HOW THE TIDINGS WERE RECEIVED IN LINCOLNSHIRE.
The young widower made no further lamentation, but did his duty to his
betrothed bride with a cheerful visage. Ah! what a pleasant journey it
was to Belinda, that progress through London on the way to
Lincolnshire! It was like that triumphant journey of last March, when
the Royal bridegroom led his Northern bride through a surging sea of
eager, smiling faces, to the musical jangling of a thousand bells. If
there were neither populace nor joy-bells on this occasion, I scarcely
think Miss Lawford knew that those elements of a triumphal progress
were missing. To her ears all the universe was musical with the sound
of mystic joy-bells; all the earth was glad with the brightness of
happy faces. The railway-carriage,--the commonplace vehicle,--frouzy
with the odour of wool and morocco, was a fairy chariot, more wonderful
than Queen Mab's; the white chalk-cutting in the hill was a shining
cleft in a mountain of silver; the wandering streams were melted
diamonds; the stations were enchanted castles. The pale sherry, carried
in a pocket-flask, and sipped out of a little silver tumbler--there is
apt to be a warm flatness about sherry taken out of pocket-flasks that
is scarcely agreeable to the connoisseur--was like nectar newly brewed
for the gods; even the anchovies in the sandwiches were like the
enchanted fish in the Arabian story. A magical philter had been infused
into the atmosphere: the flavour of first love was in every sight and
sound.
Was ever bridegroom more indulgent, more devoted, than Edward Arundel?
He sat at the counters of silk-mercers for the hour together, while
Mrs. Arundel and the two girls deliberated over crisp fabrics unfolded
for their inspection. He was always ready to be consulted, and gave his
opinion upon the conflicting merits of peach-colour and pink,
apple-green and maize, with unwearying attention. But sometimes, even
while Belinda was smiling at him, with the rippling silken stuff held
up in her white hands, and making a lustrous cascade upon the counter,
the mystic hand plucked him back, and his mind wandered away to that
childish bride who had chosen no splendid garments for her wedding, but
had gone with him to the altar as trustfully as a baby goes in its
mother's arms to the cradle. If he had been left alone with Belinda,
with tender, sympathetic Belinda,--who loved him well enough to
understand him, and was always ready to take her cue from his face, and
to be joyous or thoughtful according to his mood,--it might have been
better for him. But his mother and Letitia reigned paramount during
this ante-nuptial week, and Mr. Arundel was scarcely suffered to take
breath. He was hustled hither and thither in the hot summer noontide.
He was taken to choose a dressing-case for his bride; and he was made
to look at glittering objects until his eyes ached, and he could see
nothing but a bewildering dazzle of ormolu and silver-gilt. He was
taken to a great emporium in Bond Street to select perfumery, and made
to sniff at divers essences until his nostrils were unnaturally
distended, and his olfactory nerves afflicted with temporary paralysis.
There was jewellery of his mother and of Belinda's mother to be re-set;
and the hymeneal victim was compelled to sit for an hour or so,
blinking at fiery-crested serpents that were destined to coil up his
wife's arms, and emerald padlocks that were to lie upon her breast. And
then, when his soul was weary of glaring splendours and glittering
confusions, they took him round the Park, in a whirlpool of diaphanous
bonnets, and smiling faces, and brazen harness, and emblazoned
hammer-cloths, on the margin of a river whose waters were like molten
gold under the blazing sun. And then they gave him a seat in an
opera-box, and the crash of a monster orchestra, blended with the hum
of a thousand voices, to soothe his nerves withal.
But the more wearied this young man became with glitter, and dazzle,
and sunshine, and silk-mercer's ware, the more surely his mind wandered
back to the still meadows, and the limpid trout-stream, the sheltering
hills, the solemn shadows of the cathedral, the distant voices of the
rooks high up in the waving elms.
The bustle of preparation was over at last, and the bridal party went
down to Lincolnshire. Pleasant chambers had been prepared at the Grange
for Mr. Arundel and his mother and sister; and the bridegroom was
received with enthusiasm by Belinda's blue-eyed younger sisters, who
were enchanted to find that there was going to be a wedding and that
they were to have new frocks.
So Edward would have been a churl indeed had he seemed otherwise than
happy, had he been anything but devoted to the bright girl who loved
him.
Tidings of the coming wedding flew like wildfire through Lincolnshire.
Edward Arundel's romantic story had elevated him into a hero; all
manner of reports had been circulated about his devotion to his lost
young wife. He had sworn never to mingle in society again, people said.
He had sworn never to have a new suit of clothes, or to have his hair
cut, or to shave, or to eat a hot dinner. And Lincolnshire by no means
approved of the defection implied by his approaching union with
Belinda. He was only a commonplace widower, after all, it seemed; ready
to be consoled as soon as the ceremonious interval of decent grief was
over. People had expected something better of him. They had expected to
see him in a year or two with long grey hair, dressed in shabby
raiment, and, with his beard upon his breast, prowling about the
village of Kemberling, baited by little children. Lincolnshire was very
much disappointed by the turn that affairs had taken. Shakesperian
aphorisms were current among the gossips at comfortable tea-tables; and
people talked about funeral baked meats, and the propriety of building
churches if you have any ambitious desire that your memory should
outlast your life; and indulged in other bitter observations, familiar
to all admirers of the great dramatist.
But there were some people in Lincolnshire to whom the news of Edward
Arundel's intended marriage was more welcome than the early May-flowers
to rustic children eager for a festival. Paul Marchmont heard the
report, and rubbed his hands stealthily, and smiled to himself as he
sat reading in the sunny western drawing-room. The good seed that he
had sown that night at the Rectory had borne this welcome fruit. Edward
Arundel with a young wife would be very much less formidable than
Edward Arundel single and discontented, prowling about the
neighbourhood of Marchmont Towers, and perpetually threatening
vengeance upon Mary's cousin.
