5.

“TREDINNIS, February 21. 18—.”

“My Dear Taffy,—No, I am not offended in the least; but very glad. I do not think you are fitted for the priesthood; but my doubts have nothing to do with your doubts, which I don’t understand, though you tried to explain them so carefully. You will come through them, I expect. I don’t know that I have any reasons that could be put on paper: only, somehow, I cannot see you in a black coat and clerical hat.”

“You complain that I never write about George. You don’t deserve to hear, since you refuse to come to our wedding. But would you talk, if you happened to be in love? There, I have told you more than ever I told George, whose conceit has to be kept down. Let this console you.”

“Our new parson, when he comes, is to lodge down in Innis Village. Your mother—but no doubt she has told you—stays in the Parsonage while she pleases. She and your grandmother are both well. I see her every day: I have so much to learn, and she is so wise. Her beautiful eyes—but oh, Taffy, it must be terrible to be a widow! She smiles and is always cheerful; but the look in them! How can I describe it? When I find her alone with her lace-work, or sometimes (but it is not often) with her hands in her lap, she seems to come out of her silence with an effort, as others withdraw themselves from talk. I wonder if she does talk in those silences of hers. Another thing, it is only a few weeks now since she put on a widow’s cap, and yet I cannot remember her—can scarcely picture her—without it. I am sure that if I happened to call one day when she had laid it aside, I should begin to talk quite as if we were strangers.”

“Believe me, yours sincerely,”
“HONORIA.”

But the wedding, after all, did not take place until the beginning of October, a week before the close of the Long Vacation; and Taffy, after all, was present. The postponement had been enforced by many delays in building and furnishing the new wing at Carwithiel; for Sir Harry insisted that the young couple must live under one roof with him, and Honoria (as we know) hated the very stones of Tredinnis.

The Bishop came to spend a week in the neighbourhood; the first three days as Honoria’s guest. On the Saturday he consecrated the work of restoration in the church, and in the afternoon held a confirmation service. Taffy and Honoria knelt together to receive his blessing. It was the girl’s wish. The shadow of her responsibility to God and man lay heavy on her during the few months before her marriage: and Taffy, already weary and dispirited with his early doubtings, suffered her mood of exaltation to overcome him like a wave and sweep him back to rest for a while on the still waters of faith. Together they listened while the Bishop discoursed on the dead Vicar’s labours with fluency and feeling; with so much feeling, indeed, that Taffy could not help wondering why his father had been left to fight the battle alone.

On the Sunday and Monday two near parishes claimed the Bishop. On the Tuesday he sent his luggage over to Carwithiel, whither he was to follow after the wedding service, to spend a day or two with Sir Harry. It had been Honoria’s wish that George should choose Taffy for his best man; but George had already invited one of his sporting friends, a young Squire Philpotts from the eastern side of the Duchy; and as the date fell at the beginning of the hunting season, he insisted on a “pink” wedding. Honoria consulted the Bishop by letter. “Did he approve of a ‘pink’ wedding so soon after the bride’s confirmation?” The Bishop saw no harm in it.

So a “pink” wedding it was, and the scarlet coats made a lively patch of colour in the gray churchyard: but it gave Taffy a feeling that he was left out in the cold. He escorted his mother to the church, and left her for a few minutes in the Vicarage pew. The bridegroom and his friends were gathered in a showy cluster by the chancel step, but the bride had not arrived, and he stepped out to help in marshalling the crowd of miners and mine-girls, fishermen, and mothers with unruly children—a hundred or so in all, lining the path or straggling among the graves.

Close by the gate he came on a girl who stood alone.

“Hullo, Lizzie—you here?”

“Why not?” she asked, looking at him sullenly.

“Oh, no reason at all.”

“There might ha’ been a reason,” said she, speaking low and hurriedly. “You might ha’ saved me from this, Mr. Raymond; and her too; one time, you might.”

“Why, what on earth is the matter?” He looked up. The Tredinnis carriage and pair of grays came over the knoll at a smart trot, and drew up before the gate.

“Matter?” Lizzie echoed with a short laugh. “Oh, nuthin’. I’m goin’ to lay the curse on her, that’s all.”

“You shall not!” There was no time to lose.

Honoria’s trustee—the second cousin from London, a tall, clean-shaven man with a shiny bald head, and a shiny hat in his hand—had stepped out and was helping the bride to alight. What Lizzie meant Taffy could not tell; but there must be no scene. He caught her hand. “Mind—I say you shall not!” he whispered.

“Lemme go—you’re creamin’ my fingers.”

“Be quiet then.”

At that moment Honoria passed up the path. Her wedding gown almost brushed him as he stood wringing Lizzie’s hand. She did not appear to see him; but he saw her face beneath the bridal veil, and it was hard and white.

“The proud toad!” said Lizzie. “I’m no better’n dirt, I suppose, though from the start she wasn’ above robbin’ me. Aw, she’s sly ... Mr. Raymond, I’ll curse her as she comes out, see if I don’t!”

“And I swear you shall not,” said Taffy. The scent of Honoria’s orange-blossom seemed to cling about them as they stood.

Lizzie looked at him vindictively. “You wanted her yourself, I know. You weren’t good enough, neither. Let go my fingers!”

“Go home, now. See, the people have all gone in.”

“Go’st way in too, then, and leave me here to wait for her.”

Taffy shut his teeth, let go her hand, and taking her by the shoulders, swung her round face toward the gate.

“March!” he commanded, and she moved off whimpering. Once she looked back. “March!” he repeated, and followed her down the road as one follows and threatens a mutinous dog.

The scene by the church gate had puzzled Honoria, and in her first letter (written from Italy) she came straight to the point, as her custom was:

“I hope there is nothing between you and that girl who used to be at Joll’s. I say nothing about our hopes for you, but you have your own career to look to; and as I know you are too honourable to flatter an ignorant girl when you mean nothing, so I trust you are too wise to be caught by a foolish fancy. Forgive a staid matron (of one week’s standing) for writing so plainly, but what I saw made me uneasy—without cause, no doubt. Your future, remember, is not yours only. And now I shall trust you, and never come back to this subject.”

“We are like children abroad, George’s French is wonderful, but not so wonderful as his Italian. When he goes to take a ticket he first of all shouts the name of the station he wishes to arrive at (for some reason he believes all foreigners to be deaf), then he begins counting down francs one by one, very slowly, watching the clerk’s face. When the clerk’s face tells him he has doled out enough, he shouts ‘Hold hard!’ and clutches the ticket. It takes time; but all the people here are friends with him at once—especially the children, whom he punches in the ribs and tells to ‘buck up.’ Their mothers nod and smile and openly admire him; and I—well, I am happy and want everyone else to be happy.”