IV
The Theddon drawing-room was opened to its fullest and banked with more flowers. The motors which had followed began to empty bridesmaids, ushers and invited guests. Bride and groom stood before a solid screen of cut flowers with Gracia Theddon in silver-gray.
And almost the first person to appear with congratulations and good wishes was—old Caleb Gridley!
If Nathan lost his head that day, it was when he recognized Caleb and blinked at him stupidly. It was their first meeting in two years. Gridley had been “out west” on farm mortgage business for the People’s Bank and as usual had barely arrived in time for the ceremony. But it was because old Caleb had changed that Nathan stared in stupefaction. Was this—could it be—old Gridley of the tannery office?
Caleb was clean-shaven and dressed in afternoon clothes which the most fastidious authority on male attire could not criticize. His iron hair was no longer a wiry, unruly mass. A heroic barber had conquered it and old Caleb with his ponderous size, big shoulders, flawless clothes, was the most distinguished man in that drawing-room, not excepting the groom himself. He still had the paving-block jaw. But his ugly, tobacco-stained incisors were gone. He displayed two rows of fine, even teeth, though he did remove them at night “to get some mouth comfort in his sleep” as he expressed it afterward.
Old Caleb had suddenly emerged from a chrysalis of small-town mediocrity into a gentleman of the world. He had left backwater and stroked out into strong, main current. He was a personage of parts.
But still more than his altered appearance was making Nathan stare. It was the tableau occurring near the door. Old Caleb had come face to face with Gracia Theddon. And Madelaine’s foster-mother was very near to fainting. She had one hand at her heart and the other was clutching the edge of a table behind her.
“Caleb!” she cried hoarsely.
“B’damn!” was all Caleb could articulate. Showing that in a flower-banked drawing-room amid bevies of ladies, there were still a few trifling irregularities in his culture that left room for improvement.
Nathan stepped forward.
“You know Mrs. Theddon, Mr. Gridley?”
Caleb beheld his altered protégé as in a daze. “It was an afternoon of daisies,” or dazes, as Edith expressed it afterward.
“You an’ me writ a poem about her once, didn’t we?” was the tanner’s perturbing demand before those wondering guests. “Know her?—Bub!—Bub!—To think it’s all ended here—Gracie Hemin’way!”
Mrs. Theddon fought for self-possession and won.
“Mr. Gridley and myself knew each other very intimately when we were in our twenties,” she announced.
The guests were arriving and crowding in and old Caleb had to give way. But he gripped Madelaine’s hand with a palm which had thrown hides for twenty years and could not exactly be described as “moonbeam.” He cried huskily:
“Ma’am—you got the finest boy in the world, b’damn if you haven’t! Only you got to see the unholy scrapes he can get into, to find it out. Same as me. We writ poetry, once, ma’am. B’damn if we didn’t write perty good poetry. I congratulate you, ma’am. This is a scrumpshus occasion—a dam’ fine one!”
Madelaine laughed merrily.
“You’re so good, Mr. Gridley. You’re going to be one of my dearest friends, because you’ve been Nathan’s. He’s told me all about you. He said you were the only real father he’d ever known.”
“Did he now? Well, just goes to show what excellent judgment he’s got! Haven’t had much time to do no letter-writin’ or send presents, but I guess it ain’t too late to pay my respects and show how I allus appreciated Nat’s readin’ me poetry. Take this here. I gotta go see a man!”
Caleb said this last suddenly and a bit wildly. He had no man to “see” but he did have to get away before he choked so tightly he could only gurgle. With his declaration, however, he pressed a bit of heavy, crinkled, folded paper into Madelaine’s palm.
Madelaine laughed again and thanked him and handed it to her husband. Nathan shoved it in the pocket of his waistcoat. The reception was well over before he thought to look at it.
It was old Caleb’s check, drawn on a Boston bank for ten thousand dollars.