1
THE snow had fallen more and more heavily while they were on the train,
and the air was crisp when they emerged into the dusk at Woods Point. “I
think I’m going to like my wedding,” said Rose-Ann.
They found a car at the nearest garage to take them to Clive’s place,
some two miles away. The driver halted at the edge of a steep ravine
that cut down toward the lake. He pointed over to the gleam of a lighted
window. “There it is,” he said. “And here’s the path. It goes right
along the edge of the ravine, but Mr. Bangs keeps it pretty clean of
snow, and there’s a railing by the worst places. I guess you can make it
all right. Everybody seems to.” He backed the car about, and left them.
Recent footprints, not yet quite obliterated, defined the path for them.
They went up toward the house, laughing. Rose-Ann had urged him again at
the station to call Clive up and tell him they were coming, and again he
had refused. Now, as they edged the ravine, holding on to the railings
that guarded the most precarious moments of the path, they were feeling
a little foolish and very happy about their adventure. It was thus, they
read plainly in each other’s eyes, that they should be married.
A little out of breath at the end of the path, they faced a suddenly
opened door, and Clive standing there, laughing and puzzled as he tried
to make them out. “Felix?” he said. “And who else?”
“And Rose-Ann!” cried Felix. “We’ve come to Woods Point to be married!”
“No!” cried Clive, astonished, unconsciously blocking the doorway.
“Yes!” said Felix gaily.
Clive laughed. “Welcome!” he said, ushering them inside. “If I’d known
you were coming, I’d have met you at the station and guided you to the
house. You weren’t afraid of breaking your neck?” And then, as Rose-Ann
emerged from her snowy cloak, he took her hand. “So this is Rose-Ann!
I’m delighted. You know, Felix isn’t very good at descriptions, and I
never got the right idea of you at all.”
Felix felt vaguely annoyed. All this was beside the point.
“I suppose we _can_ get married here, can’t we?” he asked.
Clive looked at him, and then back at Rose-Ann. “How solemn you both
are!” he said. “Why, I really believe—Felix, what is this about getting
married?”
“That’s what we’ve come for,” said Felix patiently.
“You mean—” Clive appeared incredulous.
“I mean, married. Preacher! License! Ceremony! Didn’t you ever hear of
anybody getting married before?”
“Not really?”
“Yes, really. And right away. Tonight. Is your mind capable of taking
all that in, or must I spell it out for you. You seem dazed.”
This was not exactly the reception he had expected for his news.
“I’m more than dazed. I’m shocked,” said Clive. He turned again to
Rose-Ann. “Tell me—when did this—when did you children decide on this
rash deed?”
“This afternoon,” said Rose-Ann. “It is rash, isn’t it? Do you really
think we shouldn’t?”
Felix made an impatient movement. What difference did it make what Clive
Bangs thought?
“Come in by the fire,” said Clive. “You—you bewilder me, you two.”
He put a hand, with some kind of vague paternal gesture, on Rose-Ann’s
shoulder. “In here”—and he showed them into a room where a coal fire
glowed in an open Franklin stove. He arranged three big chairs. “Sit
there.... Bad weather outdoors.”
“No,” said Rose-Ann, “it’s beautiful! It’s snowing....”
“I’ll get you something warm to drink,” and Clive left them.
They sat there a moment, silent.
“Do you—do you think—?” Rose-Ann began in a troubled voice.
“I think Clive is a little upset,” he said. “Poor devil!”
“You don’t—?” She stopped again.
“What?” he asked dreamily, reaching out and finding her fingers as they
drooped over the arm of the chair.
“Nothing,” she said.
Presently he looked up, and met her eyes. A look he had never seen
before glowed in them, and it was as if she had shown him some secret
part of herself always hidden before. That look seemed to reveal to him,
as if for the first time, dazzlingly, by the real truth of their love.
