III
The whole house was topsy-turvy. The secret of the mortgage was out, for one thing. Everybody knew that the Squire had proposed to Podge, that Podge had said “No� to him, in spite of father’s dignified commands, and that the Squire had rushed out of the house, foaming at the mouth, with his coat half on and half off, stormed his way round to the stables, where he saddled his horse himself, and galloped homeward, scattering objurgations, threats, and imprecations right and left.
“Stuck-up paupers! Make Parksop know better! Sell ’em up, stick and stone! Prefer d—d curate to me, Thomas Braddlebury! Fool! Must be crazy!�
Roddy and I and everybody else agreed with him, except Podge. She was regularly downright obstinate. She had given in to all of us all her life, and now, just when her giving in meant so much, she wouldn’t. What was the good of beginning, we asked, if she didn’t intend to go on? We were very severe with her, because she deserved it. Falling in love at her size—like a milkmaid—and with an elderly curate—an old-young man, with shabby clothes and a stoop! Belle had put up with his staring at our pew when he read the Litany on Sundays, but now that she was quite sure he hadn’t been doing it because of her, she regarded it as an unpardonable insult. She stirred up father to write to the Rector demanding Mr. Noel’s instant dismissal, and the Rector sent back an old, unsettled claim for tithe money, and referred father to the Bishop of the diocese.
Meanwhile, Podge was the victim of love. It was really funny. She cried quarts at night, according to Belle. Her red nose and swollen eyes made her funnier still. And old Noel stooped more going about his parish work. He was a gentleman—that was one thing to be said for him—and if two perfectly healthy lives had not stood between him and the title, he’d have been a baronet, with a rent roll worth having, the Rector’s wife said.
They say dropping wears away a stone. We dropped on Podge from morning till night, and she gave in at last. She put on her hat and trotted down to the Rectory—waddled would be the best word. She saw Noel, and had it out vivâ voce. She’d tried to do it by letter—Belle found a torn-up note of dismissal in her room, beginning “My lost Darling.� We yelled over the notion of old Noel being Podge’s lost darling; almost before we’d done yelling she was back again, and had smothered the little ones all round, and gone to the library with a flag of truce—a wet pocket handkerchief—to announce the capitulation to father. She spoke to me afterward, looked appealing, as if she wanted to be praised for doing a simple thing like that for her family! I didn’t praise her, and Roddy gave her even less encouragement.
The Squire was sent for by special messenger, and came without hurrying. He said he was glad she’d come to her senses and showed a proper appreciation of the gifts Providence had placed within her reach. He brought a diamond engagement ring, which wouldn’t go on the proper finger. We laughed again at that; we were always laughing in those days. And he gave father one of the title deeds back, and stayed to dinner, and had a little music in the drawing-room afterward, and kissed Podge when he went away, at which Roddy and I and Belle nearly went into convulsions, and in a little time the wedding day was fixed.
As it came near, Podge didn’t get any thinner. She ate her dinner just as usual, and smothered the children a good deal. She was to have half a dozen or so of them to live with her; she stipulated for that, and the Squire grinned and scowled and said, “All right, for the present!� He turned out to be quite generous, and tipped us sovereigns and Belle jewelry and new frocks, and she said every time she tried them on that she had quite come to regard him as a relative. Everybody had except Podge, and I dare say if you’d asked her she’d have said she was the person whose opinion mattered most. You never know how selfish unselfish people can be till they’re tried! It’s true the Squire was awfully ugly and as rough as a bear, and a little too fond of drinks that made his temper uncertain and his legs unsteady. But he had done a great deal for the family, and women can’t expect us men to be angels.
