118.
CHAPTER CXVIII.
THE BARON'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE, AND THE WEDDING MORNING.
During this time neither Mrs. Williams nor the Baron Stolmuyer were idle
spectators of the progress of the hours; but, on the contrary, they made the
best possible use of the week which was to elapse before the marrige
ceremony took place after Helen had given her consent to it.
Five hundred pounds in the hands of such a person as Mrs. Williams, will
go a long way, and produce an amazing amount of show and glitter; so that she
managed, before the day on which the ceremony was to be performed arrived, to
make quite certain that herself and her daughters would present a most
dazzling appearance; and she thought it not at all improbable that even at the
very church some meritorious individual might be dazzled into thinking of
matrimony with one of her other daughters, upon seeing what a brilliant
appearance they managed to present upon the marriage of Helen.
"I am quite sure that no harm can come of it," she said, "if no good does;
and, at all events if no good is done at the church, the baron will soon be
giving parties enough to bring out the dear girls to perfection, particularly
as I fully intend we shall all live at Anderbury House."
Mrs. Williams considered this as a settled point, whether the baron liked
it or not; and, knowing as she did the gentle and quiet disposition of Helen,
she did not doubt for a moment of being permitted to rule completely over the
domestic affairs of her establishment. All this was amazingly satisfactory to
such a lady as Mrs. Williams, and the very thing of all others she would have
liked, had she been looking out for what would please her in the marriage of
her daughter.
We shall shortly see how these views and opinions were verified by the
fact.
All the other preparations were left to the baron; and when he wrote a
letter to Mrs. Williams, saying, that he would be ready by ten o'clock on the
morning which had been named for the nuptials, and would send one of his
carriages for the bride, Mrs. Williams was perfectly satisfied that all was
quite correct.
There was no very good excuse for calling at Anderbury House; but, if she
had then called, she certainly would have been astonished at the preparations
which the baron was making for that day which was so near at hand.
It was quite terrific the expense he went to; and the gorgeous manner in
which he fitted up one of the largest apartments in the house for a dance
looked really like expenditure of the most reckless character, and such as
indeed it must have required an immense fortune to withstand.
The walls of that apartment were hung with crimson draperies of a rich
texture, and such beauty of design that they were the admiration of the very
workmen themselves who were employed upon the premises.
Then the magnificent order he gave for a feast upon the occasion, and the
wines he laid in, really almost exceeded belief; and such proceedings were
indeed highly calculated to give people most exaggerated versions regarding
his wealth.
He had indeed mentioned to Mrs. Williams, that he had silver mines on
some of his estates abroad; and that fact to her mind was quite sufficient to
account for any amount of money he might possess, because, to her ideas of
geology and mineralogy, the discovery of a silver mine meant, finding a hole
of immense width and depth, crammed with the precious metal.
But be this as it may, and whether the Baron Stolmuyer, of Saltzburgh,
owed his wealth to silver mines, or to other sources, one thing was quite
clear, and that was, that he had it.
And that was the grand point; for in a highly civilized and evangelical
country like this, the question of how a man got his money is not near so
often asked, as, has he got it; and it is quite amazing what liberality of
feeling and sentiment is immediately infused into people by the fact of
successful speculation of any kind; while failure immediately incurs the
greatest of opprobium and contempt.
And now the day was so close at hand, that Mrs. Williams got into a
terrible flutter of spirits, and began really to wish it over; for she was
completely ready, and each minute became an hour of impatience to her.
She was continually bothering the baron with notes and messages upon
different subjects, and he had the urbanity to answer two or three of them;
but he soon left that off, and the last half dozen, at the least, were, to
Mrs. Williams's great mortification, taken no notice of at all.
Some of these notes were upon the most nonsensical points, and several of
them, although they did not actually ask it, pretty strongly hinted that more
money would be a very desirable thing.
The baron would not understand any hint, however, upon the subject; so
Mrs. Williams became fully convinced that she must make the best of it she
could, and put up for the present with the five hundred pounds she had already
received.
But when the day had actually dawned on when the suspicious event was to
come off, and, upon looking around her, she found herself surrounded by gay
apparel and jewellery, she almost dreaded that even yet it would turn out to
be some delusion, or a dream, for she could scarcely believe in the reality of
such glory and magnificence belonging to her.
But facts are stubborn things, and, whether for good or for evil, are not
likely to be got over; so, when she looked out of the windows and saw that a
bright morning's sun was shining, and that the life, animation, and bustle of
the day was commencing, she told herself that it was, indeed, real, and that
she had reached very nearly the summit of her desires and expectations.
"Yes," she exclaimed; "I shall be mother-in-law to a baron; and I dare
say I shall have at least twenty servants in Anderbury House to command and
control continually."
A more gratifying reflection than this could not possibly have presented
itself to Mrs. Williams; for if any one thing could be more delightful than
another, it certainly was that kind of petty power which gives an individual a
control over a large establishment.
After she had arisen on that eventful morning, she did not allow her
establishment many minutes' repose; but, in the course of half-an-hour, all
was bustle, excitement, and no small share of confusion.
