THE WEDDING AND THE TALK OVER THE PRAYER-BOOK.
If novels are to be considered true pictures of real life we must
believe that the fall from wealth to poverty is a less serious evil in
America than in any other known quarter of the world.
In English novels the failure of a millionaire is represented as
bringing results much the same as the commission of an infamous crime.
Poor old Mr. Sedley fails and forthwith all his acquaintances cut him;
nobody calls on his wife or knows her in the street; the family who have
all along been courting his daughter for their son and kissing the
ground at her feet, now command the son to break with her, and turn him
out of doors for marrying her.
In America it is quite otherwise. A man fails without losing friends,
neighbors, and the consideration of society. He moves into a modest
house, finds some means of honest livelihood, and everybody calls on his
wife as before. Friends and neighbors as they have opportunity are glad
to stretch forth a helping hand, and a young fellow who should break his
engagement with the daughter at such a crisis would simply be scouted as
infamous.
Americans have been called worshipers of the almighty dollar, and they
certainly are not backward in that species of devotion, but still these
well-known facts show that our worship is not, after all, so absolute as
that of other quarters of the world.
Mr. Van Arsdel commanded the respect and sympathy of the influential men
of New York. The inflexible honesty and honor with which he gave up all
things to his creditors won sympathy, and there was a united effort
made to procure for him an appointment in the Custom House, which would
give him a comfortable income. In short, by the time that my wedding-day
arrived, the family might be held as having fallen from wealth into
competence. The splendid establishment on Fifth Avenue was to be sold.
It was, in fact, already advertised, and our wedding was to be the last
act of the family drama in it. After that we were to go to my mother's,
in the mountains of New Hampshire, and Mr. Van Arsdel's family were to
spend the summer at the old farm-homestead where his aged parents yet
kept house.
Our wedding preparations therefore went forward with a good degree of
geniality on the part of the family, and with many demonstrations of
sympathy and interest on the part of friends and relations. A genuine
love-marriage always and everywhere evokes a sort of instinctive warmth
and sympathy. The most worldly are fond of patronizing it as a
delightful folly, and as Eva had been one of the most popular girls of
her set she was flooded with presents.
And now the day of days was at hand, and for the last time I went up the
steps of the Van Arsdel mansion to spend a last evening with Eva Van
Arsdel.
She met me at the door of her boudoir: "Harry, here you are! oh, I have
no end of things to tell you!--the door bell has been ringing all day,
and a perfect storm of presents. We have duplicates of all the things
that nobody can do without. I believe we have six pie-knives and four
sugar-sifters and three egg-boilers and three china hens to sit on eggs,
and a perfect meteoric shower of salt-cellars. I couldn't even count
them."
"Oh well! Salt is the symbol of hospitality," said I, "so we can't have
too many."
"And look here, Harry, the wedding-dress has come home. Think of the
unheard-of incomprehensible virtue of Tullegig! I don't think she ever
had a thing done in time before in her life. Behold now!"
Sure enough! before me, arranged on a chair was a misty and visionary
pageant of vapory tulle and shimmering satin.
"All this is Ida's gift. She insisted that she alone would dress me for
my wedding, and poor Tullegig actually has outdone herself and worked
over it with tears in her eyes. Good soul! she has a heart behind all
her finery, and really seems to take to me especially, perhaps because
I've been such a model of patience in waiting at her doors, and never
scolded her for any of her tricks. In fact, we girls have been as good
as an annuity to Tullegig; no wonder she mourns over us. Do you know,
Harry, the poor old thing actually kissed me!"
"I'm not in the least surprised at her wanting that privilege," said I.
"Well, I felt rather tender toward her. I believe it's Dr. Johnson or
somebody else who says there are few things, not purely evil, of which
we can say without emotion, 'This is the last!' And Tullegig is by no
means a pure evil. This is probably the last of her--with me. But come,
you don't say what you think of it. What is it like?"
"Like a vision, like the clouds of morning, like the translation robes
of saints, like impossible undreamed mysteries of bliss. I feel as if
they might all dissolve away and be gone before to-morrow."
