“You will not cry when you get to church, and you will not cry when we go away, will you? Remember that in Harry you are gaining a son, not losing a daughter.”
“No,” said Regina, “no, I shall not disgrace you. At the same time, Maudie, my love, if I am not losing a daughter I am losing my little girl.”
“Not a bit of it, mother,” said Julia, chiming in to support her sister and resolutely keeping her thoughts turned from the fact that on the morrow half her life would be torn away; “you mustn’t think that, dearest. You know the old saying, ‘my son is my son till he gets him a wife, but my daughter’s my daughter all the days of my life.’”
“Then I hope,” said Regina, solemnly, to the bride-elect, “that you will never make that poor little woman across the road feel that her son is her son till he gets him a wife. But rest assured of one thing, Maudie darling, your mother will not disgrace you on your wedding day. I was at a wedding a few years ago when the bride’s mother howled persistently all through the ceremony and till the bride departed on her honeymoon. They had not been on such terms as we have always been—in fact, if Constance Colquhoun had not fortunately found a husband, it is very certain that Mrs. Colquhoun and she would have parted company rather than have gone on living together in a continual state of wrangling. I have no regrets for the past and very few fears for the future. You will have your ups and downs, my darling, as your mother has had before you and as your children will have after you. You must look for them in this vale of tears, but anticipation of them on a joyful occasion is foolish even to criminality.”
Probably no sweeter bride had ever passed up the aisle of the fantastic little church which was alike the spiritual and material centre of Northampton Park. It was not that Maudie Whittaker was a very pretty girl—no one but her mother had ever given a second thought to personal beauty as one of her attributes—but she was soft and round and fair, with radiant eyes and a winning smile. Her bridal gown was simple and girlish, and her veil of plain tulle enveloped her like a cloud of innocence. Her only jewel was the diamond heart which her bridegroom had given her for his wedding-day present. Her bouquet was a real ornament, a loosely-arranged posy of flowers tied with broad white ribbon—not the usual over-weighted bundle of blossoms showering from the hand to the ground, conveying the idea that if the bride was sufficiently unlucky to tread upon the mass of trails, the result would be the complete downfall of bride and bouquet alike. The bridesmaids were quite reasonably attired. Maudie had been inflexible on that point. “My dear Ju,” she had said to her sister when the question was first mooted, “the bride ought to choose the bridesmaids’ dresses. I have seen bridesmaids in Charles II. dresses, in Tudor dresses, in Directoire costumes, and such close copies of Boughton’s Dutch maidens, that one felt they only wanted sabots to be entirely correct. I have seen bridesmaids with their gathers under their arms, and with pouches down to their knees. I am going to have none of these monstrosities. You and I are ordinary-looking girls, but, between ourselves, we are dreams of style compared with Rachel and Emmeline Marksby.”
“Harry seems to have monopolized all the style in the Marksby family,” said Julia, with a judicial air.
“Oh, Harry has style enough,” rejoined Maudie, with not a little pride in her tones.
“Yes, you are quite right, Rachel and Emmeline are two dear little girls, but they are dumpy and snub-nosed, and would look ridiculous in any sort of fancy dress. You could hardly find a greater contrast than the Ponsonby-Piggots.”
“Oh, my dear, where could you find a greater contrast than the Ponsonby-Piggots themselves? One girl as tall as a lamp post, has straight features, and is definite and rather commanding; and the other is a little slip of a thing, with curly red hair, misty blue eyes, and an air of fragility which completely deceives the ordinary observer. So no monstrosities and eccentricities of bridesmaids’ dresses for me. I should like white crêpe de chine frocks over turquoise blue petticoats, belts of some handsome embroidery with clasps studded with big blue stones that will look like turquoise, and big black hats with a touch of blue under the brim; Harry is going to give them blue enamel watches. There, I think that is as smart an idea for bridesmaids’ dresses as we need trouble about.”
So it was decided, and the eight bridesmaids who followed Maudie Whittaker to the altar were all dressed alike, as I have just described. On her left breast each wore the enamel watch given by the bridegroom, while the bride’s gifts to her bridesmaids were the embroidered belts studded with blue stones.