Part 7 (2/2)
”I am happy,” said Constance, slipping her hand into her father's and smiling up into the faces of both the men, who loved her. ”Wasn't it a great day, Father? Isn't it blessed to feel secure from invasion, and, more than that, secure of an ally, in case of unknown enemies coming? Oh, Father, Giles was so proud of you! It was funny, but beautiful, to see how his eyes shone, and how straight he carried himself, because his father was the man who made the treaty for us all! I love you, dearest, quite enough, and I am proud of you to bursting point, but Giles is almost a man, and he is proud of you as men are proud; meseems it is a deeper feeling than in us women, who are content to love, and care less for ambition.”
Stephen Hopkins winced; he saw that Constance did not know that anything was again amiss between the two who were dearest to her on earth, but he said: ”'Us women,' indeed, Constantia! Do you reckon yourself a woman, who art still but my child-daughter?”
”Not a child, Father,” said the girl, truly enough, shaking her head hard. ”No pilgrim maid can be a child at my age, having seen and shared what hath fallen to my lot. And to-morrow there is to be another treaty made of peace and alliance, which is much on my mind, because I am a woman and because I love Priscilla. To-morrow is Pris married, Father.”
”Of a truth, and so she is!” cried Stephen Hopkins, slapping his leg vigorously.
”Well, my girl, and what is it? Do you want to deck her out, as will not be allowed? Or what is on your mind?”
”Oh, I have made her a white gown, Father,” said Constance. ”Whatever they say, sweet Pris shall not go in dark clothing to her marriage! But, Father, Mr. Winslow is to marry her, as a magistrate, which he is. Is there no way to make it a little like a holy wedding, with church, and prayers, and religion?”
”My dear, they have decided here that marriage is but a matter belonging to the state. You must check your scruples, child, and go along with arrangements as they are. There is much of your earliest training, of your sainted mother's training, in you yet, my Constance, and, please G.o.d, you will remain her daughter always. But you cannot alter the ways of Plymouth colony. So be content, sweet Con, to pray for our Pris all you will, and rest a.s.sured they receive blessings who seek them, however they be situate,” said Stephen Hopkins, gently touching his girl's white-capped head.
”Ah, well,” sighed Constance, turning away in acquiescence.
Captain Myles Standish and her father watched Constance away. Then they turned in the other direction with a sigh.
”Hard to face westward all the time, my friend; even Con feels the tug of old ways, and the old home, on her heartstrings,” said Captain Myles.
CHAPTER XI.
A Home Begun and a Home Undone.
”Do you know aught of your brother, Constance?” asked Stephen Hopkins when he appeared in the great kitchen and common room of his home early the following morning.
”He hath been away from home all night,” Dame Eliza answered for Constance, her lips pulled down grimly.
”Which I know quite well, wife,” said her husband. ”Constance, did Giles speak to you of whither he was going?”
Constance looked up, meeting her father's troubled eyes, her own cloudless.
”No, Father, but he must be with the other lads. Perhaps they are serving up some merry trick for the wedding. Nothing can have befallen him. Giles was the happiest lad yesterday, Father dear! I must hasten through the breakfast-getting!”
Constance fluttered away in a visible state of pleasant excitement. Her father watched her without speaking, his eyes still gloomy; he knew that Constance lacked knowledge of his reason for being anxious over Giles's absence.
”And why should you hasten the getting of breakfast, Constantia Hopkins?” demanded Dame Eliza. ”It is to be no earlier than common. If you are thinking to see Priscilla Mullins made the wife of John Alden, it will not be till nine of the clock, and that is nearly three hours distant.”
”Ah, but I am going to dress the bride!” triumphed Constance. ”I'm going to dress her from top to toe, and coil her wealth of glossy hair, to show best its ma.s.ses! And to crown her dear pretty face with it brought around her brow, as only I can bend it, so Pris declares! My dear, winsome Pris!”
