A WAR WEDDING
TALK about a clap of thunder out of a clear sky--that's nothing to the
surprise Babe gave us the very next night. About nine o'clock she called
me by telephone to say:
"Listen, Georgina. Is Richard still there? Is it too late for you to
come down for a few minutes? _Watson and I are to be married tomorrow
afternoon._ We've just decided. Everything's in a dreadful tangle. We
want you to help straighten us out."
I was so surprised I could hardly speak. Tippy thought someone must be
dead from the horrified way I gasped out, "Oh, you don't mean it!" The
suddenness of it did horrify me in a way. It seems so dreadful to be
snatched through the most beautiful and sacred occasion of one's life so
fast that there's no chance to do any of the time-honored things that
make it beautiful and impressive. For all Babe seems so matter of fact
she's full of sentiment, and has always looked forward to doing those
romantic things that brides do, such as filling a "hope chest" with
Stitches set in long white seams
To the silent music of tender dreams.
Hurrying up a wedding in one day in such a combination family as the
Nolan-Dorseys would be like scrambling eggs. Of course, we went right
down.
We had had an awfully nice day together, exploring the town to see how
much it had changed, and calling on Uncle Darcy and dropping into the
studios where we have been welcomed on Mr. Moreland's account since the
first summer he joined the Artist's colony. We'd been in every store on
Commercial street to speak to the clerks, and out to the end of Railroad
Wharf to see how many of our old fishermen friends we could find. Down
on the beach an art class pitched their easels and went on painting
their favorite model, a Portuguese girl under a green parasol, quite as
usual, and we sat on the sand in the shadow of a boathouse and watched
them lazily, as if there weren't any Huns and their horrors in the
universe.
It had been a peaceful day up to the time we reached Babe's house. The
tangle she spoke of was the usual kind in her family. Her stepfather,
Mr. Dorsey, is a traveling man. He couldn't get home in time to give her
away, and Babe's mother thought they ought to wait for him. It wasn't
showing him proper respect not to; besides Jim wasn't old enough to do
it. Jim didn't want to do it, but he objected to being thought too
young, and Watson couldn't wait because he'd received his orders. That's
why they were hurrying things up.
He wants to be married in the Church of the Pilgrims because his people
are the kind that'd feel better if it was done there. Circumstances were
such that none of them could be present, so he wanted to do that much to
please them. And Babe couldn't be married at the church unless Viola
would loan her her new white dress that Miss Doan had just sent home
after keeping her waiting three weeks for it. Her own white ones were
out of commission and she wouldn't feel like a bride if she were married
in anything but white. But Viola wanted to wear her own dress her own
self, and be a bridesmaid. She always gets her own way when she cries,
so she was beginning to sob on her mother's shoulder when we went in.
And Mrs. Dorsey was saying she didn't see why they couldn't be married
right there in the parlor, either in the bay window or under the
chandelier with a wedding bell hung from it. Babe's shirt-waist suit
that she graduated in was good enough for a home affair and could be
laundered in a hurry.
Babe wouldn't hear to that because Watson had expressed his preference
for the church and had such a good reason, and Watson was provoked
because Viola wouldn't give in to Babe. It was her wedding, he said, and
ought to be run to suit her.
Poor old Babe. Among them they worked her up into such a nervous,
excited state that she was half crying, and when her mother said in an
exasperated tone--"Oh, these war weddings! Why don't you wait till it's
all over and he comes back in peace times?" Babe threw herself down on
the library couch and wept.
"How do I know he'll ever come back?" she wailed. "It's you who are
making a war wedding out of it with all your disagreeing and arguing."
Then Mrs. Dorsey explained all over again to me the way she thought
things ought to be settled, and Viola explained her way and Babe sobbed
out hers, and Jim made a few remarks till it made me think of the old
nursery tale: "Fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat pig, pig won't
get over the stile, and I sha'n't get home tonight."
It was awfully embarrassing for Watson and uncomfortable for Richard.
Presently they disappeared--went out on the front steps for a smoke.
When I suggested the different dressmakers who might be persuaded to
rush something through, there was a reason why each one on the list was
unavailable. Miss Doan and the two next best had left town on a
vacation.
Then I happened to think of that evening dress Babe ruined up on Mrs.
Waldon's roof, leaning against the rusty railing. It had a white silk
under-dress, and in a flash an inspiration came to me. With that silk
slip for a foundation _I_ would attempt to make that wedding gown
myself, although there was less than a day in which to do it. I'd seen a
lovely piece of tulle that morning, when we stopped in the Emporium.
