I
Jessica Deane wakened very early on her wedding morning and got up at
once to look at the weather. The sun was slowly climbing up a clear
sky, and there was a cold frostiness in the air that matched her
mood. She looked out westwards over the roofs in the direction of
the Greenes' house, and wondered whether Hugh were asleep or awake,
and if awake whether he were feeling like her, keenly strung up, and
exquisitely expectant, or only nervous and worried at the thought of
dressing up to face a crowded church and a still more crowded
reception.
She crossed over to the long mirror and studied her face at close
range. It would be awful to have a spot on my chin, she thought
anxiously, even the smallest beginning of a spot would spoil my
nerve, or a bloodshot eye, or hiccups at the last minute. What
appalling things might happen to destroy me to-day.
The mirror faithfully reflected back her own expression of dismay as
she thought of all the depressing contingencies that might arise, and
as she looked at it her face broke into a smile. Satisfied that even
a close scrutiny showed no blemish, she stepped back a pace and
looked at herself in detail.
My hair grows well, she thought dispassionately, I'm glad it's so
fair and goes back like that off my forehead, but I think my eyes are
too wide apart, and really my chin is almost negligible, it fades
away to nothing. In fact twenty years ago I would have been plain,
it's pure luck that my kind of face happens to be in the mode at
present. It's lucky too that Hugh is so dark; we ought to look nice
together.
Her mind plunged forward a few hours; and she laid a nervous hand on
her heart beating so lightly and quickly under the lace of her
nightgown as she thought of herself and Hugh standing at the flowered
altar with rows and rows of massed curious faces behind.
Seized by a sudden desire to reassure herself by a sight of her
wedding frock, Jessica went quietly into the spare bedroom where
frock, train and veil were spread out on the bed. She lifted the
white sheet that protected them and looked at the shining gold tissue
of frock and train, and the old ivory veil lent by her godmother;
then suddenly picking them up she bore them off to her room.
Of course it's desperately unlucky to try on your frock when it's
quite finished--she argued with herself--but Hugh and I don't need
luck and I'm not superstitious, and I would terribly like to make
sure that it's as nice as I think it is. Taking off her nightgown
she put on a new vest of yellow silk to match the frock, gold
stockings and the pointed gold shoes that were to carry her up the
aisle as Jessica Deane and down again as Jessica Greene.
Just as she slipped the frock over her head, and struggled into the
long close-fitting sleeves, a voice from the doorway said, "Darling,
are you mad? I heard you bumping about and thought I'd better come
and see if you were having a nerve storm or something."
"Do come and help me, Drusilla, it's a frightfully difficult dress to
get into. Pull it down all round will you; I just suddenly felt I
had to put it on."
Jessica's face, faintly flushed from her struggle, appeared out of a
swirl of gold, and she blushed deeper with embarrassment as she
confronted her sister's cool, critical gaze.
"I suppose I am silly," she said defiantly, "In fact I know it's
silly to be trying on my wedding dress at this unearthly hour in the
morning, but brides are always allowed to behave idiotically on their
wedding day."
"Not this sort of idiocy, though," said Drusilla calmly, "tears and
hysterics, and changing your mind at the last minute if you like, but
not just pure vanity. I think that's all right now."
Drusilla, who was kneeling to pull down the long skirt, leaned back
on her heels and fingered its stiff folds.
"It's lovely," she said, "I'm glad you had it long enough to touch
your toes, and I'm glad it's a picture frock too. I know they're
overdone, but they do suit us, we're just the type."
She got up and stood in her green dressing-gown beside Jessica in her
formal gold tissue.
"We're absurdly alike," said Jessica looking in the mirror at their
two faces, with the same broad foreheads, grey eyes, pointed chins,
and backward springing yellow hair, "If anything, I think you're
prettier than me."
"I don't know," said Drusilla, complacently. "You vary more of
course, but at your best I think you're a little better than me.
Anyhow we'll both be all right to-day."
"I do hope so. You know I really feel looks matter frightfully. I
feel so entirely right about Hugh, and I would like to look as
dazzling as I feel, but it simply isn't possible."
"Are you really as much in love as all that?" Drusilla asked
curiously.
"Yes, I am," answered Jessica, her face intent and serious, "I'm
madly in love and so is Hugh, and we think we can pull off a really
lovely marriage."
Drusilla sighed.
"You're a funny whole-hearted little creature," she said. "It's
queer that I'm two years older than you, and I've never been the
least bit in love."
