oh, fairest of creation, last and best
of all god's works!
for one or two days after the public announcement of her engagement, millicent was not quite free from care. she rather dreaded the posts. it was not that she feared one letter in particular, but the postman's disquietingly urgent rap caused her a vague uneasiness many times a day.
sir john's reply to her appealing little letter came short and sharp. she showed it to no one.
“my dear miss chyne,—i hasten to reply to your kind letter of to-day announcing your approaching marriage with my son. there are a certain number of trinkets which have always been handed on from generation to generation. i will at once have these cleaned by the jeweller, in order that they may be presented to you immediately after the ceremony. allow me to urge upon you the advisability of drawing up and signing a prenuptial marriage settlement.—yours sincerely,
“john meredith.”
millicent bit her pretty lip when she perused this note. she made two comments, at a considerable interval of time.
“stupid old thing!” was the first; and then, after a pause, “i hope they are all diamonds.”
close upon the heels of this letter followed a host of others. there was the gushing, fervent letter of the friend whose joy was not marred by the knowledge that a wedding present must necessarily follow. those among one's friends who are not called upon to offer a more substantial token of joy than a letter are always the most keenly pleased to hear the news of an engagement. there was the sober sheet (crossed) from the elderly relative living in the country, who, never having been married herself, takes the opportunity of giving four pages of advice to one about to enter that parlous state. there was the fatherly letter from the country rector who christened millicent, and thinks that he may be asked to marry her in a fashionable london church—and so to a bishopric. on heavily-crested stationery follow the missives of the ladies whose daughters would make sweet bridesmaids. also the hearty congratulations of the slight acquaintance, who is going to egypt for the winter, and being desirous of letting her house without having to pay one of those horrid agents, “sees no harm in mentioning it.” the house being most singularly suitable for a young married couple. besides these, the thousand and one who wished to be invited to the wedding in order to taste cake and champagne at the time, and thereafter the sweeter glory of seeing their names in the fashionable news.
all these millicent read with little interest, and answered in that conveniently large calligraphy which made three lines look like a note, and magnified a note into a four-page letter. the dressmakers' circulars—the tradesmen's illustrated catalogues of things she could not possibly want, and the jewellers' delicate photographs interested her a thousand times more. but even these did not satisfy her. all these people were glad—most of them were delighted. millicent wanted to hear from those who were not delighted, not even pleased, but in despair. she wanted to hear more of the broken hearts. but somehow the broken hearts were silent. could it be that they did not care? could it be that they were only flirting? she dismissed these silly questions with the promptness which they deserved. it was useless to think of it in that way—more useless, perhaps, than she suspected; for she was not deep enough, nor observant enough, to know that the broken hearts in question had been much more influenced by the suspicion that she cared for them than by the thought that they cared for her. she did not know the lamentable, vulgar fact that any woman can be a flirt if she only degrade her womanhood to flattery. men do not want to love so much as to be loved. such is, moreover, their sublime vanity that they are ready to believe any one who tells them, however subtly—mesdames, you cannot be too subtle for a man's vanity to find your meaning—that they are not as other men.
to the commonplace observer it would, therefore, appear (erroneously, no doubt) that the broken hearts having been practically assured that millicent chyne did not care for them, promptly made the discovery that the lack of feeling was reciprocal. but millicent did not, of course, adopt this theory. she knew better. she only wondered why several young men did not communicate, and she was slightly uneasy lest in their anger they should do or say something indiscreet.
there was no reason why the young people should wait. and when there is no reason why the young people should wait, there is every reason why they should not do so. thus it came about that in a week or so millicent was engaged in the happiest pursuit of her life. she was buying clothes without a thought of money. the full joy of the trousseau was hers. the wives of her guardians having been morally bought, dirt cheap, at the price of an anticipatory invitation to the wedding, those elderly gentlemen were with little difficulty won over to a pretty little femininely vague scheme of withdrawing just a little of the capital—said capital to be spent in the purchase of a really good trousseau, you know. the word “good” emanating from such a source must, of course, be read as “novel,” which in some circles means the same thing.
millicent entered into the thing in the right spirit. whatever the future might hold for her—and she trusted that it might be full of millinery—she was determined to enjoy the living present to its utmost. her life at this time was a whirl of excitement—excitement of the keenest order—namely, trying on.
“you do not know what it is,” she said, with a happy little sigh, to those among her friends who probably never would, “to stand the whole day long being pinned into linings by madame videpoche.”
and despite the sigh, she did it with an angelic sweetness of temper which quite touched the heart of madame videpoche, while making no difference in the bill.
lady cantourne would not have been human had she assumed the neutral in this important matter. she frankly enjoyed it all immensely.
“you know, sir john,” she said in confidence to him one day at hurlingham, “i have always dressed millicent.”
“you need not tell me that,” he interrupted gracefully. “on ne peut s'y tromper.”
