GIVING IN MARRIAGE.
There were two little graves now by Margaret’s, and in the house two
vacant chairs, and two voices hushed, while Squire Russell counted four
children where he had numbered six, and yet the unselfish man would hear
of no delay to Dora’s marriage.
“Let it go on the same,” he said. “It will make me feel better to know
that there are around me some perfectly happy ones.”
And so the day was appointed, and Bell and Mattie were summoned again
from Morrisville, whither the latter had gone during the children’s
illness. Judge Verner was lonely with both of his daughters absent, and
as of the two he was most accustomed to Bell, he would have been quite
content with having her back again if she had not told him how Jessie
had turned nurse to Squire Russell’s children, and was consequently in
danger of taking the disease. This roused him, and in a characteristic
letter to Jessie he bade her “not make a fool of herself any longer by
tending children with canker-rash and feeding them with sweetened water,
but to pack up her traps and come home.”
To this the saucy Jessie replied that “she should not come home till she
was ready; that the Judge could shut up, and what he called sweetened
water was quite as strong as the medicine which once cured his colic so
soon.” Then, in the coaxing tone the Judge could never resist, she
added, “You know I’m just in fun, father, when I talk like that, but
really I must stay till after Dora is married, and you must let me,
that’s a dear, good old soul,” and so the “good old soul” was cajoled
into writing that Jessie might stay, adding in postscript, “Bell tells
me you say all sorts of extravagant things about that widower, and this
is well enough as long as they mean nothing, but for thunder’s sake
don’t go to offering yourself to him in a streak of pity. A nice wife
you would make for a widower with six children,—you who don’t know how
to darn a pair of stockings, nor make a bed so that the one who sleeps
the back side won’t roll out of the front. Mind, now, don’t be a fool.”
“I wonder what put that idea into father’s head,” Jessie said, as she
read the letter. “I would not have Squire Russell, let alone offering
myself to him. And I do know how to darn socks. Any way, I can pull the
holes together, which is just as well as to put in a ball and peek and
poke and weave back and forth, and make lacework of it just as Bell
does. It’s a real old-maidish trick, and I won’t be an old maid anyhow,
if I have to marry Squire Russell,” and crushing the letter into her
pocket Jessie went dancing down the stairs, whistling softly for fear of
disturbing the sick children.
That afternoon Dora found her, with her face very red and anxious,
bending over a basket of stockings and socks, which she was trying to
darn after the method most approved by Bell. “Clem had so much to do
that day,” she said, “that she had offered to help by taking the darning
off her hands.” But it was a greater task than Jessie had anticipated,
and Johnnie’s aid was called in before it was finished, the boy proving
quite as efficient as the girl, and as Clem secretly thought, succeeding
even better. This was before Letitia and Jimmie died, and since their
death the Judge had made no effort to call her home, but suffered her to
take her own course, which she did by remaining in Beechwood, where they
would have missed her so much, and where, if she could not darn socks
neatly, she made herself generally useful as the day for the wedding
approached. It was arranged to take place on Christmas Eve, and it was
Jessie who first suggested that the house should be trimmed even more
elaborately than the little church upon the common, where the ceremony
was to be performed. With Johnnie as her prime minister, Jessie could
accomplish almost anything, and when their work was done, every one
joined heartily in praise of the green festoons and wreaths, on which
were twined the scarlet berries of the mountain ash, with here and there
a blossom of purest white, purloined from the costly flowers which
Squire Russell ordered in such profusion from the nearest hothouse. Dora
took but little part in the preparations. She was very happy, but her
joy was of that quiet kind, which made her content to be still and rest,
after the turmoil and wretchedness through which she had passed. The
doctor was with her constantly, and to Jessie, who saw the look of
perfect peace upon his face and Dora’s, they seemed the impersonation of
bliss, while even Bertie noted the change in Dora, saying to her once as
she sat with the doctor:
“You don’t look now, Auntie, as you did when you was married to pa.”
Dora could only blush, while the doctor laughingly tossed the little
fellow upon his shoulder and carried him off to the office. If Squire
Russell suffered, it was not perceptible, and Jessie thought he had
recovered wonderfully, while Dora, too, hoped the wound had not been so
deep as even to leave a scar. He was very kind and thoughtful,
remembering everything that was needful to be done, and treating Dora as
if she had been his daughter. He wished her to forget the past; wished
to forget it himself; and by the cheerful, active course he took, he
bade fair to do so. He should give the bride away, he said, and when
Mattie Randall, to whom he was a study, asked kindly if he was sure he
was equal to it, he answered, “O yes, wholly so. I see now that Dora
would never have been happy with me. I should have laid her by Madge in
less than a year. I am glad it has all happened as it has.”
