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The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 3. My Honeymoon - Chapter 32 |
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_ THIRD PART. MY HONEYMOON THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER
We breakfasted in the new dining-room, which was now finished and being used for the first time. It was a gorgeous chamber beblazoned with large candelabra, huge mirrors, and pictures in gold frames--resembling the room it was intended to imitate, yet not resembling it, as a woman over-dressed resembles a well-dressed woman. My father sat at the head of his table with the Bishop, Lady Margaret and Aunt Bridget on his right, and myself, my husband, Betsy Beauty and Mr. Eastcliff on his left. The lawyers and the trustee were midway down, Father Dan with Nessy MacLeod was at the end, and a large company of our friends and neighbours, wearing highly-coloured flowers on their breasts and in their buttonholes, sat between. The meal was very long, and much of the food was very large--large fish, large roasts of venison, veal, beef and mutton, large puddings and large cheeses, all cut on the table and served by waiters from Blackwater. There were two long black lines of them--a waiter behind the chair of nearly every other guest. All through the breakfast the storm raged outside. More than once it drowned the voices of the people at the table, roaring like a wild beast in the great throat of the wide chimney, swirling about the lantern light, licking and lashing and leaping at the outsides of the walls like lofty waves breaking against a breakwater, and sending up a thunderous noise from the sea itself, where the big bell of St. Mary's Rock was still tolling like a knell. Somebody--it must have been Aunt Bridget again--said there had been nothing like it since the day of my birth, and it must be "fate." "Chut, woman!" said my father. "We're living in the twentieth century. Who's houlding with such ould wife's wonders now?" He was intensely excited, and, his excitement betrayed itself, as usual, in reversion to his native speech. Sometimes he surveyed in silence, with the old masterful lift of his eyebrows, his magnificent room and the great guests who were gathered within it; sometimes he whispered to the waiters to be smarter with the serving of the dishes; and sometimes he pitched his voice above the noises within and without and shouted, in country-fashion, to his friends at various points of the table to know how they were faring. "How are you doing, Mr. Curphy, sir?" "Doing well, sir. Are you doing well yourself, Mr. O'Neill, sir?" "Lord-a-massy yes, sir. I'm always doing well, sir." Never had anybody in Ellan seen so strange a mixture of grandeur and country style. My husband seemed to be divided between amused contempt for it, and a sense of being compromised by its pretence. More than once I saw him, with his monocle in his eye, look round at his friend Eastcliff, but he helped himself frequently from a large decanter of brandy and drank healths with everybody. There were the usual marriage pleasantries, facetious compliments and chaff, in which to my surprise (the solemnity of the service being still upon me) the Bishop permitted himself to join. I was now very nervous, and yet I kept up a forced gaiety, though my heart was cold and sick. I remember that I had a preternatural power of hearing at the same time nearly every conversation that was going on at the table, and that I joined in nearly all the laughter. At a more than usually loud burst of wind somebody said it would be a mercy if the storm did not lift the roof off. "Chut, man!" cried my father. "Solid oak and wrought iron here. None of your mouldy old monuments that have enough to do to keep their tiles on." "Then nobody," said my husband with a glance at his friend, "need be afraid of losing his head in your house, sir?" "Not if he's got one to come in with, sir." Betsy Beauty, sitting next to Mr. Eastcliff, was wondering if he would do us the honour to visit the island oftener now that his friend had married into it. "But, my dear Betsy," said my husband, "who would live in this God-forsaken place if he could help it?" "God-forsaken, is it?" said my father. "Maybe so, sir--but that's what the cuckoo said after he had eaten the eggs out of the thrush's nest and left a mess in it." Aunt Bridget was talking in doleful tones to Lady Margaret about my mother, saying she had promised her on her death-bed to take care of her child and had been as good as her word, always putting me before her own daughter, although her ladyship would admit that Betsy was a handsome girl, and, now that his lordship was married, there were few in the island that were fit for her. "Why no, Mrs. MacLeod," said my husband, after another significant glance at his friend, "I dare say you've not got many who can make enough to keep a carriage?" "Truth enough, sir," said my father. "We've got hundreds and tons that can make debts though." The breakfast came to an end at length, and almost before the last of the waiters had left the room my father rose to speak. "Friends all," he said, "the young married couple have to leave us for the afternoon steamer." "In this weather?" said somebody, pointing up to the lantern light through which the sky was now darkening. "Chut! A puff of wind and a slant of rain, as I've been saying to my gel here. But my son-in-law, Lord Raa," (loud cheers followed this description, with some laughter and much hammering on the table), "my son-in-law says he has to be in London to-morrow, and this morning my daughter has sworn obedience. . . . What's that, Monsignor? Not obedience exactly? Something like it then, so she's bound to go along with him. So fill up your glasses to the brim and drink to the bride and bridegroom." As soon as the noise made by the passing of decanters had died down my father spoke again. "This is the proudest day of my life. It's the day I've worked for and slaved for and saved for, and it's come to pass at last." There was another chorus of applause. "What's that you were saying in church, Mr. Curphy, sir? Time brings in its revenges? It does too. Look at me." My father put his thumbs in the arm-pits of his waistcoat. "You all know what I am, and where I come from." My husband put his monocle to his eye