“Very well, then,” said Fancy, blushing. “’Tis to be, and here goes!”
“That’s a girl for a husband!” said Mrs. Dewy.
“I do hope he’ll come in time!” continued the bride-elect, inventing a new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished.
“‘Twould be a thousand pities if he didn’t come, now you be so brave,” said Mrs. Penny.
Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said downstairs with mischievous loudness —
“I’ve known some would-be weddings when the men didn’t come.”
“They’ve happened not to come, before now, certainly,” said Mr. Penny, cleaning one of the glasses of his spectacles.
“O, do hear what they are saying downstairs,” whispered Fancy. “Hush, hush!”
She listened.
“They have, haven’t they, Geoffrey?” continued grandfather James, as Geoffrey entered.
“Have what?” said Geoffrey.
“The men have been known not to come.”
“That they have,” said the keeper.
“Ay; I’ve knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I knowed was when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker’s Wood, and the three months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be published over again.”
“How horrible!” said Fancy.
“They only say it on purpose to tease ‘ee, my dear,” said Mrs. Dewy.
“’Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put to,” came again from downstairs. “Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another —’tis quite heart-rending — enough to make your hair stand on end.”
“Those things don’t happen very often, I know,” said Fancy, with smouldering uneasiness.
“Well, really ’tis time Dick was here,” said the tranter.
“Don’t keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down there!” Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. “I am sure I shall die, or do something, if you do!”
“Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!” cried Nat Callcome, the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the chinks of the floor as the others had done. “’Tis all right; Dick’s coming on like a wild feller; he’ll be here in a minute. The hive o’ bees his mother gie’d en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, ‘I can’t afford to lose a stock o’ bees; no, that I can’t, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn’t wish it on any account.’ So he jist stopped to ting to ’em and shake ’em.”
“A genuine wise man,” said Geoffrey.
“To be sure, what a day’s work we had yesterday!” Mr. Callcome continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. “To be sure!”
“Things so heavy, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, as if reading through the chimney-window from the far end of the vista.
“Ay,” said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had been removed. “And so awkward to carry, too. ’Twas ath’art and across Dick’s garden; in and out Dick’s door; up and down Dick’s stairs; round and round Dick’s chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and Dick is so particular, too. And the stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, ’tis enough for Noah’s ark! I’m sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of hams than he’s got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed; — none could desire a prettier cider.”
“They be for the love and the stalled ox both. Ah, the greedy martels!” said grandfather James.
“Well, may-be they be. Surely,” says I, “that couple between ’em have heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi’ a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be sure, a-getting that furniture in order!”
“I do so wish the room below was ceiled,” said Fancy, as the dressing went on; “we can hear all they say and do down there.”
“Hark! Who’s that?” exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also assisted this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down the stairs, and peeped round the banister. “O, you should, you should, you should!” she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again.
“What?” said Fancy.
“See the bridesmaids! They’ve just a come! ’Tis wonderful, really! ’tis wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don’t look a bit like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o’ theirs that nobody knew they had!”
“Make ’em come up to me, make ’em come up!” cried Fancy ecstatically; and the four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy, Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, surged upstairs, and floated along the passage.
“I wish Dick would come!” was again the burden of Fancy.
The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside the door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, “Ready, Fancy dearest?”
“There he is, he is!” cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and breathing as it were for the first time that morning.
The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as one:— not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see him, but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers of the will of that apotheosised being — the Bride.
“He looks very taking!” said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who blushed cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons.
Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining cloth, primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of newness, and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, and hair cut to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion.
“Now, I’ll run down,” said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder in the glass, and flitting off.
“O Dick!” she exclaimed, “I am so glad you are come! I knew you would, of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn’t!”
“Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I today! Why, what’s possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things a bit.”
“Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn’t hoisted my colours and committed myself then!” said Fancy.
“’Tis
