by J. C. Snaith
CHAPTER VIII
WE GET US TO CHURCH
By the time the parson had served us solemnly with our refection, Ideemed it proper to give him some relation of our circumstances. I wasemboldened to do so because his simple, honest character made him easyto talk to; it was also essential that he should be let some little wayinto the state of our affairs, since we had but the sum of twelvepencehalfpenny with which to requite him for his services and to vail theclerk. And again I talked to him the more readily because while he wasengaged with these matters, he was not so likely to revert to thosethat concerned us less.
He received the confessions of our bankrupt condition with a breadth ofgenerosity that was truly noble in its magnitude.
"I am grieved that you should have thought fit to name that matter,"says he. "What a world it is for pounds, shillings, and pence, to besure! One cannot come into it, nor go out of it, nor even enter into ahighly natural and commendable contract for its advantage, but whatsomebody has to be feed. And I blush to say that that somebody isgenerally some old rogue of a parson; but I hope, sir, you agree withTully when he says----"
"Yes, sir," says I hastily, "I quite agree with Tully, I have ever beenof Tully's opinion. And, sir, let me say that we are overcome withyour generosity. But there is yet another matter that irks us; we haveno ring by which we can be wed into matrimony."
"An even more trivial thing," says the parson, "the good Blodgett,honest widow that she is, shall lend you hers."
It was bravely resolved of the parson, but I dare swear we bothshuddered at the same instant, when we conceived of the couragerequired to put it into practice. To think of us "vagrant beggars"summoning that redoubtable dragon to deliver up her marriage ring! Itwould be perilously like commanding an ogre to cut off his own head.I'll vow that Cynthia trembled a little; whilst she goes even fartherand says I grew as pale as death.
"Do you think, sir," said Cynthia fearfully, "that good Mrs. Blodgettwill be so kind?"
"She will be delighted, my dear madam," says the parson. "She will bedelighted!"
We were still wrestling with our honest doubts on the score of Mrs.Blodgett's delight, when lo and behold! that formidable fair burst intothe room, redder in the face than ever, for she was out of breath. Shehad seen the clerk, and he had gone that minute to open the door of thechurch. And she conveyed this piece of news in such a brisk andimportant tone as seemed a good deal out of keeping with her severityof character. She had an air of interest which we had certainly notexpected her to betray in our humble affairs. And when the parsonwithout a word of preface had the audacity to prefer his proposal inregard to the ring she bore on her finger, an audacity that caused usboth to hold our breaths, since we were fully persuaded that Blodgettwould at least break into a most violent diatribe against the impudenceof some people, drawing an affecting parallel with the late departedsaint whose relict she was, and how wild horses should not tear her andthis venerable sanctified token of their marital harmony apart, to oursurprise her reply was mercifully brief.
"Humph!" says she. Having glanced at us for a very embarrassingperiod, during which time a good deal of perplexity distorted her harshfeatures, says she: "Well, I never did! Is it a runaway?"
"You can take it at that," says I.
A very singular change was being wrought in this stern matron. Whereis the female bosom that can resist a wedding, or a touch of theromantical? Not even that of the Spartan Blodgett. The more shepondered the matter in hand the less terrible she became. She began toask a dozen questions of us in a greatly mollified voice. Nay, thetone she used to Cynthia might even be called indulgent.
"Well," says she, "seeing as how it is an emergency, you shall have myring this once, but it goes against my conscience, I am sure. You aredoing a very wicked thing, young woman. To think of a little chit likeyou running away to get married! I am sure I ought not to countenanceit. Oh, what will your mother say?"
"I have not a mother," says Cynthia, putting her hands to her eyes, andsmiling at me through her fingers.
This admission seemed considerably to ease the mind of Mrs. Blodgett,and forthwith she began wrestling with the wedding-ring on her fatfinger. In the meantime her master was very fortunately engrossed inanother matter, and we were therefore spared his comments.
