Edith looked at the copybook.The copies had been set by herself,and such progress as the girl had made was in the way of grotesque facsimile of her mistress's hand.But even if Edith's flowing caligraphy were reproduced the inspiration would be another thing.
'You do it so beautifully,'continued Anna,'and say all that I want to say so much better than I could say it,that I do hope you won't leave me in the lurch just now!'
'Very well,'replied the other.'But I--but I thought I ought not to go on!'
'Why?'
Her strong desire to confide her sentiments led Edith to answer truly:
'Because of its effect upon me.'
'But it CAN'T have any!'
'Why,child?'
'Because you are married already!'said Anna with lucid simplicity.
'Of course it can't,'said her mistress hastily;yet glad,despite her conscience,that two or three outpourings still remained to her.
'But you must concentrate your attention on writing your name as Iwrite it here.'
CHAPTER VI
Soon Raye wrote about the wedding.Having decided to make the best of what he feared was a piece of romantic folly,he had acquired more zest for the grand experiment.He wished the ceremony to be in London,for greater privacy.Edith Harnham would have preferred it at Melchester;Anna was passive.His reasoning prevailed,and Mrs.
Harnham threw herself with mournful zeal into the preparations for Anna's departure.In a last desperate feeling that she must at every hazard be in at the death of her dream,and see once again the man who by a species of telepathy had exercised such an influence on her,she offered to go up with Anna and be with her through the ceremony--'to see the end of her,'as her mistress put it with forced gaiety;an offer which the girl gratefully accepted;for she had no other friend capable of playing the part of companion and witness,in the presence of a gentlemanly bridegroom,in such a way as not to hasten an opinion that he had made an irremediable social blunder.
It was a muddy morning in March when Raye alighted from a four-wheel cab at the door of a registry-office in the S.W.district of London,and carefully handed down Anna and her companion Mrs.Harnham.Anna looked attractive in the somewhat fashionable clothes which Mrs.
Harnham had helped her to buy,though not quite so attractive as,an innocent child,she had appeared in her country gown on the back of the wooden horse at Melchester Fair.
Mrs.Harnham had come up this morning by an early train,and a young man--a friend of Raye's--having met them at the door,all four entered the registry-office together.Till an hour before this time Raye had never known the wine-merchant's wife,except at that first casual encounter,and in the flutter of the performance before them he had little opportunity for more than a brief acquaintance.The contract of marriage at a registry is soon got through;but somehow,during its progress,Raye discovered a strange and secret gravitation between himself and Anna's friend.
The formalities of the wedding--or rather ratification of a previous union--being concluded,the four went in one cab to Raye's lodgings,newly taken in a new suburb in preference to a house,the rent of which he could ill afford just then.Here Anna cut the little cake which Raye had bought at a pastrycook's on his way home from Lincoln's Inn the night before.But she did not do much besides.
Raye's friend was obliged to depart almost immediately,and when he had left the only ones virtually present were Edith and Raye who exchanged ideas with much animation.The conversation was indeed theirs only,Anna being as a domestic animal who humbly heard but understood not.Raye seemed startled in awakening to this fact,and began to feel dissatisfied with her inadequacy.
At last,more disappointed than he cared to own,he said,'Mrs.
Harnham,my darling is so flurried that she doesn't know what she is doing or saying.I see that after this event a little quietude will be necessary before she gives tongue to that tender philosophy which she used to treat me to in her letters.'
They had planned to start early that afternoon for Knollsea,to spend the few opening days of their married life there,and as the hour for departure was drawing near Raye asked his wife if she would go to the writing-desk in the next room and scribble a little note to his sister,who had been unable to attend through indisposition,informing her that the ceremony was over,thanking her for her little present,and hoping to know her well now that she was the writer's sister as well as Charles's.
'Say it in the pretty poetical way you know so well how to adopt,'he added,'for I want you particularly to win her,and both of you to be dear friends.'
Anna looked uneasy,but departed to her task,Raye remaining to talk to their guest.Anna was a long while absent,and her husband suddenly rose and went to her.
He found her still bending over the writing-table,with tears brimming up in her eyes;and he looked down upon the sheet of note-paper with some interest,to discover with what tact she had expressed her good-will in the delicate circumstances.To his surprise she had progressed but a few lines,in the characters and spelling of a child of eight,and with the ideas of a goose.
'Anna,'he said,staring;'what's this?'
'It only means--that I can't do it any better!'she answered,through her tears.
