All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story

CHAPTER XLIX.

"UPROUSE YE THEN, MY MERRY, MERRY MEN."

At nine in the morning Harry presented himself at the house, no longer his own, for the signing of certain papers. The place was closed for a holiday, but the girls were already assembling in the show-room, getting their dresses laid out, trying on their gloves, and chattering like birds up in the branches on a fine, spring morning. He found Angela sitting with an elderly gentleman – none other than the senior partner of the firm of her solicitors. He had a quantity of documents on the table before him, and as Harry opened the door he heard these remarkable words:

"So the young man does not know – even at the eleventh hour?"

What it was he would learn, Harry cared not to inquire. He had been told that there was a secret of some sort which he would learn in the course of the day.

"These papers, Harry," said his bride, "are certain documents which you have to sign, connected with that little fortune of which I told you."

"I hope," said Harry, "that the fortune, whatever it is, has all been settled upon yourself absolutely."

"You will find, young gentleman," said the solicitor, gravely, "that ample justice – generous justice – has been done you. Very well, I will say no more."

"Do you want me to sign without reading, Angela?"

"If you will so far trust me."

He took the pen and signed where he was told to sign, without reading one word. If he had been ordered to sign away his life and liberty, he would have done so blindly and cheerfully at Angela's bidding. The deed was signed, and the act of signature was witnessed.

So that was done. There now remained only the ceremony. While the solicitor, who evidently disliked the whole proceeding, as irregular and dangerous, was putting up the papers, Angela took her lover's hands in hers, and looked into his face with her frank and searching look.

"You do not repent, my poor Harry?"

"Repent?"

"You might have done so much better: you might have married a lady – "

The solicitor, overhearing these words, sat down and rubbed his nose with an unprofessional smile.

"Shall I not marry a lady?"

"You might have found a rich bride: you might have led a lazy life, with nothing to do, instead of which – O Harry, there is still time! We are not due at the church for half an hour yet. Think. Do you deliberately choose a life of work and ambition – with – perhaps – poverty?"

At this point the solicitor rose from his chair and walked softly to the window, where he remained for five minutes looking out upon Stepney Green with his back to the lovers. If Harry had been watching him, he would have remarked a curious tremulous movement of the shoulders.

"There is one thing more, Harry, that I have to ask you."

"Of course, you have only to ask me, whatever it is. Could I refuse you anything, who will give me so much?"

Their fingers were interlaced, their eyes were looking into each other. No; he could refuse her nothing.

"I give you much? O Harry! what is a woman's gift of herself?"

Harry restrained himself. The solicitor might be sympathetic; but, on the whole, it was best to act as if he were not. Law has little to do with love; Cupid has never yet been represented with the long gown.

"It is a strange request, Harry. It is connected with my – my little foolish secret. You will let me go away directly the service is over, and you will consent not to see me again until the evening, when I shall return. You, with all the girls, will meet me in the porch of the Palace at seven o'clock exactly. And, as Miss Messenger will come too, you will make your – perhaps your last appearance – my poor boy – in the character of a modern English gentleman in evening-dress. Tell your best man that he is to give his arm to Nelly; the other girls will follow two and two. Oh, Harry, the first sound of the organ in your Palace will be your own wedding march: the first festival in your Palace will be in your own honor. Is not that what it should be?"

"In your honor, dear, not mine. And Miss Messenger? Are we to give no honor to her who built the Palace?"

"Oh, yes – yes – yes!" She put the question by with a careless gesture. "But any one who happened to have the money could do such a simple thing. The honor is yours because you invented it."

"From your hands, Angela, I will take all the honor that you please to give. So am I doubly honored."