"Oh, shocking, Harry! you mustn't take such indefinite cloudy views of
things. You must learn to appreciate details. Open your eyes, and learn
now that Tullegig out of special love and grace has adorned my dress
with a new style of trimming that not one of the girls has ever had or
seen before. It is an original composition of her own. Isn't it
blissful, now?"
"Extremely blissful," said I, obediently.
"You don't admire,--you are not half awake."
"I do admire--wonder--adore--anything else that you like--but I can't
help feeling that it is all a vision, and that when those cloud wreaths
float around you, you will dissolve away and be gone."
"Poh! poh! You will find me very visible and present, as a sharp little
thorn in your side. Now, see, here are the slippers!" and therewith she
set down before me a pair of pert little delicious white satin
absurdities, with high heels and tiny toes, and great bows glistening
with bugles.
Nothing fascinates a man like a woman's slipper, from its utter
incomprehensibility, its astonishing unlikeness to any article
subserving the same purpose for his own sex. Eva's slippers always
seemed to have a character of their own,--a prankish elfin grace, and
these as they stood there seemed instinct with life as two white kittens
just ready for a spring.
I put two fingers into each of the little wretches and made them caper
and dance, and we laughed gayly.
"Let me see your boots, Harry?"
"There," said I, putting best foot forward, a brand new pair bought for
the occasion. "I am wearing them to get used to them, so as to give my
whole mind to the solemn services to-morrow."
"Oh, you enormous creature!" she said, "you are a perfect behemoth.
Fancy now my slippers peeping over the table here and wondering at your
boots. I can imagine the woman question discussed between the slippers
and the boots."
"And I can fancy," said I, "the poor, stumping, well-meaning old boots
being utterly perplexed and routed by the elfin slippers. What can poor
boots do? They cannot follow them, cannot catch or control them, and if
they come down hard on them they ruin them altogether."
"And the good old boots nevertheless," said she, "are worth forty pairs
of slippers. They can stamp through wet and mud and rain, and come out
afterward good as new; and lift the slippers over impossible places.
Dear old patient long-suffering boots, let the slippers respect them!
But come, Harry, this is the last evening now, and do you know I've some
anxiety about our little programme to-morrow? You were not bred in the
Church, and you never were married before, and so you ought to be well
up in your part beforehand."
"I confess," said I, "I feel ignorant and a bit nervous."
"Now, I've been a bridesmaid no end of times, and seen all the possibles
that may happen under those interesting circumstances, and men are so
awkward--their great feet are always sure to step somewhere where they
shouldn't, and then they thumb and fumble about the ring, and their
gloves always stick to their hands, and it's uncomfortable generally.
Now don't, I beg you, disgrace me by any such enormities."
"This is what the slippers say to the boots," said I.
"Exactly. And here is where the boots do well to take a lesson of the
slippers. They are 'on their native heath,' here."
"Well, then," said I, "get down the Prayer-book and teach me my
proprieties. I will learn my lesson thoroughly."
"Well, now, we have the thing all arranged for to-morrow; the carriages
are to be here at ten; ceremony at eleven. The procession will form at
the church door; first, Jim Fellows and Alice, then you and mamma, then
papa and me, and when we meet at the altar be sure to mind where you
step, and don't tread on my veil or any of my tulle clouds, because,
though it may look like vapor, you can't very well set your foot through
it; and be sure you have a well-disciplined glove that you can slip off
without a fuss; and have the ring just where you can lay your hand on
it. And now let's read over the service and responses and all that."
We went through them creditably till Eva, putting her finger on one
word, looked me straight in the eye.
"_Obey_, Harry, isn't that a droll word between you and me? I can't
conceive of it. Now up to this time you have always obeyed me."
"And 'turn about, is fair play,' the proverb says," said I, "you see,
Eva, since Adam took the apple from Eve men have obeyed women _nem.
con._--there was no need of putting the 'obey' into their part. The
only puzzle is how to constrain the subtle, imponderable, ethereal
essence of womanhood under some law; so the _obey_ is our helpless
attempt."
