He saw me to the door, where he shook hands warmly with me, and I left promising to see him the following afternoon.
It is not necessary to do more than describe very briefly what took place during the next ten or eleven days. On Saturday the marriage was fixed for the following Monday week. In the meantime I removed to a set of chambers in Adelphi Terrace, from which there was a fine view of the river. Mr. Chambers tried several times very hard to alter my resolution, and materially increased the offer of £2,000, if I would give up the marriage; but as his arguments did not apply to the motives which really influenced me, they were rather irrelevant.
One thing that he was surprised at, I could see, was my indifference as to how the money was to be secured to me. The way in which it was done eventually was by a letter to me from Mr. Duke and himself, making themselves and their executors jointly and severally liable to pay me £500 every quarter so long as I abstained from claiming the lady to whom I was about to be married, as my wife. This letter, I may mention, was given to me without any solicitation on my part; for the monetary portion of the transaction was most repulsive to my feelings. I signed without reading the marriage settlement. When Mr. Chambers began, in an apologetic manner, to intimate the reasons why this should be done, I saved him the trouble of entering upon any explanation by saying that the reasons were too obvious to need being repeated, and that I had no wish to pry into Miss Grey's affairs.
On the following Thursday week £1,000 was placed to my credit at Messrs. Duke, Furnival & Company's bank, and on the Monday after, at seven o'clock in the evening, the marriage took place, by special license, at 41 York Place, in the parlor where I had had the interview with Miss Grey.
I walked up to the house at a few minutes to seven o'clock, and was shown into the same parlor by the same servant. I had not been in the room for more than a minute when Mr. Chambers came in looking very fresh and smiling. After a few casual remarks he gave me the wedding-ring, which I was to put on the bride's finger. He had hardly done so when a young clergyman came in in full canonicals, and after him Mr. Duke with a lady who wore a white veil of such a thick texture that it would have been impossible, had I tried, to distinguish her features. The service began at once. I had been previously "coached" by Mr. Chambers, and got through my part of the ceremony pretty well; but her responses were given in a much more steady tone than mine were. The only bit of information that I gained from the marriage service was that her name was Catherine. Otherwise I might as well have been married to a being in another world as to the cold statuesque form which was standing by my side, and which was presently to vanish from my sight forever. The service over, she sat down while I replied to the questions of the clergyman and signed the marriage register. Then, in accordance with our previous arrangements, Mr. Chambers and I quietly left the room and went up-stairs to a richly furnished drawing-room. Here he left me for a few minutes, and then returned, saying:
"I think we may leave now. You will do me the pleasure, I hope, to dine with me this evening."
We descended the stairs, and had just got to the hall-door, which Mr. Chambers was in the act of opening, when the parlor door opened, the veiled figure of the lady I had married came out, bowed slightly to both of us—more to me, I thought, than to Mr. Chambers—said in a voice in which I could detect no expression or emotion, "Farewell," glided lightly up the stairs, and disappeared. We both bowed; I could find no word in answer. Mr. Chambers opened the door; in a minute it was shut behind us, and we were walking toward Oxford Street.
[PART II.]
NICE.