I suppose that, despite my change of name, I cannot
yet be wholly a Tempest; for, while I remain perfectly
serene and calm during Sir Roger’s few plain
words, I am one red misery while Algy is returning
thanks for the bridesmaids, which he does in so appallingly
lame, stammering, and altogether agonizing a manner,
that I have serious thoughts of slipping from my bridegroom’s
side under the friendly shade of the table, among
its sheltering legs.
Thank God it is over, and I am gone to put on my traveling-dress!
The odious parting moment has come. The carriage
is at the door: the maid and valet are in the
dickey. What a pity that they are not bride and
bridegroom too! Vick has jumped in—alert
and self-respecting again now that she has bitten
off her favor.
I have begun my voluminous farewells. I have
kissed them all round once, and am beginning again.
How can one make up one’s mind where to stop?
with whom to end?
“Never you marry, Barbara!” say I, in
a sobbing whisper, as I clasp her in my last embrace,
greatly distorting my new bonnot, “it is so
disagreeable!”
We are off, followed by a tornado of shoes—one,
aimed with dexterous violence by that unlucky Bobby,
goes nigh to cut the bridegroom’s left eye open,
as he waves his good-byes.
As we trot smartly away, I turn round in the carriage
and look at them through my tears. There they
all are! After all, what a nice-looking family!
Even Tou Tou! there is something pretty about her,
and standing as she is now, her legs look quite nice
and thick.
* * * *
*
We reach Dover before dinner-time. Sir Roger
has gone out to speak to the courier who meets us
there. I am left alone in our great stiff sitting-room
at the Lord Warden. Instantly I rush to the writing-materials.
“What, writing already?” says my husband,
reentering, and coming over with a smile toward me.
“Have you forgotten any of your finery?”
“No, no!” cry I, impulsively, spreading
both hands over the sheet; “do not look! you
must not look!”
“Do you think I should?” he says,
reproachfully, turning quickly away.
“But you may,” cry I, with one of my sudden
useless remorses, holding out the note to him.
“Do! I should like you to!—I
do not know why I said it!—I was only sending
them a line, just to tell them how dreadfully
I missed them all!”
I have been married a week. A week indeed!
a week in the sense in which the creation of the world
occupied a week!—seven geological ages,
perhaps, but not seven days. We have been
to Brussels, to Antwerp, to Cologne. We have
seen—(with the penetrating incense odor
in our nostrils, and the kneeling peasants at our
feet)—the Descent from the Cross, the Elevation
of the Cross—dead Christs manifold.
Can it be possible that the brush which worthily painted
