GEORGIE'S WEDDING.
In newspaper descriptions of the last moments of celebrated criminals,
we constantly read that "the unfortunate man did full justice to a
substantial meal;" but nobody ever yet heard of a bridegroom who had any
appetite for his breakfast; his own real breakfast is meant, and not the
elaborate entertainment which follows close upon the ceremony. Reginald
Haggard and his friend, Lord Spunyarn, were the vicar's guests at King's
Warren Parsonage, but in vain did Mrs. Dodd press upon Haggard the
numerous dainties with which her hospitable board was provided. Haggard
was in a state of suppressed excitement, and he couldn't eat a mouthful.
They were a cheerful enough party though, and Lord Spunyarn made up for
his friend's deficiencies, for the young nobleman had an almost Homeric
appetite. Justice Haggard, Reginald's father, and Lord Hetton, who had
passed the night at the "Dun Cow," were present, for the sporting
nobleman was supposed to represent the head of the family, his father,
Lord Pit Town; and though he looked upon the whole matter as a very
great nuisance indeed, still it was a family function at which his
presence was a matter of course.
That breakfast at the Parsonage seemed interminable to Haggard, but even
clerical breakfasts must have an end, and at length Mrs. Dodd rose, to
the general relief of all present. There were yet two mortal hours to
get through, and the men of the party sought the cool shades of the
vicarage garden.
"Pull yourself together, old man," said Spunyarn to his friend, for
Haggard was looking pale and miserable; "you're as sulky as a bear with
a sore head. It's quite unnecessary to pose as a hero of romance.
What's up with you, man; boots too tight?"
"I'll be hanged if I can tell you what's up," said his friend, "but this
I know, I'm confoundedly depressed."
"Perhaps it's your natural timidity," said the other.
"Don't chaff, Shirtings; you're a very good fellow, you know, but I'm
not in a laughing humour."
"Well, you needn't sulk all the same," said Spunyarn; "take my advice
and have a glass of brandy."
Justice Haggard looked far more like a bridegroom than his son; the old
gentleman, in his blue frock coat, his blue bird's-eye neckerchief, and
with a flower in his button-hole, was the picture of health and
happiness; while his white hat, which was cocked a little on one side,
completed his festal appearance. He gave his son a hearty smack on the
back.
"When I married your mother, Reginald, my boy, I was as jolly as a man
could be; why, there's nothing to be alarmed about, unless you've lost
the ring, you know; and the ladies wouldn't let you off with that
excuse, for there's always the key of the church door in case of an
emergency."
Haggard forced a smile.
"The ring's safe enough, father," he said.
"Don't worry him, gentlemen," cried the vicar; "it's only natural. I've
had a good deal of experience with bridegrooms; believe me, it's the
general symptom. I felt just the same when I was married myself; but
it's nothing to preaching one's first sermon. It's all very well for you
to talk, Haggard; but I'll be bound we were both just as miserable as
our young friend, though we've forgotten all about it now. But here
comes my wife with the sacrificial emblems."
There was no compromise about Mrs. Dodd, as she advanced straight to the
bridegroom and proceeded to firmly secure a large white favour to his
breast. The rest of the party were soon similarly decorated.
"There's one comfort, we haven't far to go," said Lord Hetton. "I feel
we look rather like a parcel of fools."
"At all events, we haven't any time to lose," suggested the vicar, as he
looked at his watch; "and, unless we mean to keep the bride waiting, we
had better be off."
The whole party passed through the little wicket, crossed the
churchyard, which was thronged with the whole population of King's
Warren in its Sunday best, and entered the church, and the bridegroom
and his friends at once took their place at the altar rails.
If Georgie Warrender had acted with proper decorum, she would have wept
upon her father's bosom; but this ill-regulated young person did nothing
of the kind. They must have been all very glad to get rid of her at The
Warren, for nobody shed a single tear; there was a great deal of
running about; the young person from the West End milliner's, her mouth
full of pins, issued innumerable orders in a muffled whisper; and Miss
Lucy Warrender and her three fellow bridesmaids appeared completely
attired, at least half-a-dozen times, to submit themselves to old
Warrender's inspection in the drawing-room quite half-an-hour before the
carriages drew up at the door to take them to the church.
Georgie was not sufficiently old-fashioned to be married in a bonnet.
Even a plain girl looks well in white, and Georgie was not a plain girl
by any means. Of course, according to all proper precedent she ought to
have rushed into her father's arms, and with floods of tears have bid
him a touching farewell. What she did do, however, as she entered the
room, was to rapidly advance and affectionately embrace him, then she
stepped back and dropped him a low courtesy.
"Shall I do, papa?" she said with a loving smile.
"My dear, you're a credit to all of us," said the old gentleman, and her
appearance certainly justified the ecstatic looks of Miss Hood, the four
bridesmaids, and the young person from the West End.
Georgie was fully conscious of her privileges. No woman can twice in her
life dress in white satin and orange blossoms, and if she mars the
effect by the regulation tears, it is quite certain that there must be a
screw loose somewhere. There was a great deal of tittering, smiling, and
blushing; but the squire glanced at the clock, Lucy handed the bridal
bouquet to her cousin, then the squire gave his daughter his arm, and,
preceded by the bridesmaids, the little procession entered the
carriages, and five minutes' drive brought them to the church.
