Having yielded on the most important point. Prudence conceded every
other. She no longer seemed to possess any will, or, if the will were
there, she had no heart to express her wishes. The family arranged
everything without consulting her; and the marriage, which was hurried
forward to fit in as nearly as possible with the date previously fixed
upon, was the biggest and most important function of its kind that
Wortheton had ever seen.
The young bride alone showed no interest in the proceedings, and wore
her white satin and orange wreath with a look of weary protest in her
pretty eyes, and an air of shrinking timidity which Mr Morgan
considered very beautiful.
Bobby's disgust at the whole affair was openly manifest. It would have
been more seemly, he told her with scorn, had she married the curate.
"There's no accounting for tastes," he said, with an odd lack of
sympathy in his manner. "Morgan is a refined edition of Uncle William.
When you are indulging in your hot water kidney cures and boiled mutton
and respectability, don't forget that you asked for these blessings."
"Oh, Bobby!" she protested.
"Well, I told you not to give in. You should have taken a firm stand."
"When you have lived at home a little while you will discover how simple
that advice is to follow," she said, and left him to digest this remark
at his leisure. She felt too flattened to argue with him.
But on the day of the actual ceremony Bobby proved helpful and
encouraging. He hovered about her watchfully, and was always at hand to
fend off the bores, as he expressed it.
"It might be worse, old girl," he said. "When you are fed up with
things, send for me, and we'll manage some sort of a stunt together."
There was no pretence between him and Prudence that the latter's
marriage was a subject for rejoicing: they were too intimately
acquainted with each other's thoughts to attempt a pose.
"Lord! won't it be dull," he said, "without you."
The Rev Ernest assisted in marrying his sister-in-law; and Matilda in
a dove-coloured dress, a little regretful, and still puzzled by the turn
of events, followed the service tearfully, and compared Mr Morgan's
matured thick-set figure with Steele's well-set-up, muscular
youthfulness, to the former's disadvantage, and tried to solace her
misgivings with the reflection that doubtless everything was ordered for
the best in this admirably regulated universe.
Then the ring was placed on Prudence's finger; and the married couple
repaired to the vestry, where Prudence signed the register which
witnessed to the sacrifice of her girlhood and all her dreams of romance
and freedom and the great flight into the unknown, which was to have
revealed such wonderful possibilities of a golden life, complete and
satisfying, and bright with gratified desires. The shackles were
riveted and her wings clipped for all time.
Marriage is one of two things, a realisation of life, or a compromise.
Prudence had effected a compromise, with her eyes opened wide to what
she had lost.
"That's finished," Edward Morgan said in satisfied tones, and kissed his
wife heartily.
Every one showed an eagerness to kiss the bride. Even William raised
her veil and laid a benedictory kiss upon her brow; but it was Bobby
alone who felt her lips respond to his in warm affection; to the rest
she remained a composed, unsmiling young woman, far too composed for a
bride, Matilda thought. She never shed a tear. Matilda had shed
several--emotional drops of pure happiness. She recalled her
sentimental mood of tremulous joy with agreeable satisfaction. Love
must express itself in such tender ways; it is never coldly and gravely
self-contained, as in Prudence's case.
"I hope you will be very happy, dear," Matilda said mournfully. "It is
a blessed thing to be married."
At which the bride's stony features relaxed into a quiet smile; she had
often heard Ernest make use of the same expression, though never in
relation to his connubial bliss.
Old Mrs Morgan, and Mr and Mrs Henry attended the wedding; and Bobby
and Mrs Henry exerted themselves to make the affair go off brightly.
Mrs Henry was a sport, Bobby opined. He had an idea that under her
auspices Prudence might have quite a good time, the nightly K.B. and the
mother-in-law notwithstanding.
Mrs Henry confessed to him her surprise at Prudence's sudden
capitulation.
"I never supposed she would give in," she said.
"It wasn't her fault entirely," Bobby returned. "The family made it so
beastly uncomfortable for her. Now you see us in bulk you ought to be
equal to grasping the situation. You see us at our amiable best; we
aren't often so agreeable. But even at our best we are a trifle heavy."
"You are the lightest heavyweight I have ever encountered," she replied,
laughing.
"Oh! I don't count. I'm a sort of changeling." He brought his face
suddenly close to hers. "I say," he said confidentially, "look after
Prue a bit, and help her to a spree occasionally. It's been dull enough
for her at home. She ought to have a fling now and again."
Mrs Henry looked into his earnest eyes reflectively for a moment, and
smiled.
"That will be all right," she said. "I've been a rebel always. We'll
contrive between us to make things hum. You shall come along some day
and see."
"I can't understand a man wishing to marry a girl who has shown that she
isn't keen," he remarked.
