"You should not say that, Marion; you shall not think it. I am ungrateful; because, were it given me to have it all back again, I would not sell what I have had of you, though the possession has been so limited, for all other imaginable treasures. I will bear it. Oh, my love, I will bear it. Do not say again that you wish you had not seen me."
"For myself, dear,--for myself--"
"Do not say it for me. I will struggle to make a joy of it, a joy in some degree, though my heart bleeds at the widowhood that is coming on it. I will build up for myself a memory in which there shall be much to satisfy me. I shall have been loved by her to have possessed whose love has been and shall be a glory to me."
"Loved indeed, my darling."
"Though there might have been such a heaven of joy, even that shall be counted as much. It shall be to me during my future life as though when wandering through the green fields in some long-past day, I had met a bright angel from another world; and the angel had stopped to speak to me, and had surrounded me with her glorious wings, and had given me of her heavenly light, and had spoken to me with the music of the spheres, and I had thought that she would stay with me for ever. But there had come a noise of the drums and a sound of the trumpets, and she had flown away from me up to her own abode. To have been so favoured, though it had been but for an hour, should suffice for a man"s life. I will bear it, though it be in solitude."
"No, darling; not in solitude."
"It will be best so for me. The light and the music and the azure of the wings will so remain with me the purer and the brighter. Oh,--if it had been! But I will bear it. No ear shall again hear a sound of complaint. Not yours even, my darling, my own, mine for so short a time, but yet my very own for ever and ever." Then he fell on his knees beside her, and hid his face in her dress, while the fingers of both her hands rambled through his hair. "You are going," he said, when he rose up to his feet, "you are going whither I cannot go."
"You will come; you will come to me."
"You are going now, now soon, and I doubt not that you are going to joys inexpressible. I cannot go till some chance may take me. If it be given to you in that further world to see those and to think of those whom you have left below, then, if my heart be true to your heart, keep your heart true to mine. If I can fancy that, if I can believe that it is so, then shall I have that angel with me, and though my eyes may not see the tints, my ears will hear the music;--and though the glory be not palpable as is the light of heaven, there will be an inner glory in which my soul will be sanctified." After that there were not many words spoken between them, though he remained there till he was disturbed by the Quaker"s coming. Part of the time she slept with her hand in his, and when awake she was contented to feel his touch as he folded the scarf close round her neck and straightened the shawl which lay across her feet, and now and again stroked her hair and put it back behind her ears as it strayed upon her forehead. Ever and again she would murmur a word or two of love as she revelled in the perception of his solicitude. What was there for her to regret, for her to whom was given the luxury of such love? Was not a month of it more than a whole life without it? Then, when the father came, Hampstead took his leave. As he kissed her lips, something seemed to tell him that it would be for the last time. It was not good, the Quaker had said, that she should be disturbed. Yes; he could come again; but not quite yet.
At the very moment when the Quaker so spoke she was pressing her lips to his. "G.o.d keep you and take you, my darling," she whispered to him, "and bring you to me in heaven." She noticed not at all at the moment the warm tears that were running on to her own face; nor did the Quaker seem to notice it when Lord Hampstead left the house without saying to him a word of farewell.
CHAPTER XVII.
LADY AMALDINA"S WEDDING.
The time came round for Lady Amaldina"s marriage, than which nothing more august, nothing more aristocratic, nothing more truly savouring of the hymeneal altar, had ever been known or was ever to be known in the neighbourhood of Hanover Square. For it was at last decided that the marriage should take place in London before any of the aristocratic a.s.sistants at the ceremony should have been whirled away into autumnal s.p.a.ces. Lord Llwddythlw himself knew but very little about it,--except this, that nothing would induce him so to hurry on the ceremony as to interfere with his Parliamentary duties. A day in August had been mentioned in special reference to Parliament. He was willing to abide by that, or to go to the sacrifice at any earlier day of which Parliament would admit. Parliament was to sit for the last time on Wednesday, 12th August, and the marriage was fixed for the 13th. Lady Amaldina had prayed for the concession of a week.
