"How thoroughly happy Christabel looks," observed another friendly matron to Mrs. Tregonell, a little later in the afternoon: "she seems to have quite got over her trouble about Mr. Hamleigh."

"Yes, I hope that is forgotten," answered Mrs. Tregonell.

This garden party was an occasion of unspeakable pain to Christabel. Her aunt had insisted upon sending out the invitations. There must be some kind of festival upon her adopted daughter's coming of age. The inheritor of lands and money was a person whose twenty-first birthday could not be permitted to slip by unmarked, like any other day in the calendar.

"If we were to have no garden party this summer people would say you were broken-hearted at the sad end of last year's engagement, darling," said Mrs. Tregonell, when Christabel had pleaded against the contemplated assembly, "and I know your pride would revolt at that."

"Dear Auntie, my pride has been levelled to the dust, if I ever had any; it will not raise its head on account of a garden party."

Mrs. Tregonell insisted, albeit even her small share of the preparations, the mere revision of the list of guests – the discussion and acceptance of Jessie Bridgeman's arrangements – was a fatigue to the jaded mind and enfeebled body. When the day came the mistress of Mount Royal carried herself with the old air of quiet dignity which her friends knew so well. People saw that she was aged, that she had grown pale and thin and wan; and they ascribed this change in her to anxiety about her niece's engagement. There were vague ideas as to the cause of Mr. Hamleigh's dismissal – dim notions of terrible iniquities, startling revelations, occurring on the very brink of marriage. That section of county society which did not go to London knew a great deal more about the details of the story than the people who had been in town at the time and had seen Miss Courtenay and her lover almost daily. For those daughters of the soil who but rarely crossed the Tamar the story of Miss Courtenay's engagement was a social mystery of so dark a complexion that it afforded inexhaustible material for tea-table gossip. A story, of which no one seemed to know the exact details, gave wide ground for speculation, and could always be looked at from new points of view.

And now here was the same Miss Courtenay smiling upon her friends, fair and radiant, showing no traces of last year's tragedy in her looks or manners; being, indeed, one of those women who do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at. The local mind, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that Miss Courtenay had consoled herself for the loss of one lover by the gain of another, and was now engaged to her cousin.

Clara St. Aubyn ventured to congratulate her upon this happy issue out of bygone griefs.

"I am so glad," she said, squeezing Christabel's hand, during an inspection of the hot-houses. "I like him so much."

"I don't quite understand," replied Christabel, with a freezing look: "who is it whom you like? The new Curate?"

"No dear, don't pretend to misunderstand me. I am so pleased to think that you and your cousin are going to make a match of it. He is so handsome – such a fine, frank, open-hearted manner – so altogether nice."

"I am pleased to hear you praise him," said Christabel, still supremely cold; "but my cousin is my cousin, and will never be anything more."

"You don't mean that?"

"I do – without the smallest reservation."

Clara became thoughtful. Leonard Tregonell was one of the best matches in the county, and he had always been civil to her. They had tastes in common, were both horsey and doggy, and plain-spoken to brusqueness. Why should not she be mistress of Mount Royal, by-and-by, if Christabel despised her opportunities?

At half-past seven, the last carriage had driven away from the porch; and Mrs. Tregonell, thoroughly exhausted by the exertions of the afternoon, reclined languidly in her favourite chair, moved from its winter-place by the hearth, to a deep embayed window looking on to the rose-garden. Christabel sat on a stool at her aunt's feet, her fair head resting against the cushioned elbow of Mrs. Tregonell's chair.

"Well, Auntie, the people are gone and the birthday is over. Isn't that a blessing?" she said lightly.

"Yes, dear, it is over, and you are of age – your own mistress. My guardianship expires to-day. I wonder whether I shall find any difference in my darling now she is out of leading-strings."

"I don't think you will, Auntie. I have not much inclination for desperate flights of any kind. What can freedom or the unrestricted use of my fortune give me, which your indulgence has not already given? What whim or fancy of mine have you ever thwarted? No, Aunt Di, I don't think there is any scope for rebellion on my part."

"And you will not leave me, dear, till the end?" pleaded the widow. "Your bondage cannot be for very long."

"Auntie! how can you speak like that, when you know – when you must know that I have no one in the world but you, now – no one, dearest," said Christabel, on her knees at her aunt's feet, clasping and kissing the pale transparent hands. "I have not the knack of loving many people. Jessie is very good to me, and I am fond of her as my friend and companion. Uncle Oliver is all goodness, and I am fond of him in just the same way. But I never loved any one but you and Angus. Angus is gone from me, and if God takes you, Auntie, my prayer is that I may speedily follow you."