It was busy little Lavinia Weston who first brought her brother the
tidings. He took both her hands in his, and kissed them in his
enthusiasm.
"My best of sisters," he said, "you shall have a pair of diamond
earrings for this."
"For only bringing you the news, Paul?"
"For only bringing me the news. When a messenger carries the tidings of
a great victory to his king, the king makes him a knight upon the spot.
This marriage is a victory to me, Lavinia. From to-day I shall breathe
freely."
"But they are not married yet. Something may happen, perhaps, to
prevent----"
"What should happen?" asked Paul, rather sharply. "By-the-bye, it will
be as well to keep this from Mrs. John," he added, thoughtfully;
"though really now I fancy it matters very little what she hears."
He tapped his forehead lightly with his two slim fingers, and there was
a horrible significance in the action.
"She is not likely to hear anything," Mrs. Weston said; "she sees no
one but Barbara Simmons."
"Then I should be glad if you would give Simmons a hint to hold her
tongue. This news about the wedding would disturb her mistress."
"Yes, I'll tell her so. Barbara is a very excellent person. I can
always manage Barbara. But oh, Paul, I don't know what I'm to do with
that poor weak-witted husband of mine."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, Paul, I have had such a scene with him to-day--such a scene! You
remember the way he went on that day down in the boat-house when Edward
Arundel came in upon us unexpectedly? Well, he's been going on as badly
as that to-day, Paul,--or worse, I really think."
Mr. Marchmont frowned, and flung aside his newspaper, with a gesture
expressive of considerable vexation.
"Now really, Lavinia, this is too bad," he said; "if your husband is a
fool, I am not going to be bored about his folly. You have managed him
for fifteen years: surely you can go on managing him now without
annoying _me_ about him? If Mr. George Weston doesn't know when he's
well off, he's an ungrateful cur, and you may tell him so, with my
compliments."
He picked up his newspaper again, and began to read. But Lavinia
Weston, looking anxiously at her brother's face, saw that his pale
auburn brows were contracted in a thoughtful frown, and that, if he
read at all, the words upon which his eyes rested could convey very
little meaning to his brain.
She was right; for presently he spoke to her, still looking at the page
before him, and with an attempt at carelessness.
"Do you think that fellow would go to Australia, Lavinia?"
"Alone?" asked his sister.
"Yes, alone of course," said Mr. Marchmont, putting down his paper, and
looking at Mrs. Weston rather dubiously. "I don't want you to go to the
Antipodes; but if--if the fellow refused to go without you, I'd make it
well worth your while to go out there, Lavinia. You shouldn't have any
reason to regret obliging me, my dear girl."
The dear girl looked rather sharply at her affectionate brother.
"It's like your selfishness, Paul, to propose such a thing," she said,
"after all I've done----!"
"I have not been illiberal to you, Lavinia."
"No; you've been generous enough to me, I know, in the matter of gifts;
but you're rich, Paul, and you can afford to give. I don't like the
idea that you're so willing to pack me out of the way now that I can be
no longer useful to you."
Mr. Marchmont shrugged his shoulders.
"For Heaven's sake, Lavinia, don't be sentimental. If there's one thing
I despise more than another, it is this kind of mawkish sentimentality.
You've been a very good sister to me; and I've been a very decent
brother to you. If you have served me, I have made it answer your
purpose to do so. I don't want you to go away. You may bring all your
goods and chattels to this house to-morrow, if you like, and live at
free quarters here for the rest of your existence. But if George Weston
is a pig-headed brute, who can't understand upon which side his bread
is buttered, he must be got out of the way somehow. I don't care what
it costs me; but he must be got out of the way. I'm not going to live
the life of a modern Damocles, with a blundering sword always dangling
over my head, in the person of Mr. George Weston. And if the man
objects to leave the country without you, why, I think your going with
him would be only a sisterly act towards me. I hate selfishness,
Lavinia, almost as much as I detest sentimentality."
Mrs. Weston was silent for some minutes, absorbed in reflection. Paul
got up, kicked aside a footstool, and walked up and down the room with
his hands in his pockets.
"Perhaps I might get George to leave England, if I promised to join him
as soon as he was comfortably settled in the colonies," Mrs. Weston
said, at last.
"Yes," cried Paul; "nothing could be more easy. I'll act very liberally
towards him, Lavinia; I'll treat him well; but he shall not stay in
England. No, Lavinia; after what you have told me to-day, I feel that
he must be got out of the country."
Mr. Marchmont went to the door and looked out, to see if by chance any
one had been listening to him. The coast was quite clear. The
stone-paved hall looked as desolate as some undiscovered chamber in an
Egyptian temple. The artist went back to Lavinia, and seated himself by
her side. For some time the brother and sister talked together
earnestly.
They settled everything for poor henpecked George Weston. He was to
sail for Sydney immediately. Nothing could be more easy than for
Lavinia to declare that her brother had accidentally heard of some
grand opening for a medical practitioner in the metropolis of the
Antipodes. The surgeon was to have a very handsome sum given him, and
Lavinia would _of course_ join him as soon as he was settled. Paul
Marchmont even looked through the "Shipping Gazette" in search of an
Australian vessel which should speedily convey his brother-in-law to a
distant shore.
Lavinia Weston went home armed with all necessary credentials. She was
to promise almost anything to her husband, provided that he gave his
consent to an early departure.