AND now the last morning had come.
The morning of a wedding-day is a flying and precarious moment which seems at once as if it never would end, and as if it were a hurried preliminary interval in which the necessary preparations never could be done. Elinor was not allowed to come down-stairs to help, as she felt it would be natural to do. It was Mary Tatham who arranged the flowers on the table, and helped Dennistoun to superintend everything. All the women in the house, though they were so busy, were devoted at every spare moment to the service of Elinor. They brought her simple breakfast up-stairs, one maid carrying the tray and another the teapot, that each might have their share. The cook, though she was overwhelmed with work, had made some cakes for breakfast, such us Elinor liked. “Most like as we’ll never have her no more—to mind,” she said. The gardener sent up an untidy bundle of white flowers. And Mrs. Dennistoun came herself to pour out the tea. “As if I had been ill, or had turned into a baby again,” Elinor said. But there was not much said. Mary Tatham was there for one thing, and for another and the most important they had said all they had to say; the rest which remained could not be said. The wedding was to be at a quarter to twelve, in order to give Lady Mariamne time to come from town. It was not the fashion then to delay marriages to the afternoon, which no doubt would have been much more convenient for her ladyship; but the best that could be done was done. Mr. Tatham’s carriage, which he had brought with him to grace the ceremony, was despatched to the station to meet Lady Mariamne, while he, good man, had to get to church as he could in one of the flys. And then came the important moment, when the dressing of the bride had to be begun. The wedding-breakfast was not yet all set out in perfect order, and there were many things to do. Yet every woman in the house had a little share in the dressing of the bride. They all came to see how it fitted when the wedding-dress was put on. It fitted like a glove! The long glossy folds of the satin were a wonder to see. Cook stood just within the door in a white apron, and wept, and could not say a word to Miss Elinor; but the younger maids sent forth a murmur of admiration. And the Missis they thought was almost as beautiful as the bride, though her satin was grey. Mrs. Dennistoun herself threw the veil over her child’s head, and put in the diamond star, the old-fashioned ornament which had been her husband’s present to herself. And then again she had meant to say something to Elinor—a last word—but the word would not come. They were both of them glad that somebody should be there all the time, that they should not be left alone. And after that the strange, hurried, everlasting morning was over, and the carriage was at the door.
Then again it was a relief that old Mr. Tatham had missed his proper place in the fly, and had to go on the front seat with the bride and her mother. It was far better so. If they had been left even for ten minutes alone, who could have answered that one or the other would not have cried, and discomposed the bouquet and the veil? It seemed a great danger and responsibility over when they arrived at last safely at the church door. Lady Mariamne was just then arriving from the station. She drew up before them in poor Mr. Tatham’s carriage, keeping them back. Harry Compton and Mr. Bolsover sprang to the carriage window to talk to her, and there was a loud explosion of mirth and laughter in the midst of the village people, and the children with their baskets of flowers who were already gathered. Lady Mariamne’s voice burst out so shrill that it overmastered the church bells. “Here I am,” she cried, “out in the wilderness. And Algy has come with me to take care of me. And how are you, dear boys; and how is poor Phil?” “Phil is all ready to be turned off, with the halter round his neck,” said Dick Bolsover; and Harry Compton said, “Hurry up, hurry up, Jew, the bride is behind you, waiting to get out.” “She must wait, then,” said Lady Mariamne, and there came leisurely out of the carriage, first, her ladyship’s companion, by name, Algy, a tall person with an eye-glass, then a little pug, which was carefully handed into his arms, and then lightly jumping down to the ground, a little figure in black—in black of all things in the world! a sight that curdled the blood of the village people, and of Mrs. Hudson, who had walked across from the Rectory in a gown of pigeon’s-breast silk which scattered prismatic reflections as she walked. In black! Mrs. Hudson bethought herself that she had a white China crape shawl in her cupboard, and wondered if she could offer it to conceal this ill-omened gown. But if Lady Mariamne’s dress was dark, she herself was fair enough, with an endless fluff of light hair under her little black lace bonnet. Her gloves were off, and her hands were white and glistening with rings. “Give me my puggy darling,” she said in her loud, shrill tone. “I can go nowhere, can I, pet, without my little pug!”
“A Jew and a pug, both in church. It is enough,” said her brother, “to get the poor parson into trouble with his bishop.”
“Oh, the bishop’s a great friend of mine,” said the lady; “he will say nothing to me, not if I put Pug in a surplice and make him lead the choir.” At this speech there was a great laugh of the assembled party, which stood in the centre of the path, while Mr. Tatham’s carriage edged away, and the others made efforts to get forward. The noise of their talk disturbed the curious abstraction in which Elinor had been going through the morning hours. Mariamne’s jarring voice seemed louder than the bells. Was this the first voice sent out to greet her by the new life which was about to begin? She glanced at her mother, and then at old Uncle Tatham, who sat immovable, prevented by decorum from apostrophising the coachman who was not his own, but fuming inwardly at the interruption. Mrs. Dennistoun did not move at all, but her daughter knew very well what was meant by that look straight before her, in which her mother seemed to ignore all obstacles in the way.
