CHAPTER XXI.
THE DREAM REALIZED.
The approaching marriage of William Halliburton gave rise to a dispute. A dispute of love, though, not bitterness. Frank and Gar contended which should have their mother. William no longer wanted her; he was going to a home of his own. Frank wished to take larger chambers where she would find sufficient accommodation; he urged a hundred reasons; his grievances with his laundress, and his buttonless shirts. Gar, who was in priest's orders now, had remained in that same first curacy, at a hundred a year and the parsonage house to live in. He said he had been wanting his mother all along, and could not do without her.
Jane inclined to Gar. She said she had an idea that old ladies—how they would have rebelled at hearing her call herself old!—were out of place in a young barrister's chambers; and she had a further idea that chambers were comfortless quarters to live in. The question was to be decided when they met at William's wedding. Frank was getting on well; better than the ordinary run of aspirants; he had come through Helstonleigh two or three times on circuit, and had picked up odds and ends of briefs there.
Meanwhile William took possession of Mr. Ashley's old house, and the wedding day approached. Besides her boys, Jane had another visitor for the time; her brother Francis, who came down to marry them. Perhaps because the Vicar of Deoffam had recently died. He might have come all the same, had that gouty old gentleman been still alive.
All clear and cloudless rose the September sun on Deoffam; never a brighter sun shone on a wedding. It was a quiet wedding: only a few guests were invited to it. Mary, in her white lace robes and floating veil—flushed, timid, lovely—stood with her bridesmaids; not more lovely than one of those bridesmaids, for one was Anna Lynn.
Anna Lynn! Yes; Anna Lynn. To the lasting scandal of Patience, Anna stood in the open church, dressed in bridesmaid's attire. Mary, who had not been permitted the same intimacy with Anna since that marked and unhappy time, but who had loved her all along, had been allowed by Mrs. Ashley to choose her for one of her bridesmaids. The invitation was proffered, and Samuel Lynn did not see reason to decline it. Patience was indignantly rebellious; Anna, wild with delight. Look at her, as she stands there! flowing robes of white around her, not made after the primitive fashion of her robes, but in the fashion of the day. Her falling hair shades her carmine cheeks, and her blue eyes seek modestly the ground. A fair picture; and a dangerous one to Henry Ashley, had those old feelings of his remained in the ascendant. But he was cured; as he told William: and he told it in truth.
A short time, and Anna would want bridesmaids on her own account; though that may be speaking metaphorically of a Quakeress. Anna's pretty face had pierced the heart of one of their male body; and he had asked for Anna in marriage. A very desirable male was he, in a social point of view; and female Helstonleigh turned up its nose in envy at Anna's fortune. He was considerably older than Anna; a fine-looking man and a wealthy one, engaged in wholesale business. His name was Gurney; his residence, outside the city, was a handsome one, replete with every comfort; and he drove a carriage-and-pair. He had been for some time a visitor at Samuel Lynn's, and Anna had learned to like him. That his object in visiting there could only be Anna, every one had been sure of, his position being so superior to Samuel Lynn's. Every one but Anna. Somehow, since that past escapade, Anna had not cast a thought to marrying, or to the probability of anyone asking her; and she did not suspect his intentions. If she had suspected them, she might have set herself against him; for there was a little spice of opposition in her, which she loved to indulge. However, before that suspicion came to her she had grown to care for him too much to play the coquette. Strange to say, there was something in his figure and in the outline of his face, which reminded people of Herbert Dare; but his features and their expression were quite different.
It was a most excellent match for Anna; there was no doubt of that; but it did not afford complete satisfaction to Patience. Patience felt a foreboding that he would be a good deal more indulgent to Anna than she considered was wholesomely good for her: Patience had a misgiving that Anna would be putting off her caps as she chose, then, and would not be reprimanded for it. Not unlikely; could that future bridegroom, Charles Gurney, catch sight of Anna as she stands now! for a more charming picture never was seen.