”Will you let be such vanity and catering to sinful worldliness, Stephen Hopkins?” demanded that unfortunate man's wife, with asperity. ”Why will you allow your daughter to divert Priscilla Mullins from the awfulness of the vows she will utter, filling her mind with thoughts that ill become a Puritan bride, and one to be a Puritan wife? I will say for your wife, sir, that she did not come to vow herself to you in such wise. And when Constantia herself becomes a matron of this plantation she will not deport herself becomingly if she spend her maidenhood fostering vanity in others. But there is no folly in which you will not uphold her! I pray that I may live to keep Damaris to the narrow path.”
”Aye, and my sweet Con hath lost Her mother!” burst out Stephen Hopkins, already too disturbed in mind to bear his wife's nagging.
His allusion to Constance's mother, of whose memory his wife was vindictively jealous, would have brought forth a storm, but that Constance flew to her father, caught him by the arm, and drew him swiftly out of the door, saying: ”Nay, nay, my dear one; what is the use? Let us be happy on Pris's wedding day. I feel as though if we were happy it would somehow bring good to her. Don't mind Mistress Eliza; let her rail. If it were not about this, it would be something else. Come down the gra.s.s a way, my father, and see how the suns.h.i.+ne sparkles on the sea. The day is smiling on Pris, at least, and is decked for her by G.o.d, so why should my stepmother mind that I shall make the girl herself as fair as I know how?”
”You are a dear la.s.s, Con, child, and I swear I don't know how I should bear my days without you,” said Stephen Hopkins, something suspiciously like a quaver in his voice.
He did not return to the house till Con had prepared the breakfast. Hastily she cleared it away, her stepmother purposely delaying the meal as long as possible. But Dame Eliza's utmost contrariness could not hold back Constance's swift work long enough to make the hour very late when it was done, the room set in order, and Constance herself, unadorned, in her plain Sunday garb, hastening over the young gra.s.s to where Priscilla awaited her.
No one else had been allowed to help Constance in her loving labour. Beginning with Priscilla's st.u.r.dy shoes--there were no bridal slippers in Plymouth!--Constance, on her knees, laced Pris into the gear in which she would walk to meet John Alden, and followed this up, garment by garment, which she and Priscilla had sewn in their brief spare moments, until she reached the ma.s.ses of s.h.i.+ning brown hair, which was Priscilla's glory and Constance's affectionate pride.
Brus.h.i.+ng, and braiding, and coiling skilfully, Constance wound the fine, yet heavy locks around Priscilla's head.
Then with deft fingers she pulled, and patted and fastened into curves above her brow sundry strands which she had left free for that purpose, and fell back to admire her results.
”Well, my Prissy!” Constance cried, rapturously clapping her hands. ”Wait till you are dressed, and I let you see this in the gla.s.s yonder. No, not now! Only when the bridal gown is donned! My word, Priscilla Mullins, but John Alden will think that he never saw, nor loved you until this day! Which is as we would wish him to feel. They may forbid us curling and waving our locks in this plantation, but no one ever yet, as I truly believe, could make laws to keep girls from increasing their charms! Your hair brought down and shaken loose thus around your face, my Pris, is far, far more lovely, and adorns you better than any curling tongs could do it. Because, after all, nature fits faces and hair together, and my waving hair would not be half so becoming to you as your own straight hair, thus crowning your brow. Constance Hopkins, my girl, I am proud of your skill as lady's maid!” And Constance kissed her own hand by way of her reward, as she went to the corner and gingerly lifted the white gown that waited there for her handling.
It was a soft, fragile thing, made of white stuff from the East, embroidered all over with sprigs of small flowers. It had been Constance's mother's, and had come from England at the bottom of her own chest, safe hidden, together with other beautiful fabrics that had been Constance's mother's, from the condemnatory eyes of Stephen Hopkins's second wife.
