JESSICA'S WEDDING
"Jessica Bright, you will never look prettier in your life than you do
to-night!" exclaimed Grace Harlowe, as she stood off a little from her
friend and gazed at her with loving eyes.
A wave of color dyed Jessica's pale cheeks. "I'm so glad that you think
so," she breathed. "Do you know, girls, I have always hoped that I'd
look nicer on my wedding day than at any other time. I'm glad I decided
to have a green and white wedding, too."
"You always used to say that you were going to have a pink rose
wedding," reminded Anne. "What made you change your mind?"
"Promise you won't laugh and I'll tell you," said Jessica solemnly.
It was the evening of Jessica's wedding and Mabel Allison, Anne Pierson,
Miriam Nesbit, Eleanor Savelli, Nora, now Mrs. Hippy Wingate, and Grace
gathered about their friend with voluble promises of eternal secrecy.
They were in Jessica's room saying good-bye to Jessica Bright, so soon
to become Jessica Brooks.
"I changed my mind," informed Jessica impressively, "on account of
Reddy's hair."
"'On account of Reddy's hair,'" repeated Grace. "Why--" Then, catching
Nora's eye, she laughed.
"You know how dreadfully pink and red clash," Jessica went on, with a
faint giggle, "but I had never thought of it until one night when Reddy
was sitting on our porch. He wrapped my pink scarf around his neck just
for fun, and I made up my mind then and there not to have a pink
wedding. Finally, I chose green and white, and I'm glad now, because he
will look so much nicer."
"I think that was very sweet in you, Jessica," said Eleanor Savelli
decidedly.
"Some of us ought to tell Reddy of Jessica's thoughtfulness," teased
Anne.
"Just as though any of you would," replied Jessica, fondly surveying the
smiling faces of her friends.
"You are very sure of us, aren't you, Jessica?" said Grace gayly.
"And always shall be," answered Jessica simply. "Do you remember, girls,
when I was about fourteen how frightfully sentimental I used to be. I
read every love story I could lay hands on. I was forever imagining my
wedding day. My bridegroom was always tall and dark, with piercing black
eyes and a kingly air, and I always pictured myself as wearing a pink
satin dress and being married in church. Sometimes fate parted us at the
altar and sometimes we lived happily ever afterward. I used to plan that
on the day of my wedding I would lock myself in my room, put on my pink
satin dress and sit all day in rapt meditation. I would eat nothing, and
see no one, not even father, until the moment when I swept grandly out
into the hall and down the stairs to my carriage. Of course, I was
transcendently beautiful and there I were always two or three
disappointed lovers, who came to the church and cast sad, yearning eyes
upon me as I glided up the center aisle with my hero. I never dreamed,
then, that Reddy Brooks, my schoolmate and playfellow, was to be my
destiny," she continued, her eyes growing tender, "or that I should
begin my journey with him in our dear old parlor, surrounded by my
chums. I haven't the least desire to sit alone and moon and meditate. I
want all of you with me. It seems the most natural thing in the world
that I should walk down the same old stairs to the same old parlor to
meet the same old Reddy, just as I've done dozens of times before."
"It's five minutes to eight, girls," announced Miriam Nesbit. "Say
good-bye to Jessica Bright, and don't one of you dare to shed a tear."
One after another the girls embraced Jessica. Nora was last. She and
Jessica remained in each other's arms for a long, sweet moment. Their
devotion was as deep and true as that which existed between Grace and
Anne.
"Here are the flower girls. It's time, Jessica," said Grace softly, as
the two little girls who had been chosen to act in that capacity entered
the room accompanied by Ellen, the Brights' old servant, who had been in
the household since Jessica's babyhood. They were pretty, dark-haired
children, cousins of Jessica's, and wore white lace frocks over pale
green silk. On their heads were wreaths of tiny double white daisies and
they carried small baskets filled to overflowing with the same flower.
Quietly the little procession began to form. Nora, as matron of honor,
followed the flower girls. She wore her wedding gown of white satin, and
carried a huge armful of white roses. Then came the bride. As Grace had
said Jessica would, in all probability, never look lovelier than in her
wedding dress of white satin. Her veil of wonderful yellow-white old
lace, was an heirloom, Jessica being the fourth bride in the family to
wear it, and her bouquet was a shower of lilies of the valley. Jessica
possessed a dazzlingly white skin, and the purity of her complexion had
never showed to better advantage. Her deeply blue eyes were dark with
reverence and her whole face radiated a tender happiness that made it
rarely lovely. The bridesmaids wore gowns of white chiffon over pale
green chiffon which blended into a misty, sea-foam effect. Dainty
girdles of palest green satin and exquisite hair ornaments composed of
tiny chiffon flowers and satin leaves, together with white satin
slippers and white silk stockings, completed their costumes, and they
carried shower bouquets of white sweet peas.
