“Certainly, Lady M—,” replied I. “I will stop a letter I was about to send to her solicitor, and write another to the effect you wish, and I will not repeat my request for the carriage until after the marriages have taken place.”
“Many thanks,” replied her ladyship, and I went out, took my letter from the hall table, and wrote another to Mr Selwyn, stating that I could not enter into any business until the following week, when I should be prepared to receive him.
I wrote another to the same effect to Lionel, requesting him not to call again, but that I would write and let him know where to meet me as soon as I was more at leisure.
Indeed I was glad that Lady M— had made the request, as the trouble and chattering and happy faces which were surrounding the trousseaux, and the constant employment and appeals made to me, drove away the melancholy which Lady R—’s affairs had occasioned me. I succeeded to a great degree in recovering my spirits, and exerted myself to my utmost, so that everything was complete and satisfactory to all parties two days before the wedding was to take place.
At last, the morning came. The brides were dressed and went down into the drawing-room, frightened and perplexed, but their tears had been shed above. The procession of carriages moved on to Hanover Square; there was a bishop of course, and the church was filled with gay and tastefully-dressed women. The ceremony was performed, and the brides were led into the vestry-room to recover, and receive kisses and congratulations. Then came the banquet, which nobody hardly tasted except the bishop, who had joined too many couples in his lifetime to have his appetite at all affected by the ceremony, and some two or three others who were old stagers on the road of life, and who cared little whether it was a wedding-breakfast, or refreshments after a funeral.
At last, after a most silent entertainment, the brides retired to change their dresses, and, when they re-appeared, they were handed into the carriages of their respective bridegrooms as soon as they could be torn away from the kisses and tears of Lady M—, who played the part of a bereaved mother to perfection. No one to have seen her then, raving like another Niobe, would have imagined that all her thoughts and endeavours and manoeuvres, for the last three years, had been devoted to the sole view of getting them off; but Lady M— was a perfect actress, and this last scene was well got up.
As her daughters were led down to the carriages, I thought that she was going to faint; but it appeared, on second thoughts, that she wished first to see the girls depart in their gay equipages; she therefore tottered to the window, saw them get in, looked at Newman’s greys and gay postillions—at the white and silver favours—the dandy valet and smart lady’s-maid in each rumble. She saw them start at a rattling pace, watched them till they turned the corner of the square, and then—and not till then—fell senseless in my arms, and was carried by the attendants into her own room.
After all, the poor woman must have been very much worn out, for she had been for the last six weeks in a continual worry lest any contre-temps should happen, which might have stopped or delayed the happy consummation.
The next morning her ladyship did not leave her room, but sent word down that the carriage was at my service; but I was fatigued and worn out, and declined it for that day. I wrote to Lionel and to Mr Selwyn, desiring them to meet me in Baker Street, at two o’clock the next day; and then passed the day quietly, in company with Amy, the third daughter of Lady M—, whom I have before mentioned. She was a very sweet, unaffected girl; and I was more partial to her than to her sisters, who had been just married. I had paid great attention to her, for she had a fine voice, and did credit to my teaching, and there was a great intimacy between us, arising on my part from my admiration of her ingenuous and amiable disposition, which even her mother’s example to the contrary could not spoil.
After some conversation relative to her sisters and their husbands, she said, “I hardly know what to do, Valerie. I love you too well to be a party to your being ill-treated, and yet I fear that you will be pained if I tell you what I have heard about you. I know also that you will not stay, if I do tell you, and that will give me great pain; but that is a selfish feeling which I could overcome. What I do not like is hurting your feelings. Now, tell me candidly, ought I to tell you, or not?”