All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story

"We shall see her again to-night," said Harry. "Come, Dick, we have got a long day to got through – seven hours. Let us go for a walk. I can't sit down; I can't rest; I can't do anything. Let us go for a walk and wrangle."

They left the girls and strode away, and did not return until it was past six o'clock, and already growing dark.

The girls, in dreadful lowness of spirits, and feeling as flat as so many pancakes, returned to their house and sat down with their hands in their laps, to do nothing for seven hours. Did one ever hear that the maidens at a marriage – do the customs of any country present an example of such a thing – returned to the bride's house without either bride or bridegroom? Did one ever hear of a marriage where the groom left the bride at the church door, and went away for a six hours' walk?

As for Captain Sorensen, he went to the Palace and pottered about, getting snubbed by the persons in authority. There was still much to be done before the evening, but there was time: all would be done. Presently he went away; but he, too, was restless and agitated; he could not rest at home; the possession of the secret, the thought of his daughter's future, the strange and unlooked-for happiness that had come to him in his old age – these things agitated him; nor could even his fiddle bring him any consolation; and the peacefulness of the Almshouse, which generally soothed him, this day irritated him. Therefore he wandered about, and presently appeared at the House, were he took dinner with the girls, and they talked about what would happen.

The first thing that happened was the arrival of a cart – a spring-cart – with the name of a Regent Street firm upon it. The men took out a great quantity of parcels and brought them into the show-room. All the girls ran down to see what it meant, because on so great a day everything, said Nelly, must mean something.

"Name of Hermitage?" asked the man. "This is for you, miss. Name of Sorensen? This is for you." And so on, a parcel for every one of the girls.

Then he went away, and they all looked at each other.

"Hadn't you better," asked Captain Sorensen, "open the parcels, girls?"

They opened them.

"Oh – h!"

Behold! for every girl such a present as none of them had ever imagined! The masculine pen cannot describe the sweet things which they found there; not silks and satins, but pretty things; with boots, because dressmakers are apt to be shabby in the matter of boots; and with handkerchiefs and pretty scarfs and gloves and serviceable things of all sorts.

More than this: there was a separate parcel tied up in white paper for every girl, and on it, in pencil, "For the wedding supper at the Palace of Delight." And in it gauze, or lace, for bridemaid's head-dress, and white kid gloves, and a necklace with a locket, and inside the locket a portrait of Miss Kennedy, and outside her Christian name, Angela. Also, for each girl a little note, "For – , with Miss Messenger's love;" but for Nelly, whose parcel was like Benjamin's mess, the note was, "For Nelly, with Miss Messenger's kindest love."

"That," said Rebekah, but without jealousy, "is because you were Miss Kennedy's favorite. Well! Miss Messenger must be fond of her, and no wonder!"

"No wonder at all," said Captain Sorensen.

And nobody guessed. Nobody had the least suspicion.

While they were all admiring and wondering, Mrs. Bormalack ran over breathless.

"My dears!" she cried, "look what's come!"

Nothing less than a beautiful black silk dress.

"Now go away, Captain Sorensen," she said; "you men are only hindering. And we've got to try on things. Oh, good gracious! To think that Miss Messenger would remember me, of all people in the world! To be sure, Mr. Bormalack was one of her collectors, and she may have heard about me – "

"No," said Rebekah, "it is through Miss Kennedy; no one has been forgotten who knew her."

At seven o'clock that evening the great hall of the Palace was pretty well filled with guests. Some of them, armed with white wands, acted as stewards, and it was understood that on the arrival of Miss Messenger a lane was to be formed, and the procession to the dais at the end of the hall was to pass through that lane.

Outside, in the vestibule, stood the wedding-party, waiting: the bridegroom, with his best man, and the bridemaids in their white dresses, flowing gauze and necklaces, and gloves, and flowers – a very sweet and beautiful bevy of girls; Harry for the last time in his life, he thought with a sigh, in evening-dress. Within the hall there were strange rumors flying about. It was said that Miss Messenger herself had been married that morning, and that the procession would be for her wedding; but others knew better: it was Miss Kennedy's wedding; she had married Harry Goslett, the man they called Gentleman Jack; and Miss Kennedy, everybody knew, was patronized by Miss Messenger.

At ten minutes past seven, two carriages drew up. From the first of these descended Harry's bride, led by Lord Jocelyn; and from the second the Davenants.

Yes, Harry's bride. But whereas in the morning she had been dressed in a plain white frock and white bonnet like her bridemaids – she was now arrayed in white satin, mystic, wonderful, with white veil and white flowers, and round her white throat a necklace of sparkling diamonds, and diamonds in her hair.

Harry stepped forward with beating heart.

"Take her, boy," said Lord Jocelyn, proudly. "But you have married – not Miss Kennedy at all – but Angela Messenger."

Harry took his bride's hand in a kind of stupor. What did Lord Jocelyn mean?

"Forgive me, Harry," she said, "say you forgive me."

Then he raised her veil and kissed her forehead before them all. But he could not speak, because all in a moment the sense of what this would mean poured upon his brain in a great wave, and he would fain have been alone.

It was Miss Kennedy, indeed, but glorified into a great lady; oh! – oh – Miss Messenger!

The girls, frightened, were shrinking together; even Rebekah was afraid at the great and mighty name of Messenger.

Angela went among them, and kissed them all with words of encouragement. "Can you not love me, Nelly," she said, "as well when I am rich as when I was poor?"

Then the chief officers of the brewery advanced, offering congratulations in timid accents, because they knew now that Miss Kennedy, the dressmaker, of whom such hard things had been sometimes said in their own presence and by their own wives, was no other than the sole partner in the brewery, and that her husband had worked among them for a daily wage. What did these things mean? They made respectable men afraid. One person there was, however, who at sight of Miss Messenger, for whom he was waiting with anxious heart, having a great desire to present his own case of unrewarded zeal, turned pale, and broke through the crowd with violence and fled. It was Uncle Bunker.