Down the stairs swept the bridal procession to the strains of
Mendelssohn's wedding march played by the orchestra, stationed in a
palm-screened corner of the wide hall. It was the same old orchestra
which had become so closely identified with the good times of the Eight
Originals during their high school days. Jessica had declared laughingly
that it would seem almost a sacrilege to think of being married to the
strains of a wedding march that was not played by them. At the foot of
the stairs the bride was met by her father, and the wedding party moved
slowly into and down the long parlor to the bow window at the end of the
room which had been transformed into a fairy bower of green. Before a
bank of ferns, white roses and white sweet peas stood the old clergyman
who had said the last solemn words over Jessica's mother years before,
and who had come from another city, many miles distant, to marry Jessica
and Reddy. Here it was that the bridegroom, accompanied by his best man,
Tom Gray, awaited his one-time playmate, his boyhood friend, his first
and only sweetheart, who had now come in all the bravery of her wedding
finery to place her hands, trustingly, confidently in his for the
journey over the untrodden trail they were to blaze together.
A soft murmur that was almost a sigh went up from the assembled guests
as Mr. Bright handed his most precious treasure into the keeping of the
man who had claimed her for his own, and the beautiful Episcopal ring
service began. Jessica's responses were clear and unfaltering, while
Reddy's firm earnest tones carried conviction of the sincerity of his
vows. Notwithstanding the fact that the appellation of "Reddy," by which
he was known throughout Oakdale, arose from his unmistakably red hair,
Lawrence Brooks looked singularly handsome on his wedding night and the
expression of proud affection in his eyes, as he took Jessica's hand,
was plainly indicative of the love he bore her.
The moment the ceremony was over Reddy kissed Jessica, who lifted loving
eyes to his, then, turning, wound both arms about her father's neck. The
bridesmaids quickly hemmed them in and the guests crowded about them to
offer their congratulations. Only the intimate friends of Reddy and
Jessica had been invited to attend the ceremony, Mrs. Allison, the
Southards, the Putnams, Mrs. Gibson, Eva Allen and James Gardner, Julia
Crosby, Marian Barber, Mrs. Gray, Miss Nevin, Guido Savelli, Arnold
Evans, Donald Earle, the immediate families of the bride and groom and
the families of the rest of the Eight Originals Plus Two.
The reception, which was to begin at half-past eight, included the
greater part of Oakdale's younger set, and before it was over Reddy and
Jessica were to slip away and motor to the next town, there to catch the
night train to New York. From there they were to take a boat bound for
the West Indies where they had planned to spend a month's honeymoon,
then journey to their Chicago home.
"Well, Reddy," declared Hippy condescendingly, when, a little later the
Eight Originals stood near the flower bank indulging in a brief old-time
chat before the arrival of the reception guests, "I must say that you
did very well, and Jessica, too." He beamed on the bride, with a wide
patronizing smile that caused her new dignity to vanish in a giggle of
ready appreciation of the irrepressible Hippy. "I hoped that you, Reddy,
would glance at me for inspiration. There you stood, like a wooden
Indian, I mean a marble statue, and never winked. But as you stood there
a beautiful thought came to me. I understood precisely why the name of
'Reddy' was appropriate to you. The electric light shone softly down
upon your gleaming Titian locks, as though to call attention to their
crimson glory. There was a look of--"
"Nora, if you value the life of your husband, remove him," broke in
David Nesbit decisively. "Reddy is trying to behave with the becoming
dignity of a newly-wed, and I appeal to you, how can he?"
"He can't," agreed Nora. "I'll remove the obstacle at once."
"You'll have to use strategy to do it," announced Hippy.
"'Come one, come all, this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as
I!'"
he quoted determinedly, with jerky little gestures. Planting himself
behind Jessica, he caught up a corner of her veil and peered defiantly
through it at David.
"You haven't seen the bride's table in the tent yet, have you, Hippy?"
inquired Grace innocently. "It looks so pretty."
"The bride's table!" Hippy's defiant face broke into an expansive,
affable grin. "No, but I'd love to see it. Show it to me, instantly."
"I'll take charge of him, Grace," interposed Nora. "If he inspects the
refreshment tent it must be under guard."
"I've changed my mind. I don't care to see it. I'd rather stay here and
offer a few more congratulations to Reddy. Grace's strategy was very
clever, but Nora's bullying is all wrong. I won't be taken charge of."
But in spite of his vigorous protests Nora slipped her arm through his
and piloted him in the direction of the huge refreshment tent which had
been erected on the lawn. There the wedding supper was to be served by
caterers at small tables.
