CHAPTER IX
It was decided that Claire and Danilo were to be married some time in August. Danilo was for rushing off for a license at once, but Claire pleaded the usual feminine lack of suitable apparel. Upon the question of finances in the mean time, Danilo was extraordinarily frank:
"I might as well give up my lodgings in that wretched Third Street hotel and come here. Cannot you shoo Miss Proll into another corner and let me have the hall bedroom?"
Claire was on the point of reflecting, but Danilo finished, simply:
"You must live for the next three months, you must remember."
And so the thing was decided.
Mrs. Robson was a bit disturbed at this arrangement. The excitement of Claire's prospects had revived in her all her old sense of social expediency.... She wasn't quite sure that people did such things. She could not remember one instance where anybody of her acquaintance had permitted their daughter's fiancé to share the same roof, and she was emphatic in her disapproval of allowing Danilo to foot the bills. But Claire reminded her that Danilo came of different stock and had other standards. At this, Mrs. Robson surrendered, but Claire could see that her mother's old distrust for things "foreign" was ready to flare up at the first provocation.
Miss Proll, established in a corner of the living-room, pleaded for the honor of preparing the trousseau. Claire consented, as she said, with a rueful laugh:
"You won't have much to work on."
But a surprise was in store for Claire. In Mrs. Robson's room there had stood for years a huge black trunk concealed under a discarded portière. Claire had guessed that it was full of relics and memories of the Carrol family's former grandeur, but she had never felt the slightest interest in exploring these melancholy fragments of other days. But it proved otherwise. There were memories, plenty of them, but they had to do with the touching struggle of a mother who had provided against the day of what she felt to be her daughter's greatest need. The trunk was full of every conceivable material that a bride would find necessary for a brave showing—yards of silk, bolts of linen, quantities of lace.
"I didn't want my daughter to be a make-over bride," Mrs. Robson explained to Miss Proll, who stood by Claire as she threw up the trunk's heavy lid. "I wanted her to have everything fresh and new ... except perhaps my wedding-dress."
Claire, blinded by tears, drew out the heavy white-satin gown, slightly yellowed by the years. She held it up.
"What do you think?" Mrs. Robson continued to drawl, thickly. "I'm afraid it won't do. They dress differently now ... fluffy, light things. I guess...."
But Claire had silenced her with a kiss. Miss Proll's cheeks were glowing with vicarious nuptial excitement as she lifted the corded-satin skirt in her capable fingers and said:
"Oh, you won't know this when I get through with it!"
There was the veil Mrs. Robson had worn, too, and the artificial orange-blossoms, hoarded carefully in tissue-paper, even the thick, white kid gloves of a bygone day.
"But mother ... all these other things ... how ever did you manage?"
Mrs. Robson smiled and shook her head. She was in no mood for explanations; she was standing before the altar of all her sacrifices, and it was glowing with the light of fulfilment.
From the moment that the old black trunk was opened a suppressed excitement ran quivering through the house. Miss Proll, scorning fatigue, plied her needle after her regular workday with all the enthusiasm of a bride-elect. Her joys in the preparations softened Danilo, who had always expressed a contempt for her solitary state.
Then there was shopping to do of a trivial sort. It seemed that scarcely a day went by without a request from Miss Proll for some trifling but highly important reinforcement to the regular treasure-chest. Claire, slipping on her things to run down to the shops, felt the delicious thrill of a truant spendthrift.
"For myself," she said one day to Danilo, "I would much rather be married in just a street dress. But mother would be—"
"A street dress!" Danilo echoed, incredulously. "No, your mother is right! I am marrying a bride, remember!"
And she discovered that a wedding to Danilo meant everything the term implied—orange wreaths, and veils, and huge cakes ... and a feast. There was nothing colorless nor sophisticated about such a ceremony to him.