And then the stewards appeared at the open doors, and the procession was formed.

First the stewards themselves – being all clerks of the brewery – walked proudly at the head, carrying their white wands like rifles. Next came Harry and the bride, at sight of whom the guests shouted and roared; next came Dick Coppin with Nelly, and Lord Jocelyn with Rebekah, and the chief brewer with Lady Davenant, of course in her black velvet and war-paint, and Lord Davenant with Mrs. Bormalack, and the chief accountant with another bridesmaid, and Captain Sorensen with another, and then the rest.

Then the organ burst into a wedding march, rolling and pealing about the walls and roof of the mighty hall, and amid its melodious thunder, and the shouts of the wedding-guests, Harry led his bride slowly through the lane of curious and rejoicing faces, till they reached the dais.

When all were arranged with the bride seated in the middle, her husband standing at her right and the bridemaids grouped behind them, Lord Jocelyn stepped to the front and read in a loud voice part of the deed of gift, which he then gave with a profound bow to Angela, who placed it in her husband's hands.

Then she stepped forward and raised her veil, and stood before them all, beautiful as the day, and with tears in her eyes. Yet she spoke in firm and clear accents which all could hear. It was her first and last public speech; for Angela belongs to that rapidly diminishing body of women who prefer to let the men do all the public speaking.

"My dear friends," she said, "my kind friends: I wish first that you should clearly understand that this Palace has been invented and designed for you by my husband. All I have done is to build it. Now it is yours, with all it contains. I pray God that it may be used worthily, and for the joy and happiness of all. I declare this Palace of Delight open, the property of the people, to be administered and governed by them, and them alone, in trust for each other."

This was all she said; and the people cheered again, and the organ played "God Save the Queen."

With this simple ceremony was the Palace of Delight thrown open to the world. What better beginning could it have than a wedding party? What better omen could there be than that the Palace, like the Garden of Eden, should begin with the happiness of a wedded pair?

At this point there presented itself, to those who drew up the programme, a grave practical difficulty. It was this. The Palace could only be declared open in the great hall itself. Also, it could be only in the great hall that the banquet could take place. Now, how were the fifteen hundred guests to be got out of the way and amused while the tables were laid and the cloth spread? There could not be, it is true, the splendor and costly plate and épergnes and flowers of my Lord Mayor's great dinner, but ornament of some kind there must be upon the tables; and even with an army of drilled waiters it takes time to lay covers for fifteen hundred people.

But there was no confusion. Once more the procession was formed and marched round the hall, headed by the band of the Guards, visiting first the gymnasium, then the library, then the concert-room, and lastly the theatre. Here they paused, and the bridal party took their seats. The people poured in; when every seat was taken, the stewards invited the rest into the concert-room. In the theatre a little sparkling comedy was played; in the concert-room a troupe of singers discoursed sweet madrigals and glees. Outside the waiters ran backward and forward as busy as Diogenes with his tub, but more to the purpose.

When, in something over an hour, the performances were finished, the stewards found that the tables were laid, one running down the whole length of the hall, and shorter ones across the hall. Everybody had a card with his place upon it; there was no confusion, and, while trumpeters blared a welcome, they all took their places in due order.

Angela and her husband sat in the middle of the long table; at Angela's left hand was Lord Jocelyn, at Harry's right Lady Davenant. Opposite the bride and bridegroom sat the chief brewer and the chief accountant. The bridemaids spread out right and left. All Angela's friends and acquaintances of Stepney Green were there, except three. For old Mr. Maliphant was sitting as usual in the boarding-house, conversing with unseen persons, and laughing and brandishing a pipe; and with him Daniel Fagg sat hugging his book. And in his own office sat Bunker, sick at heart. For he remembered his officious private letter to Miss Messenger, and he felt that he had indeed gone and done it.

The rest of the long table was filled up by the clerks and superior officers of the brewery; at the shorter tables sat the rest of the guests, including even the draymen and errand-boys. And so the feast began, while the band of the Guards played for them.

It was a royal feast, with the most magnificent cold sirloins of roast beef and rounds of salt beef, legs of mutton, saddles of mutton, loins of veal, ribs of pork, legs of pork, great hams, huge turkeys, capons, fowls, ducks, and geese, all done to a turn; so that the honest guests fell to with a mighty will, and wished that such a wedding might come once a month at least, with such a supper. And Messenger's beer, as much as you pleased, for everybody. At a moment like this, would one, even at the high table, venture to ask, to say nothing of wishing for, aught but Messenger's beer?

After the hacked and mangled remains of the first course were removed, there came puddings, pies, cakes, jellies, ices, blanc-mange, all kinds of delicious things.

And after this was done and eating was stayed and only the memory left of the enormous feed, the chief brewer rose and proposed in a few words the health of the bride and bridegroom. He said that it would be a lasting sorrow to all of them that they had not been present at the auspicious event of the morning; but that it was in some measure made up to them by the happiness they had enjoyed together that evening. If anything, he added, could make them pray more heartily for the happiness of the bride, it would be the thought that she refused to be married from her house in the West End, but came to Stepney among the workmen and managers of her own brewery, and preferred to celebrate her wedding-feast in the magnificent hall which she had given to the people of the place. And he had one more good thing to tell them. Miss Messenger, when she gave that precious thing, her hand, retained her name. There would still be a Messenger at the head of the good old house.

Harry replied in a few words, and the wedding-cake went round. Then Dick Coppin proposed success to the Palace of Delight.