A Mere Chance: A Novel. Vol. 1

"Of broken engagements?" queried Rachel, smiling faintly at the fire.

"No, not of them – not personally. The curse of my life was an engagement that was kept. And I have seen so much misery, such everlasting wreck and ruin, come upon people I have known and cared for – people who kept the letter of the law of honour and disregarded the spirit – who preferred sacrificing all that made life worth having, for certainly two people, and probably four, to breaking an engagement that had no longer any sense or reason in it."

"But surely an engagement – it is the initial marriage ceremony – should be kept sacred," protested Rachel, daring at last to look up, in defence of pious principles.

"Yes," he said, "certainly – when it is really the initial marriage ceremony."

"And how – what – what is the proof of that?"

"Shall I tell you what I think it is? When the people who are engaged long and weary for the consummation – for the time to be over which keeps them from one another."

There was a dead silence. Rachel continued to gaze into the fire, but her eyes were dim, and all her pretty colour sank out of her face. He had given her a great shock, and she had to take a little time to recover. Presently she looked up, pale and grave, with a fuller and more open look than she had ever given him.

"You should not have told me," she said gently; "you should not talk to me so."

"No – you are right – I should not – forgive me," he replied, speaking low and hurriedly, with something new and strange in his voice. And then they became simultaneously aware of the dangerous ways into which their discussion had led them, and, by tacit consent, turned back. Rachel moved away to the writing-table, and began to gather her papers together; Mr. Dalrymple brought his arm down from the chimney-piece and looked at his watch.

"It is five o'clock," he said; "the ladies are having a long walk, are they not?"

"No; it was nearly four when they started. They will be in directly for their tea."

Then, without looking to right or left, Rachel hurried out of the room; and Mr. Dalrymple, after silently holding the door for her, strode away to the dining-room, where he was still in time for some bread and cheese.

The first thing Rachel did on reaching her room, was to sit down and cry – why or wherefore she never asked herself. She had not yet learned the art of analysing her emotions.

She felt vaguely perplexed and hurt, and ashamed and indignant; and a few tears were necessary to put her to rights. They were very few, and soon over.

In less than ten minutes she had again addressed herself to Mr. Kingston's letter, which she finished up with the suggestion that their marriage should take place "next year," and a profusion of unwonted endearments.

At dusk she went to the drawing-room, where the reunited guests were having tea in the pleasant firelight, the gentlemen lounging about in their knickerbockers and leggings, the ladies sitting with hats tilted on the back of their heads, Mrs. Hale victorious over her subdued husband. Miss Hale happy with her recovered beau. She sat a little outside the circle and talked in under-tones to Lucilla; Mr. Dalrymple stood far away on the other side of the room, and talked to nobody.

That night Rachel was the first to go to dress; she was the last to come back when the gong announced dinner. And when she came she was arrayed in all her glory – pearl necklace, diamond pendant, diamond bracelet, jewelled fan – all her absent lover's love-gifts that good taste permitted her to wear, and a few more. And there was no repetition of the conservatory scene.

Mrs. Hardy was perfectly satisfied with the result of her diplomatic measures. Rachel sat by her aunt's side, and sewed industriously all the evening at a pinafore for her precious baby, who was about to be short-coated. Mr. Dalrymple sat rather apart, gnawing his moustache, apparently absorbed in a photographic album of Lucilla's, which he had discovered in a cabinet near him.

Two or three times, when Rachel stole a look across the room, unable to repress her restless curiosity to know what he was doing, she saw him gazing meditatively at this open book, and always on the first page of it. She wondered whose photographs they were that interested him so much, and she felt that she could not go to bed without satisfying her anxiety on this point.

When after tea, music and cards and other gentle entertainments were set going, and Mr. Dalrymple was at last enticed by his host from his corner and his album to make a fourth at the whist-table, she watched her opportunity and stole round to the chair on which he had been sitting. He had his back to her, but he was facing a mirror in which he could see her distinctly; and while he watched her movements, he trumped his partner's trick for the first time in his life, and otherwise disgraced a notorious reputation.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Hale, who was his partner, with considerable asperity, "that you don't trouble to play well if you haven't some great stake to play for."

"I beg your pardon," he replied, gravely bending his head. Rachel was stealing back to her aunt's side and her baby's pinafore, and he left off looking into the mirror and making mistakes.

Meanwhile Rachel had satisfied her curiosity. When she opened the album on the first page she saw two familiar faces – one of a young, bright girl, with pensive eyes, conspicuous for "that royalty which subjects kings;" the other angular, aquiline, hollow, full of the lines of age, and smirking with the sprightliness of youth – herself and Mr. Kingston, to whom, unknown to her, Lucilia had lately given this place of honour.

She stood still for a few minutes, looking down on them, with the colour deepening in her cheeks. She seemed to see for the first time how incongruous a pair they made, and how mean a presence her lover really bore.

It was a bad likeness of him, she said to herself; but in point of fact she was shocked by a faithful representation of his meagre features and his peculiar smile – which after all was too frivolous and artificial to be worthy of comparison with the smile of Mephistopheles.

