The quiet, little unpretending, out-of-the-way and not-of-much-account
watering place of Bigton, was emphatically upside-down and out of its
mind.
Bigton was, in a word, bewitched--good reason, too, if all things were
taken into consideration. It is not every day, according to our
Hibernian friends, that "Morris kills a pig." Following out the
analogy, it was not every day that Bigton had a wedding--a wedding,
moreover, where the bride was the daughter of a lady, "in her own
right;" and the happy man, if not "a lord of high degree," a shining
light in the church, and closely related to a high and eminent political
personage, such as Sir Boanerges Todhunter.
Besides, the nuptial ceremony was to be celebrated by the right reverend
prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chumpchopster, who was renowned far and wide
as the most imposing of confirmists in the annual laying on of hands;
and distinguished, not only as being one of the most ornate of orators,
but for having published the well-known refutation of Judaism on the
part of the pork-consuming portion of the population. A treatise which
proclaimed his unswerving adherence to the time-honoured thirty-nine
articles and undoubted hostility to the pre-adamite theologians. The
fact that he would be there was quite enough to set Bigton in a
whirligig of wonder and expectation, quite apart from the contingent
circumstances attending the auspicious event.
The engagement between the present contracting parties had not been a
very long one, the campaigner being in favour of early marriages, she
said--having daughters to dispose of; but her probable reason was to get
the irrevocable knot tied so that there might be no backing-out and no
backsliding on the part of _I promessi sposi_.
Lady Inskip took all the arrangements in her own hands. Having brought
Pringle to book, she decided upon the length of the engagement, fixed
the wedding day, and then told the languid Laura and her expectant
son-in-law all about it. They had nothing whatever to do with the
affair at all; they were to be married, and that was sufficient for
them. She considered the pair as children in her hands, who had only to
do as they were told. Hers be it to act, and plan, and settle
everything; theirs to acquiesce in what she planned, and be thankful for
the considerate forethought of their mamma-of-action.
Pringle glided readily and easily into such an improved order of things;
he accepted the gifts the gods gave him with admirable complacency. He
consented to every arrangement that was made; indeed, it was well that
the campaigner took matters in her own hands, for the young incumbent
was of such an easy-going temperament, that even if he had gone to the
length of popping the question to the languid Laura on his own behalf,
it might have been years before he summoned up resolution enough to take
the final plunge into matrimony. All things considered, therefore, it
was better for the campaigner to act; and act she did, with promptitude
and despatch.
The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., behaved, throughout, as a very
decorous, about-to-be-married man, and expectant filial. Of course he
paid a regular visit every day to the cottage on the esplanade to see
his _fiancee_. He enjoyed her placid society, and went through all the
formulas expected and required of him--even to the extent of going
shopping for his presumptive mother-in-law, and selecting gaudy wools of
many colours for mat manufacture, and purchasing garden seeds, besides
attending to the redecoration and preparation of the parsonage for the
reception of his bride, under the stern and uncompromising eye of the
campaigner, who would have "this" done, and "that" altered, as she
pleased: her word was already law to him.
The gloom that had fallen over the house of Hartshorne did not, in any
way, affect the approaching marriage.
A rumour had got abroad that something was wrong at The Poplars, from
the chattering of the villagers, but no real facts had leaked out; and
everybody put down the old dowager's attack of paralysis and subsequent
long illness to the news of her daughter Susan's sudden death, which
they had read of in the necropolitan portion of the _Times_ newspaper.
Doctor Jolly, with the exception of such observations as, "Bless my
soul! Sad pity! sad pity!" and "By Gad!" 'Twas a fearful "shock to the
old woman!" kept a sealed tongue in his head; and the lawyer, who was
the only other person that now had the _entree_ at The Poplars, was
naturally and professionally reticent. At the parsonage, the calamities
of the "big house" had, of course, created interest. Herbert Pringle
thought, from his religious position, and Lizzie, from her sympathetic
little heart, which naturally yearned towards anyone in affliction--
particularly now, and when the object of her sympathy was the mother of
her lover--both made attempts to minister at The Poplars, and both were
unsuccessful.
