_ PART II CHAPTER XV. THE SAPPHIRE FOR FRIENDSHIP
No girl ever worked harder in preparation for her own wedding than did Dinah on the following day.
That she had scarcely slept all night was a fact that no one suspected. Work-a-day Dinah, as her father was wont to call her, was not an object of great solicitude to any in her home-circle, and for the first time in her life she was thankful that such was the case.
Her mother's hard gipsy eyes watched only for delinquencies, and her rating tongue was actually a relief to Dinah after the dread solitude of those long hours. She was like a prisoner awaiting execution, and even that harsh companionship was in a measure helpful to her.
The time passed with appalling swiftness. When the luncheon hour arrived she was horrified to find that the morning had gone. She could eat nothing, a fact which raised a jeering laugh from her mother and a chaffing remonstrance from her father. Billy had gone riding on Rupert and had not returned. Billy always came and went exactly as he pleased.
One or two more presents from friends of her father's had arrived by the midday post. Mrs. Bathurst unpacked them, admiring them with more than a touch of envy, assuring Dinah that she was a very lucky girl, luckier than she deserved to be; but Dinah, though she acquiesced, had no heart for presents. She could only see--as she had seen all through the night--the piteous, marred face of a woman who had passed through such an intensity of suffering as she could only dimly guess at into the dark of utter despair. She could only hear, whichever way she turned, the clanking of the chains that in so brief a time were to be welded irrevocably about herself.
Luncheon over, she went up to dress and to finish the packing of the new trunks which were to accompany her upon her honeymoon. She had not even yet begun to realize these strange belongings of hers. She could no longer visualize herself as a bride. She looked upon all the finery as destined for another, possibly Rose de Vigne, but emphatically not for herself.
The wedding-dress and veil lying in their box, swathed in tissue-paper, had a gossamer unreality about them that even the sense of touch could not dispel. No--no! The bride of to-morrow was surely, surely, not herself!
They were to spend the first part of their honeymoon at a little place on the Cornish coast, very far from everywhere, as Sir Eustace said. She thought of that little place with a vague wonder. It was the stepping-stone between the life she now knew and that new unknown life that awaited her. She would go there just Dinah--work-a-day Dinah--her own ordinary self. She would leave a fortnight after, possibly less, a totally different being--a married woman, Lady Studley, part and parcel of Sir Eustace's train, his most intimate belonging, most exclusively his own.
She trembled afresh as this thought came home to her. Despite his assurances, marriage seemed to her a terrible thing. It was like parting, not only with the old life, but with herself.
She dressed mechanically, scarcely thinking of her appearance, roused only at length from her pre-occupation by the tread of hoofs under her window. She leaned forth quickly and discerned Scott on horseback,--a trim, upright figure, very confident in the saddle--and with him Billy still mounted on Rupert and evidently in the highest spirits.
The latter spied her at once and accosted her in his cracked, cheerful voice. "Hi, Dinah! Come down! We're going to tea at the Court. Scott will walk with you, and I'm going to ride his gee."
He rolled off Rupert with the words. Scott looked up at her, faintly smiling as he lifted his hat. "I hope that plan will suit you," he said. "The fact is the padre has been detained and can't get here before tea-time. So we thought--Eustace thought--you wouldn't mind coming up to the Court to tea instead of waiting to see him here."
It crossed her mind to wonder why Eustace had not come himself to fetch her, but she was conscious of a deep, unreasoning thankfulness that he had not. Then, before she could reply, she heard her father's voice in the porch, inviting Scott to enter.
Scott accepted the invitation, and Dinah turned back into the room to prepare for the walk.
Her hands were trembling so much that they could scarcely serve her. She was in a state of violent and uncontrollable agitation, longing one moment to be gone, and the next desiring desperately to remain where she was. The thought of facing the crowd at the Court filled her with a positive tumult of apprehension, but breathlessly she kept telling herself that Scott would be there--Scott would be there. His sheltering presence would be her protection.
And then, still trembling, still unnerved, she descended to meet him.
He was with her father in the drawing-room. The place was littered with wedding-presents.
As she entered, he came towards her, and in a moment his quiet hand closed upon hers. Her father went out in search of her mother and they were alone.
"What a collection of beautiful things you have here!" he said.
She looked at him, met his steady eyes, and suddenly some force of speech broke loose within her; she uttered words wild and passionate, such as she had never till that moment dreamed of uttering.
"Oh, don't talk of them! Don't think of them! They suffocate me!"
She saw his face change, but she could not have analysed the expression it took. He was silent for a moment, and in that moment his fingers tightened hard and close upon her hand.
Then, "I have brought you a small offering on my own account," he said in his courteous, rather tired voice. "May I present it? Or would you rather I waited a little?"
She felt the tears welling up, swiftly, swiftly, and clasped her throat to stay them. "Of course I would like it," she murmured almost inarticulately. "That--that is different."
He took a small, white packet from his pocket and put it into the hand he had been holding, without a word.
Dumbly, with quivering fingers, she opened it. There was something of tragedy in the silence, something of despair.
The paper fluttered to the ground, leaving a leather case in her grasp. She glanced up at him.
"Won't you look inside?" he said gently.
She did so, in her eyes those burning tears she could not check. And there, gleaming on its bed of white velvet, she saw a wonderful jewel--a great star-shaped sapphire, deep as the heart of a fathomless pool, edged with diamonds that flashed like the sun upon the ripples of its shores. She gazed and gazed in silence. It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.
Scott was watching her, his eyes very still, unchangeably steadfast. "The sapphire for friendship," he said.
She started as one awaking from a dream. In the passage outside the half-open door she heard the sound of her mother's voice approaching. With a swift movement she closed the case and hid it in her dress.
"I can't show it to anyone yet," she said hurriedly.
Her tone appealed. He answered her immediately. "It is for you and no one else."
His voice held nought but kindness, comprehension, comfort.
He turned from her the next moment to meet her mother, and she heard him speaking in his easy, leisured tones, gaining time for her, making her path easy, as had ever been his custom.
And again unbidden, unavoidable, there came to her the vision of Greatheart--Greatheart the valiant--her knight of the golden armour, going before her, strong to defend,--invincible, unafraid, sure by means of that sureness which is given only to those who draw upon a Higher Power than their own, given only to the serving-men of God. _