But it seemed rather unimportant, except to three rather frowzy,
struggling persons, what was happening to Fliss. The important thing was
what was happening to Cecily--what did happen during those next three
marvelous months of her life. However much Dick might have been willing
to drift along through a prolonged love-making and slow courtship,
however much Cecily’s parents might have wished for such developments,
it was soon obvious that they were impossible. The young freshness, the
rarity, of Cecily attracted other men. There was one, one desperately in
earnest older man, who even spoke to Cecily of marriage and drove her,
white and trembling, to her mother. After that, a new diffidence, a new
hesitation in her manner towards Dick puzzled him and stimulated him.
“I see nothing to do except let Dick Harrison try,” said Mrs. Warner
rather sadly to her husband. “I don’t want any of the rest of them to
take the bloom off Cecily with a lot of coarse, commonplace love-making.
She’s too young, but she’s also too attractive. And it will come to Dick
sooner or later, if she cares anything at all about him. I feel
curiously helpless.”
“Dick fills the bill pretty well, after all, doesn’t he? He has a good
record, a clean bill of health, and they would live here in town so that
you could keep an eye on her.”
Dick found things made easy for him--opportunity easy, that is. His
love-making was no easier for him than a man’s serious love-making ever
is. He felt it was a time which harrowed his very soul, a time when a
new character and a new psychology seemed to grow up in him, decrying
everything he had ever done in his life--a time of strange humilities
and reverences, soaring plans and queer discouragements. But the night
came when he did ask Cecily to marry him and at the fright in her eyes
regained his own courage.
Cecily did not answer him at once. He had laid his hope before her with
a simplicity that surprised himself, for he had been full of fine
phrases the day before. And then, when the moment came, he could only
hold out his arms in helpless appeal and plead, “If you’ll marry me,
Cecily, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make and keep you
happy. I will--truly.”
Cecily only looked at him, drawing away a little from his eagerness. A
moment before she had been all gayety. But the very word “marry” stirred
depths in her which were frightening. And again she was in the convent,
listening to the Jesuit priest, hearing him tell them of the choices
before women. She was afraid and allured--and stirred. Those same
choices pressing upon her--Dick no longer just a companion, just fun to
be with, but Dick wanting to marry her! It was enough to make her spirit
draw back as it did. Dick could get no answer. And he had grace enough
not to press for one. But Cecily’s mother, seeing what had happened in
the new awkwardness between Dick and her daughter, knew that the time
for interference had come. She found Cecily sitting in her room, looking
into space, much as Mother Fénelon had found her on the last day of the
retreat. Cecily took her mother’s hand as she sat down beside her and
held it, and the simple gesture affected Mrs. Warner greatly.
“Trouble, Cecily?”
“Dicks wants me to marry him,” said Cecily, without classifying.
“Dick loves you,” her mother answered.
“But--marrying--ought I to get married, mother?”
“Surely not unless you want to.”
“I don’t--not want to. And he--Dick makes it seem possible. But I don’t
know anything about it, mother. I wouldn’t know how to be married.”
There were tears in her mother’s eyes now.
“A little of marriage I can tell you about, Cecily dear--but the rest
you learn from your husband--the rest you and he learn together. And
that’s why it’s hard to help you now, dear. If Dick is the person you
want to learn with, you should marry him. But I can’t tell whether he is
or not. If he isn’t, he mustn’t be your husband. As far as an outsider
can tell--yes, even I must be an outsider here--he would be a good
husband for you. But unless you want him, unless you want him badly,
there’s no good in it.”
The reserved, the aloof Mrs. Warner had broken some barrier to talk like
that. She seemed to feel the unaccustomed mood and changed
quickly--again Cecily’s quiet, controlled mother.
“Go to bed now, Cecily,” she finished. “When you see more of Dick you
can tell better. And I won’t let him hurry or worry you. And I want you
to have a good rest.”
They all made it as easy as possible for Cecily. As easy as possible.
Dick did not harass her. Her mother would have prevented that even if he
had had the inclination. Mr. and Mrs. Warner took her away for a few
weeks to New York, and, if she thought of the decision before her, she
did it without their pressing it upon her. As a matter of fact she did
think about it constantly. She found she missed Dick and in her deft,
direct, mental way knew that meant a great deal. Then there was a
memory which clung to her consciousness and would not be detached. It
was the memory of Dick’s embrace the night he had asked her to marry
him. It was a unique memory. When she thought about it it was not like
recalling a single happening. It was like looking backward and forward
over the whole of her life--as if all life had been leading up to this,
as if all life would point back to it. But still the indefinable fear,
the indefinable threat of the priest who had seemed to be deliberately
making marriage hard, persisted. She thought a great deal in the gaps
between shopping and theater-going in New York.
