He remembered that Miss Marchrose, on the day before the wedding, had officiated at a small ceremony at Culmouth College, when she had presented to Iris, on behalf of the staff, a silver mirror.
Neither Sir Julian nor Lady Rossiter had been present, but Mark had described the occasion afterwards to Sir Julian alone.
"Fuller did all the speaking, and did it uncommonly well, too. I didn't know he had it in him, but it was just right—awfully good little speech. Miss Marchrose presented the thing, and looked very pretty. Blushed like anything, too, when Fuller began something about her having been chosen to represent the staff. Fuller thinks she's his discovery, you know, and he's no end proud of her."
Julian was not a little inclined to wonder whether Fairfax Fuller, emphasising the claims of the Lady Superintendent, had not taken his stand upon the lines of championship. Nor did he care to dwell upon the actual or threatened attacks which should have aroused the never very deeply dormant combative instincts of Mr. Fuller. If Miss Marchrose should need an ally, she had at all events assured herself of one to whom half-measures were unknown. Julian only returned to the present when the bridegroom, in a voice which seemed full of deep protest against the archaic formula required of him, repeated after the clergyman the vows appointed to him. Iris was inaudible.
The exodus to the vestry, and the usual rapturous displays of enthusiasm therein, duly took place, and Mr. Garrett gave his arm to his bride and conducted her down the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding-march from Lohengrin—the characteristic selection made by Iris on the grounds of originality.
There was to be no reception, and it was undeniable that a certain sense of anti-climax pervaded the villa when old Mr. Garrett, Sir Julian and Lady Rossiter, accompanied by Ruthie and Ambrose, found themselves at the gates, over which a slightly perilous triumphal arch wavered in the cold wind.
"Mr. and Mrs. Garrett is in the drawing-room!" quoth Sarah excitedly at the entrance.
"My dearr children!" exclaimed Mr. Garrett senior, and thereafter carried off the whole situation with a high hand.
He kissed Iris, clapped his son on the back, and stood for some time with his large old hand kindly and weightily gripping the younger man's shoulder; he made jokes about "giving away the bride" that had no merit save that of extreme antiquity, he became exceedingly solemn and alluded to Douglas' sainted mother, and then by a natural transition to Douglas' probable offspring, which discomposed Iris to the extent of sending her into the dining-room forthwith where luncheon awaited the party.
"That dearr child is the least little bit nervous, rushing away like that," Mr. Garrett remarked in an explanatory way, and paternally ushered them all out of the room.