“I’m sorry, Miss,” the coachman said on his return. “Mrs. Hill said to give you this.”
In his hand lay a returned invitation torn vigorously once across.
I blushed but said nothing. In my mind, I resolved that the day would come when Denver society would not be able to insult me like that. After we were married, had traveled in Europe, and were settled in the grand house that Tabor would buy me, they would feel differently. Just let Mrs. Hill who had lived so close to me in Blackhawk wait and see! Maybe her coachman did hire my friend, Link Allebaugh, to drive a wagon filled with her household goods when she moved to Denver and maybe she had seen me with Jake in Sandelowsky-Pelton, but times were different now!
At nine o’clock in the evening of March first, the wedding party assembled in one of the larger of the Willard’s parlors. I was gowned in a marabou-trimmed, heavily brocaded white satin dress with real lace lingerie, an outfit that cost $7,000. I had hoped to wear Tabor’s wedding present to me, a $75,000 diamond necklace which he was having made in New York. It had been sold to him as an authentic part of the jewels Queen Isabella had pawned to outfit Columbus for his voyage to America. My dress was made very decollete so as to show off the necklace to the best advantage, but it was not completed in time, so I omitted jewelry. I wore long white gloves and carried a bouquet of white roses.
My family was in black since they were in mourning because of the recent death of my older brother, James. Mama’s and the girls’ black silks were relieved, however, by ornaments of diamond and onyx which Tabor had given them. Tabor appeared with Bill Bush and Tom Bowen.
We stood in front of a table richly draped in cardinal-red cloth. It held a candelabra with ten lighted tapers that shed a subdued and religious light over the assemblage. All the men had come, including President Arthur, but none of their wives. I was hurt and disappointed at this turn of events but I didn’t let it spoil the sweetness of my smile nor the graciousness of my behavior to any of them.
The ceremony, an abbreviated nuptial mass, was performed by the Reverend P. L. Chapelle of St. Matthew’s. When it was over, Tabor kissed me and then President Arthur stepped up to offer his congratulations.
“I have never seen a more beautiful bride,” he exclaimed, shaking my hand. “May I not beg a rose from your bouquet?”
Flattered and pleased, I broke off a blossom to fasten in the lapel of his coat while Mama beamed with pleasure. All of my family pushed up next. We kissed and embraced, excited and thrilled. It hardly seemed possible that here we McCourts, all the way from Oshkosh, were about to sit down to supper with the great ones of the nation!
After the rest had congratulated us both, folding doors were opened by the servants and we moved into the next chamber to the supper table. The centerpiece was six feet high. A great basin of blossoms held a massive wedding bell of white roses, surmounted by a heart of red roses and pierced by an arrow of violets, shot from a Cupid’s bow of heliotrope. At either end of the long table extending the whole length of the parlor, was a colossal four-leaf clover formed of red roses, white camelias and blue violets, garlanded with smilax.