CHAPTER XVIII
A WAR WEDDING
Talk about a clap of thunder out of a clear sky—that's nothing to the surprise Babe gave us the very next night. About nine o'clock she called me by telephone to say:
"Listen, Georgina. Is Richard still there? Is it too late for you to come down for a few minutes? Watson and I are to be married tomorrow afternoon. We've just decided. Everything's in a dreadful tangle. We want you to help straighten us out."
I was so surprised I could hardly speak. Tippy thought someone must be dead from the horrified way I gasped out, "Oh, you don't mean it!" The suddenness of it did horrify me in a way. It seems so dreadful to be snatched through the most beautiful and sacred occasion of one's life so fast that there's no chance to do any of the time-honored things that make it beautiful and impressive. For all Babe seems so matter of fact she's full of sentiment, and has always looked forward to doing those romantic things that brides do, such as filling a "hope chest" with
Stitches set in long white seams
To the silent music of tender dreams.
Hurrying up a wedding in one day in such a combination family as the Nolan-Dorseys would be like scrambling eggs. Of course, we went right down.
We had had an awfully nice day together, exploring the town to see how much it had changed, and calling on Uncle Darcy and dropping into the studios where we have been welcomed on Mr. Moreland's account since the first summer he joined the Artist's colony. We'd been in every store on Commercial street to speak to the clerks, and out to the end of Railroad Wharf to see how many of our old fishermen friends we could find. Down on the beach an art class pitched their easels and went on painting their favorite model, a Portuguese girl under a green parasol, quite as usual, and we sat on the sand in the shadow of a boathouse and watched them lazily, as if there weren't any Huns and their horrors in the universe.
It had been a peaceful day up to the time we reached Babe's house. The tangle she spoke of was the usual kind in her family. Her stepfather, Mr. Dorsey, is a traveling man. He couldn't get home in time to give her away, and Babe's mother thought they ought to wait for him. It wasn't showing him proper respect not to; besides Jim wasn't old enough to do it. Jim didn't want to do it, but he objected to being thought too young, and Watson couldn't wait because he'd received his orders. That's why they were hurrying things up.