Miss Forsyth—it was nearly eighteen months ago—had invited Rose to come up to London with her for a day’s shopping, and then she had suddenly presented her young friend with this attractive, and yes, expensive gown. There had been a blue sash, but this had now been taken off by Anna, and a bluey-white satin band substituted. As to that Rose now rebelled. “If I am to wear this dress to-day, I should like the blue sash put back,” she said quickly. “Blue is supposed to bring luck to brides, Anna.”
What had really turned the scale in Rose’s mind had been Anna’s tears, and the fact that Miss Forsyth would be pleased to see her married in that gown.
But over the lace veil there had been something like a tug of war. And this time it was Mrs. Otway who had won the day. “If you wear that muslin dress, then I cannot see why you should not wear your grandmother’s wedding veil,” she had exclaimed—and again Rose had given in.
Poor old Anna! It was a day of days for her—far more a day of days than had been the marriage of her own daughter. Yet Louisa Bauer’s wedding had been a great festival. And the old woman remembered what pains Mrs. Otway had taken to make that marriage of five years ago, as far as was possible in such a very English place as Witanbury, a German bridal. In those days they had none of them guessed what an unsatisfactory fellow George Pollit was going to turn out; and Louisa had gone to her new home with quite a German trousseau—that is, with what would have appeared to English eyes stacks of under-clothing, each article beautifully embroidered with a monogram and lavishly trimmed with fine crochet; each set tied up with a washing band or Waschebander, a strip of canvas elaborately embroidered in cross-stitch.
It seemed strangely sad and unnatural that Anna’s gracious young lady should have no trousseau at all! But that doubtless would come afterwards, and she, Anna, felt sure that she would be allowed to have a hand in choosing it. This thought was full of consolation, as was also her secret supposition that the future trousseau would be paid for by the bridegroom.
There was certainly cause for satisfaction in that thought, for Anna had become conscious of late that her dear mistress felt anxious about money. Prices were going up, but thanks to her, Anna’s, zealous care, the housekeeping bills at the Trellis House were still kept wonderfully low. It was unfortunate that Mrs. Otway, being the kind of gracious lady she was, scarcely gave Anna sufficient credit for this. It was not that she was ungrateful, it was simply that she did not think anything about it—she only remembered that she was short of money when the household books were there, open in front of her.
CHAPTER XXV
And now the small group of men and women who were to be present at the marriage of Rose Otway and Jervis Blake were gathered together in Mrs. Robey’s large drawing-room. Seven people in all, for the Dean had not yet arrived.
In addition to the master and mistress of the hospitable house in which they now all found themselves, there were there Sir John and Lady Blake; Miss Forsyth—who, alone of the company, had dressed herself with a certain old-fashioned magnificence; Sir Jacques, who had just come into the room after taking Rose and her mother up to Jervis’s room; and lastly good old Anna Bauer, who sat a little apart by herself, staring with a strange, rather wild look at the group of people standing before her.