It didn't occur to me at first what a daring thing I was offering to do,
or what a mess I'd make of everything if I failed. I was sure of the
needlework part, for Tippy began my sewing-lessons so far back I can't
remember the first one, and what passed muster with her was good enough
for any bride or anybody. And I'd made simple wash dresses under Barby's
direction.
Babe accepted my offer with the sublime confidence and joy that
Cinderella showed in her godmother's ability to get a ball gown out of a
pumpkin, and then I began to have an awful panic. But there was no
chance to back out. She rapturously called Watson in to tell him that
everybody could be happy now, for I'd found the end of the string that
would untangle the whole skein.
From then on "stick began to beat pig, pig began to get over the stile,
and the little old woman got home that night." During the next ten
minutes two people were routed out of bed by telephone, but neither one
minded it when they found it was for something as romantic as a war
wedding. Miss Clara, chief clerk at the Emporium, promised to get the
store keys early in the morning, cut off the goods with her own hands,
and have it delivered to me by seven o'clock.
The other was Mrs. Doan, mother of the dressmaker who had just left
town. "Yes, indeed, we could have Sallie's dress form," she said
cordially. "Send Jim right over for it."
The dress form was collapsible, so Jim brought it over in a box, but it
was a very startling and human-like figure that Richard had to carry up
the street for me over his shoulder. There being no time for Babe to
stand for fittings herself, we blew up the dummy like a balloon, till it
was adjusted to fit the silk slip. Richard kept calling it Sallie Jane,
and making such ridiculous remarks to it, that we were nearly hysterical
from laughing when we finally started home with it. It was bright
moonlight, but so late that we passed only a few people on the street.
These few stared in open-mouthed wonder at the stiff lady in white
thrown over Richard's shoulder, and one man turned and followed us half
a block to satisfy his curiosity.
[Illustration: Richard salutes "Sallie Jane."]
Tippy would have helped next morning, but she had to bring Belle's
children up to spend the day. Aunt Elspeth was very much worse. I took
the downstairs guest chamber for my workshop. By five minutes past seven
the tulle was spread out on the big four poster, and my scissors were
slashing into it. From then on until noon I worked in nightmarish haste.
Of course I couldn't have finished it if it had been satin goods or
something like that, but the tulle was easy to handle, and I pinned and
patted it into shape on patient Sallie Jane till it began to look like
the picture I had in mind.
Richard came up about the middle of the morning. I heard him go striding
through the hall. Then his laugh rang out from the kitchen where Tippy
was letting the children help her make oatmeal cookies.
Then I heard him coming back, and looked up to see him in the doorway.
He only saluted and did not venture in, as I was down on my knees
before Sallie Jane, making the bridal skirts hang evenly. He could
see it was a critical moment. He said he merely dropped in to report
that everything was going smoothly at the Nolan-Dorseys. The license and
the ring were ready, the auto engaged to take the happy couple to
Chatham. They would proceed from there to Boston by rail next day.
Judith was at the house now, helping the family keep their head between
their ears, and the only trouble was the telephoning. The list of people
who would be slighted if not notified was so long that Jim suggested
sending out the town crier, and being done with it.
"Poor Uncle Darcy," I said. "He won't be able to see the wedding. Aunt
Elspeth is so much worse. He's always been mixed up in the important
happenings of my life, and he would have taken such pride in seeing us
march up the aisle, you as best man and me as maid of honor----"
Then I broke off short and whirled Sallie Jane around on her pivot as if
I had found something the matter which absorbed my attention. But in
reality I had just remembered that it was my eighteenth birthday, and
came very near reminding him of the fact. To think of having forgotten
it myself till the morning was half gone! I had come to my "Field
Elysian," and it was a lonely place, for nobody else remembered. The
surest sign that I had reached it was that I did not frankly proclaim
the fact, frankly expectant of birthday offerings. I didn't want
anything if people had to be reminded of the date. I took the corner of
a paper of pins between my teeth and stood up to pin the sleeves in
place.
Richard looked on approvingly. "That really begins to look like
something," he said. "Looks like a white cloud. Even on old Sallie Jane
you'd know it was a bridal outfit. You're a trump, Georgina, for rushing
things through this way. Babe ought to be everlastingly grateful. But
while it's 'Very nice for Mary Ann, it's rather hard on Abraham.' Do you
realize I've only four more days left to spend in this old town? This
wedding is knocking a whole quarter of it out of my calculations."
Something made me glance up. He was looking down at me so intently it
flustered me. I found myself trying to pin the left sleeve into the
right arm.
"I don't believe in these war weddings," he said almost fiercely. "Watt
hadn't any right to ask her to marry him now and take such chances.
Suppose he'd be killed?"
