That evening Laura Trevelyan sat beneath smooth hair and listened to her aunt recount to her uncle details of the Pringles’ picnic, although none was deceived as to the true direction of the narrative.
‘The air was most bracing,’ Mrs Bonner declared, still snuffing it recklessly. ‘Everyone was agreeable, and some even well-informed, for a much-travelled man cannot fail to acquire instructive scraps of information. Did I perhaps forget to mention that several of the officers from Nautilus and Samphire were present? It is not surprising if I did. I am scattered from here to Waverley. Such a jolting, and worst of all down a fiendish lane where we were driven at last to the home of Judge de Courcy — whose wife is a lady of the very best connexions, it appears, in Leicestershire — and were shown their glasshouses and gardens. In the course of this little excursion, I received a most interesting lecture on topiary from Mr Badgery — you will have heard tell, Mr Bonner, the surgeon of Nautilus, who accompanied Una Pringle on the occasion of her last visit.’
Mr Bonner could sit whole evenings without answering his wife, but they understood each other.
‘Now, it appears, Mr Badgery is known to Mrs de Courcy, and that he is quite well connected, through his mother, with whom he lives when at home, for in spite of his many excellent qualities, he has remained a bachelor.’
Laura, too, in spite of her resolutions, could have strolled along the paths between the solid, masculine, clipped hedges, and touched them with her hand. All that is solid is at times nostalgic and desirable.
Mrs Bonner had paused, and was knotting a thread that her work demanded.
‘I am sorry, Laura, that I have not inquired after Mercy,’ she said. ‘Earlier in the afternoon, I myself was so very much upset.’
‘I am sorry, Aunt, if we have caused you unhappiness of any kind,’ Laura replied. ‘As it happened, it was only a slight indisposition. But I cannot run the risk of neglecting what I have sworn to do.’
Mrs Bonner could not answer. At this point, however, her husband was beginning to stir. A stranger might have failed to perceive the subtle sympathy that did exist between the couple, for coupled they were, even in irritation, by many tough, tangled, indestructible, instinctive links.
So, when the tea was brought in, Mr Bonner began. He stood upon the hearth, which was the centre of their house, and where a small fire of logs had been lit, because the nights remained chilly. He said:
‘Now, Laura, you are a reasonable girl, and we must come to a decision about this child.’
Laura did not answer. She was cold, and had twisted her fingers together as she watched the flames writhing in the oblivious grate.
‘You must realize that your own position is intolerable, however laudable your intentions, in keeping someone else’s child.’
‘It is unnatural that you should become so stubbornly attached. A young girl.’ Mrs Bonner sighed.
‘If I were a married woman,’ Laura Trevelyan answered, ‘I do not think it would be so very different.’
The pitiful fire was leaping out in sharp, thin, desperate tongues.
Mrs Bonner clucked.
‘But a baby without a name,’ she said. ‘I am surprised, to say the least, that you should not find us worthy of consideration.’
‘I am aware of my debt, and shall attempt to repay you,’ Laura replied, ‘but please, please, in any other way. As Mercy is guilty of being without a name, and this offends you, the least I can do is give her my own. I should have thought of that. Of course.’
‘But consider the future, how such a step would damage your prospects,’ said the uncle.
‘My prospects,’ cried the niece, ‘are in the hands of God.’
She was holding her head. The wood-smoke was unbearable, with its poignance of distances.
Then she dragged herself forward a little in her chair, and said:
‘I will suffer anything you care to inflict on me, of course. I, too, can endure.’
Mrs Bonner was looking round, in little, darting glances, at her normal room.
‘Oh, she is hysterical,’ she said, tugging at the innocent thread that joined her needle to the linen. And then: ‘We only wish to help you, Laura dear. We love you.’
They did. Indeed, it was that which made it most terrible.
Fortunately, just then, Belle ran across the terrace and into the room. She had accompanied the Pringles home for supper, and had returned in the brougham of the two Miss Unwins who also lived at Potts Point.
‘Am I interrupting an important conference?’ Belle inquired, rather casually.
Mr Bonner frowned.
‘Young ladies about to be married walk into a room,’ said her mother. ‘They do not run.’
But she added, from force of habit, and because she did always hope to be informed of something dreadfuclass="underline"
‘What is the news?’
‘The news,’ said Belle, ‘is that Una has decided at last to take Woburn McAllister.’
‘To take,’ protested the disgusted father, who maintained a high standard of ethics in the bosom of his family.
‘Money to money. Well, that is the way,’ said Mrs Bonner. ‘But poor man, he is certainly in the pastoral business. To add such a silly, frizzy sheep to all those he already has.’
Her husband pointed out that Una Pringle was their friend.
‘She is our friend,’ said Mrs Bonner, biting her thread. ‘I will not deny that. And it is by being our friend that I have got to know her.’
‘I think I shall go to bed,’ Belle announced, nibbling without appetite at a little biscuit that she had picked up from the silver tray. ‘I am so tired.’
Her eyelids were heavy. She was a golden animal that would fall asleep immediately on curling up.
After that, everybody went. So the victim was saved up for the future.
During the weeks that followed nothing more was said, and Laura could have been happy if she had not suspected silence. She also dreamed dreams, which she would try to remember, but could not, only that she had been engaged in some activity of frenzied importance far outside her reason and her cold limbs.
If the nights were formidable, the days were bland, in which everyone was occupied with the preparations for Belle’s wedding.
‘I shall be married in white,’ Belle had said. ‘But I insist on muslin. Who ever heard of a satin bride go trapesing into the bush.’
‘Muslin is practical, of course,’ said Mrs Bonner, who, secretly, would have liked to shine.
And the father was disappointed, who could have afforded satin for his daughter.
This was the most important event in the merchant’s house since the departure of the expedition. Miss Lassiter came. There were yards of everything, and bridesmaids who giggled a good deal, and Chattie Wilson was pricked by a pin. All these women, whether the rusty, humble ones who knelt amongst the snippets, or the dedicated virgins who stood about in absorbed, gauzy groups, all were helping to create the bride, to breathe the myth of Belle Bonner, so that few people who saw her would fail to bore posterity. As the women worked, the origins of ritual were forgotten. As they built the tiers of sacred white, they debated and perspired. They unwound cards of lace, as if it had been string. They heaped the precious on the precious, until Belle, who laughed, and submitted, and did not tire — she was such a healthy girl — became a pure, white, heavenly symbol, trembling to discover its own significance.
So the spirit of the explorer, the scarecrow that had dominated the house beyond all measure with his presence, and even haunted it after he had gone, was ruthlessly exorcized by the glistening bride. Who would think of him now, except perhaps Rose Portion, out of her simplicity, if she had been alive, the merchant, by resentful spasms, since his money was undoubtedly lost, and Laura Trevelyan. The bride had certainly forgotten that knotty man, but loved her cousin, and was wrung accordingly, as she looked down out of the mists of lace and constellations of little pearls that were gathering round her hair.