A Bride of a Summer’s Day

Crash went the bells from All Saints tower; “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” jangled the bells of old Saint Clement’s in response; and then All Saints fired off its volley again.

The crowd parted, the children scattered their flowers, and the bride passed out of the church leaning on the arm of her newly-made husband.

Very fair to look at was this bride. She was tall and slender in figure, and owned to features that might have been chiselled out of a block of marble, for their faultless regularity. Her complexion was a pure white, with scarce a vestige of colour. Hair of a bright, dark brown; eyes of a deep grey, overarched with long, sweeping eyebrows, that finished in a delicate line on the temples, completed the picture.

This was Ida, elder daughter of George, fifth Baron Culvers, on the day that she was married to her cousin, Captain Sefton Culvers, late of the Royal Hussars.

Between the bride and bridegroom there was just that amount of likeness that might be expected between such near relatives; that is to say, he owned to a figure as tall and lithe as hers, a nose as straight, eyes as large and luminous. But there likeness ended. The look from the girl’s eyes was clear and straightforward; the look from the man’s was neither the one nor the other, and could the long, dark moustache, which hid the lines and curves of his mouth, have been removed, the receding chin and long, uncleft upper lip, which mark the pleasure-loving, vacillating nature, would at once have stood revealed.

To the surprise of everyone, when she came downstairs equipped for travelling, in a neat grey dress and hat, her beautiful bouquet of orchids and orange-blossoms was still in her hand.

“What are you going to do with it, Ida?” asked one of the bridesmaids, coming forward; “you surely don’t mean to carry it away with you?”

But that was exactly what she did mean to do. She stooped⁠—for he was a short man⁠—and kissed her father, then she shook hands rather formally with her stepmother, then passed on to her sister, to whom she gave one long kiss, a kiss that was in very truth a farewell and a “Heaven bless you!” though not a word was spoken by either.

It was at the door of the carriage that stood waiting to convey her and her husband to the railway station, en route for the Swiss lakes, that the destination of the bridal bouquet was to be revealed.

“Sefton,” said the girl, turning to her husband, and speaking in a tone that had more of a command than a request in it, “will you tell the coachman to drive first to All Saints churchyard⁠—I want to lay these flowers on my mother’s grave.”

The guests assembled under the porch, with their rice and old satin shoes, exchanged glances. It was like the sound of a funeral-bell in the midst of a feast.

“My dear love!” cried Lady Culvers, rustling forward in her silks and velvets, “let someone else do that for you!” then, as Ida deigned no reply, and the coachman touched his horses

Five o’clock chimed from All Saints tower as Captain Culvers handed his bride from the carriage at the churchyard gates. It was now over three hours since the wedding had taken place, and the neighbourhood had returned to its normal quietude. When Hastings is crowded with holidaymakers, this unfashionable quarter of the town is comparatively deserted; and in June weather it is forsaken even by its inhabitants for the breezier hills and Marina. A shabby “fly” went crawling along; a few curly-headed, unwashed children came trooping forth from one of the alleys leading off the old-world street; a fisherman in a blue jersey strolled down from the Tackleway and paused for a moment to look at the handsome equipage drawn up alongside the pavement. Otherwise, Captain Culvers and his bride had the street to themselves.

A double flight of steps leads from the pavement to All Saints churchyard, which runs up the side of one of the two hills that dominate the old town. At the foot of these steps Ida paused.

“Let me go alone to my mother’s grave, Sefton; I particularly wish it,” she said; and once more her tone appeared to have more of command than of entreaty in it.

But it was not a request to be met with a demur, so Captain Culvers drew back, and allowed her to pass on alone.

Although the street was in shadow, the churchyard, on higher ground, lay in sunlight still. Very peaceful and picturesque it looked in the silence and brightness of the summer afternoon, with its gravestones gleaming white from out the greenness of the hillside.

“Impossible!” cried Lord Culvers, rubbing his forehead as if to waken his brain to something it refused to take in.

“Incredible!” echoed Lady Culvers, throwing up her hands, and standing in an attitude of amazement in the middle of the room.

“Did not return, did you say?” exclaimed Juliet, with wide-open eyes, advancing slowly, step by step, towards her cousin.

And then Captain Culvers had to tell his story all over again. It was to the effect that after waiting patiently for three-quarters of an hour for Ida’s return from her mother’s grave, he had grown slightly uneasy as to what might be detaining her, and had gone in search of her; but that, although he had found the bridal bouquet lying on the marble slab which marked the first Lady Culvers’s resting-place, Ida was nowhere to be seen. There was not a soul in sight of whom he could make enquiries, so, after scouring every corner of the churchyard in vain, he had thought it best to return, to consult with her father and friends before he took farther steps in the matter.

Assuredly a strange story this! Captain Culvers told it with more of coherence than might have been expected of a man in the circumstances. But then Captain Culvers had something of a reputation for coolness at a crisis when most other men would have lost self-control. Some ten years back news of the sudden death of his father had been brought to him as he was in the very act