MARRIAGE BELLS
The village certainly had never seen a summer like this. People had not
stopped talking of the Celebration, when the news of Miss Wax's
engagement to Mr. Pindar Hollopeter set the ball of conversation rolling
again. Everybody was delighted; and Mrs. Weight was not the only lady in
the village who secretly hoped that, now Pindar had set him the example,
Homer would see his way to following it, and would provide him with a
helpmeet, "one who had ben through trouble and knew how to feel for
him."
Mr. Pindar was an ardent wooer, and pressed for an early marriage;
indeed, there seemed no reason for delay. They were to live at the "Wax
Works," and Mr. Pindar was to give lessons in elocution, and also on the
flute and hautboy, if pupils could be found. Miss Bethia sighed gently,
and told Mr. Pindar he was too impetuous; but she finally yielded, and
they were married quietly one day, in the quaint, pleasant parlor, the
bride dignified and gracious in lavender satin, and the bridegroom
resplendent in white waistcoat and pearl-colored tie. He had a brand-new
flyaway cloak for the occasion, and could hardly be persuaded to lay it
aside during the ceremony, for, as he said, it assisted him in
expression, sir, in expression.
Mr. Homer was best man, and never was that usually lugubrious part more
radiantly filled. He accompanied the whole service in dumb show, bowing
and waving in response to every clause; and Geoffrey Strong declares
that when he came forward to give the bride away, he heard Mr. Homer
murmur "until death do us part," in happy echo of his brother's
response.
Then the bridal pair went off on a bridal trip, and the village shouted
and cheered after them; and Mr. Homer went home and wept tears of joy on
the back porch.
Amid the general rejoicing, one face was grave, or smiled only a
perfunctory smile when occasion required it; this was the face of Thomas
Candy. It was such an extraordinary thing for Tommy to be grave on any
festive occasion that Mr. Homer noticed it, and took him gently to task,
as they sat on the aforesaid porch that evening. "Thomas," said the
little gentleman, "you appear pensive. You have not seemed to enjoy, as
I expected, this festival; this--a--halcyon, I might almost say,
millennial day. Is there any oppression on your spirits, my dear young
friend?"
Tommy rumpled his black hair, and cast a look at Mr. Homer,
half-whimsical, half-sorrowful. "I s'pose it's all right, sir!" he said,
slowly. "Of course it's all right if you say so; but--the fact is, I'd
planned otherwise myself, and I s'pose there ain't any one but thinks
his own plan is the best. The fact is, Mr. Homer, I hoped to see Miss
Wax in this house, instead of Mr. Pindar bein' in hers."
"Indeed, Thomas!" said Mr. Homer. "How so?"
"There's no harm in speakin' of it now, as I see," said Tommy. "Fact is,
Mr. Homer, you need somebodys else in this house beside Direxia; some
woman, I mean, to make things as they should be for you. Direxia's fine,
and I think everything of her, but she's old, and--well, there! there'd
oughter be somebodys else, that's all, if 'twas only to keep the rest of
'em off; and there was only one in this village that I could see anyways
suitable, and that was Miss Wax. So I picked her out, and got my mind
made up and all, and then along come Mr. Pindar and whisked her off
under our noses, so to say. I've nothin' against Mr. Pindar, he's all
right; but it was a disappointment, Mr. Homer, and I can't make believe
it wasn't. There ain't another woman in this village that Mis' Tree
would see set over this house," said Tommy Candy, with simple finality.
Mr. Homer smiled, and patted Tommy's arm cheerfully. "Things are much
better as they are, Thomas," he said; "far better, I assure you.
Besides, I have other thoughts--a--fancies--a--conceptions, in regard to
this house; thoughts which, I fancy, would not have been disapproved
by--as my brother's bride says, by Her we honor. I have felt as you do,
my young friend, the want of--a--gracious and softening influence,--in
short, the influence of Woman, sir, in this house; but this influence
has suggested itself to me in the guise of youth--of--a--beauty;
of--a--the morning of life, sir, the morning of life. I have
thought--fancied--in short,--how would you like, sir, to see our
charming neighbor across the way established in this house?"
Tommy looked at him, stupefied. "Mrs. Weight!" he cried.
But Mr. Homer waved the thought away indignantly. "No, no, Thomas! how
could you suppose--not for an instant!--in fact, it was partly with a
view to removing her from--sordid and sinister surroundings, that this
idea suggested itself to me. What would you say to Annie Lizzie,
Thomas?"
