CHAPTER XII.

THE WEDDING.

"Papa, will you come to breakfast? Oh dear! what is the matter?"

Edina might well ask. She had opened the door of the small consulting-room as the clock was chiming eight--the knell of Frank Raynor's bachelorhood--to tell her father that the meal was waiting, when she saw not only the hearth and the hearthrug, but the doctor himself enveloped in a cloud of soot, and looking as black as Erebus.

"I said yesterday the chimney wanted sweeping, Edina."

"Yes, papa, and it was going to be done next week. Have you been burning more paper in the chimney?"

"Only just a letter: but the wind carried it up. Well, this is a pretty pickle!"

"The room shall be done to-day, papa. It will be all right and ready for you again by night."

Dr. Raynor took off his coat and shook it, and then went up to his room to get the soot out of his whiskers. The fact was, seeing the letter go roaring up the chimney, he stooped hastily to try to get it back again, remembering what a recent blazing piece of paper had done; when at that moment down came a shower of soot, and enveloped him.

As he was descending the stairs again, the front-door was opened with a burst and a bang (no other words are so fitting to express the mad way in which excited messengers did enter), and told the doctor that he was wanted there and then by some one who was taken ill and appeared to be dying. Drinking a cup of coffee standing, the doctor followed the messenger. It had all passed so rapidly that Edina had not yet commenced her own breakfast.

"Hester," she said, calling to the maid-servant, "papa has had to go out, and Mr. Frank is not yet in. You shall keep the coffee warm, and I will run at once to Mrs. Trim and see if she can come to-day. We must breakfast later this morning."

Hastily putting on her bonnet and mantle, Edina went down the street towards the churchyard. The entrance to the church was at the other end, facing the open country, the parsonage was there also: on this side, near to her, stood the clerk's house. She could go to it without entering the graveyard; and did so. Trying the door, she found it fastened, which was unusual at that hour of the morning. It was nothing for the door to be fastened later, when the clerk and his wife were both abroad; the one on matters connected with his post, the other doing errands in the village, or perhaps at some house helping to clean. Edina gave a sharp knock with the handle of her umbrella, which she had brought with her; for dark clouds, threatening rain, were coursing through the sky. But the knock brought forth no response.

"Now I do hope she is not out at work to-day!" ejaculated Edina, referring to Mrs. Trim. "The sweep _must_ come to the room; and Hester cannot well clean up after him with all her other work. There's the ironing about. If she has to do the cleaning to-day, I must do that."

Another knock brought forth the same result--nothing. Edina turned to face the churchyard, and stood thinking. The goat was browsing on the green patch close by.

"If I could find Trim, he would tell me at once whether she's away at work or not. She may have only run out on an errand. It is curious he should be out: this is their breakfast-time."

Suddenly, as she stood there in indecision, an idea struck Edina: Mrs. Trim was no doubt dusting the church. She generally did it on Saturday, and this was Thursday: but, as Edina knew, if the woman was likely to be occupied on the Saturday, she took an earlier day for the duty.

Lightly crossing the stile, Edina went through the churchyard and round the church to the entrance-porch. Her quick eyes saw that, though apparently shut, the door was not latched; and she pushed it open.

"Yes, of course: Mary Trim expects to be busy to-morrow and Saturday, and is doing the dusting to-day," soliloquized Edina, deeming the appearances conclusive. "Well, she will have to make haste here, and come to us as soon as she can."

But it was no Mrs. Trim with her gown turned up, and a huge black bonnet perched forward on her head, that Edina saw as she went gently through the inner green-baize door. A very different sight met her eyes; a soft murmur of reading broke upon her ears. The church was not large, as compared with some churches, though of fairly good size for a country parish: and she seemed to come direct upon the solemn scene that was being enacted. At the other end, before the altar, stood, side by side, Frank Raynor and Margaret St. Clare: facing them was the new clergyman, Mr. Backup, book in hand.

