第335章

It now only remains for me to gather together a few loose strings, and tie them together in a knot, so that my work may not become untwisted.

Early in July, Henry Grantly and Grace Crawley were married in the parish church of Plumstead--a great impropriety, as to which neither Archdeacon Grantly nor Mr Crawley could be got to assent for a long time, but which was at last carried, not simply by a union of Mrs Grantly and Mrs Crawley, nor even by the assistance of Mrs Arabin, but by the strong intervention of Lady Lufton herself. 'Of course Miss Crawley ought to be married from St Ewold's vicarage; but when the furniture has only been half got in, how is it possible?' When Lady Lufton thus spoke, the archdeacon gave way, and Mr Crawley hadn't a leg to stand on. Henry Grantly had not an opinion on the matter. He told his father that he expected that they would marry him among them, and that that had been enough for him. As for Grace, nobody even thought of asking her; and I doubt whether she would have heard anything about the contest, had not some tidings of it reached her from her lover. Married they were at Plumstead--and the breakfast was given with all that luxuriance of plenty which was so dear to the archdeacon's mind. Mr Crawley was the officiating priest. With his hands dropping before him, folded humbly, he told the archdeacon--when that Plumstead question had been finally settled in opposition to his wishes--that he would fain himself perform the ceremony by which his dearest daughter would be bound to her marriage duties. 'And who else should?' said the archdeacon. Mr Crawley muttered that he had not known how far his reverend brother might have been willing to waive his rights. But the archdeacon, who was in high good-humour--having just bestowed a little pony carriage on his new daughter-in-law--only laughed at him; and, if the rumour which was handed about the families be true, the archdeacon, before the interview was over, had poked Mr Crawley in the ribs. Mr Crawley married them; but the archdeacon assisted--and the dean gave the bride away. The Rev Charles Grantly was there also; and as there was, as a matter of course, a cloud of curates floating in the distance, Henry Grantly was perhaps to be excused for declaring to his wife, when the pair had escaped, that surely no couple had ever been so tightly buckled since marriage had first become a Church ceremony.

Soon after that, Mr and Mrs Crawley became quiet at St Ewold's, and, as I think, contented. Her happiness began very quickly. Though she had been greatly broken by her troubles, the first sight she had of her husband in his new long frock-coat went far to restore her, and while he was declaring himself to be a cock so daubed with mud as to be incapable of crowing, she was congratulating herself on seeing her husband once more clothed as became his position. And they were lucky, too, as regarded the squire's house; for Mr Thorne was old, and quiet, and old-fashioned; and Miss Thorne was older, and though she was not exactly quiet, she was very old-fashioned indeed. So that there grew to be a pleasant friendship between Miss Thorne and Mrs Crawley.

Johnny Eames, when last I heard of him, was still a bachelor, and, as Ithink, likely to remain so. At last he had utterly thrown over Sir Raffle Buffle, declaring to his friends that the special duties of private secretaryship were not exactly to his taste. 'You get so sick at the thirteenth private note,' he said, 'that you find yourself unable to carry on the humbug any farther.' But he did not leave his office. 'I'm the head of a room, you know,' he told Lady Julia De Guest; 'and there's nothing to trouble me--and a fellow, you know, ought to have something to do.' Lady Julia told him, with a great deal of energy, that she would never forgive him if he gave up his office. After that eventful night when he escaped ignominiously from the house of Lady Demolines under the protection of the policeman's lantern, he did hear more than once from Porchester Terrace, and from allies employed by the enemy who was there resident. 'My cousin the serjeant' proved to be a myth. Johnny found out all about that Serjeant Runter, who was distantly connected, indeed, with the late husband of Lady Demolines, but had always persistently declined to have any intercourse whatever with her ladyship. For the serjeant was a rising man, and Lady Demolines was not exactly progressing in the world. Johnny heard nothing from the serjeant; but from Madalina he got letter after letter. In the first she asked him not to think too much of the little joke that had occurred. In her second, she described the vehemence of her love. In her third the bitterness of her wrath. Her fourth simply invited him to come and dine in Porchester Terrace. Her fifth was the outpouring of injured innocence. And then came letters from an attorney. Johnny answered not a word to any of them, and gradually the letters were discontinued. Within six months of the receipt of the last, he was delighted by reading among the marriages in the newspapers, a notice that Peter Bangles, Esq;, of the firm Burton and Bangles, wine merchants, of Hook Court, had been united to Madalina, daughter of the late Sir Confucius Demolines, at the church of Peter the Martyr. 'Most appropriate,' said Johnny, as he read the notice to Conway Dalrymple, who was then back from his wedding tour; 'for most assuredly there will now be another Peter the Martyr.'

'I'm not so sure of that,' said Conway, who had heard something of Mr Peter Bangles. 'There are men who have strong wills of their own and strong hands of their own.'

'Poor Madalina!' said Johnny. 'If he does beat her, I hope he will do it tenderly. It may be that a little of it will suit her fevered temperament.'