SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE
A week after Miss Matoaca's funeral, Sally met me in one of the secluded
streets by the Capitol Square, and we walked slowly up and down for an
hour in the November sunshine. In her black clothes she appeared to have
bloomed into a brighter beauty, a richer colour.
"Why can't I believe, Sally, that you will really marry me a week from
to-day?"
"A week from to-day. Just you and I in old Saint John's."
"And Miss Mitty, will she not come with you?"
"She refuses to let me speak your name to her. It would be hard to leave
her, Ben, if--if she hadn't been so bitter and stern to me for the last
year. I live in the same house with her and see nothing of her."
"I thought Miss Matoaca's death might have softened her."
"Nothing will soften her. Aunt Matoaca's death has hurt her terribly, I
know, but--and this is a dreadful thing to say--I believe it has hurt
her pride more than her heart. If the poor dear had died quietly in her
bed, with her prayer-book on the counterpane, Aunt Mitty would have
grieved for her in an entirely different way. She lives in a kind of
stained-glass seclusion, and anything outside of that seems to her
vulgar--even emotion."
"How I must have startled her."
"You startled her so that she has never had courage to face the effect.
Think what it must mean to a person who has lived sixty-five years in an
atmosphere of stained glass to be dragged outside and made to look at
the great common sun--"
A squirrel, running out from between the iron railing surrounding the
square, crossed the pavement and then sat erect in front of us, his
bushy tail waving like a brush over his ears. While she was bending over
to speak to it, the Bland surrey turned the corner at a rapid pace, and
I saw the figure of Miss Mitty, swathed heavily in black, sitting very
stiff and upright behind old Shadrach. As she caught sight of us, she
leaned slightly forward, and in obedience to her order, the carriage
stopped the next instant beside the pavement.
"Sally!" she called, and there was no hint in her manner that she was
aware of my presence.
"Yes, Aunt Mitty." The girl had straightened herself, and stood calmly
and without embarrassment at my side.
"I should like you to come with me to Hollywood."
"Yes, Aunt Mitty."
Pausing for an instant, she gave me her hand. "Until Wednesday, Ben,"
she said in a low, clear voice, and then entering the surrey, she took
her place under the fur robe and was driven away.
The week dragged by like a century, and on Wednesday morning, when I got
up and opened my shutters, I found that our wedding-day had begun in a
slow autumnal rain. A thick tent of clouds stretched overhead, and the
miniature box in the garden looked like flutings of crape on the pebbled
walk, which had been washed clean and glistening during the night. The
clipped yew stood dark and sombre as a solitary mourner among the
blossomless rose-bushes.
At breakfast Mrs. Clay poured my coffee with a rigid hand and an averted
face, and Dr. Theophilus appeared to find difficulty in keeping up his
cheerful morning comments.
"I'll miss you, Ben, my boy," he remarked, as he rose from the table;
"it's a sad day for me when I lose you."
"I hate to lose you, doctor, but I shan't, after all, be far off. I've
bought a house, as you know, beyond the Park in Franklin Street."
"The one Jack Montgomery used to live in before he lost his money--yes,
it is a fine place. Well, you have my best wishes, Ben, whatever comes;
you may be sure of that. I hope you and Sally will have every
happiness."
He shook my hand in his hearty grasp before going into his little
office, and the next minute I went out into the rain, and walked down
for a few words with the General, before I met Sally under the big
sycamore at the side gate. I had waited for her but a little while when
she came out under an umbrella held by Aunt Euphronasia, who was to
accompany us on our journey South in the General's private car. As she
entered the carriage, I saw that she wore a white dress under her long
black cloak.
"Mammy wouldn't let me be married in black," she said; "she says it
means death or a bad husband."
"Dar ain' gwine be a bad husband fur dish yer chile," grumbled the old
woman, who was evidently full of gloomy forebodings, "caze she ain'
built wid de kinder spine, suh, dat bends easy."