"Do just get me out of this," said Jessica, but as she began to pull
the long sleeves over her hands a sudden shaft of sunlight struck
across the room, and lit up her yellow hair and her gold gown.
"Oh look, Drusilla, how beautifully lucky; what a proper omen."
She twisted herself so that the sun caught her shining train.
"I think it is rather lucky," Drusilla assented, "here, let me take
it off before you tear it on anything."
"Drusilla, let's go and look at the presents again," said Jessica, as
she carefully hung the discarded frock over a chair, and put on her
dressing-gown.
"You really are crazy, I think; you've seen them a thousand times."
"Yes I know, but never in the early morning, and they'll look quite
different. Besides, two came last night and I want to put them with
the others in the billiard-room."
"Come on then if you must, but for goodness sake be quiet. Mother
will be unhinged if she thinks you're awake so early. You're
supposed to be having breakfast in bed at ten, aren't you?"
Very quietly Jessica and Drusilla crept downstairs, turning to smile
at each other when a step creaked, with an expression of childish
guilt for the clandestine little expedition. As they reached the
bottom of the stairs the banisters cracked loudly. Jessica seized
Drusilla's hand, giggled and ran across the hall into the
billiard-room, where the presents in a glittering mass covered the
large table and smaller tables placed round the walls.
"Do you know, I believe I'm rather excited," said Jessica, giggling
again, "I never meant to be and I don't expect I will be after
breakfast, but at present I feel just silly."
"You're light-headed I think. But it will wear off later on. And
it's better than being gloomy. Do you remember how awful Marjorie
was? I shall never forget how you and I spent the whole morning
propping her up, and talking endlessly about all sorts of imbecile
things, because as soon as we stopped she cried."
Drusilla and Jessica laughed out loud at the thought of their eldest
sister's wedding four years ago when the bride had gone to the altar
as if to a sacrifice, with tears and forebodings.
"How ugly our bridesmaids' frocks were too," said Jessica
reminiscently. "You know it's funny how unlike us Marjorie is; you
and I always laugh at the same things, and take the same things
seriously, and we look alike too, but Marjorie is hopelessly
different; so very homespun somehow."
"You're not quite homespun enough you know; I often wonder how you'll
stay the course."
"Oh Drusilla, don't be so sinister I implore you, or I'll go all
weepy like Marjorie. Besides I'm not half so trivial and erratic as
you think. I'm pretty solid really; it's only when I think of Hugh I
feel like a gas-filled balloon."
"This is a ghastly thing," said Drusilla inconsequently lifting up a
heavy silver cake stand and turning it about to see if there was any
angle at which it could be considered anything but ugly.
"Yes, isn't it atrocious. But at least it's silver. Just think of
the Blakes giving us that awful electro-plate tea-pot when they are
as rich as Crœsus too. I think it's pretty stingy of them, and
it's a hideous shape too."
"Well they don't like you, you know," said Drusilla calmly, "They
think you're aggressively modern and probably rather fast, so really
it was very good of them to give you anything."
"I don't see that at all. They only did give it me because they like
Mother and Daddy; it was nothing to do with me at all. Drusilla,
isn't it funny how people show off with wedding presents? That huge
china jar from the Carters I mean, obviously chosen for its bulk, and
I'd simply have loved it if it had been so small you could hardly see
it; about as big as a thimble perhaps."
Jessica wandered down the long table, touching the silver objects
carelessly, but gently stroking the china. Drusilla, who was draping
a Spanish shawl more elegantly over a screen, looked up and laughed
at her.
"You really are impossible," she said, "How could you want a jar the
size of a thimble. That one will be useful for umbrellas too."
Jessica clasped her hands passionately.
"I know," she said, "I know one must have umbrellas, and things must
be big, but I'd like to be a dwarf and live in an exquisite little
Japanese garden. Small things are so very rare."
"Not really," Drusilla disagreed, "they're often very mean and
cunning."
"How vile you are to disagree with me to-day," said Jessica happily.
"Oh, Drusilla, just look at this! Four sets of coffee cups all cheek
by jowl! How shockingly tactless! All the people who gave me coffee
cups will have their feelings terribly hurt, and wish they had given
me mustard pots instead. I must rearrange them. One here and one
there wouldn't be so noticeable."
Drusilla picked up a small jeweller's box and looked at the long
string of jade curled round on the white velvet lining.
