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OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER --

CHAP. PAGE

THE FUGITIVES, 145

THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER

THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER.

A NEW AGENT.

The reader accustomed to the amenities of the highest social circles, such as those which we are now compelled temporarily to leave, will no doubt sensibly feel the shock of the descent from the mansion of the Duke, and his sublime society, to a sphere and condition of life far removed from these summits of existence. It is seldom that life can be carried on solely upon those high levels; the necessities of every day call for the aid of the more humbly born and placed, so that not even dukes can suffice to themselves. We must then, without further apology, proceed at once to a room as different as it is possible to conceive from the halls of Billings--a small sitting-room in a small rectory-house in the heart of London, belonging to one of the old parish churches which have been abandoned there by the tide of habitation and life. The church was close by, a fine one in its way, one of Wren's churches, adapted for a large Protestant congregation more solicitous about the sermon than is usual nowadays--but left now without any congregation at all. The rectory, a house of very moderate dimensions, jammed in among warehouses and offices, had little air and less light in the gloomy November days. The Rector and his wife had just returned from their yearly holiday, and it was not a cheerful thing to come back to the fog, and the damp, and the gas-lamps, and all the din of the great carts that lumbered round the corner continually, and loaded and unloaded themselves within two steps of the clergyman's door. How was he to write his sermons or meditate over his work in the midst of these noises? his wife often asked indignantly. But, to be sure, the fifty people or so who quite crowded St Alban's when they all turned out, were not very critical. Down in these regions there is not a Little Bethel always handy, and the inhabitants must take what they can get and be thankful: which it would be a good thing, Mrs Marston thought, if they could be oftener obliged in other places to do.

"Why don't you have the gas lighted?" the Rector asked in a querulous tone. "I have brought something to show you, but there is no light to see it by."

"You shall have the light in a moment," cried Mrs Marston; "that is the one good thing of gas. It spoils your picture-frames and kills your flowers; but you can have it instantly, and always clean and no trouble. There!"

The gas leaping up dazzled them for a moment, and then Mr Marston opened his book and pointed his finger to the entry. "Look here, Mary--look at that; did you ever see a name like that before? What do you suppose it can mean?"

"That's not the name," cried the Rector. He would have liked to pinch her, but refrained. "This is no care-taker, you may be sure; but it is the other name--look at the other name. Where have you seen it before? and what is the meaning of it?" Mr Marston cried with excitement. He had worked himself up to this pitch, and he forgot that she was quite unprepared. She read, stumbling a little, for the handwriting was crabbed, "'Jane Angela Pendragon Plantagenet Fitz-Merlin Altamont, spinster, of the parish of Billings.' Dear, dear," was good Mrs Marston's first comment--"I hope she has names enough and syllables enough for one person."

"And is that all that strikes you?" her husband said.

"Well--it is an odd name--is that what you mean, William? Very silly, I think, to give a girl all that to sign. I suppose if she uses it all, it will be only in initials. She will sign, you know, Jane Angela, or very likely only Angela, which is much prettier than Jane; Angela P. P. F.--or F. M.--Altamont, that is how it will be. Angela Altamont; it is like a name in a novel."

"Ah, now we are coming to it at last!" cried the Rector; "names in novels, when they are founded on anything, generally follow the names of the aristocracy. Now here's the question: Is this a secret marriage, and the bride some poor young lady who doesn't know what she is doing, some girl running away with her brother's tutor or some fiddler or other, to her own ruin, poor thing, without knowing what she is about?"

"Dear me, William! what an imagination you have got!" said Mrs Marston, and she sat down in her surprise and drew the book towards her; but then she added, "Why should they come to St Alban's in that case? There are no musicians living in this parish. And poor people do give their children such grand names nowadays. That poor shirtmaker in Cotton Lane, don't you remember? her baby is Ethel Sybil Celestine Constantia--you recollect how we laughed?"