They came back to Carrington after three weeks and Dick came to see her
at once. He looked a trifle thinner--a trifle more eager even--and he
was obviously impatient of the presence of others. When he and Cecily
were finally alone, a throbbing silence settled over them. Then Dick put
out his hands and took hers.
“Have you thought about me at all, Cecily?”
“Almost all the time I thought.”
“And--you--how do you feel about it now? Not afraid any longer? Ready to
trust me--to let me love you, Cecily--Cecily?”
She lifted her eyes to his and let him decide.
After that it became much different and nearly all joy. Suddenly all the
ominousness, the queerness, the vague fears disappeared. It was partly
knowing Dick so much better, of course; partly becoming used to the gay,
adoring laugh he had for her and more than that, to the touch of his
arms and the rapture in his voice when he and she were alone and he
could make love to her; it was partly meeting the approbation of every
one, seeing in the eyes of girls and of women that they thought she had
something which they would like to have, and partly the gay excitement
of plans and arrangements. Dick was impatient now. He wanted to be
married at the first possible moment; he had all sorts of contradictory
plans and suggestions for a home and he was full of enthusiasm which
would scarcely bear restraining. But Cecily’s marriage would, under her
mother’s guidance, have neither haste nor incongruity. There was
Cecily’s wardrobe, Cecily’s house and the marriage itself to be attended
to in due course. Dick might plan, but he had no deciding voice in any
of these matters.
The marriage was to take place in the early summer, and then, too, the
house would be ready for occupancy. The house itself was the gift of the
Warners. It was not new and it was not at all the sort of place which
most brides began with, for it was large and had much more space inside
and out than the usual bridal apartment. Its red brick walks surrounded
the long, gray shingled house and garage neatly, and there were flowers
and shrubs and trees. When Cecily first saw the house, new sensations
woke in her. She turned to Dick with a strange sense of proprietorship
for the first time. It was as if suddenly she saw a responsibility of
her own in marriage. Thereafter came interviews with decorators and
painters and upholsterers and visits to furnishers’ shops. Happiest of
all was Mrs. Warner. Cecily’s house was to be a radiant place, full of
sunshine and happy color. Cecily’s bridal wardrobe was to be exquisite
and simple and beautiful. Cecily’s wedding----
Cecily’s wedding fell upon one beautiful day in June. The sun had been
shining all day so that the evening was permeated with a softness and
clearness that seemed left over from the radiance of the day. In the
church great banks of green set off the tall candles, burning with
flames that went straight up, and faintly fragrant, yellow pink roses
filled the niches in the walls. It was one of those esthetically
religious weddings in which the religion depends largely on the success
of the esthetic effect. Cecily visualized the place as a chapel and
wished that she could have heard the cloistered nuns singing as she
approached. But the wish was vague. The plans were very completely made
and she must carry them out to the satisfaction of herself and
everybody. Then, as she went down the aisle she saw Dick--strange,
familiar, Dick crowding out every one else. She realized suddenly that
she and Dick were responsible for the future; she remembered that she
was going away with Dick to-night, and she had two immense, sudden
desires in conflict--one to run out of the church and hide herself where
she would never be found and one to get close to Dick for comfort. But
her mind was telling her how to act. She was going down the aisle,
catching a fleeting glimpse of her new mother-in-law, standing beside
her stepfather, repeating words which she had memorized, hearing Dick
repeat them too, though he sounded strangely far off. She was going out
of the church now and forgetting to look up and smile as she had said
she was going to. Almost at the back of the church she remembered. She
looked up and her eyes met the curious, envying eyes of Fliss. Cecily
smiled. She had asked her mother to ask Fliss to the wedding for she had
seen her a few times after the musicale and always been interested. She
smiled and passed on. Fliss drew a long breath and turned to the man
beside her.
“Beautiful, wasn’t she? And she has everything in the world--everything
ahead of her!”
Everything ahead of her. So Cecily felt in the dim confusion of the
Pullman. Curtains swung from the berths already occupied when she and
Dick finally boarded their train. The electric lights seemed strangely
dull after the brightness of the house she had left. She was alone in
their drawing-room waiting for the porter to bring in their bags. Their
bags--Dick’s too, of course. She wished he would come--would stay
away--would come.
He came in marshaling a smiling, well-tipped porter. Then the porter was
gone again and her husband, with a strangely timorous look on his face,
was standing by her. He lifted her hand to his lips and then, as their
eyes met wonderingly, dropped to his knees with his curly head in her
lap.