XLI
FOR AN EMERGENCY
Hilary stared, reddened as she paled, and with a slow smile shook hishead. She murmured again:
"It's lost! the dagger! with all--"
"Why,--why, Miss Anna,"--his smile grew playful, but his thought ranback to the exploded powder-mill, to the old inventor, to Flora in thosedays, the deported schoolmistress's gold still unpaid to him, thejeweller and the exchanged gems, the Sterling bill--"Why, Miss Anna! howdo you mean, lost?"
"Taken! gone! and by my fault! I--_I forgot all about it_."
He laughed aloud and around: "Pshaw! Now, ladies and gentlemen, this issome joke you're"--he glanced toward the show-case--
"No," insisted Anna, "it's taken! Here are the other things." Shedisplayed the box.
Madame, very angry, smiled from it to Flora: "Oh, thou love's fool! notto steal _that_ and leave the knife, with which, luckily! now that youhave it, you dare not strike!"
All this the subtle girl read in the ancient lady's one small "ahem!"and for reply, in some even more unvoiced way, warned her against theeye of the gray man near the gun. To avoid whose scrutiny herself shereturned sociably to his side.
"The other things!" scoffed meantime the gay Hilary, catching up Anna'sword. "No! if you please, _here_ is the only other thing!" and boyishlyflaunted the license at Mandeville and all the Callenders, the throngmerrily approving. His eye, falling upon the detective, kindledjoyfully: "Oh, you godsend! _You_ hunt up the lost frog-sticker, willyou--while we--?" He flourished the document again and the gray manreplied with a cordial nod. Kincaid waved thanks and glanced round."Adolphe!" he called. "Steve, where in the dickens--?"
Whether he so designed it or not, the contrast between his levity andAnna's agitation convinced Flora, Madame, all, that the weapon's onlyvalue to the lovers was sentimental. "Or religious," thought thedetective, whose adjectives could be as inaccurate as his divinations.While he conjectured, Anna spoke once more to Hilary. Her vehement wordswere too soft for any ear save his, but their tenor was so visible, herdistress so passionate and her firmness of resolve so evident that everymere beholder fell back, letting the Callender-Valcour group, with Steveand the gentle detective, press closer. With none of them, nor yet withHilary, was there anything to argue; their plight seemed to herhopeless. For them to marry, for her to default, and for him to fly, allin one mad hour--one whirlwind of incident--"It cannot be!" was all shecould say, to sister, to stepmother, to Flora, to Hilary again: "Wecannot do it! I will not!--till that lost thing is found!"
With keen sympathy the detective, in the pack, enjoyed the play ofHilary's face, where martial animation strove inspiringly against atorture of dashed hopes. Glancing aside to Flora's as she turned fromAnna, he caught there no sign of the storm of joy which had suddenlyburst in her bosom; but for fear he might, and to break across hisinsight and reckoning, she addressed him.
"Anna she don't give any _reason_" she exclaimed. "Ask her, you, thereason!"
"'Tain't reason at all," he softly responded, "it's superstition. Buthold on. Watch me." He gestured for the lover's attention and their eyesmet. It made a number laugh, to see Hilary's stare gradually gosenseless and then blaze with intelligence. Suddenly, joyfully, withevery eye following his finger, he pointed into the gray man's face:
"Smellemout, you've got it!"
The man shook his head for denial, and his kindly twinkle commanded thebelief of all. Not a glint in it showed that his next response, howeverwell-meant, was to be a lie.
"Then Ketchem has it!" cried Kincaid.
The silent man let his smile mean yes, and the alert company applauded."Go h-on with the weddingg!" ordered the superior Mandeville.
"Where's Adolphe?" cried Kincaid, and "On with the wedding!" clamoredthe lads of the battery, while Anna stood gazing on the gray man andwondering why she had not guessed this very thing.
"Yes," he quietly said to her, "it's all right. You'll have it backto-morrow. 'Twon't cut love if you don't."
At that the gay din redoubled, but Flora, with the little grandmothervainly gripping her arms, flashed between the two.
"Anna!" she cried, "I don't bil-ieve!"
Whether it was true or false Mandeville cared nothing, but--"Yes, 'tistrue!" he cried in Flora's face, and then to the detective--"Doubtlezzto phot-ograph it that's all you want!"
The detective said little, but Anna assured Flora that was all. "Hewants to show it at the trial!"
"Listen!" said Flora.
