Georgie, in her wedding garments, looking like some pale white lily, is indeed "pa.s.sing fair." She is almost too pallid, but the very pallor adds to the extreme purity and childishness of her beauty, and makes the gazer confident "there"s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple." Dorian, tall and handsome, and unmistakably content, seems a very fit guardian for so fragile a flower.
Of course the marriage gives rise to much comment in the county, Brans...o...b.. being direct heir to the Sartoris t.i.tle, and presumably the future possessor of all his uncle"s private wealth. That he should marry a mere governess, a positive n.o.body, horrifies the county, and makes its shrug its comfortable shoulders and give way to more malicious talk than is at all necessary. With some, the pretty bride is an adventuress, and, indeed,--in the very softest of soft whispers, and with a gentle rustling of indignant skirts,--not _altogether_ as correct as she might be. There are a few who choose to believe her of good family, but "awfully out-at-elbows, don"t you know;" a still fewer who declare she is charming all round and fit for anything; and hardly one who does not consider her, at heart, fortunate and designing.
One or two rash and unsophisticated girls venture on the supposition that perhaps, after all, it is a real _bona fide_ love-match, and make the still bolder suggestion that a governess may have a heart as well as other people. But these silly children are pushed out of sight, and very sensibly pooh-poohed, and are told, with a little clever laugh, that they "are quite too sweet, and quite dear babies, and they must try and keep on thinking all that sort of pretty rubbish as long as ever they can. It is so successful, and so very taking nowadays."
Dorian is regarded as an infatuated, misguided young man, who should never have been allowed out without a keeper. Such a disgraceful flinging away of opportunities, and birth, and position, to marry a woman so utterly out of his own set! No wonder his poor uncle refused to be present at the ceremony,--actually ran away from home to avoid it. And--so--by the by, talking of running away, what was that affair about that little girl at the mill? Wasn"t Brans...o...b.."s name mixed up with it unpleasantly? Horrid low, you know, that sort of thing, when one is found out.
The county is quite pleased with its own gossip, and drinks innumerable cups of choicest tea over it, out of the very daintiest Derby and Sevres and "Wooster," and is actually merry at the expense of the newly-wedded. Only a very few brave men, among whom is Mr.
Kennedy, who is staying with the Luttrels, give it as their opinion that Brans...o...b.. is a downright lucky fellow and has got the handsomest wife in the neighborhood.
Towards the close of July, contrary to expectation, Mr. and Mrs.
Brans...o...b.. return to Pullingham, and, in spite of censure, and open protest, are literally inundated with cards from all sides.
The morning after her return, Georgie drives down to Gowran, to see Clarissa, and tell her "all the news," as she declares in her first breath.
"It was all too enchanting," she says, in her quick, vivacious way. "I enjoyed it _so_. All the lovely old churches, and the lakes, and the bones of the dear saints, and everything. But I missed you, do you know,--yes, really, without flattery, I mean. Every time I saw anything specially desirable, I felt I wanted you to see it too. And so one day I told Dorian I was filled with a mad longing to talk to you once again, and I think he rather jumped at the suggestion of coming home forthwith; and--why, here we are."
"I can"t say how glad I am that you _are_ here," says Clarissa. "It was too dreadful without you both. I am so delighted you had such a really good time and were so happy."
"Happy!--I am quite that," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., easily. "I can always do just what I please, and there is n.o.body now to scold or annoy me in any way."
"And you have Dorian to love," says Clarissa, a little gravely, she hardly knows why. It is perhaps the old curious want in Georgie"s tone that has again impressed her.
"Love, love, love," cries that young woman, a little impatiently. "Why are people always talking about love? Does it really make the world go round, I wonder? Yes, of course I have Dorian to be fond of now." She rises impulsively, and, walking to one of the windows, gazes out upon the gardens beneath. "Come," she says, stepping on to the veranda; "come out with me. I want to breathe your flowers again."
Clarissa follows her, and together they wander up and down among the heavy roses and drooping lilies, that are languid with heat and sleep.
Here all the children of the sun and dew seem to grow and flourish.
"No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd, No arborett with painted blossoms drest And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd To bud out faire and throwe her sweete smels al arownd."
Dorian, coming up presently to meet his wife and drive her home, finds her and Clarissa laughing gayly over one of Georgie"s foreign reminiscences. He walks so slowly over the soft green gra.s.s that they do not hear him until he is quite close to them.
