Home as Found Part 64

John Effingham pressed the beautiful, ardent, blus.h.i.+ng girl to his bosom again; and as he did so, both felt, notwithstanding their language, that a new and dearer tie than ever bound them together.

Eve now received the compliments of the rest of the party, when the two brides retired to change the dresses in which they had appeared at the altar, for their more ordinary attire.

In her own dressing-room, Eve found Ann Sidley, waiting with impatience to pour out her feelings, the honest and affectionate creature being much too sensitive to open the floodgates of her emotions in the presence of third parties.

"Ma'am--Miss Eve--Mrs. Effingham!" she exclaimed as soon as her young mistress entered, afraid of saying too much, now that her nursling had become a married woman.

"My kind and good Nanny!" said Eve, taking her old nurse in her arms, their tears mingling in silence for near a minute. "You have seen your child enter on the last of her great earthly engagements, Nanny, and I know you pray that they may prove happy."

"I do--I do--I do--ma'am--madam--Miss Eve--what am I to call you in future, ma'am?"

"Call me Miss Eve, as you have done since my childhood, dearest Nanny."

Nanny received this permission with delight, and twenty times that morning she availed herself of the permission; and she continued to use the term until, two years later, she danced a miniature Eve on her knee, as she had done its mother before her, when matronly rank began silently to a.s.sert its rights, and our present bride became Mrs. Effingham.

"I shall not quit you, ma'am, now that you are married?" Ann Sidley timidly asked; for, although she could scarcely think such an event within the bounds of probability, and Eve had already more than once a.s.sured her of the contrary with her own tongue, still did she love to have a.s.surance made doubly sure. "I hope nothing will ever happen to make me quit you, ma'am?"

"Nothing of that sort, with my consent, ever shall happen, my excellent Nanny. And now that Annette is about to get married, I shall have more than the usual necessity for your services."

"And Mamerzelle, ma'am?" inquired Nanny, with sparkling eyes; "I suppose she, too, will return to her own country, now you know every thing, and have no farther occasion for her?"

"Mademoiselle Viefville will return to France in the autumn, but it will be with us all; for my dear father, cousin Jack, my husband--"

Eve blushed as she p.r.o.nounced the novel word--"and myself, not forgetting you my old nurse, will all sail for England, with Sir George and Lady Templemore, on our way to Italy, the first week in October."

"I care not, ma'am, so that I go with you. I would rather we did not live in a country where I cannot understand all that the people say to you, but wherever you are will be my earthly paradise."

Eve kissed the true-hearted woman, and, Annette entering, she changed her dress.

The two brides met at the head of the great stairs, on their way back to the drawing-room. Eve was a little in advance, but, with a half- concealed smile, she gave way to Grace, curtsying gravely, and saying--

"It does not become _me_ to precede Lady Templemore--I, who am only Mrs. Paul Effingham."

"Nay, dear Eve, I am not so weak as you imagine. Do you not think I should have married him had he not been a baronet?"

"Templemore, my dear coz, is a man any woman might love, and I believe, as firmly as I hope it sincerely, that he will make you happy."

"And yet there is one woman who would not love him, Eve!"

Eve looked steadily at her cousin for a moment, was startled, and then she felt gratified that Sir George had been so honest, for the frankness and manliness of his avowal was a pledge of the good faith and sincerity of his character. She took her cousin affectionately by the hand, and said--

"Grace, this confidence is the highest compliment you can pay me, and it merits a return. That Sir George Templemore may have had a pa.s.sing inclination for one who so little deserved it, is possibly true--but my affections were another's before I knew him."

"You never would have married Templemore, Eve; he says himself, now, that you are quite too continental, as he calls it, to like an Englishman."

"Then I shall take the first good occasion to undeceive him; for I do _like_ an Englishman, and he is the identical man."

As few women are jealous on their wedding-day, Grace took this in good part, and they descended the stairs together, side by side, reflecting each other's happiness, in their timid but conscious smiles. In the great hall, they were met by the bridegrooms, and each taking the arm of him who had now become of so vast importance to her, they paced the room to and fro, until summoned to the _dejeuner a la fourchette_, which had been prepared under the especial superintendence of Mademoiselle Viefville, after the manner of her country.

Wedding-days, like all formally prepared festivals, are apt to go off a little heavily. Such, however, was not the case with this, for every appearance of premeditation and preparation vanished with this meal. It is true the family did not quit the grounds, but, with this exception, ease and tranquil happiness reigned throughout. Captain Truck was alone disposed to be sentimental, and, more than once, as he looked about him, he expressed his doubts whether he had pursued the right course to attain happiness,

"I find myself in a solitary category," he said, at the dinner- table, in the evening. "Mrs. Hawker, and both the Messrs.

Effinghams, _have been_ married; every body else _is_ married, and I believe I must take refuge in saying that I _will be_ married, if I can now persuade any one to have me. Even Mr. Powis, my right-hand man, in all that African affair, has deserted me, and left me like a single dead pine in one of your clearings, or a jewel-block dangling at a yard-arm, without a sheave. Mrs. Bride--" the captain styled Eve thus, throughout the day, to the utter neglect of the claims of Lady Templemore--"Mrs. Bride, we will consider my forlorn condition more philosophically, when I shall have the honour to take you, and so many of this blessed party, back again to Europe, where I found you. Under your advice I think I might even yet venture."