"She'd feel that he was hers, at any rate," I said between my teeth,
still holding on to the paper of pins. "She'd have the memory of this
wedding, and the few happy days to follow, and she'd have the proud
feeling that she was the wife of a man who'd given his life bravely.
She'd be giving something to the cause herself, a continuing sacrifice,
for it would keep on all the rest of her life."
"But suppose he wasn't killed outright. Suppose he'd come back to her
crippled or blinded or frightfully disfigured. He oughtn't to want to
tie her for life to just a part of a man."
Then I took up for Babe so emphatically that I dropped the pins. "Then
she'd be eyes to him and feet to him and hands to him--and everything
else. And she'd _glory_ in it. _I_ would if I loved a man as Babe does
Watson Tucker, though I don't see what she sees in him to care for."
"I believe you would," he answered slowly. Then after a long pause he
added, "It certainly must make a difference to a man over there to know
he's got somebody back home, caring for him like _that_!"
He left in a few moments, and I had to work harder than ever for I had
slowed up a bit while we talked. The wedding was at four. I am sure I
was the happiest one in the crowd, for not only was the dress done in
time, it was pronounced a real "creation." Babe never looked so well in
her life. Judith had worked some sort of miracle on her hair, and in
that simple fluff of white tulle she was almost pretty.
Never did a Maid of Honor have less time for her own arraying. I
hurriedly slipped into the same dress of rose-color and white that I
wore the night of Richard's arrival, and put on the little pearl
necklace that had been Barby's. When he came for me in his Cousin James'
machine he brought a big armful of roses for me to carry. It made me
awfully happy to have him say, "Many happy returns of the day" when he
gave them to me, even when he laughingly confessed that he hadn't
remembered the date himself. It was Judith who reminded them that the
wedding day and my birthday were the same. Even so, it was nice to have
the event marked by his lovely roses.
Despite all Judith's precautions we had a wild scramble to get all the
little Dorseys corralled for a final dress review. Each one of them came
up with some important article missing, which had to be hunted for. Then
a sudden calm descended. We found ourselves at the door of the Church of
the Pilgrims. We were going slowly, very slowly up the aisle to the
solemn organ music, conscious of a white blur of faces on each side. The
church was packed.
There had been no time for a rehearsal, but, for once, luck was with
the Nolan-Dorseys. Nobody stumbled, nobody dropped anything, nobody
responded in the wrong place. As Jim remarked afterward, "We did real
well for a bunch of amateurs. We flocked all right though not even birds
of a feather; one man in naval uniform, one in aviator's, and one in
civilian's."
Jim gave the bride away. I was strung up to such a nervous tension for
fear it wouldn't go off all right that I never took a full breath till
Jim was through his part, the ring on Babe's finger and her bouquet
safely back in her hands again. It was only at the very last when the
old minister who was perfectly devoted to Babe began to falter through a
prayer, that I realized I hadn't really heard the ceremony. It had gone
in one ear and out the other, leaving no impression of its sacred
meaning.
But if I missed the impressiveness of it Babe and Watson did not. He was
as pale as a ghost, and her hands trembled so they could hardly hold her
flowers. It was a solemn time for them. Then it grew solemn for me, as a
sentence of the last prayer caught my attention.
"_And take now, into Thy especial care and keeping, those who go forth
from this altar to defend us, both upon the high seas and in the
boundless battle plains of the air._"
He was praying for Richard too. I glanced across at him and found that
he was looking intently at me. I had never seen such an expression in
his eyes before--a sort of goodbye, as if he were looking at me for the
last time, and was sorry. It was the dearest look. Our eyes met gravely
for an instant, then just the shadow of a smile crept into his, and mine
dropped. I couldn't understand why that little half-smile should make me
so sort of happy and confused. Then the "Amen!" sounded and the organ
pealed out the wedding march, and with my hand on his arm we followed
the bridal couple down the aisle, and out through the door to the
automobile, waiting to take them to Chatham.
Once out of the door Babe wasn't a bit dignified. In her hurry to get
away before the crowd could follow and hold a curbstone reception, she
chased down the long board walk leading from the church to the street so
fast that Watson could hardly keep up. They didn't pretend to keep step.
She had a long coat and a hat waiting for her in the machine. She had
kissed her family all around before leaving the house, so she just piled
in as she was, and began pulling off her veil while the chauffeur
cranked up.
"I'll change at Chatham," she called back to us.
"No, Mrs. Tucker," Richard remarked as the machine dashed off, "you'll
never change. You'll always be just like that."
"The whole affair has been more like a whirlwind than a wedding," said
Judith as she joined us. "I'm limp."
[Illustration]