It seemed that Blodgett had brought him that day's _London Gazette_,which had been left by the coach at the village alehouse. It was thenewspaper that claimed the parson's attention while his housekeeperstruggled with her wedding-ring. I vow it was as whimsical a sight asever was seen to witness the good lady growing redder and redder in herface, and puffing, grunting, and twisting her countenance into the mostfantastical shapes, while she freely "dratted the thing," and calleddown a murrain upon it. But strive as she might, the precious ringstill clung faithfully to her finger. Presently Cynthia was fain totake a hand at hauling it off, but she fared not a whit better thanMrs. Blodgett. Whereon I was called on, and after several very naturaland becoming protestations on my part as to my inability and so forth,even I was pressed into the service. I tugged and hauled away withwhat gravity I might, but never an inch would that wretched ring budge.In the height of this deadlock, I was seized with a brilliant expedient.
"One of the rings round the curtain-pole," says I. "Surely one of themwill do most admirably well, and at least there will be no difficultyabout getting it off, nor on neither."
Now when I proffered this suggestion Mrs. Cynthia blushed such a colourand looked so ill at ease, that I half began to doubt whether this ideawas so fine after all. And indeed, Blodgett took me up warmly.
"Wedded in a curtain-ring indeed!" says she. "I'facks, that she nevershall be. Who ever heard of such a thing! Has the man no decency!Rather than that, my dear, I will run to neighbour Hodge's and borrowhers. As she's a thin body it should slip off easy."
There and then the scandalized Blodgett was as good as her word.Favouring me with a glance of such scorn and contempt that a personmore impressionable would have been rooted to the spot, she flouncedout of the room all in a moment, and directly afterwards passed by thelibrary window, running quite excitedly down the garden path. Surely awhole chapter of dissertation might be written on the metamorphosis ofMrs. Blodgett. From openly deriding Cynthia she had passed to analmost motherly tenderness towards her. She had become as concernedfor her as though she had been her own daughter. She was no longer"wench," or "vagrant beggar," nay nor even "young woman," but just "mydear." And why was this? Do you think it was because she had suddenlylighted on some latent virtues in my little madam, some strain of moralloveliness, some unexpected beauty in her mind and heart? I am sure Icrave the pardon of her ladyship, but it was devil a one of thesethings that had such a magic effect on Mrs. Blodgett. It was simplythat she had run away to get married, and that this was her weddingmorning. Oh, woman, woman! where is the daughter among you that canresist the blandishments of Hymen?
While this was going forward, and we were congratulating ourselves insecret on the most fortunate course this portentous affair was like totake, an incident happened that shook me dreadfully, and recalled to mymind much more sharply than I cared, the kind of fortune I was about toendow my bride with. For the time being I had forgotten the colour ofmy reputation, the character of my past, and my black prospects for thefuture, in the cheerful topsy-turvy madness of the last twelve hours.But now all of a sudden, in the least expected fashion, I was remindedas to who I was, and what I was. The parson, who all the time had beendeeply involved in his news-sheet, suddenly cast it down, uttered aloud exclamation, and with tears in his honest eyes began striding downin his agitation, and knocked down many an unoffending book.
"_O tempera! O mores!_" says he, "In what degenerate days do we live!To think that this should be the grandson of such a grandsire! No; Icannot believe it of him; nay, I will not believe it of him."
You may guess that as there was a grandfather in the case I pricked upmy ears at once, and
on looking at the newspaper saw that whichconfirmed my premonition. There was a paragraph in the column of"Newest Intelligence" that ran in this wise:
"On Tuesday evening in the near neighbourhood of divers well-knowncoffee-and-chocolate-houses in Saint James's Street, Piccadilly, wasfound the body of Mr. Richard Burdock, of His Majesty's 4th Regiment ofHorse Guards. The unfortunate gentleman had been done to death by asword-wound in the upper part of the chest. Precisely in what mannerthe deceased came by his end is not at present known, but we areinformed that on the following day an information was laid against theEarl of Tiverton, a nobleman whose name has been most unhappilynotorious of late. A warrant was at once procured for the arrest ofLord Tiverton, and on an attempt being made to put it in force at hislordship's residence later in the day, a most desperate struggleensued, and his lordship with the assistance of his household succeededin effecting, for the time being, his escape. We learn, however, thatthe celebrated Mr. John Jeremy of Bow Street has the matter in hand;that Mr. Jeremy with his world-famed acumen is in possession of a clueas to Lord Tiverton's whereabouts; that Mr. Jeremy is already activelyfollowing up the same, and that presently an event may transpire thatshall set all the town by the ears."
