CHAPTER XVII

Peter and Jane were married the following autumn with the ring which Toffy had kept wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat pocket.

For a description of the general rejoicings the almost hysterical paragraphs in the Culversham local paper must be consulted. Columns of print were devoted to accounts of feastings and fireworks, tenants'

dinners, and school-children's teas.

In order to understand and really appreciate the full interest of the occasion one would have had to be at Tetley Place on the morning of the 26th of October last year. Miss Abingdon was in her most bustling, her most uncompromising mood, and from an early hour of the morning she was so severe in her speech, and so absolutely radiant in her expression, that it was very difficult indeed to know how to treat her.

Canon Wrottesley, who still believed that his wife was only feeling the effects of the winter weather, the spring weather, the summer weather, or the autumn weather, was as gay and debonair as usual, and even at the wedding it was felt that he was in some sort the centre of things.

He had his usual group of admirers about him, and was so gracious and charming, so patriarchal one moment and so boyish the next, that his popularity was not to be wondered at. The very school-children, as they threw their flowers, glanced upwards at the canon for his approval.

Mrs. Avory, dressed in black, went very quietly to the wedding with her little girl beside her. She wept sadly during the service, but she looked stronger now, and less suffering than she had been wont to do.

A niche seemed to have been found for her in the village of Culversham, where she loved the poor people, and went about amongst the cottages, and read to sick folk, and was happier, perhaps, than she quite knew, in her own pathetic little way.

Kitty Sherard was bridesmaid and never cried at all. She wore rose-colour, and carried Jane's bouquet, and during the whole of the long day she smiled and was admired, and behaved as a bridesmaid in rose-colour should. It is a comforting supposition, which many people hold as a belief, that there are guardian angels, or spirits, which watch round the beds of those who weep. Such a spirit, keeping watch at Kitty Sherard's bed that night, and hearing her sobbing, may have known something of her sorrow. Soldiers--men tell us who have seen many battlefields--cover their faces when they are wounded, so that their comrades may not see their drawn features and their pain. And women wait until the lights are out before they begin to cry.

Perhaps a certain joy of living will come back to Kitty when hounds are running and a good horse carries her well. To-night in the dark she felt nothing but an intolerable sense of loss. Probably in a sorrow of this sort the ache of it consists in a curious longing to get up and go at once somewhere--anywhere--to the one who is loved, and the blankness and the pity of it all centres round the fact that this is impossible.

The impotence of the feeling increases as means of communication in this life are made easier. It seems absurd that, whereas we may actually speak and hear the voice in reply of those who answer us while we are hundreds of miles apart, there yet should be an insuperable barrier between ourselves and those who, for aught we know, may be quite near us. It seems almost as though we must be under a spell which prevents the communication which we long for, and as though almost any day we may wake up to find how unreal the separation is, Kitty buried her face in the pillow and called Toffy's name, and--who knows?--perhaps he heard her.

Sometimes I think Mrs. Avory may marry again, for her husband is rapidly getting through his life in a laudable endeavour to live every day of it, and there are times when I wonder if, in years to come, I may see her established as the gentle and admiring wife of our handsome country vicar, doing good all her days in her timid faithful way.

But I cannot think of Kitty Sherard as caring for any one except the boy who, whatever his faults may have been, had never an unkind or ungentle thought of any man or woman, and who played the game as honourably as he knew it, and then laid down his life in the simple manner of a gentleman.

Peter will never forget him. When he has boys of his own he will call them after his dead friend's name, and will tell them absurd stories about him, for even when his name has become only a memory it will be surrounded with something lovably humorous. His old jokes and stories are much more a reality than his death. He often risked his life for a good sporting race; and he did not grudge giving it up during that last lap in the Argentine River when day was breaking. He was trying to help a friend to do the right sort of thing at considerable cost to them both, and, when all is said and done, none of us can do much better than that.

Well, good luck and long life to bride and bride-groom! They love each other in a manner refreshingly whole-hearted and delightful, and we will, if you please, ring down the curtain upon them in orthodox fashion to the sound of wedding-bells. Good luck to Kitty, who will never tell her mad little stories again, or enjoy herself as she used to do when she goes to race-meetings or drives her horses tandem through the lanes. Good luck to Mrs. Avory, with her pathetic brown eyes, doing her daily work amongst the poor; and to the genial vicar and his wife. Good luck to all our friends in this book, and to you, dear reader, who have followed them so far.

And so, good-bye.