Edina was extremely practical; but at first she really could not believe her eyesight. She stood perfectly motionless, gazing at them as one in a trance. They did not see her; could not have seen her without turning round; and Mr. Backup's eyes were fixed on his book--which, by the way, seemed to tremble a little in his hands, as though he were being married himself. Coming to a momentary pause, he went on again in a raised voice; and the words fell thrillingly on the ear of Edina.

"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful."

The words, one by one, fell not only on Edina's ear; they touched her soul. Oh, was there no impediment? Ought these two silly people, wedding one another in this stolen fashion, and in defiance of parental authority--ought they to stand silent under this solemn exhortation, letting it appear that there was none? Surely this deceit ought, of itself, to constitute grave impediment! Just for the moment it crossed Edina's mind to come forward, and beg them to reflect; to reflect well, ere this ceremony went on to the end. But she remembered how unfitting it would be: she knew that she possessed no right to interfere with either the one or the other.

Drawing softly back within the door, she let it close again without noise, and made her way out of the churchyard. It appeared evident that neither the clerk nor his wife was in the church: and, if they had been, Edina could not have attempted then to speak to them.

As one in a dream, went she, up the street again towards home. The clouds had grown darker, and seemed to chase each other more swiftly and wildly. But Edina no longer heeded the wind or the weather. They might, in conjunction with burning paper, send the soot down every chimney in the house, for all the moment it was to her just now. She was deeply plunged in a most unpleasant reverie. A reverie which was showing her many future complications for Frank Raynor.

"Good-morning, Miss Edina! You be abroad early, ma'am."

The voice was Mrs. Trim's: the black bonnet, going down with the rest of herself in a curtsy, was hers also. She carried a small brown jug in her hand, and had met Edina close to the doctor's house. Edina came out of her dream.

"I have been to see after you, Mrs. Trim, and could not get in. The door was locked."

"Dear now, and I be sorry, Miss Edina! I just went to carry a drop o' coffee and a morsel of hot toast to poor Granny Sandon: who heve got nobody much to look after her since Rosaline Bell left. So I just locked the door, and brought tha key away weth me, as much to keep the Nanny-goat out as for safety. She heve a way of loosing herself, Miss Edina, clever as I thinks I ties her, and of coming into the house: and they goats butts and bites at things, and does no end o' mischief."

"Your husband is out, then?"

"He heve gone off somewhere by rail, Miss Edina. I could na get out of him where 'twas, though, nor whaat it were for. They men be closer nor waax when they want to keep things from ye; and Trim, he be always close. It strikes me, though, he be went somewhere for Mr. Raynor."

"Why do you think that?" cried Edina, quickly.

"Well, I be sure o' one thing, Miss Edina--Trim had no thought o' going off anywhere when I come hoam last evening from Pendon; for after we had had a word or two about his not seeing to tha goat, he says to I he was going to do our garden up to-day: which would na be afore it wants it. Mr. Frank, he come in then, and was talking to Trim in tha kitchen, they two together; and, a-going to bed, Trim asks for a clean check shirt, and said he was a-staarting out in the morning on business. And, sure enough, he heve went, Miss Edina, and I found out as he heve went by one o' they trains."

Edina said no more. She marshalled the chattering woman indoors to look at the state of the doctor's room, and to tell her it must be cleaned that day. Mrs. Trim took off her shawl there and then, and began to prepare for the work.

The doctor had returned, and Hester was carrying the breakfast in. Edina took her place at the table, and poured out her father's coffee.

"Is Frank not in yet?" he asked, as she handed it to him.

"Not yet, papa."

"Why, where can he be? He had only Williamson to see."

Edina did not answer. She appeared to be intent on her plate. Fresh and fair and good she looked this morning, but she seemed to be lost in thought. The doctor observed it.

"You are troubling yourself about that mess in my study, child!"

"Oh no, indeed I am not, papa. Mary Trim is already here."

