The Wedding
The day was as gloriously fine as the most exacting of brides could
have wished for, and by noon the company were beginning to assemble.
Some of the fishing boats were away, which was disappointing for
the crews, although it is a little difficult to imagine how one
extra person could have been squeezed into the congregation which
later on crowded the store.
Jervis came over the river very early in the morning, and, with the
help of Miles and Phil, got the store ready to serve as a church
for the occasion. Pails of lard with boards laid across served for
seats in the centre of the floor; barrels of pork, of beans, and of
flour made a sort of dais or high seat all round the walls, on
which the boys and the younger men might be accommodated. Rather a
precarious kind of seat this was, as barrel heads were apt to give
way, and then the luckless individual would be smothered with flour
or bespattered with brine.
Mary also came across early, to help to dress the bride, and her
mood was so wildly hilarious that Mrs. Burton felt it necessary to
gently reprove her.
"Of course it is right to be happy and cheerful at a wedding, but
there is always a strain of sadness somewhere to keep our spirits
even. And we can't forget that Katherine is to go to England next
week."
"But she will be glad to go, and glad to come back; no one wants to
stay in one place all her life, in these gadabout days," Mary
answered. Then she produced a box and bade Katherine admire what
she had brought her.
"I felt when I bought it that it was shockingly unsuitable," Mary
said, laughing, as from the folds of soft white paper she lifted
out a square of exquisite lace for a bridal veil, and flung it over
Katherine's hair. "But plainly I have the eye of a seer, and I
imagined you standing up to be married in a sailor hat, or
something equally unsuitable, and it was not to be endured."
"How lovely!" sighed Mrs. Burton, in an ecstasy of admiration. But
Katherine said nothing at all; her heart was too full for speech,
and she was thinking of last summer, when it had seemed right that
she should stand aside to let Mary have the happiness she wanted
for herself. Things had changed so much since then that it seemed
scarcely possible that she could have had to bear so many
heartaches.
At this moment one of the twins burst into the room with the
information that the bishop had arrived, and Katherine, walking
like one in a dream, went out from her chamber and crossed the
homely kitchen to the store.
A murmur went round the crowded place as she entered. Heretofore
she had been to them a good, hard-working girl, with pleasant
manners and a pretty face. They had seen her staggering along the
portage paths laden with heavy burdens; they had seen her
struggling to row a boat up river against a strong current; they
had met her dripping with wet, or covered with frost, like an
Esquimaux: but this stately girl with the beautiful face, clad in
her white bridal robe, and with Mary's veil over her shining hair,
was a revelation to them, and it was Oily Dave who voiced the
opinion of the assembly when he exclaimed in a very audible tone:
"My word, but ain't she a stunner!"
He was sitting in the very front row, as if he were the most
intimate and faithful friend the family possessed. He held his
treasured "top" hat carefully in front of him, as if it were a
collecting bag, and he were about to take the offertory. For the
rest, his costume was something of a mixture: a football sweater
with broad stripes, a Norfolk jacket, dungaree trousers, and a
fisherman's long boots made him a striking figure even in that
company of mixed costumes. He was as self-satisfied and complacent
as if he had never planned evil deeds and tried to carry them out,
while the benevolence with which he smiled upon the wedding party
might have led one to suppose they had no more tried or trusted
friend than he.
Katherine was conscious of the critical, appraising glances of the
trim little gentleman who stood by the side of Jervis, and they
made her vaguely uncomfortable, coming between her and the mellow
utterances of the bishop in his opening address. But she forgot
Mr. Clay and his searching looks after a time, and was sensible
only of the love which wrapped her round when Miles, at a sign from
the bishop, took Katherine's hand, and, placing it in that of his
father, whispered to him to give it to Jervis.
'Duke Radford, standing erect, his fine figure head and shoulders
taller than those around him, except the bridegroom, smiled round
on the assembly, stood holding Katherine's ungloved hand, softly
stroking and patting it, until Jervis reached forward to take it,
when he relinquished it with a smile and a nod, quite satisfied to
have it so.
