The wedding morning had been confusing and full of many occupations, as
wedding mornings always are. Chatty, left in the quiet of her room, had
received innumerable little visits: from her mother, who came and came
again, with a cheerful front, but her heart very low, merely to look
at her, to give her a kiss in passing, to make sure that she was still
there: and from Minnie, very busy, wanting to have a finger in everything,
to alter her dress at the last moment, and the way in which her veil
was put on. "For it is quite different from mine," Minnie cried, "and it
stands to reason that there cannot be _two_ ways of putting on a veil."
Then there would come a young sister of Dick's, very shy, very anxious
to make friends, admiring Chatty and her orange blossoms, with that
sense of probable future occurrences in her own life of the same
description which makes sympathy so warm. Then Mrs. Wilberforce, who
though disapproving much of the wedding in London, was yet mollified by
her husband's share in it, and association with the bishop; and Lady
Markland, who gave the bride a kiss of tender sympathy and said nothing
to her, which Chatty felt to be the kindest of all. Minnie, on the other
hand, had a great inclination from the depths of her own experience
to give her sister advice. "You must remember, Chatty, that a man is
not just like one of us. When you are travelling you must be sure to
recollect that--they can't do with a bun or a cup of coffee or that sort
of thing, they must always have something substantial to eat. You see
they take so much more out of themselves than we do. And they like you
to be ready to the minute, though you have often got to wait for
them--and----"
"But, dear Minnie, men are not all alike," said Mrs. Wilberforce, "no
more than women are. Don't you think you had better leave her to find
out for herself? She will learn soon enough," she added with a sigh,
softly shaking her head, as though the experience could not but be
melancholy when it came; "men, like everything else, are changing every
day. The chivalry one used to meet with is quite gone--but what can you
expect in these times?"
"I don't like this puffing at all," said Minnie; "if I were you, I would
have it taken off. Oh, I am not at all of your opinion about the times.
We are Liberal on both sides. The Thynnes have always gone in for
progress and advancement; and when you think how much everything has
improved----"
"If you call it improvement!" said Mrs. Wilberforce with something like
a groan; but whether this was in reference to things in general, or to
the removal of the tulle puffing over which Minnie was holding her hand,
it would be difficult to say.
And thus the morning went by. Chatty took it all very sweetly, responding
with smiles to every one, feeling the hours pass like a dream until
it was time to go into the dream chariot, and be carried away to the
fulfilment of the dream. In the large, dull, London drawing-room below,
meanwhile, guests were assembling, guests in rustling garments of
many-coloured silk, with bonnets which were enough to drive any ordinary
mortal out of her senses, a little tulle tossed up with flowers or
feathers into the most perfect little crown for a fair head, a little
velvet with nodding plumes that made the wearer at once into a duchess.
The duchess herself was present, but she was dowdy, as duchesses have a
right to be. And then the arrivals, the carriages that came gleaming up,
the horses that pranced and curved their beautiful necks, as highbred
as the ladies! Geoff, who had come with his mother, posted himself at
one of the windows inside the filmy white curtains to watch the people
coming. He suddenly called out "mother" when it was almost time to start,
and the brougham was already waiting at the door for the bridegroom.
Lady Markland was standing close by the window talking to Dick,
who, as bridegrooms often are, was agitated and required support and
encouragement. "What is it, Geoff?" she asked in the midst of what she
was saying, without turning from her companion.
"Oh, look here. I say, there is the lady that was at the big house at
Underwood, the lady that picked me up the day I ran away--the one that
was at the Elms. Look, mamma. Ah, you're just too late," cried Geoff,
"you are always too late. She's gone now."
It was Dick and not Lady Markland who came forward to the window. "The
lady who was at the Elms?" he said, and Geoff, looking up, saw a face
that was like ashes looking not at him, but out of the window, with wide
staring eyes.
"Look there--just going away--in a big veil--don't you see her? but I
saw her face quite plain--the same lady that took me up beside her on
the big tall phaeton. I did not like her much," the boy added in an
undertone.
