There is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No
other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal
sensation amongst the humbler classes.
From the moment the news had spread throughout the village that Miss
Jemima was to be married, all the old affection for the Squire and
his House burst forth the stronger for its temporary suspension. Who
could think of the Stocks in such a season? They were swept out of
fashion--hunted from remembrance as completely as the question of
Repeal or the thought of Rebellion from the warm Irish heart, when the
fair young face of the Royal Wife beamed on the sister isle.
Again cordial curtseys were dropped at the thresholds by which the
Squire passed to his home farm; again the sun-burnt brows uncovered--no
more with sullen ceremony--were smoothed into cheerful gladness
at his nod. Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their
ancient rendezvous by the Stocks, as if either familiarised with the
Phenomenon, or convinced that, in the general sentiment of good-will,
its powers of evil were annulled.
The Squire tasted once more the sweets of the only popularity which is
much worth having, and the loss of which a wise man would reasonably
deplore; viz., the popularity which arises from a persuasion of our
goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings,
the more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the Squire enjoyed
this restored popularity with an exhilarated sense of existence;
his stout heart beat more vigorously; his stalwart step trod more
lightly; his comely English face looked comelier and more English than
ever;--you would have been a merrier man for a week to have come within
hearing of his jovial laugh.
He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the special agents of
Providence in this general _integratio amoris_. To have looked at him,
you would suppose that it was the Squire who was going to be married a
second time to his Harry!
One may well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious
moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples. To have stopped that
marriage--chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village--seen
himself surrounded again by long sulky visages,--I verily believe,
though a better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings,
that, rather than court such a revulsion, the Squire would have found
jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered
to be the Pope in disguise! As for the Stocks, their fate was now
irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded--first
privately, according to the bridegroom's creed, by a Roman Catholic
clergyman, who lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the
village church of Hazeldean.
It was the heartiest rural wedding! Village girls strewed flowers on
the way;--a booth was placed amidst the prettiest scenery of the Park,
on the margin of the lake--for there was to be a dance later in the
day;--an ox was roasted whole. Even Mr Stirn--no, Mr Stirn was _not_
present, so much happiness would have been the death of him! And the
Papisher too, who had conjured Lenny out of the Stocks; nay, who had
himself sate in the Stocks for the very purpose of bringing them into
contempt--the Papisher! he had as lief Miss Jemima had married the
devil! Indeed he was persuaded that, in point of fact, it was all one
and the same. Therefore Mr Stirn had asked leave to go and attend his
uncle the pawnbroker, about to undergo a torturing operation for the
stone! Frank was there, summoned from Eton for the occasion--having
grown two inches taller since he left--for the one inch of which
nature was to be thanked, for the other a new pair of resplendent
Wellingtons. But the boy's joy was less apparent than that of others.
For Jemima was a special favourite with him, as she would have, been
with all boys--for she was always kind and gentle, and made many pretty
presents whenever she came from the watering-places. And Frank knew
that he should miss her sadly, and thought she had made a very queer
choice.
Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but, to the astonishment of
Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself,
marked "_private and confidential_." 'She must have long known,' said
the letter, 'of his devoted attachment to her; motives of delicacy,
arising from the narrowness of his income, and the magnanimity of his
sentiments, had alone prevented his formal proposals; but now that
she was informed (he could scarcely believe his senses, or command
his passions) that her relations wished to force her into a BARBAROUS
marriage with a foreigner Of MOST FORBIDDING APPEARANCE, and most
_abject circumstances_, he lost not a moment in laying at her feet his
own hand and fortune. And he did this the more confidently, inasmuch
as he could not but be aware of Miss Jemima's SECRET feelings towards
him, while he was _proud_ and _happy_ to say, that his dear and
distinguished cousin, Mr Sharpe Currie, had honoured him with a warmth
of regard, which justified the most _brilliant_ EXPECTATIONS--likely
to be _soon_ realised--as his eminent relative had contracted a _very
bad liver complaint_ in the service of his country, and could not last
long!'.
In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, strange as it
may appear, had never once suspected the Captain of any other feelings
to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by
learning her mistake, would be to say that she was more than woman.
Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that
she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca,
by a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the
rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the Captain
evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter,
and did not come to the wedding.
To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss Jemima, Captain
Higginbotham was much less influenced by Cupid than by Plutus in the
offer he had made. The Captain was one of that class of gentlemen who
read their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps,
called _expectations_. Ever since the Squire's grandfather had left
him--then in short clothes--a legacy of £500, the Captain had peopled
the future with expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man
talks of shares in a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little--be now
up and now down--but it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but
that he should be a _millionnaire_ one of these days. Now, though Miss
Jemima was a good fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always
stood for a good round sum in the ghostly books of the Captain. She was
an _expectation_ to the full amount of her £4000, seeing that Frank was
an only child, and it would be carrying coals to Newmarket to leave
_him_ anything.
Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly spunged out of his
visionary ledger--rather than so much money should vanish clean out
of the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if
a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his
property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer,
why, he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to
himself an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over.
The blow was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the
covetous, though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And
leaving poor Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as
he best may among 'the expectations' which gathered round the form of
Mr Sharpe Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never
allowed at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played
Old Nick with the Captain's constitutional functions,--I return to the
wedding at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked
singularly well on the occasion--hand the bride (who, between sunshiny
tears and affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even
a pretty bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the Squire had
presented to them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst
the blessings of the assembled crowd.
It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural
spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a
Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner;
but, besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the
neighbourhood, and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman," it is
generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolises
interest, curiosity, and admiration, that the bridegroom himself
goes for little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the
affair--the unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not
Riccabocca himself that they approved and blessed--it was the gentleman
in the white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima--Madam Rickeybockey!
Leaning on his wife's arm, (for it was a habit of the Squire to lean on
his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased;
and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy
frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the
frail arm of woman,)--leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the Squire,
about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake.
All the parish--young and old, man, woman, and child--were assembled
there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the
common emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank fatherly
smile. Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he
filled a horn with ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he
looked round, and lifted his hand to request silence; and, ascending
the chair, rose in full view of all. Every one felt that the Squire
was about to make a speech, and the earnestness of the attention
was proportioned to the rarity of the event; for (though he was not
unpractised in the oratory of the hustings) only thrice before had the
Squire made what could fairly be called "a speech" to the villagers of
Hazeldean--once on a kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to
them his bride--once in a contested election for the shire, in which
he took more than ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he
ought to have been--once in a time of great agricultural distress,
when, in spite of reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled
to discard a large number of their customary labourers; and when the
Squire had said,--"I have given up keeping the hounds, because I want
to make a fine piece of water, (that was the origin of the lake,) and
to drain all the low lands round the park. Let every man who wants work
come to me!" And that sad year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a
penny the more.
Now, for the fourth time, the Squire rose, and thus he spoke. At his
right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank. At the bottom of the table, as
vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely
seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her
eyes.