The register was signed in the kitchen, and it was there that the
revelation took place which came as a thunderclap of surprise to
everyone concerned, except Jervis and Mr. Clay, the latter of whom,
when the bishop's part of the ceremony was done, took the remainder
upon himself, and proceeded to make his explanations in a voice
which Mary declared made her think of musty parchments and red tape.
He addressed himself to Katherine, bowing so profoundly that it was
wonderful he was able to return to a perpendicular position without
catching hold of something with which to pull himself up. "I have
to congratulate you on becoming the Countess of Compton, and I am
quite certain the title was never worn by one more worthy to adorn
it."
Katherine shrank a step nearer to her husband, and there was a look
of positive fear in her eyes, for privately she thought Mr. Clay
must be mad. "I do not understand you," she said gently, and the
silence in the kitchen was so profound, as they waited for Mr.
Clay's reply, that the buzz of talk which had broken out in the
crowded store seemed tremendously loud by contrast.
Mr. Clay cleared his throat with a dry little cough, intended to
emphasize the importance of the remarks which he had to make, then
he said: "Lord Compton insisted last night that no word should be
spoken concerning his accession to the title until after the
ceremony of to-day; but now it must be known, and I have to inform
you that your husband has been seventh Earl of Compton since the
18th of February last, only it seems he did not know of his
cousin's death until yesterday, when I arrived with papers for him
to sign."
Katherine became very pale, and turned with a quick movement to
Jervis, who stood looking down upon her with a smile. "Even now I
do not understand; please tell me," she said, with a bewildered
expression.
"My cousin Samuel was the sixth earl," said Jervis, taking his
wife's hand and talking to her in the same quietly confidential
tone that he might have used had they two been alone, instead of
the centre figures of a crowded room. "My father was the son of
the younger son, with three lives between him and the title. As I
have told you, Samuel, old Lord Compton, was very cruel to my
mother in her widowhood, and I hotly determined never to have
anything to do with him. Then his son and his grandson died within
a few weeks of each other, and Mr. Clay, who is the family lawyer,
wrote to me telling me that I was the next heir, and Cousin Samuel
wanted me to go home and take up the duties of my new position.
That letter came last summer, but I would not go, and I would not
accept an allowance for myself; but I asked for one for my mother,
and education for my brothers. I have not deceived you, my
dearest. I have only withheld from you facts which did not matter
until now."
Katherine flushed and then grew pale; she knew that all eyes were
upon her, but there was one thing she must know, and her voice had
an anxious ring as she asked: "Did you--did you know this, I mean
that you were the next heir, when you asked me to marry you?"
"Yes, I knew," he answered cheerfully, and now his voice had got
back its old confident ring, for the shadow of constraint which
Katherine had noticed in him last night had been owing to this
knowledge which he was holding back, and which had troubled him
more than he cared to confess. "But even then there was no great
certainty of my succeeding. Cousin Samuel might have married
again, and left another son to come after him. I was just a
working man, and I looked to support my wife by the labour of my
hands. You must forgive me that I did not tell you I was going to
make a great lady of you, because, you see, I did not know until
yesterday, though the scrap of paper you discovered at Ochre Lake
warned me that the title might not be far off; so I was not greatly
surprised when Mr. Clay introduced himself to me yesterday."
"Mr. Clay is evidently a lawyer by nature as well as by profession,
since he was able to keep a secret of such magnitude through so
many miles of travel," interposed the bishop, anxious to break the
strain for Katherine, whose colour was still coming and going, and
whose eyes had the frightened look of a trapped wild creature.
"I was sure there must be some story of greatness behind, when it
became necessary for a family lawyer to take such a journey as
this," Mary Selincourt said, with an easy laugh, doing her best to
second the bishop's efforts to draw off attention from Katherine
for a time. "And now, don't you think we might as well start
feeding the multitude, Nellie? or they will not be in a proper
frame of mind to appreciate the bishop's sermon presently."
