MARISE PUTS ON BLACK
A girl in love with one man, flinging herself at the head of another out
of pique or something worse, should have been utterly careless how she
appeared to the eyes of the latter. But for some reason--she hardly knew
what--Marise had been anxious to look her most desirable. She was
dressed in black velvet with shimmering fringes, and a drooping black
velvet hat which made her fairness dazzling, her yellowish-brown hair
bright gold.
With a faint smile, and in silence, she held out her hand. Garth took
it, and this time didn't crush it unduly.
Zelie, who had risen as Garth rose, began pinning on her toque, but
Marise turned to her. "Don't go, Miss Marks," she said. "I've told you
the secret, and maybe we shall need your help about something. I don't
want my mother here till everything's arranged. It doesn't matter about
you."
Zelie slowly took out a hatpin. Oh no, it didn't matter about _her_! She
laid the toque down again, but drew a chair to the typewriter table, her
back turned to the man and the girl. She could, if she glanced up from
her papers, however, see them both in a mirror. She tried not to glance
up, but she succeeded about half as often as she failed. The look on
Garth's face hurt a great deal worse than the hatpin had done when just
now she had jammed the point of it into her head. Oh, it was
ridiculous--or heartbreaking--the way some men loved the wrong girls!
"I've been thinking in the night," said Marise in a brisk, cheerful
tone, "what fun for us--since we _are_ to be married--to get married at
once and give everyone we know the surprise of their young lives!...
What do you say?"
Garth had not expected this at all. In fact, when he'd been sent for at
a very early hour, he expected to hear that Marise had "changed her
mind." It was easy for her to ask "what he said," knowing that he could
say only commonplaces before Zelie Marks; and he believed that Zelie had
been invited to remain in the room for precisely this reason.
"I say, 'Great!'" He rose to the occasion, with the memory of Zelie's
words and his own drumming through his head. "They despise you. Cad:
bounder: lout!" "That's nice of you!--very!" cooed Marise, noticing how
his jaw squared, and feeling the tide of her curiosity rise. (_Was_ it
love? Or _was_ it the million?) "Well then, we'll just do the deed! How
long does it take to get licenses and things?"
Garth kept himself firmly in hand. "Only as long as it takes to buy the
license and notify a parson."
"That's what I hoped," said Marise. "I felt sure it was different here
from England."
"Shall we--that is, would you care"--(Garth's mouth was dry)--"would you
care to be married to-day?"
"Yes," the girl flashed back, "I would care to, if that suits you.
Because, you see, I want it to be done and over before--_anybody knows_.
Except my mother, of course. She won't like the idea one bit. But I'll
make her come round."
"I see," said Garth. And he did see. He saw very clearly. But he could
not understand, all in a moment like this, why she wanted to marry him
without letting Severance know beforehand. It didn't _seem_, just on the
face of it, a good sign for Severance. Still, he couldn't be sure. Women
were supposed to be very subtle, and he'd never had much time even to
try and analyse the strange creatures. Except Mothereen (he'd named her
that because she was Irish), the little old woman who'd given him the
only mothering he remembered, Garth had never got very near any woman's
mentality. He braced himself, and asked, "How soon can you be ready?"
"In an hour--in _less_ than an hour. As soon as I've told Mums," Marise
spoke quickly and thickly, over a beating heart. Each moment excited her
more and more. She felt herself the heroine of a thrilling drama--a
drama where she had to play the star part without any rehearsals, and
without ever having read further than the first scene of the first act.
It might be a drama of "stunts," too--as the movie people said:
dangerous stunts, where she might have to walk a tightrope with a deep
drop underneath. But she wasn't afraid. She would not have thrown over
the part now if some other easier one with the same ending had offered.
She didn't recognise herself as she was to-day. But she did not care. It
was all Tony's fault. Or perhaps a little Mums' fault too.
"And afterwards?" she heard Garth quietly asking.
"Oh!... Well, the first thing is the fun of surprising everyone. After
that--well, I haven't exactly thought yet."
"You had better think," he said. "Much better."
Marise glanced at the back of Zelie's head, then met Miss Marks's eyes
in the mirror.
"We'll talk it over presently with Mums. She's so _wise_--and always
knows how to do the right thing." The "correct thing" would have been
more apt an expression, but Marise wasn't thinking of the fine shades.
She was thinking just then more of Zelie; and the thought of Zelie made
her blush, she didn't quite see why!
