as we are in the shame of runaways and scrambling marriages.”
“We really are a horrid, disreputable bunch, aren’t we? I shudder to think what grandmama would say if she knew what I have been up to these past days.”
“Your character is not ruined yet. That will come later. I mean to undo all grandmama’s good work, you know. Gowns of silk and satin, pagan plays, and operas and balls, and I don’t know about you, but I personally plan to burn my copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress. I give you fair warning of the depths of depravity I have prepared for you, with two Palaces Beautiful to flaunt yourself in.”
“I gave them the wrong name. I should have called them Celestial Cities, for they sound precisely like heaven,” she said happily, and leaned her head against his shoulder, to be caressed with his fingers.
&
nbsp; “Feigning Woman,” he teased. Then he took her hand and walked her to the door. “Let us tell mama the good news,” he said, with a kindling light in his eyes. “The Trump has been like a dog with a bone and not let me near her to ask her permission.”
“Oh, Hillary, what will she say? She will never want to be your mother-in-law and you thirty-two years old!”
“How did you know that?”
“Luane told me in London, when we spoke of finding you a wife.”
“Indeed!” he said with a lifted brow, opening the door and striding along to the Blue Saloon, where the others were still making merry. He went immediately to Mrs. Milmont, still holding Claudia firmly by the hand.
“Mama,” he said, smiling widely, “congratulate me. Little Claudia has done me the honor to accept my offer of marriage.”
Marcia Milmont stared in astonishment, her round face changing from pink to rose as the ramifications of this announcement were borne in on her. None of her reflections were of the sort her daughter feared, however, for the acquisition of a relative from so elevated a social plane as Thoreau inhabited overcame any little disparity between his real age and Claudia’s imagined one.
“Hillary! Claudia—my baby! Can it be true? Jerry, did you hear? My daughter has landed the Nonesuch!” She grabbed Sir Hillary’s hand, and he feared for an instant she would kiss it. And so she might have done, had she not spotted Claudia’s diamond ring at that point and kissed it instead.
“Look at this, Jerry. She has already got a diamond from him.”
Claudia blushed for the awful condition of her parent, but as her groom appeared unmoved, she said nothing.
Mr. Blandings took but little note of the news; his interest centered on the ring. Of that he had to make an estimate on the spot. His little jeweler’s glass was brought out, and the finger held up to a branched candelabra. “That’s a very fine stone,” he congratulated the recipient. “Not so large as wee wifie’s, but a fine specimen. You could get five hundred pounds for that on the market. Never take a penny less.”
Thoreau said they would bear it in mind, and it was for Claudia to assure him she had no notion of hawking it.
“You know where to come if you ever have to,” the Trump told her in a low aside with a sly wink.
The general commotion in that quarter soon drew the others around them. With the single exception of Jonathon, everyone else was thrilled at having yet another wedding thrust on them, and the only question to be settled was how soon they could toss a third wedding party in the midst of their mourning.
Mrs. Milmont, forgetting Claudia was only a stepdaughter, began speaking of taking her little girl to live with herself and Mr. Blandings for six months at Marcyhurst, but Sir Hillary scotched that scheme at once. “The devil of it is,” he said, “I shall be so busy here finding some place for Gab and Loo to stay that it will be hard for me to get over to Marcyhurst to see her. And, of course, if she returns to her grandparents in Devon, I’ll never see her at all.”
Such a separation as this held too much danger of a lessening of affection, and the mother at least made no objection to a wedding immediately. “Why, you and Claudia could be married from Marcyhurst too, Hillary. Such fun—two weddings. We might even make it a double wedding!”
“No!” Sir Hillary and Claudia shouted as one. The latter softened her disagreement by adding that she especially wished to be married at Chanely, as Loo had been.
“If you only want an excuse to make it look decent,” Loo suggested, “why don’t you pretend Aunt Sophie wished for Claudia’s marriage, as she wished for mine?”
It was a pretty weak pretext, but no one thought of a better one, and as all parties except the captain were determined to do it as soon as possible, it was decided on. They would all go to Marcyhurst, and then return to Chanely for Claudia’s marriage to Sir Hillary.
As an acknowledged fiancée, Claudia now had a little privacy with Hillary, and she told him what she had been trying to find privacy to say for some time. “Jonathan got the diamonds while you were gone,” she said as they sat together on a sofa, away from the others.
No disappointment, but rather a smile greeted this news. “Too bad for him,” Hillary replied.
“Yes, because he didn’t get to keep them. Mr. Fletcher was there and snatched them right out of his hands.”
“How do you come to know all this?” he asked suspiciously.
“I was there, too.”
“Claudia! You didn’t go all alone to the graveyard in the dead of night!”
