THE CHIMES OF SAXTON
Next morning Miss Wagget was busy, in a great fuss, writing the news to
her brother and the sergeant, and for the benefit of the latter she drew
such a picture of William Maubray’s virtues and perfections in general
as must have made that sagacious man long to possess such a son-in-law.
The good lady enclosed a dutiful little note to him from Violet, and
wound up with an eloquent lecture, in which she demonstrated that if the
sergeant were to oppose this palpable adjustment of Providence, he
should be found to fight against Heaven, the consequences of which
enterprise she left him to conjecture.
William also spent the entire forenoon over a letter to the same supreme
authority; and the letters despatched, there intervened a few days of
suspense and wonderful happiness, notwithstanding.
William was waiting in the little post-office of Saxton when the
answering letters came. Mrs. Beggs having sorted the contents of the
mail with an anxious eye, delivered his letters, and at his desire,
those for the Rectory, to William. There was a letter from the sergeant
for him. There was no mistaking the tall and peculiar hand. There were
two others addressed severally to the ladies at the Rectory. William did
not care to read his in Mrs. Beggs’s little parlour, so he took his
leave cheerfully, even gaily, with an awful load at his heart.
In his pocket lay his fate sealed. Hardly a soul was stirring in the
drowsy little street. Here and there a listless pair of eyes peeped
through the miniature panes of a shop window. He could not read the
letter where any eye could see him. He hurried round the corner of
Garden Row, got on the road leading to Gilroyd, crossed the style that
places you upon the path to the Rectory, and in the pretty field, with
only half a dozen quiet cows for witnesses, opened and read his London
letter.
It told him how well Mr. Sergeant Darkwell liked him, that he believed
wedded happiness depended a great deal more on affection, honour, and
kindness, than upon wealth. It said that he had aptitudes for the bar,
and would no doubt do very well with exertion. It then mentioned what
the sergeant could do for his daughter, which William thought quite
splendid, and was more, Miss Wagget afterwards said, than she had
reckoned upon.
For some years at least they were to live with the sergeant, “putting by
your income, my dears, and funding at least five or six hundred a year,”
interposed Miss Wagget, who was in a wonderful fuss. “You’ll be rich
before you know where you are—you will, indeed! He’s an admirable
man—your father’s an _admirable_ man, my dear! I don’t know such a man,
except my brother, who’s a man by himself, you know. But next after him
your papa, my dear, is the very best man I ever heard of. And you’ll be
married here, at Saxton—you shall, indeed. You must remain with us, and
be married from this, and I wonder my brother stays so long away, he’ll
be as glad as I. The sergeant shall come down to us for the wedding, and
give you away at Saxton, and there’s that beautiful spot Wyndel Abbey,
so romantic and charming, the very place for a honeymoon, and only
fifteen miles away.”
And so, on and on, ran good Miss Wagget, arranging everything for the
young people, and as it were, counting the turnpikes, and packing their
trunks for the happy excursionists, and making them comfortable in the
pretty little inn at Wyndel Abbey, where she had once spent a week.
Well would it be for castle-builders in general if their dreams proved
all as true as those of fanciful and kindly Miss Wagget did, on this
occasion.
It was agreed it was to be a very quiet wedding. At secluded Saxton,
indeed, it would not have been easy to make it anything else. Sergeant
Darkwell of course gave pretty Violet away.
Honest Dr. Drake was there, in an unprofessional blue coat and buff
waistcoat, and with a bouquet in his button-hole, in which not a single
camomile flower figured. Miss Drake, too, in a lavender silk; and
wishing the gay couple every good from her heart, notwithstanding her
surprise that Sergeant Darkwell should have permitted his _child_ to
marry at so early an age as eighteen—_nineteen_? Well, one year here or
there doesn’t signify a great deal, she fancied. Good old Winnie Dobbs,
too, in a purple silk and new bonnet, which must have been quite in the
fashion, for all Saxton admired it honestly. A little way from the
communion rails, behind the gentlefolks, she stood or kneeled, edified,
only half credulous, smiling sometimes, and crying a great
deal—thinking, I am sure, of kind old Aunt Dinah, who was not to see
that hour. Winnie, I mention parenthetically, is still housekeeper at
Gilroyd, and very happy, with nothing but a little rheumatism to trouble
her.