Readers will not imagine that she based her prayers on the impatience of love. Nor could a week be of much significance in reference to that protracted and dangerous delay to which the match had certainly been subjected. But the bevy might escape. How were twenty young ladies to be kept together in the month of August when all the young men were rushing off to Scotland? Others were not wedded to their duties as was Lord Llwddythlw. Lady Amaldina knew well how completely Parliament became a mere affair of Governmental necessities during the first weeks of August. "I should have thought that just on this one occasion you might have managed it," she said to him, trying to mingle a tone of love with the sarcasm which at such a crisis was natural to her. He simply reminded her of the promise which he had made to her in the spring. He thought it best not to break through arrangements which had been fixed. When she told him of one very slippery member of the bevy,--slippery, not as to character, but in reference to the movements of her family,--he suggested that no one would know the difference if only nineteen were to be cl.u.s.tered round the bride"s train. "Don"t you know that they must be in pairs?"
"Will not nine pairs suffice?" he asked. "And thus make one of them an enemy for ever by telling her that I wish to dispense with her services!"
But it was of no use. "Dispense with them altogether," he said, looking her full in the face. "The twenty will not quarrel with you. My object is to marry you, and I don"t care twopence for the bridesmaids." There was something so near to a compliment in this, that she was obliged to accept it. And she had, too, begun to perceive that Lord Llwddythlw was a man not easily made to change his mind. She was quite prepared for this in reference to her future life. A woman, she thought, might be saved much trouble by having a husband whom she was bound to obey. But in this matter of her marriage ceremony,--this last affair in which she might be presumed to act as a free woman,--she did think it hard that she might not be allowed to have her own way. The bridegroom, however, was firm.
If Thursday, the 13th, did not suit her, he would be quite ready on Thursday, the 20th. "There wouldn"t be one of them left in London,"
said Lady Amaldina. "What on earth do you think that they are to do with themselves?"
But all the bevy were true to her. Lady Amelia Beaudesert was a difficulty. Her mother insisted on going to a far-away Bavarian lake on which she had a villa;--but Lady Amelia at the last moment surrendered the villa rather than break up the bevy, and consented to remain with a grumpy old aunt in Ess.e.x till an opportunity should offer. It may be presumed, therefore, that it was taken to be a great thing to be one of the bevy. It is, no doubt, a pleasant thing for a girl to have it a.s.serted in all the newspapers that she is, by acknowledgment, one of the twenty most beautiful unmarried ladies in Great Britain.
Lady Frances was of course one of the bevy. But there was a member of the family,--a connection rather,--whom no eloquence could induce to show himself either in the church or at the breakfast. This was Lord Hampstead. His sister came to him and a.s.sured him that he ought to be there. "Sorrows," she said, "that have declared themselves before the world are held as sufficient excuse; but a man should not be hindered from his duties by secret grief."
"I make no secret of it. I do not talk about my private affairs. I do not send a town-crier to Charing Cross to tell the pa.s.sers-by that I am in trouble. But I care not whether men know or not that I am unfitted for joining in such festivities. My presence is not wanted for their marriage."
"It will be odd."
"Let it be odd. I most certainly shall not be there." But he remembered the occasion, and showed that he did so by sending to the bride the handsomest of all the gems which graced her exhibition of presents, short of the tremendous set of diamonds which had come from the Duke of Merioneth.
This collection was supposed to be the most gorgeous thing that had ever as yet been arranged in London. It would certainly not be too much to say that the wealth of precious toys brought together would, if sold at its cost price, have made an ample fortune for a young newly-married couple. The families were n.o.ble and wealthy, and the richness of the wedding presents was natural. It might perhaps have been better had not the value of the whole been stated in one of the newspapers of the day. Who was responsible for the valuation was never known, but it seemed to indicate that the costliness of the gifts was more thought of than the affection of the givers; and it was undoubtedly true that, in high circles and among the clubs, the cost of the collection was much discussed. The diamonds were known to a stone, and Hampstead"s rubies were spoken of almost as freely as though they were being exhibited in public. Lord Llwddythlw when he heard of all this muttered to his maiden sister a wish that a gnome would come in the night and run away with everything. He felt himself degraded by the publicity given to his future wife"s ornaments. But the gnome did not come, and the young men from Messrs. Bijou and Carcanet were allowed to arrange the tables and shelves for the exhibition.