"Are you sure Frank's not in the surgery, Edina?" said Dr. Raynor again presently.

Knowing where Frank was, and the momentous ceremony he was taking part in--though by that time it had probably come to an end--Edina might safely assure the doctor that he was not in the surgery. Dr. Raynor let the subject drop: Frank had called in to see some other patient, he supposed, on his way home from Williamson's; and Edina, perhaps dreading further questions, speedily ended her breakfast, and went to look after Mrs. Trim and household matters.

When the Reverend Titus Backup awoke from his slumbers that morning, the unpleasant thought flashed on his mind that he had a marriage ceremony to perform. Looking at his watch, he found it to be half-past seven, and up he started in a flurry. Having lain awake half the night, he had overslept himself.

"Has the clerk been here for the key of the church, Betsy?" he called to the old servant, just before he went out.

"No, sir."

It wanted only about eight minutes to eight then. Mr. Backup, feeling somewhat surprised, for he had found Clerk Trim particularly attentive to his duties, walked along the passage to the kitchen, and took the church-key from the nail where it was kept. Opening the church himself, he then went round to the clerk's house, and found it locked up.

Quite a hot tremor seized him. _Without_ the clerk and his experience, it would be next door to impossible to get through the service. Alone, he might break down. He should not know what to say, or where to place the couple; or when to tell them to kneel down, when to stand up; or where the ring came in, or anything.

Where _was_ the clerk? Could he have made some mistake as to the hour? However, it wanted yet some minutes to eight. Crossing the churchyard, he entered the church, put on his surplice, carried the Prayer-book into the vestry, and began studying the marriage service as therein written.

Frank Raynor came up to the church a minute after the clergyman entered it, and waited in the porch, looking out for his intended bride. Eight o'clock struck; and she had promised to be there before eight. Why did she not come? Was her courage failing her? Did the black clouds, gathering overhead, appal her? Had Mrs. St. Clare discovered all, and was preventing her? Frank thought it must be one or other of these calamities.

There he stood, within the shelter of the porch, glancing to the right and left. He could not go to meet her because he did not know which way she would come: whether by the sheltered roadway, or across the Bare Plain. That was one of the minor matters they had forgotten to settle between themselves.

As Frank was gazing about, and getting into as much of a flurry as was possible for one of his easy temperament, light, hasty steps were heard approaching; and Margaret, nervous, panting, agitated, fell into his arms.

"My darling I thought you must be lost."

"I could not get away before, Frank. Of all mornings, Lydia must needs choose this one to send Tabitha to my room for some books from the shelves. Now, these did not do; then, others did not do: the woman did nothing but run in and out. And the servants were about the passages: and oh, I thought I should never get away!"

A moment given to soothing her, to stilling her beating heart, and they entered the church together. Margaret threw off the thin cloak she had worn over her pretty morning dress of white-and-peach sprigged muslin, almost as delicate as white. She went up the church, flushing and paling, on Frank's arm: Mr. Backup came out of the vestry to meet them. In a few flowing and plausible words, Frank explained that it was he himself who required the parson's services, handed him the license, and begged him to get the service over as soon as possible.

"The clerk is not here," answered the bewildered man, doubly bewildered now.

"Oh, never mind him," said Frank. "We don't want the clerk."

An older and less timid clergyman might have said, I cannot marry you under these circumstances: all Mr. Backup thought of was, getting through his own part in it. It certainly did strike him as being altogether very strange: the question even crossed him whether he was doing rightly and legally: but the license was in due form, and in his inexperience and nervousness he did not make inquiries or raise objections. When he came to the question, Who giveth this Woman to be married to this Man, and there was no response, no one indeed to respond, he visibly hesitated; but he did not dare to refuse to go on with the service. An assumption of authority, such as that, was utterly beyond the Reverend Titus Backup. He supposed that the clerk was to have acted in the capacity: but the clerk, from some inexplicable cause, was not present. Perhaps he had mistaken the hour. So the service proceeded to its close, and Francis Raynor and Margaret St. Clare were made man and wife.

