Edwin Brothertoft/Part III Chapter IX

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.

“This goose has got a bark on thick as an oak-tree,” continued the valiant trencherman, making an incision. “Give me another cut of beef, — the red, with plenty of fat and plenty of gravy, if you please, my mamma that shall be. I need support when the parson opens his batteries to-morrow. Eh, Miss Lucy? ‘With this ring thee I wed, and with all my worldly —’ Hain’t got any goods. I’ll endow you with all my worldly debts, and tell the Jews to shift the security. Haw, haw!”

He laughed boisterously.

This coarse pæan stirred up echoes of repulsion in Lucy’s heart.

How she longed to fling defiance at him! Patience, — she almost bit the word in two, with her teeth set hard upon it. One rash expression would be ruin; but great red-hot shot of scorn burned within her. She discovered that there was strong language in her vocabulary. It grew significant to her now. She was beginning to half understand herself at last. When the boiler grows hot, the water feels its latent steam.

“Am I the same being?” she thought. “Am I the meek Consent I have pitied and wept with so long? No, I have ceased to be a spiritless nobody. I am almost sorry that help from without is coming to me. I should like to stand up now and say, ‘Madam, of you as a woman I will not speak, — as a mother, you are a tyrant, and I defy you. I defy you and this brute, not half so base as you, whom you have dared to name by the sacred name of lover, whom you have called in to aid you in dishonoring your child.’ Yes; I could almost say that to her now. Is it possible? Is it possible that a woman can so hate a woman? I never felt what the sanctity of my womanhood was until now, — now that I perceive this miserable plot against it.”

This defiant mood was strong within her. But presently, as she looked at Kerr, growing redder with too much dinner and too much wine, laughing at his own coarse jokes and throwing at her with great vulgar compliments; and when all at once, in contrast, rose the figure of the other Major as she had painted him, — disgust so mastered her that she sprang up, pleaded a headache, and fled to her chamber, to wait and hope and doubt and pray alone.

“Megrims again,” said the lover, sulkily, as she disappeared. “I don’t like it. She didn’t run away from Jack André yesterday.”

“O, let her amuse herself with headaches, if she pleases,” said the Lady of the Manor. “I understand the child. I saw her this morning over her wedding-dress. She is as eager for the happy moment as any lover could wish.”

“So you think she shams coy?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Brothertoft; and she was willing to believe it.

“Well, good night, pretty creature! Let it go up stairs and think how sweet it will look to-morrow in its silks and laces! What, are you going too, my mamma?”

“Yes. Take your glass of wine quietly. We will have supper late. I am going to doze a little in the parlor. I dreamed troublesome dreams last night.”

“By George!” said Kerr, as she closed the door. “Splendid woman! Twice as handsome as the Duchess of Gurgoyle! I suppose she thinks the Kerrs will take her up when she goes to England. No, ma’am! We can’t quite stand that. You’ve got all you can expect out of me when you’ve married off your daughter on me. Now, then, it’s going to be solemn business, drinking alone.”