Chapter the Last

It is a vile practice that of winding up a story with a marriage, as if the sole object of all that inkshed was to put a couple of characters to bed; and I wonder the rigid propriety of our novel writers and readers doesn’t revolt at it. Besides, considering the matter on artistic grounds, it is not satisfactory to check, by the chilling word Finis, the ardour of the reader, just excited to a high pitch at the spectacle of the hero and heroine sinking into each other’s arms. It is like quitting the opera, as the curtain falls on a splendid group, tinted with rose light, while the whole strength of the company sings a chorus; and going splashing home through the rain to a bachelor’s lodging, where the maid has let the fire out and forgot the matches, and you have to stumble to bed punchless and oysterless in the dark.

A year passed, after the marriages aforesaid, and a party, including many of our principal characters, was assembled in the little church of Lanscote to celebrate another wedding.

Josiah was the officiating clergyman; he had come partly for that purpose, partly to perform another ceremony. The persons to be joined together in holy matrimony, on this occasion, were Rosa and Bruce.

The principal agent in effecting this had been the old antiquary Mr Titcherly. That lover of inscriptions had now become himself the subject of a tombstone; and having, as aforesaid, great regard for Bruce, and having no kindred of his own to bequeath to, had in his will, after making ample provision for the future editions of his great work on the antiquities of Doddington, left the rest of his property, amounting to about £4000, to Rosa, on condition she married Bruce; and this, together with the solicitations of his wife, who had been gained over to the other party by Bruce’s enthusiastic description of Rosa’s excellencies, had melted the heart of that splendid old fellow the dean of Trumpington. That reverend personage was now present at the wedding, together with his wife, and Dr Macvino, who had dined the night before at the Heronry, and pronounced the port excellent.

Fane gave away the little magnificent bride, half hidden in an ample rich veil of white lace sent by Orelia, which cost nobody knows how much. Bruce was in his dragoon uniform. His mustache had flourished much in the last year, and Rosa thought him handsomer than Apollo. Langley was there, and Mr Oates appeared as groom’s man, and the two Clumbers as bridesmaids.

The ceremony was over, the bridegroom duly shaken by the hand, the bride, all blush and bloom and smile, duly kissed. The Curate, leaving the altar, took up his position beside the antique font, and the group following him, and ranging themselves round, lost the gorgeous hues which the one painted window above the altar of Lanscote Church had shed on them during the marriage ceremony; and, as the Curate began the baptismal service, they stood in the cheerful light of the morning sun.

The principal personage of this second ceremony had been held, during the first one, in the arms of Miss Fillett in the background. Kitty, who looked rather staid and matronly, in consequence of having been married to Mr Noble a few weeks before, and who had hitherto, in this new capacity, acquitted herself entirely to Harry’s satisfaction, dandled the infant in the most approved fashion. “Have done, Master Julius,” said Kitty, giving that young gentleman a good shake as he attempted to rush up the pulpit-stairs. “Can’t you behave for a minute, not even when they are a-baptising of your little sister?”

The preliminary part of the service being read, the infant was handed to Josiah. He took it gently in his arms, and looked down on its small face, where he saw the rudiments of Hester’s features. The service was for a moment at a standstill, and a tear was seen to drop on the child’s cheek as he bent over it—the first holy water that touched its face that morning. “Good fellow, old Josey,” thought Fane, as he noticed it. “Poor dear Josiah!” mentally ejaculated Hester, with a truer though secret knowledge of the source of his emotion.

The dean of Trumpington hemmed impatiently—he wanted his breakfast; and the sympathetic Doctor Macvino, going behind Josiah, jogged his arm. The Curate started from his reverie, and looked around. “Name this child,” he said, proceeding with the ritual.

“Rosa Orelia,” answered the bride, who officiated as one godmother, while Trephina Clumber was proxy for Orelia (who was detained at home by private business of her own.)

The christening was finished without further delay. Then the assembly passed forth from the old ivy-covered porch, and, amid the admiration and applause of the inhabitants of Lanscote, entered their carriages to drive back to the Heronry.

The breakfast was pronounced by Dr Macvino, by no means an incompetent judge, a magnificent affair. Speeches were made afterwards—one jocosely cynical, and sprinkled with puns, by Mr Levitt; one gay, fluent, and agreeable, from Captain O’Reilly, a fresh-coloured man, with white teeth, who had succeeded Tindal in command of the detachment, and who had practised popular oratory at various contested elections; one rich and oily, delivered ore rotundo, by Dr Macvino, with some others.

The newly-married pair had driven off; the guests had dispersed; even the Curate had, in despite of the urgent entreaties of Hester and Durham, inexorably departed. Fane and his wife were alone together in the library.

“I told you yesterday, Hester,” he said, leaning over the back of her chair, “of the opening into public life now offered me. My answer must be written to-night.”

Hester looked uneasy. “You will refuse it, Durham, won’t you?”

“I think not, Hester.”

“I thought we had been very happy this year past. I knew I had, and I flattered myself you had; but you are weary of me;” and, as she spoke, the first sad tears since her marriage came into her eyes.

“I swear to you,” he said, removing the tears in the readiest way that occurred to him—“I swear to you that I would rather live the past year over again than the best ten others of my existence. But what right have I to continue this life of pleasant uselessness, when I may exert myself?”

“Uselessness!” said his wife; “do you call being my companion and instructor uselessness?”

