Chapter XV

This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
Ran on the greensward; nothing she does or seems,
But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.
SHAKSPEARE.

The best maker of all marriages
Combine your hearts in one, your states in one!

“Come, lassie,” said Farmer Darnell as he entered, and found her still in tears. “Come, that’ll be only a sunsh_oi_ny shower I guess, without which they say our hopes never ripen; but your’s are all fit for harvesting; so, cheer up, cheer up, my darling child.”

“Oh! father, it’s more than a passing sorrow parting with one’s earliest friend. I am not ungrateful for the great bounties shown me; and to think that the noblest, the handsomest, the best of men, should have condescended like to seek me, when I’m sure there’s not a high-born lady amongst whom he’s lived, but must have been only too happy if he’d have turned his eyes on any one of them! Yet, I’ve just seen, perhaps, the last of George. I shall soon also be separated from you; and what I lose seems all as strange to me as what I gain. I see the sudden end of every feeling and thought of which I cannot recollect the beginning. I would, I feel, at the same time willingly die in grateful adoration of him who is only much too great and good for me; but it comes in some sort to this, for so completely new an existence has something in it of the character of death.”

“Nay, my bonny bairn,” said her father; “take it not in _sick_e a fasheous style. It comes sair to me ’tis true, to part wi’ that has been my sole fireside comfort since it first s_u_pped pap--since it first climbed upon my knee, by thrusting its little fingers into t’ button-holes. But for thee, my child, you’ve only gettin now a station you were always fitter to hold than to boide wi’ the loike o’ us. I can’t quite make it clear why it should be so; it were the same wi’ Alice afore you. You and she are quite another guess sort o’ class from your mither and me. It’s agin all the rules of breeding stock that so it should be; but so it is, and that’s a’ that I know.”

“But, my dear father, my heart tells me of no such distinction; and won’t let me think of parting from you without such a pang here, as teaches me that ’tis to you I truly belong.”

“As to parting, and all that, my dear child, it’s not a church-yard separation to which we’re bound to resign ourselves. But it’s along wi’ Alice I’ve been settling that I should make but a rummish concern of it in t’ great world. And it’s not any pride, or any thing of that kind, of my Lord’s that would come atwixt us. No, nothing has been kinder like than your Lord has been. And he’s just been talking it ’ower out there, and how he would never wish you to forget the best of fathers. That’s what he called me. And when I thought of you, and heard him say so, if he’d made me a lord like himself, I could not have been prouder than of that title. And he added that he’d make it his care a year should never pass without your coming somehow or other to see us; and that showed his consideration like. But, lord, when I thought it was a question of once a year or so, wi’ a _somehow or other_ tacked to it, I could not but feel like an auld hen that reared a ducklin, and saw the great waters afore her, into which she mun never follow her. And here I stand cackling like just such another auld fool, instead of being thankful for all favours, as I should be. And after all, when I make myself out a hen, it’s your mother’s part I’m taking of. And she do cackle sometimes, sure enough.”

“As you mention my mother, I must say, my dear father, that I hope you and aunt Alice won’t have me married, as I heard you settling, without her being brought over. For though I cannot say that in all respects it is quite as much pain to be separated from her as from you, my own kindest father; yet, if it is a brilliant, it is a strange, and to all concerned, a somewhat perilous career on which I am about to enter; and what safeguard so good at such a moment as to have asked and deserved a mother’s blessing.”

“Why that’s a’ true enough, and pretty and like yourself to think so; but it were to spare a power o’ fash she’d mak, that we settled it t’other way. That is, it were your aunt, she promised me it should be all her doing. For it were not like I should take it on myself, and to gang back there all alone afterwards. But here’s sister, talk it over wi’ she.”

But when Alice found her niece make such a point of her mother’s presence, she did not think herself justified in adhering to her first arrangement; she therefore proposed that her brother should write to her, and should offer to go as far as Mayton, to meet her; but this part he seemed to have particular reasons of his own for disliking.

“What! meet she at Mayton? that wouldn’t be altogether quite suitable. Stop at Queen’s Head! Bide at the widow’s till she came there to find me out! No, sister, I don’t see why I should gi’ up my share of the last days o’ my darling child, along o’ she. There are coaches fra’ Mayton here, let her take one o’ they.”

As this suggestion seemed reasonable enough, it was not opposed; and as Castleton, however much he might deprecate Mrs. Darnell’s presence, could not but honour Lucy’s scruples, he made no objection, only hoping still that she might not come; which wish seemed more likely to be gratified from the somewhat obscure nature of Farmer Darnell’s communication, which ran thus:

“Respected Wife,

“This comes first to let you know George is gitten well shot
of his bad job, and now he’s gone to better himself; next to
require your presence at this presint, as soon as evrey bit
quait convenient. I’ve considered you’d loike to see t’ gude
looks has comed to Lucy, sine we comed here; she’s now the
most beautiful prospect ony one ever seed; and she’s quoite
fit to be married ony day, she thinks, if you’d only come. I
can’t enter into ony more particular observations by reason
of the post knowing it, only this; you’ll find curb bridle
for t’ poney on a broken peg behind door in t’ cowshed; put
him on a crupper, for there’s a tail about his tumbling down
wi’ Joe Ostler on Langden bank. But you’ll plaise to call to
mind purticklar that t’ Angel is the house at Mayton, from
which stage coach starts.

“Your fond sarvant and humble husband to command,
RICHARD DARNELL.”

