That was only a poor wedding that Jean Marais, with a bright spot in
each of his sallow cheeks and a wild look in his dark eyes, gazed down
upon from the gloomy old gallery of the church; only a quiet wedding
that those two eager eyes had gazed upon, when their crippled owner had
climbed slowly and laboriously up to the gallery to watch unseen, while
the ceremony was performed which gave Lucy Grey to her happy husband;
but beneath those wild eyes there were convulsed features, cracked and
quivering lips.
And the lark? He bore his treasure with him, the bird she had loved to
hear; it nestled in his breast, and a stall-keeper hard by took charge
of the cage. And there watched Jean unseen, while Lucy, turning her
eyes upon her husband, accompanied him into the vestry.
Then below in the nave there was the buzz of expectation as the party
came from the vestry--Lucy, blushing and fair, leaning upon the curate's
arm; and he, proud of the treasure he had won, walking happy and elate
by her side. But it was only a poor wedding--poor in the show that was
made and in those who assembled; for Bennett's-rents was empty that
morning, and Mrs Sims' sniff was heard again and again, just inside the
chancel; while the only wonder was that some of the children gathered
together were not crushed beneath the wheels of the conveyances.
It was only a poor affair, but there was a light in many a face there
that would have outshone the glories of a fashionable wedding. Even
Mrs Septimus forgot her troubles, and confided more than once to Aunt
Fanny that she thought her complaint had got the turn.
But there knelt Jean the cripple, alone in the gallery, till the last
looker-on had left, the last wheel rolled from the gate, and a sad
stillness had fallen upon the empty church, when, with a bitter,
heart-wrung cry, the young man crouched lower and lower, burying his
face in his hands. Then he slowly rose, and taking his crutch,
painfully made his way towards the narrow door, his looks worn and
weary, but with a strange light in his eye.
Pausing at length in the busy street, he took from his breast the bird
he had so long tended, and started slightly, but with a bitter smile
upon his lips, for in his emotion he had crushed the poor thing, and it
panted feebly, with half-closed eye and open beak; but Jean only smiled.
And with the same sad look he replaced the bird in his bosom, and then
slowly and laboriously crept along, side by side, with the hurrying
stream of passengers. Toiling on slowly and patiently, his crutch
sounding loudly upon the pavement, with the same bitter look fixed as it
were upon his lip, Jean Marais slowly toiled on till he was lost in the
crowd.
Only a poor wedding; but Aunt Fanny was there, laughing and crying by
turns, and vowing that she heard every word of the service, and that
Arthur never spoke out so well before. And what a dress the old lady
wore! surely no poplin ever before displayed such plaits; and then,
forgetful of dress, plaits, muslin, everything, was it not a treat to
see her take Lucy to her warm old heart when they had returned to
Essex-street, as the fair girl knelt at her feet, the large eyes gazing
up so appealingly, and seeming to say--"Don't despise me for being so
humble!" But, there; had she been a princess, she could have had no
warmer nook in the old dame's heart, for was not Arthur happy? And then
those arms, that of old lay so placidly across her black-silk apron--
worn even at the return from the wedding, and brought in a reticule--
became restless to a degree, ever animated by the desire to embrace her
children.
Did she love Lucy? Had not Arthur, the wisest of men, chosen her? and
did not that spread such a mantle of holiness around the maiden that,
even had Aunt Fanny never seen her, she would have battled for her to
the death? Would he have chosen any but the purest and noblest of
heart? she asked herself again and again. So she divided her love
between them, and then, upon the return from church, laughed and cried
by turns; for, said she, "I must leave poor Arty now."
Arthur Sterne was silent, but he smiled as he saw two soft round arms
circle Aunt Fanny's neck, prisoning her as their owner whispered words
whose import he could guess.
A quiet repast, and a short interval of preparation before the start for
a trip, only some miles from town, an easy drive, for a few days' visit
to where the sweet breath of the country blew; and then the elders
standing at the door watching the departing vehicle, and the waving
hands, as the wheels rattled along the echoing street; and then
upstairs, for Aunt Fanny and Mrs Septimus to talk of their children,
while Septimus Hardon roamed the streets.
"O, the bright lovely country!" cried Lucy, as the carriage rolled on
between hedgerows here and there silvered with the scented May, whose
fragrance was borne by the light breeze through the open windows. "O,
the bright lovely country!" she cried; "am I not foolish, Arthur?" she
sobbed; "but the tears will come, for I feel that this happiness cannot
last!"
The word "Arthur" was spoken hesitatingly, as if it were strange to her
lips, and she hardly dared to use it; her eyes were fixed for a moment
upon those of her husband, and then she glided down to the bottom of the
fly and kneeled at his feet, as he fondly parted the hair upon her broad
forehead.
"You are not angry with me for being so childish?" she murmured.
"Angry!" he replied, and the tone in which he said that word was
sufficient.
"Don't think me foolish," she said; "but let us walk a little here,
where the grass borders the road; for it seems wrong to hurry past the
lovely green trees, after the close misery of London. They are new to
me, Arthur; and look! look! there are flowers, and birds; and see how
the bright sunshine dances amongst the leaves. But, there," she said
sadly; "you smile at my folly, and forget what all this is to me, after
years of prisoning London."
