THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING.
Mrs. Meadowsweet wondered why Beatrice did not come home. It was the
night before the wedding. Surely on that night the bride ought to come
early to sleep under her mother's roof.
Mrs. Meadowsweet had a good deal to say to her girl. She had made up her
mind to give her a nice little domestic lecture. She thought it her duty
to reveal to her innocent Beatrice some of the pitfalls into which young
married girls are so apt to fall.
"Jane," she said to her handmaid, "Miss Beatrice is late."
"Eh, so she is," responded Jane. Jane was a woman of very few words. Her
remarks generally took the form of an echo. Mrs. Meadowsweet thought her
a very comfortable kind of body to confide in. Jane was taking away the
supper things.
"We were married ourselves, Jane, and we know what it means," continued
Mrs. Meadowsweet.
Jane was a widow--her husband had been a drunkard, and she had gone
through a terrible time with him.
She shook her head now with awful solemnity.
"We do that," she said. "It's an awful responsibility, is marriage--it's
not meant for the young."
"I don't agree with you there, Jane. How could elderly people bring up
their families?"
"It's not meant for the young," repeated Jane. "It's a careful thing,
and a troubling thing and a worreting thing is marriage, and it's not
meant for the young. Shall I leave the peaches on the table, ma'am, and
shall I make fresh cocoa for Miss Beatrice when she comes in?"
"Make the cocoa with all milk, Jane, it's more supporting. I always made
it a rule to sustain Beatrice a good deal. She wears herself out--she's
a great girl for wearing herself out, and it's my duty in life to repair
her. I used to repair her poor father, and now I repair her. It seems to
me that a woman's province in life is to repair--first the husband, and
then the children. Jane, I was thinking of giving Beatrice a little
lecture to-night on the duties that lie before her."
"Good sakes, ma'am, I'd leave her alone. She'll find out her worrits
fast enough."
"I don't agree with you, Jane. It seems to me as if the whole of a
married woman's bliss consists in this--be tidy in your dress, don't
answer back, and give your husband a good dinner. That's what I did--I
repaired Meadowsweet, and I never riled him, and we hadn't a word, no,
not a word."
"All aren't like your blessed husband, Mrs Meadowsweet. Well, ma'am,
I'll go now and get the milk on for the cocoa."
She left the room, and Mrs. Meadowsweet sat on by the fire.
Presently there came a ring to the front door bell. Mrs. Meadowsweet
started up. Bee had some--no, it wasn't Bee--it was Mrs. Morris.
Her bronchitis was almost gone to-night; her voice was high, sharp and
quick.
"Well, my poor friend, and how are you?" she said.
"I wish you wouldn't call me your poor friend, Jessie," answered Mrs.
Meadowsweet, with almost irritation. "I don't know what has come to the
good folks here of late--'Poor dearing,' and 'poor friending' till I'm
sick of the sound of it. When I was married, people didn't look like
boiled vinegar over it; neighbors were chirpy and cheery about a wedding
in those days."
Mrs. Morris made no reply at all to this tirade. She sat down solemnly,
and looked around her.
"Is Beatrice in?" she asked.
"No, she's not; she went to the Manor some hours ago--I'm expecting my
girl back every minute. I've several things to say to her when she does
come in, so you won't take it amiss, Jessie, if I ask you not to stay."
"No, my dear neighbor, I won't take anything amiss, from you at present,
only, if I were you, I wouldn't worry Beatrice with advice to-night. Yon
have time enough for that. Time and to spare for that, poor dear."
"There you are with your 'poor dear,' again, Jessie. Now whose ring is
that at the bell? Oh, it's Bee, of course; come back at last, my girl
has. Well, Jessie Morris, I wish you good-night."
"Stay a minute, neighbor--that isn't Bee's voice." The door was opened,
and Miss Peters came in.
"How are you, Mrs. Meadowsweet," she said, running up to the good lady
and giving her a kiss, which resembled the peck of an eager bird, on her
cheek. "I ran on first, and Martha is following. I came to know how you
are, and how you're bearing up--and is Beatrice in?"
"I do declare," said Mrs. Meadowsweet. She rose from her easy-chair.
"You mean to be good-natured, neighbors, but really you're enough to
deave one. How am I bearing up? Am I the woman to bring ill-luck to my
child by crying at her wedding? No, she's not in--she's at the Bertrams.
But there's her ring now at the hall-door. Good-night, neighbors both.
You mean it kindly, but don't stay just now. I have a word or two to say
to the girl in private to-night."
"I think that's Martha's voice," said Miss Peters. "Don't say that I
told you anything, Mrs. Meadowsweet."
The door was opened, and Mrs. Butler came in.
This good woman, who led the army of the Beatricites, had now attained
to all the airs of a victorious general. Her bonnet-strings were thrown
back, her face was flushed, and her throat, conspicuous by the absence
of her large white brooch, was bared to view.
"Well, my friend," she said. "Well, the time is near."
She took Mrs. Meadowsweet's fat hand, squeezed it hard, and looked with
awful solemnity into her eyes.
"Good gracious," said the poor woman. "I never felt more exasperated in
all my life. Any one would suppose that my girl was drowned in the
harbor from the faces you one and all bring me."
"Mrs. Meadowsweet," said Mrs. Butler, "there is such a thing as having
the body safe and well, and the character drowned."
Mrs. Meadowsweet's cheeks flushed deeply.
"I'll thank you to explain yourself, Martha Butler," she said. "Whose
character is drowned?"
"No one's," said Mrs. Butler. "Or at least, no one who belongs to us."
Here she waved one of her arms in theatrical style.
"I have fought for that girl," she said, "as my sister Maria can bear
testimony, and my friend Mrs. Morris can vouch---I have fought for her,
and I may truly say I have brought her through a sea of slander--yes,
through a sea of slander--victorious. Now, who's that? Who's coming to
interrupt us?"
"It's only me, Mrs. Butler," said Beatrice. She came quietly into the
room. Her face was white, but its expression was serene, and almost
happy.
"It's you, Bee, at last," said her mother.
She went straight up to the girl, and taking one of her hands raised it
to her lips.
"You have come, Bee," she said in a purring cone of delight and content.
"My girl has come at last, neighbors, and now I'll wish you, every one,
a very good-night. I'm obliged for all sympathy, and if I don't
understand these new-fashioned ways about weddings with their poor
dears, and their poor friends, and drowning of somebody's character, and
saving of somebody else's character, it's because I'm old-fashioned, and
belong to an ancient school. Good-night, friends. Is that you, Jane?"
Jane appeared, bearing in a cup of cocoa for Beatrice.
"Jane, show these ladies out."
They all went. They hated to go, but they went, for the mantle of
innocence and ignorance in which Mrs. Meadowsweet was so securely
wrapped gave her a certain dignity which they could not resist. Jane
shut the door on them, and they stood still outside the house, and
wrangled, and talked, and worked themselves into a perfect rage of
excitement and curiosity and longing. "Well, well, all surmises would
soon be at rest. Who would win, Beatrice or Josephine? Who would be
to-morrow's bride."
"Mother," said Beatrice, when the ladies had left--she looked into her
old mother's face. There was an expression in her eyes which made Mrs.
Meadowsweet cry out:
"Bee, you have got a hunger at your heart. Oh, child, you want your
mammy--I never saw that look in your eyes since long, long ago, when you
were a little tot, and wanted your mammy more than anything else in all
the wide world."
"I want her now," said Beatrice.
She put her arms about her mother, and wept on her shoulder.