“I got here very well,” Lady Mariamne went on; “we started in the middle of the night, of course, before the lamps were out. Wasn’t it good of Algy to get himself out of bed at such an unearthly hour! But he snapped at Puggy as we came down, which was a sign he felt it. Why aren’t you with the poor victim at the altar, you boys?”
“Phil will be in blue funk,” said Harry; “go in and stand by your man, Dick: the Jew has enough with two fellows to see her into her place.”
The bride’s carriage by this time pushed forward, making Lady Mariamne start in confusion. “Oh! look here; they have splashed my pretty toilette, and upset my nerves,” she cried, springing back into her supporter’s arms.
That gentleman regarded the stain of the damp gravel on the lady’s skirt through his eye-glass with deep but helpless anxiety. “It’s a pity for the pretty frock!” he said with much seriousness. And the group gathered round and gazed in dismay, as if they expected it to disappear of itself—until Mrs. Hudson bustled up. “It will rub off; it will not make any mark. If one of you gentlemen will lend me a handkerchief,” she said. And Algy and Harry and Dick Bolsover, not to speak of Lady Mariamne herself, watched with great gravity while the gravel was swept off. “I make no doubt,” said the Rector’s wife, “that I have the pleasure of speaking to Lady Mariamne: and I don’t doubt that black is the fashion and your dress is beautiful: but if you would just throw on a white shawl for the sake of the wedding—it’s so unlucky to come in black——”
“A white shawl!” said Lady Mariamne in dismay.
“The Jew in a white shawl!” echoed the others with a burst of laughter which rang into the church itself and made Phil before the altar, alone and very anxious, ask himself what was up.
“It’s China crape, I assure you, and very nice,” Mrs. Hudson said.
Lady Mariamne gave the good Samaritan a stony stare, and took Algy’s arm and sailed into the church before the Rector’s wife, without a word said; while all the women from the village looked at each other and said, “Well, I never!” under their breath.
“Let me give you my arm, Mrs. Hudson,” said Harry Compton, “and please pardon me that I did not introduce my sister to you. She is dreadfully shy, don’t you know, and never does speak to anyone when she has not been introduced.”
“My observation was a very simple one,” said Mrs. Hudson, very angry, yet pleased to lean upon an Honourable arm.
“My dear lady!” cried the good-natured Harry, “the Jew never wore a shawl in her life——”
And all this time the organ had been pealing, the white vision passing up the aisle, the simple villagers chanting forth their song about the breath that breathed o’er Eden. Alas! Eden had not much to do with it, except perhaps in the trembling heart of the white maiden roused out of her virginal dream by the jarring voices of the new life. The laughter outside was a dreadful offence to all the people, great and small, who had collected to see Elinor married.
“What could you expect? It’s that woman whom they call the Jew,” whispered Lady Huntingtower to her next neighbour.
“She should be put into the stocks,” said Sir John, scarcely under his breath, which, to be sure, was also an interruption to the decorum of the place.
And then there ensued a pause broken by the voice, a little lugubrious in tone, of the Rector within the altar rails, and the tremulous answers of the pair outside. The audience held its breath to hear Elinor make her responses, and faltered off into suppressed weeping as the low tones ceased. Sir John Huntingtower, who was very tall and big, and stood out like a pillar among the ladies round, kept nodding his head all the time she spoke, nodding as you might do in forced assent to any dreadful vow. Poor little thing, poor little thing, he was saying in his heart. His face was more like the face of a man at a funeral than a man at a wedding. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord”—he might have been nodding assent to that instead of to Elinor’s low-spoken vow. Phil Compton’s voice, to tell the truth, was even more tremulous than Elinor’s. To investigate the thoughts of a bridegroom would be too much curiosity at such a moment. But I think if the secrets of the hearts could be revealed, Phil for a moment was sorry for poor little Elinor too.
And then the solemnity was all over in a moment, and the flutter of voices and congratulations began.
I do not mean to follow the proceedings through all the routine of the wedding-day. Attempts were made on the part of the bridegroom’s party to get Lady Mariamne dismissed by the next train, an endeavour into which Harry Compton threw himself—for he was always a good-hearted fellow—with his whole soul. But the Jew declared that she was dying of hunger, and whatever sort of place it was, must have something to eat; a remark which naturally endeared her still more to Mrs. Dennistoun, who was waiting by the door of Mr. Tatham’s carriage, which that anxious old gentleman had managed to recover control of, till her ladyship had taken her place. Her ladyship stared with undisguised amazement when she was followed into the carriage by the bride’s mother, and when the neat little old gentleman took his seat opposite. “But where is Algy? I want Algy,” she cried, in dismay. “Absolutely I can’t go without Algy, who came to take care of me.”
