THE COMING OF THE BRIDE
Early in the June morning Mary awoke, feeling as if it were Christmas or
Fourth of July or some great gala occasion. She lay there a moment,
trying to think what pleasant thing was about to happen. Then she
remembered that it was the day on which the bride was to arrive. Not
only that,--before the sun went down, the best man would be at The
Locusts also.
She raised herself on her elbow to look at Joyce, in the white bed
across from hers. She was sound asleep, so Mary snuggled down on her
pillow again, and lay quite still. If Joyce had been awake, Mary would
have begun a long conversation about Phil Tremont. Instead, she began
recalling to herself the last time she had seen him. It was three years
ago, down by the beehives, and she had had no idea he was going away
until he came to the Wigwam to bid them all good-by. And Joyce and Lloyd
were away, so he had left a message for them with her. She thought it
queer then, and she had wondered many times since why his farewell to
the girls should have been a message about the old gambling god, Alaka.
She remembered every word of it, even the tones of his voice as he said:
"Try to remember just these words, please, Mary. Tell them that '_Alaka
has lost his precious turquoises, but he will win them back again some
day_.' Can you remember to say just that?"
He must have thought she wasn't much more than a baby to repeat it so
carefully to her several times, as if he were teaching her a lesson.
Well, to be sure, she was only eleven then, and she had almost cried
when she begged him not to go away, and insisted on knowing when he was
coming back. He had looked away toward old Camelback Mountain with a
strange, sorry look on his face as he answered:
"Not till I've learned your lesson--to be 'inflexible.' When I'm strong
enough to keep stiff in the face of any temptation, then I'll come back,
little Vicar." Then he had stooped and kissed her hastily on both
cheeks, and started off down the road, with her watching him through a
blur of tears, because it seemed that all the good times in the world
had suddenly come to an end. Away down the road he had turned to look
back and wave his hat, and she had caught up her white sunbonnet and
swung it high by its one limp string.
Afterward, when she went back to the swing by the beehives, she recalled
all the old stories she had ever heard of knights who went out into the
world to seek their fortunes, and waved farewell to some ladye fair in
her watch-tower. She felt, in a vague way, that she had been bidden
farewell by a brave knight errant. Although she was burning with
curiosity when she delivered the message about the turquoises and Alaka,
and wondered why Lloyd and Joyce exchanged such meaning glances,
something kept her from asking questions, and she had gone on wondering
all these years what it meant, and why there was such a sorry look in
his eyes when he gazed out toward the old Camelback Mountain. Now, in
the wisdom of her fourteen years, she began to suspect what the trouble
had been, and resolved to ask Joyce for the solution of the mystery.
Now that Phil was twenty years old and doing a man's work in the world,
she supposed she ought to call him Mr. Tremont, or, at least, Mr. Phil.
Probably in his travels, with all the important things that a civil
engineer has to think of, he had forgotten her and the way he had romped
with her at the Wigwam, and how he had saved her life the time the
Indian chased her. Being the bridegroom's brother and best man at the
wedding, he would scarcely notice her. Or, if he did cast a glance in
her direction, she had grown so much probably he never would recognize
her. Still, if he _should_ remember her, she wanted to appear at her
best advantage, and she began considering what was the best her wardrobe
afforded.
She lay there some time trying to decide whether she should be all in
white when she met him, or in the dress with the little sprigs of
forget-me-nots sprinkled over it. White was appropriate for all
occasions, still the forget-me-nots would be suggestive. Then she
remembered her mother's remark about that shade of blue being a trying
one for her to wear. That recalled Mom Beck's prescription for
beautifying the complexion. Nothing, so the old colored woman declared,
was so good for one's face as washing it in dew before the sun had
touched the grass, at the same time repeating a hoodoo rhyme. Mary had
been intending to try it, but never could waken early enough.
Now it was only a little after five. Slipping out of bed, she drew
aside the curtain. Smoke was rising from the chimney down in the
servants' quarters, and the sun was streaming red across the lawn. But
over by the side of the house, in the shadow of Hero's monument, the dew
lay sparkling like diamonds on the daisies and clover that bloomed
there--the only place on the lawn where the sun had not yet touched.
