THE WEDDING MORNING
It was very dark and draughty in the church. Maud was shivering from
head to foot. Her heart felt as if it were encased in ice. Now and
then it beat a little, feebly, as if trying to break free, but the awful
cold was too much for it. She did not know how to keep her teeth from
chattering. Her hands lay in her lap, numbed and nerveless. She
wondered if she would ever manage to walk as far as the dimly lit altar
where Jake would be awaiting her.
It was evidently draughty there also. The candles flickered fitfully.
Uncle Edward was eyeing the candles with obvious disapproval. She hoped
he would manage to suppress it at close quarters. She was sure she
would have to laugh if he didn't, and laughter, she felt, would be
fatal.
How different this from the wedding-day which once she had dared to
picture for herself! It was like a mocking fantasy, a dreadful travesty
of that which might have been. Like an arc of prismatic colours it hung
before her--the vision of that other wedding--the wedding of her dreams;
the sunshine and the laughter and the flowers! The shining altar, the
waiting bridegroom, his flashing smile of welcome! She saw it all--she
saw it all!
How dear he had been to her! How, unutterably dear! And she remembered
how in those far-off days he had always called her his Queen Rose.
Her heart gave a swift throb that was anguish. She stood up with a
quick, involuntary movement. She had not dreamed that this long-past
trouble possessed the power to hurt her so. She cast a desperate glance
around her. This waiting in the cold and the dark had become
intolerable. A wild impulse to flee--to flee--was upon her. The door
was quite near. She turned towards it.
But in that moment Uncle Edward cleared his throat and rose.
"Here comes your precious bridegroom!" he said. "I suppose they're
ready at last. We had better get moving."
And then it was that Maud's knees abruptly refused to support her, and
she sank down again white and powerless on the chair by the door.
Jake's sturdy figure was coming down the aisle. She watched it with
eyes that were wide and fixed.
He came straight to her, bent over her. "I'm real sorry you've been
kept waiting," he said, in his womanly drawl. "It's the parson's doing.
He forgot all about us. And there was no fire either. I had to force
the door of the stoke shed to light it."
He bent a little lower over her, and suddenly she felt his hand against
the icy cold of her cheek. She started back from it.
"Jake, I--can't come yet. I'm so cold." Stiffly her pale lips
whispered the words; her whole body seemed bound in a very rigour of
cold. And through it all she still thought she could hear phantom
echoes of that other wedding that once had seemed so near.
"Where is your mother?" said Jake.
There was a hint of sternness in the question. Uncle Edward answered
it.
"I'm expecting them every minute. I drove up first to fetch Maud. Lucy
is a hopeless fool. She's never in time for anything."
Even as he spoke, there came the rush of wheels on the hard road outside
and the hoot of a motor horn.
The sound as it reached Maud, seemed to galvanize her into sudden
energy. She rose, white to the lips but resolute. "I am ready," she
said.
Jake gave her a straight, hard look, and turned without another word.
He went back up the aisle, square, purposeful, steady, and took up his
stand by the waiting clergyman.
Maud's hand pressed her uncle's arm with urgency. "Let us go! Let us
go!" she said. "I can see my mother--afterwards."
The old man also gave her a shrewd glance, but he also said no word.
Only as he stumped up the aisle beside her, he took the girlish hand
upon his arm and held it hard in his gnarled fingers.
They had reached the chancel steps where the clergyman awaited them ere
the opening of the door and the sound of fluttering feet announced the
arrival of Maud's mother. A heavier tread and a man's loud whisper and
barely muffled laugh testified to the presence of Giles Sheppard also.
Uncle Edward cleared his throat ferociously, releasing Maud's hand with
a mighty squeeze as Jake came to her side. Then he turned with
deliberation and scowled upon the advancing couple.
Maud did not turn. Her face was white and still as the face of a marble
statue. Her eyes stared blankly at the flickering candles on the altar.
Had Jake lighted those candles, she wondered, as well as the fire in the
stoke shed?