"A gorgeous present," she commented, "Jade is lovely stuff, and it
suits you too. Really I think it very decent of old Mrs. Hugh to
give you a personal present like that."
"I like her; she's rather a pet. And I like Hugh's Grannie too,
she's frightfully nice. I do hope she likes me because I know she
loves Hugh and I'd hate to come between them. It's only Hugh's
mother I'm frightened of, though I like her too. You know, sooner or
later I'm bound to shock her. She thinks I'm a child, and Hugh and I
are a pretty little couple and so on, and if I said something was
bloody--and I might easily, even with her there--she'd have a fit."
"You probably will give her a shock some time. She's absolutely
wrapped in illusions as far as I can see, especially about her
children."
"I know she is," Jessica sighed, "you know, Drusilla, I'd like to
have a good many children, especially boys I think, but I'd rather
drown them at birth than live on them as Mrs. Greene does."
"How do you mean?"
Jessica relapsed into vagueness. "I don't know," she said, "only she
seems so mixed up with them somehow, and Hugh is so utterly exquisite
when you think of him as an isolated identity."
"He is rather, but you'd better not think of him as an isolated
identity; he isn't ever likely to be, he's part of a very compact
family and you'll be part of it too."
"I know, I'll have to get used to it, and it doesn't really matter.
I'd swallow a clan of Jews from Whitechapel to get Hugh, if I had to."
The hall clock struck seven.
"Haven't you finished fussing over the presents yet," said Drusilla.
"You must have spaced out the coffee cups by now, and I do think you
ought to go back to bed again for a bit."
"All right, I'll come now. The maids will be up in a minute, and
we'd better creep back now before they hear us."
They stole quietly upstairs and Jessica got into bed again.
"Stay a minute, Drusilla, sit on the bed and let's talk," she said,
and immediately fell silent. Drusilla waited.
"Well, what about it?" she asked at last.
"I don't know," said Jessica seriously, "there really is nothing to
say at all. Here I am sort of suspended in mid-air between
never-been-married, and never-again-be-unmarried, and I'm not sure
that I'll ever feel anything much lovelier than this, just waiting
till I see Hugh this afternoon at 2.30 exactly."
"Darling, you're all agog. It is nice. I wish I could fall in love
like that."
"I used to think you were a little fond of Stephen Wilcox, weren't
you?" asked Jessica curiously, "but don't say so if you'd rather not;
it's an indelicate question." She blushed furiously, but Drusilla
answered quite unmoved.
"Well, yes, I was rather, but one night at a dance he kissed me a
lot, and got very worked up, and it struck me as just funny and
rather clumsy. I didn't have the faintest thrill, so I knew it
wouldn't do."
"I'm not at all like that," Jessica spoke with solemn emphasis. "I
get the most extraordinary thrills when Hugh kisses me. He musses
all my clothes and untidies my hair, and my face gets all blotched
and red, and I simply love it. In fact I think I'm very passionate,
and it's a good thing if I am, because Hugh says he is."
"God knows how he manages it with those parents, but I should think
he may be all the same, he's so good-looking." Drusilla yawned. "I
think I'd better go now," she said, "you look sleepy, and I am too,
and it's still nearly two hours till breakfast."
"Oh don't go yet, stay one more minute," Jessica begged, "I do like
talking to you. Drusilla; I feel most awfully glad I'm a virgin.
Isn't it lucky? It would be terrible to have a past, don't you
think, so disappointing somehow."
"You're being incredibly Victorian; all worked up and excited and
old-fashioned, and besides, my girl, you have a past. What about
that awful boy Richardson when you were seventeen?"
Jessica's face and neck crimsoned slowly.
"Don't tease me about that," she said, "I can hardly bear to think of
it, it was so undignified and vulgar, and when Mother found us
kissing in the garage it was absolute Hell. I can hardly believe
it's two years since it happened; it feels like yesterday."
"I'm sorry I teased you then," said Drusilla smiling, "honestly I
thought you'd have forgotten all about it by now. Anyhow it's not
important in the least I promise you." She stood up and looking down
at Jessica added "Really you're not to fuss about it now; Hugh is
charming, and you'll be married to him in a minute and live happily
ever after."
"I know I will," said Jessica lazily, and as Drusilla shut the door
she turned over and smoothed her pillow happily conscious that the
next morning Hugh's dark head would be lying on it, beside her.
Darling Hugh, she thought drowsily, and fell asleep regardless of the
sunlight on her face.