The marriage of Innocent took place on one of the first days of February, a day of the “seasonable” kind, with black skies, a dark gray atmosphere, and occasional downpours of steady rain. The raw cold penetrated to one’s bones and one’s heart, and even the show of costly flowers which had been procured for the occasion failed to make the rooms look cheerful. Innocent herself, in her white bridal dress and veil, was like the snowdrops. Her head drooped a little, her cheeks were not much less pale than her dress. She was not a blushing, or a smiling, or a weeping bride. Her eyes were full of a certain awe, sometimes varied by alarm, when the prospect of leaving home came uppermost; but she was passive in all things, gentle and grateful, as calm in her new position as she had been in the former. The only one thing she had been anxious about, the one trouble and mystery in her life, had been set right (as she thought) by her bridegroom’s exertions. He had taken upon him to arrange all that: to explain it, to make everything clear; and Innocent, trustful and ignorant, had not doubted his power to do so. Mrs. Eastwood’s anxious assurances that she was mistaken, that her belief about Amanda was a delusion, had never made any impression on the girl. But when Sir Alexis accepted her story as true, and pledged himself to set everything right, the practical part of her mind, which was in reality the only intellectual part of her which had any power, accepted his assurances, and trusted in them. Why should any one bid her believe that it was a delusion? Innocent knew that it was no delusion; but at the same time she was quite simple enough and foolish to believe that Sir Alexis could set it all to rights, without inquiring how. He would give her a caressing answer when she asked him about it, and tell her that all was being settled; and in her ignorance she believed him, and was lightened of her burden. The wedding was to be a very quiet one, partly (as it was announced) because of Innocent’s health—partly because of the mourning of the family. John Vane, who had been summoned for the occasion, was to give her away as the representative of her father’s family—for Frederick, morose and melancholy (feeling the death of his wife, poor fellow—for she was very beautiful, though it was quite a mésalliance), would have nothing to do with it. And a few of Mrs. Eastwood’s friends and counsellors were in attendance, and two or three friends of Sir Alexis; but it was not a gay ceremonial. The Molyneuxes were present, for Ernest had not intimated to his family any doubt as to eventual union with Nelly, nor had he accepted her virtual dismissal of him; but they, like many other people, after having received the announcement of the marriage with enthusiasm, had come prepared at the last moment to criticize.
“How could she allow that poor child to marry such a man?” whispered Miss Molyneux to her mother.
“Hush, child!” said the mother; “the Eastwoods are people who will do anything for money.”
“How pale she is; do you think they can have used force?” the same young lady asked of Ernest.
“No more force than that of wealth and finery—a force women are always glad to yield to,” said Ernest, almost in Nelly’s hearing.
She heard the last words, and divined the first. They had “made up” their quarrel, as people say, but Nelly’s heart was very sore, quivering with pain present and pain past. Even the marriage itself was nothing to be happy about. How would poor Innocent bear it, when she was gone, away from all who cared for her, with her old-new husband? How selfish it was of him, Nelly thought, to insist upon marrying Innocent because in her trouble she had committed herself to him!—but all men were now selfish; they were not to be judged as women are. It came natural to them to consider themselves, their own will, their own gratification before everything else. This conviction was the bitter product of Nelly’s own experience, which she endeavoured to soften by generalization, as men and women do invariably on both sides. All men were like that, she said to herself; it took off something of the sharp edge of self-seeking from the man whom she had herself chosen from all the world—or rather, who had chosen her, as he himself would have preferred to have said.
John Vane did not come to her until the weary morning was nearly over, till after the bride and bridegroom had departed, and the other guests were dropping away. The guests in general had not been cheerful in their comments; most of them had expressed themselves warmly delighted at the prospect of so good a match for Innocent—but the compliments they paid to the mistress of the house now were not so agreeable.
“I am afraid poor little Lady Longueville is very delicate,” said one, shaking her head.
“Everything has gone off very nicely,” said another; “but I wish, poor thing, she had looked a little happier.”
“I don’t understand a bride looking very happy on her wedding day,” said a more benevolent critic; “and she is so young and so—inexperienced——”