She did not consciously judge his by the standard of that other face, which was so impressively dignified and resolute; but she had looked at this same photograph two days ago, and then it had not struck her unpleasantly, as it did now.

Without thinking what she was doing, she tore out her own likeness, and also the last photograph in the book, which was an old one of her Cousin Lucilla as a child, and she made them change places. Having effected which – surreptitiously, as she thought – she closed the album softly, laid it away in the cabinet, and returned to her seat by her aunt's side.

When the ladies were gone to bed, the first thing Mr. Dalrymple did was to get out that album again and look at it; and he had some very serious thoughts when he found out what she had done.

In the morning all the visitors left early, for they had a long distance to travel. Mr. Thornley was to take them part of the way home, and the break and the four horses were brought round at eight o'clock. Rachel came out to the verandah with her aunt and cousin to see them start.

"Good-bye, dear Mrs. Digby," said Lucilla, affectionately kissing her particular friend. "Good-bye, Mrs. Hale. Good-bye, Miss Hale. I am so sorry you could not stay longer, but we shall expect you back next week. Good-bye, Mr. Dalrymple, I hear you are off to Queensland again on Monday?"

Mr. Dalrymple shook hands and lifted his hat, and then said very quietly, but with great distinctness, "Not quite so soon as that, I think, Mrs. Thornley. I shall consult Gordon before I make another start."

"Oh, well, in that case we shall hope to see you again, too. Of course you'll come with your sister next week, if you should be still with her?"

"Thank you," said Mr. Dalrymple. "I shall be most happy."

Rachel was not looking at anybody in particular; and nobody was looking at her. But her rather pale and pensive face suddenly became of a colour that might have put even the lapageria rosea to shame.

CHAPTER XII.

"OH, IF THEY HAD!"

WANDERING about that afternoon in an aimless and restless manner, Rachel entered the drawing-room through the conservatory door, and found her cousin sitting there alone, at her own little davenport, writing letters. Lucilla looked up with a smile of cordial welcome.

"Do you know what I am doing?" she exclaimed brightly. "Come here, and say thank you. I am writing to ask Mr. Kingston to come."

"To ask Mr. Kingston to come?" the girl repeated blankly. "What for, Lucilla?"

Mrs. Thornley was not like Mrs. Reade; she was amiable and sweet, but a little dull of apprehension. She did not grasp the obvious significance of this reply. Still it struck her as inadequate.

"Why, my dear child, what a question! Because you are here, of course, and because he is moping about town, Beatrice says, and doesn't know what to do with himself."

"Does Beatrice say that?" inquired Rachel, with a little pang of self-reproach. This man, who had done her the greatest honour, who had paid her the highest compliment that any man could bestow on any woman – she was conscious of requiting him with ingratitude at this moment. "He is very, very – kind," she faltered. "I am afraid he thinks too much about me. When have you asked him to come, Lucilla?"

"In time for the dance next week, and as much sooner as he likes. I have told him to send word what day will suit him, if he can come, and that we will send to the station. Of course we could not allow him to come up by coach. I am very glad we have that dance in prospect; it will be something to amuse him. I should have been half afraid to ask him into the country if there had been nothing going on. He used to hate the bush. However," looking up archly, "Beatrice says I need not be afraid of his feeling dull on this occasion."

"Did Beatrice tell you to ask him? I mean did she suggest it to you?"

"Yes, dear – to tell the truth. I should not have asked him, simply because I knew he didn't like the bush. It did not occur to me that he would be fretting after you – Mr. Kingston fretting after anybody is such a very novel idea! Oh, my dear Rachel" – and here she drew the girl close and kissed her – "you are luckier than ever I thought you were!"

"Yes," sighed Rachel; "I know I am very lucky."

"And Beatrice says," continued Mrs. Thornley, with her arm round her cousin's waist, "that we shall be having everything settled soon, and that you are to have a delightful tour in Europe. How you will enjoy that! It was the one thing I wished for when I was married that I did not get. Not but what," the gentle woman added quickly, "I am very glad I did not get it now. I could not have been happier than I have been at Adelonga, and it must be very inconvenient to have a baby when one is travelling about. You must tell me, darling, what you would like for a present. John and I were talking about it last night – John thinks a great deal of you, you must know, which is a thing you ought to be proud of, for he is very particular and critical about girls – and he says he would like to give you something worth having. But I told him you and I would talk it over before we decided what it should be."

"How good you are! How good everybody is!" exclaimed Rachel, folding the girlish matron in a rather hysterical embrace. "But I don't think I shall be married just yet, Lucilla – wait till we hear what Mr. Kingston says."

"Oh, we know already what he is going to say."

"There is the party to be thought of first," proceeded Rachel, determined, now that Mr. Kingston was coming, not to dissipate in fruitless skirmishes the strength that she would require to fight the inevitable battle with him. "You have only a week before you, and you have not sent out your invitations, have you?"