WEDDING BELLS
The wedding dress was finished and a success.
"I guess it'll have to be my valedictory," Persis said with
ill-concealed elation. "I'm never going to beat that if I dressmake
till I'm a hundred." As for Diantha, her ecstasy implied that whatever
the risks attached to the matrimonial venture, they were abundantly
offset by the privilege of arraying one's self in habiliments of such
transcendental charm.
But of the two, the girl's happiness was the least overcast. Diantha
did not realize the pathos of her ability to leave her home without a
pang. Since tears are only the reverse side of joy, the bride who says
farewell to her girlhood dry-eyed is a legitimate object of sympathy.
Diantha's unclouded happiness was significant of all that her youth had
lacked.
But Persis' satisfaction was superficial. Underneath her stubborn
cheer, her genial vivacity, self-reproach was astir. While she
listened to the outpourings of Diantha's ardent confidence and laughed
over the children's naive inquiries regarding the approaching and
stupendous event, she stood a prisoner at the bar of her conscience,
summoned to defend herself against the charge of injustice to a friend.
And the more she pondered the question, the more advisable it seemed
for her to plead guilty and throw herself upon the mercy of the court.
She recalled in extenuation of Thomas's offense that his confession had
been strictly voluntary, prompted only by his own sense of honor. He
might have retained the confidence and friendship he valued above all
else, simply by holding his peace. Moreover his provocation had not
been slight. "She looked so like a kitten," he had said of Annabel.
Persis knew the look he meant, that inimitable blending of challenge
and retreat, shyness and daring so commingled as to be most
provocative. Of course he was no match for Annabel, poor honest Thomas.
"It's the good men they make the quickest work of," thought Persis,
turning restlessly on an uneasy pillow. "It never would have entered
Thomas' head, to think any harm of a married woman. A different kind
of man would be on his guard against her and against himself, too. It
came on Thomas like a thunder-clap out of a clear sky."
Having reached the point of leniency toward her one-time lover,
severity with herself was a natural sequence. "'Tain't as if I was a
girl," Persis owned, in sorrowful compunction. "I'd ought to know what
men are by this time, and that the best of 'em need to be braced up by
some good woman's backbone." She could not escape from the painful
conviction that she had failed her friend. He had turned to her for
help and her hurt pride had rendered her oblivious to his need.
And pride was still to be reckoned with. Even now when she realized
her fault, she shrank from extending the olive branch. Thomas loved
her and had always loved her. The episode of Annabel Sinclair had not
altered his loyalty by so much as a ripple on the surface. And yet to
show by a lifted eyelash or a hand held out that she was ready to let
bygones be bygones seemed among the impossibilities. The generations
of dumb women whose blood ran in her veins stretched out ghostly hands
to hold her back from frankness. That was a woman's lot, to endure
silently and leave the initiative to the man.
June came and found her vacillating and uncertain. Mystic fragrances,
still whispery nights, dewy mornings, gay with flowers, were flung into
the scale. And when Diantha's wedding was but two days off, Persis
suddenly capitulated.
"I've always said that folks who'd let their lives go to smash for want
of speaking out deserved all they got. And now it looks as if I was
that sort of a fool myself. Algie!" Apparently apprehensive that
common sense would again yield the field to tradition, she flew: to the
window. "Algie!" she shrieked.
The boy came on the run. Something in Persis' voice made him aware
that the occasion did not admit of trifling.
"Algie, jump on your wheel and ride down to Mr. Hardin's store. Tell
him that if it's convenient I'd like to see him this evening. Quick
now."
Algie's obedience was instantaneous. With compressed lips Persis
watched his vanishing figure, her color coming and going.
"Well, so far, so good. I guess now I've got up my courage to send for
him I can leave the rest to luck."
Thomas came that evening, extremely self-conscious in a new suit, his
air of unwonted elegance heightened by a fresh shave and with his shoes
polished into almost immodest prominence. The children, in spite of
their aggrieved protests, had been sent to bed with the chickens. Mary
had been despatched to young Mrs. Thompson's on an errand, and the two
had the house to themselves. Thomas waited for Persis to explain her
summons. As she rendered him no assistance, he took the responsibility
of steering the conversation.
"I looks pretty fine round here, Persis. Shouldn't hardly know the
place."
"Well, there have been lots of changes, Thomas, Joel gone and all.
Five children in a house change things without anybody to help 'em."
"They're nice-looking children, too. That oldest boy, Algie, takes my
eye."