Here every year William and Violet pass some time, and the happiest
month of all the twelve, though the estates and title have come to him,
and he is Sir William and she Lady Maubray. But the change has not
spoiled either.
The honest affections and friendly nature delight in the old scenes and
associates; and in summer sunsets, under the ancient chestnuts, they
ramble sometimes, her hand locked in his; and often, I dare say, he runs
over those delightful remembrances, still low—still in a lover’s tone,
she looking down on the grass and wild flowers, as she walks beside him
and listens as she might to a sweet air, always welcome, the more
welcome that she knows it so well; and they read the inscription on the
beech tree, time has not effaced it yet, they read it smiling, in their
happy dream, with that something of regret that belongs to the past, and
all the tenderness that tones the uncertain mortal future.
Sometimes William says a word of Trevor, and she laughs, perhaps a
little flattered at the remembrance of a conquest. Vane Trevor is very
well, not married yet, they say, grown a little stout, not often at
Revington. He does not put himself much in the way of Sir William, but
is very friendly when they correspond on Saxton matters, workhouse, and
others. He has not renewed his attentions at Kincton. Clara has grown
“awfully old,” he has been heard to remark. She has latterly declined
gaieties, has got to the very topmost platform of High-churchism, from
which a mere step-ladder may carry her still higher. Dean Sancroft, who
fought the Rev. John Blastus in the great controversy, you must
remember, on credence tables, candles, and superaltars, is not
unfrequently an inmate of Kincton, and people begin to canvass
probabilities.
But whither have I drifted? Let us come back to quiet old Saxton Church,
and the marriage service. The Miss Mainwarings and a pretty Miss
Darkwell, a cousin of the bride’s, attended as bridesmaids. And with
Sergeant Darkwell had arrived the “silent woman.” She could not help her
taciturnity any more than her steady gray eyes, which used to terrify
William so, while he haunted the drawing-room in town. She attended, in
very handsome and appropriate costume, and made Vi a very pretty present
of old-fashioned jewellery, and was seen to dry her gray eyes during the
beautiful “solemnisation of matrimony,” as good Doctor Wagget, in the
old church, under the oak-roof which had looked down for so many
centuries on so many young kneeling couples, in the soft glow of the old
stained windows whose saints looked smiling on with arms crossed over
their breasts, read the irrevocable words aloud, and the village
congregation reverently listening, heard how these two young mortals,
like the rest, had “given and pledged their troth, either to other, and
declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of
hands,” and how the good rector pronounced that “they be man and wife
together,” in the name of the glorious Trinity.
As we walk to the village church, through the church-yard, among the
gray, discoloured headstones that seem to troop slowly by us as we pass,
the lesson of change and mortality is hardly told so sublimely as in the
simple order of our services. The pages that follow the “Communion” open
on the view like the stations in a pilgrimage. The “Baptism of
Infants”—“A Catechism”—“The Order of Confirmation”—“The Solemnisation of
Matrimony”—“The Visitation of the Sick”—“The Burial of the Dead.” So,
the spiritual events of life are noted and provided for, and the journey
marked from the first question—“Hath this child been already baptised or
no?” down to the summing up of life’s story—“Man that is born of a
woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh
up and is cut down as a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never
continueth in one stay.”
And so Doctor Wagget, after the blessing invoked, and his beautiful
office ended, smilingly bids William “Kiss your wife,” and there is a
fluttering of gay ribbons, and many smiling faces, and a murmuring of
pleased voices, and greetings and good wishes, as they go to the
vestry-room to sign Dr. Wagget’s ancient ledger of all such doings.
And now while the sun is shining and the bells of Saxton trembling in
the air, I end my story.
THE END
PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.
