CHAPTER XXIX.

THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY.

Children clad in white for the occasion--children, whose parents, as well as themselves, had been partakers of the bounty of Edmund Daundy--were, with their cheerful happy faces formed into two long rows from the mansion as far almost as Wolsey's house. Each had a significant flower in her hand, that she might join her partner, who held a corresponding flower on the opposite side of the street when the signal was given that the bride was coming.

In this manner, the two nearest of the coming procession moved immediately forward, exclaiming, or chanting the short couplet--

'Tis the bridal day, Prepare the way, Lead on! lead on! lead on! Come join our throng, Come sing our song, Be merry every one.

None began to sing until they joined flowers, and each couple, following the leader, added their voices to those which went before, until the whole street burst forth into singing.

The graceful Ellen, amidst her honorable maidens, walked through the respectful throng, and was met by a party of matrons, friends, and relations, who conducted her to the house of Daundy, where Latimer and a great company of friends were ready to proceed to the church of St. Lawrence.

All was done that could add to the gaiety and joyful publicity of the marriage, and according to the custom of the times, the poor were not forgotten, but were allowed to participate in the scene. The noble parents, arm-in-arm, followed the bride, whilst Latimer and his young men, invited by Edmund Daundy, were in readiness to receive them at the steps of his house. It took but a few minutes to exchange the riding costume for the flowing veils and simple white vestments of the beautiful bride and her maids, and then the happy pair, with their attendants, proceeded to the church, whither Wolsey had gone before. The organ Daundy had presented to St. Lawrence had been purchased in France, and was for its day a wonderful instrument. Plaintive notes had been for some time issuing from its tubes, adapted to the stillness of the solitary occupant then kneeling at the altar, as if he were performing the most abstracted and spiritual devotion.

The heart of that man was not to be envied. It had tormented itself with such determined endurance, that nature was completely quelled. But it was not in him to let even Ellen know that he was suffering from the sting of disappointment. Nothing would have been easier than for Wolsey to have found an excuse for not performing the ceremony. There was decided cruelty in the thing, knowing, as he certainly did, the state of his own heart and sentiments towards Ellen; but the pride of the man was predominant; and in a church and age when to mortify the body with rigorous privation was a sign of the highest faith, it was not remarkable that an ambitious man like Wolsey should act as he did.

That Wolsey was a man who could command himself, by a resolute effort, was manifested in this early indication of control; but that he did it with a bad grace, these pages will prove.

Self-denial is a great virtue; but morose and conceited self-immolation is no part of pure religion. It is of the same nature as the delusion that influences the devotees of the East, who, with hooks in their flesh, swing themselves in a circle till they lose strength, reason, and life. The Suttee might be as great as the learned Wolsey, and perform even a greater act of devotion than he did, for she willingly and cheerfully gives up her body to be burnt; but this proud man, against his reason, against his judgment, and in spite of himself, married the woman that he loved to another man, and neither wished nor prayed for her happiness. Had his act been one of faith instead of superstition, it would have been attended with consequences far more productive of comfort and happiness to himself and others than it was. Faith can surmount difficulties, and glory in so doing: but faith never places stumbling blocks of iniquity in the way of the soul, that it may leap over them and appear glorious in the sight of men. Learning in that day was then confined in a great measure to ecclesiastical establishments, and though ignorance greatly prevailed among the monks and monasteries, yet men of letters were occasionally found among them, who were bright stars of their day. If a noble was a man of letters, he was indeed accounted a wonder. It was something then to write, but to write with any degree of purity was a singular accomplishment.

On this account Lord De Freston and his daughter were highly esteemed. Wolsey had been alive indeed to the interest and influence she had exercised in his favour: but she had not been the least aware of having caused him any deeper feeling than that of gratitude for her exertions. His conduct had become changed--very different from that of former days, and certainly in her eyes it was not improved; but she attributed this to the position to which he had even then been elevated. So altered were his words and manners, that although he had come so far to marry her, and to comply with her request, she almost regretted that she had disturbed his learned pursuits at Magdalene. There he was, however, to perform the ceremony; and as the organ gradually increased its swelling tones, as the bride and bridegroom walked along the nave of the church, the murmur of the multitude and the steps of approaching feet, warned Wolsey that he must prepare himself for the duty he had undertaken.

He rose from his knees with the studied gesture of a man about to confer a great obligation, and summoning all the energy of his robust frame, and the pride of his whole heart--he appeared as immoveable and as firm as a commander of Roman cohorts going into battle. Every person in that church, saving the bride, looked upon him with wonder; but she with downcast eyes had not ventured to look up, even to behold the countenance of the man who had been so much her friend and companion from her infancy.

