When Jenny Crampton reached home and found herself in the seclusion of her bedroom, she did not give way to any access of nervous agitation, or feel any trepidation at the thoughts of the important step which she had taken on herself. That might be all very well for a damsel of romance of a hundred years ago, but it is not the way the young women of the present day manage their affairs. They are too strong-minded, to cry and shake and faint over the deeds they have put their sign and seal to. Jenny had made an appeal to become the wife of Mr Walcheren in a fair way, and her request had been denied her, for what she considered a frivolous objection. She knew there was no chance of altering her father’s decision, and having always been given her own way since a child, she determined to take it now. She regretted having to be married privately, but she saw no wrong in it. Her parents might be sorry when they heard of it, but they had brought it on themselves. She was not going to keep Frederick waiting for an indefinite period, and perhaps lose him altogether, because her father did not like Roman Catholics as well as he did Protestants. She didn’t object to his religion, and she was the principal party concerned, so the young lady looked out the dresses she wished to take with her, and made her maid Ellen pack them in the box to take to the dressmaker’s, and, when the key was in her own hands, she unlocked it again and added the articles of linen and jewellery that she needed, and managed the whole affair as coolly as if she had been preparing for elopements all her life. On the Friday—it was on a Thursday that she received the wire to tell her all was right, and it was on a Friday that her ill-regulated marriage took place—she dressed herself in her most becoming tailor-made costume, and drove gaily off to town, with a wave of her hand and a crack of her whip as a last adieu to the mother and aunt who loved her devotedly. She had promised them privately that she would be back to luncheon, unless her cousins, the Burtons, were at home again (which she did not anticipate), and pressed her to stay the afternoon.
‘But, Jenny, love!’ expostulated her mother, ‘don’t stay later than two, even if they do! Pray be home before papa comes back from the city. Remember how very particular he is about your driving in town by yourself, and I’m afraid he may blame me, if he finds I have let you go with only Brunell.’
‘My dear mother, as if Brunell were not a better protection for me than fifty fat old men like papa. Now, don’t worry, there’s a good creature, for I shall be back long before dinner time, but you know what Costello is, and how difficult it is to get away from her. And perhaps I sha’n’t go to the Burtons at all. So keep up your pecker, and don’t expect me till you see me. Good-bye,’ and with a flourish she was off.
She drove rapidly to Kensington, and, on arrival, directed her groom to put up the cobs and get himself some dinner, and call for her at Mrs Burton’s house in Cromwell Road at five o’clock. The man touched his hat, the box was lifted out, and Miss Jenny entered the dressmaker’s abode.
‘Madame Costello,’ she commenced, ‘this is a box of things belonging to my cousin, Miss Burton, which I am just going to take to her in Cromwell Road. I have brought it here first that you may take out the canvas dress you made for me, and which is just a trifle tight under the arms. No, I have no time to have it fitted on, thank you. Tell the dressmaker to let it out half an inch under both sleeves. That will be quite sufficient.’
And, unlocking the box, the little diplomatist took out an old dress, which she had laid at the top, and locked the rest of its contents up again. Frederick Walcheren was waiting for her round the corner, she had spied him as she drove up to the door.
‘My cousin is waiting to take me on to Cromwell Road,’ she said to Madame Costello, as she beckoned him to advance. ‘Ah, Fred,’ she continued, ‘you must call a cab for me, for I have been obliged to send the trap on to pick up papa, who wishes to join us. Have you one ready? That’s right. Good-morning, Madame Costello. You needn’t hurry with the alterations, for I shall not want that dress again just yet.’
And with that Miss Crampton entered the cab and was soon whirling away to the registrar’s office.
‘I never saw anything more neatly managed in my life,’ was her first remark. ‘Mamma has reason not to expect me home till five or six. I told Brunell not to call for me at Cromwell Road till five, so he can’t be back in Hampstead till six or seven, and by that time—’
‘By that time you will be Mrs Frederick Walcheren past all recall,’ said her lover, joyfully.