Thrusting her bare feet into the little red Turkish slippers beside her
bed, Mary caught up her kimono lying over a chair. It was a long,
Oriental affair, Cousin Kate's Christmas gift; a mixture of gay colors
and a pattern of Japanese fans, and so beautiful in Mary's eyes that she
had often bemoaned the fact that she was not a Japanese lady so that she
could wear the gorgeous garment in public. It seemed too beautiful to be
wasted on the privacy of her room.
Fastening it together with three of Joyce's little gold pins, she stole
down the stairway. Mom Beck was busy in the dining-room, and the doors
and windows stood open. Stepping out of one of the long French windows
that opened on the side porch, Mary ran across to the monument. It was a
glorious June morning. The myriads of roses were doubly sweet with the
dew in their hearts. A Kentucky cardinal flashed across the lawn ahead
of her, darting from one locust-tree to another like a bit of live
flame.
The little red Turkish slippers chased lightly over the grass till they
reached the shadow of the monument. Then stooping, Mary passed her hands
over the daisies and clover, catching up the dewdrops in her pink palms,
and rubbing them over her face as she repeated Mom Beck's charm:
"Beauty come, freckles go!
Dewdops, make me white as snow!"
The dew on her face felt so cool and fresh that she tried it again, then
several times more. Then she stooped over farther and buried her face in
the wet grass, repeating the rhyme again with her eyes shut and in the
singsong chant in which she often intoned things, without giving heed to
what she was uttering. Suddenly, in the midst of this joyful abandon, an
amused exclamation made her lift her head a little and open her eyes.
"By all the powers! What are you up to now, Miss Stork?"
Mary's head came up out of the wet grass with a jerk. Then her face
burned an embarrassed crimson, for striding along the path toward her
was Bob Moore, cutting across lots from Oaklea. He was bareheaded, and
swinging along as if it were a pleasure merely to be alive on such a
morning.
She sprang to her feet, so mortified at being caught in this secret
quest for beauty that her embarrassment left her speechless. Then,
remembering the way she was dressed, she sank down on the grass again,
and pulled her kimono as far as possible over the little bare feet in
the red slippers.
There was no need for her to answer his question. The rhyme she had been
chanting was sufficient explanation.
"I thought you said," he began, teasingly, "that you were to have _your_
innings when you were a grandmother; that you didn't care for beauty now
if you could have a face like a benediction then."
"Oh, I didn't say that I didn't care!" cried Mary, crouching closer
against the monument, and putting her arm across her face to hide it.
"It's because I care so much that I'm always doing silly things and
getting caught. I just wish the earth could open and swallow me!" she
wailed.
Her head was bowed now till it was resting on her knees. Rob looked down
on the little bunch of misery in the gay kimono, thinking he had never
seen such a picture of woe. He could not help smiling, but he felt mean
at having been the cause of her distress, and tried to think of
something comforting to say.
"Sakes alive, child! That's nothing to feel bad about. Bathing your face
in May-day dew is an old English custom that the prettiest girls in the
Kingdom used to follow. I ought to apologize for intruding, but I didn't
suppose any one was up. I just came over to say that some business for
grandfather will take me to town on the earliest train, so that I can't
be on hand when the best man arrives. I didn't want to wake up the
entire household by telephoning, so I thought I'd step over and leave a
message with Alec or some of them. If you'll tell Lloyd, I'll be much
obliged."
"All right, I'll tell her," answered Mary, in muffled tones, without
raising her head from her knees. She was battling back the tears, and
felt that she could never face the world again. She waited till she was
sure Rob was out of sight, and then, springing up, ran for the shelter
of her room. As she stole up the stairs, her eyes were so blinded with
tears that she could hardly see the steps; tears of humiliation, that
Rob, of all people, whose good opinion she valued, should have
discovered her in a situation that made her appear silly and vain.