"Here's Captain Irby!" cried Mrs. Callender--Constance--half a dozen,but--
"Listen!" repeated Flora, and across the curtained veranda and in at theopen windows, under the general clamor, came a soft palpitating rumble.Did Hilary hear it, too? He was calling:
"Adolphe, where's your man--the minister? Where in the--threeparishes--?" and others were echoing, "The minister! where's theminister?"
Had they also caught the sound?
"Isn't he here?" asked Irby. He drew his watch.
"Half-hour slow!" cried Mandeville, reading it.
"But have you heard noth--?"
"Nothingg!" roared Mandeville.
"Where'd you leave him?" sharply asked Kincaid.
His cousin put on great dignity: "At his door, my dear sir, waiting forthe cab I sent him."
"Oh, sent!" cried half the group. "Steve," called Kincaid, "your horseis fresh--"
"But, alas, without wings!" wailed the Creole, caught Hilary's shoulderand struck a harkening pose.
"Too late!" moaned Flora to the detective, Madame to Constance andMiranda, and the battery lads to their girls, from whose hands theybegan to wring wild good-byes as a peal of fifes and drums heralded theoncome of the departing regiment.
Thus Charlie Valcour found the company as suddenly he reappeared in it,pushing in to the main group where his leader stood eagerly engaged withAnna.
"All right, Captain!" He saluted: "All done!" But a fierce anxiety wason his brow and he gave no heed to Hilary's dismissing thanks: "Captain,what's 'too late'?" He turned, scowling, to his sister: "What are we toolate for, Flo? Good God! not the wedding? Not your wedding, Miss Anna?It's _not_ too late. By Jove, it sha'n't be too late."
All the boyish lawlessness of his nature rose into his eyes, and a boy'stears with it. "The minister!" he retorted to Constance and hisgrandmother, "the minister be--Oh, Captain, don't wait for him! Have thething without a minister!"
The whole room was laughing, Hilary loudest, but the youth's voiceprevailed. "It'll hold good!" He turned upon the detective: "Won't it?"
A merry nod was the reply, with cries of "Yes," "Yes," from the batteryboys, and he clamored on:
"Why, there's a kind of people--"
"Quakers!" sang out some one.
"Yes, the Quakers! Don't they do it all the time! Of course they do!"With a smile in his wet eyes the lad wheeled upon Victorine: "Oh, byS'n' Peter! if that was the only--"
But the small, compelling hand of the detective faced him round againand with a sudden swell of the general laugh he laughed too. "He'strying to behave like Captain Kincaid," one battery sister tried to tellanother, whose attention was on a more interesting matter.
"Here!" the gray man was amiably saying to Charlie. "It's your advicethat's too late. Look."
Before he had half spoken a hush so complete had fallen on the companythat while every eye sought Hilary and Anna every ear was aware that outon the levee road the passing drums had ceased and the brass--as ifpurposely to taunt the theatrical spirit of Flora--had struck up TheLadies' Man. With military curtness Kincaid was addressing the score orso of new cannoneers:
"Corporal Valcour, this squad--no, keep your partners, but others pleasestand to the right and left--these men are under your command. When Ipresently send you from here you'll take them at a double-quick andclose up with that regiment. I'll be at the train when you reach it.Captain Mandeville,"--he turned to the married pair, who were hurriedlyscanning the license Miranda had just handed them,--"I adjure you as at
rue and faithful citizen and soldier, and you, madam, as well, totestify to us, all, whether that is or is not the license of court forthe marriage of Anna Callender to Hilary Kincaid."
"It is!" eagerly proclaimed the pair.
"Hand it, please, to Charlie. Corporal, you and your men look it over."
"And now--" His eyes swept the throng. Anna's hand, trembling but ready,rose shoulder-high in his. He noted the varied expressions of face amongthe family servants hurriedly gathering in the doors, and the beautifulamaze of Flora, so genuine yet so well acted. Radiantly he met theflushed gaze of his speechless cousin. "If any one alive," he cried,"knows any cause why this thing should not be, let him now speak orforever hereafter hold his peace." He paused. Constance handed somethingto her husband.
"Oh, go on," murmured Charlie, and many smiled.
"Soldiers!" resumed the lover, "this fair godmother of your flag agreesthat for all we two want just now Kincaid's Battery is minister enough.For all we want is--" Cheers stopped him.
"The prayer-book!" put in Mandeville, pushing it at him. The boysharkened again.
