The Wedding Portrait

by Fiona Hill

  His efforts did not go unappreciated. Miss Lavinia Webb, though she would hardly have admitted it to herself, found her eyes drawn to the rector’s legs for the first time since she had known him, and her heart filled with admiration. She could not, of course, regard the fine limbs long, for they were soon thrust under the table with all the others, but she had got enough of a peep to make her pulse beat fast, and when she slept that night her dreams were alarmingly full of shins, shanks, and similar apparitions. Had the rector known he must surely have been pleased beyond words.

  He did not, of course, know, though he had his strong suspicions. A moment spent in quiet colloquy with Miss Webb was all he needed to ascertain whether his goal had been achieved, but such a moment was denied him. Instead, his full attention was demanded by Laura, who drew him into the Blue Saloon directly supper ended to consult with him upon the play. She did not particularly wish to do so, but she was mindful of the conditions her father had placed upon the young people, and the first of these was that the Reverend approve their manuscript. She lay her idea before him hesitantly, worried lest he should recognise within it its skeleton of reality, and censure her for her disobedient wishes. She regarded him anxiously as he read the first scene.

  “Do you think it will answer?” she inquired hopefully.

  “I think it will do very well,” he responded. “Indeed, there is nothing here to shock or to displease. It seems a most delightful notion.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. Then, within seconds, that bane of all authorship descended upon her, and a new worry entered her mind. “What think you of the writing?” she asked.

  “Very clever,” he said obligingly. “Very pleasant.”

  This, she discovered suddenly, was not at all what she had hoped to hear. Was it not excellent in any way? Did it not surpass his expectations? She was vaguely dissatisfied with the rector, and set him down as an unqualified critic.

  In this she misjudged. Mr. Chance saw much more in her scheme than she had meant him to do; in fact, he saw it all. He was not so blind as she thought him, and the events of the past few days had not escaped his notice. He said nothing, however, because he felt it awkward—awkward in the extreme, indeed—to discuss love with a young lady. He was content to let matters run their course, and the play that Laura showed him now seemed to justify his strategy. Informing her parents, whose familiarity with Thaddeus and the status quo disallowed of their observing the recent developments, seemed to him a thankless and unnecessary task. Matters would right themselves, or perhaps they would not; in either case, it was of no concern to him, for he had overwhelming interests otherwhere.

  One of these interests, unhappily, had gone to bed by the time his discussion with Laura ended. The other he was free to pursue, and pursue it he did into the early hours of the morning. He sat at the pianoforte and mumbled and thought, he essayed chords, he attempted arpeggios. At long last he concluded himself charged with a surfeit of spleen, a malady (he noted) common to composers, and took to his bed; he had written nothing.

  Laura heard him shut the door of his chamber for she, too, had been working late into the night. Her composition, fortunately, went more readily than his, and she had just begun the second act when his door closed. For a while after that, all was silent. She worked steadily in the flickering candlelight, seated at the small desk in her private parlour where she had been used to do her lessons as a child. The snow, she observed through a small round window set in the wall in front of her, had begun to fall again, and frost was thickening upon the panes. An icy branch bent and scraped against the glass as the wind rose fitfully; it was past one o’clock. Then Laura heard a most astonishing noise.

  It began as a sort of a hum, low and almost indistinguishable from the buzz of utter silence. In a few moments it rose in both pitch and volume to a most unmistakable moan. It seemed to issue from the corridor, and Laura started up to her door, ears straining. She checked herself as she put her hand on the knob, for it had seemed—yes! the voice was muttering something! What was it? At last she made it out. “Sanctus,” said the voice. “Sanc-toooos!” It hissed the final S as it passed by her door. “Saaanc-toooos,” it whispered, fading down the corridor.

  Laura drew a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. She turned the knob and peeked out the door, and there, at the end of the hall, she beheld a flash of white, a glimpse of something floating round the far corner. It was quite enough to make her wish to see no more, and she sank back into her room and sat upon a chair, breathing rapidly.