"Ah! you have come, Dorian," says Dorian"s wife, with a pretty smile, "but too soon. Clarissa and I haven"t half said all we have to say yet."
"At least I have said how glad I am to have you both back," says Clarissa. "The whole thing has been quite too awfully dismal without you. But for Jim and papa I should have gone mad, or something. I never put in such a horrid time. Horace came down occasionally,--very occasionally,--out of sheer pity, I believe; and Lord Sartoris was a real comfort, he visited so often; but he has gone away again."
"Has he? I suppose our return frightened him," says Brans...o...b.., in a peculiar tone.
"I have been telling Clarissa how we tired of each other long before the right time," says Georgie, airily, "and how we came home to escape being bored to death by our own dulness."
Dorian laughs.
"She says what she likes," he tells Clarissa. "Has she yet put on the dignified stop for you? It would quite subdue any one to see her at the head of her table. Last night it was terrible. She seemed to grow several inches taller, and looked so severe that, long before it was time for him to retire, Martin was on the verge of nervous tears. I could have wept for him, he looked so disheartened."
"I"m perfectly certain Martin adores me," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., indignantly, "and I couldn"t be severe or dignified to save my life.
Clarissa, you must forgive me if I remove Dorian at once, before he says anything worse. He is quite untrustworthy. Good-by, dearest, and be sure you come up to see me to-morrow. I want to ask you ever so many more questions."
"Cards from the d.u.c.h.ess for a garden-party," says Georgie, throwing the invitations in question across the breakfast-table to her husband.
It is quite a week later, and she has almost settled down into the conventional married woman, though not altogether. To be entirely married--that is, sedate and sage--is quite beyond Georgie. Just now some worrying thought is oppressing her, and spoiling the flavor of her tea; her kidney loses its grace, her toast its crispness. She peeps at Dorian from behind the huge silver urn that seeks jealously to conceal her from view, and says, plaintively,--
"Is the d.u.c.h.ess a very grand person, Dorian?"
"She is an awfully fat person, at all events," says Dorian, cheerfully. "I never saw any one who could beat her in that line.
She"d take a prize, I think. She is not a bad old thing when in a good temper, but that is so painfully seldom. Will you go?"
"I don"t know,"--doubtfully. Plainly, she is in the lowest depths of despair. "I--I--think I would rather not."
"I think you had better, darling."
"But you said just now she was always in a bad temper."
"Always? Oh, no; I am sure I couldn"t have said that. And, besides, she won"t go for you, you know, even if she is. The duke generally comes in for it. And by this time he rather enjoys it, I suppose,--as custom makes us love most things."
"But, Dorian, really now, what is she like?"
"I can"t say that: it is a tremendous question. I don"t know what she is; I only know what she is not."
"What, then?"
""Fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair,"" quotes he, promptly. At which they both laugh.
"If she is an old dowdy," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., somewhat irreverently, "I sha"n"t be one sc.r.a.p afraid of her, and I do so want to go right over the castle. Somebody--Lord Alfred--would take me, I dare say.
Yes,"--with sudden animation,--"let us go."
"I shall poison Lord Alfred presently," says Dorian, calmly. "Nothing shall prevent me. Your evident determination to spend your day with him has sealed his doom. Very well: send an answer, and let us spend a "nice long happy day in the country.""
"We are always spending that, aren"t we?" says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., adorably. Then, with a sigh, "Dorian, what shall I wear?"
He doesn"t answer. For the moment he is engrossed, being deep in his "Times," busy studying the murders, divorces, Irish atrocities, and other pleasantries it contains.
"Dorian, do put down that abominable paper," exclaims she again, impatiently, leaning her arms on the table, and regarding him anxiously from the right side of the very forward urn that still will come in her way. "What shall I wear?"
"It can"t matter," says Dorian: "you look lovely in everything, so it is impossible for you to make a mistake."
"It is a pity you can"t talk sense,"--reproachfully. Then, with a glance literally heavy with care, "There is that tea-green satin trimmed with Chantilly."
"I forget it," says Dorian, professing the very deepest interest, "but I know it is all things."
"No, it isn"t: I can"t bear the sleeves. Then"--discontentedly--"there is that velvet."
"The very thing,"--enthusiastically.
"Oh, Dorian, dear! What are you thinking of? Do remember how warm the weather is."
"Well, so it is,--grilling," says Mr. Brans...o...b.., n.o.bly confessing his fault.
"Do you like me in that olive silk?" asks she, hopefully, gazing at him with earnest intense eyes.