“You up. You oughtn’t to be. I’m going to get your breakfast. You mustn’t dress yourself....”
“Rot! You hurry up, old silly, breakfast’s nearly ready.”
She ran upstairs tootling her trumpet. “Hurry up,” she said, from the top of the stairs, with a friendly grin.
Miriam shouted convivially and retired into her crowded sunlit bathroom, turning on both bath taps so that she might sing aloud. Harriett had made the day strong ... silver bright and clean and clear. Harriett was like a clear blade. She splashed into the cold water gasping and singing. Two o’clock—ages yet before the weddings. There was a smell of bacon frying. They would all have breakfast together. She could smile at Harriett. They had grown up together and could admit it, because Harriett was going away. But not for ages. She flew through her toilet; the little garden was blazing. It was a fine hot day.
15
Bennett and Gerald had turned strained pale faces to meet the brides as they came up the aisle. Now, Bennett’s broad white forehead seemed to give out a radiance. It had been fearful to stand behind Harriett through the service listening to the bland hollow voice of the vicar and the four unfamiliar low voices responding, and taking the long glove smooth and warm from Harriett’s hand, her rustling heavy-scented bouquet. At the sight of Bennett’s grave radiant face the fear deepened and changed. Marriage was a reality ... fearful, searching reality; it changed people’s expressions. Hard behind came Gerald and Harriett; Gerald’s long face still pale, his loosely knit figure carried along by her tense little frame as she walked, a little firm straight figure of satin, her veil thrown back from her little snub face, her face held firmly; steady and old with its solid babyish curves and its brave stricken eyes: old and stricken; that was how Sarah had looked too. No radiance on the faces of Sarah and Harriett.
The Wedding March was pealing out from the chancel, a great tide of sound blaring down through the church and echoing back from the west window, near the door where they would all go out, in a moment, out into the world. On they went; how swift it all was.... Sarah and Harriett, rescued from poverty and fear ... mother’s wedding on a May morning long ago ... in the little village church ... to walk out of church into the open country; in the morning; a bride. There were no brides in London.
Now to fall in behind Eve and Mr. Tremayne. Mr. Grove walked clumsily. His arm brushed against the shower bouquet.
The upturned faces of the pink carnations were fresh and sweet; for nothing. To-morrow they would be dead. Harriett’s bouquet, dead too ... a wonderful dead bouquet that meant life. “Where are you, my friend, my own friend?”