Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.
The Happy Day.
It was gala day in Dumford. The past bitter times were forgotten, and the men had rigged up an arch of evergreens. The children were in their best, and gardens had been stripped of their flowers. Half the town had been twice to the Bull to see the barouche and the four greys that had been ordered from Ranby, and the postboys, in their white beaver hats, had been asked to drink more times than was safe for those they had to drive.
The church, too, was decorated with flowers from the vicarage garden, and new gravel laid down from porch to gate. The ringers were there, and the singers, and the musicians making their way to the loft, while the various pews and sittings were filled to a degree “not knowed,” Jacky Budd said, “for years an’ years.”
The school children were ready, armed with baskets of flowers, and had been well tutored by the school-mistress to throw them as the bride and bridegroom came out. This lady sighed as she saw the preparations, and told Jacky Budd to open more windows, because the bodies smelt so bad, and Jacky said they did, and it gave him quite a sinking: but the hint was not taken.
In the vicarage Murray Selwood sat looking pale and stern, beside his untasted breakfast, and it was not till, with affectionate earnestness and the tears in her eyes, Mrs Slee had begged him to take a cup of tea, that he had yielded, and eaten also a slice of toast.
“I know thou’rt ill, sir,” she said. “Let me send for Mr Purley.”
“No, no, Mrs Slee,” he said, shaking off his air of gloom; “only a fit of low spirits. I shall be better soon.”
Mrs Slee shook her head as she went back to the kitchen.
“He wean’t: he’s been getting worse for weeks and weeks, and it makes me wretched to see him look so wankle.”
Meanwhile at the House all was excitement. Eve had risen at daybreak to sit and watch the rising sun and ask herself what she should do. She had promised to be Richard’s wife. Her aunt’s happiness, perhaps her life, depended upon it, and it was to save her cousin. She was to redeem him, offering herself as a sacrifice to bring him back to better ways, to make him a good and faithful husband, and yet in her bosom lay those damning lines, telling of his infidelity in spirit—of his passion for another, and again and again she wailed—
“He never loved me, and he never will.”
Should she go—could she fly somewhere far away, where she might work and gain her own living, anywhere, in any humble station, in peace?
And Richard—her aunt?
No, no, it was impossible; and think how she would, the bitter feeling came back to her that she had promised her aunt, and she must keep her word.
And besides, if Richard was like this now, what would he be if she refused him at this eleventh hour, and cast him off. She shuddered at the thought, and at last grew calmer and more resigned.
In this way the hours passed on, till in a quiet mechanical manner she was dressed by the maid, who was enthusiastic in her praises of dress, jewels, flowers, everything.
Mrs Glaire was very pale, but bright and active, and in a supercilious, half-sneering way, Richard watched till all was ready, and the guests who had been invited had arrived.
A look from his mother brought him a little more to his senses, and he went to and kissed Eve, to find her lips like fire, while her hands were as ice, and at last he sat there peevish and impatient.
“I want it over,” he said, angrily, to Mrs Glaire. “I hate being made such an exhibition of. Will the carriages never come?”
An end was put to his impatience by the arrival of the first, in which he took his departure with his best man, his appearance being the signal for a volley of cheers.
Mrs Glaire went last, in the same carriage with Mr Purley, the doctor, and Eve, the stout old fellow trying to keep up the bride’s spirits by jokes of his ordinary calibre, the principal one being that he hoped the carriage would not break down under his weight, a witticism at which he laughed heartily, as he responded with bows and hand-wavings to the cheers of the people who lined the High Street of the little town.
Everything looked bright and gay, for the sun shone brilliantly; ropes laden with streamers were stretched across the street, while flags hung here and there, where satisfactory places could be found; and in front of the Bull, a party of the workmen had arranged a little battery of roughly-cast guns, sufficiently strong and large to give a good report when loaded with powder, the landlord having arranged to have a red-hot poker ready for discharging the pieces as soon as the wedding was over.