CHAPTER XXXII

"Yes, certainly, we will go. Bear up, my dearest, you are safe with me. I deserve to be shot for bringing you to see this cursed stuff," murmured Vansittart, as he supported Joan to the box door, and, sending the attendant for iced water, brandy, salts, anything, tended her lovingly until he saw a faint colour creep back into her cheeks and lips, when, thanking the damsel, who had not been unsympathetic, and slipping a gold coin into her hand, he took his beloved carefully down into the open air and once more drove her home in a hansom.

She clung feebly to him as she lay almost helpless upon his breast--the cool night air, the darkness of the silent street under the starry sky, thrice welcome after her agony in that hot, glaring theatre--clung, feeling as if all else in her life were shipwrecked, engulfed in an ocean of horror, only he, her faithful lover, the one rock that remained. And a word of confession from her, one damning incident that betrayed her guilt, and she would lose even that grip on life and be hopelessly submerged.

"I am so sorry--I was so silly," she feebly began, but he interrupted her with almost passionate determination.

"My darling, I know, I understand!" he exclaimed. "That was your friend's story in a stage play. Joan, I feel I must protect you from yourself, for you have allowed an innocent, girlish freak of yours to lay hold of you in an unconceivable manner. It would be absurd, if it were not morbid."

He held forth eloquently on the folly of retrospection, of exaggerating the follies of youth, not only during the drive home, but when they were alone together in the cool dining room, for Sir Thomas was out, and Lady Thorne, not expecting them home so early, had retired for the night; and when he left her in Julie's hands, unwillingly obeying her behest, her demand, given with feverish energy, that her maid was not to be told that she had been attacked with faintness, he felt a little more at ease about her.

Suspect her he did not, except of being one of the most highly strung and sensitive creatures alive. And, being sure that this was so--feeling safe in his unbounded love and trust--she was able to rally.

Through all which might happen--even if Paul Naz changed his mind, and followed up his suspicions; if the man who found the bottle of drugged brandy happened to recognize her as the woman he had seen; if "that actress girl" could identify her as the person she passed in the hansom; if, indeed, any scraps of her letters or some old photograph of her had been found among Mercier's belongings--nothing, she believed, would altogether alienate Vansittart's love.

She clung to the thought; it seemed her one anchor to life. But even as she gradually recovered from the shocks of that awful hour at the theatre, she regained a certain amount of hope.

The very pomp and circumstance of her wedding; the accounts in the papers; the laudation of herself, Vansittart, and their respective families--all must surely help to avoid exciting the suspicion that she, the heroine of the glorification, was a whited sepulchre; that she had stolen out by night and, alone in a poor room in a lowly dwelling-house with her lover, had poisoned him and then left him to die.

Conscience did not soften the facts of the case. She had to face them in all their unlovely turpitude and deal with them as best she might.

But that night when she had to see her own story partly enacted on the stage, and, worse still, hear it commented upon with unconscious brutality by the dramatic critic, Mr. Hunt, seemed the climax, the crisis.

As the night gave place to day--and the day was full of pleasing incidents as well as of fresh proofs of Vansittart's devotion; he arrived early, and took "her in hand," kept her cheerful, and, with his flow of joyous content, would not allow her a leisure moment for her "morbidity," as he called it--she seemed to settle down a little, as one respited for a time, who deliberately determines to make the most of the term of peace. The days went by quickly, for with such a function as a brilliant wedding imminent, there was a perpetual bustle, there were continual obligatory goings to and fro. Besides, Vansittart mapped out the days--rides, drives, receptions, dances, all formed part of his scheme to entertain her until she would be his wife, feeling his emotions, thinking his thoughts. Only the theatre was rigidly excluded. He avoided even the subject of the stage, nor did he allow her to hear much music. He considered that of all the arts music had the greatest power to reproduce past sensations, to recall memories, especially undesirable ones. He was rewarded for his solicitude by seeing his beloved outwardly cheerful, and apparently at ease.

Joan was, indeed, as the days went quietly by, encouraged by the lack of disturbing elements, by the entire absence of any signs that the tragedy of Victor Mercier's death had any life left in it to torment her. She had promised herself that, if nothing happened before her marriage day, she might consider that she was practically safe. And at last the happy day dawned--a glorious summer morning--and, arising with gratitude in her heart, she murmured a fervent "Thank God!"