"There'll be nobody at church?" asked Sally.
"Only the General, and I suppose the sexton."
"I am glad." She leaned forward, we clasped hands, and I saw that the
eyes she lifted to mine were starry and expectant, as they had been that
day, so many years ago, when she stood between the gate and the bed of
geraniums in the General's yard.
The carriage rolled softly over the soaking streets, and above the sound
of the wheels I heard the patter of the rain on the dead leaves in the
gutters. I can see still a wet sparrow or two that fluttered down from
the bared branches, and the negro maid sweeping the water from the steps
in front of the doctor's house. There was no wind, and the rain fell in
straight elongated drops like a shower of silvery pine-needles. The
mixture of a fighter and a dreamer! On my wedding-day, as I sat beside
the woman I loved, approaching the fulfilment of my desire, I was
conscious of a curious gravity, of almost a feeling of sadness. The
stillness without, intensified by the slow, soft fall of the rain on the
dead leaves, seemed not detached, but at one with the inner stillness
which possessed alike my heart and my brain. I, the man of action, the
embodiment of worldly success, was awed by the very intensity of my
love, which added a throb of apprehension to the supreme moment of its
fulfilment.
The carriage crawled up the long hill, and stopped before the steps
leading to the churchyard of Saint John's. Like a sombre omen up went
the umbrella in the hands of Aunt Euphronasia; and as I led Sally across
the pavement to the General, who stood waiting under the dripping maples
and sycamores, I saw that she was very pale, and that her lips trembled
when she smiled back at me. With her arm in the General's, she passed
before me up the walk to the church door, while Aunt Euphronasia and I
followed under the same umbrella a short way behind.
At the door the minister met us with outstretched hands, for he had
known us from childhood; and when Aunt Euphronasia had removed the
bride's moist cloak, Sally joined me before the altar, in the square of
faint light that fell from the windows. The interior of the church was
very dim, so dim that her white dress and the minister's gown seemed the
only patches of high light in the obscurity. Through the window I could
see the wet silvery boughs of a sycamore, and, I remember still, as if
it had been illuminated upon my brain, a single bronzed leaf that
writhed and twisted at the end of a slender branch. Never in my life had
my mind been so awake to trivial impressions, so acutely aware of the
external world, so perfectly unable to realise the profound significance
of the words I uttered. The sound of the soft rain on the graves outside
was in my ears, and instead of my marriage, I found myself thinking of
the day I had seen Sally dancing toward me in her red shoes, over the
coloured leaves. In those few minutes, which changed the course of our
two lives, it was as if I myself--the man that men knew--had been
present only in a dream.
When it was over, the General kissed Sally, and wiped his eyes on his
silk handkerchief.
"You're a brave girl, my dear, and I'm proud of you," he said; "you've
got your mother's heart and your father's fighting blood, and that's a
good blending."
"I wish the sun had shone on you," observed the old minister, while I
helped her into her cloak; "but we Christians can't afford to waste
regret on heathen superstitions. I married your mother," he added, as if
there were possible comfort in a proof of the futility of omens, "on a
cloudless morning in June."
Sally shivered, and glanced across the churchyard, where the water
dripped from the bared trees on the graves that were covered thickly
with sodden leaves.
"The sun may welcome us home," she replied, with an effort to be
cheerful; "we shall be back again in a fortnight."
"And you go South?" asked the minister nervously, like a man who tries
to make conversation because his professional duty requires it of him.
Then the umbrella went up again, and after a good-by to the General, we
started together down the walk, with Aunt Euphronasia following close as
a shadow.
"The rain does not sadden you, sweetheart?"
"It saddens me, but that does not mean that I am not happy."
"And you would do it over again?"
"I would do it over until--until the last hour of my life."
"Oh, Sally, Sally, if I were only sure that I was worthy."
A light broke in her face, and as she looked up at me, I bent over and
kissed her under the leafless trees.