Peter and Jane were married the following autumn with the ring which
Toffy had kept wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat
pocket.
For a description of the general rejoicings the almost hysterical
paragraphs in the Culversham local paper must be consulted. Columns of
print were devoted to accounts of feastings and fireworks, tenants'
dinners, and school-children's teas.
In order to understand and really appreciate the full interest of the
occasion one would have had to be at Tetley Place on the morning of the
26th of October last year. Miss Abingdon was in her most bustling, her
most uncompromising mood, and from an early hour of the morning she was
so severe in her speech, and so absolutely radiant in her expression,
that it was very difficult indeed to know how to treat her.
Canon Wrottesley, who still believed that his wife was only feeling the
effects of the winter weather, the spring weather, the summer weather,
or the autumn weather, was as gay and debonair as usual, and even at
the wedding it was felt that he was in some sort the centre of things.
He had his usual group of admirers about him, and was so gracious and
charming, so patriarchal one moment and so boyish the next, that his
popularity was not to be wondered at. The very school-children, as
they threw their flowers, glanced upwards at the canon for his approval.
Mrs. Avory, dressed in black, went very quietly to the wedding with her
little girl beside her. She wept sadly during the service, but she
looked stronger now, and less suffering than she had been wont to do.
A niche seemed to have been found for her in the village of Culversham,
where she loved the poor people, and went about amongst the cottages,
and read to sick folk, and was happier, perhaps, than she quite knew,
in her own pathetic little way.
Kitty Sherard was bridesmaid and never cried at all. She wore
rose-colour, and carried Jane's bouquet, and during the whole of the
long day she smiled and was admired, and behaved as a bridesmaid in
rose-colour should. It is a comforting supposition, which many people
hold as a belief, that there are guardian angels, or spirits, which
watch round the beds of those who weep. Such a spirit, keeping watch
at Kitty Sherard's bed that night, and hearing her sobbing, may have
known something of her sorrow. Soldiers--men tell us who have seen
many battlefields--cover their faces when they are wounded, so that
their comrades may not see their drawn features and their pain. And
women wait until the lights are out before they begin to cry.
Perhaps a certain joy of living will come back to Kitty when hounds are
running and a good horse carries her well. To-night in the dark she
felt nothing but an intolerable sense of loss. Probably in a sorrow of
this sort the ache of it consists in a curious longing to get up and go
at once somewhere--anywhere--to the one who is loved, and the blankness
and the pity of it all centres round the fact that this is impossible.
The impotence of the feeling increases as means of communication in
this life are made easier. It seems absurd that, whereas we may
actually speak and hear the voice in reply of those who answer us while
we are hundreds of miles apart, there yet should be an insuperable
barrier between ourselves and those who, for aught we know, may be
quite near us. It seems almost as though we must be under a spell
which prevents the communication which we long for, and as though
almost any day we may wake up to find how unreal the separation is,
Kitty buried her face in the pillow and called Toffy's name, and--who
knows?--perhaps he heard her.
Sometimes I think Mrs. Avory may marry again, for her husband is
rapidly getting through his life in a laudable endeavour to live every
day of it, and there are times when I wonder if, in years to come, I
may see her established as the gentle and admiring wife of our handsome
country vicar, doing good all her days in her timid faithful way.
But I cannot think of Kitty Sherard as caring for any one except the
boy who, whatever his faults may have been, had never an unkind or
ungentle thought of any man or woman, and who played the game as
honourably as he knew it, and then laid down his life in the simple
manner of a gentleman.
Peter will never forget him. When he has boys of his own he will call
them after his dead friend's name, and will tell them absurd stories
about him, for even when his name has become only a memory it will be
surrounded with something lovably humorous. His old jokes and stories
are much more a reality than his death. He often risked his life for a
good sporting race; and he did not grudge giving it up during that last
lap in the Argentine River when day was breaking. He was trying to
help a friend to do the right sort of thing at considerable cost to
them both, and, when all is said and done, none of us can do much
better than that.
Well, good luck and long life to bride and bride-groom! They love each
other in a manner refreshingly whole-hearted and delightful, and we
will, if you please, ring down the curtain upon them in orthodox
fashion to the sound of wedding-bells. Good luck to Kitty, who will
never tell her mad little stories again, or enjoy herself as she used
to do when she goes to race-meetings or drives her horses tandem
through the lanes. Good luck to Mrs. Avory, with her pathetic brown
eyes, doing her daily work amongst the poor; and to the genial vicar
and his wife. Good luck to all our friends in this book, and to you,
dear reader, who have followed them so far.
And so, good-bye.