I directed Cynthia's attention to this account, and she was so startledby it that she changed colour, and offered so many visible evidences ofher distress, that I feared she would have excited the suspicions ofthe parson, yet after all that must have been an impossible feat, for Iam sure the honest parson was a man so utterly without guile, that hewas incapable of harbouring any sort of suspicion against afellow-creature. Besides he was still fully occupied in lamenting thelow repute into which our name had fallen, with a grief so genuine thatI did not know whether to be touched or amused by it.
However, I could not pay much heed to the parson at that minute, beingdeeply concerned for little Cynthia. I began to fear that I had donean ill-considered thing in allowing her to see the news-sheet. I hadnever tried to find out how far she was acquainted with my history ofthe past few years--my gaming, duels, intrigues and debts. That shemust have known of it to some extent was certain. She had heard ofthem from my own lips in a haphazard sort of way; and again, they weretoo well known to be suppressed, as witness the conduct of her fatherin the matter of my suit. At his hands, and those of my friends, andof my rival too, they would certainly lose nothing of their magnitude.Whatever she had heard of me, she had been able to condone. But nowconfronted with a more circumstantial charge against me, clothed in allthe authority of black and white, a charge of the most terriblecharacter that can be preferred against any person, it came on her witha cruel force that almost crushed her down. She stood faltering, withthe newspaper still clutched in her hands; her lips trembled, and thetears gathered slowly in her eyes.
"I don't believe it," said she, in a low, shaking voice.
She held out her hand, and I, despite the presence of the parson, tookit to my lips with the same passion with which she had extended it tome. If a man in the midst of all the contumely and detraction of theworld, can yet get one woman to believe in him, it is enough!
Meantime the parson, whatever he may have thought of our behaviour, notthat it is altogether certain that he happened to witness it, was sostrangely ingenuous that he took my little one's distress to springfrom the same source as his own. He laid it all to that preciousCommentary on the _Analects of Confucius_!
"Your grief does you honour, my dear madam, allow me to say," says he,wiping the memorials of his own from his red eyes. "It honours youvastly. It is something in this benighted age to know that thereverence for polite letters has not yet died out amongst us. And I,on my part, will never be persuaded that the descendant of so noble andlearned a gentleman, whatever the errors of his youth, could fall intoan act of such a hideous kind. I blame the publick press too fordisseminating such a story. If it is false, as I believe it to be, oh,the pity of it! But if it should be true, the pity is the greater.With your permission, I will destroy this newspaper, lest thisscandalous thing it contains should come under the eye of Blodgett, andshe should spread it amongst the village folk."
I protest with all my settled views on life, and my arbitrary way oflooking at things, I did not know whether to burst out into a shout oflaughter, or fall a-weeping too, for, ecod! there was an affecting sideto the affair when our simple old parson tore up the offendingnewspaper in a hundred pieces, all to preserve the fair name of thatphilosopher who had perished of the gout a full thirty years ago.
Cynthia was so greatly shaken, that to defend her from his observationI was even moved to indulge in the parson's fondness for the deadlanguages and abstruse theories. However, I had just induced him toquarrel with Cicero on the strength of something that Cicero ought tohave said and yet had not said at all, when Blodgett returned, bearingthe ring.
That redoubtable lady observed Cynthia's distress at once, but did notput the same construction on it that her master had.
"Very natural to be sure," says she. "Weddings are strange, excitingthings, and apt to upset the strongest of us. I remember the firsttime I went through the ceremony. I was mortal worried by it."
Mrs. Blodgett having by this time fully entered into the affair, tookCynthia in hand. She insisted that Cynthia should go with herupstairs, "to tidy herself like," and be accomplished generally in amanner more befitting the occasion. Indeed so enthusiastic had thehousekeeper become about it that she even proposed to search for someof her own discarded nuptial garments, which she ventured to say with abit of fettling and contriving, a pleat here and a tuck there, Cynthiaafter all might not lack for a wedding-gown. The conceit of a younglady who a week ago had been of the first fashion, appearing as a bridein a gown that had once done duty for the admirable Blodgett, convulsedme with laughter. And this behaviour was heightened rather thandepressed when I recollected that such an attire would consort veryaptly with the hobnailed appearance of the bridegroom.
