The Gypsy Queen's Vow. May Agnes Fleming

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      Resolving, therefore, to keep up those halcyon days at all hazards, the great saloons of the stately hall were thrown open, and now they were filled with the elite of the city, all waiting impatiently for the coming of the bride.

      Lord Hugh De Courcy, suave, stately, courteous, and bland, was there, conversing with the father of the bride, and two or three of the most distinguished politicians of the day – his eyes now and then wandering from the faces of his friends, to rest proudly on the handsome form of his son, who, in the absence of Lady Maude, was the cynosure of all eyes, the “observed of all observers.”

      The venerable and high-salaried bishop, attended by several other “journeyman soul-savers,” as Captain George Jernyngham irreverently called them, was there, too, in full pontificals, all ready, and waiting to tie the Gordian knot.

      The rooms were filled with the low hum of conversation. There were waving of fans, and flirting of bouquets, and dropping of handkerchiefs, and rustling silks and satins, and flashing of jewels, and turning of many bright, impatient eyes towards the door where the bride and her attendants were presently expected to make their appearance. Ladies coquetted, and flirted, and turned masculine heads with brilliant smiles and entrancing glances, and gentlemen bowed and complimented, and talked all sorts of nonsense, just like gentlemen in general, and all things went “merry as a marriage-bell.”

      Standing by themselves, as when we first saw them, were Lord Ernest Villiers and his friend, Captain Jernyngham, of the Guards.

      Handsome, stately, and noble, Lord Villiers always looked; but more so now than ever. What man does not look well when happy, faultless in costume, and about to be married to the woman he loves?

      Captain Jernyngham, first groomsman, etc., was also looking remarkably well – a fact of which the young gentleman himself was well aware; and lounging in his usual listless attitude against a marble column, he languidly admired his aristocratically small foot in its shining boot.

      “There are some men born to good luck, just as others are born to be hanged” – he was saying, with the air of a man delivering an oration – “born with a silver spoon in their mouths, to use a common, but rather incredible figure of speech. You, mi lor Villiers, are one of them; you were born above the power of Fortune – consequently, the toadying jade shows you a face all smiles, and gives the cold shoulder to poor devils like me, who really stand in need of her good graces. This world’s a humbug! Virtuous poverty, illustrated in the person of Captain George Jernyngham, is snubbed and sent to Coventry, while potent, rich, and depraved youths like you are borne along on beds of roses. Yes, I repeat it, the world’s a humbug! society’s a nuisance! friendship’s a word of two syllables found in dictionaries, nowhere else! and cigars, kid gloves and pale ale are the only things worth living for. There’s an ‘opinion as is an opinion.’”

      “Oh, come now, Jernyngham! things are by no means so desperate as you would have me believe,” said Lord Villiers, laughing. “Young, good-looking, and adored by the ladies, what more would you have?”

      “Well, there is a vulgar prejudice existing in favor of bread and butter, and neither of the three items mentioned will exactly supply me with that useful article. I intend trying the matrimonial dodge, some day, if I can pick up anything under fifty, with three or four thousand a year, who wants a nice youth to spend it for her.”

      “Love, of course, being out of the question.”

      “Love!” said the guardsman, contemptuously. “I lost all faith in that article since I was fourteen years old, when I fell in love with our cook, a young lady of six-and-thirty. My father forbade the banns; she ran off with a hump-backed chimney-sweep, and I awoke to the unpleasant consciousness that ‘Love’s young dream’ was all bosh.”

      “And you have been heart whole ever since?”

      “Well, I rather think so. I have felt a peculiar sensation under my vest-pocket now and then, when Kate McGregor’s black eyes met mine. But pshaw! where’s the use of talking? She’s as poor as a church-mouse, and so am I; and, unless we should set up a chandler-shop, there would be a paragraph in the Times headed: ‘Melancholy death by starvation. The bodies of an unfortune couple were found yesterday in the attic of a rickety, six-story house, and the coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of “Death for want of something to eat.” The unfortunate man was dressed in a pair of spurs and a military shako – having pawned the rest of his clothing, and held in his hand the jugular bone of a red herring half-devoured.’ Not any, thank you!”

      Captain George stroked his mustache complacently, while Lord Villiers laughed.

      “A pleasant picture that! Well, I shouldn’t wonder if it’s what ‘love in a cottage’ often comes to.”

      A servant approached at this moment, and whispered something to Lord Villiers.

      “The ladies are waiting, Jernyngham,” he said hastily. “Call Howard, and come along.”

      He hastened out to the lofty hall, and at the foot of the grand staircase he was joined by Jernyngham and Howard, the second groomsman, Lord De Courcy, Earl Percy and a few other intimate family friends.

      The bride and her attendants had already left her “maiden bower,” and Lady Maude was met at the foot of the stairs by Lord Villiers, who drew her arm within his, and whispered, in a thrilling voice:

      “My bride! my wife! my queen! my beautiful Maude! never so beautiful as now! Mine, mine forever!”

      “Yes, yours forever!” she softly and earnestly said, looking up in his face with a joy too intense for smiles.

      There was no time for further speech. Captain Jernyngham had drawn the willing hand of the proud Kate within his arm, and felt his heart throb in a most unaccountable manner beneath her light touch. Young Howard took possession of our gay Miss Clara, whose whole heart and soul was bent on the conquest she was about to make of that “dear, old thing,” the Duke of B – , and the bridal cortege passed into the grand, flower-strewn saloon.

      The company parted on either side as they advanced, and under the battery of many hundred eyes they approached the bishop. Book in hand, that reverend personage stood, patiently awaiting their coming, and looked approvingly over his spectacles at the beautiful bride and handsome, stately bridegroom as they stood up before him.

      And then, amid the profoundest silence, the marriage ceremony was begun.

      You might have heard a pin drop, so deep was the stillness that reigned – as every one held their breath to catch each word of that most interesting of rites – doubly interesting to ladies. Of the three standing before him, one heart was beating with a joy too deep and intense for words to tell. Lady Kate’s handsome eyes stole quick glances now and then at the gay, young guardsman, as she thought, with a thrilling heart, how much she could love him, but for the humiliation of loving unsought. Little Miss Clara, with her head poised on one side, and her finger on her lip, was building a castle in Spain, where she saw herself blazing with “family diamonds,” and addressed as “Duchess of B – .” As for the gentlemen, I don’t intend describing their sensation – never having been a gentleman myself (more’s the pity!) but will leave it to the imagination of my readers.

      The last “I will” had been uttered; and amid that breathless silence Ernest Seyton, Viscount Villiers, and Maude Percy were pronounced man and wife.

      There was an instant’s pause, and the guests were about to press forward to offer their congratulations, when pealing through the silence came an unseen voice, in clear, bell-like tones that thrilled every heart, СКАЧАТЬ