and looked up. "I come from a mud cabin on the Curragh, not a hundred miles from here. My father was kill . . . but never mind about that now. When he left us it was middling hard collar work, I can tell you--what with me working the bit of a croft and the mother weeding for some of you--some of your fathers I mane--ninepence a day dry days, and sixpence all weathers. When I was a lump of a lad I was sworn at in the high road by a gentleman driving in his grand carriage, and the mother was lashed by his . . . but never mind about that neither. I guess I've hustled round considerable since then, and this morning I've married my daughter into the first family in the island." There was another burst of cheering at this, but it was almost drowned by the loud rattling of the rain which was now falling on the lantern light. "Monsignor," cried my father, pitching his voice still higher, "what's that you were saying in Rome about the mills of God?" Fumbling his jewelled cross and smiling blandly the Bishop gave my father the familiar quotation. "Truth enough, too. The mills of God grind slowly but they're grinding exceeding small. Nineteen years ago I thought I was as sure of what I wanted as when I got out of bed this morning. If my gel here had been born a boy, my son would have sat where his lordship is now sitting. But all's well that ends well! If I haven't got a son I've got a son-in-law, and when I get a grandson he'll be the richest man that ever stepped into Castle Raa, and the uncrowned king of Ellan." At that there was a tempest of cheers, which, mingling with the clamour of the storm, made a deafening tumult. "They're saying a dale nowadays about fathers and children--daughters being separate beings, and all to that. But show me the daughter that could do better for herself than my gel's father has done for her. She has a big fortune, and her husband has a big name, and what more do they want in this world anyway?" "Nothing at all," came from various parts of the room. "Neighbours," said my father, looking round him with a satisfied smile, "I'm laying you dry as herrings in a hould, but before I call on you to drink this toast I'll ask the Bishop to spake to you. He's a grand man is the Bishop, and in fixing up this marriage I don't in the world know what I could have done without him." The Bishop, still fingering his jewelled cross and smiling, spoke in his usual suave voice. He firmly believed that the Church had that morning blessed a most propitious and happy union. Something might be said against mixed marriages, but under proper circumstances the Church had never forbidden them and his lordship (this with a deep bow to my husband) had behaved with great liberality of mind. As for what their genial and rugged host had said of certain foolish and dangerous notions about the relations of father and child, he was reminded that there were still more foolish and dangerous ones about the relations of husband and wife. From the earliest ages of the Church, however, those relations had been exactly defined. "Let wives be subject to their husbands," said the Epistle we had read this morning, and no less conclusive had been our closing prayer, asking that the wife keep true faith with her husband, being lovely in his eyes even as was Rachel, wise as was Rebecca, and dutiful as was Sara. "Beautiful!" whispered Aunt Bridget to Lady Margaret. "It's what I always was myself in the days of the dear Colonel." "And now," said the Bishop, "before you drink this toast and call upon the noble bridegroom to respond to it," (another deep bow to my husband), "I will ask for a few words from the two legal gentlemen who have carried out the admirably judicious financial arrangements without which this happy marriage would have been difficult if not impossible." Then my husband's lawyer, with a supercilious smile on his clean-shaven face, said it had been an honour to him to assist in preparing the way for the "uncrowned king of Ellan." ("It _has_, sir," cried my father in a loud voice which straightened the gentleman's face instantly); and finally Mr. Curphy, speaking through his long beard, congratulated my father and my husband equally on the marriage, and gave it as his opinion that there could be no better use for wealth than to come to the rescue of an historic family which had fallen on evil times and only required a little money to set it on its feet again. "The bride and bridegroom!" cried my father; and then everybody rose and there was much cheering, with cries of "His lordship," "His lordship." All through the speech-making my husband had rolled uneasily in his chair. He had also helped himself frequently from the decanter, so that when he got up to reply he was scarcely sober. In his drawling voice he thanked the Bishop, and said that having made up his mind to the marriage he had never dreamt of raising difficulties about religion. As to the modern notions about the relations of husband and wife, he did not think a girl brought up in a convent would give him much trouble on that subject. "Not likely," cried my father. "I'll clear her of that anyway." "So I thank you for myself and for my family," continued my husband, "and . . . Oh, yes, of course," (this to Lady Margaret). "I thank you for my wife also, and . . . and that's all." I felt sick and cold and ashamed. A rush of blood came under the skin of my face that must have made me red to the roots of my hair. In all this speaking about my marriage there had not been one word about myself--myself really, a living soul with all her future happiness at stake. I cannot say what vague impulse took possession of me, but I remember that when my husband sat down I made a forced laugh, though I knew well that I wanted to cry. In an agony of shame I was beginning to feel a wild desire to escape from the room and even from the house, that I might breathe in some of the free wind outside, when all at once I became aware that somebody else was speaking. It was Father Dan. He had risen unannounced from his seat at the end of the table. I saw his sack coat which was much worn at the seams; I saw his round face which was flushed; I heard the vibrating note in his soft Irish voice which told me he was deeply moved; and then I dropped my head, for I knew what was coming. _ |
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