"I shall be happy," said Edward, miserably aware of his mother's contempt.
"I have always defended you until now. But such ... such.... Oh, I have no word for such a despicable suggestion. I have finished with you, Edward. I almost wish I could shout as loudly as your father to tell you how completely I despise you. Go to that minx, who in a year will despise you as much as I do, and who will play you false with the first handsome plowboy she meets. And you'll deserve it, you weakling!"
Edward rushed from his mother's room, and when he had packed his possessions went to Bates, the old butler, and asked him for the servants' cart to take his luggage to Long Orchard Farm. His mother's last speech had made much easier the task of cutting himself off from his family, and when he set out down the drive he had not one regret for what he was losing. Edward depended much on other people, and now that one of those on whom he had most securely depended had let him fall, he clung more closely to the other. Elizabeth had long lamented the worry she was likely to prove to him when his family was informed of the marriage, and he was glad now to be able to meet her before the day with the news that he owned no family except hers. How surprised she would be to see him again so soon, for they had just lived through that passionate farewell until they should meet to-morrow morning at the door of the church. A misgiving came over Edward. What if Elizabeth should be so much distressed by the news of the breach that she should not keep her word? Was it wise in any case to upset her on the eve of the wedding? Let her sleep to-night, or if she lay awake on this vigil let her thoughts be serene as the summer night and radiant as the summer dawn. He would beg a night's lodging from the Vicar, who was already so deep in Sir Richard's bad graces that one more act of defiance could not add to his offense.
Edward found his friend the Vicar, an old Tractarian who had somehow eluded Sir Richard's Protestant zeal and been presented to the living of Barton Flowers, sympathetic and encouraging. The old man sat in his dusty room amid a chaos of theological tomes and held forth upon the sacramental wonder of marriage, reaching from time to time for a book from his shelves, usually the work of some Anglo-Catholic divine of the seventeenth century, in whose sonorous periods human love was exalted and sanctified and whose dying cadences showed forth mortality in the image of Almighty God.
"Marriage is too sacred a rite to be regulated by worldly considerations," the priest said. "You are justified by your singleness of purpose. You have acted loyally to the woman of your choice. You have nothing to reproach yourself for."
Edward had been glad to avail himself of the Vicar's help to assure Elizabeth that she was not outraging decency by marrying him; but he had never occupied his mind with the demands of religion, and only now for the first time he was deeply impressed by a sudden consciousness of what a weight of moral and spiritual support stood behind him in what he was about to do. From that moment he looked at religion with new eyes, apprehending in it the possibility of so crystallizing his indeterminate aspirations as even at this late hour of youth to do something and be somebody. He went up to bed in a glow of ambition that lighted his spirit, even as the candle lighted the dark corridors and stairways of the Vicarage.
Edward slept tranquilly, and in the morning at eight o'clock he was married to Elizabeth Taylor, with nobody except her grandfather and a couple of farm hands to hear their whispers of eternal fidelity, their murmured promises to have and to hold and to cherish until death. There was no shouting when they came out arm-in-arm from the church; there was nothing except the peace of a mid-summer morning, the fragrance of long grass in the churchyard, the hum of bees in the limes, and in the distance a sound of lowing cattle.
The bride and bridegroom had not planned to spend their honeymoon elsewhere; indeed, they had both been so much preoccupied with the complications arising out of their simple action that they had thought of nothing beyond the achievement of the wedding. When old James Taylor asked them where they intended to pass the night, neither of them could reply for the moment. At length Edward spoke:
"I have to explain, Mr. Taylor, that yesterday I had a very unpleasant scene with Sir Richard, who ordered me out of his house forever."
"A' look now, that's Sir Richard sure enough," the old man nodded. "The most unreasonable man that ever owned an acre. Well, I suppose you'd better bide here."