“If we could always remember this, we should perhaps find ourselves a little above the angels, instead of being, like the serene, the Fénélons of our race, a little below them. We shall not always remember it, love; but we must remind each other as faithfully as may be.”
“You must bring me here, when I forget,” said Hester. “This spring will always murmur the truth to me—‘If the temper of the hour is right nothing is wrong.’ How wrong has my temper been within this hour!”
“Let it pass, my Hester. We are all faithless at times, and without the excuse of meek and anxious love. Is it possible that the moon casts that shadow?”
“The dark, dark hour is gone,” said Hester, smiling as she looked up, and the moon shone on her face. “Nothing is wrong. Who would have believed, an hour ago, that I should now say so?”
“When you would have given me up,” said Hope, smiling. “Oh, let us forget it all! Let us go somewhere else. Who will say this is winter? Is it October, or ‘the first mild day of March?’ It might be either.”
“There is not a breath to chill us; and these leaves—what a soft autumn carpet they make! They have no wintry crispness yet.”
There was one inexhaustible subject to which they now recurred—Mr Hope’s family. He told over again, what Hester was never weary of hearing, how his sisters would cherish her, whenever circumstances should allow them to meet—how Emily and she would suit best, but how Anne would look up to her. As for Frank—. But this representation of what Frank would say, and think, and do, was somewhat checked and impaired by the recollection that Frank was just about this time receiving the letter in which Margaret’s superiority to Hester was pretty plainly set forth. The answer to that letter would arrive, some time or other, and the anticipated awkwardness of that circumstance caused some unpleasant feelings at this moment, as it had often done before, during the last few weeks. Nothing could be easier than to set the matter right with Frank, as was already done with Emily and Anne; the first letter might occasion some difficulty. Frank was passed over lightly, and the foreground of the picture of family welcome was occupied by Emily and Anne.
It was almost an hour from their leaving the Spring before the lovers reached home. They were neither cold nor tired; they were neither merry nor sad. The traces of tears were on Hester’s face; but even Margaret was satisfied when she saw her leaning on Edward’s arm, receiving the presents of the children where alone the children would present them—in the new house. There was no fancy about the arrangements, no ceremony about the cake and the ring, to which Hester did not submit with perfect grace. Notwithstanding the traces of her tears, she had never looked so beautiful.
The same opinion was repeated the next morning by all the many who saw her in church, or who caught a glimpse of her, in her way to and from it. No wedding was ever kept a secret in Deerbrook; and Mr Hope’s was the one in which concealment was least of all possible. The church was half full, and the path to the church-door was lined with gazers. Those who were obliged to remain at home looked abroad from their doors; so that all were gratified more or less. Every one on Mr Grey’s premises had a holiday—including Miss Young, though Mrs Rowland did not see why her children should lose a day’s instruction, because a distant cousin of Mr Grey’s was married. The marriage was made far too much a fuss of for her taste; and she vowed that whenever she parted with her own Matilda, there should be a much greater refinement in the mode. Every one else appeared satisfied. The sun shone; the bells rang; and the servants drank the health of the bride and bridegroom. Margaret succeeded in swallowing her tears, and was, in her inmost soul, thankful for Hester and herself. The letters to Mr Hope’s sisters and brother, left open for the signatures of Edward and Hester Hope, were closed and despatched; and the news was communicated to two or three of the Ibbotsons’ nearest friends at Birmingham. Mr and Mrs Grey agreed, at the end of the day, that a wedding was, to be sure, a most fatiguing affair for quiet people like themselves; but that nothing could have gone off better.