Aunt Sophie's Diamonds (30 page)

The party remained together throughout the evening. The girls brought down their finery to be admired; Loo asked him a million questions about her wedding feast, her main concern being whether there would be plenty of cream buns. Gabriel got his bride aside on a sofa for a quarter of an hour for a little discreet lovemaking that involved a deal of giggling, and concealed touching of fingers, and coy calling of his beloved by the title of Mrs. Tewksbury. At a fairly early hour, the gentlemen from Chanely left, for it is was, of course, traditional that the bride got to bed early on that one night when she was assured of not closing an eye before dawn.

Claudia went to her cousin's room to wish her good-night, but in her heart she felt it was good-by. Her cousin and her mama were being married, but her own hopes, pinned on Sir Hillary's enigmatic phrase of two days ago, had withered to dust. Twice he had been in her company, and he had neither spoken to her mother, nor to her, about his plan. Clearly Luane required no abigail now, and clearly he had decided it was unnecessary to marry her.

In a bitter mood, she mentioned that it was surprising Sir Hillary was allowing the marriage, after having prevented it for so long. But her old confederate failed her. Luane had nothing but praise for Sir Hillary. A gentle hint that Jonathon wasn't really so bad was blasted when Claudia related the tale of his grave-digging. Even Loo didn't think a husband destined for Newgate would be much company.

"Gab and I will have you to visit us and find a beau for you,” she promised airily, but neither girl put much credence in this offer, and it was with a heavy heart that Claudia lagged to her room to consider the old adage, “Always a bridesmaid; never a bride.” She had stood bridesmaid to another cousin the year before.

No one had thought to pray for fine weather for the wedding, and that perhaps accounted for the mizzle that greeted the bride's eyes when she awoke on her wedding day. But the gloom was all confined to the outdoors. In the church, and afterwards at Chanely, it was as merry a wedding as ever took place. The bride looked beautiful, the groom happy, the captain very military, the bridesmaid resigned, and the guests appreciative. With so small a party, and in mourning, too, no dancing was held, but in speeches, compliments and good-natured raillery there was nothing more to be desired. Jonathon dogged the side of Miss Milmont, and it took considerable perseverance on the part of Sir Hillary to get her alone for a moment. She was peculiarly blind to his every effort, till he had at last to ask her point-blank if she would come with him to the morning parlor a moment to give her opinion on something he had picked up in London.

Her heart beat a little faster when he carefully closed the door behind them and sighed, “At last,” with weary relief.

"You are happy to have them married?” Claudia asked. “It must have been troubling you, since their running away."

"That's not why I lured you in here."

"You wanted to show me something you got in London. Pray, what is it?"

He extracted a small blue velvet box from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to her. On a bed of white satin, a quite large diamond sparkled. Her beating heart went into palpitations. She licked her lips and said, “Is—is it Luane's wedding gift? She will like it very much. My, it must have been very expensive."

"Unlike the Trump, I haven't the knack of picking them up at a bargain, but in this case it made no difference. It has been in the family for some years. I brought it from my bank in London."

"Oh, you mean to give her a family heirloom. I should have thought—but it is very fine. She will surely like it."

"This has nothing to do with Luane. Do
you
like it?"

She looked a question at him, looked again at the ring, and swallowed in discomposure. “Yes, it's very nice,” she said, and made no move to take it or even touch it.

"Try it on,” he said, lifting the ring from its box and taking her left hand. The emerald he slid off very easily and transferred to her right hand, before pressing the diamond onto her third finger. “Now I have an even worse question to pester you,” he said softly, aware of her shyness. “Will you wear it?"

"But why..."

"You have forgotten your lines, darling,” he said, taking her two hands in his. “I particularly asked you to rehearse them. I made sure you would have them by heart at this late date. Two whole days, and your part is really very simple. ‘I am honored, sir, to accept your kind offer’ was what you had intended saying, wasn't it?"

"Are you asking me to marry you?” she asked hopefully.