"He'll be better-looking when that cut on his lip heals up. He got
hurt in a fight the other day, the second he's had in three months. I
wanted to ask you what you thought I'd ought to do when he gets to
fighting."
Thomas' heart went down with a thud. So this was why she had sent for
him, to consult him regarding the training of the boys. He had not
known how her summons had inflated his hopes until this sickening
collapse. It was only by an effort that he rallied his thoughts
sufficiently to answer.
"Well, I wouldn't worry about that if I was you, Persis. Seems like
all young things was taken the same way. Puppies are always
squabbling, but 'tisn't that there's any hard feeling. They just want
to try their teeth. Seems to me I'd be pretty worried over a boy who
never wanted to fight."
Persis listened appreciatively. "Thank you, Thomas. It's a good thing
for a woman who's bringing up a pair of boys to get a man's point of
view now and then. I'm afraid I've kind of neglected those children
this spring. I've been so taken up with Diantha Sinclair's wedding."
"She'll be a mighty pretty bride," observed Thomas, striving manfully
to do his part in the conversational see-saw. "She looks a lot like
her mother when--" He broke off, overwhelmed by the realization that
he had introduced the one topic which should never have been mentioned
between Persis and himself. Choking with mortification, turning deeply
crimson as all the blood in his body seemed rushing toward his brain,
he sat motionless, an unhappy martyr consumed in the fires of his own
sensitiveness.
But something had given Persis a clew. She leaned forward, quite
forgetful of her recent shrinking.
"Thomas, you remember what you told me about Annabel Sinclair the last
time you were here?"
"Lord!" he panted, but her gaze held him mercilessly. "I'm not likely
to forget it."
"What I want to know is this. How old was Annabel when--when you
kissed her?"
Thomas drew out his handkerchief and mopped his damp forehead.
"Why, I s'pose she was fifteen or sixteen. She wasn't as tall as
Diantha is, and I guess she was a few years younger."
Persis did not reply. When he ventured to look in her direction, she
was regarding him with strange dilated eyes.
"Thomas, you said she was Stanley Sinclair's wife."
"Well, she is, isn't she? Why, you don't mean--"
He interrupted himself, his look changing. "What kind of a man d'ye
think I am, Persis Dale?" he challenged her angrily. "If you've known
me all your life and think I'm the sort to be carrying on with other
men's wives--well, I guess I'd better be going."
He got to his feet and then sank helplessly into a chair. He had never
seen Persis cry before. He had not realized that she could cry. Yet
without doubt those were tears upon her cheeks.
But if crying, Persis was smiling, too. His heart fluttered, and
performed some extraordinary gymnastic feat, when she held out her hand.
"Thomas, I was in the wrong, I'll own it. I never favored jumping at
conclusions and less than ever now. Maybe--maybe if I hadn't thought
so much of you, I'd have been slower to think evil."
He did not trouble himself with the feminine lack of logic indicated in
her closing words. He had clasped her hand in both of his and was
holding it last, as if he never meant to let it go.
"Persis--Persis, you weren't fair to me in that, but I don't lay any
claim to being all I'd ought to be. There's no end of things you'd
have to forgive. I don't know as I've ever told you about the time Ed
Collins and I--"
A movement on the part of Persis' disengaged hand checked his
confession.
"Thomas," she protested while she smiled, "if you own up to any more
things, I declare I believe I'll have to even up by telling you how old
I am. And that's one thing a woman don't like to mention, except, of
course, to her husband."
Two days later Diantha Sinclair was married at eight o'clock in the
evening. The church was crowded. Wide-eyed girls took in every detail
and dreamed of acting the star rôle on a similar happy occasion.
Complacent matrons, in their Sunday best, exchanged voluble comments.
The wedding party was a trifle late, and the guests were all early
which gave opportunity for soul-satisfying gossip.
"Ain't those flowers lovely! I never saw anything to beat 'em except
maybe, at Elder Larkins' funeral. They say Persis Dale went over to
the Lakeview florist's in that car of hers and brought back flowers
enough to fill a wash tub."
"Mis' West looks real nice in that new black silk. There's nothing
like black for toning down a fat woman."
"There's Eddie Ryan in a dress-suit. Wonder if it's his'n or just
borrowed. It hangs kind of baggy. Shouldn't wonder if his cousin up
to Boston let him take his."
Annabel Sinclair's slight girlish figure was the center of interest
until the entrance of the bridal party. She must have guessed how the
tongues were wagging but her color did not fluctuate under the ordeal.
