“Perhaps if there had been a wedding at Ripple in bygone years, instead of the runaway match your mother had to make, things would have been happier all round. But don’t you worry, Miss Walsh, we will all stand by you through thick and thin, though I am thinking you don’t need much outside championing when the Doctor’s son is knocking round, for he is a oner for making things hum!”
Nathan had had his joke, and he appreciated it so immensely that at the sight of the crimson he had called into the cheeks of Pam he burst into another guffaw that ended in a choking fit, and Ripple was reached before he had properly recovered.
“Will you come in and have some dinner?” asked Pam out of politeness, though she did not really want him. But he had driven her home and it was getting late, so she felt she must ask him.
“No, thank you, and you don’t want no company either. Just you get indoors and fix up about the wedding before anyone else chips in. And when you ask me and Galena, you ask her to bring food, and you ask me for the loan of our Mam’s best chinay, and the table-cloths that Aunt Selina gave us.”
“Oh, suppose the china got broken!” cried Pam, as Nathan swung her to the ground.
“A good thing if it did. Then we would buy a common sort that was not too good to use. I don’t hold with things that you can’t use, so you can smash the lot so far as I am concerned.” Nathan waved his hand in an airy flourish as he clambered back into the wagon, and then he drove off along the trail he had come by, while Pam went into the house with mingled feelings, for she rather doubted her ability to organize a proper wedding for Sophy, and yet she owed her friend so much that she would gladly do anything towards paying part of it back.
Jack was in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and told Pam that Sophy had gone upstairs to lie down, saying that she did not want anything.
“Did Nathan tell you that two of the kids have scarlatina, and so Sophy can’t be married at home?” he asked. “She is frightfully down about it. George being away for the week-end makes it all the worse for her, because she hasn’t him here to say comforting things to her.”
“I am going to say comforting things to her!” announced Pam, with her head in the air, although her heart was beating fast with excitement. “We are going to have the wedding here, Jack, and we must make the biggest splash possible, just to show Sophy how really we appreciate what she has done for me. Oh, I know we can’t afford it, but Nathan has told me how it can be done with but little expense, and for Sophy’s dear sake I am going to put my pride in my pocket, and ask my neighbours to lend me all the things we have not got. If you come to think of it, that is a tremendously long list, for we really have nothing except house-room, and it seems a mad venture, but we have got to do it somehow. Go on getting dinner ready, and be sure to lay a place for Sophy, for I am certain I can coax her into coming down.”
“You can mostly get people to do as you wish!” said Jack, and he began to stir round at a lively rate, while Pam went up the stairs two steps at a time, and burst into the bedroom where Sophy was lying face downwards on the bed with despair in every line of her body.