THE WEDDING.
On the same train with Mrs. Banker and Mark, Bell Cameron came with Bob,
but father Cameron was not able to come; he would gladly have done so if
he could, and he sent his blessing to Katy with the wish that she might
be very happy in her second married life. This message Bell gave to
Katy, and then tried to form some reasonable excuse for her mother’s and
Juno’s absence, for she could not tell how haughtily both had declined
the invitation, Juno finding fault because Katy had not waited longer
than two years, and Mrs. Cameron blaming her for being so very vulgar as
to be married at home, instead of in church. On this point Katy herself
had been a little disquieted, feeling how much more appropriate it was
that she be married in the church, but shrinking from standing again a
bride at the same altar where she had once before been made a wife. She
could not do it, she finally decided; there would be too many harrowing
memories crowding upon her mind, and as Morris did not particularly care
where the ceremony was performed, it was settled that it should be at
the house, even though Mrs. Deacon Bannister did say that “she had
supposed Dr. Grant too _High Church_ to do anything so _Presbyterianny_
as that.”
Bell’s arrival at the farm-house was timely; for the unexpected
appearance in their midst of one whom they looked upon as surely dead
had stunned and bewildered the family to such an extent that it needed
the presence of just such a matter-of-fact, self-possessed woman as
Bell, to bring things back to their original shape. It was wonderful how
the city girl fitted into the vacant niches, seeing to everything which
needed seeing to, and still finding time to steal away alone with
Lieutenant Bob, who kept her in a painful state of blushing, by
constantly wishing it was his bridal night as well as Dr. Grant’s, and
by inveighing against the weeks which must intervene, ere the day
appointed for the grand ceremony, to take place in Grace Church, and
which was to make Bell his wife.
* * * * *
“Come in here, Helen, I have something to show you,” Mrs. Banker said,
after she had again embraced and wept over her long lost son, whose
return was not quite real yet; and leading her daughter-in-law to her
bedroom, she showed her the elegant, white silk which had been made for
her just after her marriage, two years before, and which, with careful
forethought, she had brought with her, as more suitable now for the
wedding, than Helen’s mourning weeds.
“I made the most of my time last night, after receiving Mark’s telegram,
and had it modernized somewhat,” she said. “And I brought your pearls,
for you will be most as much a bride as Katy, and I have a pride in
seeing my son’s wife appropriately dressed.”
Far different were Helen’s feelings now, as she donned the elegant
dress, from what they had been the first and only time she wore it. Then
the bridegroom was where danger and death lay thickly around his
pathway; but now he was at her side, kissing her cheek, where the roses
were burning so brightly, and calling still deeper blushes to her face,
by his teasing observations and humorous ridicule of his own personal
appearance. Would she not feel ashamed of him in his soiled uniform? And
would she not cast longing glances at her handsome brother-in-law and
the stylish Lieutenant Bob? But Helen was proud of her husband’s
uniform, as a badge of what he had suffered; and when the folds of her
rich dress swept against it, she did not draw them away, but nestled
closer to him, leaning upon his shoulder; and when no one was near,
winding her soft arm about his neck once, whispering, “My darling Mark,
I cannot make it real yet.”
Softly the night shadows fell around the farm-house, and in the rooms
below a rather mixed group was assembled—all the _élite_ of the town,
with many of Aunt Betsy’s neighbors, and the doctor’s patients, who had
come to see their physician married, rejoicing in his happiness, and
glad that the mistress of Linwood was not to be a stranger, but the
young girl who had grown up in their midst, and who, by suffering and
sorrow, had been moulded into a noble woman, worthy of Dr. Grant. She
was ready now for her second bridal, in her dress of white, with no
vestige of color in her face, and her great blue eyes shining with a
brilliancy which made them almost black. Occasionally, as her thoughts
leaped backward over a period of almost six years, a tear trembled on
her long eyelashes, but Morris kissed it away, asking if she were sorry.
“Oh, no, not sorry that I am to be your wife,” she answered; “but it is
not possible that I should forget entirely the roughness of the road
which has led me to you.”
“They are waiting for you,” was said several times, and down the stairs
passed Mark Ray and Helen, Lieut. Bob and Bell, with Dr. Grant and Katy,
whose face, as she stood again before the clergyman and spoke her
marriage vows, shone with a strange, peaceful light, which made it seem
to those who gazed upon her like the face of some pure angel.
There was no thought then of that deathbed in Georgetown—no thought of
Greenwood or the little grave in Silverton, where the crocuses and
hyacinths were blossoming—no thought of anything save the man at her
side, whose voice was so full and earnest as it made the responses, and
who gently pressed the little hand as he fitted the wedding ring. It was
over at last, and Katy was Morris’s wife, blushing now as they called
her _Mrs. Grant_, and putting up her rosebud lips to be kissed by all
who claimed that privilege. Helen, too, came in for her share of
attention, and the opinion of the guests as to the beauty of the
respective brides, as they were termed, was pretty equally divided.
In heavy rustling silk, which actually trailed an inch, and cap of real
lace, Aunt Betsy moved among the crowd, her face glowing with the
satisfaction she felt at seeing her nieces so much admired, and her
heart so full of good will and toleration that after the supper was
over, and she fancied a few of the younger ones were beginning to feel
tired, she suggested to Bell that she might start a _dance_ if she had a
mind to, either in the kitchen or the parlor, it did not matter where,
and “Ephraim would not care an atom,” a remark which brought from Mrs.
Deacon Bannister a most withering look of reproach, and slightly
endangered Aunt Betsy’s standing in the church. Perhaps Bell Cameron
suspected as much, for she replied that they were having a splendid time
as it was, and as Dr. Grant did not dance, they might as well dispense
with it altogether. And so it happened that there was no dancing at
Katy’s wedding, and Uncle Ephraim escaped the reproof which his brother
deacon would have felt called upon to give him had he permitted so
grievous a sin, while Mrs. Deacon Bannister, who, at the first trip of
the toe would have departed lest her eyes should look upon the evil
thing, was permitted to remain until “it was out,” and the guests
retired _en masse_ to their respective homes.
* * * * *
The carriage from Linwood stood at the farm-house door, and Katy,
wrapped in shawls and hood, was ready to go with her husband. There were
no tears shed at this parting, for their darling was not going far away;
her new home was just across the fields, and through the soft moonlight
they could see its chimney tops, and trace for some little distance the
road over which the carriage went bearing her swiftly on; her hands fast
locked in Morris’s, her head upon his arm, and the hearts of both too
full of bliss for either to speak a word until Linwood was reached,
when, folding Katy to his bosom in a passionate embrace, Morris said to
her,
“We are home at last—your home and mine, my precious, precious wife.”
The village clock was striking one, and the sound echoed across the
waters of Fairy Pond, awakening, in his marshy bed, a sleeping frog, who
sent forth upon the warm, still air a musical, plaintive note as Morris
bore his bride over the threshold and into the library, where a cheerful
fire was blazing. He had ordered it kindled there, for he had a fancy
ere he slept to see fulfilled a dream he had dreamed so often, of Katy
sitting as his wife in the chair across the hearth, where he placed her
now, himself removing her shawl and hood; then kneeling down before her,
with his arm around her waist and his head upon her shoulder, he prayed
aloud to the God who had brought her there, asking His blessing upon
their future life, and dedicating himself and all he had to his Master’s
service. It is such prayer which God delights to answer, and a peace,
deeper than they had yet known, fell upon that newly married pair at
Linwood.