The soul of Miss Cockerill was ground to powder between wrath and
desire. The expected had happened, and neither Jonas Lane nor Martha
Waring had told her a word about it. Martha Lane, she supposed she’d
have to say now. They were ungrateful as owls, she did declare. All
the years she’d known them--and Jonas Lane almost as much her beau
as Martha’s! She didn’t know which to be maddest at: Jonas, who had
promised to tell her first of anybody in the world, after Martha; or
Martha, who had told her everything ever since she was old enough to
have anything to tell. But she couldn’t live there next door to them
and never make a sign. They’d think it queer--well, as they’d all known
each other. And it didn’t seem as if she could wait to hear about it
all. The idea of their running off and getting married like that, and
setting everybody to talk!
So, putting her pride in her pocket--a convenience which the modes of
Ackerton permitted her--and a shawl over her head, she walked across to
Martha’s kitchen door.
That lady opened it, beaming consciously.
“Well, Susan! We began to think we’d have to go over and see you
first.”
Miss Cockerill eyed her hostess curiously. The change in her spiritual
condition, however, had apparently wrought no corresponding physical
metamorphosis.
“I would have taken it kindly, Martha,” rejoined the visitor. “You an’
Jonas going off so sudden-like kind o’ took my breath away.”
If Miss Cockerill succeeded in dissembling the poignancy of her
emotions, Mrs. Lane nevertheless found means to detect it.
“I don’t wonder, Susan!” exclaimed that matron. “It took mine away,
too, and I’ve hardly got it back yet. But Jonas would have it so.” With
which interesting information she drew her friend toward the sitting
room. “Come in and let’s visit a little. I haven’t seen you for such a
while and dinner isn’t in a hurry.”
Miss Cockerill looked about her as they went. It seemed to her that
events so momentous must leave a mark upon their material surroundings.
But the old house looked exactly as she had known it for nearly fifty
years. Mrs. Lane observed these glances, and interpreted them in her
own way.
“No, he isn’t here,” she smiled. “There’s too much of him to be hid,
as he says. He’s gone down to the store to do some trading. But let
me tell you all about it. It’s only fair as you should know, being
such an old friend of both of ours.” With which the two ladies settled
themselves for a long session.
“You see it was this way,” began the bride, examining her apron as if
for inspiration. “You know how it always was between Jonas and me.”
“Yes,” admitted Miss Cockerill inscrutably.
“And you know how I always felt, so long as any of my family were
left--that my first duty was with them.”
“Yes,” repeated Miss Cockerill.
“Well, when Jonas came on this time, so soon after mother’s death, he
found me all upset. It was the change, I s’pose, and the loneliness,
and the having no one to look out for. And when he spoke of taking
me away I just couldn’t go. So we arranged that he should come here
instead. And I can’t help being glad it was so. It isn’t so hard for
him, as ’twould be for me to go ’way out where he lives.”
“Where he lived,” suggested Miss Cockerill.
Mrs. Lane accepted the amendment with a smile.
“And when we came to talk things over we decided we didn’t want any
publicity--and I just in mourning, you know.” Mrs. Lane noted that this
point told. “We didn’t know just how to manage, though. Jonas, he was
for going before the justice. But I told him as how I wouldn’t feel
right if I wasn’t married by a minister. Then he wanted we should go
off somewheres and get married before a strange minister, so as nobody
should know till it was all over. Eloping, he called it, like a story
book. But I told him I wouldn’t have any goings on like novels, and
that if I couldn’t be married by my own minister I wouldn’t be married
at all.”
“Dear me!” cried Miss Cockerill. “After all the time he’s waited! I
thought you told him something, though, from the way he left the house
the day he came back. I said as much to Mis’ Webster. She was with me
at the time.”
“Is that so? ’Twas Mrs. Webster that finally fixed it up with Jonas. It
simply used me up, and he told me to leave it to him and he’d get us
married by the minister without any fuss and feathers--or rice,” she
added.
“How did they do it?” inquired Miss Cockerill.