“You have a new companion now in that young Christian of yours, whom I hear squalling,” said Fane; “she will prevent you from missing me. As to the instruction part, I have learnt as much as I could teach for the life of me. If I have widened your mind, you have no less refined mine; and, could I but rid myself of a certain uneasy conviction that we are both of us accountable beings, I would contentedly let the world slide for ever as softly and easily as now. But is this unproductive interchange of sentiment, however elevated and refined, fit to be the sole occupation of a man who can be up and doing?”

Hester sighed. “You force me,” said she, “to look at a truth I would willingly shut my eyes to. One other year would not tire you, Durham; put it off for one—only one.”

“But the opportunity would be gone,” said Fane. “Come, make up your mind to it, and you will acknowledge next year that, in watching my career, applauding my success, if I meet with it, soothing my disappointments when they find me, you have new and worthier occupation.”

Hester disputed no farther; he wrote the letter of acceptance; and next year she acknowledged that she was growing more ambitious for him than he was for himself.

The Curate did not remain long in the living to which Mr Levitt had presented him. An incident that occurred in the second year of his incumbency gave him a disgust at the place. A female parishioner, of tolerably mature years, made a dead set at Josiah. She had experiences to impart; she took share in his parochial matters; she even studied botany; and the unsuspecting Josiah was the only person who didn’t penetrate her designs on his heart. When the fair one found these would certainly fail, she brought an action for breach of promise; and the evidence being about as strong as that in the celebrated case of Bardell versus Pickwick, the jury, as Englishmen and fathers, of course found for the plaintiff, with £200 damages. About that time Dean Bruce, in consideration of the family connection, managed to get Josiah elected canon of the cathedral; and in course of time he became a prebend. He has a good house and capital garden; his study is one of the pleasantest rooms to be found anywhere, with a cloistered air about it, the pointed window all hung with ivy, looking on the great window of the cathedral, and on one of the buttressed towers. He has an ancient married housekeeper, who looks faithfully after his comforts; he entertains his friends nobly when they come to see him (his small but choice cellar was laid in by Dr Macvino); the great library of the cathedral is within a few paces of his door, where he is treated by the librarian with more deference than the bishop himself; and when he needs change he goes down to the Heronry. Time softens the acuteness of his disappointment in love, and the recollection of it now brings a not unpleasant sadness.

Poor old Josey!—after all, perhaps the most loveable and respectable of our dramatis personæ—more so, at least, than our heroes, whose more discursive natures included some corners which they would probably have been unwilling that even their wives should pry into; whereas Josiah’s heart might have been turned page by page; and, while much might have been found to interest, there would have been little to correct, and nothing to blot. But somehow or other, women do not seem always to give such unobtrusive merits the highest place in their affections. Orelia and Lady Lee were, as we have seen, among the number; and many young ladies will, we doubt not, understand and sympathise with their errors of judgment.

A day or two after Rosa’s marriage, Hester got a letter from Orelia. “Mine is a girl too,” she said, “and I’ve set my heart on her marrying Julius when they are of a proper age. You must promise to forward the project, Hester.” And as young persons invariably allow their parents to choose for them on these points, and never presume to form any counter predilections of their own, there is, of course, every prospect that Orelia’s desire will be gratified.

Major Tindal did not easily forgive Orelia’s marriage, nor forget his own discomfiture. He remains a sporting, hard-riding bachelor; and when one of his acquaintances marries, he affects to pity him. “Poor devil!” he says, “I’ll write and condole with him.”

Mr Seager, coming out of jail at the end of two years, found himself without money, friends, or character. He could not, of course, resume his old position; but Seager was not proud, and fitted himself with admirable facility to a new one. He started in the thimble-rig line, that being a profession requiring little other capital than dexterity and a knowledge of human nature under its more credulous and pigeonable aspect. He augments the income derived from this source by that which he earns as a racing prophet. He advertises that he, Seager, is the only man who can foretell the winners of all the great events; asserts that he has hitherto been infallible; and professes his readiness to let correspondents enjoy a lucrative peep into the future, on their enclosing a specified number of postage stamps. From such shifts as these he ekes out a living.

Bagot could not have lived so; and is better as he is, sleeping under his foreign turf. In the grave he preserves a kind of incognito, and when called upon to answer for his deeds, may certainly plead a misnomer; for the French stone-mason who carved his unpretending tombstone, taking the name of the deceased from dictation, Gallicised it, and inscribed on the monument “Ci-gît Monsieur le Colonel Bagote-Lys.”

Another marriage had been celebrated in Lanscote Church a short time before Rosa’s. Jennifer Greene had brought her arts and experience to bear with more effect on Squire Dubbley than on the Curate. The thoroughly subjugated Squire, after being compelled to see all the females of his establishment, under fifty years of age, replaced by the most withered frumps to be found in those parts, had yielded to his fate. His adviser, Mr Randy, had been previously disposed of.

Jennifer had no sooner established her ascendancy, than she proceeded to exert it in the expulsion of Mr Randy. Thus alone in power, she was not long in convincing the Squire that she was quite necessary to his existence, and his sole defence against a horde of plunderers. The Squire, moreover, was impressed by the good looks of the housekeeper, to which the Curate had been so insensible; and the grand attack, which had only harassed Josiah, had laid the unprotected Squire at her feet.

Lady Lee, I am loth to lose you! Not with this page will your form pass rustling out of sight. But, reader, her independent life has ceased—her thoughts are now centred in the career of another—and a chronicle of her deeds and aspirations would be a mere repetition of, to you, humdrum happiness. Her restlessness, and discontent, and languor are no more; she has lost even the memory of these since the event which, like this last sentence of my last chapter, has put a period to Lady Lee’s Widowhood.