When the ladies retired, at length, it became manifest that Josephus had taken more wine than was good for him. He laughed loudly; he told everybody that he was going to begin all over again, classes and lectures and everything, including the Sunday-school and the church membership. The professor, who, for his part, seemed indisposed for conversation, retained the mastery over his fingers, and began to prepare little tricks, and presently conveyed oranges into Lord Davenant's coat-tails without moving from his chair. And Daniel Fagg, whose cheek was flushed, and whose eyes were sparkling, rose from his chair, and attacked Lord Jocelyn, note-book in hand.
"Is your lo'ship," he began, with a perceptible thickness of speech—Lord Jocelyn recognized him as the man whom he had accosted at Stepney Green, and who subsequently took dinner with the girls—"is your lo'ship int'rested in Hebrew schriptions?"
"Very much indeed," said Lord Jocelyn, politely.
"'Low me to put your lo'ship's name down for schription, twelve-and-six? Book will come out next month, Miss Ken'dy says so."
"Put up your book, Daniel," said Harry sternly, "and sit down."
"I want—show—his lo'ship—a Hebrew schription."
He sat down, however, obediently, and immediately fell fast asleep.
Said Lord Jocelyn to Captain Sorensen:
"I remember you, captain, very well indeed, but you have forgotten me. Were you not in command of the Sussex in the year of the Mutiny? Did you not take me out with the 120th?"
"To be sure—to be sure I did; and I remember your lordship very well, and am very glad to find you remember me. You were younger then."
"I was; and how goes it with you now, captain? Cheerfully as of old?"
"Ay, ay, my lord. I'm in the Trinity Almshouse, and my daughter is with Miss Kennedy, bless her! Therefore I've nothing to complain of."
"May I call upon you, some day, to talk over old times? You used to sing a good song in those days, and play a good tune, and dance a good dance."
"Come, my lord, as often as you like," he replied in great good-humor. "The cabin is small, but it's cozy, and the place is hard to get at."
"It is the queerest dinner I ever had, Harry," Lord Jocelyn whispered. "I like our old captain and his daughter. Is the hard-hearted dressmaker prettier than Nellie?"
"Prettier! why, there is no comparison possible."
"Yet Nelly hath a pleasing manner."
"Miss Kennedy turns all her girls into ladies. Come and see her."
"Perhaps, Harry, perhaps; when she is no longer hard-hearted; when she has named the happy day."
"This evening," said Lady Davenant, when they joined her, "will be one that I never can forget. For I've had my old friends round me, who were kind in our poverty and neglect; and now I've your lordship, too, who belongs to the new time. So that it is a joining together, as it were, and one don't feel like stepping out of our place into another quite different, as I shall tell Aurelia, who says she is afraid that splendor may make me forget old friends; whereas there is nobody I should like to have with us this moment better than Aurelia. But perhaps she judges others by herself."
"Lor!" cried Mrs. Bormalack, "to hear your ladyship go on! It's like an angel of goodness."
"And the only thing that vexes me—it's enough to spoil it all—is that Miss Kennedy couldn't come. Ah! my lord, if you had only seen Miss Kennedy! Rebekah and Nelly are two good girls and pretty, but you are not to compare with Miss Kennedy—are you, dears?"
They both shook their heads, and were not offended.
It was past eleven when they left to go home in cabs; one contained the sleeping forms of Josephus and Mr. Fagg; the next contained Captain Sorensen and Nelly, with Harry. The Professor, who had partly revived, came with Mrs. Bormalack and Rebekah in the last.
"You seemed to know Lord Jocelyn, Mr. Goslett," said the captain.
"I ought to," replied Harry simply; "he gave me my education."
"He was always a brave and generous officer, I remember," the captain went on. "Yes, I remember him well; all the men would have followed him everywhere. Well, he says he will come and see me."
"Then he will come," said Harry, "if he said so."
"Very good; if he comes, he shall see Miss Kennedy too."
This dinner, to which her ladyship will always look back with the liveliest satisfaction, was the climax, the highest point, so to speak, of her greatness, which was destined to have a speedy fall. Angela asked Lord Jocelyn to read through the papers and advise. She told him of the professor's discovery, and of the book which had belonged to the wheelwright, and everything. Of course the opinion which he formed was exactly that formed by Angela herself, and he told her so.
"I have asked them to my house," Angela wrote, "because I want them to go home to their own people with pleasant recollections of their stay in London. I should like them to feel, not that their claim had broken down, and that they were defeated, but that it had been examined, and was held to be not proven. I should be very sorry if I thought that the little lady would cease to believe in her husband's illustrious descent. Will you help me to make her keep her faith as far as possible and go home with as little disappointment as possible?"
"I will try," said Lord Jocelyn.
He wrote to Lady Davenant that he had given careful consideration to the Case, and had taken opinions, which was also true, because he made a lawyer, a herald, and a peer all read the documents, and write him a letter on the subject. He dictated all three letters, it is true; but there is generally something to conceal in this world of compromises.
He went solemnly to Portman Square bearing these precious documents with him. To Lady Davenant his opinion was the most important step which had yet occurred in the history of the claim; she placed her husband in the hardest arm-chair that she could find, with strict injunctions to keep broad awake; and she had a great array of pens and paper laid out on the table in order to look business-like. It must be owned that the good feeling of the last two months, with carriage exercise, had greatly increased his lordship's tendency to sleep and inaction. As for the Case, he had almost ceased to think of it. The Case meant worry, copying out, writing and re-writing, hunting up facts, and remembering; when the Case was put away he could give up his mind to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Never had the present moment seemed so delightful to him.
Lord Jocelyn wore an expression of great gravity, as befitted the occasion. In fact, he was intrusted with an exceedingly delicate mission; he had to tell these worthy people that there was not the slightest hope for them; to recommend them to go home again; and, though the counsel would be clothed in sugared words, to renounce forever the hope of proving their imaginary claim. But it is better to be told these things kindly and sympathetically, by a man with a title, than by any coarse or common lawyer.
"Before I begin"—Lord Jocelyn addressed himself to the lady instead of her husband—"I would ask if you have any relic at all of that first Timothy Clitheroe who is buried in your cemetery at Canaan City?"
"There is a book," said her ladyship. "Here it is."
She handed him a little book of songs, roughly bound in leather; on the title-page was written at the top "Satturday," and at the bottom "Davvenant."
Lord Jocelyn laid the book down and opened his case.