Mr. Homer beamed, and bent forward, rubbing his hands gently, and
trying to see Tommy's face through the gathering dusk.
Tommy grew very pale.
"Annie Lizzie!" he said, slowly.
"Annie Lizzie!" repeated Mr. Homer, with animation. "I have watched that
young person, Thomas, since her early childhood. I have seen her come up
as a flower, sir, in an arid waste; as a jewel of gold in a--But I would
not be discourteous. To remove this sweet creature from uncongenial
surroundings; to transplant the blossom to more grateful soil, if I may
so express myself; to beds of amaranth and moly--I speak in metaphor,
sir; to see it unfold its vermeil tints beneath the mellow rays
of--a--the tender passion--would give me infinite gratification. It
would be my study, sir, to make her happy. What do you--how does this
strike you, my dear young friend? But perhaps I have been too sudden,
Thomas. Take time, sir. Consider it a little."
Thomas Candy rose slowly and painfully. "Thank you, sir!" he said,
speaking slowly and steadily. "I will take a little time, if you please.
It is--rather sudden, as you say."
Leaning heavily on his stick, the young man walked slowly down the
garden path, and stood by the garden gate, looking across the way.
Annie Lizzie! Annie Lizzie marry Mr. Homer! the thought was monstrous.
Annie Lizzie, only seventeen, a little soft, sweet rose, his own little
sweetheart. Good heavens! could such a thing exist even as a dream in
any human brain?
Then other thoughts came; ugly thoughts, which forced their way to the
front in spite of him. Mr. Homer was rich now, rich and kind and
generous. Women liked money, people said: Annie Lizzie had been bitter
poor all her life, had never had a penny to call her own; might she be
tempted? And, if she were, had he the right to stand in her way? Was he
sure, sure, that her love for him, the love that he had taken for
granted as he took the sunlight, would stand the test?
Faster and uglier came the hateful thoughts; he could almost see them as
visible forms, with wicked, sneering faces. Was this why she had been so
attentive to Mr. Homer of late, running in and out of the house on this
or that pretended errand, coaxing Direxia to let her help with the work,
begging a flower from the garden, a root from the vegetable border? He
had never doubted that it was on his own account she came. Was she false
and shallow, as well as sweet and soft and and--
Tommy Candy never knew how long he stood there at the garden gate,
watching the house across the way, where a slender shape flitted to and
fro in the lamplight. But by and by he struck his stick into the gravel
and came back with a white set face, and stood before Mr. Homer, who was
rocking happily in his chair and repeating the "Ode to a Nightingale."
"Mr. Homer," he said, and at the sound of his voice the little gentleman
stopped rocking and looked up in alarm: "when it comes to things like
this, it's man to man, I expect. If Annie Lizzie wants to marry you, I
won't stand in her way. I'll take myself and my stick off out o' sight
somewheres, where she'll never hear of neither one of us again. But
if--"
He stopped short; for Mr. Homer had risen to his feet in great
agitation, and was waving his hands and blinking painfully through the
dusk.
"My dear young friend!" he cried. "My dear but mistaken young friend,
you distress me infinitely. You do not think--it cannot be possible that
you think that this poor child has--has formed any such--such monstrous
conception? If I thought so, I should resign my being,--a--cease upon
the midnight, not without pain, but unspeakably the reverse. It is a
most extraordinary thing that twice within a single summer I should have
been exposed, sir, to a misapprehension of this amazing,
this--a--portentous, this--a--unspeakably inauspicious description. I am
not a marrying man, Thomas. Though regarding the Sex with the deepest
veneration, sir, I have for many years regarded it across a gulf, if I
may so express myself; a chasm, sir; a--a--maelstrom of separation, to
speak strongly. Your suggestion fills me with pain; with--anguish;
with--a--gorgons and chimera dire--meaning no disparagement to the
young person in question. I had thought, Thomas,--I had conceived,--I
had formed the apprehension, sir, that she was attached to you, and that
you admitted the soft impeachment; that your heart responded to
the--a--soft flutings of the tender passion. I thought to see you
wedded, and sharing my home, being as son and daughter to me. I--I--I--"
Mr. Homer's voice faltered. But Tommy Candy caught the distressedly
waving hands in his.
"Mr. Homer," he cried, with a broken laugh, "don't, sir! don't take on!
I'm a fool, that's all, the biggest fool the world holds this minute.
I've loved Annie Lizzie ever since I was ten years old, and I believe
she has me."