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Transcriber’s Notes
This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text and =equals signs=
to indicate superscript. Itemized changes from the original text:
• p. 10: Period changed to comma after “direction”
• p. 15: Corrected “by-and-bye” to “by-and-by”
• p. 19: Corrected “pormanteau” to “portmanteau”
• p. 24: Corrected “somewat” to “somewhat”
• p. 24: Missing semicolon supplied after “a woman who resists”
• p. 26: Remove paragraph break after “whispered the doctor”
• p. 33: Missing period supplied after “Speak out”
• p. 36: Single quote changed to double quote after “It ends with
_die_”
• p. 42: Missing period supplied after “the night”
• p. 53: Missing period supplied after “said William”
• p. 58: Single quote changed to double quote after “joined their
party”
• p. 62: Missing commas supplied after “desired to know” and “young
people”
• p. 76: Missing quotation mark supplied after “know what you mean”
• p. 91: Period changed to colon after “just think now”
• p. 95: Missing comma supplied after “Trevor very chatty”
• p. 102: Missing quotation mark supplied after “my grand-uncle”
• p. 103: Corrected “sickenly” to “sickeningly”
• p. 117: Missing period supplied after “position of obligation”
• p. 118: Superfluous quotation mark omitted before “No, he had no
resource”
• p. 118: Missing quotation mark supplied after “periodicals”
• p. 119: Missing comma supplied after “full of fancies, you know”
• p. 121: Added quotation marks after “and vows” and before “he’ll cut
him off” to clarify parenthetical aside
• p. 128: Additional block formatting used to clarify the letter text
and separate the interruptions
• p. 130: Missing quotation mark supplied before “I suppose, as
something”
• p. 133: Missing period supplied after “in the distance”
• p. 138: Corrected “confidently” to “confidentially”
• p. 154: Missing period supplied after “as he had proposed”
• p. 171: Missing quotation mark supplied before “Everyone says”
• p. 176: Missing comma supplied after “abandoned to Mr. Kincton Knox”
• p. 188: Missing quotation mark supplied after “just to rally”
• p. 192: Missing comma supplied before “he hates his father”
• p. 192: Missing comma supplied before “stuff!”
• p. 216: Missing period supplied after “nothing—that is”
• p. 218: Missing period supplied after “never despair”
• p. 218: Missing quotation mark supplied after “Get up”
• p. 227: Corrected “Let there an end” to “Let there be an end”
• p. 235: Missing comma supplied after “explain, I suppose”
• p. 238: Corrected “Maburay” to “Maubray”
• p. 250: Missing dash supplied in “H’m—did I?”
• p. 255: Remove paragraph break before “The time is near”
• p. 266: Missing period supplied after “in my life”
• p. 279: Corrected “make a man” to “makes a man”
• p. 280: Superfluous quotation mark omitted before “The cab, or
whatever”
• p. 294: Corrected “run” to “rung”
• p. 315: Single quote changed to double quote after “fame of
Revington”
• p. 317: Missing quotation mark supplied before “Anywhere. Wherever
you like”
• p. 326: Missing quotation mark supplied after “as mad as”
• p. 327: Missing quotation mark supplied before “as a March hare”
• p. 332: Missing comma supplied after “conformable to God’s will”
• p. 340: Corrected “Docter” to “Doctor”
• p. 347: Corrected “vexed to and” to “vexed to find”
• p. 350: Corrected “potentiousy” to “portentously”
• p. 351: Missing period supplied after “a bit, man”
• p. 352: Missing quotation mark supplied after “ha, ha, ha”
• p. 353: Corrected “goo” to “good”
• p. 356: Corrected “winks” to “wings”
• p. 371: Missing period supplied after “that hour”
Hyphenation/spacing of the following words, inconsistent in the
original, was standardized: “chimneypiece” to “chimney-piece”; “old
fashioned” to “old-fashioned”; “churchyard” to “church-yard”;
“arm-chair” to “armchair”; “hearth-rug” to “hearthrug”; “bon-bons” to
“bonbons”; “goodnight” to “good-night”; “tea table” to “tea-table”;
“back-stair” to “back stair”; “finger tips” to “finger-tips”; “drawing
room” to “drawing-room”; and “dressing gown” to “dressing-gown.” Spacing
was standardised in initials (“W.M.”).