"I think"--in a still lower voice, almost a whisper--"you are mistaken,
Geoff; that lady is dead."
"I saw her all the same," said the boy.
And here some of the jocular persons who make weddings more dreadful
than they need to be came forward and touched Dick on the arm. "Come
along, old fellow," he said; "no skulking, it's too late to draw back.
The bridegroom's carriage stops the way."
There are resolute people in the world, who can look as they please,
who can receive a mortal blow, and smile all the time, or worse, look
gravely self-possessed, as if nothing had ever happened to them, or
could happen to the end of time. Dick Cavendish was not of this heroic
kind, but yet he managed to make himself look as a bridegroom ought, as
he went through the little crowd and made his way downstairs. He said to
himself it was not possible; had not her death been certified beyond
doubt, had not Saunders attended the funeral and brought that photograph
and the poor little ring? Was the certainty of all these facts to be
shaken by the random recollection of a foolish child; or a chance
resemblance which that child might imagine in a passer-by? He said to
himself that there could be no greater folly than to pay any attention
to such a piece of absurdity. But as he went out, and all the way along
as he drove, hearing without paying any attention to the occasional
remarks of his best man, who was with him, his eyes were searching among
the wayfarers, the little crowd round the door, the other little crowd
round the church. Just as he stepped inside the portico, turning round
for a last look, he saw something approaching in a hansom--something
rather than some one, a gray veil covering an unseen face. Was it some
woman peacefully going about her own business, or was it----? He went
in, feeling the faces in the church turn round to look at him, wondering
if his face was like the face of a man who was going to marry Chatty, or
of one who was standing by the side of a grave? When he got up to the
altar and took his place to wait for his bride there was a moment of
silence, during which no intrusive fool could talk to him. And in the
quiet he stood and closed his eyes and felt himself--oh, not here at the
altar, waiting for Chatty in her orange flowers, but by the side of the
dark pit into which the coffin was descending, straining his eyes to see
through the lid if indeed the other was there. But then again, with an
effort, he shook his miserable nightmare off. It was not possible he
could be deceived. What motive could any one have to deceive him? Saunders
had seen her buried, and had brought the photograph and that ring. The
ring was conclusive; unless a horrible trick had been played upon him
there was no room for doubt, and to whose interest could it be to play
him a trick of this dreadful kind?
And then came the little rustle and thrill of the arriving train. And
something white came up, a succession of whitenesses streaming one after
the other, with no sound but the delicate rustle, that soft touch upon
the air that might almost have been wings. They stood together, both but
half conscious of what was going on round them: Chatty, sweetly wrapped
in a maze of soft-coming fancies of wonder and pleasure and awe and
regret; while he, touched to the heart by her presence, yet only half
conscious of it, went through the whole in a kind of trance, mingling
the words spoken with interlinings of unspeakable dumb reasonings,
self-assurances, self-exhortations. Nobody knew anything about all this.
The ceremony went on, just as such ceremonies go on every day in the
year. The priest said the words and paused while they were repeated;
by one voice firmly and strongly, by the other low and unassured, yet
clear. And then there was the flutter of tension relieved, the gathering
round of the little crowd, the little procession to the vestry, where
everything was signed, the kissings and good wishes. Dick had no mother,
but his elder sister was there, who kissed him in her place, and his
younger sister, who was a bridesmaid, and hung about Chatty with all a
girl's enthusiasm. What could be more simple, more natural and true?
There was no shadow there of any dread, but everything happy, honest,
pure. He recovered his soul a little in the midst of that group; though
when Geoff with his little sharp face, in which there always seemed more
knowledge than belonged to his age, caught his eye, a slight shiver ran
over him. He felt as if Geoff knew all about it; and might, for anything
he could tell, have some horrible secret to bring forth.
