"I HAVE decided; and I have written to Dr. Fynes, and to the few persons I mean to invite. They can't all come here; and I have asked Mr. Raby; and it is my own desire; and it is one of those things the lady and her family always decide. I have no wish to be married at all. I only marry to please my father and you. There, let us say no more about it, please. I will not be married at Woodbine Villa, nor anywhere else. I wish papa and you would show your love by burying me instead."
These words, and the wild panting way they were uttered in, brought Coventry to his knees in a moment. He promised her, with abject submission, that she should have her own way in this and every thing. He petted her, and soothed her, and she forgave him, but so little graciously, that he saw she would fly out in a moment again, if the least attempt were made to shake her resolution.
Grace talked the matter over with Mr. Carden, and that same evening he begged Coventry to leave the Villa as soon as he conveniently could, for he and his daughter must be there a week before the wedding, and invite some relations, whom it was his interest to treat with respect.
"You will spare me a corner," said Coventry, in his most insinuating tone. "Dear Woodbine! I could not bear to leave it."
"Oh, of course you can stay there till we actually come; but we can't have the bride and bridegroom under one roof. Why, my dear fellow, you know better than that."
There was no help for it. It sickened him with fears of what might happen in those few fatal days, during which Mr. Carden, Grace herself, and a household over which he had no control, would occupy the house, and would receive the Postman, whose very face showed him incorruptible.
He stayed till the last moment; stopped a letter of five lines from Little, in which he said he should be in New York very soon, en route for England; and the very next day he received the Cardens, with a smiling countenance and a fainting heart, and then vacated the premises. He ordered Lally to hang about the Villa at certain hours when the post came in, and do his best. But his was catching at a straw. His real hope was that neither Little himself, nor a letter in his handwriting, might come in that short interval.
It wanted but five days to the wedding.
Hitherto it had been a game of skill, now it was a game of chance; and every morning he wished it was evening, every evening he wished it was morning.
The day Raby came back from Eastbank he dined at home, and, in an unguarded moment, said something or other, on which Mrs. Little cross-examined him so swiftly and so keenly that he stammered, and let out Grace Carden was on the point of marriage.
"Marriage, while my son is alive!" said Mrs. Little, and looked from him to Jael Dence, at first with amazement, and afterward with a strange expression that showed her mind was working.
A sort of vague alarm fell upon the other two, and they waited, in utter confusion, for what might follow.
But the mother was not ready to suspect so horrible a thing as her son's death. She took a more obvious view, and inveighed bitterly against Grace Carden.
She questioned Raby as to the cause, but it was Jael who answered her. "I believe nobody knows the rights of it but Miss Carden herself."
"The cause is her utter fickleness; but she never really loved him.
My poor Henry!"
"Oh yes, she did," said Raby. "She was at death's door a few months ago."
"At death's door for one man, and now going to marry another!"
"Why not?" said Raby, hard pushed; "she is a woman."
"And why did you not tell me till now?" asked Mrs. Little, loftily ignoring her brother's pitiable attempt at a sneer.
Raby's reply to this was happier.
"Why, what the better are you for knowing it now? We had orders not to worry you unnecessarily. Had we not, Jael?"
"That is all very well, in some things. But, where my son is concerned, pray never keep the truth from me again. When did she break off with Henry--or did he quarrel with her?"
"I have no idea. I was not in the country."
"Do YOU know, dear?"
"No, Mrs. Little. But I am of your mind. I think she could not have loved Mr. Henry as she ought."
"When did you see her last?"
"I could not say justly, but it was a long while ago."
Mrs. Little interpreted this that Jael had quarreled with Grace for her fickleness, and gave her a look of beaming affection; then fell into a dead silence, and soon tears were seen stealing down her cheek.
"But I shall write to her," said she, after a long and painful silence.
Mr. Raby hoped she would do nothing of the kind.
"Oh, I shall not say much. I shall put her one question. Of course SHE knows why they part."
Next morning Jael Dence asked Mr. Raby whether the threatened letter must be allowed to go.
"Of course it must," said Raby. "I have gone as far off the straight path as a gentleman can. And I wish we may not repent our ingenuity. Deceive a mother about her son! what can justify it, after all?"
Mrs. Little wrote her letter, and showed it to Jael:
"DEAR MISS CARDEN,--They tell me you are about to be married. Can this be true, and Henry Little alive?"
An answer came back, in due course.
"DEAR MRS. LITTLE,--It is true, and I am miserable. Forgive me, and forget me."
Mrs. Little discovered the marks of tears upon the paper, and was sorely puzzled.
She sat silent a long time: then looking up, she saw Jael Dence gazing at her with moist eyes, and an angelic look of anxiety and affection.
She caught her round the neck, and kissed her, almost passionately.
"All the better," she cried, struggling with a sob. "I shall have my own way for once. You shall be my daughter instead."
Jael returned her embrace with ardor, but in silence, and with averted head.
When Jael Dence heard that Grace Carden was in Hillsborough, she felt very much drawn to go and see her: but she knew the meeting must be a sad one to them both; and that made her put it off till the very day before the wedding. Then, thinking it would be too unkind if she held entirely aloof, and being, in truth, rather curious to know whether Grace had really been able to transfer her affections in so short a time, she asked Mr. Raby's leave, and drove one of the ponies in to Woodbine Villa.