There were no wedding bells at all: the organ was mute; the parish church of Stepney was empty; the spectators of the marriage were Mrs. Bormalack and Captain Sorensen, besides the girls and the bridegroom, and Dick, his best man. The captain in the Salvation Army might have been present as well; he had been asked, but he was lying on the sick-bed from which he was never to rise again. Lord and Lady Davenant were there: the former sleek, well contented, well dressed in broadcloth of the best; the latter agitated, restless, humiliated, because she had lost the thing she came across the Atlantic to claim, and was going home, after the splendor of the last three months, to the monotonous level of Canaan City. Who could love Canaan City after the West End of London! What woman would look forward with pleasure to the dull and uneventful days, the local politics, the chapel squabbles, the little gatherings for tea and supper, after the enjoyment of a carriage and pair and unlimited theatres, operas, and concerts, and footmen, and such dinners as the average American, or the average Englishman either, seldom arrives at seeing, even in visions? Sweet content was gone; and though Angela meant well, and it was kind of her to afford the ambitious lady a glimpse of that great world into which she desired to enter, the sight—even this Pisgah glimpse—of a social paradise to which she could never belong destroyed her peace of mind, and she will for the rest of her life lie on a rock deploring. Not so her husband: his future is assured; he can eat and drink plentifully; he can sleep all the morning undisturbed; he is relieved of the anxieties connected with his Case; and, though the respect due to rank is not recognized in the States, he has to bear none of its responsibilities, and has altogether abandoned the grand manner. At the same time, as one who very nearly became a British peer, his position in Canaan City is enormously raised.
They, then, were in the church. They drove thither, not in Miss Messenger's carriage, but with Lord Jocelyn.
They arrived a quarter of an hour before the ceremony. When the curate who was to perform the ceremony arrived, Lord Jocelyn sought him in the vestry and showed him a special license by which it was pronounced lawful, and even laudable, for Harry Goslett, bachelor, to take unto wife Angela Marsden Messenger, spinster.
And at sight of that name did the curate's knees begin to tremble, and his hands to shake.
"Angela Marsden Messenger? is it then," he asked, "the great heiress?"
"It is none other," said Lord Jocelyn. "And she marries my ward—here is my card—by special license."
"But—but—is it a clandestine marriage?"
"Not at all. There are reasons why Miss Messenger desires to be married in Stepney. With them we have nothing to do. She has, of late, associated herself with many works of benevolence, but anonymously. In fact, my dear sir"—here Lord Jocelyn looked profoundly knowing—"my ward, the bridegroom, has always known her under another name, and even now does not know whom he is marrying. When we sign the books we must, just to keep the secret a little longer, manage that he shall write his own name without seeing the names of the bride."
This seemed very irregular in the eyes of the curate, and at first he was for referring the matter to the rector, but finally gave in, on the understanding that he was to be no party to any concealment.