Note 16 — Chapter X · [13] AT LAST (1860–1861)

Miss Alice Bird, who knew Sir Richard and Lady Burton for many years, has told me the following details about the wedding. The Birds were friends of the Arundell family, and Isabel came to them and told them how matters stood with regard to Mrs. Arundell’s opposition and her ill-health, and asked if she might be married from their house, and so, to use her own phrase, “throw the mantle of respectability over the marriage,” to prevent people saying that it was a runaway match. Dr. Bird and his sister gladly consented; they accompanied her to the church, and when the ceremony was over the newly wedded couple returned to their house in Welbeck Street, where they had a simple luncheon, which did duty for the wedding breakfast.

After luncheon was over Isabel and her husband walked off down Welbeck Street to their lodging in St. James’s, where they settled down without any fuss whatever. She had sent her boxes on ahead in a four-wheeler. That evening a bachelor friend of Burton’s called in at the lodging in St James’s, and found Isabel seated there, in every sense mistress of the situation, and Burton proudly introduced her as “My wife.” They did not send the friend away, but kept him there to smoke and have a chat with them.