A Country Gentleman and His Family

had no mother, but his elder sister was there, who kissed him in her place, and his younger sister, who was a bridesmaid, and hung about Chatty with all a girl’s enthusiasm. What could be more simple, more natural and true? There was no shadow there of any dread, but everything happy, honest, pure. He recovered his soul a little in the midst of that group; though when Geoff with his little sharp face, in which there always seemed more knowledge than belonged to his age, caught his eye, a slight shiver ran over him. He felt as if Geoff knew all about it; and might, for anything he could tell, have some horrible secret to bring forth.

And then they set out again, the husband with his wife on his arm, to go away. The touch of Chatty’s hand on his arm seemed to restore his confidence. She was his, in spite of all that Fate could do⁠—in spite of everything, he thought. They walked together, he feeling more and more the pride and triumph of the moment, she moving softly, still in her dream, yet beginning too to feel the reality, past the altar where they had knelt a little while before, going down the aisle, facing the spectators who still lingered well pleased to see the bride. And then in a moment the blow fell. Someone seemed to rise up before them, out of the ground, out of the vacancy, forming before his horror-stricken eyes. And then there rose that cry which everybody could hear⁠—which paralysed the bridal procession and brought the clergyman startled out of the vestry, and thrilled the careless lookers-on. “He has a wife living. She is living, and she is here!” Had he heard these words before in a dream? Had he known all along that he would hear them, ringing in his ears on his wedding day? “His wife is living⁠—and she is here!”

“What is it? what is it?” cried the wedding guests, crowding upon each other, those who were nearest at least, while those at the end of the procession paused with the smile on their lips to stare and wonder at the sudden disturbance. Chatty was the most self-possessed of all. She said softly: “Lizzie, Lizzie! Something has happened to her,” and put out her disengaged hand in its white glove to raise her from her knees.

“Miss Chatty, it’s you that something has happened to⁠—Oh stop, oh stop! there she is! Don’t⁠—don’t let Miss Chatty go away with him, don’t let her go away with him!” Lizzie cried.

“The woman is mad!” said someone behind. And so it might have been thought; when suddenly those immediately following who had closed up behind Chatty heard the bridegroom’s voice, extremely agitated, yet with a nervous firmness, say audibly: “It is not true. Lizzie, the woman you speak of is dead. I know for certain that she is dead.”

“Look there!” the intruder cried.

And he turned round in the sight of them all, the bride half turning too with the voluntary impulse, and saw behind the sea of anxious wondering faces another, which seemed to float in a mist of horror, from under the half-lifted cloud of a gray veil. He saw this face; and the rest of the wedding guests saw his, blanched with dread and misery, and knew everyone that the marriage was stopped, and Chatty no wife, and he a dishonoured man.

Her eyes had followed his, she had not looked at him, but still held his arm, giving him a support he was incapable of giving her. The face in the background was not unknown to Chatty. She remembered it well, and with what a compunction of pity she had looked at it when she met that poor creature on the road at home, and wanted in her heart to take the lost one to her mother. She did not understand at all what was going on about her, nor what Mrs. Warrender meant, who came closely up behind, and took hold of her arm, detaching her from Dick. “Chatty, let us get home, my darling. Come, come with me. Theo will take us home,” the mother said.

Then Chatty, turning round wondering, saw her bridegroom’s face. She looking at him earnestly for the moment, holding his arm tighter, and then said with a strange, troubled, yet clear voice: “Dick⁠—what does it mean? Dick!”

“Come home, come home, my dearest,” cried Mrs. Warrender, trying to separate them.

“Come back to the vestry, Cavendish,” cried Theo with threatening tones; and then arose a loud murmur of other suggestions, a tumult most unusual, horrifying, yet exciting to the spectators who closed around. The clergyman came out still in his surplice, hurrying towards the spot “Whatever the interruption is,” he said, “don’t stay there, for Heaven’s sake. Come back if you will, or go home, but don’t let us have a disturbance in the church.”

“Chatty, go with my mother. For God’s sake, Frances, get them all away.”

“I will not leave Dick,” said Chatty in her soft voice, “until I know what it is.” She who was so yielding and so simple, she turned round with her own impulse the unhappy young man whose arm she held, and who seemed for the moment incapable of any action of his own, and led him back towards the place from which they had come. The horror had not penetrated sufficiently into Chatty’s mind to do more than pale a little the soft colour in her face. She had grown very serious, looking straight before her, taking no notice of anything. They all followed like so many sheep in her train, the ladies crowding together, Dick’s sister at his other hand, Mrs. Warrender close behind, Lizzie carried along with them, now crying bitterly and wringing her hands, utterly cowed by finding herself in the midst of this perfumed and rustling crowd, amid which her flushed and tear-stained face and humble dress showed to such strange disadvantage. Unnoticed by the rest, Geoff, who had