There were no wedding bells at all: the organ was mute; the parish church of Stepney was empty; the spectators of the marriage were Mrs. Bormalack and Captain Sorensen, besides the girls and the bridegroom, and Dick, his best man. The captain in the Salvation Army might have been present as well; he had been asked, but he was lying on the sick-bed from which he was never to rise again. Lord and Lady Davenant were there: the former sleek, well contented, well dressed in broadcloth of the best; the latter agitated, restless, humiliated, because she had lost the thing she came across the Atlantic to claim, and was going home, after the splendor of the last three months, to the monotonous level of Canaan City. Who could love Canaan City after the West End of London! What woman would look forward with pleasure to the dull and uneventful days, the local politics, the chapel squabbles, the little gatherings for tea and supper, after the enjoyment of a carriage and pair and unlimited theatres, operas, and concerts, and footmen, and such dinners as the average American, or the average Englishman either, seldom arrives at seeing, even in visions? Sweet content was gone; and though Angela meant well, and it was kind of her to afford the ambitious lady a glimpse of that great world into which she desired to enter, the sight – even this Pisgah glimpse – of a social paradise to which she could never belong destroyed her peace of mind, and she will for the rest of her life lie on a rock deploring. Not so her husband: his future is assured; he can eat and drink plentifully; he can sleep all the morning undisturbed; he is relieved of the anxieties connected with his Case; and, though the respect due to rank is not recognized in the States, he has to bear none of its responsibilities, and has altogether abandoned the grand manner. At the same time, as one who very nearly became a British peer, his position in Canaan City is enormously raised.

They, then, were in the church. They drove thither, not in Miss Messenger's carriage, but with Lord Jocelyn.

They arrived a quarter of an hour before the ceremony. When the curate who was to perform the ceremony arrived, Lord Jocelyn sought him in the vestry and showed him a special license by which it was pronounced lawful, and even laudable, for Harry Goslett, bachelor, to take unto wife Angela Marsden Messenger, spinster.

And at sight of that name did the curate's knees begin to tremble, and his hands to shake.

"Angela Marsden Messenger? is it then," he asked, "the great heiress?"

"It is none other," said Lord Jocelyn. "And she marries my ward – here is my card – by special license."

"But – but – is it a clandestine marriage?"

"Not at all. There are reasons why Miss Messenger desires to be married in Stepney. With them we have nothing to do. She has, of late, associated herself with many works of benevolence, but anonymously. In fact, my dear sir" – here Lord Jocelyn looked profoundly knowing – "my ward, the bridegroom, has always known her under another name, and even now does not know whom he is marrying. When we sign the books we must, just to keep the secret a little longer, manage that he shall write his own name without seeing the names of the bride."

This seemed very irregular in the eyes of the curate, and at first he was for referring the matter to the rector, but finally gave in, on the understanding that he was to be no party to any concealment.

And presently the wedding party walked slowly up the aisle, and Harry, to his great astonishment, saw his bride on Lord Jocelyn's arm. There were cousins of the Messengers in plenty who should have done this duty, but Angela would invite none of them. She came alone to Stepney; she lived and worked in the place alone; she wanted no consultation or discussion with the cousins; she would tell them when all was done; and she knew very well that so great an heiress as herself could do nothing but what is right, when one has time to recover from the shock, and to settle down and think things over.

No doubt, though we have nothing to do with the outside world in this story, there was a tremendous rustling of skirts, shaking of heads, tossing of curls, wagging of tongues, and uplifting of hands, the next morning when Angela's cards were received, and the news was in all the papers. And there was such a run upon interjections that the vocabulary broke down, and people were fain to cry to one another in foreign tongues.

For thus the announcement ran:

"On Thursday, March 20, at the parish church, Stepney, Harry, son of the late Samuel Goslett, Sergeant in the 120th Regiment of the Line, to Angela Marsden, daughter of the late John Marsden Messenger, and granddaughter of the late John Messenger, of Portman Square and Whitechapel."

This was a pretty blow among the cousins. The greatest heiress in England, who they had hoped would marry a duke, or a marquis, or an earl at least, had positively and actually married the son of a common soldier – well, a non-commissioned officer – the same thing. What did it mean? What could it mean?