  Calm reflection, even if she had been capable of it, was unnecessary. She knew very well what she had seen. It was a ghost, the ghost the servants insisted haunted Harkness Abbey. She shivered. Thaddeus had been right then—for he had repeated his dire prediction to her today—there was indeed a spirit who inhabited the secret chamber, and he did not wish to be disturbed. “Sanctus,” she thought. “Holy.” Had he been a monk? Again a shudder shook her; she hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether to rouse her parents, but a little thought convinced her this would be useless. The Abbey had reverted to its previous sepulchral silence. The apparition had undoubtedly returned to its cell.

  She undressed slowly, trying all the while to talk herself out of the flutters, and keeping the candle close by her at all times. She stole to her bed, placing the taper on the nightstand, and crept between the sheets. Now she must snuff it. Snuff it? And be left in the dark? Impossible! She supposed she was not quite ready for sleep; a glass of milk would be soothing. She crawled out of bed again, donned a dressing gown and slippers and, taking up the candle, headed for the kitchen.

  There were lights there, she observed, as she rounded the corner, but a ghost does not require lights and she was comforted. More comforting still was the discovery of Thaddeus, solid, fleshly, and familiar, seated at a kitchen table and drinking a cup of ale. He looked up, startled, when she entered, but they were very glad to see each other.

  “Did you hear it?” she asked, pouring herself some milk.

  “Hear what?” he hedged cautiously.

  “Why, the ghost!” she answered. “At least, I thought it was a ghost,” she amended, for the kitchen, made cheerful by candles and company, seemed to laugh at such a notion.

  “You mean that moaning?”

  “Yes, of course. Then you did hear it?”

  “I did.” He took a swallow of his ale. “But I’ll tell you what it is, Laura. I don’t think it was a ghost.”

  “Do not you? But what can it have been?”

  “I’ll tell you,” he answered between meditative sips. “I’ve a good notion it was Jacob.”

  “Jacob? Oh, Thad, yes! Of course it must have been!” She laughed with sharp relief. “He would think it the most comical trick—it is just like him, indeed it is! Oh, Thad, this is famous! What shall we do?”

  “Do? I think we must tell him never to do it again, for it woke me from a sound sleep,” he returned irritably.

  “Thaddeus, I am ashamed of you!” she scolded. She had not like her betrothed so well for days, and now it seemed to her that they must ally again, as they did when they were playmates, to teach her cousin a lesson. “You sound quite stodgy, indeed you do. Does no better course of action occur to you?”

  “Why, what do you mean?”

  “Thaddeus, my dear friend, we must pay Mr. Shaw in kind!”

  Thaddeus’ eyes lit up as he saw the possibilities. The next half-hour was passed in excited scheming, until at last a plan was agreed upon. Mr. Grey and Miss Fieldon, as though transported back into childhood, plotted mischievously as they had so many times in the past. That they were betrothed was forgotten, and though nothing was said of either Elizabeth or Ashley, they parted in perfect amity and understanding.

  Chapter VI

  “Jacob,” said Miss Emily Shaw, turning fiercely upon her brother, “now you have said good morning to me, I wish you will say good-bye and go away. I will tell Mamma you have been a dutiful brother, so you
may be easy, if only you will leave.”

  “Is that who you’re writing to?” asked Jacob, ignoring completely her request.

  “Whom, Jake. To whom. And no, it is not—I mean, yes, it is.”

  “Don’t you know?” he inquired, getting up from his chair to have a look at her salutation. To his surprise, she jerked open a drawer of the desk she sat at and crammed her letter into it.

  “Of course I know, but there is no need for you to know,” she retorted, breathing rather anxiously, and glaring at him.

  “My my my, what mystery is this?” he exclaimed. “Not let your dutiful brother read a missive to our mutual parent? Emily, you make me wonder, indeed you do!”

  “Then wonder away,” she said spitefully. “And go away, while you are about it. I was quite private and content until you entered.”

