AN OCTOBER WEDDING
One fine October morning, almost three months to a day from the victory at Santiago, Julia and Nora, Edith and Ruth, stood on one of the broad piazzas at Rockley talking as rapidly as four intimate friends can talk. Ruth and Julia were hand and hand, for this was their first day together since Ruth's return from her year's wedding journey, and each was delighted to find the other unchanged. "A little older," Julia had said when Ruth pressed her for her opinion; and then, that her friend might not take her too seriously, "but I'd never know it."
"A little more sedate," Ruth had responded; "but you do not show it."
Then the four fell to talking over the events of this very remarkable year.
"Nothing can surprise me," Ruth said, "since I have heard of the engagement of Pamela to Philip Blair. I did not suppose that he had so much sense. Excuse me," she added hastily, noting Edith's surprised look; "I merely meant that Pamela's good qualities are the kind that the average man would be apt to overlook."
"Philip is not an average man," responded Edith proudly; "we all think that he is most unusual."
"Yes, indeed," interposed Nora; "my father says that he never saw any one develop so wonderfully, and when he was first in college every one thought that he was to be a mere society man, like Jimmy Jeremy. Wouldn't you hate it, Edith, if he had decided to devote his life to leading cotillions?"
"Oh, he never would have done that," said the literal Edith; "he would have found something else to do daytimes."
Then Nora, to emphasize Philip's development, told several anecdotes of his helpfulness and devotion to the sick soldiers.
But neither Edith nor Nora then told what Ruth learned later, that Mrs. Blair was far from pleased with the turn of events, as the quiet and almost unknown Pamela was not the type of girl she would have selected to be Philip's wife. Her objection, however, had been made before Philip's engagement was formally announced. When once it was settled, she accepted it with the best possible grace, and even Pamela herself scarcely realized the obstacles that Philip had had to overcome in gaining his mother's consent.
Edith had found it even harder to conceal her disappointment from Philip. Only to Nora did she say, frankly, "I hoped that it would be Julia. They were always such friends, and I am sure that no one ever had so much influence over him."
"We can give Julia the credit of having made Philip look at life in a broader way, and I am sure that they are still the greatest friends. But I happen to know, Edith, that she never felt the least little bit of sentiment for him, and never would."
More than this Nora could not be persuaded to say, and Edith, though with a slight accent of resignation, added:
"Oh, well, I'm very fond of Pamela already, and if I can't have Julia for a sister-in-law, I'm sure that she and I will get along beautifully. Only it will seem very strange to have such a learned person in the family."
But to return to the group on the piazza this bright autumn morning. Seldom have tongues flown faster than theirs. There were so many things to talk about, more absorbing even than Philip's engagement,—Arthur's wonderful escape, for example, of which Ruth had heard only the vaguest account. Now, as she wished to hear details, Nora naturally was ready to give them to her.
"A shot had passed through his ankle, and he couldn't drag himself away, so that there seems not the slightest doubt that he would have been struck again, and perhaps killed, for he was just in the line of the enemy's fire."
Nora spoke as if quite familiar with army tactics and military language, and since there was no one present to criticise her or to say whether her description was technically correct, she continued:
"Yes, we are quite sure that he would have been killed if it hadn't been for Tim McSorley, who dragged him away—"
"Ah," interposed Edith, "and isn't it strange this soldier proved to be a cousin or uncle of Maggie McSorley, a girl, you know, who is at the Mansion; and it's all the stranger because it was Brenda who discovered her, and this has made the greatest difference for Maggie. Brenda had got into the habit of snubbing her, but now she can't do enough for her."
"It's all very interesting," said Ruth, smiling slightly; "but Maggie herself hadn't anything to do with rescuing Arthur, had she?"
"Oh, no, indeed; but still it has made a difference, for Brenda naturally feels grateful to every one belonging to Tim McSorley. She is so impulsive. Then I think, too, that she saw that she had always been unfair to Maggie, and so now she can't do enough for her, just to make amends."
"Yes, and besides, although Maggie had nothing to do with rescuing Arthur, it was her uncle's letter to her that gave the first account of what had really happened to Arthur. I was in the room when she came running to Brenda with the letter; it was when Brenda was nearly beside herself, waiting for some real news, and I honestly think that that letter saved her from brain fever," added Julia.
"'All's well that ends well,'" rejoined Ruth, "is too trite a proverb to quote to-day, yet, however it happened, we should be thankful that Brenda escaped brain fever. No day could be more ideally suited for a wedding than this, but if Brenda's illness had been more severe than it was, who knows when the wedding could have taken place. The day might have been postponed to December or some equally disagreeable month, and no tenting on the lawn then."
