第154章

Alas! would you marry me in my widow's cap?""Of course I would. Now, Ina, love, a widow who has been two years separated from her husband!""Certainly, that makes a difference--in one's own mind. But one must respect the opinion of the world. Dear friend, it is of you I think, though I speak of myself.""You are an angel. Take your own time. After all, what does it matter? Idon't leave Zutzig without you."

Ina's pink tint and sparkling eyes betrayed anything but horror at that insane resolution. However, she felt it her duty to say that it was unfortunate she should always be the person to distract him from his home duties.

"Oh, never mind them," said this single-hearted lover. "I have appointed Miss Gale viceroy."However, one day he had a letter from Zoe, telling him that Lord Uxmoor was now urging her to name the day; but she had declined to do that, not knowing when it might suit him to be at Vizard Court. "But, dearest,"said she, "mind, you are not to hurry home for me. I am very happy as Iam, and I hope you will soon be as happy, love. She is a noble woman."The latter part of this letter tempted Vizard to show it to Ina. He soon found his mistake. She kissed it, and ordered him off. He remonstrated.

She put on, for the first time in Denmark, her marble look, and said, "You will lessen my esteem, if you are cruel to your sister. Let her name the wedding-day at once; and you must be there to give her away, and bless her union, with a brother's love."He submitted, but a little sullenly, and said it was very hard.

He wrote to his sister, accordingly, and she named the day, and Vizard settled to start for home, and be in time.

As to the proprieties, he had instructed Miss Maitland and Fanny Dover, and given them and La Gale _carte blanche._ It was to be a magnificent wedding.

This being excitement, Fanny Dover was in paradise. Moreover, a rosy-cheeked curate had taken the place of the venerable vicar, and Miss Dover's threat to flirt out the stigma of a nun was executed with promptitude, zeal, pertinacity, and the dexterity that comes of practice.

When the day came for his leaving Zutzig, Vizard was dejected. "Who knows when we may meet again?" said he.

Ina consoled him. "Do not be sad, dear friend. You are doing your duty;and as you do it partly to please me, I ought to try and reward you;ought I not?" And she gave him a strange look.

"I advise you not to press that question," said he.

At the very hour of parting, Ina's eyes were moist with tenderness, but there was a smile on her face very expressive; yet he could not make out what it meant. She did not cry. He thought that hard. It was his opinion that women could always cry. She might have done the usual thing just to gratify him.

He reached home in good time: and played the _grand seigneur_--nobody could do it better when driven to it--to do honor to his sister. She was a peerless bride: she stood superior with ebon locks and coal black eyes, encircled by six bridemaids--all picked blondes. The bevy, with that glorious figure in the middle, seemed one glorious and rare flower.

After the wedding, the breakfast; and then the traveling carriage; the four liveried postilions bedecked with favors.

But the bride wept on Vizard's neck; and a light seemed to leave the house when she was gone. The carriages kept driving away one after another till four o'clock: and then Vizard sat disconsolate in his study, and felt very lonely.

Yet a thing no bigger than a leaf sufficed to drive away this somber mood, a piece of amber-colored paper scribbled on with a pencil: a telegram from Ashmead: "Good news: lost sheep turned up. Is now with her mother at Claridge's Hotel."Then Vizard was in raptures. Now he understood Ina's composure, and the half sly look she had given him, and her dry eyes at parting, and other things. He tore up to London directly, with a telegram flying ahead:

burst in upon her, and had her in his arms in a moment, before her mother: she fenced no longer, but owned he had gained her love, as he had deserved it in every way.

She consented to be married that week in London: only she asked for a Continental tour before entering Vizard Court as his wife; but she did not stipulate even for that--she only asked it submissively, as one whose duty it now was to obey, not dictate.

They were married in St. George's Church very quietly, by special license. Then they saw her mother off, and crossed to Calais. They spent two happy months together on the Continent, and returned to London.

But Vizard was too old-fashioned, and too proud of his wife, to sneak into Vizard Court with her. He did not make it a county matter; but he gave the village such a _fete_ as had not been seen for many a day. The preparations were intrusted to Mr. Ashmead, at Ina's request. "He will be sure to make it theatrical," she said; "but perhaps the simple villagers will admire that, and it will amuse you and me, love: and the poor dear old Thing will be in his glory--I hope he will not drink too much."Ashmead was indeed in his glory. Nothing had been seen in a play that he did not electrify Islip with, and the surrounding villages. He pasted large posters on walls and barn doors, and his small bills curled round the patriarchs of the forest and the roadside trees, and blistered the gate posts.

The day came. A soapy pole, with a leg of mutton on high for the successful climber. Races in sacks. Short blindfold races with wheelbarrows. Pig with a greasy tail, to be won by him who could catch him and shoulder him, without touching any other part of him; bowls of treacle for the boys to duck heads in and fish out coins; skittles, nine pins, Aunt Sally, etc., etc., etc.

But what astonished the villagers most was a May-pole, with long ribbons, about which ballet girls, undisguised as Highlanders, danced, and wound and unwound the party-colored streamers, to the merry fiddle, and then danced reels upon a platform, then returned to their little tent: but out again and danced hornpipes undisguised as Jacky Tars.