Part 106

The Sisters, basket and trestle-laden, were already in the act of departure. The black circle of the dead fire marked where the giant kettle had sung its hospitable song. Little Miss Wiercke and her long-locked organist, the young lady from the Free Library and her mining-engineer, had strolled away townwards, whispering, and arm-in-arm; the Mayor's wife was laying the dust with tears of joy as she trudged back to the Women's Laager beside a husband who pushed a perambulator containing a small boy, who had waked up hungry and wanted supper; the Colonel and Captain Bingo Wrynche had been summoned back to Staff Headquarters, and a pensive little black-eyed lady in tailor-made alpaca and a big grey hat, who was sitting on a tree-stump knocking red ants out of her white umbrella, as those three figures moved out of the shadows of the trees, jumped up and hurried to meet them, prattling:

"I couldn't go without saying a word.... You have been so beset with people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without my coming back in memory to to-day. May we walk back together? I am a mass of ants, and mosquito-bitten to a degree, but I don't think I ever enjoyed myself so much. No, Lord Beauvayse, the path is narrow, and I have a perfect dread of puff-adders. Please go on before us with Miss Mildare. No!... Oh, what ...? You haven't ...?"

It was then that Lady Hannah dropped the white umbrella and clapped her hands for joy. Something of mastery and triumph in the young man's face, something in the pale radiance of the girl's, something of the mingled joy and anguish of the pierced maternal heart shining in the Mother's great grey eyes, had conveyed to the exultant little woman that the plant that had thriven upon the arid soil of Gueldersdorp had borne a perfect blossom with a heart of ruby red.

"Oh, you dears! you two beautiful dears! how happy you look!" she crowed. "I must kiss you both!" She did it. "Say that this isn't to be kept secret!" She clasped her tiny hands with exaggerated entreaty. "For the sake of the Gueldersdorp Siege Gazette, and its seven hundred subscribers all perishing for news, tell me I may let the cat out of the bag in my next Weekly Column. Only say that people may know!"

As her black eyes snapped at Beauvayse, and her tiny hands dramatically entreated, he had an instant of hesitation, palpable to one who stood by. In an instant he pulled himself together.

"The whole world may know, as far as I am concerned."

"It is best," said the Mother's soft, melodious voice, "that our world, at least, should know."

"And when--oh, when Is It To Be?" begged Lady Hannah.

Confound the woman! Why could she not let well alone? A sullen anger burned in Beauvayse as he said, and not in the tone of the ardent lover:

"As soon as we can possibly manage it."

The Mother's voice said, coldly and clearly:

"I do not approve of long engagements. If the marriage takes place, it must be soon."

With the consciousness of one who is impelled to take a desperate leap, Beauvayse found himself saying:

"It cannot be too soon."

"Then ... before the Relief?" cried Lady Hannah, and Beauvayse heard himself answering:

"If Lynette agrees?"

The rapture of submission in her look was intoxicating. He reached out his hand and laid it lightly on her shoulder. Then, without another word, they went on together, and the tall, soldierly figure in brown, and the slender shape in the green skirt and little white coat, with the dainty plumed hat crowning the squirrel-coloured hair, were seen in darkening relief against the flaming orange of the sky.

"A Wedding under Fire. Bridal Ceremony in a Beleaguered City," murmured the enthusiastic journalist. Her gold fountain-pen, hanging at her châtelaine, seemed to wriggle like a thing of life, as she imagined herself aiding, planning, assisting at, and finally sitting down to describe the ceremony and the wedding-veil on the little Greek head. She babbled as her quick, bird-like gait carried her along beside the tall, stately-moving figure in the black habit:

"Dear Bridget ... I may call you that for the sake of old days?"

"If you like."

"This must make you very happy. Society mothers of marriageable daughters will tear their transformations from their heads, and dance upon them in despair, when they hear that Beau s'est rangé. But that I don't hold forth to worldly ears I would enlarge upon the immense social advantages of such a union for that dear child."

"Of course, I am aware that it is an excellent match."

Were her ears so unworldly? The phrase rankled in her conscience like a thorn. And in what respect were those Society mothers less managing than the nun? she asked herself. Could any of them have been more astute, more eager, more bent on hooking the desirable parti for their girls than she had shown herself just now? And was this, again, an unworldly voice whispering to her that the publicity ensured by a paragraph penned by this gossip-loving little lady would fix him even more securely, bind him more strongly, make it even less possible for him to retreat, should he desire it--by burning his boats behind him, so that he had no alternative but to go on? She sickened with loathing of herself. But for her there was no retreat either. Here Lady Hannah helped her unawares. With a side-glance at the noble face beside her, pale olive-hued, worn and faded beyond the age of the woman by her great labours and her greater griefs, the arched black eyebrows sprinkled of late with grey, the eyelids thin over the mobile eyeballs, purpled with lack of sleep and secret, bitter weeping, the close-folded, deeply cut, eloquent mouth withered like a japonica-bloom that lingers on in frost, the strong, salient chin framed in the snowy, starched guimpe, she faltered:

"You don't shy at the notion of the par--the announcement in the Siege Gazette, I mean?..."

"Upon the contrary, I approve of it," said the Mother, and walked on very fast, for the bells of the Catholic Church were ringing for Benediction.

"Is it good-night, or may I come in?" Beauvayse whispered to Lynette in the porch.

She dipped her slender fingers in the little holy-water font beside the door, and held them out to him.

"Come in," she answered, and held white, wet fingers out to him. He touched them with a puzzled smile.