"Family Herald," said the Rector with a careless wave of his hand, "and all Christian names, which makes a great difference. It was her last batch of heroines, poor soul; but do you think a poor needlewoman would think of Pendragon and Plantagenet? No; mark my words, Mary, this is some great person; this is some poor deceived girl, throwing away everything for what she thinks love. Poor thing, poor thing! and all the formalities complied with, so that I have no right to stop it. Sayers is an idiot!" cried Mr Marston. "I should have inquired into it at once had I been at home, with a name before my eyes like that."

"Dear me!" said Mrs Marston; there is not much in it, but she repeated the exclamation several times. "After all," she said, "it must be true love, or she would not go that length; and who knows, William, whether that is not better than all their grandeur? Dear, dear me! I wish we knew a little about the circumstances. If the gentleman is of this parish couldn't you send for him and inquire into it?" The Rector was pacing up and down the room in very unusual agitation. It was such a crisis as in his peaceful clerical life had never happened to him before.

"You know very well he is not of this parish," Mr Marston said. "I suppose he must have slept here the requisite number of nights; and besides, he knows I have no right to interfere. The banns are all in order. I can't refuse to marry them, and what right have I to send for the man or to question him? No doubt he would have some plausible story. It is not to be expected, especially if it is the sort of thing I think it is, that he should tell me."

"Dear, dear!" repeated Mrs Marston. "A clergyman should have more power; what is the good of being a clergyman if you cannot stop a marriage in your own church? I call that tyranny. Do you mean to tell me you will be compelled to marry them, whether you approve of it or not?"

"Well, Mary, it is not usual to ask the clergyman's consent, is it?" he said with a laugh, momentarily tickled by the suggestion. But this did not throw any light upon what was to be done, or upon the question whether anything was to be done; and with a mind quite unsatisfied he retired again to the study, seeing that it was out of all reason to ring the bell at half-past three for tea. He drew down his blind with a sigh as he went back to his room, shutting out the colourless paleness which did duty for sky, and resigning himself to the close little room though it was too warm. Mr Marston tried his best to compose himself, to take up his work, such as it was, to put away from his mind the remembrance of a world which was not wrapt in fog, and where wholesome breezes were blowing. St Alban's was a good living; it had endowments enough to furnish two or three churches, and to get it had been a wonderful thing for him; but sometimes he asked himself whether two hundred a-year and a country parish with cottages in it instead of warehouses would not have been better. However, all that was folly, and here was something exciting to amuse his mind with, which was always an advantage. He had laid down his book for the fourth or fifth time, to ask himself whether sending for the bridegroom, as his wife suggested, or going out in search of him, might not be worth his while, when Mrs Marston came suddenly bursting into the study with, in her turn, a big volume in her arms. The Rector looked up in surprise and put away his theology. She came in, he said to himself, like a whirlwind; which was not, however, a metaphor at all adapted to describe the movements of a stout and comfortable person of fifty, with a great respect for her furniture. But she did enter with an assured, not to say triumphant air, carrying her book, which she plumped down before him on the table, sweeping away some of his papers. "There!" she cried, breathless and excited. The page was blazoned with a big coat of arms. It was in irregular lines like poetry, and ah, how much dearer than poetry to many a British soul! It was, need we say, a Peerage, an old Peerage, without any of the recent information, but still not too old for the purpose. "There!" said Mrs Marston, again flourishing her forefinger. The Rector, bewildered, looked and read. He read and he grew pale with awe and alarm. He looked up in his wife's face with a gasp of excitement. He was too much impressed even to say, "I told you so," for, to be sure, a duke's daughter was a splendour he had not conceived. But his wife was more demonstrative in the delight of her discovery. "There!" she cried, for the third time. "I felt sure, of course, it must be in the Peerage, if it was what you thought; and there it is at full length, 'Lady Jane Angela Pendragon Plantagenet Fitz-Merlin Altamont.' It fairly took away my breath. To think you should have made such a good guess! and me talking about Mrs Singer's baby! Why, I suppose it is one of the greatest families in the country," Mrs Marston said.

"There is no doubt about that," said the Rector. "I have heard the present Duke was not rich, but that would make it all the worse. Poor young lady! poor misguided--for of course she can know nothing about life nor what she is doing. And I wonder who the man is. He must be a scoundrel," said Mr Marston, hotly, "to take advantage of the ignorance of a girl."