Luckily for the child's peace of mind, Betty had also wakened early that
morning, and was taking advantage of the quiet hours before breakfast to
attend to her letter-writing. Through her open door she caught sight of
the woebegone little figure slipping past, and the next instant Mary
found herself in the white and gold room with Betty's arm around her,
and her tearful face pressed against a sympathetic shoulder. Little by
little Betty coaxed from her the cause of her tears, then sat silent,
patting her hand, as she wondered what she could say to console her.
To the older girl it seemed a matter to smile over, and the corners of
her mouth did dimple a little, until she realized that to Mary's
supersensitive nature this was no trifle, and that she was suffering
keenly from it.
"Oh, I'm so ashamed," sobbed Mary. "I never want to look Mister Rob in
the face again. I'd rather go home and miss the wedding than meet him
any more."
"Nonsense," said Betty, lightly. "Now you're making a mountain out of a
mole-hill. Probably Rob will never give the matter a second thought,
and he would be amazed if he thought you did. I've heard you say you
wished you could be just like Lloyd. Do you know, her greatest charm to
me is that she never seems to think of the impression she is making on
other people. Now, if she should decide that her complexion would be
better for a wash in the dew, she would go ahead and wash it, no matter
who caught her at it, and, first thing you know, all the Valley would be
following her example.
"I'm going to preach you a little sermon now, because I've found out
your one fault. It isn't very big yet, but, if you don't nip it in the
bud, it will be like Meddlesome Matty's,--
"'Which, like a cloud before the skies,
Hid all her better qualities.'
"You are self-conscious, Mary. Always thinking about the impression you
are making on people, and so eager to please that it makes you miserable
if you think you fall short of any of their standards. I knew a girl at
school who let her sensitiveness to other people's opinions run away
with her. She was so anxious for her friends to be pleased with her that
she couldn't be natural. If anybody glanced in the direction of her
head, she immediately began to fix her side-combs, or if they seemed to
be noticing her dress, she felt her belt and looked down at herself to
see if anything was wrong. Half the time they were not looking at her at
all, and not even giving her a thought. And I've known her to agonize
for days over some trifle, some remark she had made or some one had made
to her, that every one but her had forgotten. She developed into a
dreadful bore, because she never could forget herself, and was always
looking at her affairs through a magnifying-glass.
"Now if you should keep out of Rob's way after this, and act as if you
had done something to be ashamed of, which you have not, don't you see
that your very actions would remind him of what you want him to forget?
But if when you meet him you are your own bright, cheerful, friendly
little self, this morning's scene will fade into a dim background."
Only half-convinced, Mary nodded that she understood, but still
proceeded to wipe her eyes at intervals.
"Then, there's another thing," continued Betty. "If you sit and brood
over your mortification, it will spread all over your sky like a black
cloud, till it will seem bigger than any of the good times you have
had. In the dear old garden at Warwick Hall there is a sun-dial that has
this inscription on it, 'I only mark the hours that shine,' So I am
going to give you that as a text. Now, dear, that is the end of my
sermon, but here is the application."
She pointed to a row of little white books on the shelf above her desk,
all bound in kid, with her initials stamped on the back in gold. "Those
are my good-times books. 'I only mark the hours that shine' in them, and
when things go wrong and I get discouraged over my mistakes, I glance
through them and find that there's lots more to laugh over than cry
about, and I'm going to recommend the same course to you. Godmother gave
me the first volume when I came to the first house-party, and the little
record gave me so much pleasure that I've gone on adding volume after
volume. Suppose you try it, dear. Will you, if I give you a book?"
"Yes," answered Mary, who had heard of these books before, and longed
for a peep into them. She had her wish now, for, taking them down from
the shelf, Betty read an extract here and there, to illustrate what she
meant. Presently, to their astonishment, they heard Mom Beck knocking at
Lloyd's door to awaken her, and Betty realized with a start that she
had been reading over an hour. Her letters were unanswered, but she had
accomplished something better. Mary's tears had dried, as she listened
to these accounts of their frolics at boarding-school and their
adventures abroad, and in her interest in them her own affairs had taken
their proper proportion. She was no longer heart-broken over having been
discovered by Rob, and she was determined to overcome the sensitiveness
and self-consciousness which Betty had pointed out as her great fault.
