第54章 CHAPTER XI(2)

When I was young he durst not have done it, the Yorkshire gentry would have cut them both.""I think," said Tyrrel, "American gentlemen of to-day felt much the same. Will Madison told me that the club cut him as soon as Mrs. Stanhope left her husband. He went there one day after it was known, and no one saw him; finally he walked up to McLean, and would have sat down, but McLean said, `Your company is not desired, Mr. Mostyn.' Mostyn said something in re-ply, and McLean answered sternly, `True, we are none of us saints, but there are lines the worst of us will not pass; and if there is any member of this club willing to interfere between a bridegroom and his bride, I would like to kick him out of it.' Mostyn struck the table with some exclamation, and McLean continued, `Especially when the wronged husband is a gentleman of such stainless character and unsuspecting nature as Basil Stanhope--a clergyman also! Oh, the thing is beyond palliation entirely!' And he walked away and left Mostyn.""Well," said Madam, "if it came to kicking, two could play that game. Fred is no coward. I don't want to hear another word about them. They will punish each other without our help. Let them alone. I hope you are not going to have a crowd at your wedding. The quietest weddings are the luckiest ones.""About twenty of our most intimate friends are invited to the church," said Ethel.

"There will be no reception until we return to New York in the fall.""No need of fuss here, there will be enough when you reach Monk-Rawdon. The village will be garlanded and flagged, the bells ring-ing, and all your tenants and retainers out to meet you.""We intend to get into our own home without anyone being aware of it. Come, Tyrrel, my dressmaker is waiting, I know. It is my wedding gown, dear Granny, and oh, so lovely!""You will not be any smarter than I intend to be, miss. You are shut off from color.

I can outdo you."

"I am sure you can--and will. Here comes father. What can he want?" They met him at the door, and with a few laughing words left him with Madam. She looked curiously into his face and asked, "What is it, Edward?""I suppose they have told you all the arrangements. They are very simple. Did they say anything about Ruth?""They never named her. They said they were going to Washington for a week, and then to Rawdon Court. Ruth seems out of it all. Are you going to turn her adrift, or present her with a few thousand dollars? She has been a mother to Ethel. Something ought to be done for Ruth Bayard.""I intend to marry her."

"I thought so."

"She will go to her sister's in Philadelphia for a month 's preparation. I shall marry her there, and bring her home as my wife. She is a sweet, gentle, docile woman. She will make me happy.""Sweet, gentle, docile! Yes, that is the style of wife Rawdon men prefer. What does Ethel say?""She is delighted. It was her idea. I was much pleased with her thoughtfulness. Any serious break in my life would now be a great discomfort. You need not look so satirical, mother; I thought of Ruth's life also.""Also an afterthought; but Ruth is gentle and docile, and she is satisfied, and I am satisfied, so then everything is proper and everyone content. Come for me at ten on Wednesday morning. I shall be ready. No refreshments, I suppose. I must look after my own breakfast. Won't you feel a bit shabby, Edward?

"And then the look and handclasp between them turned every word into sweetness and good-will.

And as Ethel regarded her marriage rather as a religious rite than a social function, she objected to its details becoming in any sense public, and her desires were to be regarded.

Yet everyone may imagine the white loveli- ness of the bride, the joy of the bridegroom, the calm happiness of the family breakfast, and the leisurely, quiet leave-taking. The whole ceremony was the right note struck at the beginning of a new life, and they might justly expect it would move onward in melodious sequence.

Within three weeks after their marriage they arrived at Rawdon Court. It was on a day and at an hour when no one was looking for them, and they stepped into the lovely home waiting for them without outside observation.

Hiring a carriage at the railway station, they dismissed it at the little bridge near the Manor House, and sauntered happily through the intervening space. The door of the great hall stood open, and the fire, which had been burning on its big hearth unquenched for more than three hundred years, was blazing merrily, as if some hand had just replenished it. On the long table the broad, white beaver hat of the dead Squire was lying, and his oak walking stick was beside it. No one had liked to remove them. They remained just as he had put them down, that last, peaceful morning of his life.

In a few minutes the whole household was aware of their home-coming, and before the day was over the whole neighborhood. Then there was no way of avoiding the calls, the congratulations, and the entertainments that followed, and the old Court was once more the center of a splendid hospitality. Of course the Tyrrel-Rawdons were first on the scene, and Ethel was genuinely glad to meet again the good-natured Mrs. Nicholas. No one could give her better local advice, and Ethel quickly discovered that the best general social laws require a local interpretation.

Her hands were full, her heart full, she had so many interests to share, so many people to receive and to visit, and yet when two weeks passed and Dora neither came nor wrote she was worried and dissatisfied.