"Well, I think it would have been but civil," said the doctor, "to have let me know about the Friday."
"Doubtless you will hear of it to-day," replied Margaret. "Originally the day was fixed for the Monday after, but something seems to have affected Lady Coldenham strangely, and she has urged my father to curtail even the short space allowed. To me it is indifferent what is the day of execution. Doubtless Jane Grey shrunk from the block and ax, as I shrink from the altar and the ring; but she met her fate firmly, and so will I. Hark! there is a halloo in the fields; they are coming back. Take the paper, but say I have no hope; that my fate is sealed. Remember to tell Ralph what I have said; and bid him think of me as one dead; for to every thing that makes existence life, I must be dead from the moment the ring is upon my finger."
After a few words more, Doctor M'Feely left her; and in less than a quarter of an hour, the house, so lately silent and solitary, was full of gay sounds and heedless laughter, jarring painfully with the thoughts of the melancholy tenant of that solitary room. Indeed, it seemed as if the whole party, with the exception of Lord Woodhall, had determined to leave the poor girl to her own imaginations. No one came to console or support her; no one even attempted to cheer her by conversation, or to withdraw her from her sad and lonely state. Her father did come to see her, and strove to speak cheerfully; but there was a silent reproach in his daughter's deep gloom which sent him ever away with a heart depressed, and a consciousness that he had destroyed the peace of his only remaining child.
CHAPTER XLV.
There were horses and carriages at the door of Ormebar Castle. The court-yard was crowded with servants in all kinds of livery. Lady Coldenham had resolved that the marriage should not want witnesses; and every one of noble blood in the county had been invited. One or two, who had been there the preceding week, asked, as they arrived, whether Lord Coldenham had returned; and though the answer was no, they did not much marvel, for Lady Coldenham was so completely monarch in her own family, that no one could expect she would make any alteration in her arrangements for the pleasure or convenience of a son.
The great hall was thrown open on that inauspicious morning, and richly decorated with evergreens and the few flowers which still lingered after the year's brighter part had passed away. Not less than forty or fifty people were assembled in that hall; but none of the family yet appeared among them, with the exception of Robert Woodhall, who had entered the room, remained for a few minutes, and retired again, explaining that some deeds and other writings had to be signed in the small room hard by, where Lady Coldenham usually received her guests. It is to that room which we must, in the first place, turn our eyes, before we relate what occurred afterward in the hall when the party was setting out for the wedding.
It was a handsome and beautifully decorated chamber, nearly square, with a highly-ornamented ceiling of black oak. It was called in those days the little withdrawing-room, but was at least thirty feet in length, and seven or eight-and-twenty in width. A large table was placed in the middle of the room, and at it was seated old Lady Coldenham, in a large armchair. She was richly attired, and looked in her stern dignity like a queen upon her throne. She had become awfully pale, however, during the last few weeks. The delicate blending of color in her cheek was gone, and the flesh looked not like marble, but wax.
Old Lord Woodhall was seated near, with a nervous, anxious, apprehensive expression of countenance. Two or three lawyers were further down the table, with a number of parchments before them. Robert Woodhall and two of his gay friends, somewhat older than himself--loose, debauched men, with that weak, supercilious expression of countenance which almost always gathers upon the face after a life of promiscuous licentiousness--stood at a little distance from the table on Lord Woodhall's right, while Margaret appeared behind, near a window, leaning heavily on the arm of Hortensia Danvers--the only bridemaid she had chosen, and whom she had persisted in choosing, notwithstanding a cold sneer from Lady Coldenham, and some opposition on the part of the poor girl's father. Hortensia was in a blaze of beauty, and magnificently attired. Her bright eyes were flashing with light, her brow slightly contracted, her beautifully chiseled nostrils expanding like those of a proud horse, and her fine arching lip quivering with feelings of indignation that hardly could be repressed. Her arm passed across her waist, and her hand rested upon poor Margaret's, as she leaned upon her, with a fond and comforting pressure; but her eyes were turned forward toward Lord Woodhall and Lady Coldenham, and seemed to express wonder as well as disgust. Behind her and Margaret stood their two maids, and the faithful old attendant of the unhappy bride often put her handkerchief to her eyes, which bore marks of many tears.
Some conversation took place between the persons seated at the table regarding the contents of the documents before them. There were some points which Lord Woodhall seemed not to comprehend easily, and which the lawyers did not explain clearly.
At length, however, after some minutes had passed in question and answer, the old lord seemed to grow impatient. "Well, give me the pen," he cried; "it does not much matter. I dare say it is all right;" and in a bold, dashing manner, which hardly covered the trembling of his hand, he wrote the word "Woodhall."