"No, but he'll live at Wilborough by and bye, or his wife will. That would suit you. It would be like going on living at Abington. But Francis would live sometimes in London and sometimes in the country, and he and his wife would go about a lot. That's just what would suit B."
"Well, it just shows that love has most to do with it, after all," said Caroline. "I like Dick, too, but I should never want to marry him. If I had to marry either of them, I'd much rather marry Francis. And I believe that if anything were to happen to stop B marrying Dick, she'd feel it more than she did before."
[CHAPTER XIV]
A WEDDING
Beatrix was married early in September, on a day of golden sunshine, which bathed the house, the church, the garden, and the park, in a glow of calm, soft beauty. It was the prettiest country wedding that could be imagined, and one of the gayest. The house, of course, was full from attic to cellar. Beatrix's relations on both sides converged from all quarters of the United Kingdom, and even from Continental holiday resorts, and there was room for a few intimate friends of the family as well. When every corner of the house had been allocated, and still more people whose claims could not be ignored had to be got in somehow, three or four empty bedrooms at the Vicarage were commandeered, and furnished ad hoc. This not providing enough beds, rooms were taken at the inn. More remaining to be arranged for almost at the last minute, Stone Cottage, which had remained empty since Mrs. Walter had left it, was furnished as a dormitory for sundry bachelors. On the night before the wedding between thirty and forty guests, who were staying in the house or its various dependencies, dined there, besides another score or so from Wilborough, and other houses round. The old vaulted refectory of the Abbey, which had remained empty and unused for generations, was the scene of this lively banquet. It was to be used as a ball-room the next night. "We shall want cheering up when you leave us, darling," her father had said to Beatrix. "Your old Daddy will be the gayest of the gay, but his merriment will be hollow and his laugh a mockery."
Only Caroline knew how much of truth there was in this light statement. He had behaved beautifully throughout the somewhat feverish preparations that had had to be made for a marriage at such short notice. Beatrix had rushed to and from London in a state of happy excitement. When she had been at home she had devoted herself entirely to Dick when he had been there, and when he had not been there she had either talked about him or gone away to brood over him. For when once the barriers had been broken down she had succumbed completely. Caroline smiled to herself sometimes as she thought of the doubts she had felt as to Beatrix marrying without love, or with not enough love. She was made to give herself entirely when she did love, and she now loved Dick with an intensity and completeness that raised him to the seventh heaven of bliss, but seemed to leave little room for any other sort of love. Caroline smiled also, but rather ruefully, when she remembered her father's satisfaction over the place that would be left for him in this new adjustment of his beloved child's affections. She invited confidences from him on the subject, but he gave her none. The complaints and resentments he had expressed over the affair with Lassigny had given place to a determination to keep all that he must have been feeling about this new affair to himself, except the incidental satisfaction to be gained from it. He was genial and companionable to Dick, and had his reward there in the liking, which was growing into affection, that the younger man had towards him. He was humourous and chaffing with Beatrix, and made no appeals to her for the solace she now almost entirely withheld from him. Perhaps he had his reward there, too, for she must have enjoyed the conviction that she was greatly pleasing him, although she failed to signify the same in the usual manner. The only comment he permitted himself to make to Caroline about the change of wind was when he said that he should hate losing B, but rather looked forward to settling down again after her departure. But he immediately added that it was a great thing to see the dear child so happy, and with so good a chance before her of happiness for the rest of her life. So even Caroline, his confidant, was not to know the sadness with which he was wrestling on his own account, and the new adjustments he was being forced to make, when he had thought that further need for adjustment was to have been spared him.
Caroline, indeed, was having to make a few adjustments on her own account. The distressed and uncertain Beatrix who had come sobbing to her on the night after her engagement, and had come closer to her sister's heart than ever before, was distressed and uncertain no longer, and had no need of her now, except as a recipient for love's raptures. It was 'Dick, Dick, Dick,' all the time. It spoke well for Dick's quality that Beatrix's family liked him as well at the end of his few weeks' engagement as they had at the beginning. It was he who kept up for them the sense of somebody added to it instead of somebody being taken away. 'Head over ears' as he was, and showed himself to be, he still showed them, whenever Beatrix allowed him the opportunity, that his reception among them added and would further add to the satisfactions of his life. It was not only to be just him and Beatrix, though the bliss to be gained from just him and Beatrix was at present almost beyond his power to grasp. It seemed also to be beyond Beatrix's power to grasp for the time being. She had removed herself from them in spirit, already, and had told Caroline that what she should really like, for the first few years of her marriage, would be for Dick to be ordered to the Pacific, and for herself to inhabit an island to which he could pay occasional visits, leaving her to think about him all alone in the intervals.
Grafton had a moment with her alone just before the ceremony. All the guests were in the church, from which the drone of the organ came across to them, standing in the hall until the clock should strike the hour. The house was empty and strangely quiet. They would have to walk across the few carpeted yards that lay between it and the church between packed masses of neighbourly and intensely sympathetic spectators; but they were waiting just inside the doorway where they could neither see nor be seen.