The wedding day, and for once in a way a crisp, bright, hearty, frosty
time--cold but inspiriting; and at ten o'clock, pale and trembling, but
nerved for her trial, May Richards stood suffering Keziah to give the
finishing touches to her dress before starting for the church. There
was to be no form; May had stipulated for that. The wedding was to be
at an old City church hard by, and in place of meeting her there Tom
Brough had arrived, and was in the dining-room talking to old Richards
bound to an easy-chair with gout, and too ill to think of going to the
church.
As May entered at last, led in by Keziah, defiant and snorting, Tom
Brough, active as a young man, hurried to meet the trembling girl,
caught her in his arms, and kissed her fondly, heedless of the sigh she
gave.
"Don't look like that, my darling," he whispered. "I'm going to make
you happy as the day is long."
May's only reply was a look so full of misery and despair, that Keziah
put her apron to her eyes and ran out of the room.
For a moment there was a shade as of uneasiness crossed old Richards'
face--it might have been a twinge of gout--but it passed on the instant.
"Don't look like that, May!" he exclaimed angrily. "If you don't know
what is for your good you must be taught. Now, Brough, time's going--
get it over, man. She'll be happier as soon as you have her away."
"Yes, yes," said Tom Brough tenderly. "Come May, my child, have you not
one look for me?"
May placed her hands in his, and looked up in his face with the faintest
dawning of a smile upon her lip, and this time she did not shrink back
when he kissed her forehead, but hung upon his arm as if resigned to her
fate; the sound of wheels was heard in the narrow street; the friends
ready to accompany them were summoned from the room below--two old
friends of Mr Brough's, for old Richards had, as he often boasted, no
friends; May was led out, the door was heard to close, wheels rattled
away, and then, for a wonder, there fell a dead silence upon Walbrook,
one which seemed to affect old Richards, even as he sat there looking
haggard and drawn of feature, thinking of the past, and of the day he
wed his own wife long before gold had become his care--almost his god.
For the first time remorse had seized upon him, and it wanted not the
words of Keziah Bay, who now entered the room, for reproach to be heaped
upon his head.
But Keziah's words were not fierce now, only the words of sorrow; and at
last she sank down sobbing before him, and said:
"O, Master Richards--Master Richards--what have you done?"
He did not turn round fiercely to bid her begone, but shrank from her,
farther and farther, into his great roomy chair, and at that moment,
could he have done so, he would have arrested the farther progress of
the ceremony, for remorse was beating strongly at his heart.
But the time was passed now, and with him action was impossible. He sat
there motionless, listening to the sobs of his old servant till nearly
an hour had passed, when suddenly Keziah rose, wiping her eyes, and
saying,--
"I hadn't the heart to go and see it, and now it is too late!"
"Yes, yes," said old Richards softly; "it is now too late!"
The next moment Keziah was hurrying from the room, for there was the
sound of wheels and a heavy knocking at the door, which she opened to
admit old Tom Brough, red and excited, and his first act upon the door
being closed was to catch Keziah round the waist, to hug her and give
her a sounding kiss before waltzing her down the passage, she struggling
the while till she got free, and stood panting, trembling, and boiling
over with ire.
"It's all right, 'Ziah!" he exclaimed, "the knot's tied."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that you ought," panted Keziah,
darting away to avoid another embrace. "And pray where's Miss May?"
Tom Brough did not answer, he only hurried into the drawing-room, where
old Richards sat upright, holding on by the arms of his chair.
"Where's May?" he gasped, looking ashy pale; "why have you not brought
her back?"
"Because she was not mine to bring," said Tom Brough coolly. "Flunk
Marr waylaid me, and he's carried her off and married her."
"Brough! this is a plot, and you are in it," exclaimed old Richards
fiercely, as he saw the serio-comic smile upon his friend's countenance.
"Well, yes, I had a little to do with it," Brough said quietly.
"And is dear Miss May really married to Mr Frank?" cried Keziah.
"Silence, woman," roared old Richards. "Brough, I'll never forgive you.
You've planned all this with that beggar, and he's swindled me out of a
thousand pounds, and robbed me of my child! A rascally, lying beggar."
"Gently, gently, my dear Richards," said Tom Brough, coolly. "I don't
think that now I have taken him into partnership he is quite the beggar
you imagine. What with that and your thousand, and what we--_we_,
friend Richards--will leave them when we die, I don't think there will
be many men hold up their heads much higher in the City than Frank Marr.
On the whole, I think your child has done well."
"Brough, Brough," exclaimed old Richards excitedly, "what does this all
mean? In God's name tell me, or I shall have a fit."
"In God's name," said Tom Brough, slowly and reverently, "it means that
I, blessed as I have been with wealth, could not commit the grievous sin
you wished against that sweet child I loved her too well to condemn her
to such a fate, and Frank Marr found me more open to appeal than he did
his father-in-law. I told him to come again to your office when he had
been to me, and at my wish he accepted all your terms, though not
without a deal of forcing on my part. He's a fine, noble-hearted young
fellow, Richards, and listening to me I tried to make matters work for
the good of us all."
He looked at old Richards as he spoke, but the old man was scowling at
the wall.
"Would you have murdered your child, Richards?" said Tom Brough. "I
tell you, man, that had your will been law the poor girl would not have
lived a year, while now, with the husband she loves, she is waiting to
ask your forgiveness for that for which I am solely to blame."
"Keziah," said Mr Brough softly, after a pause, and he whispered a few
words in her ear--words whose effect was to send her from the room, but
only to return in ten minutes, followed by Frank Marr, leading in his
trembling wife.