"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't.
I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt."
"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther.
"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her
dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town.
But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked,
anxiously.
"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June--but
I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face.
"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm
around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look.
Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until
his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little
fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from
Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one
until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the
June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and
presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair.
"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house
in the village, and he's promised to wait for the rent, so that
confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent."
Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned,
though she knew.
Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the
factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything
for me," he added, decidedly.
Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing
Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have
continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered--Esther
from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the
family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for
there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But
Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra
work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs.
Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between
Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village
mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was
common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvious reasons, was displeased
with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe
that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther
began twisting a button of Joe's coat.
"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she.
When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the
table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread.
"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?"
The girl nodded.
"Joe come?"
"He just left."
But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her
calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had
not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea,
however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that
pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll
do," she said.
Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a
certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote.
The soft gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling
desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup
in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly.
"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake.
Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence--No, I won't read that yet. Mis'
Manning--I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you
when she gave that library party--one salt and pepper with rose-buds
painted on 'em."
Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson.
"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do
to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we
were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and
fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended
in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the
end."
The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued,
in a loud, impressive tone:
"Mis' Stetson--something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but
she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson--"
"You didn't go _there_, mother!"
Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've
got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went
along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some
lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from--those paper balls. She seemed
afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty
they was, and how much you'd be pleased."
"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis'
Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears.
"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a
lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been,
except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"--Mrs. Robinson paused for
emphasis--"she's goin' to give you a silver _tea-set_!"
Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart.
"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was
gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind
of weddin' we'd have."
* * * * *
But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot
ached, and that always affected her temper; but when they sat down to
sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out.
"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I
guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She
said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said
no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good
deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad.
Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set."
And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's
perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and
she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in
for it."
Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted
out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to
something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and
she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding--the more so as
over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning
the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that
invitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had
never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers
before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they
exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had
formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not
common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was
universal; it spread like an epidemic.
Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of
duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was
tendered--from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You
can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later
she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty
nothings accumulated to an alarming extent.
"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as
she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's
fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on
pin-cushions."
She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which,
owing to the nature of the display, resembled a booth at a church fair,
and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged,
her large, handsome face was quite flushed.
"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to
dust your house if you have all those things standin' round."
"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like
ornaments."
"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. _Ornaments!_" The
very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something
needed besides _ornaments_ when you come right down to livin'. For one
thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have
no company--unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em
little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape,
with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller."
And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first
consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful
articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware
arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began
to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its
magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a
spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish
the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary
things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little
parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from
the road.
Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a
bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track
of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels
that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even
before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour
for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to
wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother,
respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her.
Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly
disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and
overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked, till Joe
reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not
yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the
little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when
the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a
halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little
trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith
tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend,
red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far
behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that
she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to
help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old
face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the
wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his
button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his
clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife
to keep them sewed on.
Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil
bent lower and lower. The flounces of her skirt stood out about her
like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly.
Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but
she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment
which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the
sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole
scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost
their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances.
For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had
overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm.
Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of
her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly
at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in
a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old
bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with
curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling.
"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the
sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but serving to intensify her
terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his
sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him
before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought
her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it
revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt.
"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it."
His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the
icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young
girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons
tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I
thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I
guess it wasn't planned."
Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to
engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they
emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away,
but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement.
"The refreshments will be ready by ten," she said, "and as we calculate
to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can
come another."
After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple
departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother,
toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to
speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her.
"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller
a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?"
"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it."
"Well, it was a real good idee! A _real_ good idee!" and he kept
repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation.
When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side
yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her
to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well
sit under that dove as stand under it," she said.
The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like
wine:
"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's bringing that water-set; she
hung on to it till the last minit."
Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid
aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she
put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first
with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about
looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would
be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift.
She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to
a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been
in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a
grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a
short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own
volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she
called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its
mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was
Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs
towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conversation that they
did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she
had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies
circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a
swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the
opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future
home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily
she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the
bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong
protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was
as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that
the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the
wind stirring the long grass.
Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time.
Please, Joe!" she panted.
He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I
guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned,
and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham--"
"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!"
"Well, I'll raise it somehow."
"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely.
"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three
months, or he'll let the other party have it."
"But he promised--"
"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd
offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down
here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out
in the road without you paid."
The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall,
good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up
into his face.
"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so
does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll
make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly
as if she had been his sister.
Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him
for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament.
"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh
Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!"