Part 25 (1/2)
”You'll travel,” interrupted Sylvia. ”Edith will have the same dowry from me that Sally had for a wedding present. She won't be poor. You can take her everywhere--oh, Peter, you can--_give her a good time_!”
Peter bowed his head. There was a humble grace about the gesture which Sylvia never forgot.
”You ver' yust lady, missus,” he said simply; ”dat must be for you to say. Vell, den, after my fat'er and moder haf welcomed her, ve shall travel. Dem in de spring if you need me for de cows--Mr. Gray--if you don't t'ink shame to haf boy like me for your broder--ve come back. If nod, ve'll stay in Holland. You need no fear to haf--I vill make Edit' happy--”
Some way, Austin found Peter's hand. He was beyond speech. But Sylvia asked one more question.
”Edith thinks you can't possibly love her any more,” she said--”that you won't even be willing to see her again. If she thought you were marrying her out of charity, she'd die before she'd let you. How are you going to convince her that you want to marry her because you love her?”
”Vill you gif me one chance to try?” replied Peter, looking straight into her eyes.
CHAPTER XX
”Well, I declare it's so sudden like, I should think your breath would be took away.”
Mrs. Gray smiled at Mrs. Elliott, and went on with her sewing, rocking back and forth placidly in her favorite chair. If the latter had been a woman who talked less and observed more, she would have noticed how drawn and furrowed her old friend's rosy, peaceful face had grown, how much repression there was about the lips which smiled so bravely. But these details escaped her.
”'Course it does look that way to an outsider,” said Mrs. Gray, slowly, as if rehearsing a part which had been carefully taught her, ”but when you come to know the facts, it ain't so strange, after all.”
”Would you feel to tell them?” asked Mrs. Elliott eagerly.
”Why, sure. Edith an' Peter's been sort of engaged this long time back, but they was so young we urged 'em to wait. Then Peter's father wrote sayin' he was so poorly, he wished Peter could fix it so's to come home, through the cold weather, an' Edith took on terrible at bein' separated from him, an' Peter declared he wouldn't leave without her; an'
then--well, Sylvia sided with 'em, an' that settled it.”
Mrs. Elliott nodded. ”You'd never think that little soft-lookin'
creature could be so set an' determined, now, would you?” she asked. ”I never see any one to beat her. An' mum! She shuts her mouth tighter'n a steel trap!”
”If any family ever had a livin' blessin' showered on 'em right out of heaven,” said Mrs. Gray, ”we did, the day Sylvia come here. Funny, Austin's the only one of us can see's she's got a single fault. He says she's got lots of 'em, just like any other woman--but I bet he'd cut the tongue out of any one else who said so. Seems as if I couldn't wait for the third of September to come so's she'll really be my daughter, though I haven't got one that seems any dearer to me, even now.”
”Speakin' of weddin's,” said Mrs. Elliott, ”why didn't you have a regular one for Edith, same as for Sally?”
”Land! I can't spend my whole time workin' up weddin's! Seems like they was some kind of contagious disease in this family. James was married only last December, an' even if we wasn't to that, we got all het up over it just the same. An' now we've hardly got our breath since Sally's, an'
Austin's is starin' us in the face! I couldn't see my way clear to house-cleanin' this whole great ark in dog-days for n.o.body, an' Edith an' Peter's got to leave the very day after Sylvia 'n Austin get married.
Peter was hangin' round outside Edith's door the whole blessed time, after her fall--”
”Strange she should be so sick, just from a fall, ain't it?”
”Yes, 't is, but the doctor says they're often more serious than you'd think for. Well, as I was sayin', Sylvia come out of Edith's room an'
found Peter settin' on the top of the stairs for the third time that day, an' she flared right up, an' says, 'For Heaven's sake, why don't you get married right off--now--to-day--then you can go in an' out as you like!'
And before we half knew what she was up to she had telephoned the new minister. Austin said he wished she'd shown more of that haste about gettin' married herself, an' she answered him right back, if she'd been lucky enough to get as good a feller as Peter, maybe she might have. It's real fun to hear 'em tease each other. Sylvia likes the new minister. She says the best thing about the Methodist Church that she knows of is the way it s.h.i.+fts its pastors around--nothin' like variety, she says--an' a new one once in three years keeps things hummin'. She says as long as so many Methodists don't believe in cards an' dancin' an' such, they deserve to have a little fun some way, an'--”
”You was talkin' about Edith,” interrupted Mrs. Elliott, rather tartly, ”you've got kinder switched off.”
”Excuse me, Eliza--so I have. Well, Sylvia got Edith up onto the couch (the doctor had said she might get up for a little while that day, anyhow) an' give her one of her prettiest wrappers--”
”What color? White?”
”No, Sylvia thought she was too pale. It was a lovely yellow, like the dress she wore to the Graduation Ball. We all scurried 'round an' changed our clothes--Austin's the most stunnin'-lookin' thing in that white flannel suit of his, Sylvia wants he should wear it to his own weddin', 'stead of a dress-suit--an' I wore my gray--Well, it was all over before you could say 'Jack Robinson' an' I never sweat a drop gettin' ready for it, either! I shall miss Edith somethin' terrible this winter, but she'll have an elegant trip, same as she's always wanted to, an' Peter says he knows his parents'll be tickled to death to have such a pretty daughter-in-law!”
”Don't you feel disappointed any,” Mrs. Elliott could not help asking, ”to have a feller like Peter in the family?”
Mrs. Gray bit her thread. ”I don't know what you got against Peter,” she said; ”I look to like him the best of my son-in-laws, so far.”