XXV A Wedding at Vine Cottage
I
Monday morning found Eileen too ill to be out of bed. Dr. Schubert came in response to an urgent request from her father, looked at her tongue, felt her pulse, smiled tolerantly ... and prescribed a nerve sedative. Later in the day the girl who had twined her baby fingers about the emotional center which in a man of science does duty as a heart asserted her right to consideration. He went home and talked it over with Sydney.
“Use your intuition, boy. I can’t have her going to pieces like this. She has always been free from hysteria—so different from her mother.”
“She has had her first love affair—and Hal Marksley is off to college.”
“Sydney! That thick-lipped youth! Besides, Eileen is only a child.”
“You remember the day she was born, and you forget the days between. I have been wretched over it all summer. One night I met them, half way over to Greenville—the night I was called to see the Hemple baby. I spoke to Sylvia about it. And she reminded me of the night—on that same road—when old Selim cast a shoe, and we didn’t get home until almost morning. Once I was on the point of taking it up with Lary; but he’s too deeply in love to see.”
“Lary in love! Who’s the charmer?”
“You dear old scientific abstraction. Have you had Mrs. Ascott at your elbow four days a week—and do you think a fellow with Lary’s temperament could spend all his evenings with her, and escape?”
“That’s—beautiful! But what about her ... a woman who has exhausted New York and Paris? Would she be satisfied with a simple nature like Lary’s?”
“Lary’s nature is about as simple in its refractions as a rose diamond! Mrs. Ascott mothers him. I have tried to make up that deficit in his life—but of course a boy he grew up with couldn’t do it, as a sensitive woman could. He knows I understand about Mrs. Ascott. Oh, not that we have ever talked about it. That would be too crude for Lary.”
“You are like your mother, boy. She spoke three languages—and could dispense with all of them. But we have gone miles from Eileen. I need your help, desperately.”
II
While the two physicians discussed a disturbing case, the one with understanding, the other blindly, a different conversation was under way in Eileen’s bedroom. Mrs. Trench had sent for Judith as soon as the coast was clear of tale-bearers.
“He—said this morning that he was going to take you and Eileen with him when he goes to New York, Thursday night. I thought we’d better lay out the details.”
It was all so bald, so matter-of-fact. The woman cringed, as from a desecration. She turned for relief to the white face on the pillow. Mercurial tears glistened in the dove-gray shadows that lurked beneath the swollen eyes, and the mouth wore the old rebellious look. Eileen was still smarting from the crass, polluting things her mother had said, after the physician’s departure. She had brought this disgraceful thing on the family, and Lavinia did not intend that she should shirk one minim of her punishment.
“For my part, I don’t see how you are going to hide it by going to New York ... where everybody knows you. All your friends will see at the first glance that Larimore and Eileen are brother and sister. They look exactly alike.”
“Thanks for the compliment!” The girl tossed aside the sheet and sat up. “We both have noses running lengthwise of our faces, and mouths that cut across. That’s all the resemblance you ever saw—when you were telling me how handsome Lary was and how ugly I was. I have it all figured out. I am going to be Lary’s cousin—young Mrs. Winthrop, whose husband was lost on that Alaska steamer that foundered two weeks ago. Ina and I worked out the situation in a play we did last winter.”
“And Ina will recognize your situation—and spread it all over town.”
“Mamma! Please credit me with a little sense. This story isn’t for home consumption. It’s for Judith’s friends—when we get to New York.”
“There will be few of them,” Mrs. Ascott interrupted. “That danger is negligible. A few acquaintances at Pelham and Larchmont. With the exception of my father and the Ramsays, who live at Rye—”
“But the neighbours!” Lavinia cried irritably.
“There are none. We can go up and down in the same lift with them for months without knowing what they look like. New York is too self-absorbed to care about any one’s happiness or misery.”
“But your father!” the woman snapped. Her triumph was short-lived.
“Papa could live in the same house with Eileen for a year without knowing whether she was Miss Trench or Mrs. Winthrop—Lary’s cousin or mine. He has forgotten all but the outstanding facts of my life. As for the Ramsays, they would take the situation as I do—if it should become necessary to tell them.”
Vine shook her head. She had no words with which to express her disapproval of a city that could be thus cold-bloodedly immoral. What sort of people were the Ramsays, that one could tell them of a girl’s fall from virtue without shocking them? What sort of woman was Mrs. Ascott, that she could carry out such a wickedly dishonest piece of business? Still, we must praise the bridge that carries us over.
