CHAPTER XV.
"YOU'VE BROKEN MY HEART, I THINK."
The funeral was over, and it was now decent to talk about the marriage. When and where could the marriage take place?
Boldero Abbey, with all the landed estate, was virtually in other hands already, and it did not need the opening of the will to announce to the bereaved family that with the loss of a father there followed that of a home.
All their lives they had known that this must be so, but the subject was so grievous that it was hardly ever alluded to, and in a manner was lost sight of.
For his years General Boldero was a young man; he was hale, hearty, and selfish. He took good care of his health, and prognosticated for himself a green old age—anyhow his tenure of the good things of life was secure; and though unable to alter the law of entail, which permitted no female heirs in the Boldero line of descent, he foresaw in his mind's eye all his daughters married and settled, with the exception of Sue, who had her mother's fortune, and was of course to stick to him to the last.
Consequently the provision he had made for the rest was slight, and there was no doubt that the sooner they now quitted the stately mansion and broke up its large establishment, the better.
But the wedding, Maud's wedding, that was to have been so gay and splendid, what was to be done about that? The invitations were already out, and everything in such readiness that even Sue inwardly sighed. If only it could have been all happily over!
It was terrible to her that an event so momentous should take place anywhere but in the halls of her forefathers—or to speak more strictly, in the village church where Eustace Custance officiated. To him had been confided the great satisfaction afforded by the match; and when consenting to tie the knot, he had spoken warmly of Paul Foster. Paul had often sought him out, and had—but he must not say more. The general, overhearing, had warranted Paul "mulcted ".