Before the Careys and Julia returned to Guernsey, Captain Carey came to
see me one evening, at our own house in Brook Street. He seemed
suffering from some embarrassment and shyness; and I could not for some
time lead him to the point he was longing to gain.
"You are quite reconciled to all this, Martin?" he said, stammering. I
knew very well what he meant.
"More than reconciled," I answered, "I am heartily glad of it. Julia
will make you an excellent wife."
"I am sure of that," he said, simply, "yet it makes me nervous a little
at times to think I may be standing in your light. I never thought what
it was coming to when I tried to comfort Julia about you, or I would
have left Johanna to do it all. It is very difficult to console a person
without seeming very fond of them; and then there's the danger of them
growing fond of you. I love Julia now with all my heart: but I did not
begin comforting her with that view, and I am sure you exonerate me,
Martin?"
"Quite, quite," I said, almost laughing at his contrition; "I should
never have married Julia, believe me; and I am delighted that she is
going to be married, especially to an old friend like you. I shall make
your house my home."
"Do, Martin," he answered, his face brightening; "and now I am come to
ask you a great favor--a favor to us all."
"I'll do it, I promise that beforehand," I said.
"We have all set our hearts on your being my best man," he replied--"at
the wedding, you know. Johanna says nothing will convince the Guernsey
people that we are all good friends except that. It will have a queer
look, but if you are there everybody will be satisfied that you do not
blame either Julia or me. I know it will be hard for you, dear Martin,
because of your poor mother, and your father being in Guernsey still;
but if you can conquer that, for our sakes, you would make us every one
perfectly happy."
I had not expected them to ask this; but, when I came to think of it, it
seemed very natural and reasonable. There was no motive strong enough to
make me refuse to go to Julia's wedding; so I arranged to be with them
the last week in July.
About ten days before going, I ran down to the little village on the
Sussex coast to visit Foster, from whom, or from his wife, I had
received a letter regularly three times a week. I found him as near
complete health as he could ever expect to be, and I told him so; but I
impressed upon him the urgent necessity of keeping himself quiet and
unexcited. He listened with that cool, taunting sneer which had always
irritated me.
"Ah! you doctors are like mothers," he said, "who try to frighten their
children with bogies. A doctor is a good crutch to lean upon when one is
quite lame, but I shall be glad to dispense with my crutch as soon as my
lameness is gone."
"Very good," I replied; "you know your life is of no value to me. I have
simply done my duty by you."
"Your mother, Mrs. Dobrée, wrote to me this week." he remarked, smiling
as I winced at the utterance of that name; "she tells me there is to be
a grand wedding in Guernsey; that of your _fiancée_, Julia Dobrée, with
Captain Carey. You are to be present, so she says."
"Yes," I replied.
"It will be a pleasure to you to revisit your native island," he said,
"particularly under such circumstances."
I took no notice of the taunt. My conversation with this man invariably
led to full stops. He said something to which silence was the best
retort. I did not stay long with him, for the train by which I was to
return passed through the village in less than an hour from my arrival.
As I walked down the little street I turned round once by a sudden
impulse, and saw Foster gazing after me with his pale face and
glittering eyes. Ho waved his hand in farewell to me, and that was the
last I saw of him.
Some days after this I crossed in the mail-steamer to Guernsey, on a
Monday night, as the wedding was to take place at an early hour on
Wednesday morning, in time for Captain Carey and Julia to catch the boat
to England. The old gray town, built street above street on the rock
facing the sea, rose before my eyes, bathed in the morning sunlight. But
there was no home in it for me now. The old familiar house in the Grange
Road was already occupied by strangers. I did not even know where I was
to go. I did not like the idea of staying under Julia's roof, where
every thing would remind me of that short spell of happiness in my
mother's life, when she was preparing it for my future home. Luckily,
before the steamer touched the pier, I caught sight of Captain Carey's
welcome face looking out for my appearance. He stood at the end of the
gangway, as I crossed over it with my portmanteau.
"Come along, Martin," hee said; "you are to go with me to the Vale, as
my groomsman, you know. Are all the people staring at us, do you think?
I daren't look round. Just look about you for me, my boy."
"They are staring awfully," I answered, "and there are scores of them
waiting to shake hands with us."
"Oh, they must not!" he said, earnestly; "look as if you did not see
them, Martin. That's the worst of getting married; yet most of them are
married themselves, and ought to know better. There's the dog-cart
waiting for us a few yards off, if we could only get to it. I have kept
my face seaward ever since I came on the pier, with my collar turned up,
and my hat over my eyes. Are you sure they see who we are?"
"Sure!" I cried, "why, there's Carey Dobrée, and Dobrée Carey, and Brock
de Jersey, and De Jersey le Cocq, and scores of others. They know us as
well as their own brothers. We shall have to shake hands with every one
of them."