The breakfast was to take place at the Foreign Office, at which the bride"s father was for the time being the chief occupant. Lord Persiflage had not at first been willing that it should be so, thinking that his own more modest house might suffice for the marriage of his own daughter. But grander counsels had been allowed to prevail. With whom the idea first arose Lord Persiflage never knew. It might probably have been with some of the bevy, who had felt that an ordinary drawing-room would hardly suffice for so magnificent an array of toilets. Perhaps the thought had first occurred to Messrs. Bijou and Carcanet, who had foreseen the glory of spreading out all that wealth in the magnificent saloon intended for the welcoming of amba.s.sadors. But it travelled from Lady Amaldina to her mother, and was pa.s.sed on from Lady Persiflage to her husband. "Of course the Amba.s.sadors will all be there," the Countess had said, "and, therefore, it will be a public occasion." "I wish we could be married at Llanfihangel," Lord Llwddythlw said to his bride. Now Llanfihangel church was a very small edifice, with a thatched roof, among the mountains in North Wales, with which Lady Amaldina had been made acquainted when visiting the d.u.c.h.ess, her future mother-in-law.
But Llwddythlw was not to have his way in everything, and the preparations at the Foreign Office were continued.
The beautifully embossed invitations were sent about among a large circle of n.o.ble and aristocratic friends. All the Amba.s.sadors and all the Ministers, with all their wives and daughters, were, of course, asked. As the breakfast was to be given in the great Banqueting Hall at the Foreign Office it was necessary that the guests should be many. It is sometimes well in a matter of festivals to be saved from extravagance by the modest size of one"s rooms. Lord Persiflage told his wife that his daughter"s marriage would ruin him. In answer to this she reminded him that Llwddythlw had asked for no fortune. Lord Llwddythlw was one of those men who prefer giving to taking. He had a feeling that a husband should supply all that was wanted, and that a wife should owe everything to the man she marries. The feeling is uncommon just at present,--except with the millions who neither have nor expect other money than what they earn. If you are told that the daughter of an old man who has earned his own bread is about to marry a young man in the same condition of life, it is spoken of as a misfortune. But Lord Llwddythlw was old-fashioned, and had the means of acting in accordance with his prejudices. Let the marriage be ever so gorgeous, it would not cost the dowry which an Earl"s daughter might have expected. That was the argument used by Lady Persiflage, and it seemed to have been effectual.
As the day drew near it was observed that the bridegroom became more sombre and silent even than usual. He never left the House of Commons as long as it was open to him as a refuge. His Sat.u.r.days and his Sundays and his Wednesdays he filled up with work so various and unceasing that there was no time left for those pretty little attentions which a girl about to be married naturally expects. He did call, perhaps, every other day at his bride"s house, but never remained there above two minutes. "I am afraid he is not happy," the Countess said to her daughter.
"Oh, yes, mamma, he is."
"Then why does he go on like that?"
"Oh, mamma, you do not know him."
"Do you?"
"I think so. My belief is that there isn"t a man in London so anxious to be married as Llwddythlw."
"I am glad of that."
"He has lost so much time that he knows it ought to be got through and done with without further delay. If he could only go to sleep and wake up a married man of three months" standing, he would be quite happy. If it could be administered under chloroform it would be so much better! It is the doing of the thing, and the being talked about and looked at, that is so odious to him."
"Then why not have had it done quietly, my dear?"
"Because there are follies, mamma, to which a woman should never give way. I will not have myself made humdrum. If I had been going to marry a handsome young man so as to have a spice of romance out of it all, I would have cared nothing about the bridesmaids and the presents. The man then would have stood for everything. Llwddythlw is not young, and is not handsome."
"But he is thoroughly n.o.ble."
"Quite so. He"s as good as gold. He will always be somebody in people"s eyes because he"s great and grand and trustworthy all round.