Podge was a little too quiet as the wedding drew near. You know, there’s no fun in pinning a cockchafer that doesn’t spin round lively. The presents came in and the invitations went out, the breakfast was planned, the cake came from London, with heaps of other things; but she kept quiet. The night before the wedding it rained. Somebody wanted her for one of the thousand things people were always wanting her for, and she couldn’t be found. She stayed out so long that father sent word to the stablemen and gardeners to take torches and drag the pond. Of course, he was anxious, for you can’t have a wedding without a bride. But why the pond? A thin girl might have tried that without seeming ridiculous, but not a fat one, and Podge couldn’t have sunk if she’d tried! She came in at last among us, looking very queer, and wet to the skin, with only a thin cloak on over her evening dress. She said she’d been to the churchyard, to mother’s grave, praying that we might be forgiven. She laughed the next moment, catching a glimpse of her own droll figure in the drawing-room glass.
Next day was the wedding day. Everybody had new clothes, and the bridesmaids’ lockets had the initials of Podge and the Squire, “C� and “R,� in diamonds. Roddy and I had pins to match—Hunt and Roskell’s. I forget how many yards of white satin went into Podge’s wedding gown, but it measured thirty-eight inches round the waist—no larks. She cried all the way going to church, so that father was nearly washed out of the brougham.
How did the wedding go off? It never came off at all! There were the county people in the smart clothes they’d taken the shine off in London; there were the school children, with washed faces and clean pinafores, and baskets of rose leaves all ready to strew on the path of the happy pair. There were the decorations, palms and lilies, as if the occasion had been a kind of martyr’s festival; and there was the Bishop at the altar rails, with the Rector, waiting to tie the knot; and the Squire, in a blue frock-coat, buff waistcoat, and shepherd’s plaid trousers, with a whole magnolia in his buttonhole, waiting for Podge.
Father tried to lead her up the aisle, but it was too narrow, so he walked behind. Just as she put her foot on the chancel step, out comes old Noel out of the vestry, to everybody’s surprise, looking flushed and excited. He said something I didn’t hear, and then Podge calls out, “Oh, I can’t! Have mercy!� or something like that, and surged down with a flop, like the sound a big wave makes dashing into a cave’s mouth, on the red and white tiles. Old Noel ran to lift her up, but couldn’t do it. The Squire called out, “D—— you! Let my wife alone!� And the Bishop rebuked him for swearing in a sacred edifice. Then father and the Squire and old Noel hoisted Podge up—for two of ’em weren’t strong enough—and tottered with her into the vestry.
What happened? I got in, and so I know all about it. We sprinkled Podge with water, and set fire to a feather duster and held it under her nose, and she came to, with her hair down, and her wreath and veil hanging by one hairpin. And old Noel bent over her, and said, “Dearest Charlotte, there is no need for the sacrifice now!� And he pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and handed it to father, who said, “What! what! how dare you, man?� and then dropped his eye on a paragraph marked in red ink, and said in the best Parksop manner, “I really beg your pardon, Sir Clement! Your uncle and his son both drowned yachting in the Mediterranean? Most deplorable! but really affords you no excuse for—ah—interrupting a solemn ceremony in so extraordinary a manner.� And then he and old—I mean Sir Clement Noel—had a few confidential words in a corner, and I heard old—I mean the Baronet—say, “On my word and honor, a sacred pledge!� And father astounded everybody by turning on the Squire, and telling him in the most gentlemanly way to go about his business, which he did, swearing awfully, while Podge was crying for joy, and Sir Noel comforting her with his arm round her waist—I mean as far as it would go.
That happened three years ago, and Podge and Sir Clement Noel have been married three years all but a week. We all live with Podge and her husband—I don’t think they’ve ever been alone together for a day since their honeymoon. Father is very fond of Charlotte now, and says the baby is a real Parksop. That always makes Sir Clement Noel wild—I can’t think why.
I’ve often thought since, after seeing what they call a domestic drama, that what happened to Podge and Noel might have happened to the hero and heroine of one. Only, a hero never has gray hair and a stoop, and there never yet was a heroine who measured as much as thirty-eight inches round the waist. It’s impossible!