III
Lary stopped by on his way to the office after luncheon to assure himself that it was not all an iridescent dream. On him, too, Lavinia’s stolid acceptance of Judith’s solution had a dampening effect. The rose had been stripped of its blossoms and stood stark and thorny before him. A few minutes of random talk, in which each sought to sound the other’s depths, and then the man said, as if it were an inconsequential afterthought:
“Would Wednesday evening do for the ceremony? Not that it makes any difference. I feel as if we had been married from the beginning of time. I told the baby about it, and she pleaded for Wednesday. Some lucky omen, I believe. She said there was no use taking chances. I wish I had her philosophy of life.”
“I wish I had her,” Judith cried, foolish tears rushing to her eyes.
“Why, you have all of us—from my father down. I never saw a conquest more complete.” The man’s eyes were moist and shining. “But, dear, the baby said another thing. She wants you to let Eileen serve as maid of honour. Another omen—that she heard when Oliver’s sister came from Brookline to attend Sylvia. It presages a happy marriage for the girl.”
“I know another old superstition that might apply—in a sinister way. My grandmother was full of them. To serve as a bride’s attendant, or as godmother at a christening, she held, was fatal to the little—”
Her voice broke and a wave of crimson tumbled over the fair cheek. A shrug of swift annoyance. Why should she be blushing like an unsophisticated school-girl? Larimore Trench caught his breath, and his heart ceased its monotonous beating.
“You adorable being! You vestal-hearted woman! Don’t let me touch you. Judith, Judith, I shall go mad with ecstasy.” He retreated a step, and all at once he laughed, a laugh of sardonic triumph.
“Poor old fool gods! They thought they were destroying man when they cleft him in two. Olympus never realized a thrill like this. Send me to the office, sweetheart. I have to finish the specifications for Miss Sanderson’s studio. How can a man build little tawdry boxes of wood and stone, when his eyes have looked into heaven?”
Judith Ascott was sobbing on his shoulder.
IV
When he had gone, she did an unaccountable thing. She sent a telegram to her father. It was simple and direct. She would be married on Wednesday. It would please her if he could be with her. There would be a train through Littlefield at four o’clock in the afternoon, and she would have Dutton meet him with the car. He could return, via Detroit, at eleven the same night. When the message had gone, she fell to wondering what motive had actuated her. She and her father were, as Griff Ramsay had said, strangers. Lary’s mother? The thought angered her. Yes, she had had recourse to her father ... the only available shield against the small-town criticism that would be reiterated, in veiled innuendo, the rest of her life. It was her father who had pursued her—brought her back to the path of rectitude. Such a father would lend reasonable sanctity to her second marriage! Was she, too, in the thrall of that woman, the slave of that cunning, provincial mind?
She sought for relief in the meeting between Lary and her father. Would he see in her beloved nothing more than a village architect? Would her mother be furious—her mother who had approved Raoul?
At six o’clock the reply came. Mr. Denslow was starting Tuesday for the southwest, where he was to look over some oil properties. He would stop off in Springdale, providing he could get a late train to St. Louis. His explicit telegram made no mention of the occasion for his brief visit in his daughter’s home.
V
The train schedule was propitious. He came. The instant after he had deposited his travelling bag on the floor of the guest room, he began to ply Judith with questions concerning the deucedly clever fellow who was building Avis Sanderson’s house. He had driven over the place with some friends, had inspected the drawings, and had commissioned Ramsay to enter into negotiations with the architect. By-the-way, he had sold the house at Pelham. He was thinking of a princely estate on Long Island—French château style—to be finished before her mother’s return from Paris. This man, Trench, would be the one to handle it.
“Papa, you don’t seem to understand that I am going to marry Larimore Trench this evening!”