  “My dear Emmy, permit a brother’s concern to overcome his polite scruples,” he said, as he made a sudden lunge for the drawer in which she had hidden the note.

  “Stop!” she shrieked. “Jacob, you odious monster, give over!” A brief tussle ensued, during which the handle to Lady Eleanor’s lovely Queen Anne escritoire was very nearly torn from its hinges. It ended in Jacob’s favour; Emily stood over him, in a menacing but impotent attitude, panting prodigiously while her brother, his eyes aglow, read aloud what she had written.

  “‘My darling Geoffrey,’” he intoned. “Darling Geoffrey! Why, what is this, Emily? Do you know someone named Geoffrey? This is most intriguing—and most improper. ‘My darling Geoffrey, It seems an age since last we met, for the Seconds pass as Minutes and the Minutes drag like Howers.’ Howers! H-o-w-e-r-s! Emily, what a little fool you are!”

  “Do not read another word, I warn you, Jacob! It is no affair of yours, and you are wicked to do this.” She made a fresh and equally unsuccessful attempt to grab the letter away from him, and upon failing burst out in noisome weeping.

  “Oh, stop crying, you baby,” he remonstrated. “This is a famous jest! ‘If it were not for the Remembrance of You, my dearest G., I think I must surely die in this dredful place,’” he continued reading. “Dreadful has an A in it, you know.”

  “You monster!” sobbed Emily. “I will make you regret this.”

  “‘We have been Snowbound since Sunday, and I have no Entertainment but to gaze upon your Miniture and recall your kind Words.’ Miniature has an A in it as well, Emily.”

  “Do stop,” cried the lady. “I shall do anything, anything for you!” she pleaded, “if only you will give over!”

  “Not on your life, my dear sister. Who is this darling Geoffrey? I’ll wager a pony there is no such person at all!”

  “There is!” she declared. “There is! And he will punish you when he hears of this outrage.”

  “You do make my blood run cold, Emily, but I fear my fraternal sense of responsibility outweighs my terror, and obliges me to continue reading. ‘Elizabeth and Jacob have been Odious both—’ Really, sister dear, that overstates the case somewhat, does it not? ‘—and Harkness Abbey is positively Gothic. I discovered a Secret Chamber near the attic myself, though we have not been able to open it as yet, and last night I fancied I heard a Ghost!’ Oh, did you?” Jacob chuckled. “How very interesting!”

  Emily made one last effort to retrieve the letter, but it was no use. Jacob parried with what is surely the meanest trick that ever brother devised for younger sister: He placed one hand solidly upon her head and held her at arm’s length, so that no matter how she struggled to get near him her reach fell always several inches short of its object. She grasped at him nonetheless, and looked quite ridiculous in so doing, for with his other hand he held the letter aloft and read calmly. “‘Of course, I know it could be no such thing, but I shall be doubly glad to be from this Place, for I have not only You to look forward to but also the comfort of Berkeley Square. The only one in the Abbey with a Kind Look for me is a Portrit artist named Mr. Lowland—’ Don’t you know portrait has an A in it, also? I wonder you managed to spell Geoffrey correctly! ‘—but though he is very nice he is quite old and Nothing compared to You! He tries to draw me into Flirtation sometimes, but I am loyal to my dear Geoffrey, and will not—’ Oh! What a shame! Is this all you wrote? I regret bitterly now having entered when I did, for I would give much to know what it is you will not do!”

  “Now will you return to me what is mine?” she snapped, trembling with rage.

  “Not at all. Not until you tell me who this Geoffrey is, if he is anyone, and how you come to be writing to him.”

  “How odious you are! I had not believed it possible, even of you.”

  “Then another time you will know better. Now tell who he is!”

  “Never!” she flung back at him.

  “Well, you little minx! If you do not tell, I shall keep this letter and show it to Elizabeth.”

  “You would not!”