And then they set out again, the husband with his wife on his arm, to
go away. The touch of Chatty's hand on his arm seemed to restore his
confidence. She was his, in spite of all that Fate could do--in spite of
everything, he thought. They walked together, he feeling more and more
the pride and triumph of the moment, she moving softly, still in her
dream, yet beginning too to feel the reality, past the altar where
they had knelt a little while before, going down the aisle, facing the
spectators who still lingered well pleased to see the bride. And then in
a moment the blow fell. Some one seemed to rise up before them, out of
the ground, out of the vacancy, forming before his horror-stricken eyes.
And then there rose that cry which everybody could hear--which paralysed
the bridal procession and brought the clergyman startled out of the vestry,
and thrilled the careless lookers-on. "He has a wife living. She is
living, and she is here!" Had he heard these words before in a dream?
Had he known all along that he would hear them, ringing in his ears on
his wedding day? "His wife is living--and she is here!"
"What is it? what is it?" cried the wedding guests, crowding upon each
other, those who were nearest at least, while those at the end of the
procession paused with the smile on their lips to stare and wonder at
the sudden disturbance. Chatty was the most self-possessed of all. She
said softly: "Lizzie, Lizzie! Something has happened to her," and put
out her disengaged hand in its white glove to raise her from her knees.
"Miss Chatty, it's you that something has happened to--Oh stop, oh stop!
there she is! Don't--don't let Miss Chatty go away with him, don't let
her go away with him!" Lizzie cried.
"The woman is mad!" said some one behind. And so it might have been
thought; when suddenly those immediately following who had closed up
behind Chatty heard the bridegroom's voice, extremely agitated, yet with
a nervous firmness, say audibly: "It is not true. Lizzie, the woman you
speak of is dead. I know for certain that she is dead."
"Look there!" the intruder cried.
And he turned round in the sight of them all, the bride half turning too
with the voluntary impulse, and saw behind the sea of anxious wondering
faces another, which seemed to float in a mist of horror, from under the
half-lifted cloud of a gray veil. He saw this face; and the rest of the
wedding guests saw his, blanched with dread and misery, and knew every
one that the marriage was stopped, and Chatty no wife, and he a
dishonoured man.
Her eyes had followed his, she had not looked at him, but still held his
arm, giving him a support he was incapable of giving her. The face in
the background was not unknown to Chatty. She remembered it well, and
with what a compunction of pity she had looked at it when she met that
poor creature on the road at home, and wanted in her heart to take the
lost one to her mother. She did not understand at all what was going on
about her, nor what Mrs. Warrender meant, who came closely up behind,
and took hold of her arm, detaching her from Dick. "Chatty, let us get
home, my darling. Come, come with me. Theo will take us home," the
mother said.
Then Chatty, turning round wondering, saw her bridegroom's face. She
looking at him earnestly for the moment, holding his arm tighter, and
then said with a strange, troubled, yet clear voice: "Dick--what does
it mean? Dick!"
"Come home, come home, my dearest," cried Mrs. Warrender, trying to
separate them.
"Come back to the vestry, Cavendish," cried Theo with threatening
tones; and then arose a loud murmur of other suggestions, a tumult most
unusual, horrifying, yet exciting to the spectators who closed around.
The clergyman came out still in his surplice, hurrying towards the spot
"Whatever the interruption is," he said, "don't stay there, for Heaven's
sake. Come back if you will, or go home, but don't let us have a
disturbance in the church."
"Chatty, go with my mother. For God's sake, Frances, get them all away."
"I will not leave Dick," said Chatty in her soft voice, "until I know
what it is." She who was so yielding and so simple, she turned round
with her own impulse the unhappy young man whose arm she held, and who
seemed for the moment incapable of any action of his own, and led him
back towards the place from which they had come. The horror had not
penetrated sufficiently into Chatty's mind to do more than pale a
little the soft colour in her face. She had grown very serious, looking
straight before her, taking no notice of anything. They all followed
like so many sheep in her train, the ladies crowding together, Dick's
sister at his other hand, Mrs. Warrender close behind, Lizzie carried
along with them, now crying bitterly and wringing her hands, utterly
cowed by finding herself in the midst of this perfumed and rustling
crowd, amid which her flushed and tear-stained face and humble dress
showed to such strange disadvantage. Unnoticed by the rest, Geoff, who
had wriggled out of the mass, pursued down the farther aisle a hurrying
flying figure and stopped her, holding her fast.
