The Captain—that once roving eagle-heart subdued by love for the maid of Colonsay—so persistently discouraged any yachting trips which took the Wave for more than a night or two from her moorings, that Lady Anne and her husband, knowing the heart themselves, recommended immediate marriage; and Miss Bell, in consequence, was scouring the countryside for Kate’s successor in the kitchen, but hopeless of coming on one who could cook good kail, have a cheery face, and be a strict communicant. “I can get fine cooks that are wanting in the grace of God, and pious girls who couldn’t be trusted to bake a Christian scone,” she said; “it’s a choice between two evils.”
“Of two evils choose the third, then,” said Dan to his sister, flushed and exhilarated by a search that, for elderly maiden ladies, makes up for an older hunt. “The sport’s agreeing with you.”
It was a great distress to Bud that the wedding should take place in the house and not in church, as seemed most fitting. She felt a private ceremony deprived her of a spectacle, with Miss Amelia Duff playing the wedding march on the harmonium, and the audience filing up the aisle in their Sunday clothes, the carriage of their hats revealing character.
“Why, you’re simply going to make it look like a plain tea!” she protested. “If it was my marriage, Kate, I’d have it as solemn and grand as Harvest Sunday. A body doesn’t get married to a man in brass buttons every other day, and it’s a chance for style.”
“We never have our weddings in the church,” said Kate. “Sometimes the gentry do, but it’s not considered nice; it’s kind of Roman Catholic. Forbye, in a church, where would you get the fun?”
If Bud hadn’t realised that fun was the main thing at Scottish weddings, she got hints of it in Kate’s preparation. Croodles and hysterics took possession of the bride: she was sure she would never get through the ceremony with her life, or she would certainly do something silly that would make the whole world laugh at her and dreadfully vex the Captain. Even her wedding-dress, whose prospect had filled her dreams with gladness, but deepened her depression when it came from the manteau-makers: she wept sad stains on the front width, and the orange-blossom they rehearsed with might have been a wreath of the bitter rue. Bud wanted her to try the dress on, but the bride was aghast at such an unlucky proposition; so she tried it on herself, with sweet results, if one did not look at the gathers in the back. They practised the ceremony the night before, Kate’s sister from Colonsay (who was to be her bridesmaid) playing the part of a tall, brass-buttoned bridegroom.
“Oh, Kate!” cried Bud pitifully, “you stand there like’s you were a soda-water bottle and the cork lost. My goodness! brisk up a bit. If it’s hard on you, just remember it isn’t much of a joke for Charles. Don’t you know the eyes a the public are on you?”
“That’s just it,” said poor Kate. “I wouldn’t be frightened a bit if it wasn’t for that, for I’m so brave. What do you do with your hands?”
“You just keep hold of them. Mercy! don’t let them hang like that,—they’re yours; up till now he’s got nothing to do with them. Now for the tears—where’s your handkerchief? That one’s yards too big, and there isn’t an edge of lace to peek through, but it’ll do this time. It’ll all be right on the night. Now the minister’s speaking, and you’re looking down at the carpet and you’re timid and fluttered and nervous and thinking what an epoch this is in your sinful life, and how you won’t be Kate MacNeill any more but Mrs Charles Maclean, and the Lord knows if you will be happy with him—”
The bride blubbered and threw her apron over her head as usual: Bud was in despair.