“Don’t think of that, my dear girl,” said his lordship. “Lord Tufton will ‘give you away,’ as the service hath it, and I will be by your side.”
“You are so kind and considerate,” said Amy. “You do not like me to thank you, and I will not; but supposing I had a brother worthy of being present, how nice it would have been: it will seem so very strange to have no one belonging to me at such a time. If Lieutenant Somerton had really been my brother.”
“Yes, he is rather a fine fellow, the young officer, and I propose we invite him to be present.”
Miss Tallant was pleased at this kindly recognition of her sometime brother Paul, and from that time she desisted further in her preliminary suggestions with regard to her real brother.
Meanwhile the arrangements for the wedding went on, and hardly a day went by which did not bring some handsome present from Lord Verner. His lordship had been over to Paris specially to make a purchase of some famous court diamonds, which he had learnt were in the market. There was nothing too good nor too costly for this charming woman at Barton Hall.
It was almost like buying the young lady to load her so with presents and compliments, and already all the people at Montem Castle were profoundly jealous of her. The housekeeper, the valet, the cook, the chaplain, even the vicar at Brazencrook, close by, were jealous of the coming queen. The Castle had been undergoing all sorts of alterations during the last few months. Painters and decorators, and upholsterers, and cabinet-makers, had swarmed in every part of it, and his lordship had looked into every nook and corner of the place himself. The gardeners had been compelled to seek assistance, and strange men from London, calling themselves florists, had been down, and planted all manner of strange-looking plants and shrubs. The whole place had been in a state of commotion, and his lordship had never been known to be so active, nor so well. When the vicar ventured, on the strength of old familiarity, to rally his lordship upon his improved health and spirits, the Earl laughed and chuckled, and said he had no time to be ill; he did not intend to be ill any more; he had wasted enough valuable time upon that hobby.
Then the vicar would go home to chat with Mrs. Vicar about the changes which were taking place, and wonder what Mr. Hammerton thought about the affair. Of course he knew nothing of it at present; there had scarcely been time for letters to reach him since the match had really been settled and made known.
Everybody in the neighbourhood of Montem Castle and at Brazencrook had looked upon the Hon. Lionel Hammerton as certain of the earldom. Not only was his brother considerably his senior—old enough to be his father—but he had generally been an invalid, and looked much older than he really was. But his lordship was far stronger than they imagined. He had loved retirement and study, and frequently secured it by a pretence of not being well. He had a horror of “boredom”; he could not endure toadyism; he loved his books and his pictures, his old china, his statuary; and he preferred this to the best society in the district, though he and the vicar and occasional visitors dined luxuriously together, and sat genially over their wine until late in the night.
It was generally agreed that his lordship was odd, and nobody doubted that some day he would be found dead in his bed, and that Lionel Hammerton would succeed and make up for the former Earl’s retirement by a liberal reign and a generous performance of the duties of his high station. But his lordship had opened their eyes of late, and turned the gossip into entirely new and unexpected channels.