They had fixed on the Wednesday following the last time of asking, for
their wedding-day. But when they came to discuss the matter with Mrs.
Carré, it was found that an alteration would be necessary.
"Ah, but that will not do," said their landlady, who was in high
feather at so unique an event taking place in her cottage, so to
speak, though, as a matter of fact, the festivities were to be carried
out within the ampler precincts of the Red House. "You see, old Mr.
Hamon he iss died very sudden--"
"Not old Tom surely?" asked Graeme.
"He iss old Tom's father, and they will bury him on Wednesday, and you
would not like to be married the sem day--"
"No, indeed," said Margaret. "We will wait."
"And, you see, all them that would be coming to the wedding would be
at the funeral, for efferybody belongs to efferybody else here."
"Must be a bit awkward at times," suggested Graeme.
"Oh noh!" with a touch of airy aloofness. "I haf been at a wedding and
a funeral and a baptism all in one week all among the sem people. And
I was at one young man's wedding one day last year and at his funeral
the same day the next week after."
"That was dreadful," said Margaret. "Do you think it would be safe to
fix it for the following Wednesday, Mrs. Carré?"
"Oh yes, I think! There iss no one very sick. Mr. Hamon he wass a very
old man and he died very sudden. He wass just knocking a nail in the
pigsty and he drop down and died."
"Poor old man!"
"He wass very old and he wass a good man. No one ever said any harm of
old Mr. Hamon."
"Then if no one else dies we'll say the following Wednesday," said
Graeme. "And if--well, if anything happens to prevent it, then we must
go across to Guernsey and get Mr. Lee to marry us."
"Oh, but that woult not do. We will keep them all alive till you are
married. It woult neffer do to disappoint them all when we are all
looking forward to it here."
"Very well then, see you all keep alive."
"And you will come to old Mr. Hamon's funeral?"
"H'm! I don't know. We'll see, Mrs. Carré. We'd sooner be at our own
wedding, you know, than at anybody else's funeral."
"They woult like it iff you woult. And he was a goot old man. They
tell me to ask if you woult be pleased to come."
"If they would like us to come we will come, Mrs. Carré," said
Margaret.
And so it came about that instead of kneeling before the altar that
Wednesday they stood by the graveside.
X
The Red House and the cottage were centres--nay, whirlpools--of mighty
activities for days beforehand.
Mrs. Carré insisted on cleaning down the Red House from top to bottom
for the home-coming of the bride, though, to Graeme's masculine
perceptions, its panelling of polished pitch pine from floor to
ceiling, in which you could see yourself as in a mirror, had always
appeared the very acme of cleanliness and comfort, with the additional
merit of a tendency towards churchwardly thoughts.
But when he ventured on a mild remonstrance anent the necessity for
so gigantic an upsetting, Mrs. Carré laughingly said, "Ach, you are
only a man. You woult neffer see"--and whirled her broom to the
endangerment of his head.
For Margaret's honeymoon--that, is, such of it as she had not enjoyed
before her marriage--was to consist of a change of residence from the
cottage, and a walk up the garden and through the hedge of gracious
Memories, to the wider--ah, how much wider!--as much wider and larger
and more beautiful as wifehood at its best is wider and larger and
more beautiful than maidenhood at its best--to the wider accommodation
of the Red House. And Mrs. Carré was determined that it should be
speckless and sweet, and fit in every way for the coming of so
beautiful a bride.
She had found them a young girl, Betsy Lefevre, a niece of her own, to
serve as handmaid during their occupancy of the house, but insisted
herself on acting as cook and general housekeeper. Miss Penny was to
reside at the cottage for a week after the wedding, but was to go up
the garden to her meals, and at the end of that time she was to join
them at the Red House as an honoured guest.
And the kitchen at the cottage, and the kitchen at the House, and
several other kitchens in the neighbourhood, were baking gâche enough
apparently to feed a regiment, and as the day approached, roasts of
beef and mutton, and hams and other substantial fare, were much in
evidence. And the kitchens were thronged with ladies in sun-bonnets,
which had originally been black but were now somewhat off-colour with
age and weather, and all the ladies' faces were as full of importance
as if they had been Cabinet ministers in the throes of a crisis.
Among these concentric energies, Margaret and Miss Penny completed
their own simple preparations, and Graeme busied himself with the
details of the children's feast which was to take place in an adjacent
field.
