THE BRIDE THAT THE RAIN RAINS ON.
There was no sunshine upon Laura Dunbar's wedding morning. The wintry
sky was low and dark, as if the heavens had been coming gradually down
to crush this wicked earth. The damp fog, the slow, drizzling rain shut
out the fair landscape upon which the banker's daughter had been wont
to look from the pleasant cushioned seat in the deep bay-window of her
dressing-room.
The broad lawn was soddened by that perpetual rain. The incessant
rain-drops dripped from the low branches of the black spreading cedars
of Lebanon; the smooth beads of water ran off the shining
laurel-leaves; the rhododendrons, the feathery furze, the glistening
arbutus—everything was obscured by that cruel rain.
The water gushed out of the quaint dragons' mouths, ranged along the
parapet of the Abbey roof; it dripped from every stone coping and
abutment; from window-ledge and porch, from gable-end and sheltering
ivy. The rain was everywhere, and the incessant pitter-patter of the
drops beating against the windows of the Abbey made a dismal sound,
scarcely less unpleasant to hear than the perpetual lamentation of the
winds, which to-day had the sound of human voices; now moaning
drearily, with a long, low, wailing murmur, now shrieking in the
shrilly tones of an angry vixen.
Laura Dunbar gave a long discontented sigh as she seated herself at her
favourite bay-window, and looked out at the dripping trees upon the
lawn below.
She was a petted heiress, remember, and the world had gone so smoothly
with her hitherto, that perhaps she scarcely endured calamity or
contradiction with so good a grace as she might have done had she been
a little nearer perfection. She was hardly better than a child as yet,
with all a child's ignorant hopefulness and blind trust in the unknown
future. She was a pampered child, and she expected to have life made
very smooth for her.
"What a horribly dismal morning!" Miss Dunbar exclaimed. "Did you ever
see anything like it, Elizabeth?"
Mrs. Madden was bustling about, arranging her young mistress's
breakfast upon a little table near the blazing fire. Laura had just
emerged from her bath room, and had put on a loose dressing-gown of
wadded blue silk, prior to the grand ceremonial of the wedding toilet,
which was not to take place until after breakfast.
I think Miss Dunbar looked lovelier in this _déshabille_ than many a
bride in her lace and orange-blossoms. The girl's long golden hair, wet
from the bath, hung in rippling confusion about her fresh young face.
Two little feet, carelessly thrust into blue morocco slippers, peeped
out from amongst the folds of Miss Dunbar's dressing-gown, and one
coquettish scarlet heel tapped impatiently upon the floor as the young
lady watched that provoking rain.
"What a wretched morning!" she said.
"Well, Miss Laura, it is rather wet," replied Mrs. Madden, in a
conciliating tone.
"Rather wet!" echoed Laura, with an air of vexation; "I should think it
was _rather_ wet, indeed. It's miserably wet; it's horribly wet. To
think that the frost should have lasted very nearly three weeks, and
then must needs break up on my wedding morning. Did ever anybody know
anything so provoking?"
"Lor', Miss Laura," rejoined the sympathetic Madden, "there's all
manner of provoking things allus happenin' in this blessed, wicked,
rampagious world of ours; only such young ladies as you don't often
come across 'em. Talk of being born with a silver spoon in your mouth,
Miss Laura; I do think as you must have come into this mortal spear
with a whole service of gold plate. And don't you fret your precious
heart, my blessed Miss Laura, if the rain _is_ contrairy. I dare say
the clerk of the weather is one of them rampagin' radicals that's allus
a goin' on about the bloated aristocracy, and he's done it a purpose to
aggeravate you. But what's a little rain more or less to you, Miss
Laura, when you've got more carriages to ride in than if you was a
princess in a fairy tale, which I think the Princess Baltroubadore, or
whatever her hard name was, in the story of Aladdin, must have had no
carriage whatever, or she wouldn't have gone walkin' to the baths.
Never you mind the rain, Miss Laura."
"But it's a bad omen, isn't it, Elizabeth?" asked Laura Dunbar. "I seem
to remember some old rhyme about the bride that the sun shines on, and
the bride that the rain rains on."
"Laws, Miss Laura, you don't mean to say as you'd bemean yourself by
taking any heed of such low rubbish as that?" exclaimed Mrs. Madden;
"why, such stupid rhymes as them are only made for vulgar people that
have the banns put up in the parish church. A deal it matters to such
as you, Miss Laura, if all the cats and dogs as ever was come down out
of the heavens this blessed day."
But though honest-hearted Elizabeth Madden did her best to comfort her
young mistress after her own simple fashion, she was not herself
altogether satisfied.
The low, brooding sky, the dark and murky atmosphere, and that
monotonous rain would have gone far to depress the spirits of the
gayest reveller in all the universe.
In spite of ourselves, we are the slaves of atmospheric influences; and
we cannot feel very light-hearted or happy upon black wintry days, when
the lowering heavens seem to frown upon our hopes; when, in the
darkening of the earthly prospect, we fancy that we see a shadowy
curtain closing round an unknown future.
Laura felt something of this; for she said, by-and-by, half
impatiently, half mournfully,—
"What is the matter with me, Elizabeth. Has all the world changed since
yesterday? When I drove home with papa, after the races yesterday,
everything upon earth seemed so bright and beautiful. Such an
overpowering sense of joy was in my heart, that I could scarcely
believe it was winter, and that it was only the fading November
sunshine that lit up the sky. All my future life seemed spread before
me, like an endless series of beautiful pictures—pictures in which I
could see Philip and myself, always together, always happy. To-day,
to-day, oh! _how_ different everything is!" exclaimed Laura, with a
little shudder. "The sky that shuts in the lawn yonder seems to shut in
my life with it. I can't look forward. If I was going to be parted from
Philip to-day, instead of married to him, I don't think I could feel
more miserable than I feel now. Why is it, Elizabeth, dear?"
