‘It is selfish of me to ask you to take so much trouble, perhaps,’ he wrote, ‘but it would make me very happy if you would come to Southampton to meet me. I know our good friends the Dulcimers would bring you, if you expressed a wish to that effect. I want to see you directly I land, Beatrix. I want your dear face to be the first to smile upon me when the steamer touches the English shore. The journey would be interminable if I had to wait till the end of it to see you. I am not very strong yet, and should be obliged to travel slowly. But if you will meet me and greet me, I think all my ills will be cured at once. A week or so at Culverhouse, with you for my daily companion, will make me as strong as a lion. I am bringing you home a poor little leaflet of laurel, dear, to lay at your feet. That last skirmish of ours brought me to the fore. Happy accidents favoured me, and our chief has said all manner of kind things about my conduct at the retaking of Pegu. I come back to you a major. I have not said a word yet about selling out. That shall be as you wish; but I confess that my own inclination points the other way. This last business has made me fonder than I used to be of my profession. I have tasted the sweets of success. What do you think, love? Could you be happy as a soldier’s wife? I write this at Alexandria. The steamer leaves to-morrow, and ought to arrive at Southampton on the 7th or 8th of November. Shall I be so blest as to see you among the eager crowd on the quay when the boat steams into the famous old docks, whence so many a soldier has gone to his fate—where there have been such sad partings and joyous meetings. Come, love, come, and let me think I do not return unlooked for and unloved.’
‘What do you think I ought to do, Mrs. Dulcimer?’ asked Beatrix, humbly.
‘Do, my love? Why, go, of course. There isn’t a doubt about it. Clement and I will take you.’
‘You are very good,’ faltered Beatrix. ‘Yes, I will go to meet him.’
CHAPTER III.
A WEDDING MARCH.
Bella’s marriage was to take place on the last day of October. It had been laid down from the beginning that it was to be a very quiet wedding. There was a newness and brightness about that splendid monument to the late Mrs. Piper in Little Yafford churchyard which seemed to forbid high jinks at Mr. Piper’s second nuptials. ‘People might talk,’ as Mrs. Scratchell said, happily ignorant that people were talking about her daughter and Mr. Piper with all their might already.
Hardly anybody was to be invited to the wedding. This was what Mr. Piper and everybody else concerned kept on saying; yet every day some fresh invitation was given. Mr. Piper had a good many friends among the manufacturing classes, innumerable middle-aged men with red faces and expansive waistcoats, every one of whom was, according to Mr. Piper, the oldest friend he had. These, one by one, were bidden, with their wives and families,—‘the more the merrier.’ In no case was the invitation premeditated, but it came naturally from Mr. Piper’s lips when he met an old acquaintance on ‘Change, or in the club-house at Great Yafford.
‘Never mind, my dear,’ he said, apologetically, to Bella. ‘They are all carriage people. And they’ll make a fine show at the church door.’
‘But I thought we were going into county society,’ said Bella.