Others, who knew Harry and his story, who had sympathy with him on account of his many qualities – who owned that the obscurity of his birth was but an accident, shared with him by many of the most worthy, excellent, brilliant, useful, well-bred, delightful men of the world – rejoiced over the strange irony of fate which had first lifted this soldier's son out of the gutter, and then, with apparent malignity, dropped him back again, only, however, to raise him once more far higher than before. For, indeed, the young man was now rich – with his vats and his mashtubs, his millions of casks, his Old and his Mild and his Bitter, and his Family at nine shillings the nine-gallon cask, and his accumulated millions, "beyond the potential dream of avarice." If he chooses to live more than half his time in Whitechapel, that is no concern of anybody's; and if his wife chooses to hold a sort of court at the abandoned East, to surround herself with people unheard of in society, not to say out of it, why should she not? Any of the royal princes might have done the same thing if they had chosen and had been well-advised. Further, if, between them, Angela and her husband have established a superior Aquarium, a glorified Crystal Palace, in which all the shows are open, all the performers are drilled and trained amateurs, and all the work actually is done for nothing; in which the management is by the people themselves, who will have no interference from priest or parson, rector or curate, philanthropist or agitator; and no patronage from societies, well-intentioned young ladies, meddling benevolent persons and officious promoters, starters, and shovers-along, with half an eye fixed on heaven and the remaining eye and a half on their own advancement – if, in fact, they choose to do these things, why not? It is an excellent way of spending their time, and a change from the monotony of society.

Again, it is said that Harry, now Harry Messenger by the provision of old John Messenger's will, is the President, or the Chairman, or the Honorary Secretary – in fact, the spring and stay and prop of a new and most formidable Union or Association, which threatens, unless it be nipped in the bud, very considerable things of the greatest importance to the country. It is, in fact, a League of Working-men for the promotion and advancement of their own interests. Its prospectus sets forth that, having looked in vain among the candidates for the House of Commons for any representative who had been in the past, or was likely to be in the future, of the slightest use to them in the House; having found that neither Conservatives, nor Liberals, nor Radicals have ever been, or are ever likely to be, prepared with any real measure which should in the least concern themselves and their own wants; and fully recognizing the fact that in the debates of the House the interests of labor and the duties of Government toward the laboring classes are never recognized or understood – the working-men of the country hereby form themselves into a General League or Union, which shall have no other object whatever than the study of their own rights and interests. The question of wages will be left to the different unions, except in such cases where there is no union, or where the men are inarticulate (as in the leading case, now some ten years old, of the gas-stokers) through ignorance and drink. And the immediate questions before the union will be, first, the dwelling-houses of the working-men, which are to be made clean, safe, and healthy; next, their food and drink, which are to be unadulterated, pure, and genuine, and are to pass through no more hands than is necessary, and to be distributed at the actual cost price without the intervention of small shops; next, instruction, for which purpose the working-men will elect their own school boards, and burn all the foolish reading-books at present in use, and abolish spelling as a part of education, and teach the things necessary for all trades; next, clothing, which will be made for them by their own men working for themselves, without troubling the employers of labor at all; next, a newspaper of their own, which will refuse any place to political agitators, leaders, partisans, and professional talkers, and be devoted to the questions which really concern working-men, and especially the question of how best to employ the power which is in their hands, and report continually what is doing, what must be done, and how it must be done. And lastly, emigration, so that in every family it shall be considered necessary for some to go, and the whole country shall be mapped out into districts, and only a certain number be allowed to remain.

Now, the world being so small as it is, and Englishmen and Scotchmen being so masterful that they must needs go straight to the front and stay there, it cannot but happen that the world will presently – that is, in two generations, or three at the most – be overrun with the good old English blood: whereupon till the round earth gets too small, which will not happen for another ten thousand years or so, there will be the purest, most delightful, and most heavenly Millennium. Rich people may come into it if they please, but they will not be wanted: in fact, rich people will die out, and it will soon come to be considered an unhappy thing, as it undoubtedly is, to be born rich.

– "Whose daughters ye are," concluded the curate, closing his book, "as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."

He led the way into the vestry, where the book lay open, and sitting at the table he made the proper entries.

Then Harry took his place and signed. Now, behold! as he took the pen in his hand, Lord Jocelyn artfully held blotting-paper in readiness, and in such a manner as to hide the name of the bride; then Angela signed; then the witnesses, Lord Jocelyn and Captain Sorensen. And then there were shaking of hands and kissing. And before they came away the curate ventured timidly to whisper congratulations and that he had no idea of the honor. And then Angela stopped him, and bade him to her wedding-feast that evening at the new Palace of Delight.

Then Lord Jocelyn distributed largess, the largest kind of largess, among the people of the church.

But it surely was the strangest of weddings. For when they reached the church door the bride and bridegroom kissed each other, and then he placed her in the carriage, in which the Davenants and Lord Jocelyn also seated themselves, and so they drove off.