The stately May morning, caparisoned in diamonds, full of the solemnity
that perfect beauty wears, had come out of the purple mist and shamed
the hovel where Hazel dressed for her bridal. The cottage had sunk
almost out of recognition in the foam of spring. Ancient lilacs stood
about it and nodded purple-coroneted heads across its one chimney.
Their scent bore down all other scents like a strong personality and
there was no choice but to think the thoughts of the lilac. Two
laburnums, forked and huge of trunk, fingered the roof with their lower
branches and dripped gold on it. The upper branches sprang far into the
blue.
The may-tree by the gate knew its perfect moment, covered with crystal
buds that shone like rain among the bright green leaves. From every
pear-tree--full-blossomed, dropping petals--and from every shell-pink
apple-tree came the roar of the bees.
Abel rose very early, for he considered it the proper thing to
make a wreath for Hazel, being an artist in such matters. The
lilies-of-the-valley-were almost out; he had put some in warm
water overnight, and now he sat beneath the horse-chestnut and
worked at the wreath. The shadows of the leaves rippled over him
like water, and often he looked up at the white spires of bloom
with a proprietary eye, for his bees were working there with a
ferocity of industry.
He was moody and miserable, for he thought of the township of hives
that Hazel might have won for him. He comforted himself with the
thought that there would be something saved on her keep. It never
occurred to him to be sorry to lose her; in fact, there was little
reason why he should be. Each had lived a lonely, self-sufficing life;
they were entirely unsuitable companions for each other.
He wove the wet lilies, rather limp from the hot water, on to a piece
of wire taken from one of his wreath-frames.
So Hazel went to her bridal in a funeral wreath.
She awoke very tired from the crisis yesterday, but happy. She and Foxy
and the one-eyed cat, her rabbit, and the blackbird, were going to a
country far from troublous things, to the peace of Edward's love on the
slope of God's Little Mountain.
The difficulties of the new life were forgotten. Only its joys
were visible to-day. Mrs. Marston seemed to smile and smile in an
eternal loving-kindness, and Martha's heavy face wore an air of
good-fellowship. The loud winds, lulled and bearing each its gift
of balm, would blow softly round Edward's house. Frost, she thought,
would not come to God's Little Mountain as to the cold Callow.
She had not seen Reddin's rimy shoulders, nor the cold glitter of the
tombs.
She sang as she dressed with the shrill sweetness of a robin. She had
never seen such garments; she hardly knew how to put some of them on.
She brushed her hair till it shone like a tiger-lily, and piled it on
her small head in great plaits. When her white muslin frock was on, she
drew a long breath, seeing herself in bits in the small glass.
'I be like a picture!' she gasped. Round her slim sun-burnt neck was a
small gold chain holding a topaz pendant, which matched her eyes.
When she came forth like a lily from the mould, Abel staggered
backwards, partly in clownish mirth, partly in astonishment. He was so
impressed that he got breakfast himself, and afterwards went and
sandpapered his hands until they were sore. Hazel, enthroned in one of
the broken chairs, fastened on Foxy's wedding-collar, made of blue
forget-me-not.
Foxy, immensely dignified, sat on her haunches, her chin tucked into
the forget-me-nots, immovably bland. She was evidently competent for
her new role; she might have been ecclesiastically connected all her
life. The one-eyed cat was beside her, blue-ribboned, purring her best,
which was like a broken bagpipe on account of her stormy youth.
'Ah! you'd best purr!' said Hazel. 'Sitting on cushions by the fireside
all your life long you'll be, and Foxy with a brand new tub!'
Not many brides think so little of themselves, so much of small
pensioners, as Hazel did this morning. Breakfast was a sociable meal,
for Abel made several remarks. Now and then he looked at Hazel and
said, 'Laws!' Hazel laughed gleefully. When she stood by the gate
watching for the neighbour's cart that was to take them, she looked as
full of white budding promise as the may-tree above her.
She did not think very much about Edward, except as a protecting
presence. Reddin's face, full of strong, mysterious misery; the feel of
Reddin's arm as they danced; his hand, hot and muscular, on hers--these
claimed her thoughts. She fought them down, conscious that they were
not suitable in Edward's bride.
At last the cart appeared, coming up the hill with the peculiar
lurching deportment of market carts. The pony had a bunch of marigolds
on each ear, and there was lilac on the whip. They packed the animals
in--the cat giving ventriloquial mews from her basket, the rabbit in
its hutch, the bird in its wooden cage, and Foxy sitting up in front of
Hazel. The harp completed the load. They drove off amid the cheers of
the next-door children, and took their leisurely way through the
resinous fragrance of larch-woods.
The cream-coloured pony was lame, which gave the cart a peculiar roll,
and she was tormented with hunger for the marigolds, which hung down
near her nose and caused her to get her head into strange contortions
in the effort to reach them. The wind sighed in the tall larches, and
once again, as on the day of the concert, they bent attentive heads
towards Hazel. In the glades the wide-spread hyacinths would soon be
paling towards their euthanasia, knowing the art of dying as well as
that of living, fortunate, as few sentient creatures are, in keeping
their dignity in death.
When they drove through the quarry, where deep shadows lay, Hazel
shivered suddenly.
'Somebody walking over your grave,' said Abel.
'Oh, dunna say that! It be unlucky on my wedding-day,' she cried. As
they climbed the hill she leaned forward, as if straining upwards out
of some deep horror.
When their extraordinary turn-out drew up at the gate, Abel
boisterously flourishing his lilac-laden whip and shouting elaborate
but incomprehensible witticisms, Edward came hastily from the house.
His eyes rested on Hazel, and were so vivid, so brimful of tenderness,
that Abel remained with a joke half expounded.
'My Hazel,' Edward said, standing by the cart and looking up, 'welcome
home, and God bless you!'
'You canna say fairer nor that,' remarked Abel. 'Inna our 'Azel peart?
Dressed up summat cruel inna she?'
Edward took no notice. He was looking at Hazel, searching hungrily for
a hint of the same overwhelming passion that he felt. But he only found
childlike joy, gratitude, affection, and a faint shadow for which he
could not account, and from which he began to hope many things.
If in that silent room upstairs he had come to the opposite decision;
if he had that very day told Hazel what his love meant, by the irony of
things she would have loved him and spent on him the hidden passion of
her nature.
But he had chosen the unselfish course.
'Well,' he said in a business-like tone, 'suppose we unpack the little
creatures and Hazel first?'
Mrs. Marston appeared.
'Oh, are you going to a show, Mr. Woodus?' she asked Abel. 'It would
have been so nice and pleasant if you would have played your
instrument.'
'Yes, mum. That's what I've acome for. I inna going to no show. I've
come to the wedding to get my belly-full.'
Mrs. Marston, very much flustered, asked what the animals were for.
'I think, mother, they're for you.' Edward smiled.
She surveyed Foxy, full of vitality after the drive; the bird, moping
and rough; the rabbit, with one ear inside out, looking far from
respectable. She heard the ventriloquistic mews.
'I don't want them, dear,' she said with great decision.
'It's a bit of a cats' 'ome you're starting, mum,' said Abel.
Mrs. Marston found no words for her emotions.
But while Edward and Abel bestowed the various animals, she said to
Martha:
'Weddings are not what they were, Martha.'
'Bride to groom,' said Martha, who always read the local weddings: 'a
one-eyed cat; a foolish rabbit as'd be better in a pie; an ill-contrived
bird; and a filthy smelly fox!'
Mrs. Marston relaxed her dignity so far as to laugh softly. She decided
to give Martha a rise next year.