"My dear," said Mrs Marston, "all that may be quite true that you say, but if you reckon up you will see that she must be twenty-eight. Twenty-eight is not such a girl. And Reginald Winton is quite a nice name."

"Just the sort of name for a tutor, or a music-master, or something of that sort," said the Rector, contemptuously. He had been a tutor himself in his day, but that did not occur to him at the moment. He got up from his chair and would have paced about the room as he did in his wife's quarters had the study been big enough; but failing in this, he planted himself before the fire, to the great danger of his coat-tails and increase of his temperature, but in his excitement he paid no attention to that. "And now the question is, what is to be done?" he said.

"Talk to a bride at the altar!" said the Rector; the indecorum of the idea shocked him beyond description. "No, no, something must be done at once--there is no time to be lost. I must write to the Duke."

"To the Duke!" This suggestion took away Mrs Marston's breath.

"I hope," said her husband, raising his head, "that we both know a duke is but a man: and I am a clergyman, and I want nothing from him, but to do him a service. It would be wicked to hesitate. The question is, where is he to be found, and how can we reach him in time? He is not likely to be in town at this time of the year; nobody is in town I suppose except you and me, and a few millions more, Mary; but that doesn't help us--the question is, where is he likely to be? Thank heaven there is still time for the post!" Mr Marston cried, and threw himself upon his chair, and pulled his best note-paper out of his drawer.

The Rector made short work of these arguments. He pooh-poohed the real attachment in a way which made Mrs Marston angry. What could she know of poverty? he asked; and how was a duke's daughter to scramble for herself in the world? As for love, it was great nonsense in most cases. The French system was just as good as the English. People got to like each other by living together, and by having the same tastes and habits. How could a fiddler or a tutor have the same habits as Lady Jane, "or Lady Angela, if you like it better?" He went on, as Mrs Marston said, like this, till she could have boxed his ears for him. And the fact was that he had to pay an extra penny on each of his letters to get them off by the post; for he wrote several letters--to Billings, to Hungerford, and to Grosvenor Square. Scotland and Wales were hopeless; there was no chance whatever that from either of these places his Grace could arrive in time. Indeed, it would be something very like a miracle if he arrived now. But the Rector felt that he had done his duty, which is always a consolation. He retired to rest late and full of excitement, feeling that no one could tell what the morrow might bring forth--a sentiment, no doubt, which is always true, but which commends itself more to the mind in a season when out-of-the-way events are likely. Mrs Marston had been a little cool towards him all the evening, resenting much that he had said. But it was not till all modes of communicating with the outer world were hopeless that she took her revenge and planted a thorn in his pillow. "If you had not been so disagreeable," she said, "I would have advised you not to trust to the post, but to telegraph. I dare say the Duke would have paid you back the few shillings; then he would have been sure to get the news in time. At present I think it very unlikely. And I am sure, for the young people's sake, I should be sorry. But I should have telegraphed," Mrs Marston said. And the Rector, strange to say, had never thought of that.

HALF-MARRIED.

They arrived a few moments after eleven o'clock, in two very private, quiet-looking carriages, of which nobody could be quite sure whether they were humble broughams, of the kind which can be hired, or private property. The bridegroom was first, with one man accompanying him, who looked even more "swell" than himself. The bride came a little after in the charge of a respectable elderly woman-servant, and one other lady whose dress and looks were such as had never been seen before in St Alban's. Mrs Simms was not learned in dress, but she knew enough to know that the simplicity of this lady's costume was a kind of simplicity more costly and grand than the greatest finery that had ever been seen within the parish of St Alban's. The bride herself was wrapped in a large all-enveloping grey cloak. The maid who was with her even looked like a duchess, and was far above any gossip with Mrs Simms. Altogether it was a mysterious party. There was a little room adjoining the vestry to which the ladies were taken to wait till all was ready, while the gentlemen stood in the church, somewhat impatient, the bridegroom looking anxiously from time to time at his watch. But now came the strangest thing of all. The Rector, who had ordered the church to be warmed and the cushions to be uncovered on purpose for them--he who had known enough about their arrangements to calculate that some one might arrive late--the Rector, now that they were here, took no notice. Simms hurried in to inform him that they had come, but he took no notice; then hurried back a second time to announce that "the gentlemen says as they're all here and quite ready;" but still Mr Marston never moved. He had his watch on the table, and cast a glance upon it from time to time, and he was pale and nervous sitting there in his surplice. The clergyman all ready and the bridal party all ready, and a quarter after eleven chiming!