He went down to the harbour to meet the Tuesday morning's boat which
was to bring over the fruit and frivolities ordered from
Guernsey--strawberries enough to start a jam factory, grapes enough to
stock a greengrocer's shop, chocolates, sweets, Christmas crackers and
fancy biscuits, in what he hoped would prove sufficiency, but had his
doubts at times when he saw the eager expectancy with which he was
regarded by every youngster he met.
He was just starting out when Johnnie Vautrin hailed him from his lair
in the hedge.
"Heh, Mist' Graeme! I seen--"
"Better not, Johnnie!" he said, with a warning finger. "If it's
anything uncomfortable I'll come right over and jump on you and
Marrlyou."
"Goderabetin, you dassen't!"
"Oh, dassen't I? If you don't see everything good for this week, and
fine weather too, you little imp, I'll--"
"Qué-hou-hou!" croaked Johnnie, and Marielihou yawned and made a
futile attempt to wash behind her ears but found it discomforting to a
sore hind-leg, so gave it up and spat at him instead.
"And, moreover, I won't have you at my party."
"Hou-hou! I'm coming. Ma'm'zelle she ask me."
"I'll tell her to send you back-word."
"She wun't, she wun't. Where you goin'?"
"To the harbour, to see if all the good things have come for the other
little boys and girls."
"Oh la-la! Good things and bad things come by the boat. Sometime it'll
sink and drown 'em all."
"Little rascal!" and he waved his hand and went on.
"Late, isn't she, Carré?" he asked, as he leaned over the sea-wall
with the rest.
"She's late, sir."
"I hope nothing's happened to her. I'll never forgive her if she's
made an end of my sweet things for the kiddies."
"She'll come."
And she came. With a shrill peal she came round the Burons and made
for the harbour.
And Graeme, wedged into the corner of the iron railing where it looks
out to sea, to make sure at the earliest possible moment that that
which he had come to meet was there, met of a sudden more than he had
looked for.
"Well ... I'll be hanged!" he jerked to himself, and then began to
laugh internally.
For, standing on the upper deck of the small steamer, and looking,
somehow, very much out of place there, was a tall but portly young
gentleman, in a bowler hat and travelling coat and a monocle, whose
face showed none of the usual symptoms of the Sark lover. To judge
from his expression, the little island impressed him anything but
favourably. It offered him none of the relaxations and amusements to
which he was accustomed. It looked, on the face of it, an uncivilised
kind of a place, out of which a man might be ejected without ceremony
if he chose to make himself objectionable.
Graeme kept out of sight among the other crowders of the quay till the
bowler hat came bobbing up the gangway. Then he smote its owner so
jovially on the shoulder that his monocle shot the full length of its
cord and the hat came within an ace of tumbling overboard.
"Hello, Pixley! This _is_ good of you. You're just in time to give us
your blessing."
"Aw! Hello!" said Charles Svendt, agape at the too friendly greeting.
"That you, Graeme?"
"The worst half of me, my boy. Margaret's up at the house. You'll be
quite a surprise to her."
"Aw!" said Charles Svendt thoughtfully, as he readjusted his eyeglass.
"Demned queer place, this!" and he gazed round lugubriously.
"It is that, my boy. Queerer than you think, and queerer people."
"Aw! Is there any--aw--place to stop at?"
"Thinking of stopping over night? Oh yes, several very decent hotels."
"Aw! Which are you at yourself now?"
"I? Oh, I'm a resident. I've got a house here."
"Dooce you have! Well, now, where would you stop if you were me?"
"Well, if I were you I should stop at the Old Government House--"
"Right! Whereabouts is it?"
"It's over in Guernsey. Boat returns at five sharp."
"Aw! Quite so! Very good! But I've got--er--business here, don't you
know."
"Oh? Thinking of opening a branch here? Well, there's Stock's--but I
doubt if you'd fit in there--"
"Fit? Why not fit? Stocks are my line."
"I think I'd try the Bel-Air if I were you--"
"Which is nearest?" asked Charles Svendt, looking round
depreciatively.
"Bel-Air. Just along the tunnel there--"
"Good Lord! Along the tunnel--"
"Excuse me for a moment. I've got some things coming by this boat. I
must see to them," and Graeme sped away to attend to his frivolities.