The house was crammed full of visitors--mostly the bridesmaids and their chaperons. At an early hour these girls, attired in their delicate chiffon frocks and "picture hats," were fluttering about the mansion like belated butterflies; for the marriage was to be early, for a fashionable one, to enable Lord and Lady Vansittart to start betimes for their honeymoon, which was to be spent on board Vansittart's yacht, but where, remained the young couple's secret. The bride was closeted in her room, Julie alone was with her. "I do not wish any one to see me before I appear in church," she had said, so decidedly, that her attendant maidens subdued their curiosity and started for the church in a couple of carriages--there were eight of them--without having had even a glimpse of the bridal attire.

Joan felt that she could not have borne the innocent chatter of those bright, unconscious girls, so happy in their unsullied ignorance of life and its undercurrent of horrors. Only in a silent, inward clinging to the thought of Vansittart--so soon to be her husband, her mainstay, her refuge, her only hope--could she endure the few hours before she would be safe--safe--alone with him on the high seas, no one knowing where they were or whither they were going.

Julie? Julie was her servant, of late quite her obsequious slave, with the prospect of being maid to "a great lady," and therefore a personage among her compeers before her. Julie was silent when she was silent. So no bride had ever been decked for the altar with greater show of solemnity than was Joan on her wedding morn.

"Am I good enough--do I look good enough--for him?" she asked herself as she gazed at her reflection in the long mirrors arranged by Julie so that she could see herself at all points--full face, back, profile. What she seemed to see was a pyramid of glistening satin, a quantity of lace, and a small pathetic face with a golden glimmer about it, under a frothy veil.

"A bride's dress is very unbecoming, after all," she somewhat gloomily said, as she accepted the bouquet Julie handed her--myrtle and delicate orchids; for she had told Vansittart, urged by the dread of being confronted with blossoms like the one she had seen in Victor Mercier's buttonhole as he lay dead, that if there were any strongly perfumed flowers about she might faint; a threat which had driven Vansittart to the florist who was to decorate the church to veto all but scentless blossoms. "It seems strange, does it not, Julie? that weddings and funerals should have the same kind of flowers."

Julie gave a little shriek. "Mais, mademoiselle, to speak of death on your wedding-day!"

"There are worse things than death, Julie," said she, with a sigh. And she proceeded below, Julie carefully carrying her train, while wondering with some dismay at her young mistress's extraordinary _tristesse_, then, met by the somewhat agitated Sir Thomas in the hall, she drove with him to the church.

Policemen were keeping back the crowd. She went up the flight of crimson-carpeted steps, and, passing into the church, dimly saw a double line of bridesmaids, with their pure white frocks and eager, blushing faces; then the officiating clergymen and choristers in their surplices. "They meet a bride as they meet the dead," she thought, with a delirious instinct to burst into laughter. Then she heard the sweet, solemn strains of the wedding hymn, and she felt rather than saw Vansittart, his manly form erect, even commanding, standing at the altar awaiting her, his eyes fixed gravely on her, compelling her by some mesmeric influence to be calm.

How dreamlike it all was! The serious, holy words; the sacred promises; the ring placed upon her finger; the farce, to her who had lost the power to pray real prayers, of kneeling on bended knees with downcast eyes at her husband's side; then the fuss and fervour in the vestry, the cheery smiles of the clergy, the excited embraces, the tiresome congratulations. Suddenly she began to feel her carefully-accumulated patience give way, and in a terror lest she should betray herself, she turned to Vansittart.

"Cannot we go now?" she almost wailed, with a pathetic, entreating glance.

"Of course, my dearest!"

The registers were signed, the business of the ceremony completed, and, somewhat abruptly, bride and bridegroom left the vestry and the little crowd of their gaily dressed friends, and went quickly through the church, to return to the house.

What stares and murmurs she had passed through, running the gauntlet of the crowded pews of sightseers! As she emerged on her husband's arm, the cool air made her gasp with relief.

Whispers, murmurs, policemen backing the crowd with commanding gestures. There was the bridal carriage. She saw Vansittart's horses; they were plunging a little. What a monster bouquet the coachman had! She was passing down the carpeted steps, she was about to halt to step into the landau, when someone came right in front of her, offering her some flowers.

Flowers! Those horribly white, thick-scented blossoms! She recoiled for an instant, then, remembering she must appear gratified, she took them, vaguely seeing a ghastly face, blazing blue eyes, a figure in deep black, a figure she did not know.

In another moment she was in the carriage; they drove off. "Horrible things; throw them out of window," she faintly said, recognizing the hideous fact that the posy was of the very flower Victor had worn when he died.

"Presently, dearest; we cannot let the girl see us do it," he gravely said. He was examining a label attached. In sudden terror she flung down her bouquet, snatched the posy from him, and stared wildly at the written words--

"In memory of Victor. 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'"