Cousin Diantha Bethune was heard calling her at that moment, and
Katinka went off with the coals quite as if the next day were not to
see her a bride, married in the parlour.
For I was determined that the wedding should be in the parlour, and I
spent a most feverish day. I made repeated visits to the kitchen and
held consultations with the little maid, whose cheeks grew rosy and
whose eyes grew bright at the heaven of having some one in the world
interested in her.
While she washed the dishes she told me that she and Andy had saved
enough to live for three months at Mis’ Slocum’s boarding house. After
that the future was a pleasant but indefeasible mystery. While she
cleaned the knives I slipped down to find whether Andy had remembered
to engage the parson; and he had done so, but at the risk of having the
ceremony performed in the scullery as the only available apartment.
Andy, it appeared, objected to being married at the parson’s house; and
Katinka seemed to think that this also was because his father had been
“in dry goods.” At our last conference, during lamp cleaning, I advised
Katinka to break the news to Cousin Diantha Bethune immediately after
supper when we were still at table. Katinka promised and her mouth
quivered at the thought.
“She’ll never hev us in the parlour, not in this world, ma’am,” she
said to me hopelessly, “not with that new three-ply ingrain on the
floor.”
Meanwhile I had told Pelleas who, though he is sometimes disposed to
pretend to scoff at romance which he does not himself discover, was
yet adequately sympathetic. At supper we were both absurdly excited,
and Pelleas heaped little attentions on Andy who ate nothing and kept
brushing imaginary flies from before his face to show how much at ease
he was. And after the last plate of hot bread had been brought in I
wonder now at my own self-possession; for I knew thereafter that little
Katinka, by the crack in the pantry door, was waiting the self-imposed
signal of Cousin Diantha’s folded napkin. When this came she popped
into the room like a kind of toy and stood directly back of Cousin
Diantha’s chair.
“Please, ma’am,” she said, “Andy an’ me’s goin’ to get marrit.”
Andy, one blush, rose and shambled spryly to her side and caught at
her hand and stood with glazing eyes.
Cousin Diantha wheeled in her chair and her plate danced on the
table. My heart was in my mouth and I confess that I was prepared for
a dudgeon such as only mistresses know when maids have the temerity
to wish to marry. In that moment I found, to my misery, that I had
forgotten every one of my arguments about young love and the way of
the world and the durability of three-ply ingrain carpets, and I did
nothing but sit trembling and fluttering for all the world as if it
were my own wedding at stake. I looked beseechingly at Pelleas, and he
nodded and smiled and rubbed his hands under the tablecloth--O, I could
not have loved a man who would look either judicious or doubtful as do
too many at the very mention of any one’s marriage but their own.
Dimly I saw Cousin Diantha look over her spectacles; I heard her amazed
“Bless us, Katinka! What _are_ you talking about?” And I half heard
the little maid add “To-morrow” quite without expression as she turned
to leave the room, loyally followed by Andy. And then, being an old
woman and no longer able to mask my desire to interfere in everything,
I was about to have the last word when Cousin Diantha turned to me and
spoke:--
“Listen at that!” she cried; “listen at that! To-morrow--an’ not a
scrap o’ cake in this house! An’ a real good fruit cake had ought to be
three months old at the least. I declare, it don’t seem as if a wedding
could be _legal_ on sponge cake!”
I could hardly believe my ears. Not a word against the parlour, no
mention of the three-ply ingrain nor any protest at all. Cousin
Diantha’s one apprehension was concerning the legality of weddings
not solemnized in the presence of a three-months-old fruit cake. The
mince-pie-and-plum-pudding branch of our family had risen to the
occasion as nobly as if she had been steeped in sentiment.
Upstairs Pelleas and I laughed and well-nigh cried about it.
“And Pelleas,” I told him, “Pelleas, you see it doesn’t matter in the
least whether it’s romance or cooking that’s accountable so long as
your heart is right.”
So it was settled; and I lay long awake that night and planned which
door they should come in and what flowers I could manage and what I
could find for a little present. Here at last, I thought triumphantly
as I was dropping asleep, was a chance to overcome Nichola by the news
that I had actually found another wedding at which to wear my white
lady’s-cloth gown.
With that I sat suddenly erect, fairly startled from my sleep.
_What was Katinka to wear?_
Alas, I have never been so firmly convinced that I am really seventy
as when I think how I remembered even the parson and yet could forget
Katinka’s wedding gown.
Immediately I roused Pelleas.
“Pelleas!” I cried, “what do you suppose that dear child can be married
in?”
Pelleas awoke with a logical mind.
“In the parlour, I thought,” said he.