"We'll take the churchings, Simms," said the Rector, in a voice that was scarcely audible.

"The churchings, sir!" cried the verger, not believing his ears. Of all the things to keep a wedding-party waiting for! But what could Simms do? To obey the Rector was his first duty. He went with his mind in a state of consternation to fetch the two poor women from the pews where they sat waiting, wrapping themselves in their shawls, rather pleased with the idea of seeing a wedding before their own little service. But they, too, were thunderstruck when they heard they were to go up first. "Are you sure you ain't making a mistake?" one of them said; and as he walked up the aisle, followed by these two humble figures, the elder gentleman, who wore an eyeglass in his eye, almost assaulted Simms. He said, "Holloa! hi! what are you after there?" as if he had been in the street and not in a church.

"I'll tell the Rector, sir," said Simms--but he took his charges to the altar-steps all the same, for the Rector was a man who liked to be obeyed. Then he went in and delivered his message.

The Rector was sitting gazing at his watch with a very anxious and troubled face. "Has any one come?" he said.

"Please, sir, they be all here," said Simms. "You'll not keep the bride and bridegroom waiting, surely, the gentleman says."

"I hope I am a better judge as to my duty than the gentleman," said the Rector, tartly; and without another word he marched into the chancel, and advancing to the altar-rails, signed to the two women to take their places. During the interval the bride had been brought from the waiting-room and divested of her cloak. She was dressed simply in white, with a large veil over her little bonnet. Lord Germaine had given her his arm and was leading her to her place, when the voice of the Rector announced that the other service had begun. The bridal party looked at each other in consternation, but what could they do? Lord Germaine, though he was one of the careless, had not courage enough to interrupt a service in church. They stood waiting, the strangest group. Lady Jane, when she divined what it was, did her best to pay a little attention, to follow the prayers and lessons, which were so curiously out of keeping with the circumstances. Winton, standing by her, crimson with anger and impatience, could scarcely keep still. He held his watch in his hand with feverish anxiety. Lord Germaine, adjusting his glass more firmly in his eye, regarded the Rector as if he was a curious animal. Lady Germaine, after carefully examining the whole group for a moment, fell, as it was evident to see, into convulsions of secret laughter. If it had not been so serious, it would have been highly comic. And as for the poor women kneeling at the altar, the service so far did them very little good. They were shocked to the very soul to think of standing in the way of a bride; they could not resist giving little glances from the corners of their eyes to see her, or at least the white train of her dress falling upon the carpet on the altar-steps, which was all that was within their range of vision as they knelt with their hands over their faces. They were very well meaning, both of them, and had really intended to do their religious duty--but there are some things which are too great a trial for even flesh and blood.

But it did not--another moment something else pealed through the church, a loud voice calling "Stop!" and Lady Germaine's disposition to laugh was over in an instant. She gave a little cry instead, and came close to Lady Jane to support her. Lord Germaine dropped his eyeglass from his eye. He said, "Go on, sir; go on, sir; do your duty," imperatively. As for Winton, he turned half round with a start, then, bewildered, pronounced his assent to the question which had been but half asked him. "I will," he said, "I will!" "Go on, sir," cried Lord Germaine: "go on, sir." In the meantime some one was hurrying up the aisle, pale, breathless, in a whirl of passion. Even in the excitement and horror of the moment Mrs Marston could not help giving a second look to see what like a duke was in the flesh. The new-comer was white with fatigue and fury. He came up to the very altar-steps where those two poor women had been kneeling, and thrust Mrs Simms and the alarmed verger almost violently out of the way. "Stop!" he cried, "stop! I forbid it--stop--Jane!" and clutched his daughter by the arm. Lady Germaine in her excitement gave a loud shriek and grasped the bride tighter, holding her round the waist, while Winton, in a kind of frenzy, seized her ungloved hand, which was ready to be put into his. Lady Jane thus seized on every side awoke only then out of the abstraction of that solemn and prayerful seriousness in which she had been about to perform the greatest act of her life. She had not noted the breaks and pauses in the service, she had not thought of anything extraneous, noises or voices. All that had occupied her was the solemnity of the moment, the great thing she was doing, the oath she was about to take. Even now, when so rudely awakened, she was not sure that the hand of the bridegroom seeking hers was not in the course of the service. She gave it to him, notwithstanding the grasp upon her arm. "Go on, sir!" shouted Lord Germaine; "do your duty." But the Rector could not help for the moment a little sense of triumph. He made a step backwards and closed his book. And at this moment there was the little rustle in the throat of the church tower, and one, two, three,--noon struck, filling the church with successive waves of sound.