The old lady was, for weeks, speechless; and so ill, as not to be able
to bear the sight of a new face. Doctor Jolly would not hear of the
young incumbent seeing her; she could not understand anything said to
her, and, for the present--the doctor told him gravely--any religious
question which she wanted settled must rest between herself and her God!
The doctor thought that but little spiritual consolation could be
imparted by a flippant young man, who only wore a cassock for temporal
purposes: as the means of obtaining a living, to a woman old enough to
be his mother, and who was already, even now, struggling, with the
Infinite!
To Lizzie, however, the doctor spoke kindly. He recognised the spirit
in which her sympathy was tendered; and he told her that as soon as the
old lady got round a bit he would be glad of her services. When she
recovered her consciousness, a brighter face around her than that of the
old servant, who now attended her, would conduce to her recovery; and
Lizzie, you may be sure, was very glad to hear this, and longed for the
time when she could be of use to "Tom's mother."
Although the old dowager, therefore, lay sick unto death, the marriage
preparations were not set aside. Pringle, indeed, had hinted to the
campaigner that perhaps it would not be in good taste to celebrate the
festival while the great proprietress of the county, his especial
patroness, was in this state, but that intrepid lady had incontinently
derided the notion, asking what was the dowager to them? following up
the question with another and more potent one, as to whether he wished
to postpone the marriage with her darling girl in a very aggrieved tone
of voice. Upon this Pringle was hastily "shut up," and had to pour out
a hundred apologies of, "Really, Lady Inskip, not for the world!" and so
on.
The end of the old year came, and the beginning of the new ushered in
the wedding morn.
Many things had been achieved before this, however, as may have been
expected, from the great preparations which had been going on ever since
Pringle's proposal, _ex parte_ the campaigner, and the settlement of the
engagement.
The parsonage had been newly decorated and painted throughout from top
to basement; on the campaigner's express stipulation, the drawing-room
had been refurnished in a gorgeous suite of velvet and gold; and,
although Lizzie's special domain in the garden had not been interfered
with, everything else about the young incumbent's mansion had been
altered and duly prepared for the coming event. At Laburnum Cottage,
too, the occasion was not disregarded.
To do her the justice, the campaigner was not stingy in her present
expenditure. Whether it was the joy of marrying off one of her
marriageable daughters opened her purse-strings in the same extent as it
gladdened her heart, or that it arose from a desire to shine amidst the
thing, or that it was owing to a union of both sentiments, cannot be
exactly decided: suffice it to say that the campaigner opened her purse
with a lavish hand.
For many days large boxes had come down from various haberdashers--"dry
goods establishments," the Americans call them--and milliners in London;
and every little shop in Bigton had been ransacked to the same intent by
Lady Inskip and her daughters. The languid Laura was provided with such
a gigantic _trousseau_ that she would probably attain the rank of
grandmother before she wore out one half the number of "dozens"
provided, while a perfect corps of needlewomen was kept in constant
employment, basting, fitting, hemming, stitching, cutting out, felling,
"goring," and trying on, for upwards of a fortnight or more.
The campaigner had an additional motive in thus providing for her eldest
darling. You see, Lady Inskip had no _dot_, as she elegantly phrased
it, with which to endow her "poor, portionless darlings," and the fact
of giving them a handsome "rig-out," as their brother Mortimer said,
would perhaps blind the eyes of Caelebs in search of a wife. Be that as
it may, however, the needlewomen worked apace, the _trousseau_ was fully
provided, and Monday night, the eve of the wedding day, Tuesday, the
seventh of January, anno domini 1868, found everything ready for the
auspicious event.
Lizzie was necessarily one of the bridesmaids--that highly necessary
_corps d'armee_, without which no bride of any pretensions will allow
herself to be conducted to Hymen's sacrificial font. Carry, the bride's
sister, was another; and the places of the two additional
ladies-in-waiting (for espousal themselves) were supplied by two distant
cousins of the Inskips, who had already officiated in a similar capacity
so many times that they had most probably made up their maiden minds
that this was the only problematical manner in which they would ever
officiate at a wedding. Some people seem doomed always to play second
fiddle through life, and bridesmaids are no exceptions to the rule.
