‘If she doesn’t turn him out a perfect article,’ said Paul, unconsciously quitting the mental for the actual soliloquy, ‘why, nothing and no one can. If I had been any one else, and she had commenced early enough at me, I really believe that she’d have changed old Paul Frankston into a bishop, or, at any rate, a rural dean at least; even Charley Carryall——’
But whether Captain Carryall’s utterances and anecdotes were scarcely of a nature calculated to harmonise with bishops and deans, or whether Mr. Frankston’s many engagements at this important crisis suddenly engaged his attention, can never be known with that precision which this chronicler is always anxious to supply. One thing only is certain, that he looked at his watch, and hastily arising from his arm-chair, departed into the city.
For the information of a section of readers for whom we feel much respect and gratitude, it may be mentioned that the wedding took place at St. James’s, a venerable but architecturally imperfect pile in the vicinity of Hyde Park. There be churches near Morahmee more replete with ‘miserable sinners’ in robes of Worth and garments of Poole, but Mr. Frankston would none of them. In the old church had he stood beside his mother, a schoolboy, wondering and wearied, but acquiescent, after the manner of British children; in the old church had he plighted his troth to Antonia’s sainted mother; in the old church should his darling utter her vows, and in no other. Are there any words which can fitly interpret the deep joy and endless thankfulness which fill the heart and humble the mind of him who, all unworthy, knows that the chalice of life’s deepest joy is even then past all risk and danger, steadily uplifted to his reverent lips?
Doubts there have been, delays that fretted, fears that shook the soul, clouds that dimmed, darkness that hid the sky of love. All these have sped. Here is naught but the glad and gracious Present, that blue and golden day which, pardoning and giving amnesty to the Past, beseeches, well-nigh assures, the stern veiled form of the Future.
Some of these reflections would doubtless have mingled with the contemplations of Ernest Neuchamp at Aurora’s summons on that glad morn but for an unimportant fact—that he was at that well-known poetical period most soundly asleep.
Restlessly wakeful during the earlier night-watches, he slept heavily at length, and only awoke, terrible to relate, with barely time for a careful toilet. Hastily disposing of a cup of coffee and a roll, he betook himself, in company with Mr. Parklands, who, I grieve to relate, had been playing loo all night, and was equally late and guilty, to the ancient church, where they were, by the good fortune of Parklands‘watch being rather fast—like all his movements—exactly, accurately the canonical five minutes before the time. Both of the important personages, being secretly troubled, looked slightly, becomingly pale. But the pallor of Parklands, entirely due to an unprosperous week, involving heavier disbursements and later sittings than ordinary, told much in his favour with the bridesmaids, so much so, that he always averred, in his customary irreverent speech, that ‘his flint was fixed’ on the occasion.
Probably owing to the calmly superior aspect of Mr. Hartley Selmore, or the tonic supplied by Jermyn Croker’s patent disapprobation and contempt of the whole proceedings, the protagonist and his acolouthos went through the ordeal with that exact proportion of courage, reverence, deftness, and satisfaction, the full rendering of which is often hard upon him who makes necessarily ‘a first appearance.’ As for Antonia’s loveliness on that day, when, radiant, white-robed, and serene, she placed her hand in that of her lover, and greeted him with the trustful smile in which the virgin-soul shines out o’er the maiden-bride’s countenance, Ernest Neuchamp may be pardoned for thinking that the angel of his dreams had been permitted to visit the earth, to rehearse for his especial joy a premature beatific vision.
Mr. Parklands effected a sensation by dropping the bridal-ring, but as he displayed much quickness of eye and manual dexterity in regaining it, the incident had rather a beneficial effect than otherwise. Everything was happily concluded, even to the kissing of the bridesmaids, Mr. Parklands, with his usual energy and daring, having insisted on carrying out personally that pleasing portion of the programme, supposed to appertain of right to the holder of the ancient and honourable office of groomsman. This compelled the chasing of two unwilling damsels half-way down the aisle, after which the slightly scandalised spectators quitted the church, while the wedding-guests betook themselves to Morahmee.
There, as they arrived, Mr. Frankston, sweeping the bay mechanically with long-practised eye, exclaimed, ‘What boat is that heading for our jetty at such a pace?—a whaleboat, too, with a Kanaka crew. There’s a tall man with the steer oar in his fist; by Jove! it’s Charley Carryall for a thousand.’
And that cheerful mariner and successful narrator it proved to be when the weather-beaten boat came foaming up to the little pier, drawn half out of the water by her wild-looking, long-haired crew, encouraged by their captain, who was backing up the stroke as if an eighty-barrel whale depended upon their speed.