Both my uncles were impatient that the marriage should not be delayed, and therefore not without a good deal of persuasion, I succeeded in getting Theresa to fix the day for——which gave us exactly six weeks to make our preparations. With less time we could hardly do. There were not only two houses to be sought and furnished (Dick being resolved that Theresa and Conny should both begin the duties of housekeeping at the same time) but there were two trousseaux to be got ready, for as one of us very properly observed, “It isn’t because a girl makes a runaway marriage that she doesn’t want the same outfit that would be given her had she been married correctly.”
A busy month that was! Theresa went to Thistlewood, but returned after an absence of a fortnight; her father declaring that no nonsensical fastidiousness should permit her to mope alone in a big house, which would be all the more dull, not only because it was the home she was to leave for ever, but because she would contrast it with the cheerfulness of the house at Grove End.
One individual welcomed her back, trust me.
That, I say, was a busy month. Two houses had been found, exactly “suited to the requirements of young married people,” as the landlords pointed out: one house in Updown, which was for Conny; and one a mile away, not very far from Grove End, which was for Theresa. These had to be furnished; and as my uncle Tom had no time to devote to the work, I was “told off” to assist uncle Dick.
And now at Grove End Conny was to be found every day, helping her mother to prepare for Theresa’s marriage, to get together her own trousseau, to sympathise with her cousin’s maidenly anxieties. She and I were often together now; but so little did the memory of the past affect our relations—in short, so dead was all sentiment between us, that, though Theresa watched us narrowly (which she afterwards declared was not true), not a glance, not a sigh was exchanged upon which the most imaginative jealousy could have fastened as an excuse for a quarrel.
My father arrived at Grove End a week before the marriage. Both my uncles went to meet him with the phaeton. As I beheld his stately figure I felt that I had never sufficiently admired him. He certainly did look most imposing, dressed to perfection, his magnificent whiskers taking a purple tint from the sun. He grasped both my hands, and I led him at once to Theresa. Good heavens! with what inimitable grace did he take and kiss her hand; with which chivalrous greeting, however, she was by no means satisfied, for she insisted upon offering her cheek, which he touched with the imperial air of a potentate saluting a queen. And a queen she looked! and I noticed with happy pride the admiration that kindled in his face as he regarded her. Indeed, I had very good reason to be proud of both of them; for such a father and such a bride, I will venture to say, it has been the lot of very few men to possess at the same time.
My aunt, who had not seen the major for many years, was quite overpowered by the reception he gave her; whilst honest Tom was so vain of having his military brother under his roof, that for very conceit he couldn’t sit down, but strode about the room, putting all manner of questions about France, the Emperor, prospects of war with that country, and so forth, positively as if my father were a returned ambassador, whose intimacy with French affairs qualified him to raise or depress the Funds with a shrug or a nod.
One thing I could predict: the presence of the major would entirely nullify every lingering feeling of humiliation with which Tom and his wife might still regard Conny’s marriage. So gorgeous a relation could not but absorb out of the family circle the remnants of degradation Conny’s elopement had left behind it; and uncle Tom might well defy the neighbours to sneer after having set eyes on the military representative of the Hargraves, with his magnificent whiskers and aquiline nose, when he should sit by his sister-in-law in the carriage, resembling a monarch on a tour d’inspection, or when he worshipped with lofty solemnity in the family pew.
The following extract is from the Updown Mercury of ——, 185—. I subjoin it because the particulars it gives are expressed in language which, whether we consider the beauty of its epithets, the elegance of its construction, the ease of its periods, or the harmony of its sentences, is equally provocative of lasting admiration, and is so superior to anything I could write, that it would be injurious to the reputation of this book to omit it.