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It was in this humour that she came back from Cacouna the evening before the wedding. Bella had been more flippant than usual, until even Mrs. Bellairs had completely lost patience with her, and the incorrigible girl had only been stopped by the fear of her guardian's displeasure from insisting on driving Lucia home, while Doctor Morton, who had been all day absorbed by his patients, waited for her decision about some arrangements for their journey. Lucia could not help giving her what Bella called a lecture, but when she reached home and was seated in her usual place at her mother's feet, she was still puzzling over the subject, and over what Mrs. Costello had said when she first heard of the engagement.
"Mamma," she said, at last, "do you remember saying you thought Bella's might be a very happy marriage? I wonder if you think so still?"
"Why should not I? What is changed?"
"I don't know that anything is; but you know how tiresome she is. I cannot imagine how Doctor Morton bears it."
"Probably, he bears it because he thinks her tiresomeness will soon be over. When she is married and in her own house, she will have other things to think of besides teasing him."
"But, mamma, do you think she loves him?"
Mrs. Costello laughed. "Indeed, my dear, I can't tell. If she does not now, I suppose she intends to."
"But that can't be right. Mamma, I am certain you do not think that kind of marriage right."
"Not for all people, certainly. But for any one who is dear to me I would far rather have a marriage of 'that kind' than one founded on the hasty, utterly unreasonable fancy which girls often call love."
Lucia blushed crimson, but would not give up her point. "I am sure if I married a man I did not love, I should hate him in three months," she said.
"I do not think you and Bella are much alike," Mrs. Costello answered; "and as for her, perhaps it may comfort you to know that I have speculated a little on this subject, and I have some suspicion that there may be more sentiment in the affair then she allows."
Lucia started up. "Really, mamma, I am so glad," she cried. "Only, why should she be so stupid?"
"I don't think even you, Lucia, would be pleased to see Bella and Doctor Morton enacting the same rôle as Magdalen and Harry Scott."
"I am sure I should not. It would be too ridiculous. But just look at Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs, they seem perfectly happy; and Mr. and Mrs. Leigh must have been so, in spite of everything. Maurice told me he believed his mother had never regretted her marriage; and that was certainly a love match."
"Mine was a 'love match,' Lucia, and brought me misery unimaginable. Hush, say no more at present."
CHAPTER VIII.
Bella's wedding-day rose as fair and bright as a day could be. The waning summer seemed to have returned to the freshness of early June, and to have determined that the bride, whatever else might be wanting, should have all the blessing sunshine could give her. Lucia, however, after that first eager look out at the weather which we naturally give on the morning of a fête-day, began to be conscious of a mood far too depressed and uneasy to be in harmony with either the weather or the occasion. Partly perhaps it was that her eyes had turned from habit to Maurice's window, which when he was at home was always open early, but whose closed up, solitary look now, reminded her of his absence; partly that the words her mother had spoken the previous evening lingered in her mind, and not only brought back more forcibly than ever all her puzzled and anxious thought about the past and future, but seemed to throw a dark but impalpable cloud over the happiness of the present.
But there was too much business to be done for her to spend time in dreaming, and by the time she was ready for breakfast, the inclination to dream had almost past away. After breakfast, and after the various daily affairs which in the small household fell to her share to attend to, there were flowers to be gathered, and a short visit to Mr. Leigh to be paid; and by the time all this was done, it was time to dress.
If this dressing was a longer process than usual, and if Lucia was a little fanciful and hard to please over it, no one need be surprised. Everybody knows that at a wedding, the bridesmaids rank next in importance to the bride, and far before the bridegroom, who, for that day at least, sinks into the most miserable insignificance. But it was not only a perfect consciousness of the place in the eyes of the multitude which she was expected to fill that made Lucia whimsical; much stronger than even that, was the desire to please one—the shy wish to be admired, to see that she was so, possibly to hear it. She wondered to herself whether she would look very awkward and rustic beside Lord Lastingham's handsome daughters, and whether a certain Lady Adeliza, whose name had somehow reached her ears, was much more beautiful than she could ever hope to be. Poor child! her uneasiness on that point would certainly have ceased if she could have peeped into Mr. Percy's brain and seen the two portraits he carried about with him there—herself fresh and lovely as Psyche when she captivated Love himself, and Lady Adeliza, highly distinguished and a little faded, but, for a poor man, a very desirable match. She would have failed, probably, to understand that last qualification, or to guess how it could completely outweigh youth, beauty, and love, together; and so would have felt even more joyous and less diffident than she did, when at last the important business was finished, and she stepped into the carriage which was to take her to Mrs. Bellairs'.
There she found Bella, for once tolerably subdued, and submitting with more patience than anybody expected of her, to be dressed by her sister and Magdalen Scott. The moment she saw Lucia, however, she whirled herself round out of their hands, and vowed she would not do another thing until she had had time to look at her bridesmaids both together.
"You are perfectly charming!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands in mock ecstasy. "It's quite useless for me to dress, Elise. Who will look at me when they are to be seen?"
"Don't be absurd, Bella. It is time you were ready now."
"I'm in despair, my dear. Give me any shabby old dress, and here, Lucia, put this thing on, and be the bride instead of me."
She caught up her veil and threw it over Lucia's head before any one could stop her.
"You must change the bridegroom as well then," said Magdalen, rather maliciously, "and perhaps she might not object."
"What a pity Maurice is gone! It will have to be Mr. Percy, Lucia," cried Bella, loosing the veil to clap her hands.
"Be silent, Bella," said Mrs. Bellairs, "and finish dressing at once, unless you intend me to leave you."
Lucia, flushed and half angry, had by this time freed herself from the veil and smoothed her hair. Bella, a little sobered by her sister's annoyance, returned to her toilette and was soon ready to go downstairs.
In the drawing-room the guests were rapidly assembling. A space near one end had been kept clear, but every other СКАЧАТЬ