"And I am overlooked entirely," cried Mr. Howel, who had been invited to make one at the wedding-feast; "what is to become of me, Captain Truck, if this marrying mania go any further?"

"I have long had a plan for your welfare, my dear sir, that I will take this opportunity to divulge; I propose, ladies and gentlemen, that we enlist Mr. Howel in our project for this autumn, and that we carry him with us to Europe. I shall be proud to have the honour of introducing him to his old friend, the island of Great Britain."

"Ah! that is a happiness, I fear, that is not in reserve for me!"

said Mr. Howel, shaking his head. "I have thought of these things, in my time, but age will now defeat any such hopes."

"Age, Tom Howel!" said John Effingham; "you are but fifty, like Ned and myself. We were all boys together, forty years ago, and yet you find us, who have so lately returned, ready to take a fresh departure. Pluck up heart; there may be a steam-boat ready to bring you back, by the time you wish to return."

"Never," said Captain Truck, positively. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is morally impossible that the Atlantic should ever be navigated by steamers. That doctrine I shall maintain to my dying day; but what need of a steamer, when we have packets like palaces?"

"I did not know, captain, that you entertained so hearty a respect for Great Britain--it is encouraging, really, to find so generous a feeling toward the old island in one of her descendants. Sir George and Lady Templemore, permit me to drink to your lasting felicity."

"Ay--ay--I entertain no ill-will to England, though her tobacco laws are none of the genteelest. But my wish to export you, Mr. Howel, is less from a desire to show you England, than to let you perceive that there are other countries in Europe--"

"Other countries!--Surely you do not suppose I am so ignorant of geography, as to believe that there are no other countries in Europe--no such places as Hanover, Brunswick, and Brunswick Lunenberg, and Denmark; the sister of old George the Third married the king of that country; and Wurtemberg, the king of which married the Princess Royal--"

"And Mecklenburg-Strelitz," added John Effingham, gravely, "a princess of which actually married George the Third _propria persona_, as well as by proxy. Nothing can be plainer than your geography, Howel; but, in addition to these particular regions, our worthy friend the captain wishes you to know also, that there are such places as France, and Austria, and Russia, and Italy; though the latter can scarcely repay a man for the trouble of visiting it."

"You have guessed my motive, Mr. John Effingham, and expressed it much more discreetly than I could possibly have done," cried the captain. "If Mr. Howel will do me the honour to take pa.s.sage with me, going and coming, I shall consider the pleasure of his remarks on men and things, as one of the greatest advantages I ever possessed."

"I do not know but I might be induced to venture as far as England, but not a foot farther."

"_Pas a Paris!_" exclaimed Mademoiselle Viefville, who wondered why any rational being would take the trouble to cross the Atlantic, merely to see _Ce melancolique Londres;_ "you will go to _Paris_, for my sake, Monsieur Howel?"

"For your sake, indeed, Mam'selle, I would do any thing, but hardly for my own. I confess I have thought of this, and I will think of it farther. I should like to see the King of England and the House of Lords, I confess, before I die."

"Ay, and the Tower, and the Boar's-Head at East-Cheap, and the statue of the Duke of Wellington, and London Bridge, and Richmond Hill, and Bow Street, and Somerset House, and Oxford Road, and Bartlemy Fair, and Hungerford Market, and Charing-Cross--_old_ Charing-Cross, Tom Howel!"--added John Effingham, with a good-natured nod of the head.

"A wonderful nation!" cried Mr. Howel, whose eyes sparkled as the other proceeded in his enumeration of wonders. "I do not think, after all, that I can die in peace, without seeing _some_ of these things--_all_ would be too much for me. How far is the Isle of Dogs, now, from St. Catherine's Docks, captain?"

"Oh! but a few cables' lengths. If you will only stick to the s.h.i.+p until she is fairly docked, I will promise you a sight of the Isle of Dogs before you land, even. But then you must promise me to carry out no tobacco!"

"No fear of me; I neither smoke nor chew, and it does not surprise me that a nation as polished as the English should have this antipathy to tobacco. And one might really see the Isle of Dogs before landing?

It _is_ a wonderful country! Mrs. Bloomfield, will you ever be able to die tranquilly without seeing England?"

"I hope, sir, whenever that event shall arrive, that it may be met tranquilly, let what may happen previously. I do confess, in common with Mrs. Effingham, a longing desire to see Italy; a wish that I believe she entertains from her actual knowledge, and which I entertain from my antic.i.p.ations."

"Now, this really surprises me. What _can_ Italy possess to repay one for the trouble of travelling so far?"

"I trust, cousin Jack," said Eve, colouring at the sound of her own voice, for on that day of supreme happiness and intense emotions, she had got to be so sensitive as to be less self-possessed than common, "that our friend Mr. Wenham will not be forgotten, but that he may be invited to join the party."

This representative of _la jeune Amerique_ was also present at the dinner, out of regard to his deceased father, who was a very old friend of Mr. Effingham's, and, being so favourably noticed by the bride, he did not fail to reply.

"I believe an American has little to learn from any nation but his own," observed Mr. Wenham, with the complacency of the school to which he belonged, "although one might wish that all of this country should travel, in order that the rest of the world might have the benefit of the intercourse."