“But what will she wear, Pelleas?” I inquired feverishly; “what can she
wear? I don’t suppose the poor child--”
“I thought she looked very well to-night,” he submitted sleepily;
“couldn’t she wear that?” And drifted into dreams.
Wear _that_! The little tight black frock in which she served. Really,
for a man who is adorable, Pelleas at times can seem stupid enough,
though he never really is stupid.
I lay for a little while looking out the high window at the Paddington
stars which some way seemed unlike town stars. And on a sudden I smiled
back at them, and lay smiling at them for a long time. For little
Katinka was very nearly my size and I knew what she was to wear at her
wedding. My white lady’s-cloth gown.
As soon as her work was done next morning I called her to my room. It
was eleven o’clock and she was to be married at twelve.
“Katinka,” said I solemnly, “what are you going to wear, child, to be
married in?”
She looked down at the tight little black gown.
“I t’ought o’ that,” said the poor little thing uncertainly, “but I
haven’t got nothink nicer than what this is.”
She had thought of that. The tears were in my eyes as I turned to the
cretonne curtain and pulled it aside.
“Look, Katinka,” I said; “you are going to wear this.”
There hung the white lady’s-cloth in all its bravery of chiffon and
fichu and silver buttons. Katinka looked once at that splendour and
smiled patiently, as one who is wonted to everything but surprises.
“La, ma’am,” she humoured me, pretending to appreciate my jest.
When at last she understood, the poor little soul broke down and cried
on the foot of the bed. I know of no sadder sight than the tears of one
to whom they are the only means of self-expression.
Never did gown fit so beautifully. Never was one of so nearly the
proper length. Never was such elegance. When she was quite ready, the
red ring and red bracelet having been added at her request, Katinka
stood on a chair to have a better view in the little mirror above my
washbasin, and she stepped down awe-struck.
“O, ma’am,” she said in a whisper, “I look like I was ready to be laid
out.”
Then she went to the poor, tawdry things of her own which she had
brought to my room, and selected something. It was a shabby plush book
decorated with silk flowers and showing dog-eared gilt leaves.
“I t’ought I’d carry this here,” she said shyly.
I opened the book. And my eye fell on these words written in letters
which looked as if they had been dropped on the page from a sieve:--
There may be sugar and there may be spice
But you are the one I shall ever call nice.
It was an autograph album.
“Why, Katinka,” I said, “what for?”
“Well,” she explained, “I know in the fashion pictures brides allus
carries books. I ain’t got no other book than what this is. An’ this
was mother’s book--it’s all of hers I’ve got--and I t’ought--”
“Carry it, child,” I said, and little Katinka went down the stairs with
the album for a prayer-book.
And lo! as the door opened my heart was set beating. For there was
music; the reed organ in the parlour was played furiously; and I at
once realized that Pelleas was presiding, performing the one tune that
he knows: The long-meter doxology.
The parlour blinds were open, the geraniums had been brought up from
the cellar to grace the sills, and as crowning symbol of festivity
Cousin Diantha had shaken about the room a handkerchief wet with
cologne. Miss Waitie had contributed the presence of her best dress.
Andy, blushing, waited by the window under the transferred wedding bell
of dragons, pretending to talk with the parson and continually brushing
imaginary flies from before his face. When he saw Katinka he changed
countenance and fairly joined in the amazed “Ah!” of the others. Indeed
the parson began the ceremony with Andy’s honest eyes still reverently
fixed on Katinka’s gown.
There was but one break in the proceedings. Pelleas, at Cousin
Diantha’s urgent request attempting to play softly through the
ceremony, reckoned without one of the keys which stuck fast with a
long, buzzing sound and could not be released though every one had a
hand at it. And finally Katinka herself, who had dusted the keyboard
for so long that she understood it, had to come to the rescue while the
parson waited for her “I will.”
As for me, by the time that it was all over I was crying softly behind
the stove with as much enjoyment as if I had been Katinka’s mother. And
not until I bent my head to hide a tear did I perceive that I had not
changed my gown that morning. As if because one is seventy that is
reason for losing one’s self-respect!
Pelleas put the rest in my head.
“Etarre,” he said, while we were having cherry sauce and seedcakes
after the ceremony, “you’ve got your gray gown, haven’t you?”
“Why, yes,” said I, not understanding.
“And you don’t really need that white one....” He hesitated.
I saw what he meant. We looked across at the little bride, speechlessly
happy in my old woman’s finery.
“Not a bit,” I said, loving Pelleas for his thought.
We smiled at each other with the tidings of a new secret.
That is why, when we reached home three nights later, we permitted
Nichola to unpack our trunk and had no fear. The white lady’s-cloth
gown was not there.