Chapter 13

Lucy had meant to do exactly as Wemyss said and keep her marriage secret, creeping out of the house quietly, going off with him abroad after the registrar had bound them together, and telegraphing or writing to her aunt from some safe distant place en route like Boulogne; but on saying good-night the evening before the wedding day, to her very great consternation her aunt, whom she was in the act of kissing, suddenly pushed her gently a little away, looked at her a moment, and then holding her by both arms said with conviction, ‘It’s to-morrow.’

Lucy could only stare. She stared idiotically, open-mouthed, her face scarlet. She looked and felt both foolish and frightened. Aunt Dot was uncanny. If she had discovered, how had she discovered? And what was she going to do? But had she discovered, or was it just something she chanced to remember, some engagement Lucy had naturally forgotten, or perhaps only somebody coming to tea?

She clutched at this straw. ‘What is to-morrow?’ she stammered, scarlet with fright and guilt.

And her aunt made herself perfectly clear by replying, ‘Your wedding.’

Then Lucy fell on her neck and cried and told her everything, and her wonderful, unexpected, uncanny, adorable little aunt, instead of being upset and making her feel too wicked and ungrateful to live, was full of sympathy and understanding. They sobbed together, sitting on the sofa locked in each other’s arms, but it was a sweet sobbing, for they both felt at this moment how much they loved each other. Miss Entwhistle wished she had never had a single critical impatient thought of the man this darling little child so deeply loved, and Lucy wished she had never had a single secret from this darling little aunt Everard so blindly didn’t love. Dear, dear little Aunt Dot. Lucy’s heart was big with gratitude and tenderness and pity, —pity because she herself was so gloriously happy and surrounded by love, and Aunt Dot’s life seemed, compared to hers, so empty, so solitary, and going to be like that till the end of her days; and Miss Entwhistle’s heart was big with yearning over this lamb of Jim’s who was giving herself with such fearlessness, all lit up by radiant love, into the hands of a strange husband. Presently, of course, he wouldn’t be a strange husband, he would be a familiar husband; but would he be any the better for that, she wondered? They sobbed, and kissed, and sobbed again, each keeping half her thoughts to herself.