He did seem to be glad, and when, on the night of the 24th, the little
bridal party stood waiting in the parlor for the carriages which were to
take them to the church, his face was as serene and placid as if he had
never hoped to occupy the place the doctor occupied. Through much sorrow
he had been tried and purified, until now in his heart, always unselfish
and kind, there was room for the holier, gentler feelings which only the
peace of God can give. Not in vain had he in the solitude of his chamber
writhed and groaned over the crushing pang with which he gave Dora up,
while the tears wept over his dead children were to him a holier baptism
than any received before, washing him clean and making him a
noble-minded Christian man. Margaret’s grave had during those autumn
months witnessed many an earnest prayer for the strength and peace which
were found at last, and were the secret of his composure. Just before
the sun-setting of Dora’s bridal day, he had gone alone to the three
lonely graves and laid upon the longest the exquisite cross of evergreen
and white wax berries which Jessie’s fingers had fashioned for this very
purpose, Jessie’s brain having been the first to conceive the plan.
There was also a bouquet of buds for each of the smaller graves, and
Squire Russell placed them carefully upon the sod, which he watered with
his tears; then, with a whispered prayer, he went back across the fields
to where Dora, in her bridal dress, was waiting, but not for him. He was
not the bridegroom, and he stood aside as the doctor bounded up the
stairs, in obedience to Jessie’s call that he should come and see if
ever anybody looked so sweetly as his bride, but charging him not to
touch her lest some band, or braid, or fold, or flower should give way.
“It won’t be always so,” he said, standing off as Jessie directed. “By
and by she will be all my own, and then I can hug her,—_so_!” and in
spite of Jessie’s screams, he wound his arms around Dora’s neck, giving
her a most emphatic kiss as his farewell to Dora Freeman. “When I kiss
you again you will be Dora West,” he whispered, as he drew the blushing
girl’s arm in his, and led her down the stairs.
The church was crowded to its utmost capacity, and it was with some
difficulty that the colored sexton had kept a space cleared for the
bridal party, which passed slowly up the aisle, while the soft notes of
the organ floated on the air. Then the music ceased, and only the
rector’s voice was heard, uttering the solemn words, “I require and
charge you both,” etc.; but there was no need for this appeal, there was
no impediment, no reason why these two hearts, throbbing so lovingly,
should not be joined together, and so the rite went on, while amid the
gay throng only one heart was heavy and sad. Robert West, leaning
against a pillar, could not forget another ceremony, where he was one of
the principal actors, while the other was Anna, beautiful Anna, over
whose head the snows of many a wintry eve had fallen, and who but for
him might have been now among the living. He had visited her grave and
Robin’s, had knelt on the turf which covered them, and sued so earnestly
for pardon, had whispered to the winds words of deepest love and
contrition, as if the injured dead could hear, and then he had gone away
to seek the man whom he had so wronged, and who for the brother’s sake
had kept his sin a secret. Uncle Jason had forgiven him, had said that
all was right, that every trace of his error was destroyed, and Robert
had mingled fearlessly again among his fellowmen, who, only guessing in
part his guilt, and feeling intuitively that he had changed, received
him gladly into their midst.
Summoned by his brother’s letters, he had returned to Beechwood, and now
formed one of the party, who, when the rite was over, went back to the
brightly illuminated house, where the Christmas garlands, the box, and
the pine, and the fir were hung, and where the marriage festivities
proceeded rationally, quietly, save as Jessie’s birdlike voice pealed
through the house, as she played off her jokes, first upon one and then
another, adroitly trying to coax Bell and the young clergyman, Mr.
Kelly, under the mistletoe bough, and then screaming with delight as her
father and Mrs. David West were the first to pass within the charmed
circle. Jessie was alive with fun and frolic, and making Bell sit down
at the piano, she declared that somebody should dance at Dora’s wedding
if she had to dance alone.
“Take Johnnie,” Dora said, and the two were soon whirling through the
rooms, the boy’s head coming far above the black curls of the merry
little maiden, who flashed, and gleamed, and sparkled among the
assembled guests till more than one heart beat faster as it caught the
influence of her exhilarating presence.
Robert West dreamed of her that night; so did Mr. Kelly, the rector; and
so did Squire Russell; but the two first forgot her again next morning,
as each said good-by to the handsome, stately Bell,—a far more fitting
match for either than the black-eyed sprite who for a moment had made
their pulses quicken. But not so with the Squire. To him the house was
very desolate when he returned to it, after having accompanied the
bride, and groom, and guests to the cars, which all took for
Morrisville, whither they were going. It was Dora he missed, the
servants said, pitying him, he looked so sad, while he too believed it
was Dora; and still as he knelt that day in church, there was beside him
another face than Dora’s,—a saucy, laughing, face, which we recognize as
belonging to Jessie,—who, at that very moment, while keeping her
companions in a constant turmoil and her father in a constant scold, was
thinking of him and saying mentally:
“Poor Squire Russell! how I pity him,—left there all alone! and how I
wonder if he misses me!”