At last Annabel had come to the point of assisting nature. The carmine
had been applied with artistic restraint, and she had never looked
lovelier, but her happiness in her beauty had vanished. To retain the
admiration which was the breath in her nostrils, she must henceforth
resort to artifice, covering up and hiding what would sooner or later
be revealed in spite of her. She was not thinking of Diantha as she
sat looking straight before her but only of her own hard fate.
"Annabel Sinclair might be the bride herself," remarked one kindly
matron on the other side of the church. "Beats all how she keeps her
looks."
"Ain't that a handsome dress, though," sighed her companion. "She had
it made in the city. But Persis Dale made Diantha's dress, and
somebody who saw it, told me it was the handsomest thing she ever
clapped her eyes on. Persis Dale sets everything by that girl."
If the occupants of the pews enjoyed the long wait, not so Thad West.
Pale and perspiring, he looked more like a patient about to be conveyed
to an operating table, than a bridegroom on the threshold of his
happiness.
"What do you s'pose is wrong, Scotty?" He clutched the arm of the
friend selected to stand by him in this ordeal. "It's way past time."
"Oh, well, girls are always late," returned Scotty with soothing
intent. Thad thought wrathfully that it was all very well for him to
take that tone. He wasn't going to be married, hang it.
"Ring all right, Scotty?"
"Sure thing." But in spite of the prompt assurance the best man's hand
went to his waistcoat pocket and fumbled a long nervous minute while
the perspiration trickled down Thad's spine. And then young Scott felt
in the other pocket and breathed a sigh of relief. "Here 'tis."
"You want to keep better track of your dates than that," exclaimed Thad
angrily. "You'll queer everything if you go feeling around in all your
pockets when he's ready for the ring." His voice took on a tone of
appeal. "Haven't you got an extra handkerchief, Scotty? If I keep on
at this rate, my collar--"
"You just keep quiet and I'll mop you up a bit," returned the obliging
Scotty, but his friendly ministrations were interrupted by a
blood-curdling whisper from the bridegroom.
"_My God, here they come._"
There was no doubt about it. The little organ was wheezing out the
wedding march as if it meant to be equal to the occasion if this proved
its swan-song. The ushers were advancing up the aisle two by two.
With drooping heads and measured steps, the bridesmaids followed, and
then came Diantha on her father's arm. The little flutter that went
over the waiting assembly was chiefly an involuntary tribute to her
girlish grace and beauty, though the dress, too, came in for its share.
"Might have been bought in Paris for all anybody could tell," was the
assurance passed from lip to lip. Clematis was proud of that wedding
dress.
Stanley Sinclair, very straight and handsome as he moved up the aisle,
looked down on the bright head near his shoulder and remembered that
other girl who twenty years before had come up the church aisle to meet
him at the altar. He had learned long before to sneer at his own lost
illusions, but singularly enough, never until this moment had it
occurred to him to wonder what her dreams might have been that far-away
June day. To his discomfiture the query brought a pang, and he had
thought himself beyond such weakness. The petrified heart has a
certain advantage over that of flesh, though possibly the ache which
proves it human is a ground for felicitation.
Ten minutes later Thad was wondering what he had been afraid of. Why,
it was nothing. He could hardly believe that a matter so momentous
could be disposed of in so few minutes. And yet it was true, and
Diantha's little hand was in his, to have and to hold till death did
them part.
Diantha's composure throughout the ceremony had suggested that being
married was an every-day matter to a person of her wide experience.
Her poise and self-possession were the occasion of wondering comment
among the many who were hardly able to realize even now that she had
really grown up. It was not till the reception, when Persis with
Thomas following bashfully in her wake came up lo proffer her good
wishes, that Diantha relapsed into youthfulness. She flung her arms
about her old friend's neck and kissed her tumultuously.
"Darling Miss Persis, how perfectly lovely you look! Did you get that
beautiful dress just for my wedding?"
The composition of Persis' reply apparently took a little time. She
did not speak for a minute.
"Yes, I made it for your wedding," she returned at length. "But I used
it for my own, too. Thomas and I slipped over to the minister's after
supper and got married. So we'll both wish each other joy, my dearie."
It was a shock of course, but Clematis was getting used to that where
Persis was concerned. And Mrs. Hornblower voiced the feeling of more
than herself when she commented on the affair at the next meeting of
the Woman's Club. Persis was not present. She and Thomas had gone on
a wedding trip to the seashore, and taken all the children.
"It's a kind of back-handed way of getting a family," said Mrs.
Hornblower. "Picking up one child here and another there, and then
winding up with a husband. But I must say it'll take a load off my
mind to see a man at the head of Persis Dale's pew."