Part 16 (1/2)
Just at that instant some one outside drew back the shutters in the bay-window, and a flood of late afternoon suns.h.i.+ne streamed across the room, the last golden rays of the perfect June day making a path of light from the gate of roses to the white altar. It shone full across Eugenia's face, down on the long-trained s.h.i.+mmering satin, the little gleaming slippers, the filmy veil that enveloped her, the pearls that glimmered white on her white throat.
Eliot, standing in a corner, nervously watching every movement with twitching lips, relaxed into a smile. ”It's a good omen!” she said, half under her breath, then gave a startled glance around to see if any one had heard her speak at such an improper time.
The music grew softer now, so faint and low it seemed the mere shadow of sound. Above the rare sweetness of that undertone of harp and violins rose the words of the ceremony: ”_I, Stuart, take thee, Eugenia, to be my wedded wife_.”
Mary, standing at her post by the rose gate, felt a queer little chill creep over her. It was so solemn, so very much more solemn than she had imagined it would be. She wondered how she would feel if the time ever came for her to stand in Eugenia's place, and plight her faith to some man in that way--”_for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us do part_.”
Eliot was crying softly in her corner now. Yes, getting married was a terribly solemn thing. It didn't end with the ceremony and the pretty clothes and the shower of congratulations. That was only the beginning.
”_For better, for worse_,”--that might mean all sorts of trouble and heartache. ”_Sickness and death_,”--it meant to be bound all one's life to one person, morning, noon, and night. How very, very careful one would have to be in choosing,--and then suppose one made a mistake and thought the man she was marrying was good and honest and true, and he _wasn't_! It would be all the same, for ”_for better, for worse_,” ran the vow, ”_until death us do part_.”
Then and there, holding fast to the gate of roses, Mary made up her mind that she could never, never screw her courage up to the point of taking the vows Eugenia was taking, as she stood with her hand clasped in Stuart's, and the late suns.h.i.+ne of the sweet June day streaming down on her like a benediction.
”It's lots safer to be an old maid,” thought Mary. ”I'll take my chances getting the diamond leaf some other way than marrying. Anyhow, if I ever should make a choice, I'll ask somebody else's opinion, like I do when I go shopping, so I'll be sure I'm getting a real prince, and not an imitation one.”
It was all over in another moment. Harp and violins burst into the joyful notes of Mendelssohn's march, and Stuart and Eugenia turned from the altar to pa.s.s through the rose gate together. Lloyd and Phil followed, then the other attendants in the order of their entrance. On the wide porch, screened and canopied with smilax and roses, a cool green out-of-doors reception-room had been made. Here they stood to receive their guests.
Mary, in all the glory of her pink chiffon dress and satin slippers, stood at the end of the receiving line, feeling that this one experience was well worth the long journey from Arizona. So thoroughly did she delight in her part of the affair, and so heartily did she enter into her duties, that more than one guest pa.s.sed on, smiling at her evident enjoyment.
”I wish this wedding could last a week,” she confided to Lieutenant Logan, when he paused beside her. ”Don't you know, they did in the fairy-tales, some of them. There was 'feasting and merrymaking for seventy days and seventy nights.' This one is going by so fast that it will soon be train-time. I don't suppose _they_ care,” she added, with a nod toward the bride, ”for they're going to spend their honeymoon in a Gold of Ophir rose-garden, where there are goldfish in the fountains, and real orange-blossoms. It's out in California, at Mister Stuart's grandfather's. Elsie, his sister, couldn't come, so they're going out to see her, and take her a piece of every kind of cake we have to-night, and a sample of every kind of bonbon. Don't you wonder who'll get the charms in the bride's cake? That's the only reason I am glad the clock is going so fast. It will soon be time to cut the cake, and I'm wild to see who gets the things in it.”
