All would be well. How I wished Kitty were here. She would have come to the chapel as a witness. One had to have witnesses, of course, but Jack would arrange that.

It was wonderful. If only, as Martha had said, Maggie were home. How excited she would be.

I was waiting long before he arrived in the carriage to take me to Knightsbridge. I went through agonies of fear and doubt as I waited. What if he did not come? What if he never intended to? Was it a huge joke? A revenge on me for refusing him? Terror seized me. He was not coming. I knew that Martha was peering out through the parlor window. Rose was beside her, all agog with excitement.

"O God," I prayed, "let him come."

I was being foolish. There were five minutes to go.

And there he was. Martha was at the door.

I went down and he said: "Sarah ... my bride," and I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

He kept his arm round me as we rattled on our way out of devastated London to Knightsbridge.

I had never been there before, but I knew from now on it would always be preserved in my memory.

" Tis not a long journey," said Jack. "We shall soon be there. What a joy that will be. And the ceremony is not of long duration."

"There must be witnesses, I am told," I said.

"Do not worry your head about that. I have arranged it all. It will be over very soon. We are now crossing the old bridge over the Westbourne, the bridge from which this place gets its name. Now we are almost there. What a desolate place to have built a mansion! But I suppose it was done long ago. Charles was saying the old place goes back some two hundred years. The ancestral home, you know. And that is World's End ... a rather notorious drinking house. Yes, my love. Indeed, we are there."

The carriage was drawing up.

It was certainly an ancient house. We had stopped before the gatehouse with a broad low arch flanked on either side by battlement ed towers. It was very imposing with its gables and turrets built in red brick. Indeed, it had the appearance of having stood there for all of two hundred years.

Jack almost lifted me out of the coach and, as he did so, an old man appeared, evidently some retainer.

"My lord," he cried, "my master is waiting for you. All is prepared."

We followed him to a large hall with a high vaulted ceiling and many windows. Weapons hung on the walls.

A young man hurried forward.

"Charles!" cried Jack. "This is good of you."

"It is my pleasure," said Charles. He was looking at me and smiling warmly.

"Come along, my dear fellow," he said. "Introduce me. Are you afraid to let anyone else see her? I must say, that would not surprise me."

"Sarah," said Jack, "this is my good friend Charles Torrens. Charles, you know all about Sarah."

"He has not stopped speaking of you for weeks," said Sir Charles. "You are the luckiest of men. Jack."

"I know it well," said Jack. "Shouldn't we get along to the chapel?"

"Impatient bridegroom, we understand your need for haste now that we have seen the beautiful bride for ourselves."

"Is the priest here?"

"Ready and waiting."

"And you have the witness?"

"I have. Blakeman and Jefferson were ready enough to step into the breach and give their services. All is as it should be."

"Then let us get to it," said Jack.

We were taken from the hall to a room in which two young men were waiting. Jack greeted them warmly and they were introduced to me. They were our two witnesses, James Jefferson, who was about Jack's age, and Thomas Blakeman, who was much younger.

"It is good of you to come along," Jack told them.

"But of course we came," said James Jefferson. "We know you'd do the same for us."

They were all laughing and merry, but Jack was impatient to have the ceremony performed, and Sir Charles Torrens said we would proceed without delay.

"I'll go ahead," he said, "and tell Reverend Martin that we are ready. He is doubtless deep in prayer. He regards this as a very solemn occasion."

Thomas Blakeman said, "Not too solemn, I pray. I am sure Jack will introduce a little gaiety into the proceedings."

Jack frowned and Charles Torrens said, "Listen, Blakeman, our friend Jack is about to make his solemn vows. It is not a matter to speak of lightly."

"Forgive me," said Blakeman. "I am sure you are going to be very happy."

Reverend Martin was waiting for us in the chapel. He was a man of medium height and was rather unusual-looking. His hair was of a reddish tint of fair and was thin and curly. His pale eyebrows and eyelashes gave him a startled look, and he had a short nose and long upper lip which added to his rather strange appearance. Freckles were visible on his forehead and across his nose. He did not appear somehow to suit his clerical garb and pious demeanor.

He took my hands and looked into my face.

"So, this is the bride," he said. "Mistress, you will have studied the marriage service. You understand the seriousness of this undertaking?"

"Yes," I said. "I understand."

"That is well." He glanced at the others. "I should like a few moments alone with the bride."

Jack suppressed an impatient protest and Sir Charles laid a hand on his arm.

"Reverend Martin knows what is meet at such a time, I'm sure."

"We shall say a prayer together," said the priest.

And they left us.

"You are very young. Mistress," he said. "But I believe you are aware of the gravity of this step you are taking."

"Oh, yes," I said.

"Marriage is a very serious undertaking."

"Yes," I said. "I know."

"You have given this deep consideration, I hope?" he went on.

"I have indeed."

"Very well. Let us now pray together."

We both knelt and he asked God to watch over me, to guide me in my marriage, and he went on in this vein for some minutes.

Then he rose and said: "I will call them in now, and then we will proceed."

