At Ashbourne preparations had already begun for the wedding in August. It was to be a wedding worthy of a duke's only daughter, the well-beloved and cherished child of an adoring father and mother. Kinsfolk and old friends were coming from far and wide to assist at the ceremony, for whom temporary rooms were to be arranged in all manner of places. The Duchess's exquisite dairy was to be transformed into a bachelor dormitory. Lodges and gamekeepers' cottages were utilised. Every nook and corner in the ducal mansion would be full.
"Why not rig up a few hammocks in the nearest pine plantation?" Rorie asked, laughing, when he heard of all these doings. "One couldn't have a better place to sleep on a sultry summer night."
There was to be a ball for the tenantry in the evening of the wedding-day, in a marquee on the lawn. The gardens were to be illuminated in a style worthy of the château of Vaux, when Fouquet was squandering a nation's revenues on lamps and fountains and venal friends. Lady Mabel protested against all this fuss.
"Dear mamma, I would so much rather have been married quietly,' she said.
"My dearest, it is all your papa's doing. He is so proud of you. And then we have only one daughter; and she is not likely to be married more than once, I hope. Why should we not have all our friends round us at such a time?"
Mabel shrugged her shoulders, with an air of repugnance to all the friends and all the fuss.
"Marriage is such a solemn act of one's life," she said. "It seems dreadful that it should be performed in the midst of a gaping, indifferent crowd."
"My love, there will not be a creature present who can feel indifferent about your welfare," protested the devoted mother. "If our dear Roderick had been a more distinguished person, your papa would have had you married in Westminster Abbey. There of course there would have been a crowd of idle spectators."
"Poor Roderick," sighed Mabel. "It is a pity he is so utterly aimless. He might have made a career for himself by this time, if he had chosen."
"He will do something by-and-by, I daresay," said the Duchess, excusingly. "You will be able to mould him as you like, pet."