They proceeded to the vestry; the clergyman leading the way, Frank conducting his bride, her arm within his, the ring that bound her to him encircling her finger. After a hunt for the register, for none of them knew where it was kept, Mr. Backup found it, and entered the marriage. Frank affixed his signature, Margaret hers; and then the young clergyman seemed at a standstill, looking about him helplessly.

"I--ah--there are no witnesses to the marriage," said he. "It is customary----"

"We must do without them in this case," interrupted Frank, as he laid down a fee of five guineas. "It does not require witnesses to make it legal."

"Well--no--I--I conclude not," hesitated the clergyman, blushing as he glanced at the gold and silver, and thinking how greatly too much it was, and how rich this Mr. Raynor must be.

"And will you do me and my wife a good turn, Mr. Backup," spoke Frank, ingenuously, as he clasped the clergyman's hand, and an irresistible smile of entreaty shone on his attractive face. "_Keep it secret_. I may tell you, now it is over and done, that no one knows of this marriage. It is, in fact, a stolen one; and just at present we do not wish it to be disclosed. We have our reasons for this. In a very short time, it will be openly avowed; but until then, we should be glad for it not to be spoken about. I know we may depend upon your kindness."

Leaving the utterly bewildered parson to digest the information, to put off his surplice and to lock up the register, Frank escorted his bride down the aisle. When she stopped to take up her cloak and parasol, he, knowing there were no spectators, except the ancient and empty pews, folded her in his arms and kissed her fervently.

"Oh, Frank! Please!--please don't! We are in church, remember." And there, what with agitation and nervous fear, the bride burst into a fit of hysterical tears.

"Daisy! For goodness' sake!--not here. Compose yourself, my love. Oh, pray do not sob like that!"

A moment or two, and she was tolerably calm again. No wonder she had given way. She had literally shaken from head to foot throughout the service. A dread of its being interrupted, a nervous terror at what she was doing, held possession of her. Now that it was over, she saw she had done wrong, and wished it undone. Just like all the rest of us! We do wrong first, and bewail it afterwards.

"You remain in here, please, Frank; let me go out alone," she said, catching her breath. "It would not do, you know, for us to go out together, lest we might be seen. Good-bye," she added, timidly holding up her hand.

They were between the green-baize door now and the outer one. Frank knew as well as she did that it would be imprudent to leave the church together. He took her hand and herself once more to him, and kissed her fifty times.

"God bless and keep you, my darling! I wish I could see you safely home."

Daisy's suggestion, a night or two ago, of their leaving the church by different doors, had to turn out merely a pleasant fiction, since the church possessed but one door. She lightly glided through it when Frank released her, and went towards home the way she had come, that of the shady road, her veil drawn over her face, her steps fleet. He remained where he was, not showing himself until she should be at a safe distance.

"If I can only get in without being seen!" thought poor Daisy, her heart beating as she sped along. "Mamma and Lydia will not be downstairs yet, I know; and all may pass over happily. How high the wind is!"

The wind was high indeed, carrying Daisy very nearly off her feet. It took her cloak and whirled it over her head in the air. As ill-luck had it, terrible ill-luck Daisy thought, who should meet her at that moment but the Trennach dressmaker. She had been to The Mount to try dresses on.

"Mrs. St. Clare is quite in a way about you, Miss Margaret," spoke Mrs. Hunt, who was not pleased at having had her walk partly for nothing. "They have been searching everywhere for you."

"I did not know you were expected this morning," said poor Daisy, after murmuring some explanation of having "come out for a walk."

"Well, Miss Margaret, your mamma was good enough to say I might come whenever it was most convenient to me: and that's early morning, or late evening, so as not to take me out of my work in the daytime. I thought I might just catch you and Miss St. Clare when you were dressing, and could have tried on my bodies without much trouble to you."