"Why didn't you come in disguise?" asked Captain Carey, reproachfully;
but before I could answer I was seized upon by the nearest of our
cousins, and we were whirled into a very vortex of greetings and
congratulations. It was fully a quarter of an hour before we were
allowed to drive off in the dog-cart; and Captain Carey was almost
breathless with exhaustion.
"They are good fellows," he said, after a time, "very good fellows, but
it is trying, isn't it, Martin? It is as if no man was ever married
before; though they have gone through it themselves, and ought to know
how one feels. Now you take it quietly, my boy, and you do not know how
deeply I feel obliged to you."
There was some reason for me to take it quietly. I could not help
thinking how nearly I had been myself in Captain Carey's position. I
knew that Julia and I would have led a tranquil, matter-of-fact,
pleasant enough life together, but for the unlucky fate that had carried
me across to Sark to fall in love with Olivia. There was something
enviable in the tranquil prosperity I had forfeited. Guernsey was the
dearest spot on earth to me, yet I was practically banished from it.
Julia was, beyond all doubt, the woman I loved most, next to Olivia, but
she was lost to me. There was no hope for me on the other hand. Foster
was well again, and by my means. Probably I might secure peace and
comparative freedom for Olivia, but that was all. She could never be
more to me than she was now. My only prospect was that of a dreary
bachelorhood; and Captain Carey's bashful exultation made the future
seem less tolerable to me.
I felt it more still when, after dinner in the cool of the summer
evening, we drove lack into town to see Julia for the last time before
we met in church the next morning. There was an air of glad excitement
pervading the house. Friends were running in, with gifts and pleasant
words of congratulation. Julia herself had a peculiar modest stateliness
and frank dignity, which suited her well. She was happy and content, and
her face glowed. Captain Carey's manner was one of tender chivalry,
somewhat old-fashioned. I found it a hard thing to "look at happiness
through another man's eyes."
I drove Captain Carey and Johanna home along the low, level shore which
I had so often traversed with my heart full of Olivia. It was dusk, the
dusk of a summer's night; but the sea was luminous, and Sark lay upon it
a bank of silent darkness, sleeping to the music of the waves. A strong
yearning came over me, a longing to know immediately the fate of my
Olivia. Would to Heaven she could return to Sark, and be cradled there
in its silent and isolated dells! Would to Heaven this huge load of
anxiety and care for her, which bowed me down, might be taken away
altogether!
"A fortnight longer," I said to myself, "and Tardif will know where she
is; then I can take measures for her tranquillity and safety in the
future."
It was well for me that I had slept during my passage, for I had little
sleep during that night. Twice I was aroused by the voice of Captain
Carey at my door, inquiring what the London time was, and if I could
rely upon my watch not having stopped. At four o'clock he insisted upon
everybody in the house getting up. The ceremony was to be solemnized at
seven, for the mail-steamer from Jersey to England was due in Guernsey
at nine, and there were no other means of quitting the island later in
the day. Under these circumstances there could be no formal
wedding-breakfast, a matter not much to be regretted. There would not be
too much time, so Johanna said, for the bride to change her
wedding-dress at her own house for a suitable travelling-costume, and
the rest of the day would be our own.
Captain Carey and I were standing at the altar of the old church some
minutes before the bridal procession appeared. He looked pale, but wound
up to a high pitch of resolute courage. The church was nearly full of
eager spectators, all of whom I had known from my childhood--faces that
would have crowded about me, had I been standing in the bridegroom's
place. Far back, half sheltered by a pillar, I saw the white head and
handsome face of my father, with Kate Daltrey by his side; but though
the church was so full, nobody had entered the same pew. His name had
not been once mentioned in my hearing. As far as his old circle in
Guernsey was concerned, Dr. Dobrée was dead.
At length Julia appeared, pale like the bridegroom, but dignified and
prepossessing. She did not glance at me; she evidently gave no thought
to me. That was well, and as it should be. If any fancy had been
lingering in my head that she still regretted somewhat the exchange she
had made, that fancy vanished forever. Julia's expression, when Captain
Carey drew her hand through his arm, and led her down the aisle to the
vestry, was one of unmixed contentment.
Yet there was a pang in it--reason as I would, there was a pang in it
for me. I should have liked her to glance once at me, with a troubled
and dimmed eye. I should have liked a shade upon her face as I wrote my
name below hers in the register. But there was nothing of the kind. She
gave me the kiss, which I demanded as her cousin Martin, without
embarrassment, and after that she put her hand again upon the
bridegroom's arm, and marched off with him to the carriage.
A whole host of us accompanied the bridal pair to the pier, and saw them
start off on their wedding-trip, with a pyramid of bouquets before them
on the deck of the steamer. We ran round to the light-house, and waved
out hats and handkerchiefs as long as they were in sight. That duty
done, the rest of the day was our own.