In the vestry Chatty began to fail a little. She relinquished Dick's
arm, and stood trembling, supporting herself by the table. "I want him,"
she said, faltering a little, "mamma, to tell me--what it means. There
is something--to find out. Dick," with a tremulous smile, "you have
concealed something. It is not that I don't trust you,--but tell me"--Then,
still smiling, she murmured, "Lizzie--and that--that poor--girl."
Dick had collected himself "My darling," he said, "I have done wrong. I
have concealed what you ought to have known. Warrender, stop before you
speak. I married when I was a boy. I declare upon my soul that I had
every assurance the woman was dead. My clerk saw her buried, he brought
me the certificate, and her portrait, and her ring. I had no reason, no
reason at all, to doubt, I have no reason now," he said, with a sudden
recovery of courage, "except what this girl says,--who has no way of
knowing, while my information is sure. It is sure--quite sure. Chatty!
can you think I would have brought you here to--to---- The woman is
dead."
"Mr. Cavendish!" cried Lizzie loudly. "You saw her--as well as I."
He looked at her for a moment, his face grew once more gray as ashes, he
trembled where he stood. "It must have been--an illusion," he said.
Here Warrender caught Lizzie somewhat roughly by the arm. "If this
woman is here, find her," he cried peremptorily, pushing her to the door
before him. The church was still full of excited spectators whom the
vergers were endeavouring to get rid of. In the aisle stood Geoff with
some one veiled and muffled to the eyes. The boy was standing in front
of her, like a little dog who has been set to watch. She could not move
a step without a movement on his part. He gave to Warrender a sort of
invitation with a nod of his little head. "I've got her here," he said;
then whispering, "It is the lady--the lady that ran you over, that
picked me up,--the lady at the Elms."
"At the Elms!" There rushed over Theo's mind a recollection of Dick's
visit to the village, of his hurried departure, of agitation unnoticed
at the time. "I must ask you to step into the vestry," he said.
"Oh, Mr. Warrender, I know you, though you don't know me; don't ask me
to do that. What, among all those nicely dressed people, and me so!--oh
no, please do not ask me, please don't ask me! What good could I do? It
seems to me I've done harm, but I meant none. I thought I'd just come
and have a peep after hearing so much about you all, and knowing him so
long."
"Will you tell me who you are, and what is your connection with
Cavendish? Come, and let us know before his face."
"Oh, my connection with--Dear, dear! is it necessary to go into that--a
thing of an age ago? Oh, Lord, Lizzie, let me alone, will you! it's all
your doing. Why couldn't you let things alone?"
"Whatever you have to say, it had better be said before us all," said
Warrender sternly, for various members of the bridal party had straggled
out, and were listening from the vestry door. He took her by the arm and
led her into the room. "What is your relation to that man?" he said,
keeping his hand upon her arm.
The wedding guests made a circle round, the clergyman in his white
surplice among the ladies' gay dresses, the white figure of Chatty
leaning with her hand on the table, her mother's anxious face close
behind her. Poor Dick in his spruce wedding clothes, with his ghostly
face, stood drawing back a little, staring with eyes that seemed to sink
deeper in their sockets as he gazed. He had never looked upon that face
since he parted with her in utter disgust and misery six years before.
She came in, almost forced into the inclosure of all those fine people
gazing at her, with all her meretricious graces, not an imposing sinner,
a creature ready to cry and falter, yet trying to set up against the
stare of the ladies the piteous impudence of her kind.
"What are you to that man?" Theo asked.
"Oh,--what should I be to him? a gentleman doesn't ask such questions.
I--I--have been the same to him as I've been--you know well enough," she
added, with a horrible little laugh that echoed all about, and made a
stir among the people round.
"Are you his wife?"