It was as if everything they had said to each other had been in some way
false and evasive. This was the truth—this ultimate surrender, this
faith-beyond-reason, this something deeper than pride and joy in her
eyes. He was strangely exalted. He thought: “This—_this_—is
marriage....”
In an instant the revelation had passed. Rose-Ann bent down swiftly to
shake out a fold in her skirt—and to hide that revealing look, it
seemed. Clive was at the door, coming in with their hot drinks.
“And now,” said Clive, settling down comfortably in the third big chair,
“tell me about it.”
2
Rose-Ann looked at Felix.
“We’re going to be married, that’s all,” said Felix.
“Yes,” said Clive reflectively, “people do.”
“You think we oughtn’t to?” asked Rose-Ann.
Clive rubbed his chin. “I really think it is my duty to make one last,
however futile, attempt to dissuade you!”
“Why?” asked Felix.
“Because,” said Clive smiling, “you are so obviously in love with each
other now—so obviously happy, just as you are.”
“And you think marriage will spoil that?” Rose-Ann asked.
Clive regarded them. “Well,” he said, “how many people do you know whose
marital happiness you would be willing to take as your own?”
They were silent, Felix annoyed.
“I’ don’t know anybody whose happiness _I_ would want,” said Rose-Ann at
last. “But—”
“But you hope to have something different, and very much better,” said
Clive gently, as if speaking to a child.
“I suppose it’s foolish,” said Rose-Ann.
“I don’t see anything foolish about it,” said Felix defiantly. “What’s
your objection to marriage?”
Clive turned upon him with mild surprise. “Is this the young man with
whom I have had a number of luncheon discussions—in which, if I remember
rightly, you spoke eloquently on this same subject?”
Rose-Ann turned to Felix inquiringly. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me
your views of marriage, Felix,” she said.
Clive laughed. “That is what is known in fiction as a sardonic laugh,”
he observed. “I trust you recognized it. I will repeat it for you: _Ha,
ha!_ Now, Mr. Fay, is your opportunity to explain to your prospective
bride your views of marriage.”
Felix flushed. “As a matter of fact, Rose-Ann and I have discussed
them,” he said.
“‘Relic of barbarism,’” quoted Clive with gentle malice.
“Of barbarism?” Rose-Ann repeated, puzzled.
“Clive and I have the habit of orating to each other on these subjects,”
said Felix, “at lunch and whenever we haven’t anything better to do.”
“I’ve heard of those luncheon discussions,” said Rose-Ann, “and wished I
could have been present. I’d like to hear you,” she said, looking at
Clive and then back to Felix. It was, subtly, her defiance to Clive.
“Our discussions,” said Felix, “are devastatingly theoretical. We are
accustomed to refer to everything we don’t like as a relic of barbarism.
Marriage, for instance.... It’s essentially an intrusion by the Elders
of the Tribe into the private affairs of the young. The Old People
always think they know what is best. Originally, of course, their power
to rule the lives of the young was far greater. Rose-Ann and I wouldn’t
have been allowed to select a mate for ourselves. The choice would be
made for us by the Elders; in their infinite wisdom they would choose
for her a lord and master, and she would settle down at once to her
proper womanly business of cooking his meals and bringing up his babies.
Me they would doubtless have mated with some possessive young hussy who
would efficiently smother and drug to sleep with her own physical charms
any desire of mine for an impersonal intellectual life. And thus we
would both have been made safe and harmless—Rose-Ann with her cooking
and babies, and I with my harem of one. Both of us tied down body and
soul, and thus presenting no menace to established institutions!”
He was speaking quickly, with a feeling that it was all very absurd,
this speech-making at large upon a subject which interested them now
only in its specific and unique aspects. “But times have changed,” he
went on. “This form of tribal control now exists only as a rudimentary
survival—a custom to which one must superficially conform, and nothing
more. So long as Rose-Ann and I _are_ allowed to choose each other, and
decide for ourselves how we are going to live, we can very well permit
the Tribe to come in, in the person of its official representative, for
ten minutes, and ratify our choice!... There, those are my views,
expressed in the uncouth intellectual dialect which Clive and I affect
in these discussions. That’s just the way we talk.”