  “Don’t bet against me. I will show it to Mamma, too, if I must, for I am sure it is most improper and must ruin your fair reputation were it ever to be sent.”

  “And little you care for that! You are merely curious,” she ranted, “odiously, spitefully curious, and I hope you will be punished for it!”

  “Shall I show it to Elizabeth?” he inquired calmly, ignoring this tirade.

  “No! Oh, Jacob, I beg you will not. Pray, pray be satisfied with shaming me, and let me have it back,” she begged.

  “Well I cannot sit here until Domesday,” he continued as if he had not heard her. “Will you tell me who this Geoffrey is, or must I bring this scandal to Elizabeth?”

  “I will tell you,” she capitulated at last, “but promise you shall never breathe a word of this.”

  “Oh, very well, provided I am satisfied that you have told me the truth.”

  “Do you swear it?”

  “I swear it.”

  “Very well. You would not break an oath, would you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “No, I am not so rag-mannered as that.”

  “Good. Well, then, in truth, Jacob—” She sat herself down upon the settee and drew a handkerchief from her pocket. “In truth, there—there is no Geoffrey.”

  “Aha!” cried her brother. “I knew it!”

  “Then why do you torture me so?” she demanded tearfully.

  “Torture you? Faugh! You are a silly little goose, aren’t you?” he replied. “And you invented this Geoffrey to have something to sigh, and dream, and be romantical about, did not you?”

  “No! I mean—yes,” she conceded brokenly. But it is a harmless fancy, and if Lizzy is to have a lover, I do not see why I may not!”

  “No reason in the world,” Jacob answered indulgently. “But is Lizzy indeed to have a lover? Who may this be? Do not tell me, please, that she is writing to a young man! Or do you mean Mr. Lowland?”

  “Mr. Lowland! Indeed not!” said Emily, indignant at the suggestion that her own admirer should be mistaken for her sister’s. “Don’t you know that Lizzy is head over ears in love with Thaddeus? I thought anyone must have seen it!”

  “With Thaddeus!” exclaimed Mr. Shaw, much shocked. “Why you are a fool, aren’t you! You know very well that Laura is betrothed to him.”

  “That is nothing to say to it,” Emily returned, feeling very much more worldly than her brother. “In matters of love—of which I daresay you have no knowledge—such things as betrothals and marriages of convenience matter not a whit. Lizzy knows that, if you do not!”

  “But this is terrible!” said Jacob, growing suddenly serious. “Indeed, you are wicked to say such a thing! What evidence have you for so outrageous a statement?”

  “Evidence!” Emily mimicked scornfully. “There is no need of evidence! What, would you have me produce a written declaration in Lizzy’s own hand? She would not be so silly as to write one. And by the way,” she added, “give me that letter.”

  He handed it over to her wordlessly. “If you are in the right of this, Emily,” he said a few moments later, “we are headed for d
isaster. But,” he went on cheerfully, after a little more reflection, “I daresay you are quite, quite wrong. Just another romantic notion of yours—I declare, you are rather tiresome!” he concluded, standing up abruptly and heading for the door.

  “Jacob,” she called to him as he was about to leave. “You are so fond of wagers; will you accept this one? I shall bet five pounds—that is all my birthday money, you know—that Lizzy marries Thaddeus.”

  “Oh, come,” he said disgustedly, “I could not accept five pounds from a chit of a schoolroom miss even if the wager were a sensible one—which it is not at all. You would surely lose, as you will see in a very few days!”

  “Well!” she exclaimed provokingly. “I have thought many things of you, Brother, but I never expected to see you too yellow-livered to accept a gamble.”

  “So that’s what you think, is it? Very well, my fine miss, we have a wager! And if you win, I shall give you double your five pounds. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” she responded promptly, shaking hands with him in a businesslike fashion that made her feel very grown-up. In fact, she was so pleased with the wager she had made that it was a full five minutes before she recalled the letter she held in her hand, and remembered to weep over the shameful ordeal she had withstood.