Lord De Freston thought him ill, and was upon the point of asking the curate of St. Lawrence to take the duty, when the firm, strong, clear, and singularly sweet voice of Wolsey, gave evidence that he was not so ill as to require any assistance, though his face was white as marble, and his lips livid as death.

Just as the parent delivered up his child for ever into the hands of her future husband, and Wolsey received that fair hand to unite it with that of his friend, he was observed to shed a tear, which fell upon the hand he was then holding. The maiden lifted her eye to meet that of the priest's. There was agony depicted in it--intense agony, that struck deeply into the tender heart of Ellen, and so completely overpowered her, as to make her lean upon the arm of Lord De Freston for support. She looked not again at Wolsey--she heard his voice, now softer and more subdued; and whilst she was united to Latimer in the bonds of matrimony, she became for the first moment of her life conscious that Thomas Wolsey might have loved her. She felt a pang, not for herself, but in the thought that Wolsey might be suffering from disappointment.

He did not give way: he performed the ceremony, pronounced the blessing, ended the service, and returned to the altar, and simply told the verger he had a vow to complete, so that the whole party returned without him to the festive scene at the house of the opulent merchant of Ipswich.

It was observed by Latimer, De Freston, and Daundy, that Ellen's usual flow of spirit, and happy expression of countenance were disturbed, and when the anxious bridegroom sought by a plain question the cause of depression, all she could say was--

'I will tell you another time, only be assured that no friends here have in anything made me sorrowful, and that it will only be a short temporary depression, and even now I feel revived.'

How truly good and tender are the feelings of a Christian heart. This wise, virtuous, and affectionate daughter felt at the moment, that she, her father, and friends might have been too pointedly interested in young Wolsey's career; and have unintentionally suffered him to hope for an alliance which had never till that morning had a thought in her brain. Her quick and sensitive spirit soon saw through the change of conduct which Wolsey had assumed, and she shuddered to think of the possibility of the sacred office of holy orders being taken up in the moment of disappointment.

She was relieved in some measure by the announcement which arrived, that Thomas Wolsey had left town; for with her perceptions at such a moment, it would have been a source of suffering to her to have seen him at the grand feast which was then given in honor of her nuptials.

Wolsey had cast off his vestments, and repaired to the priest's gate, at the entrance from the back lane adjoining the churchyard. There stood his own steed, with his travelling cloak and rough skinned trappings in which he carried his change of linen. He was soon in his saddle--gave the promised angel, and taking the circuit of the town walls, proceeded immediately on his way to London. He turned his back upon his native town, on the very day of its most worthy rejoicing; for, celebrated as Ipswich always has been for political animosities, its people in that day, as well as in this, were glad of any common event in which all parties might unite without contention. And such was the moment of their universally respected fellow-townsman's popularity, when Lord De Freston, his daughter, and the bridegroom partook of the good man's hospitality.

Wolsey, however, had left the town, and at that time felt himself cut off from it for ever. He had not so much as taken leave of his mother, nor acquainted any one with his intention. He wore a face of lamentation as if he were going into exile, or to perform penance for his sins. So severe had been this blow, and the effort he had made to bear it, that he would willingly have forgotten every event of his childhood--his mother, his kindred, and his connexions.

He pursued his way, a lonely and disconsolate man, leaving cheerful faces behind him, a sight he could ill have borne to see, whilst the merry bells sent out their liveliest tones, as if to mock the heart of a man who could not enjoy the happiness of another. Merry days do not last for ever, and marriage days are not, among the wealthy, of long enjoyment.

As Wolsey traversed the long narrow lane, with his pack-horse slowly pacing up the hill, the last peal of the Ipswich bells fell on his proud heart, and he wept. Man could no longer see him. He had no longer to act a part before those who knew him. He was overcome by the associations of his youth.

'No flowers for him were strewn that day; No maidens graced his bridal day; He trode the roses in the street. And crushed them with indignant feet. Another's bliss to him was woe, And he sustained the deepest blow.'

But merrily, merrily still rang the Ipswich bells, and the proud priest's heart was touched.

Never was friendship more pure than that shown by Lord De Freston and his friends to Wolsey; but never was there less response to those kindly affections in the heart of man than in Wolsey at that moment. All he felt, he felt for himself; all he had done, had been done to gratify himself; all he looked forward to was for himself. His mother was nothing to him; his friends and townsmen nothing; Lord De Freston nothing; Latimer nothing; and if for Ellen he once felt _everything_, she now was nothing.

The great man sighed--he groaned; but in another moment he said, 'Wolsey, be a man! Spurn the past. Fulfil thy destiny, and forget that ever thou didst love.'