“and,” she went on almost apologetically, “whatever my own feelings on the subject may be, i cannot abandon her now. the world expects much from millicent chyne. i have taught it to do so. it will expect more from millicent—meredith.”
the old gentleman bowed in his formal way.
“and the world must not be disappointed,” he suggested cynically.
“no,” she answered, with an energetic little nod, “it must not. that is the way to manage the world. give it what it expects; and just a little more to keep its attention fixed.”
sir john tapped with his gloved finger pensively on the knob of his silver-mounted cane.
“and may i ask your ladyship,” he inquired suavely, “what the world expects of me?”
he knew her well enough to know that she never made use of the method epigrammatic without good reason.
“a diamond crescent,” she answered stoutly. “the fashion-papers must be able to write about the gift of the bridegroom's father.”
“ah—and they prefer a diamond crescent?”
“yes,” answered lady cantourne. “that always seems to satisfy them.”
he bowed gravely and continued to watch the polo with that marvellously youthful interest which was his.
“does the world expect anything else?” he asked presently.
“no, i think not,” replied lady cantourne, with a bright little absent smile. “not just now.”
“will you tell me if it does?”
he had risen; for there were other great ladies on the ground to whom he must pay his old-fashioned respects.
“certainly,” she answered, looking up at him.
“i should deem it a favour,” he continued. “if the world does not get what it expects, i imagine it will begin to inquire why; and if it cannot find reasons it will make them.”
in due course the diamond crescent arrived.
“it is rather nice of the old thing,” was millicent's comment. she held the jewel at various angles in various lights. there was no doubt that this was the handsomest present she had received—sent direct from the jeweller's shop with an uncompromising card inside the case. she never saw the irony of it; but sir john had probably not expected that she would. he enjoyed it alone—as he enjoyed or endured most things.
lady cantourne examined it with some curiosity.
“i have never seen such beautiful diamonds,” she said simply.
there were other presents to be opened and examined. for the invitations had not been sent out, and many were willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of being mentioned among the guests. it is, one finds, after the invitations have been issued that the presents begin to fall off.
but on this particular morning the other presents fell on barren ground. millicent only half heeded them. she could not lay the diamond crescent finally aside. some people have the power of imparting a little piece of their individuality to their letters, and even to a commonplace gift. sir john was beginning to have this power over millicent. she was rapidly falling into a stupid habit of feeling uneasy whenever she thought of him. she was vaguely alarmed at his uncompromising adherence to the position he had assumed. she had never failed yet to work her will with men—young and old—by a pretty persistence, a steady flattery, a subtle pleading manner. but sir john had met all her wiles with his adamantine smile. he would not openly declare himself an enemy—which she argued to herself would have been much nicer of him. he was merely a friend of her aunt's, and from that contemplative position he never stepped down. she could not quite make out what he was “driving at,” as she herself put it. he never found fault, but she knew that his disapproval of her was the result of long and careful study. perhaps in her heart—despite all her contradictory arguments—she knew that he was right.
“i wonder,” she said half-aloud, taking up the crescent again, “why he sent it to me?”
lady cantourne, who was writing letters at a terrible rate, glanced sharply up. she was beginning to be aware of millicent's unspoken fear of sir john. moreover, she was clever enough to connect it with her niece's daily increasing love for the man who was soon to be her husband.
“well,” she answered, “i should be rather surprised if he gave you nothing.”
there was a little pause, only broken by the scratching of lady cantourne's quill pen.
“auntie!” exclaimed the girl suddenly, “why does he hate me? you have known him all your life—you must know why he hates me so.”
lady cantourne shrugged her shoulders.
“i suppose,” went on millicent with singular heat, “that some one has been telling him things about me—horrid things—false things—that i am a flirt, or something like that; i am sure i'm not.”
lady cantourne was addressing an envelope, and did not make any reply.
“has he said anything to you, aunt caroline?” asked millicent in an aggrieved voice.
lady cantourne laid aside her letter.
“no,” she answered slowly, “but i suppose there are things which he does not understand.”
“things?”
her ladyship looked up steadily.
“guy oscard, for instance,” she said; “i don't quite understand guy oscard, millicent.”
the girl turned away impatiently. she was keenly alive to the advantage of turning her face away. for in her pocket she had at that moment a letter from guy oscard—the last relic of the old excitement which was so dear to her, and which she was already beginning to miss. joseph had posted this letter in msala nearly two months before. it had travelled down from the simiacine plateau with others, in a parcel beneath the mattress of jack meredith's litter. it was a letter written in good faith by an honest, devoted man to the woman whom he looked upon already as almost his wife—a letter which no man need have been ashamed of writing, but which a woman ought not to have read unless she intended to be the writer's wife.
millicent had read this letter more than once. she liked it because it was evidently sincere. the man's heart could be heard beating in every line of it. moreover, she had made inquiries that very morning at the post office about the african mail. she wanted the excitement of another letter like that.
“oh, guy oscard!” she replied innocently to lady cantourne; “that was nothing.”
lady cantourne kept silence, and presently she returned to her letters.