And while she was thus energetically pushing on her preparations, let us
see what the Bannerworths are about, now that they have fairly arrived at
Anderbury, and are in readiness, probably, to be present at the ceremony.
By Flora's intercession, a peace was established between Jack and the
admiral; and the former took the latter down to the old seaman's cottage, in
order to introduce him to James Anderson; and on the road he made him
acquainted with the particulars of the young man's story; at the same time
informing him of the wish that Anderson had expressed to be permitted to join
their party.
"Oh, certainly," said the admiral," certainly; let him come by all means,
although I must say that he ought to leave for London, at once, with his
despatches, or at all events with the news that he had lost them. However, I
am not on active service; and, therefore, have no right to do anything more
than advise him in the matter."
"Oh, he will go," said Jack, "as soon as he has seen his sweetheart, and
perhaps kicked the baron; for though he said he wouldn't, I live in hopes yet
that he will be aggravated enough to do it."
The admiral liked James Anderson so much, that he not only promised him
he should go to the wedding under cover of the general invitation which he,
the admiral, had received, but he proposed, likewise, that he should come home
with him at once and be introduced to the Bannerworths; and by home he meant
the inn at Anderbury, where they were staying.
The young man expressed himself highly gratified at this invitation, and
at once accepted it, so that they walked towards the inn together, and began
to make preparations for their appearance at Anderbury House.
Flora and the Bannerworths, as well as Charles, received young Anderson
very graciously, and they each expressed to him their sympathy for the painful
situation in which the baron's marriage was placing him.
Flora and Charles Holland, as may be well supposed, could both feel, and
feel acutely too for any one crossed in his affection, as poor James Anderson
was; and it certainly much damped the satisfaction they had in going to what
everybody told them would certainly be the most brilliant wedding that had
taken place in that part of the country for many a year.
"Let us hope," said Henry Bannerworth, "that you will find some other,
Mr. Anderson, who will be more worthy of your esteem, then she who has
treated so lightly your affection and her own faith."
"I know not," said Anderson, "whether to accuse her not; for who knows
but after all she may be the victim of treachery, notwithstanding the apparent
powerful evidence that has been given to me by her mother?"
The Bannerworth family were determined, and so was the admiral, that they
would bestow what credit they could upon those who had so kindly invited them;
and, accordingly, when they started for the Hall in the handsome carriage
which had brought them down to Anderbury, they certainly presented a rather
showy and attractive appearance.
But still when they reached the entrance to Anderbury House, they found
that their's was by no means the only equipage of the kind that was there to be
seen; for although both the entrances were open for the reception of guests,
they had to wait a considerable time before they could get up to either of
them.
One hundred and fifty guests, sixty or eighty of whom kept equipages, were
calculated to make some little degree of confusion; but when the Bannerworth
family fairly got within the house, everything else was forgotten in their
admiration of the brilliant arrangements within.
The richest carpets were laid down that money could purchase, and servants
in gorgeous liveries ushered the guests into an immense hall, in which the
marriage ceremony was to take place, and which was decorated with a splendour
that was perfectly regal.
And here a new set of domestics glided noiselessly about with various
refreshments upon silver salvers, and the place began rapidly to fill with
such an assemblage of wealth, and beauty, and rank, as perhaps scarcely ever
had been congregated in one place before.
But among those whose beauty attracted much attention, we may need well
reckon our friend, Flora Bell, as she was now properly called, and whose sweet
countenance was the cause of many a passing obersvation, couched in the most
flattering terms.
It wanted yet an hour to the time of the ceremony being performed, and
the Bannerworths, as they saw that their companion, young Anderson, was in a
painful state of excitement, all sat down in the deep recess of a large window
to wait the coming of the bride and bridegroom.
"I don't think, Mr. Anderson," said Henry, "that your coming here at all
was a well advised step; but since you are here, you should muster up
resolution enough not to betray any feeling."
"I will not betray it, although I feel it," said Anderson. "Rely upon it,
that I shall look much firmer, and act much firmer when she whom I wish to see
is actually here, than I do at present—I am enduring suspense now, and that
is the worst of all."
"I do wish," interposed Flora, "that you had seen her whom you love
before this ceremony, for in that case, although you might have endured the
pang of finding that she was willing to call herself another's, you would have
been spared the pain of this day's proceeding."
"I wish to Heaven I had seen her; but I knew not how to arrange such a
meeting; and when I was shewn, in her own handwriting—which I knew too well
to doubt—a consent to be the wife of another, I no longer had the spirit and
the perseverance to ask to see her; and it was an afterthought that made me
wish to look upon her face once more before I left her for ever."
"What," said Jack Pringle, suddenly making his appearance, "is he
gammoning you with his feelings?"
"Oh! so you have got in, have you?" said the admiral.
"So I have got in—why, what do you mean by that? Of course I have got
in; wasn't I invited? I do think you get a little stupider every day; and, in
course of time, you won't know what you are about. I should not be surprised
to see you take out your handkerchief to blow your eye instead of your nose."
Latterly, Jack, when he made one of these speeches, always walked away
very quickly, leaving the admiral's anger to evaporate as best it might; so
that he escaped the retort which otherwise he might have received.
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