Lizzie had a tiresome argument with her grandmother that night, who
could not understand why she should be so bent on going into Highcombe
by the first train. To see Miss Chatty married, that was reasonable
enough; but Miss Chatty would not be married till eleven at the earliest,
perhaps later. Mrs. Bagley knew that gentlefolks ran it almost too late,
as late as was possible, which was the fashion, or else because they
didn't like to get up so early as poor folks,--and why should Lizzie
start by the seven o'clock train? But Lizzie was determined and got her
way, declaring that she would stay up all night and do her work before
she started sooner than not go. It would not have mattered much had she
done so, for there was no sleep for Lizzie that night. She had not any
certainty of being right to support her in what she was going to do. She
thought of disturbing all the wedding preparations, stopping the bride
with her veil on and the orange blossoms in her hair, and all the guests
assembled--for what? because of--one who made no claim, who would never
make any claim, who had not been heard of for more than six years. That
was the flaw which disturbed Lizzie. It was not quite out seven years.
Had that mystic period been accomplished she felt that she could have
left Chatty to the protection of God. But at the outside it was only six
and a half, and he _had_ heard of her through Lizzie herself--though
she inwardly resolved that no inducement on earth would make her appear
before judge and jury to tell that. No! she would rather fly than tell
it. And then her mind came back to the picture of the bride in her
glistening white silk or satin, with the veil over her head, and the
orange blossoms--to stop all that, to turn away the carriages from the
door, and set herself up as knowing better than a gentleman like Mr.
Cavendish, and perhaps making a fool of herself, and not being believed
or listened to after all!
These thoughts tormented Lizzie all through the night: she got up very
early, while it was still dark, and lighted the fire, and put everything
straight for her grandmother, and made herself a cup of tea, which she
needed much to settle her agitated nerves. Old Mrs. Bagley got up, too,
disturbed by the sound of some one stirring, not without grumbling at
being awoke so early. Lizzie came and kissed her before she went away.
"Oh, Granny, say God bless you!" she cried; "for I'm all shaking and
trembling, and I don't know what may come to me to-day." "Lord bless the
child!" said Mrs. Bagley, "what's a-coming to her? A body would think
as it's you as is going to be married to-day; but God bless you's easy
said, and meant from the 'art, and never comes amiss; and God bless Miss
Chatty too, the dear, and give her a happy weddin' and a happy life."
Lizzie felt that she could not say Amen. It seemed to choke her, when
she tried to utter that word, for it was little happiness poor Miss
Chatty would have, if she did what she was going to do. She hurried to
the station, which was a long walk in the fresh morning, feeling the air
chill and sharp. It was a long way to the station, and then the railway
made a round, so that an active person would have found it almost as
quick to walk straight to Highcombe, and it was between eight and nine
when Lizzie at last found herself before the door of Mrs. Warrender's
house. She thought it looked wonderfully quiet for the morning of a
wedding, the shutters still closed over the drawing-room windows. But
it would be vain to attempt to describe her dismay when she heard the
explanation of this tranquillity. Not here, but in London! Didn't she
know? the housemaid said, who was a girl from Underwood. She thought
everybody had known. And Lizzie had the sickening consciousness that
had she inquired a little more closely she might have discovered for
herself, and saved herself this trouble. She was taken in by the
sympathising housemaid to have a second cup of tea at least, if not
breakfast, and to hear all about the preparations and the dresses,
which Betsey, though sadly disappointed to miss the glories of the
wedding, had yet seen, and could describe. And there was not a train to
London till nearly ten. She asked herself in her dismay whether it was
worth going then, whether perhaps it were not Providence that had stopped
her; but then, with a returning obstinacy of purpose, determined that
she would not be beaten, that whatever hindered she would not be kept
back.
She got to London just at the hour when the wedding party were to leave
for church, and found them gone when she arrived at the house. Lizzie's
habits did not consist with taking cabs. She had toiled along from the
station, hot and weary, on foot. "If you want to catch them up you had
better take an 'ansom," said one of the white-neckclothed men who were
busy preparing the wedding breakfast. Lizzie scarcely knew what a
hansom was; but she submitted to be put into one, and to get with much
difficulty a shilling out of her purse to pay it. The sudden whirl,
the jar and noise, the difficult getting out and in, the struggle to
pursue that shilling into a corner of her purse among the pennies and
sixpences, aided in confusing her brain utterly. She rushed up the
steps of the church, which were crowded with idlers, not knowing what
she did. The organ was pealing through the place, making a little storm
of sound under the gallery, as she rushed in desperate, meeting the
fine procession, the bride in all that glory which Lizzie had dreamt of,
which she had been so reluctant to spoil; her white dress rustling over
the red cloth that had been laid down in the aisle, her white veil flowing
over her modest countenance, her arm in that of her bridegroom; all
whiteness, peace, and sweet emotion, joy touched with trembling and a
thousand soft regrets. Chatty came along slowly, her soft eyes cast
down, her soul floating in that ecstasy which is full of awe and solemn
thoughts. Dick's eyes were upon her, and the eyes of all, but hers saw
nothing save the wonderful event that had come to pass, the boundary
between the old and the new upon which she stood. And Lizzie had
forgotten everything that could be called reason or coherence in her
thoughts. She forgot her doubts, her scruples, her sense of the misery
she might make, her uncertainty as to whether it might be needful at
all. At this moment of bewildering excitement she had but one idea.
She fell down upon her knees before them in the aisle, and caught at
Chatty's white dress and the folds of her floating veil. "Oh, Miss
Chatty, stop, stop, leave go of his arm: for he is married already,
and his wife is living." She lifted her eyes, and there appeared round
her a floating sea of horror-stricken faces, faces that she knew in the
foreground, and floating farther off, as if in the air, in the distance,
one she knew still better. Lizzie gave a shriek which rang through the
church. "His wife is living, and she is HERE."