THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield
to Louis ever since his wife's death.
"He is very well, and sent his love. He is coming up for the wedding, and to take me home next day."
"How ripping to see him again!" said Muriel in a meaningless tone. "Do have some cake, Zella. It looks perfectly deadly, but that's a detail. Oh, there's the bell!"
Lady and Miss Newlyne were announced.
There was a great deal of momentary confusion of laughter and introductions, subsiding into a choice of chairs and offers of tea.
Tea, however, was declined, and Muriel at once jumped up.
"Oh, let's come into the back drawing-room, then, and leave them to talk."
She indicated her mother and Lady Newlyne with a gesture, at which both she and the other girl laughed slightly. Zella, not in the least amused, joined politely in their mirth.
Muriel led the way into the small curtained recess which was dignified by the title of the back drawing-room.
"You see," she explained, "mother always likes me to take my own friends in here, and she and the old people stay in the other room. Then we don't get in each other's way."
More laughter, as at a witticism.
"My dear, I'm simply thrilled about the hats," began Miss Newlyne instantly. "Now, have you settled which it is to be—the bow or the buckle?"
"It's the buckle. I simply couldn't bear that bow, when I actually saw it on. It's about the bridesmaids' hats, Zella. This is another bridesmaid, Enid—you know, my cousin," said Muriel in a rapid, explanatory manner.
"Oh yes, rather," replied Miss Newlyne with a sort of vague general enthusiasm.
There was a fresh influx of visitors, and Muriel jumped up and vanished through the curtains, with the ready laugh that appeared to herald most of her movements.
The other girl talked rapidly and good-naturedly to Zella, who observed that her vocabulary bore a singular resemblance to Muriel's own. Most things connected with the approaching wedding were ripping, some were lovely, and one or two were simply weird.
Presently Muriel returned with another girl and a very young man, both of whom were greeted with familiarity and mildly humorous remarks by Miss Newlyne.
"There aren't enough chairs to go round, but that's a detail," remarked Muriel. "Jack must sit on the floor."
She paused to laugh, and everyone else laughed too.
"You see, I always bring my own friends in here, when mother has the parents in the drawing-room, so then we don't get in each other's way."
This piece of information Zella heard reiterated as often as Muriel ushered anyone into the back drawing-room. And as a source of amusement it appeared to be unfailing.
In the midst of much giggling, the bell rang once more, and Muriel jumped up:
"That's Chumps!" she screamed. "I'll go and bring him in."
Bringing Chumps in was apparently a work of time, but presently Muriel reappeared, with a very pretty air of triumph, followed by a tall, good-looking young man some years older than herself.
He was greeted with various cries of " Hullo, Chumps!" to which he responded with much amiable chaff, and then subsided into a small chair beside Zella, to whom Muriel had just introduced him.
Zella, subconsciously desirous of making a good impression, talked to him rather at random, and did not feel that they made much progress towards acquaintanceship in their ten minutes' conversation.
The talk became general. He and Muriel appeared to find a peculiar enjoyment in contradicting one another incessantly, appealing to the others with various disparaging comments.
"Now, isn't he perfectly mad, Zella Did you ever hear anyone talk such nonsense in your life?"
"It isn't nonsense, is it, Jack? It's she who's mad, if you like—mad as a hatter. Let's feel her pulse— racing like anything. I knew she was delirious."
He possessed himself of Muriel's hand, and she giggled violently, struggling to release it.
"You are an idiot, Chumps! do let go. You're shocking my cousin."
"No, I'm not. It's you that are shocking her, if anyone is," was Chumps's immediate repartee.
But Zella was shocked by them both.
Was this what Aunt Marianne meant by describing the engaged couple as madly in love and radiantly happy?
Apparently it was, for later in the evening Mrs. Lloyd-Evans came to Zella's room and asked her whether it were not wonderful to see Muriel's happiness.
"And I feel," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans impressively, * "that one need never, under Providence, feel anxious about her in the future. Dear Chumps is devoted to her, heart and soul, and one cannot see them together without feeling how perfectly they are suited to one another. You know, Zella dear, 'marriages are made in heaven,' they say, and that is what one feels in this case."
"Oh yes," said Zella sympathetically.
"Muriel is very young, but, after all, marriage is a girl's natural sphere, and a woman's life is never complete, dear, until she has met her mate."
Zella, inwardly thinking the words odiously reminiscent of the Zoological Gardens, maintained her expression of intelligent sympathy, and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans continued to discourse in the low, heartfelt monotone characteristic of her, with an expansion that suggested recent repression.
Indeed, Zella, remembering Aunt Marianne as the gentle but inflexible autocrat of Boscombe days, noted with surprise the changed relations between the erstwhile submissive and blindly obedient Muriel and her mother. Not that Muriel had become undutiful now. Her manner towards her mother was affectionate, with a hint of tolerance, and she received all Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's most gently solemn platitudes about marriage with shrill, good-natured laughter.
Zella wondered whether James would also have evolved upon the independent lines which had been indicated in his boyhood, and looked forward with some curiosity to meeting her cousin at dinner that evening.
She put on the white Parisian evening dress chosen for her by the Baronne, and looked at herself in the glass.
Her thick pale brown hair was waved on either side of her pretty forehead, accentuating the colourless delicacy of her small face, and her dark grey eyes were brilliant under the straight black brows and lashes.
Zella told herself firmly that she was a great deal prettier than Muriel, and resolutely crushed down a certain lurking sense, resented by her fastidiousness as well as her vanity, that Muriel had attained some coveted goal, and was consequently entitled to triumph.
In the drawing-room she found Mr. Lloyd-Evans, who greeted her with his accustomed air of melancholy kindness, and said:
"Well, here's my little girl cutting a dash—getting married before she's nineteen. Much too young, I call it. But Carruthers is a very good fellow, and they're desperately keen on one another. We all know the course of true love can't be stayed, eh?"
Zella rightly conjectured that her Uncle Henry was thus obliquely expressing his pride and satisfaction at Muriel's prospects.
In the midst of her prettily worded congratulations James Lloyd-Evans entered the drawing-room.
Zella was surprised at the feeling of pleasure with which she greeted her cousin. They had not met since the Boscombe days, and from a plain, taciturn boy James had become a tall hatchet-faced young man, holding himself badly, with the slouching shoulders and permanent frown of extreme short-sightedness, his sole claim to good looks an infrequent but humorous smile.
His melancholy eyes, resembling his father's, expressed unmistakable admiration as they rested on Zella, and her instant perception of the fact gave a charming self-confidence to her manner.
The old sense of being understood rushed back upon her even during the few words they exchanged