1
THE snow had fallen more and more heavily while they were on the train, and the air was crisp when they emerged into the dusk at Woods Point. “I think I’m going to like my wedding,” said Rose-Ann.
They found a car at the nearest garage to take them to Clive’s place, some two miles away. The driver halted at the edge of a steep ravine that cut down toward the lake. He pointed over to the gleam of a lighted window. “There it is,” he said. “And here’s the path. It goes right along the edge of the ravine, but Mr. Bangs keeps it pretty clean of snow, and there’s a railing by the worst places. I guess you can make it all right. Everybody seems to.” He backed the car about, and left them.
Recent footprints, not yet quite obliterated, defined the path for them. They went up toward the house, laughing. Rose-Ann had urged him again at the station to call Clive up and tell him they were coming, and again he had refused. Now, as they edged the ravine, holding on to the railings that guarded the most precarious moments of the path, they were feeling a little foolish and very happy about their adventure. It was thus, they read plainly in each other’s eyes, that they should be married.
A little out of breath at the end of the path, they faced a suddenly opened door, and Clive standing there, laughing and puzzled as he tried to make them out. “Felix?” he said. “And who else?”
“And Rose-Ann!” cried Felix. “We’ve come to Woods Point to be married!”
“No!” cried Clive, astonished, unconsciously blocking the doorway.
“Yes!” said Felix gaily.
Clive laughed. “Welcome!” he said, ushering them inside. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have met you at the station and guided you to the house. You weren’t afraid of breaking your neck?” And then, as Rose-Ann emerged from her snowy cloak, he took her hand. “So this is Rose-Ann! I’m delighted. You know, Felix isn’t very good at descriptions, and I never got the right idea of you at all.”
Felix felt vaguely annoyed. All this was beside the point.
“I suppose we can get married here, can’t we?” he asked.
Clive looked at him, and then back at Rose-Ann. “How solemn you both are!” he said. “Why, I really believe—Felix, what is this about getting married?”
“That’s what we’ve come for,” said Felix patiently.
“You mean—” Clive appeared incredulous.
“I mean, married. Preacher! License! Ceremony! Didn’t you ever hear of anybody getting married before?”
“Not really?”
“Yes, really. And right away. Tonight. Is your mind capable of taking all that in, or must I spell it out for you. You seem dazed.”
This was not exactly the reception he had expected for his news.
“I’m more than dazed. I’m shocked,” said Clive. He turned again to Rose-Ann. “Tell me—when did this—when did you children decide on this rash deed?”
“This afternoon,” said Rose-Ann. “It is rash, isn’t it? Do you really think we shouldn’t?”
Felix made an impatient movement. What difference did it make what Clive Bangs thought?
“Come in by the fire,” said Clive. “You—you bewilder me, you two.”
He put a hand, with some kind of vague paternal gesture, on Rose-Ann’s shoulder. “In here”—and he showed them into a room where a coal fire glowed in an open Franklin stove. He arranged three big chairs. “Sit there.... Bad weather outdoors.”
“No,” said Rose-Ann, “it’s beautiful! It’s snowing....”
“I’ll get you something warm to drink,” and Clive left them.
They sat there a moment, silent.
“Do you—do you think—?” Rose-Ann began in a troubled voice.
“I think Clive is a little upset,” he said. “Poor devil!”
“You don’t—?” She stopped again.
“What?” he asked dreamily, reaching out and finding her fingers as they drooped over the arm of the chair.
“Nothing,” she said.
Presently he looked up, and met her eyes. A look he had never seen before glowed in them, and it was as if she had shown him some secret part of herself always hidden before. That look seemed to reveal to him, as if for the first time, dazzlingly, by the real truth of their love. It was as if everything they had said to each other had been in some way false and evasive. This was the truth—this ultimate surrender, this faith-beyond-reason, this something deeper than pride and joy in her eyes. He was strangely exalted. He thought: “This—this—is marriage....”
In an instant the revelation had passed. Rose-Ann bent down swiftly to shake out a fold in her skirt—and to hide that revealing look, it seemed. Clive was at the door, coming in with their hot drinks.
“And now,” said Clive, settling down comfortably in the third big chair, “tell me about it.”