“You will be perfectly safe, my dear lady, with Mrs. Dennistoun and me. The gentlemen will walk,” said Mr. Tatham, waving his hand to the coachman.
And thus it was that the forlorn lady found herself without her cavalier and without her pug, absolutely stranded among savages, notwithstanding her strong protest almost carried the length of tears. She was thus carried off in a state of consternation to the cottage over the rough road, where the wheels went with a din and lurch over the stones, and dug deep into the sand, eliciting a succession of little shrieks from her oppressed bosom. “I shall be shaken all to bits,” she said, grasping the arm of the old gentleman to steady herself. Mr. Tatham was not displeased to be the champion of a lady of title. He assured her in dulcet tones that his springs were very good and his horses very sure—“though it is not a very nice road.”
“Oh, it is a dreadful road!” said Lady Mariamne.
But in due time they did arrive at the cottage, where her ladyship could not wait for the gathering of the company, but demanded at once something to eat. “I can’t really go another moment without food. I must have something or I shall die. Phil, come here this instant and get me something. They have brought me off at the risk of my life, and there’s nobody to attend to me. Don’t stand spooning there,” cried Lady Mariamne, “but do what I tell you. Do you think I should ever have put myself into this position but for you?”
“You would never have been asked here if they had consulted me. I knew what a nuisance you’d be. Here, get this lady something to eat, old man,” said the bridegroom, tapping Mr. Tatham on the back, who did, indeed, look rather like a waiter from that point of view.
“I shall have to help myself,” said the lady in despair. And she sat down at the elaborate table in the bride’s place, and began to hack at the nearest chicken. The gentlemen coming in at the moment roared again with laughter over the Jew’s impatience; but it was not regarded with the same admiration by the rest of the guests.
These little incidents, perhaps, helped to wile away the weary hours until it was time for the bridal pair to depart. Mrs. Dennistoun was so angry that it kept up a little fire, so to speak, in her heart when the light of her house was extinguished. Lady Mariamne, standing in the porch with a bag full of rice to throw, kept up the spirit of the mistress of the house, which otherwise might, perhaps, have failed her altogether at that inconceivable moment; for though she had been looking forward to it for months it was inconceivable when it came, as death is inconceivable. Elinor going away!—not on a visit, or to be back in a week, or a month, or a year—going away for ever! ending, as might be said, when she put her foot on the step of the carriage. Her mother stood by and looked on with that cruel conviction that overtakes all at the last. Up to this moment had it not seemed as if the course of affairs was unreal, as if something must happen to prevent it? Perhaps the world will end to-night, as the lover says in the “Last Ride.” But now here was the end: nothing had happened, the world was swinging on in space in its old careless way, and Elinor was going—going away for ever and ever. Oh, to come back, perhaps—there was nothing against that—but never the same Elinor. The mother stood looking, with her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. Those eyes were quite dry, and she stood firm and upright by the carriage door. She was not “breaking down” or “giving way,” as everybody feared. She was “bearing up,” as everybody was relieved to see. And in a moment it was all over, and there was nothing before her eyes—no carriage, no Elinor. She was so dazed that she stood still, looking with that strange kind of smile for a full minute after there was nothing to smile at, only the vacant air and the prospect of the combe, coming in in a sickly haze which existed only in her eyes.
But, by good luck, there was Lady Mariamne behind, and the fire of indignation giving a red flicker upon the desolate hearth.
“I caught Phil on the nose,” said that lady, in great triumph; “spoilt his beauty for him for to-day. But let’s hope she won’t mind. She thinks him beautiful, the little goose. Oh, my Puggy-wuggy, did that cruel Algy pull your little, dear tail, you darling? Come to oos own mammy, now those silly wedding people are away.”
“Your little dog, I presume, is of a very rare sort,” said Mr. Tatham, to be civil. He had proposed the bride and bridegroom’s health in a most appropriate speech, and he felt that he had deserved well of his kind, which made him more amiable even than usual. “Your ladyship’s little dog,” he added, after a moment, as she did not take any notice, “I presume, is of a rare kind?”
Lady Mariamne gave him a look, or rather a stare. “Is Puggy of a rare sort?” she said over her shoulder, to one of the attendant tribe.
“Don’t be such a duffer, Jew! You know as well as any one what breed he’s of,” Harry Compton said.
“Oh, I forgot,” said the fine lady. She was standing full in front of the entrance, keeping Mrs. Dennistoun in the full sun outside. “I hope there’s a train very soon,” she said. “Did you look, Algy, as I told you? If it hadn’t been that Phil would have killed me I should have gone now. It would have been such fun to have spied upon the turtle doves!”
