The Semi-attached Couple/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
However, we have not come to the wedding-day yet. There was the usual difficulty about settlements which attends all marriages, whether there be any property to settle or not, and the delay gave the neighbourhood the full enjoyment of watching the Teviots in the interesting character of lovers; and nothing excites so much curiosity, or affords such a fine mark for criticism, as the conduct of any two individuals who are placed in that critical position. Mrs. Douglas, as we know, had given herself the advantage of a regular morning visit and a formal introduction to Lord Teviot, thereby acquiring a lawful right to make all her remarks by authority; and this visit was followed by an invitation from the Eskdales to dinner—the invitation including the two Misses Douglas as well as their father and mother. So the Douglases took very high ground on the great Teviot question.
The other neighbours had various degrees of good fortune. Mrs. Thompson, the curate's wife, had a very fair share of luck, considering, as she said, that she was sure to be looking the other way when anything worth seeing was going on. But she had just called in at South Lodge with a tract, when she saw several ladies and gentlemen riding up the avenue, and she understood the happy pair were of the party; so that though she could not distinguish who was who, yet she had a right to say she had seen "the marquess." She really thought those large parties must prevent young people from making acquaintance: they ought to be left more to themselves. Mrs. Birkett, the apothecary's wife, had had greater good fortune: she had crossed in her walk an open part of the pleasure-ground, and she had seen Lady Helen sketching, and a tall, dark-looking young gentleman standing by her. "A most noble-looking young man is the marquess—he reminds me of what Mr. Birkett's cousin Sir Simon was when he was young. I own I was a little surprised—I won't say shocked—to see his lordship and her ladyship without a chaperon; but in high life I fancy there is a great deal more ease than we should think right. But I can't say I approve of young engaged people being left so much to themselves. However, I am glad I have seen them; and I was much nearer to them than Mrs. Thompson was."
However fortunate these two ladies had been, Sunday was the day that was looked to for the general gratification of public curiosity, and the church had not been so well attended for months as it was on that particular day. It was obvious to the whole neighbourhood that the Eskdales wished to avoid observation by coming early to church, for they arrived before the end of the first lesson—a most unusual degree of punctuality; but this sign of timidity did not prevent the whole congregation from fixing their eyes intently on the tall young man who followed Lord Eskdale into church, and who took a seat opposite to Lady Helen in the pew. Never was the congregation so alert in standing up at the proper opportunities. Old Mr. Mario w, a martyr to rheumatic gout, and Mrs. Greenland, who had, for two years, made her stiff knee an excuse for sitting down during the whole of the service, were both on their legs before the psalm was given out. The clerk, who had a passion for his own singing, saw his advantages, and gave out five verses of a hymn, with repetition of the two last lines of each verse. Seven verses and a half! but nobody thought it a note too long. Moreover, Lady Helen dropped her prayer-book, and the tall young man picked it up for her. Such an incident! Mrs. Thompson, as usual, missed it, because she was unluckily tying her little girl's bonnet-strings. There was a rush into the churchyard the moment the sermon was over, to which nobody had attended, except those who were watching for "Lastly." And when Lady Helen came out, leaning on her father's arm, and Lady Eskdale followed, attended by the tall young man, and when they all bowed and curtsied, and got into the open carriage, the father and mother sitting forwards and the young people opposite to them, and when Lord Eskdale took off his black hat and bowed on one side, and the young man took off his gray hat and bowed on the other, nothing could exceed the gratification of the assembly. Lord Teviot was exactly what they expected, so very distinguished and so good-looking. Some thought him too attentive to his prayers for a man in love, and some thought him too attentive to Lady Helen for a man in church; but eventually the two factions joined, and thought him simply very attentive. They all saw that Lady Helen was very fond of him, and nobody could be surprised at that. It was a most satisfactory Sunday; and as most of them were addicted to the immoral practice of Sunday letter-writing, the observations of the morning were reduced to writing in the evening, and sent off to various parts of England on Monday morning. But hardly had the post gone out, when an alarming report arose that the real, genuine Lord Teviot had gone up to town on Saturday, and that the "observed of all observers" was an architect come down to complete the statue gallery. It was too true: the reaction was frightful, and, as usual in all cases of reaction, the odium fell on the wrong man. The architect, who was in fact an awkward, ungainly concern, remained in possession of distinguished looks, and with the glory of being very attentive to Lady Helen; and it was generally asserted that Lord Teviot kept out of the way—as he was quite aware of being ill-looking; that he was not attached in the smallest degree to Lady Helen, or he would not have gone to London; and that he was very unprincipled, not to say an atheist, or he would have gone to church.