Mrs Henry betrayed amusement.
"The average man's vanity prevents him from realising her lack of
eagerness," she returned cynically.
"He attributes her reluctance to shyness or ignorance or any other
incomprehensible feminine quality, seldom to non-appreciation of
himself. It is just as well, perhaps; it makes things pleasanter. But
don't you think at this stage it would be advisable to admit the
keenness?"
"Well, perhaps," he allowed, and smiled in response to the laugh in her
eyes. "Life is all a game of make-believe, after all. Look round, and
behold! Every one affecting affability, and trying to appear as though
this were a joyful occasion. There is as much real joy in a funeral.
Uncle William is genuinely pleased anyhow. He has always feared that
Prue would get Benjamin's share of the spoil. There is more than a
touch of the miser in the Graynor blood."
William meanwhile was conversing amiably with the bride, who, wearied
with congratulations, had drawn a little apart from the press of guests,
and stood in the opening of the French window where the sunlight fell on
the sheen of white satin and brightened the gold of her hair. From
where she stood she could survey the wallflowers growing in the borders
near the path. The sight of them brought back vividly the memory of the
night when they had suffered sadly from the tread of despoiling feet.
She answered William absently.
"I am proud of you," he said unexpectedly, and placed a heavy hand upon
her arm. "The Graynor honour is safe in your keeping."
She looked at him curiously. William was fond of talking of the Graynor
honour as though it were a quality peculiarly and finely personal. She
wondered what he had ever done to make it so manifestly his. He spoke
as a man might speak, but never does, who spends his life in defence of
this particular virtue.
"I've renounced the Graynor," she replied with a little twist of her
lips. "I'm not keeping anything appertaining to the name. As for
honour, we guard it best, perhaps, when we are least concerned about
it--it's a natural instinct, not an hereditary quality."
"It has always been an attribute of our family," he observed pompously.
"Like the chimneys," she remarked--"which spoil the landscape for other
people."
She felt irritated, irritated with his sententiousness, his inflated
pride. She wished he would not thrust his unwanted company upon her.
His condescending air of being kind and brotherly exasperated her. He
had rushed her into this marriage, he and Agatha; and she was resentful
and bitter on this account. It was a matter of immense regret to her at
that moment that she had yielded to the force of circumstances and
become the reluctant bride of a man who was altogether too good to be
treated in this fashion. Their married life could never be entirely
happy: he would demand of her what she could never give.
The consciousness of his claim upon her galled already. When she saw
him coming towards her, where she stood with William in the aperture of
the window, advancing heavily with his smiling gaze upon her white-clad
figure, she experienced a difficulty in meeting his eyes. Something
akin to fear gripped her heart and held her silent, white-lipped and
unsmiling, as he approached. She felt a wild desire to escape--out
through the open window, beyond the walls into the road--to run away
into the wide open country and hide.
He little guessed at the storm that shook that quiet figure which
remained so still and unresponsive when he halted beside it, with some
jesting remark about her having slipped away from him. She gathered
from his words that she had done an unprecedented thing in deserting his
side. That was her place--at his side--always.
He conducted her to the dining-room, where a huge wedding cake adorned
the centre of the long table, a mountain of ornamental white sugar and
silver decorations, which it was required she should cut, while her
husband stood by, glad and proud, wishful to be helpful, enjoying these
absurd customs, and listening to and responding to the toasts with
heartfelt appreciation.
Would all this insincere merrymaking never end?
Old Mr Graynor put out a hand and felt for hers under the tablecloth,
and pressed her fingers tenderly. His action, in its simple appeal,
melted the ice that was closing about Prudence's heart. She turned to
him swiftly, silently, and smiled into his understanding eyes with eyes
as dim as his. The new antagonism broke down; he was again the one
human being whom she greatly loved. And he was feeling every whit as
lonely and sad at heart as herself. How stupid and unnecessary it all
seemed, and yet how inevitable!
There followed the change into her travelling-dress, and the bustle of
departure amid hurried farewells; and then Prudence entered the motor--
the fine new car which Edward had bought for her, and in which they
would make the journey to London, _en route_ for the Continent, where
the honeymoon was to be spent.
He had thought of everything that would conduce to her pleasure and
comfort; and had sacrificed many an old-fashioned prejudice in planning
a honeymoon that would appeal to her more youthful ideas of enjoyment.
He did not care about travelling himself, and he hated foreign places
and people. But he enjoyed giving her pleasure.
When the car turned out of the gates and whirled down the white road, he
took her in his arms and crushed her to him and rained ardent kisses on
her unresponsive lips.
"My darling!" he murmured. "My own darling! How good it is to be alone
with you at last!"
Thus Prudence left her girlhood behind her and started upon her married
life.