“I don’t like this new-fangled way young people nowadays have, of getting married in the morning, coming home for a hasty breakfast, and then tearing off, post-haste, for France, or Germany, or somewhere, as if they wanted change of scene to reconcile them to what they have done,” said the old gentleman, in strict confidence, to Lord De Courcy. “It wasn’t so in my time. Then we had all our friends assembled, and enjoyed ourselves together over a bottle or two of old wine until morning. Ah! those were the days.” And the old earl heaved a deep sigh, and looked ruefully at his gouty foot.
Resolving, therefore, to keep up those halcyon days at all hazards, the great saloons of the stately hall were thrown open, and now they were filled with the elite of the city, all waiting impatiently for the coming of the bride.
Lord Hugh De Courcy, suave, stately, courteous, and bland, was there, conversing with the father of the bride, and two or three of the most distinguished politicians of the day—his eyes now and then wandering from the faces of his friends, to rest proudly on the handsome form of his son, who, in the absence of Lady Maude, was the cynosure of all eyes, the “observed of all observers.”
The venerable and high-salaried bishop, attended by several other “journeyman soul-savers,” as Captain George Jernyngham irreverently called them, was there, too, in full pontificals, all ready, and waiting to tie the Gordian knot.
The rooms were filled with the low hum of conversation. There were waving of fans, and flirting of bouquets, and dropping of handkerchiefs, and rustling silks and satins, and flashing of jewels, and turning of many bright, impatient eyes towards the door where the bride and her attendants were presently expected to make their appearance. Ladies coquetted, and flirted, and turned masculine heads with brilliant smiles and entrancing glances, and gentlemen bowed and complimented, and talked all sorts of nonsense, just like gentlemen in general, and all things went “merry as a marriage-bell.”
Standing by themselves, as when we first saw them, were Lord Ernest Villiers and his friend, Captain Jernyngham, of the Guards.
Handsome, stately, and noble, Lord Villiers always looked; but more so now than ever. What man does not look well when happy, faultless in costume, and about to be married to the woman he loves?
Captain Jernyngham, first groomsman, etc., was also looking remarkably well—a fact of which the young gentleman himself was well aware; and lounging in his usual listless attitude against a marble column, he languidly admired his aristocratically small foot in its shining boot.
“There are some men born to good luck, just as others are born to be hanged”—he was saying, with the air of a man delivering an oration—“born with a silver spoon in their mouths, to use a common, but rather incredible figure of speech. You, mi lor Villiers, are one of them; you were born above the power of Fortune—consequently, the toadying jade shows you a face all smiles, and gives the cold shoulder to poor devils like me, who really stand in need of her good graces. This world’s a humbug! Virtuous poverty, illustrated in the person of Captain George Jernyngham, is snubbed and sent to Coventry, while potent, rich, and depraved youths like you are borne along on beds of roses. Yes, I repeat it, the world’s a humbug! society’s a nuisance! friendship’s a word of two syllables found in dictionaries, nowhere else! and cigars, kid gloves and pale ale are the only things worth living for. There’s an ‘opinion as is an opinion.’”
“Oh, come now, Jernyngham! things are by no means so desperate as you would have me believe,” said Lord Villiers, laughing. “Young, good-looking, and adored by the ladies, what more would you have?”