“Oh, quite so, quite so. Ramsay told me he would be the one. It’s a singular piece of good fortune. I never liked the idea of putting Ben in one of those big offices, where a young draughtsman is swallowed up. The boy hasn’t brains enough to go it alone. This way, Trench can take him into a partnership. I’ll talk it over with his mother. I’m crossing, the first of December, for a couple of months in London and on the Continent. I’m worn out, and the doctors say—Damn it all, Judith, I can’t give up ... go to the wall at fifty four, with a family to support. Black specks floating in the air, no appetite for breakfast. It’s a dog’s life, and they’ll skin me out of my eye teeth while I’m gone.” He stopped, disconsolate. After a moment he resumed, his manner somewhat detached:
“I was thinking that you might have the apartment. I’m not in it once a week. Hotel so much more convenient. Maids sleep their heads off—nothing to do. I sold off everything, at Pelham, except the rugs and a few pictures that the beggars wouldn’t give me a price for. Thought I didn’t know what Orientals were worth. Offered me thirty dollars for that little Blakelock. An idiotic smear of red and yellow paint; but it’ll be worth money some day, mark my word. And that reminds me ... Jack has got over his craze for flying machines and wants to study art. The boy’s a failure—no good on earth. Perhaps Trench will steady him.”
“Larimore, his name is, papa.”
“Larimore? Ramsay said the name was Trench.”
Judith gave it up.
VI
At dusk the simple ceremony was read, Dr. Clarkson of the College officiating. Sydney Schubert played the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin as Mr. Denslow descended the stairs with his daughter. Before them Eileen walked, her head bowed, her face pale and serious. In the cozy angle of the hall, Lary and Dr. Schubert met them. The formality was a concession to Theodora. The murmured responses were all but extinguished by Mrs. Trench’s sudden flood of weeping. When it was over, Eileen said to Judith, between lips that hissed with anger:
“I could have choked her. She just did that for effect. Mrs. Henderson cried when her daughter was married, and mamma thinks it’s the proper thing. She nearly disrupted Sylvia’s wedding—and every one in church knew she was pleased as Punch to get Sylvia off her hands.”
Mrs. Trench led the way to the dining-room, where the bridal party was served by Nanny and Drusilla, with Mrs. Dutton in the kitchen. In the domestic realm of the two households the colour line had never been drawn. Nanny hailed from that section of New England where a dark skin excites the same kind of interest that a green rose or a two-headed calf would elicit. Mrs. Dutton, Judith perceived early in the days of her tenancy, found a malicious pleasure in her own function as a social link between Mrs. David Trench and her negro cook—a link that Mrs. Trench saw fit to ignore, since the breaking of it had thus far baffled even her resourcefulness.
Later in the evening, while Syd and Eileen played poignant melodies, with David leaning over the piano, and Lavinia told Dr. Clarkson of the great Denslow wealth—her daughter-in-law’s exalted social position—Mr. Denslow and Dr. Schubert talked of old times in Rochester, where the youthful physician had had his first hospital experience, where Denslow, a poor boy with an iron will, had found the open path to fortune through a painful accident and a sojourn in a hospital ward. They drifted to the laboratory experiments, which Judith’s father had never taken the trouble to inquire about. This was just another of the girl’s wild goose chases. He wondered why he had such a damnably unsatisfactory family.
“I shall miss her, cruelly. You don’t know what it has meant to my boy and me—having a woman in the house four mornings a week. I wanted to train Eileen to help me with the experiments; but your daughter tells me they are taking the child with them, to study under a famous violinist. I have salvaged only one thing out of the wreck of our two households. They are leaving Nanny with me. I have worried with six housekeepers since my faithful Sophie died, two years ago.”
The disposition of Nanny was Lavinia’s bright inspiration. Obviously Nanny must not go to New York—to return a year later and spread gossip.
When Dutton had taken Mr. Denslow to the station, the wedding guests went home. At the door, Theodora paused and looked ruefully back. They had ignored her completely, and was not she responsible for it all? Even Lary’s kiss had been abstracted. But then, Lary did not know. None of the others knew why there was a wedding at Vine Cottage, that evening. Only she and Judith understood—and one of them must have forgotten, now that the fairy tale had come true.
She looked at the Beloved, standing there in the light of the little apricot lamp, and her throat swelled with loneliness and misery. She was not jealous—even if they were taking Eileen for a year in New York. Some one had to stay and take care of daddy—and she could do that much better than Eileen, or even Lary. Another thought came to her, just as Judith perceived her and held out her enticing arms.
“You—you still think it was dishonourable—showing you the poem Lary wrote?”
“No, darling. It was a stroke of genius. You have the head of a diplomat. I want you to do something really truly dishonourable for your sister Judith. After we have gone, I want you to rummage through Lary’s things until you find those two sheets of paper—the original ones. Pry open the lid of his desk, if there is no other way, and send them to me. I am going to have them framed!”