To-morrow morning, the church of St. Asphodel—Bessy, from her window
in Primrose Place, could see its spire tapering above the distant
trees—would hold within its walls a happy couple. To-morrow, Basil
and Bessy were to be writ in the church-books one. It would be a
magnificent wedding; hopes and affections would so adorn and elevate
the ceremony. But, when the time arrives, we will endeavour as
faithfully as we may, to chronicle the doings of the hour. As the
day before a wedding will to some parties seem the longest day that
ever dawned and died, so to others it will appear the shortest day
imaginable; a day that just shows itself and is gone. However Basil
and Bessy may have measured the day of which we write, thinking it
a day without an end, sure we are that Mrs. Carraways more and more
believed it impossible that the wedding could take place on the
morrow, so much had still to be completed.
“How ever I shall get through what I have to do, I can’t tell,” said
the good woman to her incredulous husband. “I only hope, we shan’t
have to put it off.” Carraways laughed. “Yes, my dear, it’s all very
well. You men think that things can do themselves; but Bessy can’t go
if her luggage isn’t packed.”
“Why not? I suppose she doesn’t want to take her trunk to church,”
said the aggravating Carraways, and again he laughed with such a want
of consideration! And here, Miss Barnes came full of meaning into
the room; and suddenly paused, seeing Carraways. It was of no use;
Mrs. Carraways would at once assert her authority. Therefore she set
herself face to face with her husband.
“Now, my dear Gilbert; you must go out; you must indeed. And, there’s
a dear, don’t let me see you again until the evening.” Miss Barnes,
of course, said nothing: but her looks eloquently and stedfastly
seconded the wishes of the matron.
“What! I’m in the way? Well, Bessy and I are going upon a little
business.”
“Bessy,” cried her mother, rather astonished; and then she
complacently added—“to be sure; why not? We can do everything
better without her, can’t we, Miss Barnes? And poor thing, she’s as
pale,—for she hasn’t been out these three days. So, you’d better go;
both of you.”
In a very short time, considering that Bessy had only to put on her
bonnet, the bride and her father had left the house; surrendered
the field to Mrs. Carraways and Miss Barnes made happy by their
employment. And leaving them deep in trunks, let us accompany father
and daughter.
Bessy had resolved upon carrying with her to her new country, a
very swarm of illustrious strangers: constant, untiring labourers
that should fill the air with sweetest music—music that should
murmur of her English home—still winning from the fields the most
delicious gains. It appeared that this order of labourers—wonderful
workers, at once singers, chemists and masons,—we mean, in a word,
the honey-bee—had not yet travelled to the Antipodes.[1] Honey-bee
had yet to cross the ocean to a new world. Though his great
progenitors—the Adam and Eve bees—had sung and worked in the roses
of Eden—none of their million million descendants, to the time of a
certain lady—and let the name of the benefactress shine like a star
in future Antipodean history—had touched upon the other side of the
Pacific. The flowers and blossoms of ages had budded and fallen,
and not a bee had drunk of their honey-cups.—This, become known to
Bessy, she determined to carry with her a swarm of colonists to her
new home: to people the waste with millions of workers; the toiling,
happy bond-folk—(pity there should be any other!)—of imperial man.
And the bees were of the old Jogtrot stock. Of the family that had
worked in the gardens and orchards of Marigolds; descendants in
right regal descent of the same line that had sung and worked about
Bessy’s childhood; that had awakened her infant thought, had engaged
her youthful care. We believe that Robert Topps had been Bessy’s
silent agent in the work; and with consummate skill and secresy had
conveyed away a hive of the old household from their native village,
taking them to nurse at a certain gardener’s, some three or four
miles distant from Primrose Place. And thither, to learn how fared
the little ones, wended Bessy and her father. The old man, though
doubtful of the prosperity of the scheme, nevertheless entered
into it with all the cordiality of his nature. “There’s always a
sure comfort about attempting good; delight if you succeed, and
consolation if you fail.” With this creed, Carraways listened with
pleasure to the plan of Bessy who had kept the scheme a secret from
her mother and Basil.
“Won’t they be surprised, when they see them aboard the ship,”
cried Bessy, glowing with pleasure. (And by the way, in the course
of the two past paragraphs, Bessy and her father have reached the
gardener’s, and are now in front of the very hive; close to the swarm
of insect colonists, the pilgrim bees, the emigrant honey-makers.)
“Won’t they be surprised!” repeated Bessy.
“Well, I doubt,” said Carraways, smiling down upon the hive, “I
doubt, if Queen Dido—yes, I think it was Dido—carried with her
more useful colonists; and I take it, say what they will, few so
innocent.” Bessy looked inquiringly.—“I don’t think you know much of
Queen Dido, my dear; and to say the truth, my school knowledge with
the lady was at the best a nodding acquaintance. But, if you can only
preserve them!” and the old gentleman folded his hands thoughtfully.
