Christians Mistake | Page 2

death. But, as by some strange and merciful law of compensation often occurs, Christian, inheriting mind and person from him, had inherited temperament, disposition, character from the lowly-born mother, who was every thing that he was not, and who had lived just long enough to stamp on the girl of thirteen a moral impress which could resist all contamination, and leave behind a lovely dream of motherhood that might, perhaps-- God knows!--have been diviner than the reality.
These things Dr. Grey, brought accidentally into contact with Christian Oakley on business matters after her father's lamentable death, speedily discovered for himself; and the result was one of those sudden resolves which in some men spring from mere passion, in others from an instinct so deep and true that they are not to be judged by ordinary rules. People call it "love at first sight," and sometimes tell wonderful stories of how a man sees, quite unexpectedly, some sweet, strange, and yet mysteriously familiar face, which takes possession of his fancy with an almost supernatural force. He says to himself, "That woman shall be my wife;" and some day, months or years after, he actually marries her; even as, within a twelvemonth, having waited silently until she was twenty-one, Dr. Grey married Christian Oakley.
But until within a few weeks ago she herself had had no idea of the kind. She intensely respected him; her gratitude for his fatherly care and kindness was almost boundless; but marrying him, or marrying at all, was quite foreign to her thoughts. How things had come about even yet she could hardly remember or comprehend. All was a perfect dream. It seemed another person, and not she, who was suddenly changed from Mrs. Ferguson's poor governess, without a friend or relative in the wide world, to the wife of the Master of Saint Bede's.
That she could have married, or been thought to have married him, for aught but his own good and generous self, or that the mastership of Saint Bede's, his easy income, and his high reputation had any thing to do with it, never once crossed her imagination. She was so simple; her forlorn, shut-up, unhappy life had kept her, if wildly romantic, so intensely, childishly true, that, whatever objections she had to Dr. Grey's offer, the idea that this could form one of them--that any one could suspect her--her, Christian Oakley--of marrying for money or for a home, did not occur to her for an instant. He saw that, this lover, who, from his many years of seniority, and the experience of a somewhat hard life, looked right down into the depths of the girl's perplexed, troubled, passionate, innocent heart, and he was not afraid. Though she told him quite plainly that she felt for him not love, but only affection and gratitude, he had simply said, with his own tender smile, "Never mind--I love you;" and married her.
As she stood in her white dress, white shawl, white bonnet--all as plain as possible, but still pure bridal white, contrasted strongly with the glaring colors of that drawing-room over the shop, which Poor Mrs. Ferguson had done her luckless best to make as fine as possible, her tall, slender figure, harmonious movements and tones, being only more noticeable by the presence of that stout, gaudily-dressed, and loud- speaking woman, most people would have said that, though he had married a governess, a solitary, unprotected woman, with neither kith nor kin to give her dignity, earning her own bread by her own honest labor, the master of Saint Bede's was not exactly a man to be pitied.
He rose, and having silently shown the paper to Christian, enclosed it in an envelope, and gave it to Mr. Ferguson.
"Will you take the trouble of forwarding this to 'The Times,' the latest of all your many kindnesses?" said he, with that manner, innately a gentleman's, which makes the acknowledging of a favor appear like the conferring of one.
Worthy James Ferguson took it as such; but he was a person of deeds, not words; and he never could quite overcome the awe with which, as an Avonsbridge person, he, the jeweler of High Street, regarded the master of St. Bede's.
Meanwhile the snow, which had been falling all day, fell thicker and thicker, so that the hazy light of the drawing-room darkened into absolute gloom.
"Don't you think the children should be here?" said Mrs. Ferguson, pausing in her assiduous administration of cake and wine. "That is--I'm sure I beg your pardon, master--if they are really coming."
"I desired my sisters to send them without fail," quietly replied the master.
But another half hour dragged heavily on; the bridegroom's carriage, which was to take them across country to a quiet railway station, already stood at the door, when another carriage was heard to drive up