First, he reminded them that Miss Messenger in her first letter had spoken of a possible moral, rather than legal, triumph; of a possible failure to establish the claim before a committee of the House of Peers to whom it would be referred. This, in his opinion, was the actual difficulty; he had read the Case, as it had been carefully drawn up and presented by his lordship—and he complimented the writer upon his lucid and excellent style of drawing up of facts—and he had submitted the Case for the opinion of friends of his own, all of them gentlemen eminently proper to form and to express an opinion on such a subject. He held the opinions of these gentlemen in his hands. One of them was from Lord de Lusignan, a nobleman of very ancient descent. His lordship wrote that there were very strong grounds for supposing it right to investigate a case which presented, certainly, very remarkable coincidences, if nothing more; that further investigations ought to be made on the spot; and that, if this Timothy Clitheroe Davenant turned out to be the lost heir, it would be another romance in the history of the Peerage. And his lordship concluded by a kind expression of hope that more facts would be discovered in support of the claim.
"You will like to keep this letter," said the reader, giving it to Lady Davenant. She was horribly pale and trembled, because it seemed as if everything was slipping from her.
"The other letters," Lord Jocelyn went on, "are to the same effect. One is from a lawyer of great eminence, and the other is from a herald. You will probably like to keep them, too, when I have read them."
Lady Davenant took the letters, which were cruel in their kindness, and the tears came into her eyes.
Lord Jocelyn went on to say that researches made in their interest in the parish registers had resulted in a discovery which might even be made into an argument against the claim. There was a foundling child baptized in the church in the same year as the young heir; he received the name of the village, with the day of the week on which he was found for Christian name; that is to say, he was called Saturday Davenant.
Then, indeed, his lordship became very red, and her ladyship turned still paler, and both looked guilty. Saturday Davenant! the words in the book. Suppose they were not a date and a name, but a man's whole name instead!
"He left the parish," said Lord Jocelyn, "and was reported to have gone to America."
Neither of them spoke. His lordship looked slowly around the room, as if expecting that everything, even the solid mahogany of the library shelves, would vanish suddenly away. And he groaned, thinking of the dinners which would soon be things of the golden past.
"But, my friends," Lord Jocelyn went on, "do not be downcast. There is always a possibility of new facts turning up. Your grandfather's name may have been really Timothy Clitheroe, in which case I have very little doubt that he was the missing heir; but he may, on the other hand, have been the Saturday Davenant, in which case he lived and died with a lie on his lips, which one would be sorry to think possible."
"Well, sir—if that is so—what do you advise that we should do now?" asked the grandson of this mystery. He seemed to have become an American citizen again, and to have shaken off the aristocratic manner.
"What I should advise is this. You will never, most certainly never get recognition of your claim without stronger evidence than you at present offer. On the other hand, no one will refuse to admit that you have a strong case. Therefore I would advise you to go home to your own people, to tell them what has happened—how your case was taken up and carefully considered by competent authorities"—here he named again the lawyer, the herald, and the peer—"to show them their opinions, and to say that you have come back for further evidence, if you can find any, which will connect you beyond a doubt with the lost heir."
"That is good advice, sir," said the claimant. "No, Clara Martha, for once I will have my own way. The connection is the weak point; we must go home and make it a strong point, else we had better stay there. I said, all along, that we ought not to have come. Nevertheless, I'm glad we came, Clara Martha. I shan't throw it in your teeth that we did come. I'm grateful to you for making us come. We've made good friends here, and seen many things which we shouldn't otherwise have seen. And the thought of this house and the meals we've had in it—such breakfasts, such luncheons, such dinners—will never leave us, I am sure."
Lady Davenant could say nothing. She saw everything torn from her at a rough blow—her title, her consideration, the envy of her fellow-citizens, especially of Aurelia Tucker. She put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed aloud.
"You should not go back as if you were defeated," Lord Jocelyn went on, in sympathy with the poor little woman. "You are as much entitled to the rank you claim as ever. More: your case has been talked about; it is known; should any of the antiquaries who are always grubbing about parish records find any scrap of information which may help, he will make a note of it for you. When you came you were friendless and unknown. Now the press of England has taken you up; your story is romantic; we are all interested in you, and desirous of seeing you succeed. Before you go you will write to the papers stating why you go, and what you hope to find. All these letters and papers and proofs of the importance of your claim should be kept and shown to your friends."
"We feel mean about going back, and that's a fact," said his lordship. "Still, if we must go back, why, we'd better go back with drums and trumpets than sneak back——"
"Ah!" said his wife, "if you'd only shown that spirit from the beginning, Timothy!"
He collapsed.
"If we go back," she continued, thoughtfully, "I suppose there's some sort of work we can find, between us. Old folks hadn't ought to work like the young, and I'm sixty-five, and so is my husband. But——"
She stopped, with a sigh.
"I am empowered by Miss Messenger," Lord Jocelyn went on, with great softness of manner, "to make you a little proposition. She thinks that it would be most desirable for you to have your hands free while you make those researches which may lead to the discoveries we hope for. Now, if you have to waste the day in work you will never be able to make any research. Therefore Miss Messenger proposes—if you do not mind—if you will accept—an annuity on your joint lives of six hundred dollars. You may be thus relieved of all anxiety about your personal wants. And Miss Messenger begs only that you may let this annuity appear the offering of sympathizing English friends."
"But we don't know Miss Messenger," said her ladyship.
"Has she not extended her hospitality to you for two months and more? Is not that a proof of the interest she takes in you?"
"Certainly it is. Why—see now—we've been living here so long, that we've forgotten it is all Miss Messenger's gift."
"Then you will accept?"
"Oh, Lord Jocelyn, what can we do but accept?"
"And with grateful hearts," added his lordship. "Tell her that. With grateful hearts. They've a way of serving quail in her house, that——" He stopped and sighed.
They have returned to Canaan City; they live in simple sufficiency. His lordship, when he is awake, has many tales to tell of London. His friends believe Stepney Green to be a part of May-fair, and Mrs. Bormalack to be a distinguished though untitled ornament of London society; while as for Aurelia Tucker, who fain would scoff, there are her ladyship's beautiful and costly dresses, and her jewels, and the letters from Lord Jocelyn le Breton and the rich Miss Messenger, and the six hundred dollars a year drawn monthly, which proclaim aloud that there is something in the claim.
There are things which cannot be gainsaid.
Nevertheless, no new discoveries have yet rewarded his lordship's researches.
During this time the Palace of Delight was steadily rising. Before Christmas its walls were completed and the roof on. Then began the painting, the decorating, and the fittings. And Angela was told that the building would be handed over to her, complete according to the contract, by the first of March.