"My goodness gracious me!" cried Mrs. Madden, "how should I tell, my
precious pet? You talk just like a poetry-book, and how can I answer
you unless I was another poetry-book? Come and have your breakfast, do,
that's a dear sweet love, and try a new-laid egg. New-laid eggs is good
for the spirits, my poppet."
Laura Dunbar seated herself in the comfortable arm-chair between the
fireplace and the little breakfast-table. She made a sort of pretence
at eating, just to please her old nurse, who fidgeted about the room;
now stopping by Laura's chair, and urging her to take this, that, or
the other; now running to the dressing-table to make some new
arrangement about the all-important wedding-toilet; now looking out of
the window and perjuring her simple soul by declaring that "it"—namely,
the winter sky—was going to clear up.
"It's breaking up above the elms yonder, Miss Laura," Elizabeth said;
"there's a bit of blue peepin' through the clouds; leastways, if it
ain't quite blue, it's a much lighter black than the rest of the sky,
and that's something. Eat a bit of Perrigorge pie, or a thin wafer of a
slice off that Strasbog 'am, Miss Laura, do now. You'll be ready to
drop with feelin' faint when you get to the altar-rails, if you persist
on bein' married on a empty stummick, Miss Laura. It's a moriel
impossible as you can look your best, my precious love, if you enter
the church in a state of starvation, just like one of them respectable
beggars wot pins a piece of paper on their weskits with 'I AM HUNGRY'
wrote upon it in large hand, and stands at the foot of one of the
bridges on the Surrey side of the water. And I shouldn't think as you
would wish to look like _that_, Miss Laura, on your wedding-day? _I_
shouldn't if _I_ was goin' to be own wife to a baronet!"
Laura Dunbar took very little notice of her nurse's rambling discourse;
and I am fain to confess that, upon this occasion, Mrs. Madden talked
rather more for the sake of talking than from any overflow of animal
spirits.
The good creature felt the influence of the cold, wet, cheerless
morning quite as keenly as her mistress. Mrs. Madden was superstitious,
as most ignorant and simple-minded people generally are, more or less.
Superstition is, after all, only a dim, unconscious poetry, which is
latent in most natures, except in such very hard practical minds as are
incapable of believing in anything—not even in Heaven itself.
Dora Macmahon came in presently, looking very pretty in blue silk and
white lace. She looked very happy, in spite of the bad weather, and
Miss Dunbar suffered herself to be comforted by her half-sister. The
two girls sat at the table by the fire, and breakfasted, or pretended
to breakfast, together. Who could really attend to the common business
of eating and drinking on such a day as this?
"I've just been to see Lizzie and Ellen," Dora said, presently; "they
wouldn't come in here till they were dressed, and they've had their
hair screwed up in hair-pins all night to make it wave, and now it's a
wet day their hair won't wave after all, and their maid's going to
pinch it with the fire-irons—the tongs, I suppose."
Miss Macmahon had brown hair, with a natural ripple in it, and could
afford to laugh at beauty that was obliged to adorn itself by means of
hair-pins and tongs.
Lizzie and Ellen were the daughters of a Major Melville, and the
special friends of Miss Dunbar. They had come to Maudesley to act as
her bridesmaids, according to that favourite promise which young ladies
so often make to each other, and so very often break.
Laura did not appear to take much interest in the Miss Melvilles' hair.
She was very meditative about something; but her meditations must have
been of a pleasant nature, for there was a smile upon her face.
"Dora," she said, by-and-by, "do you know I've been thinking about
something?"
"About what, dear?"
"Don't you know that old saying about one wedding making many?"
Dora Macmahon blushed.
"What of that, Laura dear?" she asked, very innocently.
"I've been thinking that perhaps another wedding may follow mine. Oh,
Dora, I can't help saying it, I should be so happy if Arthur Lovell and
you were to marry."
Miss Macmahon blushed a much deeper red than before.
"Oh, Laura," she said, "that's quite impossible."
But Miss Dunbar shook her head.
"I shall live in the hope of it, notwithstanding," she said. "I love
Arthur almost as much—or perhaps quite as much, as if he were my
brother—so it isn't strange that I should wish to see him married to my
sister."
The two girls might have sat talking for some time longer, but they
were interrupted by Miss Dunbar's old nurse, who never for a moment
lost sight of the serious business of the day.
"It's all very well for you to sit there jabber, jabber, jabber, Miss
Dora," exclaimed the unceremonious Elizabeth; "you're dressed, all but
your bonnet. You've only just to pop that on, and there you are. But my
young lady isn't half dressed yet. And now, come along, Miss Laura, and
have your hair done, if you mean to have any back-hair at all to-day.
It's past nine o'clock, and you're to be at the church at eleven."
"And papa is to give me away!" murmured Laura, in a low voice, as she
seated herself before the dressing-table. "I wish he loved me better."
"Perhaps, if he loved you too well, he'd keep you, instead of giving
you away, Miss Laura," observed Mrs. Madden, with evident enjoyment of
her own wit; "and I don't suppose you'd care about that, would you,
miss? Hold your head still, that's a precious darling, and don't you
trouble yourself about anything except looking your very best this
day."