Chapter IX.
Nombre de Dieden! what a fit!
Unlacing and relacing concluded, these masculine eyes, again admitted to the maiden’s bower, are dazzled with unexpected loveliness.
There stands the lady, within the perfect dress!!! beautiful to three points of admiration. Sweet eighteen can bear low neck by broad daylight.
The struggle in her heart with all her wild emotions of terror and hope was as great a beautifier as the presence of critical wedding-guests, the rustle of a surplice, the electric touch of a gay gold ring, and the first clasp of the hand of a husband.
And you, O Peter Skerrett! you have shaved off your moustache and donned a coat much too small, — you have made a guy of yourself for your first interview with this angel!
Shall the personal impression she may already have made be here revised and corrected? No; for this is not real sunshine upon her. If she is ever photographed, it shall be in her bright, not in her dark day. Let her wait till fuller maturity for description! It is easy to see the Brothertoft in her. She blends the tender grace of the lady in Vandyck’s picture with the quiet dignity of the gentleman. But is there not kindling in her face the vigor of another race, her mother’s? Perhaps a portrait now would belie her final look.
“You are like an angel, Miss Lucy,” said Mrs. Dewitt.
She was. She stood there in bridal robe, veil, and wreath. Her hands were clasped firm to control her insurgent heart. Her lips were parted, and she was whispering to herself, “Be brave! Be prudent!” Her eyes overlooked the present, and saw hope in the blue sky above the golden Highlands through her window.
Yes; like an angel.
There was a hush for a moment. The three bad women — the pert hoyden, the false wife, and the proud mistress of the Manor — were silenced and abashed.
Again the old pang stirred in the mother’s bosom. Again she longed to throw herself at her daughter’s feet and pray forgiveness. But again she gained that defeat of a victory over her womanliness. She trampled down the weakness of repentance. The bedlam look flickered over her features, and she hardly restrained her furious impulse to leap forward and rend the innocent face and the maiden bosom that so shamed her.
“You do look just like an angel, Miss Lucy,” Abby Dewitt asseverated, with the air of a connaisseuse in the article. “Don’t she, Sally?”
The two thereupon gave tongue to voluble flatteries.
“Your work does you great credit, Dewitt,” Lucy said. “Mamma, cannot we spare Abby and Sally to go home to the farm to-night? They deserve a holiday after this long confinement. And to-morrow will be a busy day again.”
“Of course, my dear, if they wish it.” Mrs. Brothertoft was glad to put her daughter under obligation.
The women again gave tongue with thanks. They were always, as Voltaire had said, ready to get away for a frolic. Lucy smiled to herself at the easy success of her stratagem. She had packed off baggage and baggage, without suspicion.
“What a conspirator I am becoming!” she thought. “Ah! silly Lucy, the child, the thing to be flung away! She too can help baffle the evil schemes against herself. When these coarse women are gone, there will be not a soul but friends within a mile of the house.”
Dinner was tardy to-day, after the late breakfast following the revel.
Nine-oxygen azote by the lung-full had given tone to Major Kerr’s system. His appetite for meat and drink were in full force again, all the stouter for this morning’s respite.
“What a lucky dog I am,” he said, “to dodge that expedition of Vaughan’s! I’m ‘the soldier tired of war’s alarms,’ Miss Lucy.”
“You do not care about laurels any more,” Mrs. Brothertoft said, with her half-sneer.
“Not when I can get roses.”
His look with this brought fire into Lucy’s cheeks.
“No,” resumed he; “I should be glad enough to help burn the dashed rebels’ houses over their heads, and them, too, in their beds. Here’s confusion to ’em, and luck to Jack Burgoyne! I hate the vulgar ‘varmint.’ But I don’t want to leave a good dinner to see bonfires. I know where I’m well off, and going to be better. Eh, Miss Lucy?”
Her heart began to throb and her head to ache at once.