The Wedding Gift

Her ladyship had heard of Vallancey some of those things which are seldom heard by a man's betrothed. She had been told of his reputation for dalliance, his irrepressible gallantry, and she had striven loyally to disbelieve it all. Yet here it seemed was proof. And as she looked upon the gentle, trusting child before her she was moved to a great pity for her, to a great anger against Vallancey who could so unscrupulously lighten the tedium of his concealment, gathering a heart as lightly as one gathers a rose-bud, to wear it for a day and then leave it broken and wilted without another thought.

"Can your ladyship not tell me more?" Lucy implored "I am in an agony of fear for him."

Lady Mary observed that the child expressed herself like a person of some culture, in the musical rising and falling inflexion of the west country.

"Ye've grown fond of him, child, it seems," said her ladyship.

The girl's scarlet lips and averted eyes sent a stab through Lady Mary's heart. But there was worse to come.

"We are to be married when this trouble is over," said Lucy softly.

She never saw Lady Mary's sudden start. Nor when presently, after a spell of silence, she raised her eyes to her visitor's face did she observe its deep pallor.

"It is a great honour for you," said her ladyship, her voice expressionless. "Does your father know of it?"

"Not yet. We have not told him. Stephen desired me to wait until matters should be easier for him."

"Ah!"

Her ladyship rose, her face marble-white and marble-calm. Her resolve at the moment was to call her groom and ride away as she had come, without seeing Vallancey, taking Jeffreys' pardon with her, and leaving her betrothed to his fast-approaching fate.

Nor was she obeying an impulse merely of jealousy or vengeance. It was an impulse of mercy to this poor child he had befooled for his entertainment. Better a thousand times for Lucy that Vallancey should be taken and hanged; better a thousand times than that he should ride gaily away, leaving a heart-breaking disillusion behind him. To mourn him dead would be a small sorrow by comparison.

Within a pace of the door her ladyship checked suddenly, smitten by a fresh notion; and Lucy, watching her, marvelled at the oddness of a bearing, which at last she noticed. Her ladyship's next words, she fancied, explained it.

"They are very long in coming."

"He may have gone some way downstream," Lucy explained, and added fearfully the question: "Is there danger in his delaying?"

"Why, no, child," said her ladyship.

She came slowly back to the table, sat down again, and engaged Lucy in talk of this fine lover.

Gradually and skillfully she drew out the tale of it— her manifest sympathy and the relationship in which Lucy believed her to stand to Vallancey, effectively inducing the girl to speak upon a topic that filled her soul.

She found it all precisely as she had feared. The child's love for Vallancey amounted to worship; her trust in him had become the very breath of her life. In her pity for Lucy Lady Mary almost forgot to be sorry for herself. Her resolve to act upon the inspiration that had come to her gathered strength with every word that Lucy uttered. For the child's frank and artless nature made no attempt to use dissimulation with Vallancey's "dear cousin."

Presently came a sound of steps and voices. Through the long latticed window they saw Vallancey crossing the bridge with Leigh and the shock-headed lad. He was shouldering a long rod, and a brace of golden trout swung from the butt of it.

Lady Mary stood up.

"Go child," she said. "Let me speak to — to Mr. Vallancey alone a moment. I will call you."

Lucy hesitated. It was clearly in her mind to protest against this. But overawed by her ladyship's manner, she ended by obeying her, though with obvious reluctance.

A moment later, when the door opened, and Vallancey, tall, lean and bronzed, appeared in the doorway, his betrothed was alone to receive him.

He greeted her with a joyous cry; a glad smile suffused his handsome face; his bold, dark eyes beamed upon her.

"Why, Mary, dear!" he cried. "What is't I'm told — that you're the bearer of great tidings?"

He advanced towards her, and she was conscious, with a pang, of the melody of his voice, the grace and ease of his carriage, which not even the rough garb he bore could dissemble. Within a pace of her he halted, perplexed by the stiffness of her attitude, the coldness of her face.

"Mary — Mary!" said he. Then, a sudden alarm gripping him—"What is't? Was it not true — your message? Is there danger from the troopers at St. Mary?"

Her answer increased his perplexity.

"That shall be as you decide."

"As I decide?" he stared at her, frowning. Then he forced a laugh. "You greet me oddly, faith! monstrous oddly!"

"'Tis that I find you monstrous odd," said she; and the fool conceived her words to concern his clumsy apparel, and began to explain its expediency.

She cut him short.

"I have seen your host's daughter what time I waited for you," she announced.