For some months I had been writing over my own name. One day a letter was forwarded to me by an editor to whose care it had been addressed. It was a short, formal note from the maternal Sellars, inviting me to the wedding of her daughter with a Mr. Reginald Clapper. I had almost forgotten the incident of the Lady 'Ortensia, but it was not unsatisfactory to learn that it had terminated pleasantly. Also, I judged from an invitation having been sent me, that the lady wished me to be witness of the fact that my desertion had not left her disconsolate. So much gratification I felt I owed her, and accordingly, purchasing a present as expensive as my means would permit, I made my way on the following Thursday, clad in frock coat and light grey trousers, to Kennington Church.
The ceremony was already in progress. Creeping on tiptoe up the aisle, I was about to slip into an empty pew, when a hand was laid upon my sleeve.
“We're all here,” whispered the O'Kelly; “just room for ye.”
Squeezing his hand as I passed, I sat down between the Signora and Mrs. Peedles. Both ladies were weeping; the Signora silently, one tear at a time clinging fondly to her pretty face as though loath to fall from it; Mrs. Peedles copiously, with explosive gurgles, as of water from a bottle.
“It is such a beautiful service,” murmured the Signora, pressing my hand as I settled myself down. “I should so—so love to be married.”
“Me darling,” whispered the O'Kelly, seizing her other hand and kissing it covertly behind his open Prayer Book, “perhaps ye will be—one day.”
The Signora through her tears smiled at him, but with a sigh shook her head.
Mrs. Peedles, clad, so far as the dim November light enabled me to judge, in the costume of Queen Elizabeth—nothing regal; the sort of thing one might assume to have been Her Majesty's second best, say third best, frock—explained that weddings always reminded her how fleeting a thing was love.
“The poor dears!” she sobbed. “But there, there's no telling. Perhaps they'll be happy. I'm sure I hope they may be. He looks harmless.”
Jarman, stretching out a hand to me from the other side of Mrs. Peedles, urged me to cheer up. “Don't wear your 'eart upon your sleeve,” he advised. “Try and smile.”