“Oh, I have no fear of that. I am certain, dear father—I feel so sure
of it—they will arrive with us all safe and well. And then”—
“And then, my love,”—said the old man—“you will not have lived in
vain. No, my child, you will have done your share in the great human
work—have obeyed the behest that lays it as a solemn task on all to
share with all the good that, for some wise end, was only meted to
a few. Only land the bees safe; let the swarm be but well upon the
wing; let them once set to work, making honey—the new manna in the
wilderness—where honey was never made before,—why do this, Bessy, and
you are greater than any of the men Queens, that ever lived—greater
than any of the topping masculine ladies out of place in petticoats.
Catherine and Christina and such folks—humph! very great no
doubt,—but their memory is not exactly kept in honey. And Queen
Elizabeth—yes, an extraordinary virgin—but what a small stinging
insect in a stomacher—how useless to the world is Queen Elizabeth
against Queen Bee!”
“I am sure they will live,” repeated Bessy; “and ’twill be such nice
employment, during the voyage, to take care of them. And then, in a
little time when they swarm and swarm”—
“Why, then, my dear—yes, I see it all”—and the old man, with a
thoughtful smile, and as though dallying with a fancy, continued—“I
see it all, and can prophesy. In some hundred years or so, when men
think it the true glory to build up, not to destroy; when work, not
slaughter, is the noble thing; when, in a word, the eagles of war
shall be scouted as carrion fowl, and the bees of the garden shall
be the honoured type of human wisdom,—why, then, Bessy—then, my
child—that is some hundred years to come—in the city that will then
flourish, I predict that the people will raise a statue to the memory
of the woman, who gave to the Antipodes the household glory of the
honey bee.”
“Oh, father!” cried Bessy.
“If the bees prosper, why you and Basil shall in the new country take
a bee for your crest; by the way, not at all bad emigrant heraldry,”
laughed the old man. “Let me see; a bee _or_ on a thistle proper. And
the motto, ‘_Honey from suffering!_’ A good Christian legend,” said
Carraways. “And then, in a hundred years, as I predict, a statue”—
“A statue!” and Bessy laughed.
“Well,” said the father with a gentle seriousness, “I’m getting old,
Bessy. But I feel ’tis good—very good—to gain hope for the world,
even as we gain years. It makes the sweeter sunset for our human day.”
And now anticipating awhile, we have only to say that at the proper
season the hive was tenderly conveyed on board the _Halcyon_, there
to await the cares of its coming mistress.
* * * * *
Looking in—as we are permitted to do—at the chamber-window of Basil,
we find him assorting friends and companions for his future home.
Though a wild sportive lad—bouncing through the early chapters of
this veracious history,—he was so deeply touched by his love of
Bessy; so suddenly pulled up to a serious contemplation of the
world, by the strange events of his family,—that, after a brief
pause, he sprang, as at a bound, to a nobler, higher view of human
dealings. Hence, he had soon gathered some glorious books. A blessed
companion is a book! A book that, fitly chosen, is a life-long
friend. A book—the unfailing Damon to his loving Pythias. A book
that—at a touch—pours its heart into our own.
And some of these friends, with looks that may not alter, with tones
that cannot change,—Basil set apart for his companions in the wilds.
As he chose them one by one—for some must remain behind, he might
not take them all—he looked gravely down upon them; with almost
a tenderness of touch laid them aside,—his fellow-voyagers. Some
twoscore were selected; special friends. There they lay; motionless
and dumb. And yet the chamber was filled with lovely presences; was
sounding with spiritual voices: the beautiful and mighty populace,
evoked by the memory of the living friend—the friend in the flesh,
the companion and the scholar of the souls of the dead.
And this was Basil’s last employment, the day before his bridal. He
marshalled a magnificent array of friends to bear him company in the
wilderness. He carried with him an invisible host of bright spirits;
spirits of every kind and degree; and all friends—sound friends;—of
friendship made in solitude; and without patch or lacker, lasting to
the grave.
* * * * *
Five minutes, reader; and your company to the once decent lodging—now
turned topsy-turvy—of Mr. and Mrs. Topps. They, too, are in the very
fury of packing-up. Or rather, Mrs. Topps and two or three friends.
For Robert and his father-in-law—Goodman White, late and future
schoolmaster—remain passively in the way; both of them discussing
the apparent merits of some score of young rooks; that Bob, on his
own account, and as a special offering to his old master Carraways,
had with some difficulty and danger, kidnapped from the high-top
elms that surround Jogtrot Hall. Bob, in his snatch of reading,
had learned that rooks were at the Antipodes precious as birds of
paradise. He had therefore obtained some twenty nestlings, “very
sarcy upon their legs, indeed.” They would be worth their weight in
gold, he declared to his father-in-law, to pick up the worms and the
grubs.
“It’s a capital thing for a bird or a brute,” said Bob, “to be born
to be of some use. Eh?” The schoolmaster assented. “Now, I shouldn’t
have liked to be born a magpie—or a weasel; it’s like being born a
thief”—
“I doubt, aye, I more than doubt whether anybody’s born a thief,”
said White.