"I agree with you," said Julia; "and now I must run away, for there are still several things to do for Brenda, and in less than an hour the train will be here bringing Arthur and the rest of the wedding party. Let me advise you," she concluded, "to be arrayed in your wedding garments by that time, for on an informal occasion like this you will all be needed to help entertain. Many of the guests have never been here before."
When at last the wedding guests arrived, the truth of this statement was evident, for among them were very few of the old friends of the Barlow family.
"We have had one family wedding," Brenda had protested, when her friends expressed surprise at her plans; "and now, if I wish to have mine small and quiet, I think that I ought to be suited, and Arthur, too, for he wishes everything to be just as I wish it."
There was no gainsaying this reasoning, nor would Mr. and Mrs. Barlow have asked Brenda to change her plans. What remonstrances there were came from some of the relatives, and from many of Brenda's young friends not invited to the house, who felt that in some way they were to lose something worth seeing. As Brenda had decreed that it should be a house wedding, they were not even to have the privileges of lookers-on, as might have been the case at a church wedding.
But was ever any family perfectly satisfied with the plans made for the wedding of one of its members? Was there ever a wedding in preparing for which various persons did not think themselves more or less slighted? How, then, could Brenda expect to please all in her large connection? Now, in spite of her impulsiveness, Brenda had been considered rather conventional, and on this account many felt aggrieved that she had insisted on having the affair small and informal.
Yet after all it wasn't a very small wedding, and the drawing-rooms at Rockley were well filled, though with a far less fashionable assemblage than that which had surrounded and greeted Agnes and Ralph Weston six years before. There were naturally a certain number of relatives present, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair, Dr. and Mrs. Gostar, and a few other old friends of both Brenda's and Arthur's families.
Besides the "Four," and Julia and Amy and Ruth, there were Frances Pounder and two or three of Brenda's former schoolmates. Miss Crawdon, too, had been invited, and one or two teachers from her school.
Frances Pounder, as her friends still called her, was now Mrs. Egbert Romeyn, and her husband was to perform the marriage ceremony. Mr. Romeyn's church was in a mission centre on the outskirts of the city, and Frances gladly shared his parish labors. To the great surprise of all who knew her, she had really buried the pride and haughty spirit of her school days.
Anstiss and Miss South and the rest of the staff of the Mansion were present; and besides Philip Blair, and Will Hardon and Nora's brothers, and Fritz Tomkins and Ben Creighton, there were several other young men, Arthur's special friends chiefly, with a few of those who had known Brenda from childhood.
Then in addition to these were a number of "unnecessary people," as Belle called them in a stage whisper to Nora,—all the girls from the Mansion, for example, every one of whom had accepted the invitation, and the whole Rosa family, from Mrs. Rosa to the youngest child. Since the defeat of the Spanish, and especially since the destruction of Cervera's fleet, Angelina had had little to say about her Spanish blood. Indeed, she had been overheard giving an elaborate explanation to one of the Mansion girls of the difference between Spanish and Portuguese, with the advantage on the side of the Portuguese, from whom, she said, she was proud to be descended, "although," she had added, "I was born in the United States, and so I shall always be an American citizen."
Although Angelina was the especial protégée of Julia, rather than of Brenda, she took the greatest interest in the wedding. Had she been one of the bridesmaids she could hardly have taken more trouble in having her gown of the latest mode, at least as she had understood it from reading a certain fashion journal, with whose aid she and a rather bewildered Shiloh seamstress had made up the inexpensive pink muslin.
Mrs. Rosa, dazed by the invitation to the wedding, inclined not to accept it; but Julia, anxious to please Brenda, did all that she could to make it possible for the whole Rosa family to come from Shiloh to Rockley. The Rosas did not seem exactly essential to the success of the wedding, yet as Brenda had set her heart on their presence, there was no reason why she should not be humored.
To any one who did not know the circumstances, the presence of Mrs. McSorley and Tim may have appeared less explainable even than the presence of the Rosas.
Yet Tim, Maggie's Tim, was only second in interest in the eyes of many present to Arthur himself; for he it was who had saved Arthur's life on that memorable day of battle, and for this and another act of heroism he had received especial praise from his commanding officers.
It isn't every family that can have a hero in it, and Mrs. McSorley, after Maggie had shown her Tim's name in print, and some of his letters, had wisely concluded, as she said, to "let bygones be bygones;" and as the nearest relative after Maggie of the brave soldier, Arthur had sent her a special invitation. So it was that sharp-featured little Mrs. McSorley, almost to her own surprise, found herself at Rockley, though feeling somewhat out of place in the midst of what she considered great grandeur. She stood in the background, near one of the long glass doors opening on the piazza, ready to make her escape should any curious eyes be turned toward her. The Rosas, Angelina excepted, were near Mrs. McSorley, and Mrs. Rosa was in much the same state of mind as the latter.