As she rose to go, Betty opened a drawer in her desk and took out a
square, fat diary, bound in red morocco. "One of the girls gave me this
last Christmas," she said. "I never have used it, because I want to keep
my journals uniform in size and binding, and I'll be so glad to have you
take it and start a record of your own, if you will."
"Oh, I'll begin this very morning!" cried Mary, in delight, throwing her
arms around Betty's neck with an impulsive kiss, and trying to express
her thanks.
"Then wait till I write my text in it," said Betty, "so that it will
always recall my sermon. I've talked to you as if I were your
grandmother, haven't I?"
"You've made me feel a lot more comfortable," answered Mary, humbly,
with another kiss as Betty handed her the book. On the fly-leaf she had
written her own name and Mary's and the inscription borne by the old
sun-dial in Warwick Hall garden:
"_I only mark the hours that shine._"
It was after lunch before Mary found a moment in which to begin her
record, and then it was in unconscious imitation of Betty's style that
she wrote the events of the morning. Probably she would not have gone
into details and copied whole conversations if she had not heard the
extracts from Betty's diaries. Betty was writing for practice as well as
with the purpose of storing away pleasant memories, so it was often with
the spirit of the novelist that she made her entries.
"It seems hopeless to go back to the beginning," wrote Mary, "and tell
all that has happened so far, so I shall begin with this morning. Soon
after breakfast we went to Rollington in the carriage, Joyce and Betty
and I on the back seat, and Lloyd in front with the coachman. And Mrs.
Crisp cut down nearly a whole bushful of bridal wreath to decorate
Eugenia's room with. When we got back May Lily had just finished putting
up fresh curtains in the room, almost as fine and thin as frost-work.
The furniture is all white, and the walls a soft, cool green, and the
rugs like that dark velvety moss that grows in the deepest woods. When
we had finished filling the vases and jardinières, the room itself all
snowy white and green made you think of a bush of bridal wreath.
"We were barely through with that when it was time for Lloyd and Aunt
Elizabeth to go to the station to meet Eugenia. There wasn't room for
the rest of us in the carriage, so Betty and Joyce and I hung out of the
windows and watched for them, and Betty and Joyce talked about the other
time Eugenia came, when they walked up and down under the locusts
waiting for her and wondering what she would be like. When she did come,
they were half-afraid of her, she was so stylish and young-ladified, and
ordered her maid about in such a superior way.
"Betty said it was curious how snippy girls of that age can be
sometimes, and then turn out to be such fine women afterward, when they
outgrow their snippiness and snobbishness. Then she told us a lot we had
never heard about the school Eugenia went to in Germany to take a
training in housekeeping, and so many interesting things about her that
I was all in a quiver of curiosity to see her.
"When we heard the carriage coming, Betty and Joyce tore down-stairs to
meet her, but I just hung farther out of the window. And, oh, but she
was pretty and stylish and tall--and just as Betty had said,
_patrician_-looking, with her dusky hair and big dark eyes. She is the
Spanish type of beauty. She swept into the house so grandly, with her
maid following with her satchels (the same old Eliot who was here
before), that I thought for a moment maybe she was as stuck-up as ever.
But when she saw her old room, she acted just like a happy little girl,
ready to cry and laugh in the same breath because everything had been
made so beautiful for her coming. While she was still in the midst of
admiring everything, she sat right down on the bed and tore off her
gloves, so that she could open the queer-looking parcel she carried. I
had thought maybe it was something too valuable to put in the satchels,
but it was only a new kind of egg-beater she had seen in a show-window
on her way from one depot to another. You would have thought from the
way she carried on that she had found a wonderful treasure. And in the
midst of showing us that she exclaimed:
"'Oh, girls, what do you think? I met the dearest old lady on the
sleeper, and she gave me a receipt for a new kind of salad. That makes
ten kinds of salad that I know how to make. Oh, I just can't wait to
tell you about our little love of a house! It's all furnished and
waiting for us. Papa and I were out to look all over it the day I
started, and everything was in place but the refrigerator, and Stuart
had already ordered one sent out.'