"My love, that is a blasphemous prayer: it implies doubt in God's goodness. He means the young and innocent to be happy in this world – happy and a source of happiness to others. You will form new ties: a husband and children will console you for all you have lost in the past."

"No, aunt, I shall never marry. Put that idea out of your mind. You will think less badly of me for refusing Leonard if you understand that I have made up my mind to live and die unmarried."

"But I cannot and will not believe that, Belle: whatever you may think now, a year hence your ideas will have entirely altered. Remember my own history. When George Hamleigh died I thought the world – so far as it concerned me – had come to an end, that I had only to wait for death. My fondest hope was that I should die within the year, and be buried in a grave near his – yet five years afterwards I was a happy wife and mother."

"God was good to you," said Christabel, quietly, thinking all the while that her aunt must have been made of a different clay from herself. There was a degradation in being able to forget: it implied a lower kind of organism than that finely strung nature which loves once and once only.

CHAPTER VI
"THAT LIP AND VOICE ARE MUTE FOR EVER."

Having pledged herself to remain with her aunt to the end, Christabel was fain to make the best of her life at Mount Royal, and in order to do this she must needs keep on good terms with her cousin. Leonard's conduct of late had been irreproachable: he was attentive to his mother, all amiability to Christabel, and almost civil to Miss Bridgeman. He contrived to make his peace with Randie, and he made such a good impression upon Major Bree that he won the warm praises of that gentleman.

The cross country rides were resumed, the Major always in attendance; and Leonard and his cousin were seen so often together, riding, driving, or walking, that the idea of an engagement between them became a fixture in the local mind, which held that when one was off with the old love it was well to be on with the new.

And so the summer ripened and waned. Mrs. Tregonell's health seemed to improve in the calm happiness of a domestic life in which there was no indication of disunion. She had never surrendered her hope of Christabel's relenting. Leonard's frank and generous character – his good looks – his local popularity – must ultimately prevail over the memory of another – that other having so completely given up his chances. Mrs. Tregonell was half inclined to recognize the nobleness of that renunciation; half disposed to accept it as a proof that Angus Hamleigh's heart still hankered after the actress who had been his first infatuation. In either case no one could doubt that it was well for Christabel to be released from such an engagement. To wed Angus would have been to tie herself to sickness and death – to take upon herself the burden of early widowhood, to put on sackcloth and ashes as a wedding garment.

It was winter, and there were patches of snow upon the hills, and sea and sky were of one chill slaty hue, before Leonard ventured to repeat that question which he had asked with such ill effect in the sweet summer morning, between hedgerows flushed with roses. But through all the changes of the waning year there had been one purpose in his mind, and every act of his life had tended to one result. He had sworn to himself that his cousin should be his wife. Whatever barriers of disinclination, direct antagonism even, there might be on her side must be broken down by dogged patience, unyielding determination on his side. He had the spirit of the hunter, to whom that prey is most precious which costs the longest chase. He loved his cousin more passionately to-day, after keeping his feelings in check for six months, than he had loved her when he asked her to be his wife. Every day of delay had increased his ardour and strengthened his resolve.

It was New Year's day. Christabel and Miss Bridgeman had been to church in the morning, and had taken a long walk with Leonard, who contrived to waylay them at the church door after church. Then had come a rather late luncheon, after which Christabel spent an hour in her aunt's room reading to her, and talking a little in a subdued way. It was one of Mrs. Tregonell's bad days, a day upon which she could hardly leave her sofa, and Christabel came away from the invalid's room full of sadness.

She was sitting by the fire in the library, alone in the dusk save for Randie's company, when her cousin came in and found her.

"Why, Belle, what are you doing all alone in the dark?" he exclaimed. "I almost thought the room was empty."

"I have been thinking," she said, with a sigh.

"Your thoughts could not have been over-pleasant, I should think, by that sigh," said Leonard, coming over to the hearth, and drawing the logs together. "There's a cheerful blaze for you. Don't give way to sad thoughts on the first day of the year, Belle: it's a bad beginning."

"I have been thinking of your dear mother, Leonard: my mother, for she has been more to me than one mother in a hundred is to her daughter. She is with us to-day – a part of our lives – very frail and feeble, but still our own. Where will she be next New Year's day?"

"Ah, Belle, that's a bad look out for both of us," answered Leonard, seating himself in his mother's empty chair. "I'm afraid she won't last out the year that begins to-day. But she has seemed brighter and happier lately, hasn't she?"

"Yes, I think she has been happier," said Christabel.

"Do you know why?"

His cousin did not answer him. She sat with her face bent over her dog, hiding her tears on Randie's sleek black head.

