'Thee will I love and reverence, evermore.'
—Aubrey de Vere.
'There, Mab, I really can't write any more,' and throwing down her pen, regardless that it is full of ink, and that it alights on a photograph of Teddy, thereby giving him a black eye, Miss Seaton rises from the writing-table and flings herself into an armchair.
'Well, dear,' says Mabel, 'I said I would do them for you, after you are gone to-morrow, look at these little china figures, I don't believe you've glanced at them, they came from old Mrs Boothly and I fancy they are real Sévres—?'
'At it still,' interrupts George, poking his head in at the door, 'what it is to be on the eve of a wedding; I suppose you'll want a detective, and, oh, by the bye where are we going to dine?'
'In your room, I thought,' replies his wife, 'you see you can go to the club, and we shall not want much.'
'Fasting before a festival, I suppose,' says he; 'or perhaps you are afraid you will not be able to get into that new gown of yours.'
'How do you know anything about my new gown,' asks Mabel.
George laughs, 'I happened to see it put out for inspection in your room.'
'My room, what were you doing there?' begins Mabel, but he has departed.
'What can he have been doing?' she says.
'Go and see,' suggests Lippa, and Mabel filled with curiosity, hastens upstairs, but returns again in a minute.
'Look, what the dear thing has given me,' she cries, holding up a little blue velvet case, 'I must go and thank him,' and down she goes to the smoking-room, 'George, you dear old boy,' she says, hugging him round the neck, 'isn't it lovely,' she goes on, turning to Philippa who has followed her.
'It is indeed,' says she, carefully examining the moonstone set in diamonds. 'Did you choose it yourself, George?'
'Didn't give me credit for so much taste, eh?'
'No, I don't think I did,' replies Lippa, quietly slipping out of the room.
She wants to be alone, to think a little, it all seems so strange and lovely; this time to-morrow she will be Mrs Dalrymple—Mrs Dalrymple! how funny it sounds—and Jimmy will be all her own, and they will go away together;—and she sinks into a dream of delight, seeing the future only as a golden mist through which she and her husband will pass side by side. And she suddenly falls upon her knees, and buries her golden head in her hands, and breathes forth an earnest prayer of heartfelt gratitude to the great God who orders all things.
'The Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them as we will.'
The next morning, her wedding day, dawns at length; the first thing she hears are some sparrows chirping outside, and anxious to see if it is fine, she goes to the window and draws up the blind, letting in a whole flood of crimson light.
It is one of those lovely days in London when there is just a little breath of wind stirring among the trees that prevents it from being sultry, and everyone seems to expand to the warmth and look happy. It is still quite early, two or three costermongers' carts are being wheeled along by their owners, fresh from Covent Garden; a lark belonging to the house opposite is singing merrily despite its small cage, and Lippa smiles as she recalls the old saying, 'Blessed is the bride whom the sun shines on.'
As sleep seems impossible and rather loud voices are heard from overhead, she throws a loose wrapper round her and goes up to the nurseries. Teddy is in his bath and no power on earth can persuade him to get out, in vain Marie gesticulates and calls him ' Un bien méchant gamin,' Teddy knows he has the best of it, as whenever she comes near he throws water at her.
'Oh, Teddy! Teddy!' exclaims Philippa, opening the door, 'do be a good boy, or else you know, you could not be my page.'
Teddy, surprised at his aunt's sudden appearance, ceases to splash about and regards her gravely.
'I shall be your page if I'm good then,' he says.
'Certainly,' replies Philippa, 'get out of the bath now and after your breakfast you shall come to my room.'
Teddy looks longingly at the water and then at her, finally with a deep sigh he gets out of the bath and submits to being rubbed dry by Marie.
The morning wears on and five minutes after the appointed time Lippa calm and very lovely in her bridal attire, walks up the aisle of St P—— leaning on her brother's arm, and there before the altar takes James Dalrymple to be her husband, for better, for worse, till death them do part.