"Then Lloyd opened the closet door and called her attention to the great
pile of packages waiting to be opened. She flew at them and called us
all to help, and for a little while Mom Beck and Eliot were kept busy
picking up strings and wrapping-paper and cotton and excelsior. When we
were through, the bed and the chairs and mantel and two extra tables
that had been brought in were piled with the most beautiful things I
ever saw. I never dreamed there were such lovely things in the world as
some of the beaten silver and hand-painted china and Tiffany glass.
There was a jewelled fan, and all sorts of things in gold and
mother-of-pearl, and there was some point lace that she said was more
suitable for a queen than a young American girl. Her father has so many
wealthy friends, and they all sent presents.
"Opening the bundles was so much fun,--like a continual surprise-party,
Betty said, or a hundred Christmases rolled into one. Between times when
Eugenia wasn't exclaiming over how lovely everything was, she was
telling us how the house was furnished, and what a splendid fellow
Stuart is, and how wild she is for us to know him. I had never heard a
bride talk before, and she was so _happy_ that somehow it made you feel
that getting married was the most beautiful thing in the world.
"One of the first things she did when she opened her suit-case was to
take out a picture of Stuart. It was a miniature on ivory in a locket of
Venetian gold, because it was in Venice he had proposed to her. After
she had shown it to us, she put it in the centre of her dressing-table,
with the white flowers all around it, as if it had been some sort of
shrine. There was a look in her eyes that made me think of the picture
in Betty's room of a nun laying lilies on an altar.
"It is after luncheon now, and she has gone to her room to rest awhile.
So have the other girls. But I couldn't sleep. The days are slipping by
too fast for me to waste any time that way."
The house was quiet when Mary closed her journal. Joyce was still asleep
on the bed, and through the open door she could see Betty, tilted back
in a big chair, nodding over a magazine. She concluded it would be a
good time to dash off a letter to Holland, but with a foresight which
prompted her to be ready for any occasion, she decided to dress first
for the evening. Tiptoeing around the room, she brushed her hair in the
new way Mom Beck had taught her, and, taking out her prettiest white
dress, proceeded to array herself in honor of the best man's coming.
Then she rummaged in the tray of her trunk till she found her pink coral
necklace and fan-chain, and, with a sigh of satisfaction that she was
ready for any emergency, seated herself at her letter-writing.
She had written only a page, however, when the clock on the stairs
chimed four. The deep tones echoing through the hall sent Lloyd bouncing
up from her couch, her hair falling over her shoulders and her long
kimono tripping her at every step, as she ran into Joyce's room.
"What are we going to do?" she cried in dismay. "I ovahslept myself, and
now it's foah o'clock, and Phil's train due in nine minutes. The
carriage is at the doah and none of us dressed to go to meet him. I
wrote that the entiah bridal party would be there."
Joyce sprang up in a dazed sort of way, and began putting on her
slippers. The bridesmaids had talked so much about the grand welcome the
best man was to receive on his entrance to the Valley that, half-awake
as she was, she could not realize that it was too late to carry out
their plans.
"Oh, it's no use trying to get ready now," said Lloyd, in a disappointed
tone. "We couldn't dress and get to the station in time to save ou'
lives." Then her glance fell on Mary, sitting at her desk in all her
brave array of pink ribbons and corals.
"Why, Mary can go!" she cried, in a relieved tone. "I had forgotten that
she knows Phil as well as we do. Run on, that's a deah! Don't stop for a
hat! You won't need it in the carriage. Tell him that you're the maid of
honah on this occasion!"
It was all over so quickly, the rapid drive down the avenue, the quick
dash up to the station as the train came puffing past, that Mary had
little time to rehearse the part she had been bidden to play. She was so
afraid that Phil would not recognize her that she wondered if she ought
not to begin by introducing herself. She pictured the scene in her mind
as they rolled along, unconscious that she was smiling and bowing into
empty air, as she rehearsed the speech with which she intended to
impress him. She would be as dignified and gracious as the Princess
herself; not at all like the hoydenish child of eleven who had waved her
sunbonnet at him in parting three years before.