"What a treasure Hippy is," said Anne, as the group of young people
smilingly watched Hippy and Nora out of sight. "He is so funny and nice
that he takes away that half-sad feeling that one almost always has at a
wedding. I am sure I don't know why seeing two friends made happy should
inspire one with a desire to cry, but it does."
"Weddings and commencements are always more or less solemn and
productive of weeps," answered Grace. "Remember not one of us is going
to shed a tear when Jessica leaves us. This has been such a sweet, happy
wedding that we mustn't spoil its gladness. Of course, I can't imagine
you boys lifting up your voices in lamentation, but I'm not so sure of
the feminine half of the Eight Originals."
"I couldn't help crying a little when Nora was married," confessed
Jessica. "A church wedding seems so much more solemn, and Hippy was far
too busy being a dignified bridegroom to say funny things."
"He was perfect, wasn't he?" agreed Anne earnestly. "I never dreamed he
could look so reverent and devoted. I don't know which was nicer,
Jessica, Nora's wedding or yours. They were both beautiful." Happening
to catch David's grave eyes fixed searchingly upon her she flushed and
said hastily, "It must be almost time for the reception to begin."
"So it is, and if I'm not mistaken here come the first guests," remarked
Tom Gray.
For the next hour Jessica and Reddy were kept busy receiving the
congratulations of the steady in-pouring of friends who came to wish
them godspeed. Then followed the wedding supper, and it was almost
eleven o'clock when Jessica slipped away from her guests, and a little
later, appeared at the head of the stairs in a smart tailored suit of
brown, with hat, shoes and gloves to match. No secret had been made of
their departure, for their friends were not of those who delighted in
playing embarrassing and discomforting pranks. In fact, the majority of
the reception guests had departed, and it was their intimate friends who
were to see them off on their journey.
Surrounded by her loved ones, Jessica made a second triumphal journey
down the stairs. In the hall a halt was made and the dreaded good-byes
began. Jessica clung first to her father, then to her aunt. Her chums
came next and she was passed from one to the other of them with warm
expressions of affection and good will. Then the procession moved on and
the second halt was made at the drive where a limousine stood waiting to
receive the bridal pair. It glided away amid a shower of rice and
several old shoes, which had been carefully selected beforehand by
Hippy, David and Grace, leaving six of the Eight Originals gazing after
it with eloquent eyes in which lay the meaning of "Auld Lang Syne."
"I love weddings," gushed Hippy sentimentally, as the six strolled back
to the house. "I hope I shall have at least two more wedding invitations
this year."
No one answered this pointed sally. Nora gave her loquacious husband's
arm a warning pinch.
"Stop pinching my arm, Nora," he protested in a grieved tone. "How can
you be so cruel to little me?"
This was too much for the silent four. They looked into each other's
eyes and laughed. Then Dave said quietly, "Not this year, old man."
"Perhaps we can promise you one for next fall, Hippy," said Anne, with a
sudden temerity which surprised her as well as the others.
"Anne!" David's voice vibrated with newborn hope. For the instant he
forgot everything except the fact that Anne had at last approached some
degree of definiteness regarding their future.
"I said 'perhaps,'" laughed Anne, but behind her laughter David read the
blessed truth that in Anne's secret heart there was no "perhaps," and
the little hand which lay so contentedly in his, as they strolled up the
walk to the house, made the assurance of his new joy doubly sure.
"Why can't you make me happy too, Grace?" asked Tom in a low,
reproachful tone. They had dropped a little to the rear of the others.
"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Grace, "but I can't. I am fonder of you than
any other man I know, but it is the fondness of long friendship. I'm not
looking forward to marriage. It is my work that interests me most. I
don't love you as Anne loves David, and Jessica and Nora love Reddy and
Hippy. I don't believe I know what love means. I don't wish to hurt you,
but I must be perfectly honest with myself and with you. I can only say
that I care for no one else, and that perhaps someday I may care as much
as you."
Grace gazed sorrowfully at Tom as she ended. She knew by the tightening
of his lips and the nervous squaring of his broad shoulders that she had
hurt him sorely.
"All right, Grace," he said with brave finality. "I'll try to be content
with your friendship and live in the hope of that 'someday.' I'm going
to be selfish enough to dream that there will come a time when even your
work won't be able to crowd out love."
Grace made no reply. She felt that there was nothing to be said. The
bare idea that there might come a time when her beloved work would fail
to fill her life was not to be considered, even for a moment. Love was a
vague, far-distant possibility. It might come to her, and again it might
not. But her work--that lay directly before her. The glory of life was
not love, but achievement. Her eyes grew rapt with purpose, and, as Tom
wistfully scanned her changeful face, it fell upon him with a sudden
sinking of the heart that for him the longed-for "someday" might never
come.