The campaigner had spared no pains, as she had grudged no expense. All
her influence, whether important or slight, was brought to bear on the
contingent circumstances of the affair.
By back-stairs beseeching she so worked round the maternal aunt of the
Bishop of Chumpchopster, that the right reverend prelate was persuaded--
inasmuch as he had temporal expectations from the said maternal aunt--to
accompany her to Bigton, and officiate in the tying of the matrimonial
noose between Herbert Pringle, of whom his lordship was pleased to take
some considerable notice, and Laura. The prelate and his maternal aunt
became the honoured guests of Lady Inskip for a day and a night in
consequence; but how on earth they were stowed in Laburnum Cottage, and
what accommodation was provided for them, remains to this day a puzzle.
"The blushing orb of day at length gilded the sky," and "Phoebus"
announced the wedding morn.
Enormous dressings of bride and bridesmaids. White and scarlet were the
colours adopted, if you've a fancy for knowing them, although the
campaigner had a strong leaning, which she subsequently quenched,
towards mauve and yellow. Multitudinous errands and scurryings to and
fro of "slavies" and domestics, including "Buttons" and several hired
menials, now addicted to Berlin gloves, although displaying raw,
beefsteaky hands in every-day life. Manifold preparations for the
_dejeuner_, and consequent encroachments of pastry-cook's boys with
superincumbent trays and oblong covered boxes with horizontal S handles;
Laburnum Cottage turned inside out, and outside in; Bigton church bells
clanging "fit to bust 'emselves," as the villagers said; Bigton
upside-down--in a word, bewitched.
In the early morning two cavaliers might have been seen wending their
way towards the scene of the festivities; not "clad in Lincoln green,"
as the late lamented G.P.R. James would have described, but dressed _en
regle_: these were Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, who had
received pressing invitations from Lady Inskip to come over from
Brighton in order to be present at the ceremony. Neither was averse to
coming, and, indeed, Captain Miles had certain reasons of his own, which
will be detailed presently, for jumping at the offer; so the two
cavaliers set out early, and wended their way to Bigton, as already
chronicled in the language of the ancient "romancist." The Americans
will add an "ist" or a "cist" to every known trade or substantive under
the sun, to describe the person or individual who practises or has any
connection with the same: thus, a "paragraphist" is a man who writes a
paragraph, and they carry it down to a "pipist," who uses a pipe--
whether for smoking or musical purposes it does not matter--and
"chawist," he who masticates tobacco--a remarkably dirty habit!
Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, however, were not the only
guests. Besides these were others, great and important too, although it
must be observed that there was an especial lack of young men in the
campaigner's "goodlie compagnie;" whether it was because she deprecated
their presence or feared their worldly ways cannot be exactly decided.
The campaigner was acquainted with the truism that "young people will be
young people," and fenced herself in accordingly, as she had fears on
the subject of her youngest daughter Carry, who was far too frivolous to
suit her more prudent expectations, and she wanted to put temptation out
of the way of the "dear girl" that she might not be led to throw herself
away on an "ineligible _parti_." The campaigner thought that she knew
Captain Miles very well; he had nothing but his pay, and if he were
younger she would not put him in the way of any young lady whom she
wished to marry well, but she was certain that the captain was no fool
to let his beautiful Dundreary whiskers be sold for nothing, so she had
no fears for Carry with him. Lieutenant Harrowby was perfectly
allowable too: he was a simpleton, and had a very snug little fortune of
five "thou" per annum.
Besides the Bishop of Chumpchopster and his maternal aunt, the next most
important guest who would grace the festal board at the wedding
breakfast would be Sir Boanerges Todhunter, the great Conservative
Reformer. He was stopping at the parsonage now with the Reverend
Herbert Pringle, his distant cousin, but he had already accepted an
invitation to the _dejeuner_, and had in fact come over for the purpose,
on the grounds of his relationship with the bridegroom, to assist in the
demolition of the Strasbourg _pate_, and propose the health of the
about-to-be-newly-spliced pair.
