Tom's death, so soon I mean—people might say that it would have been better to have waited till"
"My dearest child, no waiting would restore my poor boy to me; and I look to you to fill the void in my heart which his loss has made! As for people talking, I have lived too long, child, to pay the slightest heed to what they say! If such gossip moved me one jot, it would rather strengthen my wish to hasten our marriage, as it supplies me with an argument which you evidently have not perceived"
"And that is?"
"And that is, that, you may depend upon it, these sticklers for the proprieties and conventionalities, these worshippers of Mrs. Grundy, will be very much interested in our movements, and highly scandalised if, under these fresh circumstances which they have just learned, you remain an inmate of my house! What has been perfectly right and decorous for the last few months would be highly improper for the next few weeks, according to their miserable doctrine! I should not have named this to you, Marian, had not the conversation taken this turn; nor even then, had you been a silly girl and likely to be influenced by such nonsense. However much you might wish to go away and live elsewhere until our marriage, you cannot. Your mother's state of health precludes any possibility of her removal, and therefore the only thing for us to do is to get the marriage over as quickly as possible, and thus effectually silence Mrs. Grundy's disciples!"
"Very well!" said Marian. "I suppose for the same reason it will be better that the wedding should be here?"
"Here? Why, my dearest Marian, where would you wish it to be?"
"Oh, I should like us to go away to some quiet little place where we were neither of us known, and just walk into the church"
"And just smuggle through the ceremony and slip away, so that no one should see you were marrying a man old enough to be your father! Is that it, pet? I ought to feel highly complimented, and"
"Please, not even in joke! No, no; you know what I mean. I cannot explain it, but"
"I know exactly, darling, but we can't help it. If you wish it the wedding shall be perfectly quiet, only just ourselves, but it must take place here, and I don't surpose our good neighbours would let it pass off without some demonstration of their regard, whatever wo might say to them! By the way, I mentioned it to the girls this morning!"
"And what did they say?" Marian asked, with, for her, rather unusual eagerness. "Or rather, what did Maud say, for Gertrude, of course, merely echoed her sister?"
"Poor Gerty!" said Mr. Creswell, smiling; "hitherto she has not displayed much originality. Oh, Maud was very affectionate indeed, came over and kissed me, and wished me all happiness. And, as you say, of course, Gertrude did, and said, ditto! Have they—have they said anything to you?"
"Not a word! I have scarcely seen them since yesterday."
"Ah! they'll take an opportunity of coming to you. I know they are delighted at anything which they think will conduce to my happiness!"
"Perhaps they don't think that your marrying me will have that effect?" said Marian, with a half smile.
"'Please, not even in joke!' it is my turn to say that now!" said Mr. Creswell.
It was a perfect godsend to the people of Helmingham, this news, and coming so soon too—a few months interval was comparatively nothing in the village—after the excitement caused by young Tom's death. They had never had the remotest idea that Mr. Creswell would ever take to himself a second wife; they had long since given up the idea of speculating upon Marian Ashurst's marriage prospects, and the announcement was almost too much for them to comprehend. Generally, the feeling was one of satisfaction, for the old schoolmaster and Mrs. Ashurst had both been popular in the village, and there had been much commiseration, expressed with more warmth and honesty than good taste, when it was murmured that the widow and Marian would have to give up housekeeping—an overwhelming degradation in the Helmingham mind—and go into lodgings. A little alloy might have existed, in the fact that no new element would be brought into their society, no stranger making her first appearance as the "squire's lady," to be stared at on her first Sunday in church, and discussed and talked over, after her first round of visits. But this disappointment was made up to Mrs. Croke, and Mrs. Whicher, and others of their set, by the triumph and vindication of their own perspicuity and appreciation of character.
