Part 41 (1/2)
The great hall was a survival of the time of Henry IV with its das to eat above the salt, and a magnificent stone fireplace, and an oak screen and gallery of a couple of centuries later. The tables were laid down each side, as in the olden time, and across the das; and here, in the carved oak ”Lord” and ”Lady” chairs, the bride and bridegroom sat with a princ.i.p.al tenant and his wife on either side of them, while the powdered footmen served them with lunch.
And all the time, when one or two comic incidents happened, she longed to look at Tristram and laugh; but he maintained his att.i.tude of cold reserve, only making some genial stereotyped remark, when it was necessary for the public effect.
And presently the speeches began, and this was the most trying moment of all. For the land-steward, who proposed their healths, said such nice things; and Zara realized how they all loved her lord, and her anger at herself grew and grew. In each speech from different tenants there was some intimate friendly allusion about herself, too, linking her always with Tristram; and these parts hurt her particularly.
Then Tristram rose to answer them in his name and hers. He made a splendid speech, telling them that he had come back to live among them and had brought them a beautiful new Lady--and here he turned to her a moment and took and kissed her hand--and how he would always think of all their interests in every way; and that he looked upon them as his dear old friends; and that he and Lady Tancred would always endeavor to promote their welfare, as long as the radicals--here he laughed, for they were all true blue to a man--would let them! And when voices shouted, ”We want none of them rats here,” he was gay and chaffed them; and finally sat down amidst yells of applause.
Then an old apple-cheeked farmer got up from far down the table and made a long rambling harangue, about having been there, man and boy, and his forbears before him, for a matter of two hundred years; but he'd take his oath they had none of them ever seen such a beautiful bride brought to Wrayth as they were welcoming now; and he drank to her ladys.h.i.+p's health, and hoped it would not be long before they would have another and as great a feast for the rejoicings over the son and heir!
At this deplorable bit of bucolic wit and hearty taste, Tristram's face went stern as death; and he bit his lips, while his bride became the color of the red roses on the table in front of her.
Thus the luncheon pa.s.sed. And amidst countless hand-shakes of affection, accelerated by port wine and champagne, the bride and bridegroom, followed by the land-steward and a chosen few, went to receive and return the same sort of speeches among the lesser people in the tent.
Here the allusions to marital felicity were even more glaring, and Zara saw that each time Tristram heard them, an instantaneous gleam of bitter sarcasm would steal into his eyes. So, worn out at last with the heat in the tent and the emotions of the day, at about five, the bridegroom was allowed to conduct his bride to tea in the boudoir of the state rooms.
Thus they were alone, and now was Zara's time to make her confession, if it ever should come.
Tristram's resolve had held him, nothing could have been more gallingly cold and disdainful than had been his treatment of her, so perfect, in its acting for 'the game,' and, so bitter, in the humiliation of the between times. She would tell him of her mistake. That was all. She must guard herself against showing any emotion over it.
They each sank down into chairs beside the fire with sighs of relief.
”Good Lord!” he said, as he put his hand to his forehead. ”What a hideous mockery the whole thing is, and not half over yet! I am afraid you must be tired. You ought to go and rest until dinner--when, please be very magnificent and wear some of the jewels--part of them have come down from London on purpose, I think, beyond those you had at Montfitchet.”
”Yes, I will,” she answered, listlessly, and began to pour out the tea, while he sat quite still staring into the fire, a look of utter weariness and discouragement upon his handsome face.
Everything about the whole thing was hurting him so, all the pleasure he had taken in the improvements and the things he had done, hoping to please her; and now, as he saw them about, each one stabbed him afresh.
She gave him his cup without a word. She had remembered from Paris his tastes in cream and sugar; and then as the icy silence continued, she could bear it no longer.
”Tristram,” she said, in as level a voice as she could. At the sound of his name he looked at her startled. It was the first time she had ever used it!
She lowered her head and, clasping her hands, she went on constrainedly, so overcome with emotion she dared not let herself go. ”I want to tell you something, and ask you to forgive me. I have learned the truth, that you did not marry me just for my uncle's money. I know exactly what really happened now. I am ashamed, humiliated, to remember what I said to you. But I understood you had agreed to the bargain before you had ever seen me. The whole thing seemed so awful to me--so revolting--I am sorry for what I taunted you with. I know now that you are really a great gentleman.”
His face, if she had looked up and seen it, had first all lightened with hope and love; but as she went on coldly, the warmth died out of it, and a greater pain than ever filled his heart. So she knew now, and yet she did not love him. There was no word of regret for the rest of her taunts, that he had been an animal, and the blow in his face! The recollection of this suddenly lashed him again, and made him rise to his feet, all the pride of his race flooding his being once more.
He put down his tea-cup on the mantelpiece untasted, and then said hoa.r.s.ely:
”I married you because I loved you, and no man has ever regretted a thing more.”
Then he turned round, and walked slowly from the room.
And Zara, left alone, felt that the end had come.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
A pale and most unhappy bride awaited her bridegroom in the boudoir at a few minutes to eight o'clock. She felt perfectly lifeless, as though she had hardly enough will left even to act her part. The white satin of her dress was not whiter than her face. The head gardener had sent up some splendid gardenias for her to wear and the sight of them pained her, for were not these the flowers that Tristram had brought her that evening of her wedding day, not a fortnight ago, and that she had then thrown into the grate. She pinned some in mechanically, and then let the maid clasp the diamonds round her throat and a band of them in her hair. They were so very beautiful, and she had not seen them before; she could not thank him for them even--all conversation except before people was now at an end. Then, for her further unhappiness, she remembered he had said: ”When the mockery of the rejoicings is over then we can discuss our future plans.” What did that mean? That he wished to separate from her, she supposed. How could circ.u.mstance be so cruel to her! What had she done? Then she sat down for a moment while she waited, and clenched her hands. And all the pa.s.sionate resentment her deep nature was capable of surged up against fate, so that she looked more like the black panther than ever, and her mood had only dwindled into a sullen smoldering rage--while she still sat in the peculiar, concentrated att.i.tude of an animal waiting to spring--when Tristram opened the door, and came in.
The sight of her thus, looking so unEnglish, so barbaric, suddenly filled him with the wild excitement of the lion hunt again. Could anything be more diabolically attractive? he thought, and for a second, the idea flashed across him that he would seize her to-night and treat her as if she were the panther she looked, conquer her by force, beat her if necessary, and then kiss her to death! Which plan, if he had carried it out, in this case, would have been very sensible, but the training of hundreds of years of chivalry toward women and things weaker than himself was still in his blood. For Tristram, twenty-fourth Baron Tancred, was no brute or sensualist, but a very fine specimen of his fine, old race.
So, his heart beating with some uncontrollable excitement, and her heart filled with smoldering rage, they descended the staircase, arm in arm, to the admiration of peeping housemaids and the pride of her own maid.