'We walked,' she continues, from mother's house to the church, and from the church back again. It was like a procession. There were five bridesmaids, and mother and father, and your grandfather's mother and father,'--(I am a little confused here with so many mothers and fathers, and, notwithstanding my efforts to prevent it, they all get jumbled up with one another)--'whom we could very well have done without, and the Best Man, who did not know how to behave himself, making the bridesmaids giggle as he did, as if my wedding was a thing to be laughed at! and a great number of guests with white favours in their coats--all but one, who ought to have known better, and who was properly punished afterwards by being jilted by Mary Morgan. Everybody in the town came to see us walk to church, and when the fatal knot was tied, the crowd round the church door was so large that we could scarcely make our way through it. The Best Man misbehaved himself shamefully. He pretended to be overcome by grief, and he sobbed in such a violent manner as to make the mob laugh at him, and the bridesmaids giggle more than ever. I knew what they did it for, the hussies! They thought he was a catch; a nice husband he turned out to be afterwards! When we were half way between the church and mother's house, our procession met another procession, and for a minute or two there was a stoppage and great confusion, and several vulgar boys hurrayed. What do you think that other procession was, child?'
I ponder deeply, but am unable to guess.
That other procession, child, was made up of policemen and riff-raff. And in the middle of it, with handcuffs on, was Anthony Bullpit. He had been arrested on a warrant for forgery. What with the confusion and the struggling, the processions got mixed up together, and as I raised my eyes I saw the eyes of Anthony Bullpit fixed upon me. Such a shock as that look of his gave me I shall never forget--never! I knew the meaning of it too well. It meant that all this had occurred through me; that life without me was a mockery; that he had arranged everything so that we should meet immediately the fatal knot was tied; and that he was on his road to ---- where he said he would go.'
'He must have been a very wicked man, grandmother.'
'A wicked man, child! How dare you! He was as innocent as I was, and he did it all to punish me. I fainted dead away in the middle of the street, and had to be carried home, and have hartshorn given to me, and brown paper burnt under my nose. When I came to, I looked more like a blackamoor than a bride, and my wedding dress was completely spoilt. And nothing of all this would have occurred, child, if it had not been for the meanness of your grandfather. If he had provided carriages we should never have met. When poor Mr. Bullpit was put upon his trial he would not make any defence. Your grandfather said the case was so clear that it would only have aggravated it to defend it. But I knew better. When he pleaded guilty, I knew that he did it to spite me, and to prove that he was a man of his word. I wanted to go to the trial, but your grandfather objected; and when I said I would go, he locked all the doors in the house, and took the keys away with him. Your grandfather has much to answer for. Mr. Bullpit was transported for twenty-one years. Some wicked people said it was a mercy he wasn't hanged. If he had been, I should never have survived it. Poor Anthony!'
I was too young to exercise a proper judgment upon this incident in my grandmother's life, but it is imprinted indelibly upon my memory. I knew very well that I did not like my grandmother, and that I did not feel happy in her society. Often when I wished to go out into the sunshine to play, she would say,
'Bring the boy in here, and let him keep me company. It will do him more good than running about in the dirt.'
And her word being law in the house, I used to be taken into the room where she sat in her armchair, staring at the monkey-man on the mantelshelf, and used to be squeezed into my own little armchair, and placed in the corner to keep her company. For a certain sufficient reason I deemed it advisable to be companionable; for once I had sulked, and was sullen and ill-tempered. Then my grandmother had said:
'The child is unwell! He must have some physic.'
She herself prescribed the medicine--jalap, which was my disgust and abhorrence--and the dose, which was not a small one. Out of that companionship sprang my knowledge of the man with the knob on the top of his head, and who was always eating his nails. By some process of ratiocination I associate him with the smoke-dried monkey of a man in stone, and I hate them both honestly. As for Anthony Bullpit being innocent of the crime for which he was transported, I smile scornfully at the idea. He is my model for all that is disagreeable and bad, and I never see a man whose nails are bitten down to the quick without associating him--often unjustly, I am sure--with meanness and trickery.