THE BARON’S PREPARATIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE, AND THE WEDDING MORNING.
During this time neither Mrs. Williams nor the Baron Stolmuyer were
idle spectators of the progress of the hours; but, on the contrary,
they made the best possible use of the week which was to elapse before
the marriage ceremony took place after Helen had given her consent to
it.
Five hundred pounds in the hands of such a person as Mrs. Williams,
will go a long way, and produce an amazing amount of show and glitter;
so that she managed, before the day on which the ceremony was to be
performed arrived, to make quite certain that herself and her daughters
would present a most dazzling appearance; and she thought it not at all
improbable that even at the very church some meritorious individual
might be dazzled into thinking of matrimony with one of her other
daughters, upon seeing what a brilliant appearance they managed to
present upon the marriage of Helen.
“I am quite sure that no harm can come of it,” she said, “if no
good does; and, at all events if no good is done at the church, the
baron will soon be giving parties enough to bring out the dear girls
to perfection, particularly as I fully intend we shall all live at
Anderbury House.”
Mrs. Williams considered this as a settled point, whether the baron
liked it or not; and, knowing as she did the gentle and quiet
disposition of Helen, she did not doubt for a moment of being permitted
to rule completely over the domestic affairs of her establishment. All
this was amazingly satisfactory to such a lady as Mrs. Williams, and
the very thing of all others she would have liked, had she been looking
out for what would please her in the marriage of her daughter.
We shall shortly see how these views and opinions were verified by the
fact.
All the other preparations were left to the baron; and when he wrote
a letter to Mrs. Williams, saying, that he would be ready by ten
o’clock on the morning which had been named for the nuptials, and would
send one of his carriages for the bride, Mrs. Williams was perfectly
satisfied that all was quite correct.
There was no very good excuse for calling at Anderbury House; but, if
she had then called, she certainly would have been astonished at the
preparations which the baron was making for that day which was so near
at hand.
It was quite terrific the expense he went to; and the gorgeous manner
in which he fitted up one of the largest apartments in the house for a
dance looked really like expenditure of the most reckless character,
and such as indeed it must have required an immense fortune to
withstand.
The walls of that apartment were hung with crimson draperies of a rich
texture, and such beauty of design that they were the admiration of the
very workmen themselves who were employed upon the premises.
Then the magnificent order he gave for a feast upon the occasion,
and the wines he laid in, really almost exceeded belief; and such
proceedings were indeed highly calculated to give people most
exaggerated versions regarding his wealth.
He had indeed mentioned to Mrs. Williams, that he had silver mines
on some of his estates abroad; and that fact to her mind was quite
sufficient to account for any amount of money he might possess,
because, to her ideas of geology and mineralogy, the discovery of a
silver mine meant, finding a hole of immense width and depth, crammed
with the precious metal.
But be this as it may, and whether the Baron Stolmuyer, of Saltzburgh,
owed his wealth to silver mines, or to other sources, one thing was
quite clear, and that was, that he had it.
And that was the grand point; for in a highly civilised and evangelical
country like this, the question of how a man got his money is not
near so often asked, as, has he got it; and it is quite amazing what
liberality of feeling and sentiment is immediately infused into people
by the fact of successful speculation of any kind; while failure
immediately incurs the greatest of opprobrium and contempt.
And now the day was so close at hand, that Mrs. Williams got into a
terrible flutter of spirits, and began really to wish it over; for she
was completely ready, and each minute became an hour of impatience to
her.
She was continually bothering the baron with notes and messages upon
different subjects, and he had the urbanity to answer two or three of
them; but he soon left that off, and the last half dozen, at the least,
were, to Mrs. Williams’s great mortification, taken no notice of at all.
Some of these notes were upon the most nonsensical points, and several
of them, although they did not actually ask it, pretty strongly hinted
that more money would be a very desirable thing.
The baron would not understand any hint, however, upon the subject; so
Mrs. Williams became fully convinced that she must make the best of it
she could, and put up for the present with the five hundred pounds she
had already received.
But when the day had actually dawned on when the auspicious event was
to come off, and, upon looking around her, she found herself surrounded
by gay apparel and jewellery, she almost dreaded that even yet it
would turn out to be some delusion, or a dream, for she could scarcely
believe in the reality of such glory and magnificence belonging to her.
But facts are stubborn things, and, whether for good or for evil, are
not likely to be got over; so, when she looked out of the windows
and saw that a bright morning’s sun was shining, and that the life,
animation, and bustle of the day was commencing, she told herself that
it was, indeed, real, and that she had reached very nearly the summit
of her desires and expectations.
“Yes,” she exclaimed; “I shall be mother-in-law to a baron; and I dare
say I shall have at least twenty servants in Anderbury House to command
and control continually.”
A more gratifying reflection than this could not possibly have
presented itself to Mrs. Williams; for if any one thing could be more
delightful than another, it certainly was that kind of petty power
which gives an individual a control over a large establishment.
After she had arisen on that eventful morning, she did not allow her
establishment many minutes’ repose; but, in the course of half-an-hour,
all was bustle, excitement, and no small share of confusion.
