CHAPTER XXVIII
PREPARATIONS FOR A WEDDING
The house is very quiet. Jane and Dimbie are out in the woods gathering sprays of red-tinted brambles, briony, traveller's joy, bracken, which though fading is of that golden tinge which is almost more beautiful than the green, hips and haws shining and scarlet, and clusters of berries of the mountain-ash. This collection of autumnal loveliness is for the decoration of the cottage, for is not Jane to be married to-morrow? Mother and Peter have gone for a stroll as Peter calls it, or for a gallop as mother terms it, for Peter can get up as much speed, in spite of his gouty leg, as Amelia can with my Ilkley couch.
Amelia has "run" to the village for innumerable things forgotten this morning when the grocer's boy clamoured for orders. And the Help I should imagine, from the quiet of the house, has fallen asleep over the kitchen fire. The Help, from what Amelia tells me, is very stupid and is no help at all. She puts the blacking on the scullery floor instead of on the boots. She never screws the stopper on to the Shinio bottle after use, and the contents are therefore spilled all over the place. She allows the handles of the knives to lie in water. "Does she take them off the blades?" I asked, and I received one of Amelia's halibut looks. She forgets to sprinkle tea-leaves on the carpets before brushing them, though the tea-leaves are put all ready for her in a nice clean saucer. And yet, in spite of all these enormities, Amelia permits her to remain and not help.
Before "running" to the village just now she wondered whether anything would go wrong during her temporary absence and what the Help would be up to.
"She's worse than her at Tompkinses'."
"The one who wore half a pound of tea as a bustle when she left at night?"
Amelia seemed pleased at my memory, and she then went on to explain why this Help was worse than the other. It appeared that deceit was her besetting sin. The other one openly, so to speak, wore tea as a bustle; this one you could never catch. She would leave of an evening with a face like the Song of Solomon—I did not see the connection, but did not like to interrupt—and yet butter, bacon, and tea disappeared miraculously. Amelia would search her hand-bag when the Help was washing up; she would look under the lining of her crêpe bonnet. "Crêpe!" I said. "Is she a widow?"
But Amelia said she wasn't, that the bonnet had been given to her by a late employer, and the crêpe was of the best quality. I felt remiss in not having a crêpe bonnet too to present to the Help, and asked Amelia if she thought my old yellow satin dancing frock would be of any use to her, and Amelia has gone off without replying. Perhaps she would like the frock for herself. I know she can dance, for have I not seen her executing the cakewalk in Dimbie's tea-rose slippers?
The Help is to wear a cap and collar and cuffs for to-morrow's festivities. Amelia is making her do this; and I am a little sorry for the poor Help, for she may dislike a cap very much, having a husband and four nearly grown-up children.
Amelia says that she and the Help will be able to manage the guests quite easily, and I believe her. I know that she alone would be quite equal to forty, and we are only expecting ten besides the house-party. A younger brother of Dr. Renton is to be best man; and then there will be Nanty; a Miss Rebecca Sharp, a Suffragist, and cousin to Jane; Dr. Renton's married sister and her husband; his housekeeper, who has served him faithfully like a housekeeper in a book for nearly twenty years; a Mrs. Wilbraham, an old patient, who has invited herself; and Professor Leighrail. Dimbie suggested inviting the last, and I jumped at him.
"He will entertain Nanty," I said.
"You don't want to marry them?" said Dimbie in alarm.
"Dimbie, dear," I returned, "you must try to break yourself of the habit of assuming that I am perpetually trying to marry people."
"What about Jane and the Doctor?"
"I was a girl in the schoolroom when they fell in love with one another."
"You brought them together."
"I did nothing of the kind. Jane's visit was arranged long before I knew."
He was only half convinced.
"I don't want another wedding from here," he said a little gloomily. "One is all right. I like Jane, and it has been fun and amusement for you. But if Nanty and more pattern-books arrive I shall clear off."
"Were I stronger," I said, "I should shake you."