”It troubles me to wear this flimsy loveliness, Constance,” said Priscilla, as the gown drifted down over her shoulders. ”And to think it was thy mother's.”
”It will not harm it to lie over your true heart to-day, dearest Pris, when you vow to love John forever. It seems to me as though lifeless things drew something of value to themselves from contact with goodness and love. Pris, it is really most exquisite! And that deep ruffle that I sewed around it at the bottom makes it exactly long enough for you, yet it leaves it still right for me to wear, should I ever want to, only by ripping it off again! Oh, Priscilla, dear, you are lovely enough, and this embroidery is fine enough, for you to be a London bride!”
Once more Constance fell back to admire at the same time Priscilla and her achievements.
”I think, perhaps, it may be wrong, as they tell us it is, to care too much for outward adornment, Con dear. Not but that I like it, and love you for being so unselfish, so generous to me,” said Priscilla, with her sweet gravity of manner.
”Constance, if only my mother and father, and Joseph--but of course my parents I mourn more than my brother--were here to bless me to-day!”
”Try to feel that they are here, Prissy,” said Constance. ”There be Christians in plenty who would tell you that they pray for you still.”
”Oh, but that is superst.i.tion!” protested Priscilla, shocked.
Constance set her face into a sort of laughing and sweet contrariness.
”There be Christians in plenty who believe it,” she repeated. ”And it seems a comforting and innocent enough thing to me. Art ready now, Priscilla? But before you go, kiss me here the kind of good-bye that we cannot take in public; my good-bye to dear Priscilla Mullins; your good-bye to Con, with whom, though dear friends we remain for aye, please G.o.d, you never again will be just the same close gossip that we have been as maids together, on s.h.i.+p-board and land, through sore grief and hards.h.i.+ps, yet with abounding laughter when we had half a chance to smile.”
”Why, Con, don't make me cry!” begged Priscilla, holding Constance tight, her eyes filling with tears. ”You speak sadly, and like one years older than yourself, who had learned the changes of our mortal life. I'll not love you less that I am married.”
”Yes, you will, Pris! Or, if not less, at least differently. For maids are one in simple interests, quick to share tears and laughter, while the young matron is occupied with graver matters, and there is not oneness between them. It is right so, but----Well, then, kiss me good-bye, Pris, my comrade, and bid Mistress John Alden, when you know her, love me well for your sweet sake,” insisted Constance, not far from tears herself.
Quietly the two girls stole out of the bedroom, into the common room of the new house which Doctor Fuller had built for the reception of his wife, whose coming from England he eagerly awaited. The widow White and Priscilla had been lodged there, helping the doctor to get it in order.
”You look well, Priscilla,” said Mrs. White. ”Say what they will, there is something in the notion of a young maiden going in white to her marriage. Your friends are waiting you outside. I wish you well, my daughter, and may you be blessed in all your undertakings.”
Priscilla went to the door and Constance opened it for her, stepping back to let the bride precede her. Beyond it were waiting the young girls of the settlement; Humility Cooper and her cousin, Elizabeth Tilley, caught Priscilla by the hands.
”How fair you are, dear!” cried Humility. ”The children begged to be allowed to come to your wedding, and they are all waiting at Mr. Winslow's, for you were always their great friend, and there is scarce a limit to their love for John Alden.”
”Surely let the children come!” said Priscilla. ”They are first of all of us, and will win blessings for John Alden and me.”
The girls fell into line ahead of her, and Priscilla walked down Leyden Street, the short distance that lay between the doctor's house and Edward Winslow's, her head bent, her eyes upon the ground, the colour faded from her fresh-tinted face. At the magistrate's house the elders of the little community were gathered, waiting. John Alden came out and met his bride on the narrow, sanded walk, and led her soberly into the house and up to Edward Winslow, who awaited them in his plain, close-b.u.t.toned coat, with its broad collar and cuffs of white linen newly and stiffly starched and ironed.
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