During the absence of the ladies upstairs, the parson had theforethought to give me a two-shilling-bit, for the purpose of feeingthe clerk. I was so struck by this further instance of his generouscourtesy, that I asked the name of my benefactor, for I swore that Iwould not rest content until I had repaid him. It seemed that thisobscure country clergyman bore the name of Scriven. It is a name asfar as I can make out, that has not yet come to any eminence in lettersor the humane arts; nor has it attained to any signal preferment inthat Church of which it is so true an ornament. His great learning,his simple ingenuous character, his notable generosity, his tendernessof heart, his implicit courtesy have never advanced him one step, sofar as I can gather, in the world's opinion. For aught I know he isstill the country parson on his forty pounds or so a year, whilst manya sleek old worldling with half of his learning and a tithe of hishumanity is my lord Bishop riding by in his gilt coach with footmenbehind it, the recipient of a hundred times more kudos and emolument.
When Cynthia came down again she looked wonderfully spic and span. Herhair had been done into a becoming rustic mode, most admirably neat,and showed off its qualities of abundance, gloss and curliness to trueadvantage. She had not thought fit to call in the aid of Mrs.Blodgett's gown it is true, but her own became her as well as another,and happily at the same time afforded no index to her degree. It was aplain and simple country dress, sober in hue and severe in its style.Yet it fell so exactly into the exquisite lines of her shape, that sheand the dress became one as it were; and if there was a woman's tailorwho could have exhibited a lovely figure more artfully than that, shemust have been good Mrs. Nature herself. Cynthia, for all her countryclothes, looked so sweet, arch and dainty too, so much the gentlewomanwithout the affectations that go with _ton_ and "fine," that by theirabsence the breeding that lurked in every inch of her, the carriage ofher person, slender and small as it was, the set of her head, and thecast of her features became more apparent.
These evidences had even an effect on Mrs. Blodgett. She was mightilyple
ased with her _protegee_.
"I don't know who _you_ are, young man," says she, "and I won't say allthat's in my mind about you, but I hope you know that you are taking areal born lady to wife. Such white hands I never did see, and suchpretty ways, saving her presence, as she 'ave too. You are not aquarter good enough, young man, for the likes of her, and just keepthat in your mind and live up to it. But I gravely misdoubt me as towhether you will, for take you all round you are about as disreppitableand low a fellow as ever I saw. To think that such as you should havelured the pretty lamb from her father's house. But as I've told her,it is not yet too late for her to go back again."
Although neither Cynthia nor I was greatly inconvenienced by this crudestatement of the case, except in the matter of the smiles we strove invain to control, the parson, good, honest man, was not a littledisconcerted by it.
"Tut, tut!" says he, "my good Blodgett, your tongue runs too fast.However excellent the motives may be that inspire you, I could wish youhad a somewhat less direct manner of expressing them. I really cannothave you intervene between plighted lovers, at the very steps of thealtar. And whatever the personality of our young lady, if truthcompels us to admit that our young gentleman is scarcely so fortunatein his physical semblance, I am sure he hath a very nice mind."
With these panegyrics we ultimately got us to church. Now it is not tobe expected, I hope, that a man should describe his own nuptials. Ifthere are three acts in his life on which he is the least qualified tospeak, are not those his birth, his marriage, and his burial? For innot one of them can he testify with any certainty as to whether he wentthrough them on his heels or his head. Besides, I am one who holdsthat there should be a becoming reticence in these things.
I can recall perhaps an empty, musty-smelling church, and the clerk, asolemn, unctuous man, with a graveyard cough. Some little wind of theaffair had evidently got abroad in the village, owing to the exertionsof Mrs. Blodgett in quest of the wedding-ring. Thus the ceremony wasnot so entirely private as we could have wished. A few women inaprons, and some with babes in their arms kept the porch and theimmediate interior of the church. It seemed that they did not ventureto go further owing to their awe of the clerk. Various ragamuffinchildren of tender years played hide-and-seek round the gravestones andtheir mothers' gowns. When however the wedding party came along in akind of little procession, they desisted for a minute, and havingsafely seen the parson precede us into the sacred edifice, they put outtheir tongues at Cynthia and myself, and made several references of anature uncomplimentary to us couched in the form of rustic wit.
