Public events were certainly occupying everyone’s attention. Adam had returned from a brief visit to Fontley to hear the Tower guns firing in honour of the Allied entry to Paris; a week later came the news of Bonaparte’s abdication, to be closely followed by the publication of a despatch from Lord Wellington, sent from Toulouse on April 12th. It seemed as if his lordship had won his last victory in the war. It had dragged on for so many years that people felt as much incredulity as excitement; there were even those who darkly prophesied that the Allies would yet be taken at fault; and many who thought it madness to allow Bonaparte to retire to Elba.
“Mark me if he don’t start up again!” said Mr Chawleigh. There’s only one thing to be done with him, and that’s to make an end of him, for it stands to reason that a fellow that’s been rampaging all over won’t stay quiet on a bit of an island, which is what I’m told this Elba is. We’ll have him breaking out again, sure as a gun!” He added, after chewing the cud of disgruntled reflection, that it seemed as if the only thing that would make people take notice of his Jenny’s marriage was for the Grandduchess of Oldenburg to attend the ceremony.
This lately widowed lady, sister of the Emperor of Russia, had arrived in London some weeks previously, and was staying at the Pulteney, on Piccadilly, having arranged to hire the whole hotel for the accommodation of herself, one of her daughters, two very ugly ladies-in-waiting, and a number of servants. It was generally believed that a match was being planned between her and the Prince Regent; or, if he failed to obtain a divorce from the Princess of Wales, that she might take his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in his stead. She herself said that her visit was one of mere pleasure and sight-seeing; and it hardly seemed that she was taking trouble to make herself agreeable to the Regent. Well-informed persons said that her only matrimonial schemes were vicarious, and that she was meddling in the affairs of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, whose engagement to the Prince of Orange did not seem to be prospering.
“And why anyone should want to gape at her every time she drives out I’m damned if I know!” said Mr Chawleigh. “To my way of thinking she’s an antidote, in spite of the white skin wehear so much about. It’s as well for her she has got a white skin, because otherwise you’d take her for a negress, with those thick lips of hers!”
It was evident, in spite of these strictures, that if only some member of the Deveril family had been acquainted with the Grandduchess nothing would have deterred him from inviting her to the wedding: not, as he explained to Adam, from any desire to rub shoulders with such exalted persons, but because he had always promised to turn his daughter off in prime style. “Which it would be,” he pointed out. “It would have made as big a hit as if I’d got the Lord Mayor to come in his coach.”
Adam replied sympathetically, but was firm in denying the slightest acquaintance with the Grandduchess. He wondered for an unnerving moment if Mr Chawleigh knew of the late Viscount’s friendship with the Prince Regent. Mr Chawleigh did, but he said he hoped he knew better than to aim as high as that. “A foreigner’s one thing, but the Prince Regent’s quite another, She may be the Emperor of Russia’s sister, but who’s he, when all’s said?”
“Who indeed?” agreed Adam. “Let us not trouble our heads over any Royals! We shall do much better without them!”
He spoke cheerfully, with nothing in his voice or manner to betray the sense of unreality which possessed him. He seemed to himself to be living in a dream. Dreams were without future, and he did not try to discover what his might be, being too tired to force his brain to look forward. He had, indeed, little time for contemplation: he was kept endlessly busy; and, as the wedding-day approached, was harassed by such a multitude of things forgotten and things left undone that he only managed to snatch one brief meeting with Lord William Russell, who had brought home the despatch from Toulouse. The meeting did him good; and in learning all that had happened since he had left the Army, getting news of his friends, rejoicing in Lord March’s miraculous recovery from the wound he had received at Orthes, and laughing at the latest Headquarters’ jokes, he found reality again for a short space, and was heartened by it.
He bore himself at his wedding in a manner which Lady Oversley declared to be beyond praise. She was a good deal affected, and told her lord later that she could have wept to see dear Adam concealing what must be his true feelings, only his pallor showing how much the effort cost him.
In fact, there was no effort. Adam, back in his unquiet dream, only obeyed the dictates of his breeding. Good manners demanded a certain line of conduct, and since it was second nature to him to respond to that demand it was with no effort but mechanically that he talked and smiled at the wedding-breakfast There were only a dozen persons present, but nothing could have exceeded the display of plate, or the splendour of the refreshments. The regalia on the sideboard of jellies, creams, and pies made Lydia open her eyes; and she afterwards insisted that she had counted eight dishes a side on the table.
Lydia had come to London in subdued spirits, chastened by a homily from Charlotte. When she first saw Jenny, all white satin and lace and diamonds, she thought she looked dreadfully commonplace. White satin did not become Jenny; and, to make matters worse, she was as flushed as Adam was pale. She was quite composed, however, and spoke her responses clearly; but after the ceremony Lydia thought that perhaps she was not as composed as she seemed, for when she believed no one to be looking at her she pressed her hands to her cheeks, as though to force back her high colour.
Lydia felt very low during the unromantic ceremony; but in Russell Square her melancholy vanished. Her surroundings were entirely new to her, and although she had heard a great deal about Mr Chawleigh’s taste she had never imagined quite so much opulence. She looked about her with bright-eyed appreciation, drinking it all in, and wishing that she could exchange just one glance with Adam. That was impossible, but Lord Brough did very well as a substitute. Their eyes met fleetingly, and she saw by the twinkle in his that he was enjoying it as much as she was; and she began to feel much more cheerful. It was still tragic that Adam was married to Jenny instead of Julia, but it was impossible to be sad in the middle of such an ill-assorted party. It was even difficult not to laugh when Mrs Quarley-Bix, robed in Berlin silk, and highly rouged, greeted Lady Lynton with the effusive affection of intimacy, and lost no time in placing herself on equality with her by the employment of such phrases as: “You and I, dear Lady Lynton ...” and: “Persons of quality, as we know, dear Lady Lynton....”
Mr Chawleigh, observing the merry look in Lydia’s eye, took an instant fancy to her, and bore down on her. She was not as beautiful as her sister, but what he called a big, handsome girl, with no nonsense about her. By way of breaking the ice he told her that he was downright ashamed of himself for having provided no smart beaux for her entertainment. “There’s only my Lord Brough to be split between you and Lizzie Tiverton, and that’s what I call a shabby way of doing things. Not but what there won’t be much splitting done, if his lordship’s got as much sense as I think he has!”
Lydia, who partook far more of her father’s robust character than her brother and sister, was not at all offended by this speech. No one like Mr Chawleigh had previously come in her way, but by the time the assembled guests sat down to the Gargantuan meal provided for them he and she were in a fair way to becoming fast friends; and several times her mother was pained to hear her spontaneous, schoolgirl’s laugh break from her. Lady Lynton, conducting herself throughout with impeccable, if chilly, civility, later took Lydia to task for laughing at Mr Chawleigh, and read her a lecture on the want of breeding she had shown in wounding his sensibilities.