CHAPTER XXIII.
THE MARRIAGE.
Bind the white orange-flowers in her hair,
Soft be their shadow, soft and somewhat pale—
For they are omens. Many anxious years
Are on the wreath that bends the bridal veil.
The maiden leaves her childhood and her home,
All that the past has known of happy hours—
Perhaps her happiest ones. Well may there be
A faint wan colour on those orange-flowers:
For they are pale as hope, and hope is pale
With earnest watching over future years;
With all the promise of their loveliness,
The bride and morning bathe their wreath with tears.
Constance was yet kneeling when Mrs. Courtenaye entered, who was wholly softened by the attitude, and the tearful eyes that met her as she approached. She did not like Constance: there was a timidity and a gentleness about her, which, to her calm and determined temper, seemed only weakness. Besides, however innocent, she was the cause of her own suffering; and she confounded the unoffending girl with her father. But it was impossible to be quite untouched with Constance's meek sweetness, and she took her hand with a degree of kindness which melted the poor child into tears of tender gratitude. But she was silent, for Constance feared her aunt too much for any burst of the confidence with which she indulged herself to her father, They went down-stairs together, and found the bridal party assembled.
The guests had been selected with Lord Norbourne's usual judgment. There were only some three or four, of the highest rank. A young nobleman connected with the ministry, who had come from Sir Robert Walpole to summon Lord Norbourne, on business of the first importance, to London, was the sole cavalier, to the great discontent of the two bridesmaids. These were the ladies Diana and Frances, who came with their mother, the Duchess of Pympton, a distant connexion of the family. Tall, dark, with harsh features, from which five-and-thirty summers had stolen all youthful bloom, if they had ever had any—a fact admitting of more than doubt—they afforded no injudicious contrast to the bride. Constance, half hidden in her veil, blushing and agitated, looked, at least, lady-like and interesting; and there was as little room given as possible for a contrast between the appearance of the bride and bridegroom.
The chapel was a small Gothic edifice, which had been built by Lord Norbourne, and who had spared no pains on its decoration: yet its chief ornaments were tombs. There was the monument of his wife, and child after child had followed. Every niche was filled by a funeral urn, and by marble shapes that bent down in a pale eternity of sorrow. In one arch was a marble tablet, bearing a date, but no name; and beneath was a kneeling female: the beautiful hands were clasped as if in prayer and penitence; but the bowed-down face was hidden in the long hair, that fell unbound over the exquisitely sculptured figure. There was a grave beneath, but who slept in that grave was known only to Lord Norbourne. There was in the stillness of the statues around, so colourless, so calm, that which struck cold upon the guests. All around spoke of desolation and of death, till life seemed but a mockery in their presence. What folly to crowd so brief a span with the toil and the fever in which men spend their days! It is a strange and solemn thing that the bridal ritual should take place in the presence of the dead. Dust, that a breath could blow aside, yet that was once, like ourselves, animate with hope, passion, and sorrow, is below; around are the vain memorials of human grief and human pride; yet all alike dedicated to the gone.
Norbourne Courtenaye glanced around on the marble monuments—they seemed fitting company at his bridal: the service sounded like a burial rite; it was the funeral of his hopes. Mechanically he obeyed the directions to place the ring on the finger of his bride. Constance started at the death-cold hand that touched her own; for the first time she ventured to raise her eyes to his, but they answered not to that timid and imploring look: his thoughts were far away. Alas, for Constance, had she known that they dwelt upon another! Even as it was, the pale cheek, and the sad, abstracted eye, sent a chill to the heart of the young bride: she was pale and absent as the bridegroom. When the service was over, she started, as if from a dream, when all pressed round to congratulate her as the wife of Norbourne Courtenaye.