"I think I know why the mother has been so tranquil in her mind lately, Belle," said Leonard, with unusual earnestness, "and I think you know just as well as I do. She has seen you and me more friendly together – more cousinly – and she has looked forward to the fulfilment of an old wish and dream of hers. She has looked for the speedy realization of that wish, Belle, although six months ago it seemed hopeless. She wants to see the two people she loves best on earth united, before she is taken away. It would make the close of her life happy, if she could see my happiness secure. I believe you know that, Belle."

"Yes, I know that it is so. But that can never be."

"That is a hard saying, Christabel. Half a year ago I asked you a question, and you said no. Many a man in my position would have been too proud to run the risk of a second refusal. He would have gone away in a huff and found comfort somewhere else. But I knew that there was only one woman in the world who could make me happy, and I waited for her. You must own that I have been patient, have I not, Belle?"

"You have been very devoted to your dear mother – very good to me. I cannot deny that, Leonard," Christabel answered gravely.

She had dried her tears, and lifted her head from the dog's neck, and sat looking straight at the fire, self-possessed and sad. It seemed to her as if all possibility of happiness had gone out of her life.

"Am I to have no reward?" asked Leonard. "You know with what hope I have waited – you know that our marriage would make my mother happy, that it would make the end of her life a festival. You owe me nothing, but you owe her something. That is sueing in formâ pauperis, isn't it, Belle? But I have no pride where you are concerned."

"You ask me to be your wife; you don't even ask if I love you," said Christabel, bitterly. "What if I were to say yes, and then tell you afterwards that my heart still belongs to Angus Hamleigh."

"You had better tell me that now, if it is so," said Leonard, his face darkening in the firelight.

"Then I will tell you that it is so. I gave him up because I thought it my duty to give him up. I believed that in honour he belonged to another woman. I believe so still. But I have never left off loving him. That is why I have made up my mind never to marry."

"You are wise," retorted Leonard, "such a confession as that would settle for most men. But it does not settle for me, Belle. I am too far gone. If you are a fool about Hamleigh, I am a fool about you. Only say you will marry me, and I will take my chance of all the rest. I know you will be a good wife; and I will be a good husband to you. And I suppose in the end you will get to care for me, a little. One thing is certain, that I can't be happy without you; so I would gladly run the risk of an occasional taste of misery with you. Come, Belle, is it a bargain," he pleaded, taking her unresisting hands. "Say that it is, dearest. Let me kiss the future mistress of Mount Royal."

He bent over her and kissed her – kissed those lips which had once been sacred to Angus Hamleigh, which she had sworn in her heart should be kissed by no other man upon earth. She recoiled from him with a shiver of disgust – no good omen for their wedded bliss.

"This will make our mother very happy," said Leonard. "Come to her now, Belle, and let us tell her."

Christabel went with slow, reluctant steps, ashamed of the weakness which had yielded to persuasion and not to duty. But when Mrs. Tregonell heard the news from the triumphant lover, the light of happiness that shone upon the wan face was almost an all-sufficing reward for this last sacrifice.

"My love, my love," cried the widow, clasping her niece to her breast. "You have made my last earthly days happy. I have thought you cold and hard. I feared that I should die before you relented; but now you have made me glad and grateful. I reared you for this, I taught you for this, I have prayed for this ever since you were a child. I have prayed that my son might have a pure and perfect wife: and God has granted my prayer."

After this came a period of such perfect content and tranquillity for the invalid, that Christabel forgot her own sorrows. She lived in an atmosphere of gladness; congratulations, gifts, were pouring in upon her every day; her aunt petted and cherished her, was never weary of praising and caressing her. Leonard was all submission as a lover. Major Bree was delighted at the security which this engagement promised for the carrying on of the line of Champernownes and Tregonells – the union of two fine estates. He had looked forward to a dismal period when the widow would be laid in her grave, her son a wanderer, and Christabel a resident at Plymouth or Bath; while spiders wove their webs in shadowy corners of the good old Manor House, and mice, to all appearance self-sustaining, scampered and scurried behind the panelling.

Jessie Bridgeman was the only member of Christabel's circle who refrained from any expression of approval.

"Did I not tell you that you must end by marrying him?" she exclaimed. "Did I not say that if you stayed here the thing was inevitable? Continual dropping will wear away a stone; the stone is a fixture and can't help being dropped upon; but if you had stuck to your colours and gone to Leipsic to study the piano, you would have escaped the dropping."

As there was no possible reason for delay, while there was a powerful motive for a speedy marriage, in the fact of Mrs. Tregonell's precarious health, and her ardent desire to see her son and her niece united before her fading eyes closed for ever upon earth and earthly cares, Christabel was fain to consent to the early date which her aunt and her lover proposed, and to allow all arrangements to be hurried on with that view.