But I want to be somebody in people"s eyes, too, mamma. I"m all very well to look at, but nothing particular. I"m papa"s daughter, which is something,--but not enough. I mean to begin and be magnificent. He understands it all, and I don"t think he"ll oppose me when once this exhibition day is over. I"ve thought all about it, and I think that I know what I"m doing."
At any rate, she had her way, and thoroughly enjoyed the task she had on hand. When she had talked of a possible romance with a handsome young lover she had not quite known herself. She might have made the attempt, but it would have been a failure. She could fall in love with a Master of Ravenswood in a novel, but would have given herself by preference,--after due consideration,--to the richer, though less poetical, suitor. Of good sterling gifts she did know the value, and was therefore contented with her lot. But this business of being married, with all the most extravagant appurtenances of the hymeneal altar, was to her taste.
That picture in one of the ill.u.s.trated papers which professed to give the hymeneal altar at St. George"s, with the Bishop and the Dean and two Queen"s Chaplains officiating, and the bride and the bridegroom in all their glory, with a Royal Duke and a Royal d.u.c.h.ess looking on, with all the Stars and all the Garters from our own and other Courts, and especially with the bevy of twenty, standing in ten distinct pairs, and each from a portrait, was manifestly a work of the imagination. I was there, and to tell the truth, it was rather a huddled matter. The s.p.a.ces did not seem to admit of majestic grouping, and as three of these chief personages had the gout, the sticks of these lame gentlemen were to my eyes very conspicuous. The bevy had not room enough, and the ladies in the crush seemed to feel the intense heat. Something had made the Bishop cross. I am told that Lady Amaldina had determined not to be hurried, while the Bishop was due at an afternoon meeting at three. The artist, in creating the special work of art, had soared boldly into the ideal. In depicting the buffet of presents and the bridal feast, he may probably have been more accurate. I was not myself present. The youthful appearance of the bridegroom as he rose to make his speech may probably be attributed to a poetic license, permissible, nay laudable, nay necessary on such an occasion. The buffet of presents no doubt was all there; though it may be doubted whether the contributions from Royalty were in truth so conspicuous as they were made to appear.
There were speeches spoken by two or three Foreign Ministers, and one by the bride"s father. But the speech which has created most remark was from the bridegroom. "I hope we may be as happy as your kind wishes would have us," said he;--and then he sat down. It was declared afterwards that these were the only words which pa.s.sed his lips on the occasion. To those who congratulated him he merely gave his hand and bowed, and yet he looked to be neither fluttered nor ill at ease. We know how a brave man will sit and have his tooth taken out, without a sign of pain on his brow,--trusting to the relief which is to come to him. So it was with Lord Llwddythlw. It might, perhaps, have saved pain if, as Lady Amaldina had said, chloroform could have been used.
"Well, my dear, it is done at last," Lady Persiflage said to her daughter, when the bride was taken into some chamber for the readjustment of her dress.
"Yes, mamma, it is done now."
"And are you happy?"
"Certainly I am. I have got what I wanted."
"And you can love him?" Coming from Lady Persiflage this did seem to be romantic; but she had been stirred up to some serious thoughts as she remembered that she was now surrendering to a husband the girl whom she had made, whom she had tutored, whom she had prepared either for the good or for the evil performance of the duties of life.
"Oh, yes, mamma," said Lady Amaldina. It is so often the case that the pupils are able to exceed the teaching of their tutors! It was so in this case. The mother, as she saw her girl given up to a silent middle-aged unattractive man, had her misgivings; but not so the daughter herself. She had looked at it all round, and had resolved that she could do her duty--under certain stipulations which she thought would be accorded to her. "He has more to say for himself than you think;--only he won"t trouble himself to make a.s.sertions.
And if he is not very much in love, he likes me better than anybody else, which goes a long way." Her mother blessed her, and led her away into a room where she joined her husband in order that she might be then taken down to the carriage.
The bride herself had not quite understood what was to take place, and was surprised to find herself quite alone for a moment with her husband. "My wife," he said; "now kiss me."
She ran into his arms and put up her face to him. "I thought you were going to forget that," she said, as he held her for a moment with his arm round her waist.