MOTHER was the first to see in the Morning Post that a marriage had been arranged, and would shortly take place. She handed the excellent journal across the table to Father with a sphinxlike countenance. But, as Mr. Jennings subsequently informed the housekeeper, Mrs. Meeson, in a private colloquy in the pantry, his lordship took the blow with resignation.
“No more than I’ve been expecting for some little time past, Agatha,” said the great Proconsul.
But the wife of his bosom was dumb with dismay.
“Agatha,” said the Proconsul, after Mr. Jennings had quitted the scene, “have you seen the Person?”
“I have, Wally; and I am strongly of opinion that Philip is out of his mind.”
Not very comforting, was it?
There was only one thing to be done, though, and that was what generations of excellent parents have had to do before them—namely, and to wit, To Grin and Bear It.
Frankly, the Governing Classes were not specially good at grinning, but they bore the blow with resignation tempered by quiet dignity. They had done nothing to deserve the unmerited Cross of Fortune—the Reverend Canon Fearon came in person to inform them of that. Their lives were virtuous; their aspirations blameless; their good works manifest. But the ways of Providence were inscrutable—cream, please, but no sugar, thank you—why the blow should have fallen upon them of all people—a little brown bread and butter—was one more familiar instance of the things that passed all understanding.
Consolation for the spirit, you see, was at the service of Mother. Father received that form of sustenance also—at the Helicon, that temple of light.
“My dear Shelmerdine,” said Ch: Bungay, the friend of his youth, “it is good to know that the blow is sustained with the accustomed resignation of a true Christian.”
It was by no means clear, however, that in Mount Street the Christian Ticket was sweeping the polls at this period. The resignation of Pa, in the opinion of rumor, was a little less pronounced than that of his neighbors. The butler gave notice the same afternoon. On the following morning her ladyship’s maid declined to stay to have her head bitten off, and went to the length of saying so. Even the Reverend Canon Fearon was constrained to think that an Irish peerage was hardly the same as the home-made article.
It was an unlucky state of things, said the friends of both families. Rather depended upon how you looked at it though, thought the People Next Door. A Love Match is sometimes superior to a Mariage de Convenance, thought Ann Veronica, who had just returned from Dresden. Perhaps She Won’t Be Quite So Stuck Up Now, wrote the Flapper from Eastbourne. He’s swopped her for the absolute nicest gal in London, anyhow, said the Probationer in His Majesty’s Horseguards. And Mamma said that she was surprised that Percy should talk in that way; and his Papa hoped that he wouldn’t go making a fool of himself; and the Reverend Canon Fearon, when he called to ask the People Next Door what they thought about it, was rather inclined to agree with all parties, since yesterday at luncheon his Bishop had given utterance to the profoundly searching moral observation that the streams of tendency were apt to overlook their banks a little by the time the rising generation was ready to embark.
It is good to know that the Great did not lack spiritual aid in their hour of tribulation. But Pa in Mount Street and the Seventh Unmarried Daughter were not so chastened as they might have been, perhaps; and Father and Mother still went out to dinner regularly, in spite of this humiliation.
Nevertheless, Father and Mother declined the invitation to St. James’s, Wilton Place, and to the reception afterwards, which, if they would consent to grace it, would be held by Grandmamma, her eighty-four years notwithstanding, at the Hyde Park Hotel.
The reply of Mother was a model of dignity, but the reception was not held. It could have been, certainly, since there were a number of people who would have been delighted to come; but the goddaughter of Bean, in her conscious strength, agreed with Arminius Wingrove that it would show good feeling not to wipe the eye of Grosvenor Square.
The nuptials of Philip and Mary were not so brilliant as they might have been, perhaps, had Father and Mother attended them, but everything was very nice and cheerful all the same. The bridesmaids were five ladies of the Profession, including Marge; and excluding Timothy, who was a page in an extraordinarily smart blue suiting, which he had to be most careful how he sat in it. It wasn’t Dr. Bridge who played the organ, but a gentleman quite as clever, think some who heard him on the festal afternoon. The ex-brother-officer remembered where the ring was put; Philip remembered to kiss Mary—and, you young bachelors of Cam and Isis you will hurt Her feelings awfully if you should forget that part of the ceremony, so kindly make a note of the foregoing—and everybody thought the Bride looked absolutely sweet, and that Philip was a very fortunate young man.
And in the judgment of Herb and Arminius Wingrove, Grandmamma, in a fine new hat, was right in the foreground of the picture.
Everything was just as it should have been; everybody looked pleased and happy; and when forth the organ pealed the noble work by Mendelssohn all agreed that they made a mighty handsome pair.
There was no reception at the Hyde Park Hotel; but Mr. Hollins bade all and sundry attend a tea-party on the classic boards of Drury. Grandmamma cut the cake that Mr. Hollins had provided; and Marge and Timothy ate thereof—not a crumb more than was good for ’em, although both came very near the limit. And then Mr. Hollins made a speech which we feel obliged to quote verbatim in this place.
Said Mr. Hollins: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I sincerely hope this is not the end of a great career. (Hear, hear.) I have my doubts about it, though. I have seen this sort of thing before. (Cheers and laughter.) We all envy the Bridegroom, and I am afraid we shall find it hard to forgive him, if, as our prophetic souls have feared, he robs a great profession of a chief ornament. (Hear, hear.) But if this is a grudge we may have to cherish against him, there is a service he has rendered to us that must always redound to his credit. He is the means of summoning back to these classic boards, after an absence, she tells me, of forty-three years, one of the great figures of a bygone generation, whose name was as familiar as a household word throughout the length and breadth of the land, before even the improvident parents of the majority of those of us who are present this afternoon had arranged about our cradles. Ladies and Gentlemen, I refer to that true ornament of her profession, Mrs. Cathcart. (Loud and prolonged applause.) We are exceedingly proud to have her among us; and some of you will doubtless boast to your grandchildren that you have had the opportunity of drinking the health of this famous and venerable lady, because, after Sir Herbert has proposed the health of the Bride, it is to be my great privilege to propose that of one of the truest ornaments the English stage has known.” (Great enthusiasm.)
This was not all by any means that Mr. Hollins was moved to say on this historic occasion. But you will be able to gather, doubtless, from the general tenor of the famous Manager’s remarks, that the Bride was quite within her rights in being moved to tears, and that the Bridegroom had warrant for the otherwise irrelevant observation, “I wish the Mater had been here, old girl, that’s all.”
And then in grim earnest the bowl began to flow; enthusiasm began to wax parlous; and the wretched Bridegroom had to get up on his hind legs, feeling quite as uncertain about the knee-joints as this unfortunate quadruped of ours, and proceeded to apologize very sweetly and humbly to the profession for having robbed it of one of whom it had a right to be proud, and who was a thousand and one times too good, at a conservative estimate, for the chap who had brought her back from St. James’s, Wilton Place. And candor forces us to admit that this idle, rich young fellow, who had made a good many enemies by his act of presumption, didn’t materially add to their number by the speech which he made, which, if not exactly that of an orator, was yet manly and sincere and unaffected and no discredit to the famous Twin Brethren who had nurtured his youth.