Into further details there is no need to go; weddings are all alike, you will say, except, of course, when you happen to be one of the chief parties concerned. There was of course, the orthodox best man, bridesmaids, and spectators, the lengthy signing of the register and last but not least Mendelssohn's wedding march. I wonder how the world could have got on without it!
'Well, I'm glad that's over, ain't you?' says Mrs Dalrymple, who is comfortably seated in a railway carriage, her husband opposite.
'Very,' replies Jimmy, looking unutterable things at her. 'I say though, how late you were. I thought you were never coming, and Helmdon had the fidgets.'
'It was exactly five minutes late,' says she, 'for George looked at his watch just before the carriage stopped, but do look at that woman, isn't she lovely?'
The train is stopping at one of the suburban stations, and the lady who has caught Lippa's attention is hurrying down the platform, trying to find a seat, holding a small child by the hand.
Jimmy pokes his head out of the window. 'By Jove,' he says, 'she is handsome. She's getting into a third class, doesn't look like it, does she?'
'No,' says Lippa, and then they forget all about her, till on reaching their destination, they see her again.
'Hullo,' says Dalrymple, 'there's that woman again, I wonder who she is?' As they pass out of the station, she drops her umbrella, and Jimmy picking it up, restores it to her.
'Thank you,' she says, raising for a moment a pair of wonderful dark eyes to his face.
Lippa looks at her curiously, wondering what her life story is, and then they part, going in opposite directions.
Jimmy has a small house of his own, not far from C—— and only half-a-mile from the sea coast and quite close to 'The Garden of Sleep,' and here it is that he brings Lippa to pass the first days of their married life, days of almost perfect happiness. But, in course of time, as they are going to live together for the rest of their lives they come to the wise conclusion that an overdose of solitude to begin with, would be tedious, to say the least of it.
'It wasn't as if we were going to stop here long,' says Lippa one day. 'When we go back to London we must set to work to be very economical, and that will give me heaps to do; I can't bear being idle, can you?'
'I am afraid, dear, that I rather like it,' replies Jimmy, 'but you're not going to worry yourself over making both ends meet, are you? I dare say it will be rather difficult, but if we let this place, it will help us a little, and you said you wouldn't mind.'
'Mind,' and Lippa rises and goes up to him, kneeling down at his side, 'I shan't mind anything now, Jimmy,' she says.
'What does the "now" imply,' asks he, 'that you did once mind, eh?'
'Yes, I did, when you used to look so gravely at me, when we met in the street, I think my heart was nearly breaking, you know you tried to think I was a flirt, and—'
'Never mind now, sweetheart, it was blind of me not to see through it all, and if you only could have guessed how I was longing to take you in my arms, to ask you why you sent me away, you would not have looked so cold, and—'
It is her turn to interrupt this time, which she does by kissing him. 'Do you know,' she says, 'you nearly made me forget what I was going to say—'
'Is it of great importance?' asks he.
'Yes, it is. Don't you think it would be nice to ask Mabel and the children down here, and we might all go back to London together. I know Teddy would like the sands here; and there is plenty of room; shall we?'
Jimmy says yes, although he would have preferred to remain alone for a little longer.
There is something so nice in knowing that the lovely little person who is always with him, is his very own to take care of and protect against everything, for all the years that lie before them. And he fears to be disturbed, in case it may all prove a dream, and burst like a bubble with the slightest contact of the outer world. But a week later Mabel arrives accompanied by Teddy and the baby; George and Paul, whom Lippa has also begged to come, turn up, and the lovely days that follow, when the sun creeps into their rooms in the early morning enticing them out, where the hedges are covered with sweet smelling honey-suckle and the fields are carpeted with brilliant red poppies, and a walk will take them to the 'Garden of Sleep,' where among the tombstones and long grass they can watch the sea sparkling in a golden haze, and listen to the waves as they break on the yellow sands; where the birds are ever trilling forth their songs without words; those days for ever are stored in the minds of some of them as the loveliest summer man could wish for.