Pearl Of Pearl Island Part 34

"Aw--Miss Penny!"

"You'd better have your lunch here. They'll give you lobsters fresh from the kettle, and I'll stroll round later on and we'll get this matter settled up. So long!" and he went away up the Avenue and across the fields home.

And he went thoughtfully. It was annoying this man cropping up like this at the eleventh hour. Nothing, he felt sure, would come of his interference, but it might disturb Margaret and the general harmony of to-morrow's proceedings.

Her wedding-day is a somewhat nervous time for a girl, under the best of circ.u.mstances, he supposed. And though Margaret was as little given to nerves as anyone he had ever met, the possibility of a public attempt to stop her wedding might be fairly calculated to upset her.

Feudal as were the laws of the island, he could hardly knock Pixley on the head, as would have happened in less anachronistic times. And so he went thoughtfully.

XII

Margaret and Miss Penny were lying in long chairs on the verandah when he came over the green wall into the Red House garden, by the same gap as he had used that first morning when he came upon Margaret standing in the hedge.

They were resting from labours, joyful, but none the less tiring.

"Jock, we were just wanting you!" said Margaret, sitting up. "Have all the things come all right?"

"All come all right," and he wondered how she would take his next announcement. "In fact more came than we expected."

"I guess we can use it all," said Miss Penny. "You've no idea of the capacity of children. I know something about it, and these children are more expansible even than school-girls."

"I was surprised to meet a gentleman down there who says he has come across on purpose for the wedding."

"A gentleman--come for the wedding?" and both girls eyed him as pictured terriers greet the word "Rats!"

"I'll give you three guesses."

"Mr. Pixley," said Miss Penny.

"Bull's-eye first shot! Clever girl!"

"Not really, Jock!" said Margaret, with a suspicion of dismay in her voice.

"Well, Charles Svendt anyway--as representing the old man, he says."

"But what has he come for, and how did he get to know?"

"I didn't ask him. It was quite enough to see him there. He says he's going to stop it,"--and Margaret's cheeks flamed,--"but I've a.s.sured him that he can't, and I'll take jolly good care that he doesn't, if I have to knock him on the head and drop him off the Coupee."

"It would be shameful of him if he tried," cried Miss Penny. "Just let me have a talk with him, Mr. Graeme, and I'll make him wish he'd never been born. He's really not such a bad sort, you know. Where is he?"

"I left him at the Bel-Air about to tackle lobsters. My idea is to take him to the Vicar, then to the Seigneur. They both understand the whole matter. I explained it fully when I told them we intended getting married here. When they understand that this is the gentleman who would like to occupy my place, and that he has no legal grounds for interfering, I think they will open his eyes--"

"I do hope he won't make any trouble in the church," said Margaret, with a little flutter.

"I'll promise you he won't."

"I'm sure he won't, if you can make it quite clear that it could not possibly accomplish what, I suppose, his father sent him to try to do," said Miss Penny. "Charles Pixley is no fool, though he has his little peculiarities."

"It would be a wonder if he hadn't some, after his daddie," said Graeme lightly. "I'm sorry he's come, Meg, but I'm certain you don't need to worry about him. If I could have knocked him on the head and dropped him in the sea and said nothing to n.o.body--"

"Don't be absurd, Jock," said Margaret, and her voice showed that the matter was troubling her in spite of his a.s.surances.

"After lunch I shall call for him and take him for a little walk. If you'd seen him when he got to the Bel-Air after toiling up the Creux Road! He was nearly in pieces. I'll trot him round to the Vicarage, and then to the Seigneurie, and then I'll bring him here and turn him over to you and Hennie Penny. He'll be as limp as a rag by that time, and as wax in your hands."

Nevertheless, Margaret could not quite get rid of the feeling of discomfort which the news of Charles Pixley's arrival had cast over her, and Graeme anathematised that young man most fervently each time he glanced at her face.

XIII

After lunch Graeme went back to the hotel, and found Pixley lolling on the seat outside, in a much more contented frame of mind than on his first arrival.

"You were right as to their lobsters, anyhow, Graeme," he said.

"They're almost worth coming all the way for."

"All right. Now if you're rested we'll go for a stroll, and I'll set your mind at rest as to to-morrow. Then you'll be able to enjoy your dinner in a proper frame of mind."

"How far is it?"

"Just up there and round the corner. We'll see the Vicar first and you can try your hand on him."

The Vicar received them with jovial bonhomie.

"Ah-ha! The bridegroom cometh out of his chamber! And your friend? He is the best man--no?"

"He's not quite made up his mind yet, Vicar. Perhaps you can persuade him to it."

"But it is an honour--n'est-ce pas? To attend so beautiful a bride to the altar--"

"Well, you see, the fact is--Mr. Pixley would have preferred reversing the positions. He would like to have been bridegroom and me to be best man."

"Ah--so! Well, it is not surprising--"

"Moreover, he would like to stop the wedding now if he could--"

"Ach, non! That is not possible," said the Vicar wrathfully, the southern blood blazing in his face. "What would you do, my good sir, and why?"

"Miss Brandt is my father's ward," said Pixley st.u.r.dily. "My father objects to this marriage. He has sent me over to stop it."

"I understand," said the Vicar. "He wished his ward to marry you, but Miss Brandt made her own choice, which she had a perfect right to do, and, ma foi--" leaning back in his chair and regarding the two faces in front of him, he did not finish his sentence in words, but contented himself with cryptic nods whose meaning, we may hope, was lost upon Charles Svendt's _amour propre_.

"And what would you do?" asked the Vicar presently.

"Well, if necessary, I can get up in the church and state that there is just cause for stopping the marriage--"

"What just cause, I should ask you?"

"I have told you. My father--"