But the next minute the fly had stopped, and, relieved of its load,
resumed its way; and, happy and proud, Arthur Sterne looked down upon
his newly-wedded wife, elate to see the pure, intense love of all that
was beautiful in nature which emanated from this escaped prisoner of
life; while Lucy was divided between delight of the scene around her,
and reproach for her so-called indifference towards her husband. And so
they walked, inhaling the sweets of the early summer afternoon, and
finding in them joys known only to those who have escaped but freshly
from the great City's miseries. And still on and on, almost in silence,
enveloped as they were in the happiness of the present.
"Listen!" cried Lucy, as she stopped suddenly, and laid a finger upon
her husband's lip--a finger now white and delicate, once fretted and
work-worn. "Listen!" she whispered, "and close your eyes. Might not
that be poor Jean's lark?" and then both stood listening, as in those
days of the past, when their prisoned souls had gazed up eagerly into
the bright blue sky, and they had drunk in the pure gushing lay of the
speckled songster.
"Tears, more tears, Lucy?" whispered the curate. "Are you not happy?"
No words came for a reply, nothing but a look; as the bright eyes
brimmed over, and a sob rose from the burdened heart.
"It seems too much--as if it could not last," whispered Lucy; "and that
song brought back so many sorrows, dear--the court, and so much of the
past. But you will forgive me, Arthur?"
Again the same hesitating speech, as if it were an assumption upon her
part to call him by his name, and she half dreaded rebuke.
"What does the driver want?" said Mr Sterne; for the man was shouting
and making signs.
By the time they had overtaken the vehicle, the man had dismounted and
was by the bank, stooping over a reclining figure; and on approaching
nearer, the curate recognised the cripple, Jean, lying apparently
asleep, holding his lark to his lips, while his crutch was by his side.
But if the master slept, it was not so with the bird; for its soft
feathers were ruffled, its wings half-open, and the lids drawn partly
over the little dark, bead-like eyes; the crest lay smooth, the
throat-feathers rose not, the wings had fluttered for the last time; the
bright, gushing lay would thrill through prisoned hearts in
Bennett's-rents no more--the lark was dead.
And its master? To get one more look, one farewell glance, he had
toiled wearily on, mile after mile, towards the village where he had
heard they would rest; and on he pressed, with a strength evoked by the
despair of his heart, till he had sat down to rest by the wayside and
sunk back exhausted.
In an instant Lucy was upon her knees by his side and had raised his
head, while her husband's hand was in the cripple's breast. Then he
slowly opened his eyes and stared wildly round till they rested upon her
who supported his head, when his features softened, and a smile came
once more upon his lips as they seemed to part to form the words
"Good-bye!"
And then slowly and imperceptibly the smile faded from his lip, the
light from his eye; and as they gazed upon him, a cold sternness stole
over the poor youth's countenance, till, with agony depicted in her
every feature, Lucy looked up appealingly at her husband.
But Jean was dead--passed away; for he had toiled through the streets,
nerved by a stern determination--a wild despair--on through the suburbs,
and so out into the country; the one purpose always in his mind--to be
where she would come once more; on still, slowly, painfully, hour after
hour, till he sank exhausted, to die of a ruptured blood-vessel.
And still, of a summer's evening, may the lounger in the great streets
of the West come upon a knot of idlers; and, pausing for a few moments,
listen to divers sharply-uttered commands given in French to a pair of
wretched poodles; who fetch and carry, rise erect, and march about with
aspect doleful and disconsolate, till a few of the bystanders drop
halfpence in the basket one of the dogs carries in his mouth. Then a
fresh pitch is made; the performance again gone through; and then on
again; on after _ma mere_ of the sharp and eager look--the harsh,
cracked voice; on again, with drooping ears and tail--unlionlike of
aspect; on again, perhaps to cast a look of envy at some free and
rollicking idle dog, or of condolence at the miserable sharp-eyed monkey
performing on the table, rapid in every moment, but more rapid in the
glance of its little dark, blow-watching eye. And at last, when the
streets grow thin of passengers, and the dogs tired and blundering, home
to the court where they dwell--a court yet standing, though
Bennett's-rents is no more; another court, where the flags lie broken,
and the refuse-choked channel festers with the water from the hard-used
pump; where the children revel by day in the dirt and filth, and Death
oft and oft again beckons the undertaker to come with his shambling
horse and shabby Shillibeer-hearse; where the pigeons cluster upon the
housetops and coo at daybreak, and then circle in flights, while men of
the Jarker stamp urge them on. Home, to another old house, and up the
groaning stairs, where even by night the twittering of birds can be
heard in lodgers' rooms--prisoners dwelling in a prison within a prison;
here, too, the click of a sewing-machine--patent--man's make; there, the
sigh of a sewing-machine--not patent--God's make; and up the rickety
stairs to another attic, where cages hang--empty cages, kept because
they were those of Jean; where the crutch stands in the corner beneath
the lark's home, brought back by the neighbour who keeps a stall, but
empty too: canaries, linnets, finches, passed away; while the lark lies
upon the breast of its master--the cripple Jean--and the turf grows
green above his resting-place at Highgate.
"_En avant--venez donc--mes chiens_! Home!" though it be not
Bennett's-rents.
Volume Three, Chapter XIX.