A Bride of a Summer’s Day
By Catherine Louisa Pirkis.
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I
Crash went the bells from All Saints tower; “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” jangled the bells of old Saint Clement’s in response; and then All Saints fired off its volley again.
The crowd parted, the children scattered their flowers, and the bride passed out of the church leaning on the arm of her newly-made husband.
Very fair to look at was this bride. She was tall and slender in figure, and owned to features that might have been chiselled out of a block of marble, for their faultless regularity. Her complexion was a pure white, with scarce a vestige of colour. Hair of a bright, dark brown; eyes of a deep grey, overarched with long, sweeping eyebrows, that finished in a delicate line on the temples, completed the picture.
This was Ida, elder daughter of George, fifth Baron Culvers, on the day that she was married to her cousin, Captain Sefton Culvers, late of the Royal Hussars.
Between the bride and bridegroom there was just that amount of likeness that might be expected between such near relatives; that is to say, he owned to a figure as tall and lithe as hers, a nose as straight, eyes as large and luminous. But there likeness ended. The look from the girl’s eyes was clear and straightforward; the look from the man’s was neither the one nor the other, and could the long, dark moustache, which hid the lines and curves of his mouth, have been removed, the receding chin and long, uncleft upper lip, which mark the pleasure-loving, vacillating nature, would at once have stood revealed.
“A very suitable marriage; she has the money, he will have the title,” said certain of the wedding-guests, as they settled themselves in the carriages that were to convey them from the church to the house, two miles out of the town, which had been lent to Lord Culvers for the occasion.
And then they fell to discussing sundry scraps of gossip afloat in society respecting the bride and her family; how that since Lord Culvers’s second marriage, his home had not been exactly a paradise to him, for Ida, in spite of her loveliness, had a temper and a will of her own, and had known how to stand up not only for her own rights, but also for those of her twin-sister, Juliet.
“To think of a man in his position marrying his daughter’s governess and chaperon,” said an elderly dowager, who would not at all have minded being the second Lady Culvers herself.
And from that they drifted on to the discussion of other items in Lord Culvers’s family life, his own placid, easygoing temper as compared with the restless, excitable temperament of his first wife—a temperament which there could not be a doubt she had bequeathed, together with her beauty, to her daughters.
“If they were not beauties and heiresses,” said one, “no one would put up with their odd whims and fancies.”
“To think,” chimed in another, “that Ida chose to be married at Hastings for the whole and sole reason that her mother lies buried in All Saints churchyard! If she had been my daughter I would not have given way to such a ridiculous whim. But there, everyone knows how completely Lord Culvers is ruled by his womenkind.”
Assuredly it seemed an odd fancy for a bride to choose the church for her wedding, for the reason that the funeral service had been read over her mother’s coffin in the chancel of that church, some twenty years back.
A second strange fancy was to be announced by the bride before the day was over.
To the surprise of everyone, when she came downstairs equipped for travelling, in a neat grey dress and hat, her beautiful bouquet of orchids and orange-blossoms was still in her hand.
“What are you going to do with it, Ida?” asked one of the bridesmaids, coming forward; “you surely don’t mean to carry it away with you?”
But that was exactly what she did mean to do. She stooped—for he was a short man—and kissed her father, then she shook hands rather formally with her stepmother, then passed on to her sister, to whom she gave one long kiss, a kiss that was in very truth a farewell and a “Heaven bless you!” though not a word was spoken by either.
It was at the door of the carriage that stood waiting