The building was hidden away, so to speak, in a corner of vast Stepney, but already rumors were abroad concerning it, and the purpose for which it was erected. They were conflicting rumors. No one knew at all what was intended by it; no one had been within the walls; no one knew who built it. The place was situated so decidedly in the very heart and core of Stepney, that the outside public knew nothing at all about it, and the rumors were confined to the small folk round it. So it rose in their midst without being greatly regarded. No report or mention of it came to Harry's ears, so that he knew nothing of it, and suspected nothing any more than he suspected Miss Kennedy of being some other person.
The first of March in this present year of grace 1882 fell upon a Wednesday. Angela resolved that the opening-day should be on Thursday, the second, and that she would open it herself; and then another thought came into her mind; and the longer she meditated upon it, the stronger hold did the idea take upon her.
The Palace of Delight was not, she said, her own conception; it was that of the man—the man she loved. Would it not be generous, in giving this place over to the people for whom it was built, to give its real founder the one reward which he asked?
Never any knight of old had been more loyal. He obeyed in the spirit as well as the letter her injunction not to speak of love; not only did he refrain from those good words which he would fain have uttered, but he showed no impatience, grumbled not, had no fits of sulking; he waited, patient. And in all other things he did her behest, working with a cheerful heart for her girls, always ready to amuse them, always at her service for things great and small, and meeting her mood with a ready sympathy.
One evening, exactly a fortnight before the proposed opening-day, Angela invited all the girls, and with them her faithful old captain and her servant Harry, to follow her because she had a thing to show them. She spoke with great seriousness, and looked overcome with the gravity of this thing. What was she going to show them?
They followed, wondering, while she led the way to the church, and then turned to the right among the narrow lanes of a part where, by some accident, none of the girls belonged.
Presently she stopped before a great building. It was not lit up, and seemed quite dark and empty. Outside, the planks were not yet removed, and they wore covered with gaudy advertisements, but it was too dark to see them. There was a broad porch above the entrance, with a generously ample ascent of steps like unto those of St. Paul's Cathedral. Angela rang a bell and the door was opened. They found themselves in an entrance-hall of some kind, imperfectly lighted by a single gas-jet. There were three or four men standing about, apparently waiting for them, because one stepped forward, and said:
"Miss Messenger's party?"
"We are Miss Messenger's party," Angela replied.
"Whoever we are," said Harry, "we are a great mystery to ourselves."
"Patience," Angela whispered; "part of the mystery is going to be cleared up."
"Light up, Bill," said one of the men.
Then the whole place passed suddenly into daylight, for it was lit by the electric globes. It was a lofty vestibule. On either side were cloak-rooms; opposite were entrance-doors. But what was on the other side of these entrance-rooms none of them could guess.
"My friend," said Angela to Harry, "this place should be yours. It is of your creation."
"What is it, then?"
"It is your Palace of Delight. Yes; nothing short of that. Will you lead me into your palace?"
She took his arm while he marvelled greatly and asked himself what this might mean. One of the men then opened the doors, and they entered, followed by the wondering girls.
They found themselves in a lofty and very spacious hall. At the end was a kind of throne—a red velvet divan, semicircular under a canopy of red velvet. Statues stood on either side; behind them was a great organ; upon the walls were pictures. Above the pictures were trophies in arms; tapestry carpets—all kinds of beautiful things. Above the entrance was a gallery for musicians; and on either side were doors leading to places of which they knew nothing.
Miss Kennedy led the way to the semicircular divan at the end. She took the central place, and motioned the girls to arrange themselves about her. The effect of this little group sitting by themselves and in silence, at the end of the great hall, was very strange and wonderful.
"My dears," she said, after a moment—and the girls saw that her eyes were full of tears—"my dears, I have got a wonderful story to tell you. Listen.
"There was a girl, once, who had the great misfortune to be born rich. It is a thing which many people desire. She, however, who had it knew what a misfortune it might become to her. For the possessor of great wealth, more especially if it be a woman, attracts all the designing and wicked people in the world, all the rogues and all the pretended philanthropists to her, as wasps are attracted by honey; and presently, by sad experience, she gets to look on all mankind as desirous only of robbing and deceiving her. This is a dreadful condition of mind to fall into, because it stands in the way of love and friendship and trust, and all the sweet confidences which make us happy.
"This girl's name was Messenger. Now, when she was quite young she knew what was going to happen, unless she managed somehow differently from other women in her unhappy position. And she determined as a first step to get rid of a large quantity of her wealth, so that the cupidity of the robbers might be diverted.
"Now, she had a humble friend—only a dressmaker,—who, for reasons of her own, loved her and would have served her if she could. And this dressmaker came to live at the East End of London.
"And she saw that the girls who have to work for their bread are treated in such a way that slavery would be a better lot for most of them. For they have to work twelve hours in the day, and sometimes more; they sit in close, hot rooms, poisoned by gas; they get no change of position as the day goes on; they have no holiday, no respite, save on Sunday; they draw miserable wages, and they are indifferently fed. So that she thought one good thing Miss Messenger could do was to help those girls, and this was how our Association was founded."
"But we shall thank you, all the same," said Nelly.
"Then another thing happened. There was a young—gentleman," Angela went on, "staying at the East End too. He called himself a working-man, said he was the son of a sergeant in the army, but everybody knew he was a gentleman. This dressmaker made his acquaintance, and talked with him a great deal. He was full of ideas, and one day he proposed that we should have a Palace of Delight. It would cost a great deal of money; but they talked as if they had that sum, and more, at their disposal. They arranged it all; they provided for everything. When the scheme was fully drawn up, the dressmaker took it to Miss Messenger. O my dear girls! this is the Palace of Delight. It is built as they proposed; it is finished; it is our own; and here is its inventor."
She took Harry's hand. He stood beside her, gazing upon her impassioned face; but he was silent. "It looks cold and empty now, but when you see it on the opening day; when you come here night after night; when you get to feel the place to be a part, and the best part, of your life, then remember that what Miss Messenger did was nothing compared with what this—this young gentleman did. For he invented it."
"Now," she said, rising—they were all too much astonished to make any demonstration—"now let us examine the building. This hall is your great reception-room. You will use it for the ball nights, when you give your great dances; a thousand couples may dance here without crowding. On wet days it is to be the playground of the children. It will hold a couple of thousand, without jostling against each other. There is the gallery for the music, as soon as you have got any."
She led the way to a door on the right.
"This," she said, "is your theatre."
It was like a Roman theatre, being built in the form of a semicircle, tier above tier, having no distinction in places, save that some were nearer the stage and some further off.
"Here," she said, "you will act. Do not think that players will be found for you. If you want a theatre you must find your own actors. If you want an orchestra you must find your own for your theatre, because in this place everything will be done by yourselves."
They came out of the theatre. There was one other door on that side of the hall.
"This," said Angela, opening it, "is the concert-room. It has an organ and a piano and a platform. When you have got people who can play and sing, you will give concerts."