Haggard, when he cast his eyes upon Georgie Warrender, seemed to regain
his composure at once; there must have been a terrible amount of
forwardness about this young lady, for according to rule and the
pictures in the illustrated papers, her eyes should have been fixed upon
the ground; and as the latest etiquette book says, "the bride should
only acknowledge the bridegroom's presence by an assumption of shrinking
timidity suitable to the occasion." But the bride smiled at Haggard, and
so did the vicar, and so did the four bridesmaids.
The Reverend John Dodd didn't take long in tying the knot. The village
organist had distinguished himself by his florid rendering of the
Wedding March. As Lord Spunyarn gave his arm to Lucy Warrender, he
almost felt as if he had been married himself, and that it was a rather
pleasant process than otherwise.
"It's rather rough on us, Miss Warrender, having to play second fiddle,"
he said, while they were standing in the vestry during the signing of
the register.
"Well, we can look upon it as a dress rehearsal, Lord Spunyarn; but we
mustn't forget that it is a solemn moment, for I see that Mrs. Dodd is
looking this way."
The bells were clashing merrily from the village spire as the party
passed out of the church porch. As Haggard handed his wife into the
carriage, she appeared still lost to all sense of the proprieties, for
she nodded and smiled in every direction at the King's Warren villagers,
among whom she had grown up; even poor Blogg, the poacher, and his
hoyden daughter, Jemima Ann, were not unnoticed. And the patriarchal
blessing of the village veteran, "Master" Jasper, as he was called (who
had represented King's Warren on the field of glory some five-and-forty
years before, and stood bobbing his palsied head, arrayed in his holiday
garment, a linen ephod or smock frock, to which his Waterloo medal was
proudly affixed), was given heartily enough. "God bless 'ee, Missy,"
cried the old man in the shrill cracked voice of age, as he pressed up
to the carriage window.
"Thank you, Jasper," said the girl with a sunny smile. Strange to say,
those two words gave the old fellow more pleasure than the thought of
the unlimited potations he knew he would enjoy that afternoon at the
squire's expense.
The wedding breakfast very much resembled the similar festivities at
which most of us have assisted. The usual speeches were made, nobody
seemed very much inclined to eat, but everybody's health was drunk; and
I think it was rather a relief to all present when young Mrs. Haggard
appeared in travelling dress, ready to quit, for the first time in her
life, the happy home of her childhood. Then, and then only, did the
young person from the West End millinery establishment remove the pins
from her mouth, which enabled her to swallow a much needed glass of
sherry; and then the squire's voice failed him, and he saw his daughter
rather dimly as he pressed her to his heart for the last time upon the
steps. The bridesmaids relieved their feelings by many salutes and much
tittering. As the carriage moved off there was a perfect shower of satin
slippers, and it wasn't till it got quite out of King's Warren village
that the bride was able to leave off bowing and kissing her hand to her
numerous well-wishers.
Then the wedding party broke up into little groups in the garden; at
first they didn't amalgamate; the men smoked, and came to the universal
conclusion that Haggard was a lucky beggar; while the ladies talked over
the interesting details of the ceremony. Old Warrender retired to his
study in a rather excited frame of mind, excusing himself on the ground
of his age.
And now everybody turned out with a feeling of intense relief to witness
the rejoicings on the village green. The school children were there
enjoying rustic games in a somewhat half-hearted manner, for they had
partaken with the appetites of young boa constrictors of the squire's
hospitality, and each of them had a brand new shilling or half-crown in
his or her pocket, according to age. A cricket-match was in progress,
but the bowling and batting were extremely wild, thanks to The Warren
strong beer. But soon the Rev. John Dodd imparted fresh vigour into the
proceedings. The youths and maids pulled themselves together on his
approach; the more bibulous among the men left the proximity of the big
barrels of strong ale, over which the squire's head gardener was
presiding. Lovers, who had been promenading arm-in-arm, separated for
the moment by mutual consent, the swains touched their forelocks to the
vicar, while Phyllis and Chloe smoothed their skirts and courtesied low
to Mrs. Dodd as Lady Paramount. But the vicar meant that they should
enjoy themselves, and he whispered to the squire, the squire nodded,
and the vicar called loudly for Blogg.
"Where's your father, Jemima Ann?" he said to the poacher's daughter,
who, in all the glories of a pink print dress and a much beribboned
straw hat, had gone off into a succession of courtesies.
"Please, sir, he's gone to fetch _it_," she said.
At that moment the sound of a fiddle was heard, and the smiling rascal
who played it, stopping his melody for an instant, made a low and
sweeping bow, which took in the vicar, the squire and the gentry
generally. Then he clapped his fiddle under his chin and without more
ado struck up "Bobbing Joan."
"That's right, my man," said the vicar, "you couldn't do better. Now
men, now girls."
But not one of them stirred.
"Goodness me!" cried the vicar, and then he forgot himself. Could Mrs.