“No, Miss Bliss came with me. She is a splendid conspirator, Hillary. She even knew a short cut.”
At this he laughed aloud. “Blissful is up to anything. And she will need to be, to ride herd on the child bride and groom the next couple of months at Cambridge. They may end up here with us for a while after he graduates. Just till they find a place of their own.”
“How nice! They will be our first guests.”
With a wary eye at his future mama-in-law, who was smiling on him in a doting fashion, he felt some doubts about that, but said instead:
“Do you know, I had a strange communication from Mr. Fletcher this morning. In the excitement of the day, it slipped my mind, but he said he wished to see us all here or at Swallowcourt tomorrow. Can it have anything to do with Jonathon’s grave-digging, I wonder?”
“He won’t be put in jail, will he?”
“Lord, no, but the gudgeon has likely cut himself out of any cash in Sophie’s will. A pity, for he has lost his heiress, too.” He smiled and squeezed Claudia’s hand as he said this.
“There is no saying I will ever get any of the Trump’s money, Hillary,” she warned him.
“That will be a sad blow to me, for, of course, it is the only reason I offered for you!”
She looked closely at his face, to be reassured by his quizzical smile that he was roasting her. “I don’t know why you did offer. Loo said you usually had diamonds of the first water for girl friends, so you cannot have married me for my looks, and I know I am not at all clever, or anything like that.”
“Quit hinting for compliments, Feigning Woman. It is, of course, a chess partner I am after.”
Marcia could no longer stay away from the side of her son-to-be, and descended on him to discuss more aspects of the two weddings. As the party was about to break up a little later, Hillary told them of Fletcher’s communication, and they agreed to meet at Swallowcourt next morning at eleven. Luane was to remain at Chanely for her wedding night. Already feeling herself a matron, she kindly prepared Claudia a box of sweets to take back to Swallowcourt for breakfast.
At ten minutes before eleven the next morning, Fletcher was at Swallowcourt with Sir Hillary, and five minutes after them Gabriel and Loo arrived in the curricle. The group gathered again around the desk in Sophie’s library was as curious as they had been the first time. The captain was the only one greatly discomposed, as he feared some public disclosure of his crime would be made. Any further benefits to accrue to anyone were now in the nature of a superfluous gift, and though Gab and Hillary were quite eager to hear whether the former was to get any money, they did not feel this was the time they would find out. A year hence was the date named.
They were soon disabused of this thought. Mr. Fletcher said in a calm voice that all the events to have taken place in the intervening year had now transpired, and in that case, he had been authorized to read the remainder of the will sooner. “So this is to be the disposition of her fortune,” he said.
Nerves tautened at the words. The captain especially was pale around the ears, though he sat as tall as any of Wellington’s officers. Each person privately figured out that the two events must be Loo’s marriage and the digging up of the grave. That great secret had become known within the family circle, as any choice piece of scandal always will. Their surmises were correct, and the all-important moment was upon them.
“‘Upon the marriage of my niece, Miss Luane Beresford to anyone, she
is to receive the sum of ten thousand pounds,’” he read. Gabriel was a little disappointed to hear the sum so small, for Sophie’s total fortune was thought to be in excess of a hundred thousand pounds. Still, with her diamond it made twenty thousand. “‘And if she marries either of my nephews, the sum will be fifty thousand pounds.’”
“We are rich, Gab!” Loo crowed. She leaned over in her chair and kissed his check. There were general congratulations all around, till Mrs. Milmont recalled them to business.
“That leaves another fifty thousand pounds!” she announced.
Mr. Fletcher bowed to her and read on. “‘You will know by now that the necklace buried with my mortal remains was the paste reproduction,’” he read.
The party, with the exception of Sir Hillary Thoreau, did not know this, and a good deal of chatter was necessary to confirm it. His deception in claiming only the large stone of the supposed replica genuine was explained as adhering as closely to her will as possible after Jonathon had tumbled to it that some part of the necklace was real.
“Well, then, where are the real diamonds?” Marcia demanded.
“The genuine Beresford diamond necklace was given to Miss Beresford in the replica case, and it is hers to keep,” Fletcher said.
“Thoreau just told us that,” the Trump explained to wee wifie, wondering at her lack of attention on so important a point.
“Gabriel, we are millionaires!” Loo shrieked. “Uncle, you didn’t tell me this! And you knew all along I had the real diamonds.”
“Not a millionaire,” the Trump pointed out. “A hundred thousand is what you’ve got.” Really, the whole bunch of them had gone mad.
“I have known it only since we went to London, but by the terms of her will, I could not reveal it.” Jonathon was glaring at Thoreau, and he, feeling very sorry for the captain, said, “Gab didn’t know either, Jonathon. There has been no deception but the necessary one that was told to all.”