They crossed the hall. On the other side were two more great rooms, each as big as the theatre and the concert-room. One was a gymnasium, fitted up with bars and ropes, and parallel rods and trapezes.
"This is for the young men," said Angela. "They will be stimulated by prizes to become good gymnasts. The other room is the library. Here they may come, when they please, to read and study."
It was a noble room, fitted with shelves and the beginning of a great library.
"Let us go upstairs," said Angela.
Upstairs the rooms were all small, but there were a great many of them.
Thus there were billiard-rooms, card-rooms, rooms with chess, dominos, and backgammon-tables laid out, smoking-rooms for men alone, tea and coffee rooms, rooms where women could sit by themselves if they pleased, and a room where all kinds of refreshments were to be procured. Above these was a second floor, which was called the School. This consisted of a great number of quite small rooms, fitted with desks, tables, and whatever else might be necessary. Some of these rooms were called music-rooms, and were intended for instruction and practice on different instruments. Others were for painting, drawing, sculpture, modelling, wood-carving, leather-work, brass-work, embroidery, lace-work, and all manner of small arts.
"In the Palace of Delight," said Angela, "we shall not be like a troop of revellers, thinking of nothing but dance and song and feasting. We shall learn something every day; we shall all belong to some class. Those of us who know already will teach the rest. And oh! the best part of all has to be told. Everything in the palace will be done for nothing except the mere cleaning and keeping in order. And if anybody is paid anything, it will be at the rate of a working-man's wage—no more. For this is our own palace, the club of the working-people; we will not let anybody make money out of it. We shall use it for ourselves, and we shall make our enjoyment by ourselves.
"All this is provided in the deed of trust by which Miss Messenger hands over the building to the people. There are three trustees. One of these, of course, is you—Mr. Goslett."
"I have been so lost in amazement," said Harry, "that I have been unable to speak. Is this, in very truth, the Palace of Delight that we have battled over so long and so often?"
"It is none other. And you are a trustee to carry out the intentions of the founder—yourself."
They went downstairs again to the great hall.
"Captain Sorensen," Angela whispered, "will you go home with the girls? I will follow in a few minutes."
Harry and Angela were left behind in the hall.
She called the man in charge of the electric light, and said something to him. Then he went away and turned down the light, and they were standing in darkness, save for the bright moon which shone through the windows and fell upon the white statues and made them look like two ghosts themselves standing among rows of other ghosts.
"Harry," said Angela.
"Do not mock me," he replied: "I am in a dream. This is not real. The place——"
"It is your own Palace of Delight. It will be given to the people in a fortnight. Are you pleased with your creation?"
"Pleased? And you?"
"I am greatly pleased. Harry"—it was the first time she had called him by his Christian name—"I promised you—I promised I would tell you—I would tell you—if the time should come——"
"Has the time come? O my dear love, has the time come?"
"There is nothing in the way. But oh!—Harry—are you in the same mind? No—wait a moment." She held him by the wrists. "Remember what you are doing. Will you choose a lifetime of work among working-people? You can go back, now, to your old life; but—perhaps—you will not be able to go back, then."
"I have chosen, long ago. You know my choice—O love—my love."
"Then, Harry, if it will make you happy—are you quite sure it will?—you shall marry me on the day when the Palace is opened."
"You are sure," she said, presently, "that you can love me, though I am only a dressmaker?"
"Could I love you," he replied, passionately, "if you were anything else?"
"You have never told me," he said, presently, "your Christian name."
"It is Angela."
"Angela! I should have known it could have been no other. Angela, kind heaven surely sent you down to stay awhile with me. If, in time to come, you should be ever unhappy with me, dear, if you should not be able to bear any longer with my faults, you would leave me and go back to the heaven whence you came."
They parted, that night, on the steps of Mrs. Bormalack's dingy old boarding-house, to both so dear. But Harry, for half the night, paced the pavement, trying to calm the tumult of his thoughts. "A life of work—with Angela—with Angela? Why, how small, how pitiful seemed all other kinds of life in which Angela was not concerned!"
My story, alas! has come to an end, according to the nature of all earthly things. The love vows are exchanged, the girl has given herself to the man—rich or poor. My friends, if you come to think of it, no girl is so rich that she can give more, or so poor that she can give less, than herself; and in love one asks not for more or less. Even the day is appointed, and nothing is going to happen which will prevent the blessed wedding-bells from ringing, or the clergyman from the sacred joining together of man and of maid, till death do part them. What more to tell? We ought to drop the curtain while the moonlight pours through the windows of the silent palace upon the lovers, while the gods and goddesses, nymphs, naiads, and oreads in marble look on in sympathetic joy. They, too, in the far-off ages, among the woods and springs of Hellas, lived and loved, though their forests know them no more. Yet, because this was no ordinary marriage, and because we are sorry to part with Angela before the day when she begins her wedded life, we must fain tell of what passed in that brief fortnight before the Palace was opened, and Angela's great and noble dream became a reality.
There was, first of all, a great deal of business to be set in order. Angela had interviews with her lawyers, and settlements had to be drawn up about which Harry knew nothing, though he would have to sign them; then there were the trust-deeds for the Palace. Angela named Harry, Dick Coppin, the old Chartist, now her firm and fast friend, and Lord Jocelyn, as joint trustees. They were to see, first of all, that no one got anything out of the Palace unless it might be workmen's wages for work done. They were to carry out the spirit of the house in making the place support and feed itself, so that whatever amusements, plays, dances, interludes, or mummeries were set afoot, all might be by the people themselves for themselves; and they were to do their utmost to keep out of the discordant elements of politics, religion, and party controversy.
All the girls knew by this time that Miss Kennedy was to be married on the second of March—the day when the Palace was to be opened. They also learned, because the details were arranged and talked over every evening, that the opening would be on a very grand scale indeed. Miss Messenger herself was coming to hand it over in person to the trustees on behalf of the people of Stepney and Whitechapel. There was to be the acting of a play in the new theatre, a recital on the new organ, the performance of a concert in the new concert-room, playing all the evening long by a military band, some sort of general entertainment; and the whole was to be terminated by a gigantic supper given by Miss Messenger herself, to which fifteen hundred guests were bidden—namely, first, all the employees of the brewery with their wives, if they had any, from the chief brewer and the chief accountant down to the humblest boy in the establishment; and, secondly, all the girls in the Association, with two or three guests for each; and, thirdly, a couple of hundred or so chosen from a list drawn up by Dick Coppin, and the cobbler, and Harry.