Mrs. Blodgett had undertaken the office of chief bridesmaid. She wouldhave undertaken that of groomsman too, had I given her the leastencouragement. She made an impressive figure at the altar rails, cladin a severe black hood; whilst she was quite conscious of herconspicuous position, and stood calm and erect in the dignity of herinfinite experience. What whispered but animated counsel she profferedto Cynthia during the brief period in which we waited for the parson toemerge from the vestry, I know not, but I would have given a good dealto have been a party to it, for I am sure that if the look on Mrs.Cynthia's countenance was any index to its character, it would wellhave been worth setting down in this place.
At the last moment when the tension of our minds was very great, theclerk became obstreperous. He asked parson Scriven in a significantundertone for the special licence that was to marry us, as the bannshad not been put up and cried in church. Of course we were notfurnished with anything of the kind.
Parson Scriven, as became his amiable casual character, was not at alldisconcerted by such an informality.
"Pooh and faugh!" says he. "Banns and licence, John, stuff andnonsense! Why should an honest couple be hedged about in this way? Ifthey have no licence, upon my soul I will marry them without."
The clerk was scandalized. The parson, however, would hear noargument. He was not the person to allow his head to interfere withthe dictates of his heart.
"Parson's main obstinate," said the clerk, scratching his head. "And Ido believe he cares no more for law an' regulation than the gypsies onthe common. It won't be legal, this won't, but bless you what'llparson care!"
So long as we could get this awkward business over we cared as littlefor law and regulation as this singular old clergyman. Therefore, whenhe disdained the opinions of the clerk, and reiterated his intention tomarry us, we breathed again.
At last all was ready, and the parson came out of the vestry with hisbook and his gown, and smiled upon us with benevolent self-possession.We strung ourselves for the great ordeal. Yet as a preliminary we wereconfronted with one that we found vastly the more awkward of the two,and one that we had not anticipated either. How we both came tooverlook it, I know not, unless the palpitation that our minds were inwas the secret of it. It had never occurred to us that the parsoncould not marry us unless he was informed of our names. But when hemade that very obvious and natural stipulation it came upon us as athunderbolt. What a pair of arrant fools we were, not to have thoughtof that contingency, and to have provided for it!
When the parson bluntly demanded this of us, we stood staringopen-mouthed at one another, a pair of zanies. I pursued a boldcourse, however. To give our own was out of the question in thatpublic place, and more particularly as the newspaper had justacquainted the reverend gentleman of my black history. Therefore, saysI, with an impudent assurance:
"John Smith and Jane Jones."
"How truly national!" says the officiating clergyman in a rapture ofsentiment. "How exquisitely English are these names, to be sure!"
I durst not look at my poor little Cynthia. But somehow I felt thatshe was trembling and deadly pale, and ready to sink to the groundunder this humiliation to her native delicacy. I fear that I was of amuch coarser grain. I had suffered too much from the world already tobe easily bowed with a sense of shame. "Needs must when the devildrives," was a good enough motto for me. We were in a pretty tightcorner, and if we ever came out of it at all, we must expect to lose alittle of our tender skins in doing so.
My little one was most monstrous brave. Having recovered thepossession of herself, she set her teeth and went through the thinggallantly. I'faith she was of a good mettle. In spite of Mrs.Blodgett's opinion of my worth, my little miss answered theall-important query in such a clear affirmative voice as never washeard, and entered into vows of a sort that argued some degree ofrashness on her part. Even at the time I was inclined to raise a doubtof her ability to be the equal of them. Nor hath aught subsequentlytranspired to cause me to forego this estimate of the matter. When wehad been duly put through these trials, we were led into the vestry towrite our names in the marriage register.
"Oh, Jack," whispers Cynthia, as we went, "whatever shall we do? I amsure it cannot be legal."
"I am sure I don't know," says I. "What a folly of mine not to havethought of it sooner!"
"It was my place to think of it," says Cynthia. "The folly is mine."
"No, not at all," says I. "What have you to do with it, a chit as youare? The folly is mine, I tell you."
"Then I tell you it's not," says Cynthia flatly, and stamping herpetulant shoe on the very steps of the altar.