The men thought it would have been rare fun with obedient delight, but that Phil would have cut up rough, and made a scene. At this Lady Mariamne held up her finger, and made a portentous face.
“Oh, you naughty, naughty boy,” she cried, “telling tales out of school.”
“Perhaps, my dear lady,” said Mr. Tatham, quietly, “you would let Mrs. Dennistoun pass.”
“Oh!” said Lady Mariamne, and stared at him again for half a minute; then she turned and stared at the tall lady in grey satin. “Anybody can pass,” she said; “I’m not so very big.”
“That is quite true—quite true. There is plenty of room,” said the little gentleman, holding out his hand to his cousin.
“My dear John,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, “I am sure you will be kind enough to lend your carriage again to Lady Mariamne, who is in a hurry to get away. There is another train, which stops at Downforth station, in half an hour, and there will just be time to get there, if you will order it at once. I told your man to be in readiness: and it would be a thousand pities to lose this train, for there is not another for an hour.”
“By Jove, Jew! there’s a slap in the face for you,” said, in an audible whisper, one of the train, who had been standing in front of all the friends, blocking out the view. As for Lady Mariamne, she stared more straight than ever into Mrs. Dennistoun’s eyes, but for the moment did not seem to find anything to say. She was left in the hall with her band while the mistress of the house went into the drawing-room, followed by all the country ladies, who had not lost a word, and who were already whispering to each other over that terrible betrayal about the temper of Phil.
“Cut up rough! Oh! poor little Elinor, poor little Elinor!” the ladies said to each other under their breath.
“I am not at all surprised. It is not any news to me. You could see it in his eyes,” said Miss Mary Dale. And then they all were silent to listen to the renewed laughter that came bursting from the hall. Mrs. Hudson questioned her husband afterwards as to what it was that made everybody laugh, but the Rector had not much to say. “I really could not tell you, my dear,” he said. “I don’t remember anything that was said—but it seemed funny somehow, and as they all laughed one had to laugh too.”
The great lady came in, however, dragged by her brother to say good-by. “It has all gone off very well, I am sure, and Nell looked very nice, and did you great credit,” she said, putting out her hand. “And it’s very kind of you to take so much trouble to get us off by the first train.”
“Oh, it is no trouble,” Mrs. Dennistoun said.
“Shouldn’t you like to say good-by to Puggy-muggy?” said Lady Mariamne, touching the little black nose upon her arm. “He enjoyed that pâté so much. He really never has foie gras at home: but he doesn’t at all mind if you would like to give him a little kiss just here.”
“Good-by, Lady Mariamne,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, with one of the curtseys of the old school. But there was another gust of laughter as Lady Mariamne was placed in the carriage, and a shrill little trumpet gave forth the satisfaction of the departing guest at having “got a rise out of the old girl.” The gentlemen heaped themselves into Mr. Tatham’s carriage, and swept off along with her, all but civil Harry, who waited to make their apologies, and to put up along with his own Dick Bolsover’s “things.” And thus the bridegroom’s party, the new associates of Elinor, the great family into which the Honourable Mrs. Phil Compton had been so lucky as to marry, to the great excitement of all the country round, departed and was seen no more. Harry, who was civil, walked home with the Hudsons when all was over, and said the best he could for the Jew and her friends. “You see, she has been regularly spoiled: and then when a girl’s so dreadful shy, as often as not it sounds like impudence.” “Dear me, I should never have thought Lady Mariamne was shy,” the gentle Rector said. “That’s just how it is,” said Harry. He went over again in the darkening to take his leave of Mrs. Dennistoun. He found her sitting out in the garden before the open door, looking down the misty walk. The light had gone out of the skies, but the usual cheerful lights had not yet appeared in the house, where the hum of a great occasion still reigned. The Tathams were at the Rectory, and Mrs. Dennistoun was alone. Harry Compton had a good heart, and though he could not conceive the possibility of a woman not being glad to have married her daughter, the loneliness and darkness touched him a little in contrast with the gayety of the previous night. “You must think us a dreadful noisy lot,” he said, “and as if my sister had no sense. But it’s only the Jew’s way. She’s made like that—and at bottom she’s not at all a bad sort.”
“Are you going away?” was all the answer that Mrs. Dennistoun made.
“Oh, yes, and we shall be a good riddance,” said Harry; “but please don’t think any worse of us than you can help—— Phil—well, he’s got a great deal of good in him—he has indeed, and she’ll bring it all out.”
It was very good of Harry Compton. He had a little choking in his throat as he walked back. “Blest if I ever thought of it in that light before,” he said to himself.
But I doubt if what he said, however well meant, brought much comfort to Mrs. Dennistoun’s heart.