“I’m not a scholar,—that is, compared to you; I can’t say. But a rook
is a serviceable cretur; he earns his living; and nobody can’t grudge
it him. They _are_ precious hearty, arn’t they,” and Bob, with an eye
of pride surveyed the nestlings. “There’s only one thing that I’m
sorry about: but it’s impossible—and this it is; I am only sorry we
couldn’t take the trees from the Hall, too.”
“Ha! We shall find trees enough, there,” said White, intent upon the
birds. “Well, they _are_ strong!”
“No fear of they’re making capital sailors. And they’ll be quite
company, won’t they, to feed ’em, and watch their ways? And what’s
more, when we get reg’larly settled, why their noise will always
remind us of England. How they will caw and caw, eh! Rather have ’em
with us”—and Bob slapt his leg to emphasise the preference,—“rather
have ’em than a band of music.”
* * * * *
And the sun set and rose and shone out the bridal morning. As the
good folks of Primrose Place had determined that the ceremony should
be performed with the best quiet and simplicity, we are left but
little to do as chroniclers of the marriage. We may merely observe
that Bessy flushed into a positive beauty; and her mother, as
Carraways said, had somehow flung clean away twelve or fourteen
years from her face, determined on that occasion only to look the
bride’s elder sister. Miss Barnes, the bridesmaid—for Carraways would
have none other—was, despite of herself, sad. The event seemed to
bring into her face, a past history. Of Basil we have nothing to say;
the bridegroom is so rarely interesting.
Topps claimed the privilege of driving the bride to church. (The
slim Mrs. Topps, with riband and bows, had burst out in white
like a cherry-tree in brilliant blossom). Topps, however, to the
passing—very passing disquiet—of Carraways, who wished everything to
be so simple, drove to the door with a white favour in his hat, as
big as a ventilator; a favour in his coat; and four favours to match
on the heads of the horses.
“A stupid fellow!” said Carraways.
“Well, after all, my dear,” said his wife, “I don’t know if Robert
isn’t right. There’s no harm in a bit of riband; and why should we
steal to church as if we were ashamed of what we’re doing? What do
you think, Miss Barnes?”
“It’s quite right,” said Carraways; for he well knew what Miss Barnes
would think. “Drive on, Robert.”
In a short time the bridal party reached St. Asphodel’s church. A
short time and Basil and Bessy stand hand in hand at the altar. The
minutes pass; and the lovers’ destinies—as before their hearts—grow
into one. The priest is silent; and “amen” like consecrating balm,
hallows the mystery.
And then father and mother, and humble friends, gather close to the
wedded; press them and bless them. And the spirits that await on
human trustfulness, and human hope, when plighted to each other to
make the best and lightest of the world’s journey, be it through a
garden or over a desert; arrayed with roses, or strown with flint—the
spirits that sanctify and strengthen simple faith and all unworldly
love,—hover about bride and bridegroom, and as they take their way
from the church, bless them on their pilgrimage.
Another hour, and Robert Topps is again in attendance at Primrose
Place. Trunks are brought to the door, and packed on the carriage;
and in a few minutes Basil hands his wife to her seat. There has
been a shower of tears within at the separation; though mother and
daughter are to meet again in so short a time. For be it known that
Basil and his bride are westward bound, to pass the first three or
four days of the honeymoon on the coast; to be duly taken thence by
the good ship _Halcyon_ calling there on the voyage out.
It may have been at the very minute that Basil and his bride
quitted Primrose Place, that a letter was delivered at Jericho
House. The letter was for Miss Pennibacker, written in the pangs of
disappointment, in the agony of a broken heart, by the Hon. Cesar
Candituft. We sum up the meaning of the epistle, gladly avoiding
the fulness of its contents—gladly, too, avoiding any attempted
description of the profound astonishment, disgust, and horror, of
poor Monica. It may be remembered that the lover, baulked of the
dowry by the loathsome avarice of Mr. Jericho, was fain to trust to
the successful issue of some vague law-suit for the means of married
life in its required magnificence. Well, the uncertainty of the law,
is a grim joke that generations of men have suffered and bled under.
And—to be brief—Candituft after his late visit to Jericho House,
discovered that, with the best of causes he had the worst of luck,
and so—and so—with a bleeding heart he released from all her vows the
betrayed Monica. He was about to leave London, to seek consolation in
the society of his brother-in-law and his sweet sister.
“The villain!” cried Monica, “and after I had been brought to promise
him my hand! To leave me, and perhaps for another.”
“The cruel creature!” little Agatha spoke of Hodmadod—“after I had
cured his hand, to go before my face, and give it to that—that little
scorpion!”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The earliest attempt to introduce bees from England was made by
Mrs. Wills, in May 1842; but this first colony died on the passage.
Shortly afterwards, a healthy hive sent by Mrs. Allom, of London,
arrived safely, and was established at Nelson.—_Handbook for New
Zealand._