As Richard Darnell, in writing this letter, had his own misgivings that some of the words might not be spelt exactly right, he thought it best no one but himself should see it, and therefore put it himself into the post without showing it to any one, only letting them know that he had written a letter, which he felt sure would bring the good woman. But as soon as she could be expected, instead came the following answer:

“RICHARD DARNELL,

“You must be clean demented to send me such a daft epistle. If
the name had never been on t’ bottom, I should have guessed it
could but have been your’n; for it’s just of a piece wi’ all
the rest. As for George being cleared of this sad affair, it’s
right to be thankfull for any sinner that’s spared. But where,
pray, is he gone? To better himself, you say! If he’s really
minded in penitence to better himself, and I’m sure there’s
need on’t, only let me take him in hand, there’s no need of
his going vagabonding again for that. As for what you say
about Lucy, I knew how it would be, you’d be sure to spoil
her. I’m not going to tramp after her, to see her good looks,
as you call it. If she can’t come to me, let her gang her ain
gait, and not expect her elders to fash themselves about the
like of she. I don’t make out what you mean by her having
getting good looks: if it’s only her foolish prettiness you
commend, as I suppose by your saying she’s the most beautiful
prospect ever seen, I’d have you to recollect, that when you
were i’ that city afore, you thought some one else the most
beautiful prospect you ever seed. Though I’m thankful I never
set my head o’ such vanities. But it’s like you, a _cretur_
made up of hand and mouth, ever whilst you live to think all’s
best that’s by you. I’ll be bound the truest thing that’s in
your letter is, that the silly chit thinks herself fit to be
married. If so, let her be so without me. I thought not long
ago she’d been ready to demean herself by throwing herself at
the head of Painter Churchill. If so, as I said afore, it’s
all her ain affair.

“This from your loving wife,
“MARGARET DARNELL.

“Postscript. It was so like you to put best bridle on broken
peg in t’ cowshed. But it’s just of a piece wi’ all the rest.”

When Farmer Darnell had spelt through this somewhat lengthy, though unsatisfactory reply, he saw that he had somehow made a mess of it, and he did not feel quite certain whether he had sufficiently explained his daughter’s marriage as a fact, not as a surmise. He took it, full of perplexity, to his sister, who not having seen her brother’s, to which this was an answer, never suspected that in point of fact it had never been clearly explained that it was to witness the great alliance of her daughter she was summoned; and as she knew enough of the unhappy and worrying temper of her sister-in-law, to think it possible from the first an ungracious answer might be returned, she therefore thought it best that her mother’s declining to come should be communicated to Lucy, omitting those details in her answer which might be hurtful to her feelings. And this plan suited the impatience of Castleton, and the inclinations of the farmer; and therefore it was settled that the wedding should be no longer postponed.

It was a gay-looking morning, in early spring, which shone auspiciously on the happy scene, when the select family circle, to whom alone the secret had been confided, sought the parish church of St. ----, in the city of ----, armed with the special licence, which in due form permitted the union of the Right Honourable Egbert Athelstan Somers Lord Castleton to Lucy Darnell.

Though no high-born kindred crowded round the altar, or lightly tripped, or swept in state up the empty aisles, which struck chill and damp upon the little party as they first quitted the light and buoyant atmosphere without; yet in the whole line of Lord Castleton’s ancestry, even including that progenitor who had won a stately dame, through whom, as his name denoted, was traced his descent to the heptarchy--never had any of his forefathers led to the altar a more lovely object, or one in outward appearance more distinguished and refined, than the lowly maid who now clung anxiously to him for support.

The wedding-robe which she wore had been chosen by him, and though simple was tasteful; and her aunt’s care had prevented any glaring defects in the mode of wearing it, which her unpractised ignorance might otherwise have betrayed; though her toilet was a task which the perfect proportion of her slight and elegant form rendered easy. The delicate and finely chiseled contour of her features, and the unstudied grace of her whole figure, even to the tapering fingers of the small hand, whose gentle pressure on Lord Castleton’s arm seemed to claim protection--all these marked her as fitted to adorn that exalted station to which she was then to be raised.

The quiet dignity of Alice Darnell’s whole deportment showed her a fitting chaperon on such an occasion for the future peeress. To be sure, the honest farmer, though dressed in his very best, did not seem quite of a piece with the other performers in the ceremony; but nobody could feel this more thoroughly than he did himself; and so unaffectedly, as to be compatible with great pride in his daughter, and no shame for himself; and therefore he kept in the back-ground, exulting yet retiring.

As Lucy knelt at the altar, unconsciously in an attitude which sculptors might have studied for the line of grace, Castleton fixed upon her an ardent gaze of unmeasured admiration, which, as the ceremony concluded, and they rose to depart, she repaid with the mild expression of intense devotion rather than of passion.

“God save your Ladyship!” cried Farmer Darnell, coming up and kissing her, trying to bury his feelings in a tone of banter, but in vain:--“God save you! Lady ----. Good b’ye, my own darling Lucy!” and he retired to gulp down his emotion. Her aunt also took leave of her here, to avoid the parting in the streets.

Castleton supported her trembling frame tenderly to the carriage; and, as soon as they had entered, pressed her to his heart, saying--“My own, own Lucy, now!” And as the carriage rattled rapidly through the narrow streets of the city, they were soon out of sight of the farmer and his sister, who had followed to the door of the church, to watch the departure of what they both loved best in the world.