"Would you?" He laughed, holding his face to mine.
"I hope you are going to be very good to-morrow, and give Jane away nicely. You mustn't give her a push, you must hand her over gracefully to the Doctor."
Dimbie screwed up his face.
"I don't fancy the job. I wish you could be there, Marg, to give me a wink at the right moment."
"Oh, don't!" I whispered, in a momentary fit of passionate longing. "Don't remind me that I can't be there. Dimbie, I am so disappointed that I shall not see Jane married! I do so love Jane. It is—hard to bear."
As the words were uttered I would have given a kingdom to recall them. When should I learn control? Pain flitted across my dear one's face, pity and sorrow.
"Never mind!" I cried, striving to heal the wound. "I shall see her dressed. She is going to don her wedding-gown in my room, and I am to put all the finishing touches. She will kneel in front of me, and I am to pull a lock of hair out here, pat one in there, persuade a curl to wander across her forehead, tilt her hat to a more fashionable angle, and altogether make her the most beautiful Jane in the world."
But Dimbie was not to be comforted. He has gone to the woods with black care hovering very close at hand, and every effort must I strain this evening to bring back the smile to his lips. There must be no sad faces to-morrow. Jane has had a somewhat hard and lonely life, and she must embark upon her new voyage without a shadow of unhappiness. The Doctor will be good to her, I know—gentle and chivalrous. One knows instinctively when a man will be good to the woman he has married; it is in his voice, his manner, in the very way he looks at her. What Dimbie is to me he will be to her. Why should Jane and I be of the elect among women? We deserve it no more than mother and Nanty. But they will have their compensation, I verily believe. God in His goodness will reserve for all the tired, disillusioned wives of the world a little peaceful niche where they may rest from their husbands, which is another word for labours. And the husbands! I do not think that theirs is always the blame, the fault. There must be many too who would like to find a peaceful haven where they may smoke and read, and put their feet upon the chairs, and rest from the perpetual nagging and fault-finding of their wives.
*****
Amelia is back and has roused the Help, for her voice was borne to me loudly indignant. "And there is no kettle boiling for tea!" Poor Help, or sensible Help? Did she realise that if she waited long enough Amelia would put on the kettle? There are usually plenty of Amelias to put on kettles and scold Helps and tidy up the universe. And so also are there many Helps who realise this, and therefore sit with folded hands doing nothing so long as the Amelias will permit them. I don't know to whom my sympathy goes the most, the Amelias or Helps.
Peter and mother are back too, and are removing their outdoor wraps. Peter, blowing and snorting like the alligator to which Amelia likened him, has informed me that it is a beastly cold day with an east wind, that the roads in Surrey are the worst in Europe, and that mother is the slowest woman in God's universe. Mother has tip-toed back to tell me what she thinks of Peter. That his limp was so fast and furious that you might just as well try to keep up with a fire-engine, that she has made up her mind that this will be her last walk with him (mother has been saying this for many years), and that he has forbidden her to wear her new bonnet on the morrow, as—she looks a fright in it.
I have soothed her as best I can. I have told her that Dimbie shall stand by and see that she does wear the new bonnet, and that if Peter is in any way untractable he shall be locked up for the day in the shed with his own canoe, which has caused her to steal away in a state of fearful joy.
I see Jane and Dimbie coming through the gate. Jane is wellnigh lost in a tangled wealth of glorious autumn treasures, and Dimbie trails behind him an immense bough of pine. It is for me to smell, I know—to inhale the delicious, resinous scent fresh from the woods. A bit broken off is less than nothing, you must have a branch straight from the heart of the trunk. When I have felt it and held it, and smelled it and loved it, it shall stand by the grandfather clock in the hall, and it will make a beautiful decoration for to-morrow's festivities.
I must cease scribbling. They are all assembling for the last family tea. The Doctor has just arrived. Jane has a bunch of mountain-ash berries tucked into her belt. Here comes Amelia with the tea and toast, and resignation under suffering written on her brow! What has the Help been doing now?