"No," said Kincaid, "time's too short. All we want is to bind ourselves,before Heaven and all mankind, in holy wedlock, for better, or worse,till death us do part. And this we here do in sight of you all, and inthe name and sight and fear of God." He dropped his glance to Anna's:"Say Amen."
"Amen," said Anna. At the same moment in one of the doors stood acourier.
"All right!" called Hilary to him. "Tell your colonel we're coming! Justa second more, Captain Irby, if you please. Soldiers!--I, Hilary, takethee, Anna, to be my lawful wedded wife. And you--"
"I, Anna," she softly broke in, "take thee, Hilary, to be my--" Shespoke the matter through, but he had not waited.
"Therefore!" he cried, "you men of Kincaid's Battery--and you, sir,--andyou,"--nodding right and left to Mandeville and the detective,--"on thisour solemn pledge to supply as soon as ever we can all form of law andsocial usage here omitted which can more fully solemnize this union--donow--"
Up went the detective's hand and then Mandeville's and all the boys',and all together said:
"Pronounce you man and wife."
"Go!" instantly rang Kincaid to Charlie, and in a sudden flutter ofgauzes and clink of trappings, with wringing of soft fingers by hardones, and in a tender clamor of bass and treble voices, away sprangevery cannoneer to knapsacks and sabres in the hall, and down the outerstair into ranks and off under the stars at double-quick. Sisters of thebattery, gliding out to the veranda rail, faintly saw and heard them aprecious moment longer as they sped up the dusty road. Then Irby steppedquickly out, ran down the steps, mounted and galloped. A far rumble ofwheels told the coming of two omnibuses chartered to bear the dancersall, with the Valcours and the detective, to their homes. Now out tothe steps came Mandeville. His wife was with him and the maidens kindlywent in. There the detective joined them. At a hall door Hilary wasparting with Madame, Flora, Miranda. Anna was near him with Flora's armabout her in melting fondness. Now Constance rejoined the five, and nowHilary and Anna left the other four and passed slowly out to the gardenstair alone.
Beneath them there, with welcoming notes, his lone horse trampled aboutthe hitching-rail. Dropping his cap the master folded the bride's handsin his and pressed on them a long kiss. The pair looked deeply into eachother's eyes. Her brow drooped and he laid a kiss on it also. "Now youmust go," she murmured.
"My own beloved!" was his response. "My soul's mate!" He tried to drawher, but she held back.
"You must go," she repeated.
"Yes! kiss me and I fly." He tried once more to draw her close, butstill in vain.
"No, dearest," she whispered, and trembled. Yet she clutched hisimprisoning fingers and kissed them. He hugged her hands to his breast.
"Oh, Hilary," she added, "I wish I could! But--don't you know why Ican't? Don't you see?"
"No, my treasure, not any more. Why, Anna, you're Anna Kincaid now.You're my wed'--"
Her start of distress stopped him short. "Don't call me that,--my--myown," she faltered.
"But if you are that--?"
"Oh, I am! thank God, I am! But don't name the name. It's too fearfullyholy. We're married for an emergency, love, an awful crisis! whichhasn't come to you yet, and may not come at all. When it does, so willI! in that name! and you shall call me by it!"
"Ah, if then you can come! But what do we know?"
"We know in whom we trust, Hilary; must, must, must trust, as we trustand must trust each other."
Still hanging to his hands she pushed them off at arm's-length: "Oh, myHilary, my hero, my love, my life, my commander, go!" And yet she clung.She drew his fingers close down again and covered them with kisses,while twice, thrice, in solemn adoration, he laid his lips upon herheavy hair. Suddenly the two looked up. The omnibuses were here in thegrove.
Here too was the old coachman, with the soldier's horse. The vehiclesjogged near and halted. A troop of girls, with Flora, tripped out. Andstill, in their full view, with Flora closest, the bride's hands heldthe bridegroom's fast. He had neither the strength to pull free nor thewit to understand.
"What is it?" he softly asked, as the staring men waited and the girlsabout Flora hung back.
"Don't you know?" murmured Anna. "Don't you see--the--the difference?"
All at once he saw! Throwing away her hands he caught her head betweenhis big palms. Her arms flew round his neck, her lips went to his, andfor three heart-throbs they clung like bee and flower. Then he sprangdown the stair, swung into the saddle, and fled after his men.
Kincaid's Battery Page 41