Phantom Fortune, a NovelBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Phantom Fortune, a Novel
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
English fiction -- 19th century
'It will take place to-morrow, as I told you, in this room. You will go
to the Vicar and ask him to officiate. His two daughters will no doubt
consent to be Lady Mary's bridesmaids. You will make the request in my
name. Perhaps the Vicar will call this afternoon and talk matters over
with me. Lady Mary and her husband will go to Cumberland for a brief
honeymoon--a week at most--and then they will come back to Fellside.
Tell Mrs. Power to prepare the east wing for them. She will make one of
the rooms into a boudoir for Lady Mary; and let everything be as bright
and pretty as good taste can make it. She can telegraph to London for
any new furniture that may be wanted to complete her arrangements. And
now send Lady Mary to me.'
Mary came, fresh from the pine-wood, where she had been walking with her
lover; her lover of to-day, her husband to-morrow. He had told her how
he was to start for York directly after luncheon, and to come back by
the earliest train next day, and how they two were to be married
to-morrow afternoon.
'It is more wonderful than any dream that I ever dreamt.' exclaimed
Mary. 'But how can it be? I have not even a wedding gown.'
'A fig for wedding gowns! It is Mary I am to wed, not her gown. Were you
clad like patient Grisel I should be content. Besides you have no end of
pretty gowns. And you are to be dressed for travelling, remember; for I
am going to carry you off to Lodore directly we are married, and you
will have to clamber up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sun
set behind the Borrowdale hills in your wedding gown. It had better be
one of those neat little tailor gowns which become you so well.'
'I will wear whatever you tell me,' answered Mary. 'I shall always dress
to please you, and not the outside world.'
'Will you, my Griselda. Some day you shall be dressed as Grisel was--
"In a cloth of gold that brighte shone,
With a coroune of many a riche stone."
'Yes, you darling, when you are Lord Chancellor; and till that day comes
I will wear tailor gowns, linsey-wolsey, anything you like,' cried Mary,
laughing.
She ran to her grandmother's room, ineffably content, without a thought
of trousseau or finery; but then Mary Haselden was one of those few
young women for whom life is not a question of fashionable raiment.
'Mary, I am going to send you off upon your honeymoon to-morrow
afternoon,' said Lady Maulevrier, smiling at the bright, happy face
which was bent over her. 'Will you come back and nurse a fretful old
woman when the honeymoon is over?'
'The honeymoon will never be over,' answered Mary, joyously. 'Our wedded
life is to be one long honeymoon. But I will come back in a very few
days, and take care of you. I am not going to let you do without me, now
that you have learnt to love me.'
'And will you be content to stay with me when your husband has gone to
London?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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