As for Harry, he had now, by Angela's recommendation, resigned his duties at the Brewery, in order to throw his whole time into the arrangement for the opening day; and this so greatly occupied him that he sometimes even forgot what the day would mean to him. The invitations were sent in Miss Messenger's own name. They were all accepted, although there was naturally some little feeling of irritation at the brewery when it became known that there was to be a general sitting down of all together. Miss Messenger also expressed her wish that the only beverage at the supper should be Messenger's beer, and that of the best quality. The banquet, in imitation of the Lord Mayor's dinner on the ninth of November, was to be a cold one, and solid, with plenty of ices, jellies, puddings, and fruit. But there was something said about glasses of wine for every guest after supper.
"I suppose," said Angela, talking over this pleasant disposition of things with Harry, "that she means one or two toasts to be proposed. The first should be to the success of the Palace. The second, I think"—and she blushed—"will be the health of you, Harry, and of me."
"I think so much of you," said Harry, "all day long, that I never think of Miss Messenger at all. Tell me what she is like, this giver and dispenser of princely gifts. I suppose she really is the owner of boundless wealth?"
"She has several millions, if you call that boundless. She has been a very good friend to me, and will continue so."
"You know her well?"
"I know her very well. O Harry, do not ask me any more about her or myself. When we are married I will tell you all about the friendship of Miss Messenger to me. You trust me, do you not?"
"Trust you! O Angela!"
"My secret, such as it is, is not a shameful one, Harry; and it has to do with the very girl, this Miss Messenger. Leave me with it till the day of our wedding. I wonder how far your patience will endure my secrets? for here is another. You know that I have a little money?"
"I am afraid, my Angela," said Harry, laughing, "that you must have made a terrible hole in it since you came here. Little or much, what does it matter to us? Haven't we got the two thousand? Think of that tremendous lump."
"What can it matter?" she cried. "O Harry, I thank Heaven for letting me, too, have this great gift of sweet and disinterested love. I thought it would never come to me."
"To whom, then, should it come?"
"Don't, Harry, or—yes—go on thinking me all that you say, because it may help to make me all that you think. But that is not what I wanted to say. Would you mind very much, Harry, if I asked you to take my name?"
"I will take any name you wish, Angela. If I am your husband, what does it matter about any other name?"
"And then one other thing, Harry. Will your guardian give his consent?"
"Yes, I can answer for him that he will. And he will come to the wedding if I ask him."
"Then ask him, Harry."
"So," said Lord Jocelyn, "the dressmaker has relented, has she? Why, that is well. And I am to give my consent? My dear boy, I only want you to be happy. Besides, I am quite sure and certain that you will be happy."
"Everybody is, if he marries the woman he loves," said the young man sententiously.
"Yes—yes, if he goes on loving the woman he has married. However, Harry, you have my best wishes and consent, since you are good enough to ask for it. Wait a bit." He got up and began to search about in drawers and desks. "I must give your fiancée a present, Harry. See—here is something good. Will you give her, with my best love and good wishes, this? It was once my mother's."
Harry looked at the gaud, set with pearls and rubies in old-fashioned style.
"Is it not," he asked, "rather too splendid for a—poor people in our position?"
Lord Jocelyn laughed aloud.
"Nothing," he said, "can be too splendid for a beautiful woman. Give it her, Harry, and tell her I am glad she has consented to make you happy. Tell her I am more than glad, Harry. Say that I most heartily thank her. Yes, thank her. Tell her that. Say that I thank her from my heart."
As the day drew near the girls became possessed of a great fear. It seemed to all as if things were going to undergo some great and sudden change. They knew that the house was secured to them free of rent; but they were going to lose their queen, that presiding spirit who not only kept them together, but also kept them happy. In her presence there were no little tempers, and jealousies were forgotten. When she was with them they were all on their best behavior. Now it is an odd thing in girls, and I really think myself privileged, considering my own very small experience of the sex, in being the first to have discovered this important truth—that, whereas to boys good behavior is too often a gêne and a bore, girls prefer behaving well. They are happiest when they are good, nicely dressed, and sitting all in a row with company manners. But who, when Miss Kennedy went away, would lead them in the drawing-room? The change, however, was going to be greater than they knew or guessed; the drawing-room itself would become before many days a thing of the past, but the Palace would take its place.
They all brought gifts; they were simple things, but they were offered with willing and grateful hearts. Rebekah brought the one volume of her father's library which was well bound. It was a work written in imitation of Hervey's "Meditations," and dwelt principally with tombs, and was therefore peculiarly appropriate as a wedding present. Nelly brought a ring which had been her mother's, and was so sacred to her that she felt it must be given to Miss Kennedy; the other girls gave worked handkerchiefs, and collars, and such little things.
Angela looked at the table on which she had spread all her wedding presents: the plated teapot from Mrs. Bormalack; the girls' work; Nelly's ring; Rebekah's book; Lord Jocelyn's bracelet. She was happier with these trifles than if she had received in Portman Square the hundreds of gifts and jewelled things which would have poured in for the young heiress.
And in the short fortnight she thought for everybody. Josephus received a message that he might immediately retire on the pension which he would have received had he been fortunate in promotion, and been compelled to go by ill-health: in other words, he was set free with three hundred pounds a year for life. He may now be seen any day in the Mile End Road or on Stepney Green, dressed in the fashion of a young man of twenty-one or so, walking with elastic step, because he is so young, yet manifesting a certain gravity, as becomes one who attends the evening lectures of the Beaumont Institute in French and arithmetic, and takes a class on the Sabbath in connection with the Wesleyan body. After all, a man is only as old as he feels; and why should not Josephus, whose youth was cruelly destroyed, feel young again, now that his honor has been restored to him?
On the morning before the wedding, Angela paid two visits of considerable importance.
The first was to Daniel Fagg, to whom she carried a small parcel. "My friend," she said, "I have observed your impatience about your book. Your publisher thought that, as you are inexperienced in correcting proofs, it would be best to have the work done for you. And here, I am truly happy to say, is the book itself."
He tore the covering from the book, and seized it as a mother would seize her child.
"My book!" he gasped, "my book!"
Yes, his book; bound in sober cloth, with an equilateral triangle on the cover for simple ornament. "The Primitive Alphabet, by Daniel Fagg!" "My book!"
Angela explained to him that his passage to Melbourne was taken, and that he would sail in a week; and that a small sum of money would be put into his hands on landing: and that a hundred copies of the book would be sent to Australia for him, with more if he wanted them. But she talked to idle ears, for Daniel was turning over the leaves and devouring the contents of his book.
"At all events," said Angela, "I have made one man happy."
Then she walked to the Trinity Almshouse, and sought her old friend, Captain Sorensen.
To him she told her whole story from the very beginning, begging only that he would keep her secret till the next evening.