"What bodies are they?" asked Margaret. "I did not know that anything was being made."

"They are dresses for travelling, miss. Mrs. St. Clare gave me a pattern of the material she would like, and I have been getting them.

"Oh, for travelling," repeated Margaret, whose mind, what with one thing and another, was in a perfect whirl. "Will you like to go back, and try mine on now."

But the dressmaker declined to turn back. She was nearer Trennach now than she was to The Mount, and her apprentice had no work to go on with until she arrived at home to set it for her. Appointing the following morning, she continued her way.

Daisy continued hers. It was a most unlucky thing that the dressmaker should have gone to The Mount that morning of all others! What a fuss there would be! And what excuse could she make for her absence from home? There was only one, as it seemed to Daisy, that she could make--she had been out for a walk.

But the shifting clouds had now gathered in a dense mass overhead, and the rain came pouring down. Daisy had brought no umbrella: nothing but a fashionable parasol about, large enough for a doll: one cannot be expected on such an occasion to be as provident as the renowned Mrs. McStinger. The wind took Daisy's cloak, as before; the drifting rain-storm half blinded her. Before she reached home, her pretty muslin dress, and her dainty parasol, and herself also, were wet through.

"Now where have you been?" demanded Mrs. St. Clare, pouncing upon Daisy in the hall, and backed by Tabitha; whilst Lydia, who had that morning risen betimes, thanks to the exacting dressmaker, looked on from the door of the breakfast-room.

"I went for a walk," gasped Daisy, fully believing all was about to be discovered. "The rain overtook me."

"What a pickle you are in," commented Lydia.

"_Where_ have you been for a walk?" proceeded Mrs. St. Clare, who was evidently angry.

"Down the road," said Daisy, in an almost inaudible voice, the result of fear and emotion. "It--it is pleasant to walk a little before the heat comes on. I--I did not know it was going to rain."

"Pray, how long is it since you found out that it is pleasant to walk a little before the heat comes on?" retorted Mrs. St. Clare, with severe sarcasm. "How many mornings have you tried it?"

"Never before this morning, mamma," replied Daisy, with ready earnestness, for it was the truth.

"_And pray with whom have you been walking?_" put in Lydia, with astounding emphasis. "Who brought you home?"

"Not any one," choked Daisy, swallowing down her tears. "I walked home alone. You can ask Mrs. Hunt, who met me. Mamma, may I go up and change my things?"

Mrs. St. Clare said neither yes nor no, but gave tacit permission by stretching out her hand towards the staircase. Daisy ran the gauntlet of the three faces as she passed on: her mother's was stern, Lydia's supremely scornful, Tabitha's discreetly prim. The two ladies turned into the breakfast-room, and the maid retired.

"It is easy enough to divine what Daisy has been up to," spoke Lydia, whose speech was not always expressed in the most refined terms. She sat back in an easy-chair, sipping her chocolate, a pink cloak trimmed with swan's-down drawn over her shoulders; for the rain and the early rising had made her feel chilly.

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. St. Clare, crossly. She detested these petty annoyances.

"I do, though," returned Lydia. "Daisy has been out to meet Frank Raynor. Were I you, mamma, I should not allow her so much liberty."

"Give me the sugar, Lydia, and let me take my breakfast in peace."

Daisy, locking her door, burst into a fit of hysterical tears. Her nerves were utterly unstrung. It was necessary to change her garments, and she did so, sobbing wofully the while. She wished she had not done what she had done; she wished that Frank could be by her side to encourage and shield her. When she had completed her toilet, she took the wedding-ring from her finger, attached it to a bit of ribbon, and hid it in her bosom.

"Suppose I should never, never be able to wear it openly?" thought Daisy, with a sob and a sigh. "Suppose Frank and I should never see each other again! never be able to be together? If mamma carries me off abroad, and he remains here, one of us might die before I come back again."