“Well, I invited the minister and his wife and Jonas in to dinner,”
answered the bride. “I naturally would have had you, Susan, if I’d
had anybody outside. But Mrs. Webster had to know about it, being the
minister’s wife, and she was really the one that managed, and as long
as ’twas that way it seemed a comfort to have some other woman there. I
felt awful mean, though, not telling you, Susan.”
Whatever might have been the opinions of the lady addressed, she
diplomatically concealed them behind a veil of impatience.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“Well, before going to the table, we two stood up in front of Mr.
Webster, and he married us. Then we sat down just as if nothing had
happened. I was that scared, though, lest somebody should come in
before we got to our victuals, that I kept my eye out the window all
the time.”
“What did you have on?” inquired Miss Cockerill. “You didn’t have much
time to get things made.”
“No, I didn’t want to, being in mourning you know. And that Hannah Lee
never could hold her tongue, anyway! So I just wore my grey silk, and
Jonas said we’d get whatever else we wanted when we were away.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Miss Cockerill. “And then?”
“And then Mr. and Mrs. Webster went away, carrying my bag with the few
things I needed, and Jonas went back to the hotel, and I stayed and did
up the dishes.”
“What was all that for?” queried Miss Cockerill. “I should think Jonas
might ha’ stayed with his own wife.”
“No, I didn’t want he should. People might have thought it strange if
they’d come in. And the Websters took my bag because they were going to
be in their team down at the end of the garden lot, and I was going out
as if to pick chrysanthemums, and they were going to ask me to take a
ride with them.”
“Why in the world did you have them there?” demanded the intrepid Susan.
“Why, because it was less conspicuous,” explained Mrs. Lane. “They’d
just been here to dinner and had gone away, and if they’d come back
afterwards, it might have looked queer. I wanted it to be as if I saw
them by chance like, out back there. Well, after my dishes were all
done up, and everything was in order, and the house locked tight for
going away, I went upstairs and got ready. But when the time came it
seemed as if I could never go in the world. I just stood at the back
door in my things and couldn’t budge. ’Twas only the idea of Jonas
going off alone by himself in the cars that started me. So I opened
the door, very softly, and stepped out as light as I could, and locked
it behind me, and made for the garden. I was just sure that you or
somebody would see me and call out, and I didn’t know what I should
say; and I was so scared I couldn’t hardly see. I did hear some kind of
a noise, too, and that made me run. And I ran so fast I actually fell
down, Susan--flat on the ground!”
“My!” exclaimed that sympathetic auditor. “Did you spoil your dress?”
“Pretty near. I was all over dirt when I finally got to the carriage,
and so out of breath I couldn’t open my mouth, and that nervous I could
have cried. I guess I did some, too. But Mrs. Webster just held my
hand, and Mr. Webster talked about the weather and the crops and Jonas
and everything, as natural as natural. And by and by I perked up. And
we had a perfectly lovely ride to West Carthage.”
“Jonas met you there then, I s’pose.”
“No--or at least not just then. I wouldn’t have had him for the world.
Such lots of Ackerton folks go to West Carthage.”
“Didn’t you go away together at all, then?” inquired Miss Cockerill
sardonically.
“Why, of course we did!” cried the bride. “Jonas came in on the train.
He was to be in the last car but one, sitting in the tenth seat from
the back on the right-hand side--away from the station. Well, we got
there just a little before time, and nobody could have told who was
going. And when the train came in Mrs. Webster kissed me, and Mr.
Webster shook hands, and they both said real nice things, and hoped I’d
find Jonas all right; and then I got out and got on the car just as it
started.”
“And did you find Jonas all right?” pursued the quizzical Miss
Cockerill.
“You know well enough you don’t need to ask that, Susan Cockerill!”
exclaimed Mrs. Lane. “You always find Jonas when he says so. He was
right there where he said, looking as if he’d just stolen cream.”
“I should think he’d ha’ been scared when the train started and you
wasn’t there.”
“I don’t know. If he was he didn’t show it. He just said he was used to
waiting for me.”
For a moment Miss Cockerill regarded her friend in silence. Then she
remarked some what cryptically:
“Well, if I’d known it was as easy as that gettin’ married, I’d ha’
done it myself!”