Meanwhile, Nellie Whitehead married Billy Holmes. Claire and Danilo were among those bidden to see the knot tied. It happened at the noon hour in the vestry of St. Luke's Church, and a score or more of relations and friends gathered about and sniffled during the performance. Claire, always moved by the sonorous solemnity of the Anglican Prayer-book, was really touched by it all, in spite of her Presbyterian training, and even Nellie Whitehead emerged from the ordeal tremulously. There followed the usual kissing of the bride and the Anglo-Saxon ignoring of the groom, a bit of half-hearted rice-throwing, and the thing was over. No feast, no rejoicing, no laughter.
Danilo was puzzled and disapproving.
"Why did they not say mass for the dead and be done with it?" he snorted.
Two days later he came in for dinner and announced:
"Now you shall see a real wedding!"
It appeared that two prominent members of the Greek colony were to be married on the following Sunday night, and there was to be a feast at the Café Ithaca. Claire had not been near her old haunts since the night when she had dismissed herself. There had been really no excuse. Danilo had brought her the money due from Lycurgus for the half-week she had served him. At first she had an impulse to ask Danilo to excuse her. She did not feel sure that she cared to see the Ithaca again, and she was equally undecided about the wedding. But in the end she made up her mind to go. At the last moment Danilo was called out suddenly to a sick-bed. This meant that they were late for the ceremony at the church. But they arrived in time to see the bride and groom making their triumphal exit from the altar. The air was musky and warm with incense and burning candles, and for all its cheapness the church assumed a blue-veiled atmosphere of mystery for the occasion. Outside, the steps were thronged with the curious, and, instead of hastening coyly to the waiting taxicab, the bride graciously stood for a moment in the doorway so that all the beauty-hungry mob below her could catch a satisfying glimpse of her young loveliness. There was a simple and generous pride about this little by-play that made it very charming to Claire.
Danilo and Claire swung on a passing car and arrived at the Ithaca almost with the bridal party. A pushing, eager mob of children blocked the side entrance and even spilled over into the banquet-hall upon the heels of the bride. The room was arranged as it had been for the St. George's Day celebration and the public was excluded. Lycurgus, catching sight of Claire, came forward with his old sweeping manner, murmuring his clipped congratulations. Doris, spying her from a far corner, rushed up with an impulsive kiss. It seemed as if everybody was ready to sink all animosities and feuds before the glamour of Claire's new estate.
The feast began. Claire looked about; many of the seats were not taken. She remarked the fact to Danilo.
"Oh, they will fill up presently," he replied.
And it turned out that the wedding-supper was not a matter of cool calculation—so many places for so many guests—but that the feast was spread beyond the known partakers.
"Suppose some of the guests should bring their friends?" Claire inquired of Danilo. "One must look to that. It would not do to turn any away."
A feast then was a feast, a thing to be eaten, it did not matter so much by whom; indeed, strangers were better than no guests at all. There was something biblical about it, and Claire thought at once of the parable in the New Testament which began:
"A certain rich man made a great supper...." And ended: "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."
"This," thought Claire, "is the real hospitality ... the real democracy."
And it struck her forcibly that for the first time in her life she sensed in a flash the meaning of equality and fraternity. In a Greek restaurant, at a celebration of one of the sacraments of autocracy and authority, she had come upon the underlying principles that she had been taught to murmur mechanically since childhood.
Looking through the narrow aperture of a particular occasion, she had an illuminating glimpse of larger issues, unessential differences, and essential things in common that separated and bound the world together. Danilo ceased to be from a people apart and peculiar. His people would be her people, not merely because she was to become his wife, but because they would make claims upon her sympathy and her love. The table of life was spread for certain feasts that could exclude nobody.
She had been expecting some outlandish notes to be struck in the celebration, but it all passed off with a certain joyous solemnity. The supper was delicious, the wine abundant, the bride girlish and pleasantly conscious of her importance and the beauty of her snow-white veil. The groom had a place, too, it seemed, in the general spectacle—an unheard-of thing in Claire's experience. And in addition to the bride's cake there was a special cake brought in for the bachelors' table. It was curious to discover that the unattached males were quite content to sit at a board of their own without the leaven of feminine companionship.
Later in the evening the entertainers sang, and, of course, it was inevitable that there would be dancing. Danilo and Claire left at midnight. The feast was by no means ended, but Danilo had an early start scheduled for the next day, and Claire was not unwilling to escape before the spirit of the occasion staled.