"But, of course," said the sailor, "I knew, all along, that you were a lady born and bred. You might deceive the folk here, who've no chance, poor things, of knowing a lady when they see one—how should they? But you could not deceive a man who's had his quarter-deck full of ladies. The only question in my mind was, why you did it."
"You did not think that what Bunker said was true—did you, Captain Sorensen?"
"Nay," he replied. "Bunker never liked you; and how I am to thank you enough for all you've done for my poor girl——"
"Thank me by continuing to be my dear friend and adviser," said Angela. "If I thought it would pleasure you to live out of this place——"
"No, no," said the captain, "I could not take your money; any one may accept the provision of the asylum and be grateful."
"I knew you would say so. Stay on, then, Captain Sorensen. And as regards Nelly, my dear and fond Nelly——"
It needs not to tell what she said and promised on behalf of Nelly.
And at the house the girls were trying on the new white frocks and white bonnets in which they were to go to the wedding. They were all bridemaids, but Nelly had the post of honor.
At nine in the morning Harry presented himself at the house, no longer his own, for the signing of certain papers. The place was closed for a holiday, but the girls were already assembling in the show-room, getting their dresses laid out, trying on their gloves, and chattering like birds up in the branches on a fine, spring morning. He found Angela sitting with an elderly gentleman—none other than the senior partner of the firm of her solicitors. He had a quantity of documents on the table before him, and as Harry opened the door he heard these remarkable words:
"So the young man does not know—even at the eleventh hour?"
What it was he would learn, Harry cared not to inquire. He had been told that there was a secret of some sort which he would learn in the course of the day.
"These papers, Harry," said his bride, "are certain documents which you have to sign, connected with that little fortune of which I told you."
"I hope," said Harry, "that the fortune, whatever it is, has all been settled upon yourself absolutely."
"You will find, young gentleman," said the solicitor, gravely, "that ample justice—generous justice—has been done you. Very well, I will say no more."
"Do you want me to sign without reading, Angela?"
"If you will so far trust me."
He took the pen and signed where he was told to sign, without reading one word. If he had been ordered to sign away his life and liberty, he would have done so blindly and cheerfully at Angela's bidding. The deed was signed, and the act of signature was witnessed.
So that was done. There now remained only the ceremony. While the solicitor, who evidently disliked the whole proceeding, as irregular and dangerous, was putting up the papers, Angela took her lover's hands in hers, and looked into his face with her frank and searching look.
"You do not repent, my poor Harry?"
"Repent?"
"You might have done so much better: you might have married a lady——"
The solicitor, overhearing these words, sat down and rubbed his nose with an unprofessional smile.
"Shall I not marry a lady?"
"You might have found a rich bride: you might have led a lazy life, with nothing to do, instead of which—O Harry, there is still time! We are not due at the church for half an hour yet. Think. Do you deliberately choose a life of work and ambition—with—perhaps—poverty?"
At this point the solicitor rose from his chair and walked softly to the window, where he remained for five minutes looking out upon Stepney Green with his back to the lovers. If Harry had been watching him, he would have remarked a curious tremulous movement of the shoulders.
"There is one thing more, Harry, that I have to ask you."
"Of course, you have only to ask me, whatever it is. Could I refuse you anything, who will give me so much?"
Their fingers were interlaced, their eyes were looking into each other. No; he could refuse her nothing.
"I give you much? O Harry! what is a woman's gift of herself?"
Harry restrained himself. The solicitor might be sympathetic; but, on the whole, it was best to act as if he were not. Law has little to do with love; Cupid has never yet been represented with the long gown.
"It is a strange request, Harry. It is connected with my—my little foolish secret. You will let me go away directly the service is over, and you will consent not to see me again until the evening, when I shall return. You, with all the girls, will meet me in the porch of the Palace at seven o'clock exactly. And, as Miss Messenger will come too, you will make your—perhaps your last appearance—my poor boy—in the character of a modern English gentleman in evening-dress. Tell your best man that he is to give his arm to Nelly; the other girls will follow two and two. Oh, Harry, the first sound of the organ in your Palace will be your own wedding march: the first festival in your Palace will be in your own honor. Is not that what it should be?"
"In your honor, dear, not mine. And Miss Messenger? Are we to give no honor to her who built the Palace?"
"Oh, yes—yes—yes!" She put the question by with a careless gesture. "But any one who happened to have the money could do such a simple thing. The honor is yours because you invented it."
"From your hands, Angela, I will take all the honor that you please to give. So am I doubly honored."
There were no wedding bells at all: the organ was mute; the parish church of Stepney was empty; the spectators of the marriage were Mrs. Bormalack and Captain Sorensen, besides the girls and the bridegroom, and Dick, his best man. The captain in the Salvation Army might have been present as well; he had been asked, but he was lying on the sick-bed from which he was never to rise again. Lord and Lady Davenant were there: the former sleek, well contented, well dressed in broadcloth of the best; the latter agitated, restless, humiliated, because she had lost the thing she came across the Atlantic to claim, and was going home, after the splendor of the last three months, to the monotonous level of Canaan City. Who could love Canaan City after the West End of London! What woman would look forward with pleasure to the dull and uneventful days, the local politics, the chapel squabbles, the little gatherings for tea and supper, after the enjoyment of a carriage and pair and unlimited theatres, operas, and concerts, and footmen, and such dinners as the average American, or the average Englishman either, seldom arrives at seeing, even in visions? Sweet content was gone; and though Angela meant well, and it was kind of her to afford the ambitious lady a glimpse of that great world into which she desired to enter, the sight—even this Pisgah glimpse—of a social paradise to which she could never belong destroyed her peace of mind, and she will for the rest of her life lie on a rock deploring. Not so her husband: his future is assured; he can eat and drink plentifully; he can sleep all the morning undisturbed; he is relieved of the anxieties connected with his Case; and, though the respect due to rank is not recognized in the States, he has to bear none of its responsibilities, and has altogether abandoned the grand manner. At the same time, as one who very nearly became a British peer, his position in Canaan City is enormously raised.
They, then, were in the church. They drove thither, not in Miss Messenger's carriage, but with Lord Jocelyn.
They arrived a quarter of an hour before the ceremony. When the curate who was to perform the ceremony arrived, Lord Jocelyn sought him in the vestry and showed him a special license by which it was pronounced lawful, and even laudable, for Harry Goslett, bachelor, to take unto wife Angela Marsden Messenger, spinster.
And at sight of that name did the curate's knees begin to tremble, and his hands to shake.
"Angela Marsden Messenger? is it then," he asked, "the great heiress?"
"It is none other," said Lord Jocelyn. "And she marries my ward—here is my card—by special license."