The sight of the train as it slowed up sent a queer inward quiver of
expectancy through her, and her cheeks were flushed with eagerness as
she leaned forward watching for him. With a nervous gesture, she put her
hand up to her hair-ribbons to make sure that her bows were in place,
and then clutched the coral necklace. Then Betty's sermon flashed across
her mind, and the thought that she had done just like the self-conscious
girl at school brought a distressed pucker between her eyebrows. But the
next instant she forgot all about it. She forgot the princess-like way
in which she was to step from the carriage, the dignity with which she
was to offer Phil her hand, and the words wherewith she was to welcome
him. She had caught sight of a wide-brimmed gray hat over the heads of
the crowd, and a face, bronzed and handsome, almost as dear in its
familiar outlines as Jack's or Holland's. Her carefully rehearsed
actions flew to the winds, as, regardless of the strangers all about,
she sprang from the carriage and ran along bareheaded in the sun. And
Phil, glancing around him for the bridal party that was to meet him, was
surprised beyond measure when this little apparition from the Arizona
Wigwam caught him by the hand.
"Bless my soul, it's the little Vicar!" he exclaimed. "Why, it's like
getting back home to see _you_! And how you've grown, and how really
civilized you are!"
So he _had_ remembered her. He was glad to see her. With her face
glowing and her feet fairly dancing, she led him to the carriage,
pouring out a flood of information as they went, about The Locusts and
the wedding and the people they passed, and how lovely everything was in
the Valley, till he said, with a twinkle in his eyes: "You're the same
enthusiastic little soul that you used to be, aren't you? I hope you'll
speak as good a word for me at The Locusts as you did at Lee's ranch. I
am taking it as a good omen that you were sent to conduct me into this
happy land. You made a success of it that other time; somehow I'm sure
you will this time."
All the way to the house Mary sat and beamed on him as she talked,
thinking how much older he looked, and yet how friendly and brotherly he
still was. She introduced him to Mrs. Sherman with a proud,
grandmotherly air of proprietorship, and took a personal pride in every
complimentary thing said about him afterward, as if she were responsible
for his good behavior, and was pleased with the way he was "showing
off."
Rob came over as usual in the evening. Phil was not there at first. He
and Eugenia were strolling about the grounds. Mary, sitting in a hammock
on the porch, was impatient for them to come in, for she wanted to see
what impression he would make on Rob, whom she had been thinking lately
was the nicest man she ever met. She wanted to see them together to
contrast the two, for they seemed wonderfully alike in size and general
appearance. In actions, too, Mary thought, remembering how they both had
teased her.
She had not seen Rob since their unhappy encounter early that morning,
when she had been so overcome with mortification; and if Betty had not
been on the porch also, she would have found it hard to stay and face
him. But she wanted to show Betty that she had taken her little sermon
to heart. Then, besides, the affair did not look so big, after all that
had happened during this exciting day.
As they waited, Joyce joined them, and presently they heard Lloyd coming
through the hall. She was singing a verse from Ingelow's "Songs of
Seven:"
"'There is no dew left on the daisies and clover.
There is no rain left in the heaven.
I've said my seven times over and over--
Seven times one are seven.'"
Then she began again, "'There is no dew left on the daisies and
clover--'" Rob turned to Mary. "I wonder why," he said, meaningly.
The red flashed up into Mary's face and she made no audible answer, but
Joyce, turning suddenly, saw to her horror that Mary had made a saucy
face at him and thrust out her tongue like a naughty child.
"Why, Mary Ware!" she began, in a shocked tone, but Betty interrupted
with a laugh. "Let her alone, Joyce; he richly deserved it. He was
teasing her."
"Betty was right," thought Mary afterward. "It _was_ better to make fun
of his teasing than to run off and cry because he happened to mention
the subject. If I had done that, he never would have said to Betty
afterward that I was the jolliest little thing that ever came over the
pike. How much better this day has ended than it began."