“Very clever,” said Clive. “You shift your ground easily....”
“A wedding _is_ an awfully tribal thing, isn’t it?” said Rose-Ann
soberly. “Especially,” she added more cheerfully, “the old-fashioned
kind. With the families and all. And the usher asking you which side you
are on, the bride’s or the groom’s! I went to one when I was back in
Springfield.”
“I went to one,” said Clive, “once upon a time, in Chicago.... I had a
sense of the girl’s having been recaptured by her family, after a
temporary escape—recaptured and subdued. In her white veil, at her
father’s side, coming down the aisle, she was so unlike the free wild
thing I had known.—Somehow it seemed like a funeral to me—a triumphant
and solemn burial of her individuality. I remember that I went away from
church saying over to myself that little poem of Victor Plarr’s, that
ironic little funeral poem—do you know it? It begins—
“_Stand not uttering sedately
Trite, oblivious praise above her—
Rather say you saw her lately
Lightly kissing her last lover!_”
They laughed, interrupting Clive as he began on the next stanza, and
then they stopped, waiting for him to go on. They exchanged a swift
glance, wondering if this was the girl of the story they had heard.
“I forget just how it goes,” he said confusedly. “But it ends something
like this—
“_She is dead: it were a pity
To o’erpraise her, or to flout her.
She was wild and sweet and witty—
Let’s not say dull things about her._”
Having finished, he began to poke the fire.
“A lovely poem,” said Rose-Ann softly.
“But,” said Felix vigorously, “it doesn’t discourage me a bit. I think
Rose-Ann can be just as wild and sweet and witty after marriage as
before. Her individuality, if that is what you’re worrying about, is not
in the least danger of being buried by marriage.”
Clive turned to her. “You aren’t afraid the Tribe will get you at last?”
he asked. “That would be too bad.”
She flushed, as at a compliment. “This marriage will be one final
defiance and farewell to the particular tribe to which I belong,” she
said. “No, I—I guess I’m not afraid. What do you think, Felix?”
“Bring on the Tribal Ceremony!” said Felix.
“Well,” said Clive, “I’ve done my duty.... And now I’ll see about
getting you married.”
Felix sighed with relief, and reflected that it was about time Clive
began to take the occasion seriously.
“I suppose,” said Clive, “that it hasn’t occurred to you that this is
Saturday afternoon, and the county clark’s office is closed. And you
can’t be married without a license.”
Felix looked his chagrin. Of course, he would have forgotten something
essential! He glanced sheepishly at Rose-Ann, who seemed merely amused.
But why must he be, always, and even in his getting married, a
moon-calf?
“However,” said Clive, suddenly transformed into the efficient and
practical personage that Felix had so often admired, “I think it can be
fixed up! I’ll telephone my friend Judge Peabody. And—” he paused for a
moment and frowned—“we’ll need another witness. I’ll fix that up, too.”
“I’m sorry I forgot about the license,” said Felix as Clive briskly left
the room.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I forgot, too. It makes no difference.”
Clive came back in a few minutes. “It’s all right!” he said. “Judge
Peabody says the city council is in session tonight at Waukegan, and the
county clark will be there. Judge Peabody will ’phone up there and tell
the clark you’re coming. You’ll go there at eight o’clock, right after
dinner. I’ve arranged for a car to take you—it’s only a few miles
further on. Judge Peabody will be here at nine, and perform the
ceremony. The other witness is on the way here, to join us at dinner.
And Mrs. Cowan says the dinner will be ready on time. How is that for
management?”
“You with your objections to marriage!” said Rose-Ann, laughing. “You’re
a fraud!”
“No,” said Clive. “Merely a born compromiser!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------