So in the dawning of the year, when Proserpine's returning footsteps were only faintly indicated by pale snowdrops and early violets lurking in sheltered hedges, and by the gold and purple of crocuses in all the cottage gardens, Christabel put on her wedding gown, and whiter than the pale ivory tint of the soft sheeny satin, took her seat in the carriage beside her adopted mother, to be driven down into the valley, and up the hilly street, where all the inhabitants of Boscastle – save those who had gone on before to congregate by the lich-gate – were on the alert to see the bride go by.

Mrs. Tregonell was paler than her niece, the fine regular features blanched with that awful pallor which tells of disease – but her eyes were shining with the light of gladness.

"My darling," she murmured, as they drove down to the harbour bridge, "I have loved you all your life, but never as I love you to-day. My dearest, you have filled my soul with content."

"I thank God that it should be so," faltered Christabel.

"If I could only see you smile, dear," said her aunt. "Your expression is too sad for a bride."

"Is it, Auntie? But marriage is a serious thing, dear. It means the dedication of a life to duty."

"Duty which affection will make very light, I hope," said Mrs. Tregonell, chilled by the cold statuesque face, wrapped in its cloudy veil. "Christabel, my love, tell me that you are not unhappy – that this marriage is not against your inclination. It is of your own free will that you give yourself to my boy?"

"Yes, of my own free will," answered Christabel, firmly.

As she spoke, it flashed upon her that Iphigenia would have given the same answer before they led her to the altar of offended Artemis. There are sacrifices offered with the victim's free consent, which are not the less sacrifices.

"Look, dear," cried her aunt, as the children, clustering at the school-house gate – dismissed from school an hour before their time – waved their sturdy arms, and broke into a shrill treble cheer, "everybody is pleased at this marriage."

"If you are glad, dearest, I am content," murmured her niece.

It was a very quiet wedding – or a wedding which ranks among quiet weddings now-a-days, when nuptial ceremonies are for the most part splendid. No train of bridesmaids in æsthetic colours, Duchess of Devonshire hats, and long mittens – no page-boys, staggering under gigantic baskets of flowers – no fuss or fashion, to make that solemn ceremony a raree-show for the gaping crowd. The Rector of Trevalga's two little girls were the only bridesmaids – dressed after Sir Joshua, in short-waisted dove-coloured frocks and pink sashes, mob caps and mittens, with big bunches of primroses and violets in their chubby hands.

Mrs. Tregonell looked superb in a dark ruby velvet gown, and long mantle of the same rich stuff, bordered with darkest sable. It was she who gave her niece away, while Major Bree acted as best man for Leonard. There were no guests at this winter wedding. Mrs. Tregonell's frail health was a sufficient reason for the avoidance of all pomp and show; and Christabel had pleaded earnestly for a very quiet wedding.

So before that altar where she had hoped to pledge herself for life and till death to Angus Hamleigh, Christabel gave her submissive hand to Leonard Tregonell, while the fatal words were spoken which have changed and blighted some few lives, to set against the many they have blessed and glorified. Still deadly pale, the bride went with the bridegroom to the vestry, to sign that book of fate, the register, Mrs. Tregonell following on Major Bree's arm, Miss Bridgeman – a neat little figure in silver grey poplin – and the child bride-maids crowding in after them, until the small vestry was filled with a gracious group, all glow of colour and sheen of silk and satin, in the glad spring sunshine.

"Now, Mrs. Tregonell," said the Major, cheerily, when the bride and bridegroom had signed, "let us have your name next, if you please; for I don't think there is any of us who more rejoices in this union than you do."

The widow took the pen, and wrote her name below that of Christabel, with a hand that never faltered. The incumbent of Minster used to say afterwards that this autograph was the grandest in the register. But the pen dropped suddenly from the hand that had guided it so firmly. Mrs. Tregonell looked round at the circle of faces with a strange wild look in her own. She gave a faint half-stifled cry, and fell upon her son's breast, her arms groping about his shoulders feebly, as if they would fain have wound themselves round his neck, but could not, encumbered by the heavy mantle.

Leonard put his arm round her, and held her firmly to his breast.

"Dear mother, are you ill?" he asked, alarmed by that strange look in the haggard face.

"It is the end," she faltered. "Don't be sorry, dear. I am so happy."

And thus, with a shivering sigh, the weary heart throbbed its last dull beat, the faded eyes grew dim, the lips were dumb for ever.

The Rector tried to get Christabel out of the vestry before she could know what had happened – but the bride was clinging to her aunt's lifeless figure, half sustained in Leonard's arms, half resting on the chair which had been pushed forward to support her as she sank upon her son's breast. Vain to seek to delay the knowledge of sorrow. All was known to Christabel already, as she bent over that marble face which was scarcely whiter than her own.