“Do you?” said Laura, with a faint smile. “Do you really suppose that it will make any difference to my future life whether I am married on a rainy day or on a fine one? I rather like the idea of going out of the dullness into the sunshine, for I know our wedded life will be full of sunshine.”
“How confident you are,” exclaimed Celia, wonderingly.
“What have I to fear? We love each other dearly. How can we fail to be happy?”
“That’s all very well, but I should have been easier in my mind if you had had a wedding gown. Think how awkward it will be, by-and-bye, when you are asked to dinner parties. As a bride you will be expected to appear in ivory satin and orange blossoms. People will hardly believe in you.”
“How many dinner parties are likely to be given within ten miles of Hazlehurst during the next six months?” asked Laura.
“Not many, I admit,” sighed Celia. “One might as well live on the Gold Coast, or at some remote station in Bengal. Of course, papa and mamma will give a dinner in your honour, and Miss Sampson will ask you to tea. Oh, Miss Sampson’s teas, with the tea and coffee handed round on an electroplated salver, and Rosellen’s Reverie in G on the cracked old piano, and vingt et un at the loo-table, and anchovy sandwiches, blancmange, and jelly to wind up the wild dissipations of the evening. Then there are the county families, bounded on the east by Sir Joshua Parker, and on the north by the Dowager Lady Barker. You will have stately calls from them. Lady Barker will regret that she has left off giving dinner parties since her lamented husband’s death. Lady Parker will square accounts by sending you a card for a garden party next July.”
This conversation took place at half-past eight. At ten the two girls were dressed and ready to drive to the church. Laura looked lovely in her grey silk travelling dress, and grey Gainsborough hat, with its drooping ostrich plume.
“One thing I can honestly say, from the bottom of my heart,” exclaimed Celia, and Laura turned to her with a smile, expecting to hear something interesting; “you have out and away the handsomest ostrich feather I ever saw in my life. You may leave it to me in your will if you like. I’m sure I took trouble enough to get it; and you ought to be grateful to me for getting your hat to match your gown so exactly.”
And now they are driving along the muddy road, between bare ranks of dark and dripping trees, and under as dull and colourless a sky as ever roofed in Hazlehurst. The old church, with its queer corners and darksome side-aisles, its curious gallery pews in front of the organ, something like boxes at a theatre, where the aristocracy sit in privileged retirement, its hatchments, its old-fashioned pulpit, reading-desk, and clerk’s desk, its faded crimson cushions and draperies—a church which the restorer’s hand has never improved, for whose adornment no devout ladies have toiled and striven, the dull old-world parish church of the last century—looked its darkest and gloomiest today. Not even the presence of youth and beauty could brighten and enliven it.
John Treverton, and Mr. Sampson, who was to give the bride away, were the last to arrive. The bridegroom was deadly pale, and the smile with which he met his bride, though full of fondest love, was wanting in gladness. Celia performed her duty as bridesmaid in a businesslike way, worthy of the highest praise. Mr. Clare read the service deliberately and well, the pale bridegroom spoke out manfully when his time came; nor did Laura’s low voice falter when she pronounced the words that sealed her fate.
The wedding breakfast was quietly cheerful. That the bridegroom should have very little to say, and that the bride should be pale and thoughtful, surprised no one. The vicar and the lawyer were in excellent spirits; Celia’s lively tongue chimed in at every opportunity. Mrs. Clare was full of friendly anticipations about what the young couple would do when they settled down. The dull, damp morning had sharpened people’s appetites, and there was a good deal said in praise of the game pie, and the truffled turkey; while the old wines that had been brought forth, mantled in cobwebs, from the dark recesses of Jasper Treverton’s cellar, were good enough to evolve faint flashes of wit from the most sluggish brain. Thus the wedding breakfast, which had the air of a small family gathering, went off pleasantly enough.
The bride and bridegroom were not to start on their travels till after dark. They were going northward by the mail, on their way to Dover.
Very little had been said about the honeymoon. It was only vaguely understood that John Treverton and his wife were going to the South of France. The vicar had to hurry off soon after breakfast, to read the funeral service over the coffin of a venerable parishioner, and the rest of the company took their departure as a signal to disperse. There was nothing to detain them. This marriage was not as other marriages. There were to be no evening revels, there was no dazzling array of wedding gifts to stare at and talk about. Laura had so few friends that her wedding presents could have been reckoned on the fingers of the little white hand that looked so strange and wonderful in her eyes, glorified with a brand new ring, a broad and solid band of gold, strong enough to wear till her golden wedding. The few guests felt that there was nothing more for them to do but to take their leave, with much reiteration of good wishes, and cheery anticipations of the festivities which were to enliven the old house, when the honeymoon should have waned.
And now all were gone; the brief winter day was closing, the new year was coming