"Good God! Am I doing my part so badly as that? I shall end up taking a lesson of the captain. Certainly I am asking you to marry me.” She stared and said nothing for a full thirty seconds. “And you ought really, in kindness, to give me an answer, too. It is the custom."

"But Loo doesn't need an abigail now. She's married."

"I had noticed that. You have understood my oblique hints regarding nasty strings, I see. Yes, that excuse for a hasty wedding has been snatched from us. We must find another. I don't mean to wait any six months."

"There can be no need for you to marry me now."

"Claudia!” he said impatiently. “As though I haven't four aunts, two uncles, and any number of cousins that could have taken Loo in. I only left her at Swallowcourt this long to have an excuse for you and your mother to remain. Being an abigail was a pretext. Well, it wasn't even that, for you would certainly not have been her
abigail,
but I thought at first we might have her stay with us till she married, and we could chaperone her. Certainly that was not why I want to marry you."

"Why then?"

"Why do you think?” He grabbed her into his arms and tightened his hold till she was firm against his chest. “Because I have loved you forever,” he said into her ear.

"You have not known me for two weeks,” she pointed out.

"Not even eleven whole days. About two hundred and fifty-six hours in fact."

"Have you counted them?” she laughed in a quaking voice.

"Did Jonathon not tell you what a keen accountant I am? I have counted every one, wondering what number would remove the taint of a too-hasty offer. Well, actually I didn't count the first five or six. Till you came dripping into my study with your hair plastered to your head, wearing those distinguished moth-eaten trousers, and asking whether I could wield a torch, I was not convinced we should suit. But I see what it is. You are waiting for a proper proposal in form. I shall follow my own advice and go down on bended knee.” He released her, drew an immaculate handkerchief from his pocket and shook out its folds.

"Don't be so absurd,” she said, taking the handkerchief from his hands, and mangling it between her nervous fingers. He removed the mussed muslin and tossed it aside on a chair.

"It is not absurd to want an answer to my question, however.” Of the answer he was in little doubt, but of her ability to utter it, there seemed some question, so he encouraged her by drawing her into his arms again and placing his lips lightly on hers. He was surprised, but by no means dismayed, to feel an instinctive response in her. The fear that her puritanical upbringing might have curbed her natural impulses was removed, and he then embraced her like the confirmed heathen he was.

After several moments spent in this manner, he stepped back and said, “I trust that means ‘yes,’ darling?"

"Yes! Oh yes! I wouldn't let myself believe you meant to ask me."

"I can't imagine how else you interpreted, my heavy-handed wooing. I thought I was being singularly obvious in my attentions for some days past."

"No, you were never obvious. Letting on it was your mama's scarf and ... and everything."

"Ah, that was foolish, but I
did
want to see you in something other than those grayish things your grandmama selects for you, and you said you like pretty things. So your uncertainty accounts for not having your lines ready. But you cannot have failed to notice my fit of jealousy when I caught Jonathon on his knees at your feet."

"You were very hard on poor Jonathon."

"I wasn't sure what encouragement he had received from you, but I won't be hard on him any more. How soon can you be ready to move into my Palace Beautiful?"

"I am ready now."

He kissed her forehead. “Good girl. Shall we be married first, for the looks of it?"

"Sir Hillary! That is what I meant, of course. You cannot think me so abandoned as
that."

"And still I am
Sir
Hillary, Lady Thoreau."

"Imagine! Whoever thought I would end up a
lady?"

"Yes, there seemed a time when you were in some danger of becoming a man, but what I had hoped to convey was that we might now address each other by our given names with propriety, Claudia. Though why propriety should bother us on that one small point I can't imagine, wallowing as we are in the shame of runaways and scrambling marriages."

"We really are a horrid, disreputable bunch, aren't we? I shudder to think what grandmama would say if she knew what I have been up to these past days."

"Your character is not ruined yet. That will come later. I mean to undo all grandmama's good work, you know. Gowns of silk and satin, pagan plays, and operas and balls, and I don't know about you, but I personally plan to burn my copy of
The Pilgrim's Progress.
I give you fair warning of the depths of depravity I have prepared for you, with two Palaces Beautiful to flaunt yourself in."

