Norah Joyce
a Brave Woman
on this spot
by her Courage and Devotion
saved a man’s life.
At the end of the first year Norah went to another school at Dresden for six months; and then, by her own request to Mr. Chapman, was transferred to an English school at Brighton, one justly celebrated amongst Englishwomen.
These last six months were very, very long to me; for as the time drew near when I might claim my darling the suspense grew very great, and I began to have harrowing fears lest her love might not have survived the long separation and the altered circumstances.
I heard regularly from Joyce. He had gone to live with his son Eugene, who was getting along well, and was already beginning to make a name for himself as an engineer. By his advice his father had taken a sub-section of the great Ship Canal, then in progress of construction, and with the son’s knowledge and his own shrewdness and energy was beginning to realize what to him was a fortune. So that the purchase-money of Shleenanaher, which formed his capital, was used to a good purpose.
At last the long period of waiting came to an end. A month before Norah’s school was finished, Joyce went to Brighton to see her, having come to visit me beforehand. His purpose and mine was to arrange all about the wedding, which we wanted to be exactly as she wished. She asked her father to let it be as quiet as possible, with absolutely no fuss—no publicity, and in some quiet place where no one knew us.
“Tell Arthur,” she said, “that I should like it to be somewhere near the sea, and where we can get easily on the Continent.”
I fixed on Hythe, which I had been in the habit of visiting occasionally, as the place where we were to be married. Here, high over the sea level, rises the grand old church where the bones of so many brave old Norsemen rest after a thousand years. The place was so near to Folkestone that after the wedding and an informal breakfast we could drive over to catch the mid-day boat. I lived the requisite time in Hythe, and complied with all the formalities.
I did not see my darling until we met in the church-porch, and then I gazed on her with unstinted admiration. Oh! what a peerless beauty she was! Every natural grace and quality seemed developed to the full. Every single grace of womanhood was there—every subtle manifestation of high breeding—every stamp of the highest culture. There was no one in the porch—for those with me delicately remained in the church when they saw me go out to meet my bride—and I met her with a joy unspeakable. Joyce went in and left her with me a moment—they had evidently arranged to do so—but when we were quite alone she said to me with a very serious look:—
“Mr. Severn, before we go into the church answer me one question—answer me truthfully, I implore you!” A great fear came upon me that at the last I was to suffer the loss of her I loved—that at the moment when the cup of happiness was at my lips it was to be dashed aside—and it was with a hoarse voice and a beating heart I answered:—
“I shall speak truly, Norah! What is it?” She said very demurely:—