The last glow of the sunset was still tinting the sky with a tender pink when they were summoned to the dining-room, but indoors it had grown so dim that a hundred rose-colored candles had been lighted. Again the music of harp and violins floated through the rose-scented rooms. As Mary glanced around at the festive scene, the tables gleaming with silver and cut gla.s.s, the beautiful costumes, the smiling faces, a line from her old school reader kept running through her mind: ”_And all went merry as a marriage-bell! And all went merry as a marriage-bell!_”
It repeated itself over and over, through all the gay murmur of voices as the supper went on, through the flowery speech of the old Colonel when he stood to propose a toast, through the happy tinkle of laughter when Stuart responded, through the thrilling moment when at last the bride rose to cut the mammoth cake. In her nervous excitement, Mary actually began to chant the line aloud, as the first slice was lifted from the great silver salver: ”All went merry--” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth, but n.o.body had noticed, for Allison had drawn the wedding-ring, and a chorus of laughing congratulations was drowning out every other sound.
As the cake pa.s.sed on from guest to guest, Betty cried out that she had found the thimble. Then Lloyd held up the crystal charm, the one the bride had said was doubly lucky, because it held imbedded in its centre a four-leaved clover. Nearly every slice had been crumbled as soon as it was taken, in search of a hidden token, but Mary, who had not dared to hope that she might draw one, began leisurely eating her share. Suddenly her teeth met on something hard and flat, and glancing down, she saw the edge of a coin protruding from the sc.r.a.p of cake she held.
”Oh, it's the s.h.i.+lling!” she exclaimed, in such open-mouthed astonishment that every one laughed, and for the next few moments she was the centre of the congratulations. Eugenia took a narrow white ribbon from one of the dream-cake boxes, and pa.s.sed it through the hole in the s.h.i.+lling, so that she could hang it around her neck.
”Destined to great wealth!” said Rob, with mock solemnity. ”I always did think I'd like to marry an heiress. I'll wait for you, Mary.”
”No,” interrupted Phil, laughing, ”fate has decreed that I should be the lucky man. Don't you see that it is Philip's head with Mary's on that s.h.i.+lling?”
”Whew!” teased Kitty. ”Two proposals in one evening, Mary. See what the charm has done for you already!”
Mary knew that they were joking, but she turned the color of her dress, and sat twiddling the coin between her thumb and finger, too embarra.s.sed to look up. They sat so long at the table that it was almost train-time when Eugenia went up-stairs to put on her travelling-dress. She made a pretty picture, pausing midway up the stairs in her bridal array, the veil thrown back, and her happy face looking down on the girls gathered below. Leaning far over the banister with the bridal bouquet in her hands, she called:
”Now look, ye pretty maidens, standing all a-row, The one who catches this, the next bouquet shall throw.”
There was a laughing scramble and a dozen hands were outstretched to receive it. ”Oh, Joyce caught it! Joyce caught it!” cried Mary, dancing up and down on the tips of her toes, and clapping her hands over her mouth to stifle the squeal of delight that had almost escaped. ”Now, some day I can be maid of honor.”
”So that's why you are so happy over your sister's good fortune, is it?”
asked Phil, bent on teasing her every time opportunity offered.
”No,” was the indignant answer. ”That is some of the reason, but I'm gladdest because she didn't get left out of everything. She didn't get one of the cake charms, so I hoped she would catch the bouquet.”
When the carriage drove away at last, a row of s.h.i.+ny black faces was lined up each side of the avenue. All the Gibbs children were there, and Aunt Cindy's other grandchildren, with their hands full of rice.
”Speed 'em well, chillun!” called old Cindy, waving her ap.r.o.n. The rice fell in showers on the top of the departing carriage, and two little white slippers were sent flying along after it, with such force that they nearly struck Eliot, sitting beside the coachman. Tired as she was, she turned to smile approval, for the slippers were a good omen, too, in her opinion, and she was happy to think that everything about her Miss Eugenia's wedding had been carried out properly, down to this last propitious detail.
As the slippers struck the ground, quick as a cat, M'haley darted forward to grab them. ”Them slippahs is mates!” she announced, gleefully, ”and I'm goin' to tote 'em home for we-all's wedding. I kain't squeeze into 'em myself, but Ca'line Allison suah kin.”