"Leave it to me," was the airy response. "I'll talk to her."
Thomas James did "talk." He talked to some effect, but not at all in the fashion Mrs. Craigie had intended. Expressing sympathy with Lola, he declared himself entirely on her side. She was much too young and pretty and attractive, he said, to dream for an instant of marrying a man who was old enough to be her grandfather, and bury herself in India. The idea was ridiculous. He had a much better plan to offer. When Lola, smiling through her tears, asked him what it was, he said that she must run away with him and they would get married. Thus the problem of her future would be solved automatically.
The luxuriant whiskers and dashing air of Lieutenant Thomas James did their work. Further, the suggestion was just the sort of thing that happened to heroines in novels. Lola Gilbert, young and romantic and inexperienced, succumbed. Watching her opportunity, she slipped out of the house early the next morning. Her lover had a post-chaise in readiness, and they set off in it for Bristol. There they took the packet and crossed over to Ireland, where James had relatives, who, he promised, would look after her until their marriage should be accomplished.
"Elopement in High Life!" A tit-bit of gossip for the tea-tables and for the bucks at the clubs. No longer a sleepy hollow. Bath was in the "news."
It was not until they were gone that Mrs. Craigie discovered what had happened. Her first reaction was one of furious indignation. This, however, was natural, for not only had her ambitious project gone astray, but she had been deceived by the very man she had trusted. It was more than enough to upset anybody, especially as she was also confronted with the unpleasant task of writing to Sir Abraham Lumley, and telling him what had happened. As a result, she announced that she would "wash her hands" of the pair of them.
While it was one thing to run away, it was, as Lola soon discovered, another thing to get married. An unexpected difficulty presented itself, as the parish priest whom they consulted refused to perform the ceremony for so young a girl without being first assured of her mother's consent. Mrs. Craigie, erupting tears and threats, declined to give it. Thereupon, James's married sister, Mrs. Watson, sprang into the breach and pointed out that "things have gone so far that it is now too late to draw back, if scandal is to be avoided." The argument was effective; and, a reluctant consent having been secured, on July 23, 1837, the "position was regularised" by the bridegroom's brother, the Rev. John James, vicar of Rathbiggon, County Meath. "Thomas James, bachelor, Lieutenant, 21st Bengal Native Infantry, and Rose Anna Gilbert, condition, spinster," was the entry on the certificate.