She heard her mother's step behind her, but still she did not move; and
after the briefest pause the clergyman began to read the service.
It was all horribly unreal. The only thing of which she was vividly and
poignantly conscious was the cold. She heard Jake's voice beside her,
very calm and steady, and when her turn came she spoke with equal
steadiness, for somehow she seemed to be imbued with his strength. But
she was too frozen, too ice-bound, to feel any meaning in the words she
uttered. She spoke them like an automaton, through lips that would
scarcely move.
Jake's hand, warm and purposeful, holding her own, sent a faint, faint
glow through her; but it did not reach her heart. She thought it had
ceased to beat long ago, and she wondered how soon he would realize that
he was wedded to a dead woman, what he would say when he knew. For Jake
was so essentially full-blooded, so burningly alive. He was the most
virile person she had ever met. Standing there by his side, she could
feel the warmth of him. She thought it was that alone that kept her
from turning into a solid block of ice.
When she knelt, his hand came under her elbow and supported her; when
she rose, it lifted her. When the dreadful nightmare service was over
at last, his arm was round her, and by its aid alone she stumbled
stiffly to the vestry.
The young curate who had married them looked at her with nervous
solicitude. He had been recently married himself, and he had a
painfully vivid memory of the agonies thereof.
He set a chair for her, and Jake put her down into it. Then he stood up
and took command of the situation.
"Get a glass from somewhere!" he said to the curate. "And you, sir," he
turned upon Uncle Edward, "don't let that man come in here! Her mother
can if she likes, but I won't have anyone else."
He stooped over Maud, looking closely into her deathlike face. He took
her frozen hands and held them up to his lips, breathing on them.
Her great eyes gazed up at him in mute apology. She felt he had begun
to find out.
"It's all right, my girl," he said in answer, "all right."
And then her mother came to her, and surprised Maud at least by folding
her close in her arms and fondly kissing her poor numbed lips.
"Why, Maudie, darling," she murmured to her tenderly as though she were
a child again, "what is it, dearie? What is it?"
The words, the embrace, moved Maud, piercing straight to her frozen
heart. She turned with a passionate, inarticulate sound and hid her
face on her mother's breast.
"My precious! My own girlie!" said Mrs. Sheppard; and gathered her
closer still.
There followed a brief, brief interval of peace while she rested in the
sheltering arms that had not held her since her babyhood. Then she
heard Jake's voice close to her bowed head.
"Maud, I want you to drink this."
She stirred uneasily, and was aware of her mother's tears dropping on
her face.
Then again came Jake's voice, quite courteous but extremely decided. "I
am afraid I must trouble you, Mrs. Sheppard. She is half-dead with
cold."
Mrs. Sheppard gave a little sob and relaxed her hold. "Maud--my darling,
here is some brandy and water. Will you try and drink it? Mother will
hold the glass."
But it was Jake's hand that held it, guiding it steadily to the cold,
blue lips; and it was in response to his insistence, and not of her own
volition at all, that Maud drank the fiery mixture he had prepared.
She shuddered over it, but it revived her almost immediately. She felt
the blood begin to stir in her veins, her heart begin to beat.
"That's right," said Jake, and she saw his smile for the first time that
wintry morning and felt the better for it. "Now, sit quiet for a minute
or two till you feel well enough to sign the register! Mrs. Sheppard, I
think your husband wants to speak to you."
"Oh, dear!" sobbed Mrs. Sheppard. "He's always wanting something."
Maud gently released herself. "You had better go to him, Mother, dear.
You can bring him in if you like. I am quite all right now."
Her eyes met Jake's as her mother tearfully departed. Something like a
glance of intimacy passed between them. She held out her hand to him,
and he took it and held it, so that some of his abundant strength seemed
to communicate itself to her.
"I don't want your mother to upset you," he said.
She dismissed the notion with a smile. "I am quite ready to sign now.
Let us get it over, shall we? I want to go back to Bunny."
His hand relinquished hers. He turned to the table. "The sooner the
better," he said, in a tone of cool deliberation.