"But now, really and truly, Harry, I want to talk seriously about this.
The girls are so foolish! Jane Seymour said she said 'be gay' instead of
'obey'--and Maria Elmore said she didn't say it at all. But really and
truly, that is God's altar--and it is a religious service, and if I go
there at all, I must understand what I mean, and say it from my heart."
"My dear, if you have any hesitancy you know that you can leave it out.
In various modern wedding services it is often omitted. We could easily
avoid it."
"Oh nonsense, Harry! Marry out of the Church! What are you thinking of?
Not I, indeed! I shouldn't think myself really married."
"Well, then, my princess, it is your own affair. If you choose to
promise to obey me, I can only be grateful for the honor; if it gives
any power, it is of your giving, not my seeking."
"But what does a woman promise when she promises at the altar to obey?"
"Well, evidently, she promises to obey her husband in every case where
he commands, and a higher duty to God does not forbid."
"But does this mean that all through life in every case where there
arises a difference of opinion or taste between a husband and wife she
is to give up to him?"
"If," said I, "she has been so unwise as to make this promise to a man
without common sense or gentlemanly honor, who chooses to have his own
will prevail in all cases of differences of taste, I don't see but she
must."
"But between people like you and me, Harry?"
"Between people like you and me, darling, I can't see that the word can
make any earthly difference. There can be no obeying where there never
is any commanding, and as to commanding you I should as soon think of
commanding the sun and moon."
"Well; but you know we shall not always think alike or want the same
thing."
"Then we will talk matters over, and the one that gives the best reasons
shall prevail. You and I will be like any other two dear friends who
agree to carry on any enterprise together, we shall discuss matters, and
sometimes one and sometimes the other will prevail."
"But, Harry, this matter puzzles me. Why is there a command in the Bible
that wives should always obey? Very many times in domestic affairs,
certainly, the woman knows the most and has altogether the best
judgment."
"It appears to me that it is one of those very general precepts that
require to be largely interpreted by common sense. Taking the whole race
of man together, for all stages of society and all degrees of
development, I suppose it is the safest general direction for the weaker
party. In low stages of society where brute force rules, man has woman
wholly in his power, and she can win peace and protection only by
submission. But where society rises into those higher forms where
husbands and wives are intelligent companions and equals, the direction
does no harm because it confers a prerogative that no cultivated man
would think of asserting any more than he would think of using his
superior physical strength to enforce it."
"I suppose," said Eva, "it is just like the command that children should
obey parents. When children are grown up and married and settled,
parents never think of it."
"Precisely," said I, "and you and I are the grown-up children of the
Christian era--all that talk of obedience is the old calyx of the
perfect flower of love--'when that which is perfect is come, then that
which is in part shall be done away.'"
"So, then, it appears you and I shall have a free field of discussion,
Harry, and may be I shall croquet your ball off the ground sometimes, as
I did once before, you know."
"I dare say you will. There was an incipient spice of matrimonial
virulence, my fair Eva, in the way you played that game! In fact, I
began to hope I was not indifferent to you from the zeal with which you
pursued and routed me on that occasion."
"I must confess it did my heart good to set your ball spinning,--and
that puts me in mind. I have the greatest piece of news to tell you. If
you'll believe me, _Sydney and Sophie are engaged already!_ She came
here this morning with her present, this lovely amethyst cross--and it
seems funny to me, but she is just as dead in love with Sydney as she
can be, and do you know he is so delighted with the compliment, that he
has informed her that he has made the discovery that he _never was in
love before_."
"The scamp! what does he mean?" said I.
"Oh, he said that little witch Eva Van Arsdel had dazzled him--and he
had really supposed himself in love, but that she never had 'excited the
profound,' etc., etc., he feels for Sophie."
"So 'all's well that ends well,'" said I.
"And to show his entire pacification toward me," said Eva, "he has sent
me this whole set of mantel bronzes--clock, vases, candlesticks,
match-box and all. Aren't they superb?"
"Magnificent!" said I. "What an air they will give our room! On the
whole, dear, I think rejected lovers are not so bad an article."