The diversion was effectual; everyone poured outside to where
tables were spread under the trees by the river. Tea, coffee,
cakes, and lemonade became the concern of the moment. And in the
kitchen the two who had been made husband and wife were left alone.
"Am I forgiven, your ladyship?" Jervis asked; but there was a note
of anxiety in his bantering tone, for Katherine's head was averted,
and held at an angle which made him apprehensive.
"Jervis, why did you not tell me while there was time to draw back?
For I--I am not fit to be a great lady!" she burst out passionately.
"I did not tell you because I was so horribly afraid you would want
to draw back," he admitted candidly, "and I wanted you so badly
that I could not afford to take the risk. You are quite as fit to
be a great lady as I am to be a great gentleman; that goes without
saying."
"But think of the work I have had to do?" she faltered, shrinking
and shivering at the prospect before her.
"Work is no degradation," he answered hastily, "or my days in the
Nantucket whaler might easily rise up in judgment against me; for I
am certain there can be no more filthy or disgusting work on the
face of the earth than I did then. Perhaps it is better for us
that we have had to toil so hard; we shall be better able to
sympathize with other workers, and to help them."
"I shall not know how to manage a houseful of servants," she said,
with such a comical air of distress that he had to laugh again.
"You need not have more servants than you like, and if you can't
manage them, why, we must pay someone to manage them for us," he
said gaily. Then his voice grew graver as he asked: "When are you
going to tell me that I am forgiven, Katherine?"
Something in the look on his face reminded her of the day when she
had risked her life to save him from the flood, and the memory
broke down the rampart of offended pride which had sprung up in her
heart when Mr. Clay made his astounding revelation.
"I don't suppose it really matters what our position is as long as
we love each other," she said unsteadily. "And so--and so you are
forgiven; but don't do it again."
"My dear, there are no more titles in our family that I know of,"
he answered, as he lifted her veil to kiss her; "so there is not
the remotest chance that you will ever have higher rank than a
countess's."
"I don't want to have higher rank than a countess's," she answered
soberly. "But I mean, don't keep things back in future, Jervis, or
I shall always be in fear. I want to know the bad as well as the
good!"
"Do you call it bad to find yourself a countess?" he asked, with an
air of mock horror.
"I find it difficult to get used to the idea," she said, with a
rather watery smile; for the greatness thrust upon her was by no
means to her mind.
Later on, when she came out with her husband to drink a cup of
coffee with the group under the trees, although she was the same
Katherine, quick to smile, and with a pleasant word for everyone,
there was already a difference, and she carried herself with an
added stateliness which caused Mrs. Jenkin to remark with a
sentimental air that greatness had eaten into her soul.
But it was Oily Dave who took the chief credit for the whole
business, and, having succeeded in cornering the bishop and Mr.
Clay, he proceeded to inform them of the manner in which he had
helped the match along. "If it hadn't been for me there wouldn't
have been no interesting occasion such as this here to-day," he
said, standing before them, the fishing boots planted wide apart,
the "top" hat carefully held in his left hand: for of course he
could not have his head covered in presence of a bishop; moreover,
the hat, being too big for him, had a trick of coming down over his
face like an extinguisher.
"Pray, what was it that you did to help the business forward?"
asked the bishop, with a twinkle in his eye, whilst Mr. Clay's
stiff black hair nearly curled with horror at the thought of a
low-class person like Oily Dave having anything to do with making
the marriage of his client, the Earl of Compton.
"I gave the girl, I mean her ladyship, the chance to save the young
man's life, and that, I take it, was the starting-point of the
whole affair."
"Without doubt it helped the process," replied the bishop with a
laugh; and then Mr. Selincourt intervened by saying it was time for
the bishop's service to begin, so Oily Dave was promptly hustled to
his proper place in the background.
The bishop was more than ordinarily eloquent that evening; but the
bride, in her white robe, sitting beside her husband, heard only
the words of the text: "He shall choose our inheritance for us".
End of Project Gutenberg's A Countess from Canada, by Bessie Marchant