And while she was thus energetically pushing on her preparations, let
us see what the Bannerworths are about, now that they have fairly
arrived at Anderbury, and are in readiness, probably, to be present at
the ceremony.
By Flora’s intercession, a peace was established between Jack and
the admiral; and the former took the latter down to the old seaman’s
cottage, in order to introduce him to James Anderson; and on the road
he made him acquainted with the particulars of the young man’s story;
at the same time informing him of the wish that Anderson had expressed
to be permitted to join their party.
“Oh, certainly,” said the admiral, “certainly; let him come by all
means, although I must say that he ought to leave for London, at once,
with his despatches, or at all events with the news that he had lost
them. However, I am not on active service; and, therefore, have no
right to do anything more than advise him in the matter.”
“Oh, he will go,” said Jack, “as soon as he has seen his sweetheart,
and perhaps kicked the baron; for though he said he wouldn’t, I live in
hopes yet that he will be aggravated enough to do it.”
The admiral liked James Anderson so much, that he not only promised
him he should go to the wedding under cover of the general invitation
which he, the admiral, had received, but he proposed, likewise,
that he should come home with him at once and be introduced to the
Bannerworths; and by home he meant the inn at Anderbury, where they
were staying.
The young man expressed himself highly gratified at this invitation,
and at once accepted it, so that they walked towards the inn together,
and began to make preparations for their appearance at Anderbury House.
Flora and the Bannerworths, as well as Charles, received young Anderson
very graciously, and they each expressed to him their sympathy for the
painful situation in which the baron’s marriage was placing him.
Flora and Charles Holland, as may be well supposed, could both feel,
and feel acutely too for any one crossed in his affection, as poor
James Anderson was; and it certainly much damped the satisfaction they
had in going to what everybody told them would certainly be the most
brilliant wedding that had taken place in that part of the country for
many a year.
“Let us hope,” said Henry Bannerworth, “that you will find some other,
Mr. Anderson, who will be more worthy of your esteem, than she who has
treated so lightly your affection and her own faith.”
“I know not,” said Anderson, “whether to accuse her not; for who knows
but after all she may be the victim of treachery, notwithstanding the
apparent powerful evidence that has been given to me by her mother?”
The Bannerworth family were determined, and so was the admiral, that
they would bestow what credit they could upon those who had so kindly
invited them; and, accordingly, when they started for the Hall in
the handsome carriage which had brought them down to Anderbury, they
certainly presented a rather showy and attractive appearance.
But still when they reached the entrance to Anderbury House, they found
that their’s was by no means the only equipage of the kind that was
there to be seen; for although both the entrances were open for the
reception of guests, they had to wait a considerable time before they
could get up to either of them.
One hundred and fifty guests, sixty or eighty of whom kept equipages,
were calculated to make some little degree of confusion; but when the
Bannerworth family fairly got within the house, everything else was
forgotten in their admiration of the brilliant arrangements within.
The richest carpets were laid down that money could purchase, and
servants in gorgeous liveries ushered the guests into an immense
hall, in which the marriage ceremony was to take place, and which was
decorated with a splendour that was perfectly regal.
And here a new set of domestics glided noiselessly about with various
refreshments upon silver salvers, and the place began rapidly to fill
with such an assemblage of wealth, and beauty, and rank, as perhaps
scarcely ever had been congregated in one place before.
But among those whose beauty attracted much attention, we may need well
reckon our friend, Flora Bell, as she was now properly called, and
whose sweet countenance was the cause of many a passing observation,
couched in the most flattering terms.
It wanted yet an hour to the time of the ceremony being performed, and
the Bannerworths, as they saw that their companion, young Anderson, was
in a painful state of excitement, all sat down in the deep recess of a
large window to wait the coming of the bride and bridegroom.
“I don’t think, Mr. Anderson,” said Henry, “that your coming here at
all was a well advised step; but since you are here, you should muster
up resolution enough not to betray any feeling.”
“I will not betray it, although I feel it,” said Anderson. “Rely upon
it, that I shall look much firmer, and act much firmer when she whom
I wish to see is actually here, than I do at present—I am enduring
suspense now, and that is the worst of all.”
“I do wish,” interposed Flora, “that you had seen her whom you love
before this ceremony, for in that case, although you might have endured
the pang of finding that she was willing to call herself another’s, you
would have been spared the pain of this day’s proceeding.”
“I wish to Heaven I had seen her; but I knew not how to arrange such
a meeting; and when I was shewn, in her own handwriting—which I knew
too well to doubt—a consent to be the wife of another, I no longer
had the spirit and the perseverance to ask to see her; and it was an
afterthought that made me wish to look upon her face once more before I
left her for ever.”
“What,” said Jack Pringle, suddenly making his appearance, “is he
gammoning you with his feelings?”
“Oh! so you have got in, have you?” said the admiral.
“So I have got in—why, what do you mean by that? Of course I have got
in; wasn’t I invited? I do think you get a little stupider every day;
and, in course of time, you won’t know what you are about. I should not
be surprised to see you take out your handkerchief to blow your eye
instead of your nose.”
Latterly, Jack, when he made one of these speeches, always walked
away very quickly, leaving the admiral’s anger to evaporate as best
it might; so that he escaped the retort which otherwise he might have
received.