This letter written, he could lay himself down to rest with an unburdened spirit, could fearlessly enter dreamland, knowing that his love would be with him in the land of shadows.
Strange, cruel irony, that the scene of his dreams should be Venice, where he and Eve were wandering confusedly, now on land, now on sea, greatly troubled by petty disturbances, and continually losing each other in labyrinthine streets and on slippery sea-washed stairs. Stranger still that Venice should be unlike Venice, and indeed unlike any place he had ever seen in his life.
The dream was but a natural sequence of Eve’s talk about Italy. It had hurt him that one of her first utterances after their betrothal should express her desire to visit a land whose frontier he would never willingly cross again. He had loved Italy with all his heart; but now the image of Venice burnt and festered in his mind like a plague-spot on the breast of a man in full health. All except that one accursed memory was peace.
XIII
“The Time of Lovers Is Brief”
When a man is sole master of his estate and thoroughly independent of his kindred, his choice of a wife, if not altogether outrageous and unpardonable, must needs be accepted by his belongings. Vansittart lost not an hour in telling his sister and her husband that henceforth they must look upon Eve Marchant as a very close connection.
“We shall be married at midsummer,” he said, “so you may as well begin to think of her as a sister-in-law.”
Sir Hubert, who was the essence of good nature, received the announcement with unalloyed cordiality.
“She is a bright, frank girl, very pretty, very winning, and very intelligent,” he said. “I congratulate you, Jack—though naturally one would have wished—”
“That she were the daughter of a duke, or that she had half a million of money,” interjected Vansittart. “I understand you. It is a bad match from a worldly point of view. I, who have between three and four thousand a year, should have stood out for other three or four thousand with a wife, and thus solidified my income. I ought at least to have tried America; seen if the heiress market there would have supplied the proper article. Well, you see, Hubert, I am of too impatient a temper for that kind of thing. I have found the woman I can love with all my heart and mind, and I have lost no time in winning her.”
“You are a paladin, Jack—a troubadour—all that there is of the most romantic and chivalrous,” laughed Sir Hubert.
“She is a dear, dear girl,” sighed Maud, “and I could hardly be fonder of her if she were my sister—but it certainly is the most disappointing choice you could have made.”
“Is it? Why, I might have chosen a barmaid.”
“Not you. You are not that kind of man. But except a barmaid—or”—with the tips of her lips—“a chorus girl, you could scarcely have done worse than this. Now, don’t rage and fume, Jack. I tell you I think the girl herself adorable—but four sisters and an impossible father! Quelle corvée!”
“It is a corvée that need never trouble you,” cried Vansittart, indignantly.
“You are extremely ungrateful. Haven’t I been forming her for you?”
“She needed no forming. She has never been less than a lady—simple and straightforward—never affecting to be rich when she was poor—or to be smarter than her surroundings warranted.”
“Yes, yes, she is perfect, that is understood. She is the betrothed of yesterday, a stage of being which touches the seraphic. But what will you do with her father, and what will you do with her sisters?”
“Her sisters are very good girls, and I hope to treat them in a not unbrotherly fashion. As for her father—there, though the obligation is small, I grant the difficulty may be great. However, I shall know how to cope with it. No miner ever thought to get gold without some intermixture of quartz. The Colonel shall be to me as the gold-digger’s quartz. I shall get rid of him as speedily as I can.”
Through all that Easter week Vansittart lived in the blissful dream which beginneth every man’s betrothal. At such a time as this the dumpiest damsel of the milkmaid type is as fair as she who brought slaughter and burning upon Troy; but for Vansittart’s abject condition there was the excuse of undeniable beauty, and a charm of manner which even village gossip had never disputed. The young ladies who condemned the Miss Marchants en bloc as “bad style” had been fain to confess that Eve had winning ways, which made one almost forgive her cheap boots and mended gloves.
Vansittart was happy. He had promised to join his mother in Charles Street on the Wednesday after Easter; but he wrote to her apologetically on Tuesday, deferring his arrival till the beginning of the following week—and the beginning of a week is a term so lax that it is sometimes made to mean Wednesday.
He was utterly happy. His mother’s letter received on Tuesday morning was grave and kindly, and in no way damped his ardour.
“You have been so good a son to me, my dear Jack, that I should be hard and ungrateful if I murmured at your choice, although that choice has serious drawbacks in surrounding circumstances. You are too honest and frank and true yourself not to be able to distinguish the difference between realities and semblances. I do not doubt, therefore, that your pretty Eve is all you think her. She certainly is a graceful and gracious creature, with a delicate prettiness of the wild rose type, which I prefer greatly to the azalea or the camellia order of beauty. She cannot fail to love you—nor
