CONCLUSION.
'Now for the double wedding!' said Mother Constance, as one Septemberevening the Reverend Charles Audley entered the Superior's room in thetemporary daughter-house at East Ewmouth.
'What should an old blind Australian know of gay weddings?'
'Don't you know that to hear of mundane festivities is the delight ofconvents?'
'The festivities were to no great extent.'
'Of course not, but you must begin at the beginning, for I lost allknowledge of everybody and thing that had not got small-pox.'
For the malady had been raging in a town at the other end of England,and the special hospital where she and her staff had done service hadonly just closed, and quarantine was over, so that she could return.
'Which is the beginning?'
'Mine are only confused lights since Lance brought his Daisy to see meon their way to the sands by St. Kitt's Head. What a fresh pleasantface it is! and with a spice of originality in it, too.'
'Commend me to the elder sister's. Leonard Ward had prepared me for it,when I met him circulating among the unhappy deported Melanesians inQueensland. I believe she was the making of him, and a noble work heis.'
'Come, I can't let you go back to the Antipodes. Miss May was abroadat that time, and plans were not in the least fixed, only that Lanceshould not give up the retail business.'
'No, he said very justly, that if he did so, Mrs. Lamb would neverbe contented without her husband doing the same, and that would bedestruction. When I went down to the S.P.G. meeting at Bexley, I sawa good deal how the land lay, and found that all the neighbours werequite ready to visit Lance's wife, and she will live at Marshlands in avery different style from the old times we remember. I am afraid Mrs.Lamb will be a trial, but she is prepared for that.'
'It was an excellent plan to have the weddings together atStoneborough. They could hardly have borne another here.'
'No. There was a proposal that Will and Robina should be married atMinsterham, but they rather shrank from that, and the De la Poers wroteurgently to persuade her to have the wedding at Repworth, but she sawhe disliked it, and then Miss May came forward and undertook to manageit all, "being inured to such affairs," as she put it; but there wasan old promise in an unguarded moment that all their young Ladyshipsshould be bridesmaids, and they held to it: so Lord and Lady De la Poerbrought a bevy of daughters to the Swan at Stoneborough, and you hadbetter be prepared, for they are coming to see Vale Leston to-morrow,and probably will come on here. Nice people, exceedingly fond ofRobina. I never saw such loads of wedding presents. Lady Caergwentgives a great Russian samovar, labelled for "school feasts."'
'I suppose Fernan--I beg his pardon, Mr. Travis Underwood--did not giveanother diamond bouquet.'
'No. The common sense keeping he has got into showed itself in thechoice of all the household plate, just the same, for each of thecouples.'
'And Angela was not there, I know. Our Mother wrote to me that the poorchild was so distressed at the notion of going that as they did notmake a point of it, she thought it better not to send her. I think shewill soon be allowed to become a postulant. It seems evidently the lifeshe needs. But who were Miss May's bridesmaids?'
'She set her face against any but her sister and Geraldine--would hearof no one else, though Cherry had always avoided it before. They calledthemselves the elderly bridesmaids. What! does the conventual mindrequire to know what they wore? Not the same as Robina's, who had whiteand blue ribbons; but they were in--what do you call it?--a Frenchifiedname for some kind of purple.'
'Mauve?'
'Yes, mauve with white fixings; very becoming to Cherry.'
'Who married them?'
'It was a joint performance of Mr. Wilmot, Richard May, and myself, butwe had a characteristic hitch. They gave my couple the first turn, andwhen I held out the book for the ring, my bridegroom began fumbling inhis pocket and reddening up to the roots of his red hair, while poorRobina's eyes grew rounder and rounder under her veil, and Clement rosetaller and taller behind her, looking as if just cause or impedimenthad arisen, and he only wished he had not been commanded to hold hispeace.'
'Did you marry them with the key of the door?'
'Not exactly--Lance's long hand came in between with the ring in hispalm.'
'Only one between the two couples?'
'No, Bill had asked Lance to get both together, and had never claimedhis own. It was a fine incident to tease him about, but he says he hashis memory made fast to him now for ever. After all, Lance gave him thewrong one, and the brides had to change afterwards.'
'So they were married with each other's rings?'
'Yes, and I don't think they much regret it.'
'Where are they gone?'
'To see little Stella in her glory, and the other two are bound to agreat Rhenish musical festival, and to hear the Freiburg and Lucerneorgans. They went off together in the same railway carriage, and wereonly to part in London. The whole affair was as quiet as possible. Iam glad it was at Stoneborough. Dr. May filled the place that neitherClement nor Harewood could have borne to take.'
'And you have not told me of Cherry or Clement.'
'You will see them to-morrow, and I think you will be satisfied aboutCherry. The wrench last July was dreadful; both she and Clement saythat they could never have made up their minds to it if they had knownthe grief it would cause in the village, and the partings they wouldundergo, but it has certainly been good for her. She looks well, andshe says that though a little while ago she felt as if she had nothingto hope or fear, a month of Whittingtonia has shown her enough toengross a hundred lifetimes.'
'And little Gerald?'
'He walks better, and he is exceedingly happy at Stoneborough. DickieMay, the Archdeacon's son, you know, a fine fellow of fourteen, is sokind to him, teaches him to make models, and I fancy has secured thatadmiration little boys pay to big ones. They say the poor little fellowwill probably outgrow his weakness and do well in the end, but that hemust be kept at home for a good many years.'
'At which I suppose Cherry cannot repine.'
'No; he is her delight; and with Bernard to give the element of manhoodand spirit, I don't think he will be spoilt, for Clement is sure tobe strict enough. I never saw any one more improved than Bernard,by-the-by; he is grown into a reasonable being, and as devoted andattentive to Cherry as they all are. I am sure she is happier even nowthan she ever thought to be again! There was as much smile as tear whenshe told me that she was coming to see Felix and Theodore to-morrow,and to admire Wilmet in the Priory. She is carrying on a gleam from thepast sunshine of her life.'
'She is learning to _pleurer son Albert gaiment_,' said MotherConstance. 'So we must when the pillars of our joy are taken from ushere. And sooner or later we can do so, if we can believe of them thatthey have become pillars that shall never be removed, with the new Namewritten upon them, in the House of the Lord above.'
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