CHAPTER II.
The marriage day came, and the chimes were ringing merrily in the old square tower of the little vicarage church, scaring the swallows from their nests amid the leaves and the clustering ivy, and, aware of the event, numbers of the parishioners and of Colonel Daubeny's tenantry, in their holiday attire, were toiling up the steep and picturesque pathway that led through shady dingles to the quaint edifice which overlooked the Cray. The humble old-fashioned organ gave forth its most joyous notes; and what was wanting in splendour or decoration in a church so old and rural, was amply made up by the masses of flowers, many of them the rarest exotics from the conservatories of Colonel Daubeny, and these garlanded the round chancel arch and the short dumpy Saxon pillars, while the altar in its deep recess was gay with them; when Laura, leaning on the arm of her father, the old thin-faced and silver-haired Vicar, and followed by her six bridesmaids, all lovely little girls, relatives of both families, dressed alike, and attended closely, too, by her two brothers, the thoughtless lads, whom she had sacrificed herself to serve and advance in life, was led slowly up the church, the cynosure and admiration of every eye, for all the people knew and loved her.
The gift of the bridegroom—a handsome, grave, and manly-looking fellow, whose hair, though only in his fortieth year, Indian service had slightly streaked with grey, and whose best man was his old chum and comrade, Charlie Fane—her bridal dress, priceless with satin and lace, shone in the successive rays of sunlight as she passed the painted windows, her bridal veil floated gracefully and gloriously around her, by its folds hiding the ashy pallor of her charming face, and her eyes that were aflame with unshed tears, and trembled to look up, lest they should encounter those of Jack Westbrook, full of upbraiding and bitterness; but Jack was at that moment miles away occupying his mind with very different matters, though he well knew what was then being enacted at Craybourne Church.
She stood and knelt as one in a dream side by side with Philip Daubeny at the altar rail before her father, and it certainly did strike the former with something of alarm rather than surprise, that when she was ungloved by a fussy and blushing little bridesmaid, and when she placed her hand steadily and without a tremor in his, it was icy and cold, as that of Lucy Ashton on her ill-omened bridal morn.
She uttered all the words of the service in a low and distinct voice, yet never once were her dark blue eyes raised to those of the earnest and generous Philip Daubeny, whose glances, moderated of course by the knowledge that they were so closely observed, were full of love and tenderness; and, in truth, even at that solemn moment, Laura felt that though he had her highest respect and her genuine esteem, she did not love him, and could only pray to Heaven, in her silent heart, that the time might come when she should do so as a wedded wife.
Laura bore up nobly. If she clung to her husband's arm, and thus sent a thrill to his heart as they quitted the gloomy fane, with its earthy odour, for the sunshine of the churchyard, where the cheers of assembled hundreds greeted them, it was only because she felt weak, and wondered when the time would come that would see her laid in yonder vault, where all the Daubenys of past ages lay—the vault, with its ponderous door, mildewed and rusty, and half-hidden by huge fern leaves and churchyard nettles—and on reaching the Vicarage she nearly fainted, greatly to the terror of Daubeny and the anxiety of all.
Avoiding the former, she clung to her father.
"Kiss me, papa," she said again and again. "Kiss me, papa; are you pleased with me—pleased with your poor Laura now?"
"Yes, my darling, yes," replied the old Vicar, folding her in his arms. He had heard much of Jack Westbrook: but thought that, so far as himself and his family were concerned, "matters were now, indeed, ordered for the best" in her marriage with the Squire of Craybourne.
A man of the world—one who had seen twenty years of dangerous military service in the East—Phil Daubeny was one of whom any woman might be proud, handsome, wealthy, and well-born, and all thought that Laura was as happy in her choice as in her heart; but the image of Jack Westbrook, of whom he knew nothing, stood—and was for a time fated to stand—as a barrier between her and the man she had vowed to "love, honour, and obey;" and most earnestly in her soul did she pray, as the carriage bore her from her beloved home for ever, that never more in this world might Westbrook's path cross hers; but not that she feared evil would come of it, for Laura was too wifely, too pure, and too good for such an idea to occur to her.