Dodd believe her eyes? Her husband seized Jemima Ann Blogg by the hand.
"Come, gentlemen, set them a good example," he said, and he commenced to
turn Miss Blogg violently round. Before her father had got through
another two bars of "Bobbing Joan," every soul on the green had
commenced to gyrate, the frown died off Mrs. Dodd's face, as she too
began to turn with slow but majestic movements, her hand clasped by old
Warrender's, her virtuous waist encircled by his aged though still
vigorous arm. Lord Spunyarn pounced upon Lucy Warrender, Lord Hetton
seized another bridesmaid, Justice Haggard somehow got possession of a
third; every village Jack gripped his Jill, and all the parish of King's
Warren, gentle and simple, twirled with one accord to the fine old tune
of "Bobbing Joan." Once started there was no stopping them, the fun
became fast and furious, and I fancy that it was with some regret that
the wedding party itself, having set the ball a-rolling, retired to the
more dignified festivities which awaited them in the great drawing room
at The Warren.
It wasn't a large party; they were most of them Warrenders and Haggards,
and offshoots and branches of those prolific trees, or people connected
with the families from old association or friendship, but there were
quite enough of them to fill the big drawing-room. Old Biggs, the family
solicitor, who had come down to The Warren the day previously about the
settlements, and Blatherwick, of Lincoln's Inn, who had fought him tooth
and nail over every item, in the interest of the Haggard family, got
their rubber; but both the legal lights had soon declared that it was
impossible to play whist with dance music ringing in their ears. The
lawyers looked rather sheepishly at each other when they found
themselves _vis-à-vis_ in a quadrille, Miss Hood having honoured the
one, while Stacey Dodd clung lovingly to the arm of old Mr.
Blatherwick. Of course it was most unprofessional, but they probably
kept their indiscretions to themselves, and no doubt charged them to
their clients under the head of "sundry attendances." As for the
Reverend John Dodd he seemed to be everywhere at once, no one refused
the Reverend John. When the youngest and best-looking of the bridesmaids
told him that she was danced off her feet the clerical Lothario
overpersuaded her in a few seconds, and round they went like a couple of
dancing dervishes, being the last to hold the floor.
But even wedding parties must come to an end, though it was midnight
before they finally broke up, and at last Justice Haggard and Lord
Hetton walked over to their rooms at the "Dun Cow."
"It went off wonderfully well," said Hetton to the Justice.
"Capital, capital," assented the bridegroom's father. "It's a great
weight off my mind, you know, Hetton. Reginald's been an awful anxiety,
but he's a lucky beggar, he manages somehow to always turn up trumps."
"Yes," remarked his lordship, "that's been his principal occupation
since I've known him."
"Boys will be boys, my dear fellow; he'll sober down now, of course he
will. I know I did when I married," said the Justice.
"I'll tell you what it is, Justice. Warrender's daughter is a very
plucky girl; if she had known half you and I know, Justice, she would
have thought twice about it."
"The reformed rake, cousin, makes proverbially the best husband. Why,
'pon my word," continued the Justice, "when I was a young fellow I was a
regular devil."
Lord Hetton blew out a big volume of smoke, and looked at his companion
with some curiosity.
When an old gentleman, in the fulness of his heart, tells you that he's
been a regular devil, you are bound to believe him, particularly if he's
a Justice of the Peace.
"We were all devils in those days, my dear fellow, but a man outgrows
it; he marries, and he lives it down; he takes to a hobby. I did. I
can't tell how I drifted into pigs; much in the same way as you drifted
into horses, I suppose. You may take my word for it that pigs are far
more interesting and far more respectable, though they're expensive,
mind you. Yes, they're uncommonly expensive; so are horses for the
matter of that," continued the Justice. "Every man has his ideal, you
see, Hetton. The perfect pig must ultimately be produced. You mustn't
look upon me, you know, as a mere breeder of pigs. I am a benefactor of
my species." Here the pair reached the "Dun Cow" and retired to their
respective quarters.
So ended Georgie Warrender's wedding-day. As Lord Hetton had remarked,
in engaging herself to Haggard she had done a very plucky thing.
Marriage is like Mayonnaise sauce, either a great success or an absolute
and entire failure. The materials which are blended together to form a
perfect whole are dissimilar and have nothing whatever in common, but
once really thoroughly amalgamated the result is very happy. Perhaps the
marriage celebrated in King's Warren church may turn out well after all.
It is to be feared that like the sauce of sauces in the hands of the
inexperienced cook, the result is more than doubtful. Fortunatus, though
a good fellow enough, is, like his patroness, notoriously fickle. All we
have got to do, however, is to make ourselves as comfortable as possible
in our stalls. The overture is over, the curtain is about to rise on the
drama of Georgie's married life. We haven't a play bill, and don't know
whether we are to listen to some pretty pastoral, to a long three-act
farce, dignified by the title of a comedy, or whether we are to be
thrilled with horror by a gruesome drama of intrigue, limelight effect,
and blood. We haven't even seen a review of the piece; the footlights
go up with a jump, and now the curtain rises. Let us watch the players.