When fully convinced that he meant it in earnest, she seized his hand, shook it heartily, and plunged into a Welsh oration. It was cut short in the midst. She caught sight of Bray, coming in at the house door, and smuggled the present out of sight amidst her petticoats. Had Mr. Sandy seen it, she might have derived little benefit from it herself.
Time lagged, while they waited for Lady Godolphin. The conversation fell upon Bray’s trade—as the man was wont to call it: though who or what led to the topic none of them could remember. He recounted two or three interesting incidents; one, of a gentleman marrying a young wife and being shot dead the next day by her friends. She was an heiress, and they had run away from Ireland. But that occurred years and years ago, he added. Would the ladies like to see the room?
He opened a door at the back of the kitchen, traversed a passage, and entered a small place, which could only be called a room by courtesy. They followed, wonderingly. The walls were whitewashed, the floor was of brick, and the small skylight, by which it was lighted, was of thick coarse glass, embellished with green nobs. What with the lowering sky, and this lowering window, the room wore an appearance of the gloomiest twilight. No furniture was in it, except a table (or something that served for one) covered with a green baize cloth, on which lay a book. The contrast from the kitchen, bright with its fire, with the appliances of household life, to this strange comfortless place made them shiver. “A fit place for the noose to be tied in!” cried irreverent George, surveying it critically.
Bray took the words literally. “Yes,” said he. “It’s kept for that purpose alone. It is a bit out of the common, and that pleases the women. If I said the words in my kitchen, it might not be so satisfying to them, ye see. It does not take two minutes to do,” he added, taking his stand behind the table and opening the book. “I wish I had as many pieces of gold as I have done it, here, in my time.”
Charlotte Pain took up the words defiantly. “It is impossible that such a marriage can stand. It is not a marriage.”
“’Deed, but it is, young lady.”
“It cannot be legal,” she haughtily rejoined. “If it stands good for this loose-lawed country, it cannot do so for others.”
“Ay, how about that?” interrupted George, still in his light tone of ridicule. “Would it hold good in England?”
Minister Bray craned his long neck towards them, over the table, where they stood in a group. He took the hand of George Godolphin, and that of Charlotte Pain, and put them to together. “Ye have but to say, ‘I take you, young lady, to be my lawful wife;’ and, ‘I take you, sir, to be my husband,’ in your right names. I’d then pronounce ye man and wife, and say the blessing on it; and the deed would be done, and hold good all over the world.”
Did Mr. Sandy Bray anticipate that he might thus extemporise an impromptu ceremony, which should bring some grist to his empty mill? Not improbably: for he did not release their hands, but kept them joined together, looking at both in silence.