The Duke had begun, "Jane!" and Winton had cried out, echoing his friend, to the Rector to "go on, go on," when this sound suddenly fell upon them all, ringing slowly, steadily, like a doom bell. Something in the sound stilled every one, even the angry and unhappy young man, who saw his marriage broken and his hopes made an end of in a moment. Lady Germaine took her hand away from Jane's waist and sank down upon the vacant bench and burst out into sobbing,--she who felt that she must laugh five minutes before; and Mrs Marston cried in her pew, and the two poor women looked on with so much sympathy. The Duke's hand dropped from his daughter's arm. The only thing that did not alter was the attitude of the two chief figures. They stood with clasped hands before the altar-rails. Even now Lady Jane only half understood what had happened. It began to dawn upon her as she saw the closed book, and felt the silence and the sound of the clock. She turned round to Winton with a questioning look, then smiled and gave a little, the slightest, pressure of the hand she held. In this way they stood while the clock struck, no one saying a word. Then there arose several voices together.

"I thank heaven I arrived in time!" the Duke exclaimed. "Jane, let there be no further scene, but leave off this silly pantomime, and come home at once with me."

"Your bishop shall hear of this, sir!" said Lord Germaine, shaking his fist, in spite of himself, at the Rector.

Winton, on his side, was too sick at heart to find any words. He said, "It is over," with a voice of anguish; then added, "but we are pledged to each other--pledged all the same."

"Let go my daughter, sir!" cried the Duke.

"We are pledged to each other," Winton repeated. He took the ring out of his pocket, where it lay ready, and put it on her finger, trembling. "She is my wife," he said, half turning round, appealing to the group.

Lady Jane withdrew her right hand, putting it within his arm. She held up that which had the ring upon it, and put her lips to it. "I don't know what this means," she said, tremulous and yet clear, "but I am his wife."

Lady Germaine rose up from the bench on which she had flung herself. "Oh, Duke!" she cried, "don't you see things have gone too far? Leave her with me. She will not be compromised with me. Have pity upon your own child! Don't you see, don't you see that it is too late to stop it now?"

"Lady Germaine!" cried the Duke, "I hope you can forgive yourself for your share in this, but I cannot forgive you. Certainly my daughter shall not go with you. There is but one house to which she can go--her father's." He tightened his hold on her arm as he spoke. "Jane!--this scene is disgraceful to all of us. Put a stop to it at once. Come home; it is the only place for you now."

Lady Jane was the first to speak. She said, "It is cruel for us all; but perhaps my father is right, things being as they are. I cannot go with you, Reginald, to our own house."

Winton's voice came with a burst, half-groan, half-sob, uncontrollable. "God help us! I don't suppose you can, my darling--till to-morrow."

"Till to-morrow! Then I will go home to my father's now. Oh no," she said, shrinking back a little, "not with you. Reginald will take me home."

"Let go my daughter, sir!" the Duke said. "He shall not touch you. He shall not come near you. What! do you persist? Give her up, Winton; do you hear me? She says she will come home."

"Father," said Lady Jane very low, "it is you who are forgetting our dignity. I will go home, if Reginald takes me; but not with you. I suppose no one doubts our honour. It is not the time for delay now, after you have done all this. Reginald will take me home."

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