Barbara did not love him, but hers was
essentially one of those sweet-pea or with-wind natures which
require a twig of stouter fibre than its own to hang upon and bloom.
Now, too, she was older, and admitted to herself that a man whose
ancestor had run scores of Saracens through and through in fighting
for the site of the Holy Sepulchre was a more desirable husband,
socially considered, than one who could only claim with certainty to
know that his father and grandfather were respectable burgesses.
Sir John took occasion to inform her that she might legally consider
herself a widow; and, in brief; Lord Uplandtowers carried his point
with her, and she married him, though he could never get her to own
that she loved him as she had loved Willowes. In my childhood I
knew an old lady whose mother saw the wedding, and she said that
when Lord and Lady Uplandtowers drove away from her father's house
in the evening it was in a coach-and-four, and that my lady was
dressed in green and silver, and wore the gayest hat and feather
that ever were seen; though whether it was that the green did not
suit her complexion, or otherwise, the Countess looked pale, and the
reverse of blooming. After their marriage her husband took her to
London, and she saw the gaieties of a season there; then they
returned to Knollingwood Hall, and thus a year passed away.
Before their marriage her husband had seemed to care but little
about her inability to love him passionately.
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