"Miss Marks," she said, "I may want you by and by to take down several
notes for me, letters to some of my most intimate friends, to be sent
after--after the wedding. But at this particular instant I fancy there's
nothing more for you to do, except--oh yes, do be very nice, and run
down to the mail counter, or wherever in the hotel you can buy stamps."
As these instructions were being given, Zelie pencilled with incredible
quickness a few words on a scrap of paper. This scrap she tucked up her
sleeve, and a second or two later, as Garth opened the door for her to
go out, she contrived to slip the paper into the hand on the knob.
"Now I'll call Mums," cried Marise, fearing to risk such a moment alone
with this unclassified wild animal, soon to become her dummy husband.
"Mums is not pleased, because I said I wanted a few words with you
before she came in--though she'd be _much_ crosser if she knew I'd let
Miss Marks stay. You'll back me up with her, won't you, that my
plan--_ours_, I mean--is the best?"
"I think," said Garth, "you don't need much backing from me with your
mother, though if you do, I'll give it as well as I know how. But wait a
second before she comes. I have a superstition. I ask that you won't be
married in black."
"Oh! But I chose this dress on purpose!" The words escaped before she'd
stopped to think.
Garth didn't flush. He was past that. He needed all his blood at his
heart. "I supposed you did," he said. "All the same, don't wear it."
"But it's such a pretty dress--and hat. They're new. I like them--better
than anything I've got."
"_For this occasion!_ I understand."
"Are you--being sarcastic?" Marise hesitated.
"No-o. Only sincere. Why did you want to wear black to be married--to
me?"
"I--don't know." She stammered a little.
"Well then, if you don't know, change to another colour."
"Oh, I'm quite willing to do that if you make a point of it!"
The man's manner was so different from the other day, that Marise was
less sure of his motives in taking her at the price. He spoke shortly
and sharply now, like a military martinet, she decided. But he _wasn't_
exactly "common." He wasn't even ordinary.
Her last words were at the door of her own room, and she whisked
through, to find her mother. She thought how she should break the news.
And she thought, also, what she should wear in place of the black dress.
Should she put on grey--or heliotrope--"second mourning"? She would have
liked to try this trick upon Garth. But the man was capable of making
her take off one thing after the other, on pain of not being married
to-day--which meant, not spiting Severance.
* * * * *
Mrs. Sorel was flabbergasted.
She would not have used such a vulgar expression herself; but that is
what she was.
She argued, she warned, she scolded, she besought. Severance would be
furious. It would be a blow which his love might not survive. Tony had
not dreamed of this marriage taking place with such--indecent haste!
"If you say much more it won't take place at all!" shrilled Marise, on
the verge of hysterics, which (Mums knew from bitter experience) her
twentieth-century child was not at all above having when thwarted, just
like an early Edwardian.
While Marise was away, Garth opened the folded scrap of paper that Zelie
Marks had slipped into his hand, and read the line she had pencilled.
"For _goodness'_ sake don't be married in those awful best
clothes of yours that you wore Sunday. Put on the uniform of
the _Guards_, and look a regular man."
He was in no mood for laughing, yet he grinned. "And look a regular
man!" ... Girls were queer. As if it would matter to Marise what _he_
wore! But--well, hang it, why shouldn't he make her notice him? She
would do that if he turned up in uniform. And wasn't that what he wished
to look in her eyes, "A regular man"?
He'd made up his mind to take Zelie's tip, when suddenly he remembered
that Marise and he would not be married in church. They'd walk into some
parson's parlour, and the knot would be tied there. He couldn't get into
his uniform for a home-made affair like that.
Garth had gone no further than this when Marise came back, chaperoned by
Mums.
"My mother makes one stipulation," the girl announced. "That the wedding
shall be in a church. She's picked up English ideas, and thinks anything
else 'hardly respectable.' Though I should have thought for that reason
it would be more appropriate! However, _I_ don't care. Do you?"
"Not a da--not a red cent," said Garth.
Two minutes later he had gone to buy a marriage license, engage the
services of a clergyman--and a _church_.
Marise changed her dress. She would not wear white, like a _real_ bride.
That would be sacrilege, she said; and compromised by putting on her
favourite blue. But it was the oldest dress she owned; and she had
intended giving it to Celine.
The girl wished she were pale. But that could be arranged. And she was
arranging it with powder when the bell of the telephone rang.
Mums flew to the instrument, tearfully drawing on her gloves.
Garth had called up, to give the name of the church and the hour fixed
for the wedding. They must start at once.