"Well, here, I must show you Bolton's present, which came in this
afternoon," with which she led me to a pair of elegantly carved
book-racks enriched with the complete works of Longfellow, Whittier,
Lowell, Holmes, and Hawthorne. They were elegantly gotten up in a
uniform style of binding.
"Isn't that lovely?" said she, "and so thoughtful! For how many happy
hours he has provided here!"
"Good fellow!" said I, feeling the tears start in my eyes. "Eva, if
there is a mortal absolutely without selfishness, it is Bolton."
"Oh, Harry, why couldn't he marry and be as happy as we are?"
"Perhaps some day he may," said I, "but dear me! who gave that comical
bronze inkstand? It's enough to make one laugh to look at it."
"Don't you know at once? Why, that's Jim Fellows' present. Isn't it just
like him?"
"I might have known it was Jim," said I, "it's so decidedly frisky."
"Well, really, Harry do you know that I am in deadly fear that that
wicked Jim will catch my eye to-morrow in the ceremony or do something
to set me off, and I'm always perfectly hysterical when I'm excited, and
if I look his way there'll be no hope for me."
"We must trust to Providence," said I; "if I should say a word of
remonstrance it would make it ten times worse. The creature is possessed
of a frisky spirit and can't help it."
"Alice was lecturing him about it last night, and the only result was we
nearly killed ourselves laughing. After all, Harry, who can help liking
Jim? Since our troubles he has been the kindest of mortals; so really
delicate and thoughtful in his attentions. It was something I shouldn't
have expected of him. Harry, what do you think? Should you want Alice to
like him, supposing you knew that he would like her? Is there stability
enough in him?"
"Jim is a queer fellow," said I. "On a slight view he looks a mere
bundle of comicalities and caprices, and he takes a singular delight in
shocking respectable prejudices and making himself out worse than he is,
or ever thinks of being. But after all, as young men go, Jim is quite
free from bad habits. He does not drink, and he doesn't even smoke. He
is the most faithful assiduous worker in his line of work among the
newspaper-men of New York. He is a good son; a kind brother."
"But, somehow, he doesn't seem to me to have real deep firm principle."
"Jim is a child of modern New York--an _élève_ of her school. A good
wife and a good home, with good friends, might do much for him, but he
will always be one that will act more from kindly impulses than from
principle. He will be very apt to go as his friends go."
"You know," she said, "in old times, when Alice was in full career, I
never thought of anything serious as possible. It is only since our
trouble and his great kindness to us that I have thought of the thing as
at all likely."
"We may as well leave it to the good powers," said I, "we can't do much
to help or hinder, only, if they should come together I shall be glad
for Jim's sake, for I love him. And now, my dear Eva, have you any more
orders, counsels, or commands for the fateful to-morrow?" said I, "for
it waxes late, and you ought to get a beauty-sleep to-night."
"Oh, I forgot to tell you I'm not going to wear either my new traveling
dress or hat, or anything to mark me out as a bride; and look here,
Harry, you must try and study the old staid married man's demeanor.
Don't let's disgrace ourselves by being discovered at once."
"Shall I turn my back on you and read the newspaper? I observe that some
married men do that."
"Yes, and if you could conjugally wipe your boots on my dress, it would
have an extremely old married effect. You can read the paper _first_,
and then pass it to me--that is another delicate little point."
"I'm afraid that in your zeal you will drive me to excesses of
boorishness that will overshoot the mark" said I. "You wouldn't want me
to be so negligent of 'that pretty girl,' that some other gentleman
would feel a disposition to befriend her?"
"Well, dear, but there's a happy medium. We can appear like two
relatives traveling together."
"I am afraid," said I "after all, we shall be detected; but if we are,
we shall be in good company. Our first day's journey lies in the regular
bridal route, and I expect that every third or fourth seat will show an
enraptured pair, of whom we can take lessons--after all, dear, you know
there is no sin in being just married."
"No, only in acting silly about it as I hope we shan't. I want us to be
models of rationality and decorum."
Here the clock striking twelve warned me that the last day of Eva Van
Arsdel's life was numbered.