"But—but—is it a clandestine marriage?"
"Not at all. There are reasons why Miss Messenger desires to be married in Stepney. With them we have nothing to do. She has, of late, associated herself with many works of benevolence, but anonymously. In fact, my dear sir"—here Lord Jocelyn looked profoundly knowing—"my ward, the bridegroom, has always known her under another name, and even now does not know whom he is marrying. When we sign the books we must, just to keep the secret a little longer, manage that he shall write his own name without seeing the names of the bride."
This seemed very irregular in the eyes of the curate, and at first he was for referring the matter to the rector, but finally gave in, on the understanding that he was to be no party to any concealment.
And presently the wedding party walked slowly up the aisle, and Harry, to his great astonishment, saw his bride on Lord Jocelyn's arm. There were cousins of the Messengers in plenty who should have done this duty, but Angela would invite none of them. She came alone to Stepney; she lived and worked in the place alone; she wanted no consultation or discussion with the cousins; she would tell them when all was done; and she knew very well that so great an heiress as herself could do nothing but what is right, when one has time to recover from the shock, and to settle down and think things over.
No doubt, though we have nothing to do with the outside world in this story, there was a tremendous rustling of skirts, shaking of heads, tossing of curls, wagging of tongues, and uplifting of hands, the next morning when Angela's cards were received, and the news was in all the papers. And there was such a run upon interjections that the vocabulary broke down, and people were fain to cry to one another in foreign tongues.
For thus the announcement ran:
"On Thursday, March 20, at the parish church, Stepney, Harry, son of the late Samuel Goslett, Sergeant in the 120th Regiment of the Line, to Angela Marsden, daughter of the late John Marsden Messenger, and granddaughter of the late John Messenger, of Portman Square and Whitechapel."
This was a pretty blow among the cousins. The greatest heiress in England, who they had hoped would marry a duke, or a marquis, or an earl at least, had positively and actually married the son of a common soldier—well, a non-commissioned officer—the same thing. What did it mean? What could it mean?
Others, who knew Harry and his story, who had sympathy with him on account of his many qualities—who owned that the obscurity of his birth was but an accident, shared with him by many of the most worthy, excellent, brilliant, useful, well-bred, delightful men of the world—rejoiced over the strange irony of fate which had first lifted this soldier's son out of the gutter, and then, with apparent malignity, dropped him back again, only, however, to raise him once more far higher than before. For, indeed, the young man was now rich—with his vats and his mashtubs, his millions of casks, his Old and his Mild and his Bitter, and his Family at nine shillings the nine-gallon cask, and his accumulated millions, "beyond the potential dream of avarice." If he chooses to live more than half his time in Whitechapel, that is no concern of anybody's; and if his wife chooses to hold a sort of court at the abandoned East, to surround herself with people unheard of in society, not to say out of it, why should she not? Any of the royal princes might have done the same thing if they had chosen and had been well-advised. Further, if, between them, Angela and her husband have established a superior Aquarium, a glorified Crystal Palace, in which all the shows are open, all the performers are drilled and trained amateurs, and all the work actually is done for nothing; in which the management is by the people themselves, who will have no interference from priest or parson, rector or curate, philanthropist or agitator; and no patronage from societies, well-intentioned young ladies, meddling benevolent persons and officious promoters, starters, and shovers-along, with half an eye fixed on heaven and the remaining eye and a half on their own advancement—if, in fact, they choose to do these things, why not? It is an excellent way of spending their time, and a change from the monotony of society.
Again, it is said that Harry, now Harry Messenger by the provision of old John Messenger's will, is the President, or the Chairman, or the Honorary Secretary—in fact, the spring and stay and prop of a new and most formidable Union or Association, which threatens, unless it be nipped in the bud, very considerable things of the greatest importance to the country. It is, in fact, a League of Working-men for the promotion and advancement of their own interests. Its prospectus sets forth that, having looked in vain among the candidates for the House of Commons for any representative who had been in the past, or was likely to be in the future, of the slightest use to them in the House; having found that neither Conservatives, nor Liberals, nor Radicals have ever been, or are ever likely to be, prepared with any real measure which should in the least concern themselves and their own wants; and fully recognizing the fact that in the debates of the House the interests of labor and the duties of Government toward the laboring classes are never recognized or understood—the working-men of the country hereby form themselves into a General League or Union, which shall have no other object whatever than the study of their own rights and interests. The question of wages will be left to the different unions, except in such cases where there is no union, or where the men are inarticulate (as in the leading case, now some ten years old, of the gas-stokers) through ignorance and drink. And the immediate questions before the union will be, first, the dwelling-houses of the working-men, which are to be made clean, safe, and healthy; next, their food and drink, which are to be unadulterated, pure, and genuine, and are to pass through no more hands than is necessary, and to be distributed at the actual cost price without the intervention of small shops; next, instruction, for which purpose the working-men will elect their own school boards, and burn all the foolish reading-books at present in use, and abolish spelling as a part of education, and teach the things necessary for all trades; next, clothing, which will be made for them by their own men working for themselves, without troubling the employers of labor at all; next, a newspaper of their own, which will refuse any place to political agitators, leaders, partisans, and professional talkers, and be devoted to the questions which really concern working-men, and especially the question of how best to employ the power which is in their hands, and report continually what is doing, what must be done, and how it must be done. And lastly, emigration, so that in every family it shall be considered necessary for some to go, and the whole country shall be mapped out into districts, and only a certain number be allowed to remain.
Now, the world being so small as it is, and Englishmen and Scotchmen being so masterful that they must needs go straight to the front and stay there, it cannot but happen that the world will presently—that is, in two generations, or three at the most—be overrun with the good old English blood: whereupon till the round earth gets too small, which will not happen for another ten thousand years or so, there will be the purest, most delightful, and most heavenly Millennium. Rich people may come into it if they please, but they will not be wanted: in fact, rich people will die out, and it will soon come to be considered an unhappy thing, as it undoubtedly is, to be born rich.
—"Whose daughters ye are," concluded the curate, closing his book, "as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."
He led the way into the vestry, where the book lay open, and sitting at the table he made the proper entries.
Then Harry took his place and signed. Now, behold! as he took the pen in his hand, Lord Jocelyn artfully held blotting-paper in readiness, and in such a manner as to hide the name of the bride; then Angela signed; then the witnesses, Lord Jocelyn and Captain Sorensen. And then there were shaking of hands and kissing. And before they came away the curate ventured timidly to whisper congratulations and that he had no idea of the honor. And then Angela stopped him, and bade him to her wedding-feast that evening at the new Palace of Delight.
Then Lord Jocelyn distributed largess, the largest kind of largess, among the people of the church.