In the list also of the fashionable world present might have been seen
the names of Captain Curry Cucumber, of the Honorable and defunct East
India Company's Service, Miss Blandish, Lady Sparrowhawk and sister, the
Honorable Miss Bigges (pray be particular about the final e), the
Reverend Jabez Heavieman--invited in virtue of his office more than on
account of his convivial proclivities--and others.
Suppose the wedding over. Picture the bride in her orange blossoms, the
bridegroom in his magpie dress--he could not adopt the time-honoured
blue frock, being a cleric--the bridesmaids in their scarlet and white
trains of tulle and tulips--the Bishop of Chumpchopster in his
voluminous lawn sleeves pronouncing the blessing in his well-known and
to be-much-admired Alcaic manner. Imagine the bells of Bigton clanging
out their merry peal in the frosty air: paint to yourself the gallant
and gay assemblage. Fancy, in a word, the marriage to be _un fait
accompli_; the guests returned to Laburnum Cottage; the toast of the day
proposed in that highly-declamatory style which makes the name of Sir
Boanerges Todhunter synonymous with that of Cicero; thanks responded in
the usual halting manner by the bridegroom; the happy pair started on
their tour with the customary shower of shoes; the banquet concluded.
Imagine all this. Aha! and now I will a tale unfold.
The campaigner had been in ecstasies with the way in which everything
had gone off. The Bishop and Sir Boanerges had just driven away, late
in the evening, after partaking of a hasty dinner, which had been
scrambled out of the remains of the previous feast; Captain Curry
Cucumber was detailing some highly-spiced Indian anecdotes to Miss
Blandish, who was in a holy state of maiden indignation at some of the
particulars with which the captain thought it incumbent on him to
furnish her, although she listened eagerly all the while; Lieutenant
Harrowby was indulging in platitudes with the Hon. Miss Bigges, while
poor Lizzie was being swamped by the veteran Lady Sparrowhawk, who was
imparting to our little friend--who found the whole thing fearfully
dreary--her views on the girls of the present day, contrasting them,
sadly to the disadvantage of the former, with the time when she was
young: all, in fact, was going on just as the campaigner wished.
When, suddenly, just as Lady Inskip proposed a carpet dance to break the
monotony of the evening, she discovered that her darling girl Carry and
Captain Miles were both missing!
Horror! Where could they be? Could her worst fears be realised? The
skeleton which had lurked behind the banquet now stepped forth. Her
_atra cura_ now confronted the campaigner! Uneasy was the head that
wore the crown of manoeuvring triumph that day: Carry and the Captain
had gone off _nulla vestigia retrorsum_, leaving not a trace behind.
Mortimer was first dispatched to search for the fugitives; but when he
returned unsuccessfully, and no trace of the delinquents was to be
found, either in and about the house or in the adjacent garden, the
campaigner, whose nerves had been in a state of tension all day, fairly
broke down. She proclaimed her calamities to her astonished company,
bursting into a passion of tears, as she threw her arms round the neck
of her boy, that young imp, and exclaimed, "Oh! Morti-mer! Morti-mer!
I told you so! I told you so!" over and over again, insisting all the
time that she had _him_ still left to her!
The _fiasco_ of the pic-nic was comparatively nothing to the present
scene; and the excitement culminated when a note was brought in at this
juncture by the campaigner's abigail (who said she had just found it on
the dressing-table in Miss Carry's room, although she had known of its
existence some hours before, and Lady Inskip discharged her, "by the
same token," as Paddy says, the next day for her complicity in the
affair), telling how the young lady--somewhat "fast" on her part, it
must be confessed--had gone off with Captain Miles to get married,
spurred up to the point probably by the events of the day.
The note, which was handed round for general perusal, in consequence of
Lady Inskip's temporary abstraction, ran as follows, in Carry's neat
calligraphy, described in violet ink, on cream-laid note:--
"Dear Ma,--
"Algernon and I having determined to unite our lot--(we have been in
correspondence for a long time without your knowledge)--have gone off to
get married without any bother. We knew you would object and `kick up a
row,' as dear Algernon says, and have therefore thought it best to go
off without letting you know anything about the state of our affections.