I stood beside Jack at the altar and we went through the marriage service.

When it was over Jack kissed me tenderly. And Charles insisted that we leave the chapel so that our health could be drunk.

I said goodbye to the priest and gave him my thanks, which he received very graciously, before telling me that God would guide me through my new life. He then said goodbye to me.

In another room we partook of the wine which Charles Torrens insisted was appropriate on such occasions. Jack thanked him for allowing his house and servants to be used for our benefit and the two witnesses for coming to help us.

"It was nothing," said Charles Torrens, "only what one must do for one's friends if it is in one's power. Martin has very little to do when the family is not in residence. He was glad to be occupied and there is nothing he likes more than officiating at a wedding."

Then we drove back to London to Jack's lodgings. How different it was on this occasion!

Jack was laughing.

"The deed is done," he cried. "Oh, Sarah, my love. There is not a happier man in the whole of this city."

"Nor woman," I said.

He took my cloak as he had before. He threw it on to the bed. The new life had begun.

Life was wonderful. We were together all the time. I was deliriously happy. He was all that I had believed him to be. He might have been impatient with me, for I was very ignorant, indeed completely unworldly; but he initiated me into the pleasures of loving in the gentlest and most tender way.

Indeed, my innocence delighted him.

We were in his lodgings for a week. His servants below were very unobtrusive. They would come at a certain time to ask our wishes and apart from that we saw little of them.

We only made one excursion into the streets during that week. And that was to visit the coffee house—not in Covent Garden, for Jack had a fancy to go to Tom's in Change Alley. If we went to Will's, it would be too close to the theater and we should see some of my old acquaintances. He wanted no intruders, he said. He wanted us to be entirely alone.

For a week we lived in this state of bliss and then he said he was going to take me away. He had told me he had a little place not far from Oxford Town. He would take me there. There we should not be disturbed by acquaintances and could continue this blissful existence. London was a dreary place just now, but soon they would be making it habitable again. Jack had heard that the King and the Duke were most interested in the matter. They had called in that fine architect Christopher Wren and were putting their heads together. Later we would come back and enjoy a fine city with wide streets, with most of those plague-infested houses gone forever.

So, to the country we went.

It was a wonderful life, living in a pleasant country house, not exactly large nor yet small. There were a few servants—as unobtrusive as those in his London lodgings—and we settled down to the idyllic life.

We rode into the countryside, and went and ate in inns. We lay in the meadows and it was all rather like a dream.

It could not go on like this. We would have a home soon. That was what I wanted. I knew so little about him. When I questioned him he would answer briefly and quickly change the subject.

"Sometimes I think you are a man of mystery," I said.

"Men of mystery are very attractive, I have heard."

"That may be, but a wife should know something of her husband."

"My Lord Rochester would tell you that the less a wife knows of her husband—or he of her—the happier they are likely to be."

"These clever comments do not apply to ordinary people."

"But we are not ordinary, my darling."

"I want to be. I do not want to be smart like my Lord Rochester. Is he a friend of yours?"

"An acquaintance."

"He is very cynical, I gather from his verses."

"He is extremely clever. That is why the King suffers the young rogue. The King will forgive a man a great deal if he has wit."

It was always like that. Whenever I wanted to talk about him, I would find the subject changed to something else. Only occasionally, when I awoke in the night, I would think how little I knew of my husband and ask myself why it should be so. He knew of my home on the Willerton estate, that I had come to London with Kitty and what had happened to me ever since ... but with the coming of the day, there he was, laughing, merrily thinking of some new ways of making me happy.

The days passed quickly. We had been at the house in the country for nearly three weeks when I noticed that he had become a little preoccupied. And then, one afternoon, when we had ridden off and had tethered our horses near a stream and had gone to its edge to sit awhile, he put his arm round me and said: "Sweetheart, I have to go away for a little while."

"Go away?" I echoed.

"It is a matter of business."

"Business. I did not know ..."

"That I had business? My dearest, why should I burden you? It's a matter of my estate."

"What estate? Your estate?"

"My place in the country."

It was the first I had heard of it.

"I did not know ..."

"Most of us have such places. They are managed by ..."

"People like my father."

"A good manager takes over most things, but there are times when one's presence is needed."

I knew of such things. Had it not been so at Willerton House?

"When shall we leave? I long to see the estate."

He was silent for a while, and then he said: "It will be easier for me to go alone."

I was amazed. I said nothing. He drew me closer to him.

"I can get up there quickly, settle things and then come back." He hurried on, as though fearful that I might ask questions. "I have to go back to London first. We'll leave tomorrow. You will stay in the lodgings while I'm gone. It will not take more than a week or so to settle the matter."

I felt a terrible alarm. He was going to his home ... his estate ... and he was not taking me with him. There seemed no reason why he should not. Was I not his wife? I wanted to know his family. It was my family now. I had the sudden feeling that I was being shut out.

"Why cannot I come with you?" I insisted. "I want to see the estate. I want to meet your family. You have not told me anything about them. What family have you?"