John Caldigate eBook

There were, however, two persons quite firm to their purpose, and these were the bride and bridegroom.  With him firmness was comparatively easy.  When his father suggested that the whole Bolton family was making itself disagreeable, he could with much satisfaction reply that he did not intend to marry the whole Bolton family.  Having answered the first letter or two he could ignore the Babington remonstrances.  And when he was cross-examined as to points of doctrine, he could with sincerity profess himself to be of the same creed with his examiners.  If he went to church less often than old Mr. Bolton, so did old Mr. Bolton go less often than his wife.  It was a matter as to which there was no rule.  Thus his troubles were comparatively light, and his firmness might be regarded as a thing of course.  But she was firm too, and firm amidst very different circumstances.  Though her mother prayed and sobbed, implored her, and almost cursed her, still she was firm.  She had given her word to the man, and her heart, and she would not go back.  ’Yes, papa.  It is too late now,’ she said, when her father coming from his wife, once suggested to her that even yet it was not too late.  ’Of course I shall marry him,’ she said to Mrs. Robert, almost with indignation, when Mrs. Robert on one occasion almost broke down in her purpose.

‘Dear aunt, indeed, indeed, you need not interfere,’ she said to Mrs. Nicholas.  ’If he were all that they have called him, still I would marry him,’ she said to her other aunt,—­’because I love him.’  And so they all became astonished at the young girl whom they had reared up among them, and to understand that whatever might now be their opinions, she would have her way.

And so it was decided that they should be married on a certain Tuesday in the middle of December.  Early in the morning she was to be brought down to her aunt’s house, there to be decked in her bridal robes, thence to be taken to the church, then to return for the bridal feast, and from thence to be taken off by her husband,—­to go whither they might list.

Chapter XXI

The Wedding

It was a sad wedding, though everything within the power of Mr. Robert Bolton was done to make it gay.  There was a great breakfast, and all the Boltons were at last persuaded to be present except Mrs. Bolton and Mrs. Nicholas.  As to Mrs. Nicholas she was hardly even asked.  ’Of course we would be delighted to see Mrs. Nicholas, if she would come,’ Mrs. Robert said to Nicholas himself.  But there had been such long-continued and absolute hostility between the ladies that this was known to be impossible.  In regard to Mrs. Bolton herself, great efforts were made.  Her husband condescended to beg her to consent on this one occasion to appear among the Philistines.  But as the time came nearer she became more and more firm in her resolution.  ’You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled,’ she said.  ‘You