Any pursuit will be vain, as we are both determined. We will be
married to-morrow morning. Hoping you will not be vexed very much with
your `darling girl,' and that Laura will be as happy as I intend to be,
with the `prig,' as I used to call the poor little parson,
"Believe me,
"Your affectionate daughter,
"Carry.
"P.S.--Algernon says to give you his love, and he tells you to `keep
your pecker up.' Tell Mortimer he can have my Persian kitten. Please
excuse Abigail for helping me off. I bullied her into doing it.
Forgive me, dear ma! I know I shall be as happy as a butterfly, and, at
all events, I shall ever be your loving daughter, Carry."
The comments that were made on this missive may be imagined; and in the
commotion that ensued the characters of the campaigner's guests soon
developed themselves, as is usually the case in moments of excitement,
particularly when an _esclandre_ arises.
Old Lady Sparrowhawk and the antiquated virgin, Miss Bigges, thought it
highly immoral on Lady Inskip's part to invite them to a house where any
such thing could possibly have happened. Of course they would not
mention anything about it, they said, as they retired from the scene;
but, strange to say, in a very little while after, the mutual friends of
Lady Sparrowhawk and the campaigner were acquainted with every incident
of the elopement. Indeed, from the statements of these people, you
would be led to suppose that they knew a good deal more about it than
had as yet transpired, with much noddings and sly gestures, and
confidential "you knows."
To say that Captain Curry Cucumber was wrath, would convey but a feeble
idea of his state of mind and volubility of expression, when he, too,
got up to go. In the first place, he had had a slight penchant for the
fair Carry, which Lady Inskip had fostered and encouraged; the remnant
of his liver was consequently wrung with jealousy and baffled love--if
love it may be called--which empurpled his saffron face; and he looked
upon it is a special affront and injury to himself that the campaigner
should have allowed her daughter thus to run away.
"By Gad! sir!" he said, to Lieutenant Harrowby, who, having been a
confidant of Captain Miles, was dreading in much fear and trembling that
the onus of the whole affair would be laid upon his weak shoulders. "By
Gad! sir, I have never been so scandalously treated in my life; not even
by the Begum of Ferozesha!"
He said this in sufficiently angry tones, ere he left the room; but when
he got into the hall, his wrath rose to thunder, and was terrific to
behold.
The magnificent gold-mounted bamboo cane which he had left there, which
had been presented to him by Rumagee Bumagee, the Rajah of Bugpoor, and
which he valued at ever so many lakhs of rupees, was missing. The
captain boiled over with indignation, called Laburnum Cottage a den of
thieves, and heaped such reams of violent epithets on the heads of Lady
Inskip, her daughter, and all her family, even unto the third and fourth
generation, as made Miss Blandish's scanty locks stand on end with
fright, and even restored the campaigner to her senses.
Captain Curry Cucumber then went out of Laburnum Cottage, for good and
all, and he vowed he would never set foot within another house in Bigton
for social purposes or otherwise. For the remainder of his term of
residence in the sea-side retreat, he shut himself up in the red brick
corner house of the terrace he inhabited, where he spent his time, it is
believed, from morning until night, swearing at his Kitmaghar, a lascar
servant, and eating chutney and prawn curries. The poor unhappy half
caste servant's life must have been a sad burden to him, for the captain
was continually calling him an "Ooloo ka bucka," or son of an owl, and
associating his name in Hindostanee with a big black monkey, who was
being perpetually consigned to the lower regions.
Carry Inskip's elopement was a "nine days' wonder" in Bigton, and then
was forgotten. It is supposed that the young lady made a better bargain
of it than most runaway matches turn out, and she lives very happily on
a somewhat limited income, with the gallant son of Mars, whom she
espoused the day after their elopement, not at Gretna Green, but by
licence at Chumpchopster, the adjacent cathedral town to Bigton.
The campaigner's star was certainly under an eclipse. She had done well
for her eldest, but Carry turned out "a bold, ungrateful hussie," as she
called her. Yet she quickly recovered from the blow. In bewitching
Bigton she had been bewitched herself; but she was not one to be
daunted, and now that her "darling Laura" was so comfortably
established, the campaigner began to agitate a most notable scheme in
her worldly-wise head.
Volume 3, Chapter VIII.