On the way home Danilo said:
"There, that is what I call getting married! Your people go about it as if it were something to be ashamed of. You have another word for it ... well-bred, that is how you say it. But we should all be natural once in a while.... I suppose you will not care to have a feast?"
Claire glanced at him sharply before replying. He looked so wistful, so like a boy trembling before the possibility of finding his fears confirmed, that her lips broke into a smile as she said:
"I think it would be lovely. Let us do just whatever you would like."
He rewarded her with a flaming kiss upon her hand. He had never asked Claire for her lips; there was a certain austerity about his attitude that at times filled her with strange awe.
Every day with unfailing regularity Claire made a resolution.
"I shall tell Danilo that I know Stillman."
But it was easier to rehearse the scene than to carry it out. It all seemed so simple in prospect. There was something awkward about forcing the subject, and when Danilo opened the way with some casual reference to his friend, Claire always had a feeling that the moment seemed almost too opportune.
One night she decided to make the plunge and hazard the truth. Danilo had run in for a moment between professional visits. He had a trick of snatching at these fragments of companionship, and Claire was getting used to his unexpected appearance at all hours of the day.
"I've.... I've something I want to tell you," she blurted out suddenly, as she stood before him.
Her melodramatic hesitancy must have made him apprehensive, for he returned, with an uneasy laugh:
"You're not tired of your bargain already, are you?"
"No ... but.... Well, I hope you won't think it strange.... The truth is...."
She stopped in confusion. He gave her a look of puzzled sympathy. It was plain that she was disturbed, and unhappy.
He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder. "Well, if you're not tired, what does the rest matter? Unless, of course, there is some one else.... In that case...." He had stopped breathing and his lips were parted anxiously.
"How absurd you are!" She found herself laughing at him.
After that the thing seemed impossible, and finally the moment that she had been expecting and dreading came. Danilo said to her one morning, as he was leaving:
"What night next week will be convenient for you to go out to dinner? I want you to meet Mr. Stillman."
"To meet Mr. Stillman?... Must I?"
He flushed. "Well, it never occurred to me that you would object. I have spoken about it to him."
"Oh, of course! Naturally for the moment I felt surprised. How would Tuesday night do?"
Tuesday night did perfectly. Danilo decided on dinner at the St. Francis. Claire was admonished to dress her prettiest.
They had set the hour at seven-thirty, but at the last moment a telephone message came to the hotel that Stillman was detained. Danilo decided upon going into the dining-room and waiting there rather than in the lobby.
Stillman came in at eight o'clock. Claire saw him standing in the entrance to the dining-room, greeting a woman friend. He looked very well, she thought.
Danilo was for rushing up and escorting Stillman in triumph to Claire's side, but she restrained him. Presently Stillman detached himself from his feminine acquaintance and he stepped into the room. He caught Danilo's beckoning finger; his face lit with a rare smile. Claire knew that he had not yet glimpsed her.
It was not until he was almost upon them that Claire noticed him start almost imperceptibly. Then she heard Danilo's voice ringing out warmly:
"Ah, so there you are!... Claire, this is the Mr. Stillman that you have heard me speak of so often.... Does he come up to your hopes?"
Claire inclined her head gently.
"You forget.... I have seen Mr. Stillman before," she chided.
"Oh yes ... at the Ithaca. I had forgotten," Danilo replied as he waved his guest into a seat.
As for Stillman, he said nothing, but Danilo went on with vivacity:
"You see, my brother, it is as I told you—I shall not need a pistol."
"A pistol!" echoed Claire, in a nervous attempt to break the strain of Stillman's silence. "And what use could you have for a pistol, pray?"
"That was for the other man in the case," Stillman said, suddenly, looking up.
A quick flush overspread Danilo's face.
Claire did not know whether Stillman's tone was ironical or bitter, or just thoughtless. But as she turned to help herself to the olives which the waiter held out to her she had a feeling that the last door to the necessary understanding between herself and Danilo concerning Stillman had been suddenly closed.