She shuddered, and began to cry. "I--I'm nobody's wife. I've been--a
number of things. I like my freedom--I----" She stopped hysterical,
overcome by the extraordinary circumstances, and the audience which
listened and looked at her with hungry ears and eyes.
Dick put out his arms as if to wave the crowd away. What were all these
spectators doing here, looking on at his agony? He spoke in a hoarse and
husky voice. "Why did you deceive me? why did you pretend you were dead,
and lead me to this?"
"Because I've nothing to do with you, and I don't want nothing to do
with you," she cried; "because I've been dead to you these long years;
because I'm not a bad, cruel woman. I wanted to leave you free. He's
free for me," she said, turning to Warrender. "It's not I that wants to
bind him. If I made believe it was me that died, where was the wrong? I
wanted to set him free. That's not deceiving him, it was for his good,
that he might feel he was free."
"Answer, woman. Are you his wife?"
"What right have you to call me a woman? His wife? How can you tell
whether I wasn't married before ever I set eyes upon him?" she cried,
with a hysterical laugh. "They don't think so much of that where I came
from. There! I hope you've had enough of me now. Lizzie, you fool, you
spoil-sport, you hateful creature, give me hold of your arm, and let's
go away. We've done you harm, Mr. Cavendish, instead of doing you good,
but that is no fault of mine."
There was a pause as she went out of the vestry, holding Lizzie's arm,
whose sobs were audible all the way down the aisle. It did not last
long, but it was as the silence of death. Then Dick spoke.
"You see how it is. I married her when I was a boy. She deserted me in a
very short time, and I have never seen her from that day to this, nearly
seven years ago. Six weeks since I received information that she was dead.
She tells you it was a trick, a device,--but I--had every reason to
believe it. God knows I wanted to believe it! but I thought I spared no
pains. Then I went to Chatty, whom I had long loved." Here he paused to
regain his voice, which had become almost inaudible. "I thought all was
right. Don't you believe me?" he cried hoarsely, holding out his hands
in appeal. At first his little sister was the only one who responded.
She threw herself weeping upon one of his outstretched arms and clasped
it. Chatty had been put into a chair, where she sat now very pale, under
the white mist of the veil, beginning to realise what it was that had
happened. When she heard the anguish in Dick's voice, she suddenly rose
to her feet, taking them all by surprise. Instinctively the party had
separated into two factions, his side and her side. The group about
Chatty started when she moved, and Theo seized hold almost roughly of
her elbow. But Chatty did not seem sensible of this clutch. She went
forward to the bridegroom so disastrously taken from her, and took his
other hand in hers. "I believe you--with all my heart," Chatty said. "I
blame you for nothing, oh, for nothing. I am sorry--for us both."
"Take her away, mother. The carriage has come round to the vestry door.
Chatty! This is no longer any place for you."
Chatty looked round upon her faction, who were encircling her with dark
or miserable looks. "We are very unfortunate," she said, "but we have
done nothing that is wrong."
"Chatty, O Chatty, my darling, come away. You cannot stay any longer
here."
"What, without a word to Dick, mother! Speak to him. He is the most to
be pitied. We never thought we should have to say good-bye again." Here
she paused and the tears came. She repeated in a voice that went to the
hearts of all the staring, excited spectators, "I am sorry--for us both."
"God bless you, Chatty! God bless you, my own love! And must we part
so?" cried poor Dick, falling down upon his knees, and sobbing over the
hands which held his. He was altogether broken down. He knew there was
nothing to be said to him, or for him. He was without help or hope. For
a moment even Warrender, who was the most severe, could say nothing
in sight of this lamentable scene,--the bride and her bridegroom, who
had been pronounced man and wife half-an-hour before, and now were
parting,--perhaps for ever,--two people between whom there was now no
bond, whose duty would be to keep apart. Chatty stooped over him, whom
she must see no more, her white veil fell over him covering them both,
she laid her pale cheek against his. "It is not our fault. We are very
unfortunate. We must have patience," she said.
He kept on kneeling there, following her with his eyes, while her
brother and her mother led her away, then with a groan covered his face
with his hands. Was this the end?