But it surely was the strangest of weddings. For when they reached the church door the bride and bridegroom kissed each other, and then he placed her in the carriage, in which the Davenants and Lord Jocelyn also seated themselves, and so they drove off.
"We shall see her again to-night," said Harry. "Come, Dick, we have got a long day to got through—seven hours. Let us go for a walk. I can't sit down; I can't rest; I can't do anything. Let us go for a walk and wrangle."
They left the girls and strode away, and did not return until it was past six o'clock, and already growing dark.
The girls, in dreadful lowness of spirits, and feeling as flat as so many pancakes, returned to their house and sat down with their hands in their laps, to do nothing for seven hours. Did one ever hear that the maidens at a marriage—do the customs of any country present an example of such a thing—returned to the bride's house without either bride or bridegroom? Did one ever hear of a marriage where the groom left the bride at the church door, and went away for a six hours' walk?
As for Captain Sorensen, he went to the Palace and pottered about, getting snubbed by the persons in authority. There was still much to be done before the evening, but there was time: all would be done. Presently he went away; but he, too, was restless and agitated; he could not rest at home; the possession of the secret, the thought of his daughter's future, the strange and unlooked-for happiness that had come to him in his old age—these things agitated him; nor could even his fiddle bring him any consolation; and the peacefulness of the Almshouse, which generally soothed him, this day irritated him. Therefore he wandered about, and presently appeared at the House, were he took dinner with the girls, and they talked about what would happen.
The first thing that happened was the arrival of a cart—a spring-cart—with the name of a Regent Street firm upon it. The men took out a great quantity of parcels and brought them into the show-room. All the girls ran down to see what it meant, because on so great a day everything, said Nelly, must mean something.
"Name of Hermitage?" asked the man. "This is for you, miss. Name of Sorensen? This is for you." And so on, a parcel for every one of the girls.
Then he went away, and they all looked at each other.
"Hadn't you better," asked Captain Sorensen, "open the parcels, girls?"
They opened them.
"Oh—h!"
Behold! for every girl such a present as none of them had ever imagined! The masculine pen cannot describe the sweet things which they found there; not silks and satins, but pretty things; with boots, because dressmakers are apt to be shabby in the matter of boots; and with handkerchiefs and pretty scarfs and gloves and serviceable things of all sorts.
More than this: there was a separate parcel tied up in white paper for every girl, and on it, in pencil, "For the wedding supper at the Palace of Delight." And in it gauze, or lace, for bridemaid's head-dress, and white kid gloves, and a necklace with a locket, and inside the locket a portrait of Miss Kennedy, and outside her Christian name, Angela. Also, for each girl a little note, "For ——, with Miss Messenger's love;" but for Nelly, whose parcel was like Benjamin's mess, the note was, "For Nelly, with Miss Messenger's kindest love."
"That," said Rebekah, but without jealousy, "is because you were Miss Kennedy's favorite. Well! Miss Messenger must be fond of her, and no wonder!"
"No wonder at all," said Captain Sorensen.
And nobody guessed. Nobody had the least suspicion.
While they were all admiring and wondering, Mrs. Bormalack ran over breathless.
"My dears!" she cried, "look what's come!"
Nothing less than a beautiful black silk dress.
"Now go away, Captain Sorensen," she said; "you men are only hindering. And we've got to try on things. Oh, good gracious! To think that Miss Messenger would remember me, of all people in the world! To be sure, Mr. Bormalack was one of her collectors, and she may have heard about me——"
"No," said Rebekah, "it is through Miss Kennedy; no one has been forgotten who knew her."
At seven o'clock that evening the great hall of the Palace was pretty well filled with guests. Some of them, armed with white wands, acted as stewards, and it was understood that on the arrival of Miss Messenger a lane was to be formed, and the procession to the dais at the end of the hall was to pass through that lane.
Outside, in the vestibule, stood the wedding-party, waiting: the bridegroom, with his best man, and the bridemaids in their white dresses, flowing gauze and necklaces, and gloves, and flowers—a very sweet and beautiful bevy of girls; Harry for the last time in his life, he thought with a sigh, in evening-dress. Within the hall there were strange rumors flying about. It was said that Miss Messenger herself had been married that morning, and that the procession would be for her wedding; but others knew better: it was Miss Kennedy's wedding; she had married Harry Goslett, the man they called Gentleman Jack; and Miss Kennedy, everybody knew, was patronized by Miss Messenger.
At ten minutes past seven, two carriages drew up. From the first of these descended Harry's bride, led by Lord Jocelyn; and from the second the Davenants.
Yes, Harry's bride. But whereas in the morning she had been dressed in a plain white frock and white bonnet like her bridemaids—she was now arrayed in white satin, mystic, wonderful, with white veil and white flowers, and round her white throat a necklace of sparkling diamonds, and diamonds in her hair.
Harry stepped forward with beating heart.
"Take her, boy," said Lord Jocelyn, proudly. "But you have married—not Miss Kennedy at all—but Angela Messenger."
Harry took his bride's hand in a kind of stupor. What did Lord Jocelyn mean?
"Forgive me, Harry," she said, "say you forgive me."
Then he raised her veil and kissed her forehead before them all. But he could not speak, because all in a moment the sense of what this would mean poured upon his brain in a great wave, and he would fain have been alone.
It was Miss Kennedy, indeed, but glorified into a great lady; oh!—oh—Miss Messenger!
The girls, frightened, were shrinking together; even Rebekah was afraid at the great and mighty name of Messenger.
Angela went among them, and kissed them all with words of encouragement. "Can you not love me, Nelly," she said, "as well when I am rich as when I was poor?"
Then the chief officers of the brewery advanced, offering congratulations in timid accents, because they knew now that Miss Kennedy, the dressmaker, of whom such hard things had been sometimes said in their own presence and by their own wives, was no other than the sole partner in the brewery, and that her husband had worked among them for a daily wage. What did these things mean? They made respectable men afraid. One person there was, however, who at sight of Miss Messenger, for whom he was waiting with anxious heart, having a great desire to present his own case of unrewarded zeal, turned pale, and broke through the crowd with violence and fled. It was Uncle Bunker.
And then the stewards appeared at the open doors, and the procession was formed.
First the stewards themselves—being all clerks of the brewery—walked proudly at the head, carrying their white wands like rifles. Next came Harry and the bride, at sight of whom the guests shouted and roared; next came Dick Coppin with Nelly, and Lord Jocelyn with Rebekah, and the chief brewer with Lady Davenant, of course in her black velvet and war-paint, and Lord Davenant with Mrs. Bormalack, and the chief accountant with another bridesmaid, and Captain Sorensen with another, and then the rest.