“I wouldn’t be on that ship for all I’ve saved,” he said, shaking his head. “Looks as if there was going to be a wreck.
“So there is,” he said, after a pause, “a social wreck, and I’m going to assist. No, I’m not. I’m looking after the salvage. Poor girl! Gartram must have been mad.”
His meditations were broken in upon by the sound of wheels. Half-an-hour later the door was thrown open.
“Now, Mr Trevithick, please,” said Mary; and he hurried into the hall to find Claude ready and looking very calm and composed.
“Good-bye,” she was saying to first one and then another of the maids, who, catching the contagion, burst into tears.
“As if it wasn’t wet enough already,” said Reuben Brime, who stood with the footman by the carriage-door.
“Good-bye, Woodham, dear,” said Claude, holding out her hand, but snatching it back directly as she yielded to a sudden impulse, and threw her arms around the stern-looking woman’s neck. “Thank you for all that you have done.”
“Good-bye! Why did she say good-bye?” thought Woodham, as Trevithick handed the bride into the carriage, the drops from the edge of the portico falling like great tears upon her hair. “Yes: good-bye to youth and happiness and your sweet young life.”
The carriage-door was banged, and banged again, for the wet had made it hard to shut. Then, as the footman mounted to his place on the box, the gardener hurried round in front of the horses, and ran for the short cut over the cliffs to the church.
“Shouldn’t you go, Mrs Woodham?” said one of the maids.