"I gave them the wrong name. I should have called them Celestial Cities, for they sound precisely like heaven,” she said happily, and leaned her head against his shoulder, to be caressed with his fingers.

"Feigning Woman,” he teased. Then he took her hand and walked her to the door. “Let us tell mama the good news,” he said, with a kindling light in his eyes. “The Trump has been like a dog with a bone and not let me near her to ask her permission."

"Oh, Hillary, what will she say? She will never want to be your mother-in-law and you thirty-two years old!"

"How did you know that?"

"Luane told me in London, when we spoke of finding you a wife."

"Indeed!” he said with a lifted brow, opening the door and striding along to the Blue Saloon, where the others were still making merry. He went immediately to Mrs. Milmont, still holding Claudia firmly by the hand.

"Mama,” he said, smiling widely, “congratulate me. Little Claudia has done me the honor to accept my offer of marriage."

Marcia Milmont stared in astonishment, her round face changing from pink to rose as the ramifications of this announcement were borne in on her. None of her reflections were of the sort her daughter feared, however, for the acquisition of a relative from so elevated a social plane as Thoreau inhabited overcame any little disparity between his real age and Claudia's imagined one.

"Hillary! Claudia—my baby! Can it be true? Jerry, did you hear? My daughter has landed the Nonesuch!” She grabbed Sir Hillary's hand, and he feared for an instant she would kiss it. And so she might have done, had she not spotted Claudia's diamond ring at that point and kissed it instead.

"Look at this, Jerry. She has already got a diamond from him."

Claudia blushed for the awful condition of her parent, but as her groom appeared unmoved, she said nothing.

Mr. Blandings took but little note of the news; his interest centered on the ring. Of that he had to make an estimate on the spot. His little jeweler's glass was brought out, and the finger held up to a branched candelabra. “That's a very fine stone,” he congratulated the recipient. “Not so large as wee wifie's, but a fine specimen. You could get five hundred pounds for that on the market. Never take a penny less."

Thoreau said they would bear it in mind, and it was for Claudia to assure him she had no notion of hawking it.

"You know where to come if you ever have to,” the Trump told her in a low aside with a sly wink.

The general commotion in that quarter soon drew the others around them. With the single exception of Jonathon, everyone else was thrilled at having yet another wedding thrust on them, and the only question to be settled was how soon they could toss a third wedding party in the midst of their mourning.

Mrs. Milmont, forgetting Claudia was only a stepdaughter, began speaking of taking her little girl to live with herself and Mr. Blandings for six months at Marcyhurst, but Sir Hillary scotched that scheme at once. “The devil of it is,” he said, “I shall be so busy here finding some place for Gab and Loo to stay that it will be hard for me to get over to Marcyhurst to see her. And, of course, if she returns to her grandparents in Devon, I'll never see her at all."

Such a separation as this held too much danger of a lessening of affection, and the mother at least made no objection to a wedding immediately. “Why, you and Claudia could be married from Marcyhurst too, Hillary. Such fun—two weddings. We might even make it a double wedding!"

"No!” Sir Hillary and Claudia shouted as one. The latter softened her disagreement by adding that she especially wished to be married at Chanely, as Loo had been.

"If you only want an excuse to make it look decent,” Loo suggested, “why don't you pretend Aunt Sophie wished for Claudia's marriage, as she wished for mine?"

It was a pretty weak pretext, but no one thought of a better one, and as all parties except the captain were determined to do it as soon as possible, it was decided on. They would all go to Marcyhurst, and then return to Chanely for Claudia's marriage to Sir Hillary.

As an acknowledged fiancée, Claudia now had a little privacy with Hillary, and she told him what she had been trying to find privacy to say for some time. “Jonathan got the diamonds while you were gone,” she said as they sat together on a sofa, away from the others.

No disappointment, but rather a smile greeted this news. “Too bad for him,” Hillary replied.

"Yes, because he didn't get to keep them. Mr. Fletcher was there and snatched them right out of his hands."

"How do you come to know all this?” he asked suspiciously.