Ethel Bumpschus is rushing preparations for her wedding to the Duke of Nocastle, and vastly amusing we find it. The upper floors of the Bumpschus house, Pearl Veal tells me, look as though some large business enterprise were being carried on, as there is a constant coming and going of milliners, dress-makers, and tailors, hurrying the costumes for the great show; and above it all sounds the ceaseless click of Tumbleton Tumm's type-writer. Poor Tumm! He regularly writes scandal for Town Twaddle and has a hard time to keep that fact a secret, retain his membership in one club, look respectable and make both ends meet; so that when Mrs. Bumpschus called him in to help them it was a great boon. They should give him a fat retainer for his press-agent work, for I must say he is doing it well, as the papers daily chronicle every act of the Duke and his fiancée. He realizes how eagerly the public devours this kind of reading-matter, and his type-writer goes all day as he prepares the feast. Interest has been aroused to a high pitch. Were it not for Tumm's pride, he would do well on the Rialto, for in some of his work he has evinced signs of positive genius. I remember when Ethel's cousin married Nothingham a furor was created by the illustrated-page articles describing her entire trousseau. We have progressed wonderfully since then, for Tumm is making that a serial story and got five columns on hosiery alone in every Sunday paper in town. This is but one of many masterly strokes.
I must say that to me there is something pathetic in the picture of this bearer of a fine old New York name, reduced to a task that cannot but be distasteful to him, for though he may have a saving gleam of humor, he cannot but feel that in every way he is the better of his employers. But it is his father's fault. Hegerton Tumm was one of those gentlemen of the old school, a Patriarch with a house in Washington Square and all that. He never worked. He looked down on Grandfather Bumpschus, who was busy wrecking railroads and piling up other people's money. He died and left his children to social charity. I remember before I took to golf and tennis, that somewhere in the church service there was a reference to dust returning to dust. How keen those old Bible fellows were! It seems as though they must have foreseen the first Tumm crawling on his knees among the cabbages of his patch in Union Square; must have foreseen real estate rise and carry with it to power half a hundred Tumms; and, last, poor Tumbleton on his knees again, a mere retainer in the railroad house of Bumpschus.
Pearl said to-day that Tumm was the Bumpschus jester. I protested, but it was just one of those little cuts which make a woman all the more lovely to those for whom she has only balm. I think of him, I told her, as the minstrel of the house, at his type-writer all day long, singing of its glories, of the riches of the master and the beauty of the daughter, of the greatness of her lover and of their love—for under a hundred flaring black heads the world has been told that this is a love-match. A safety match, said Pearl, blowing a smoke ring solemnly—she was evidently thinking of his Grace's debts. Singing, I went on, for I always ignore these little jibes of hers, singing and carolling of the vastness of the trousseau and the value of the presents, of the smartness of the bridesmaids and the colors of their dresses; singing of the ushers, of their waistcoats, their spats, their gloves, and boutonnières; of the music at the wedding, of the breakfast later, with its menu and its wines. Fortunate the world that every word that Tumm, the minstrel, sings is caught upon the manifold, seized by the educating press, illuminated with pen-sketch and photograph, and sent forth to be read by the millions in the outer darkness! Fortunate, indeed, said Pearl, for she always agrees with me in the end.
Sometimes I suspect that because she can always agree with me, she declined the proffered heart and hand of his Grace, and now is perfectly contented with the humbler rôle of maid of honor at the great wedding of the season. I must confess that I was surprised that Ethel Bumpschus asked Pearl to accompany her to the altar, but then the reason was very evident when I saw the list of the wedding-party. Ethel is going in for beauty. No expense is being spared on flowers and music, and she must have been conscious of the discord created in the first bars of many a grand sweet song by a procession of exquisitely gowned ancients moving slowly down the aisle at the heels of a lovely bride. Now Ethel is not beautiful, but she will have the advantage of a veil.
Who first blessed womankind with that artful covering? This question I put to Pearl, and, of course, she did not know, but when I said that she must wear a picture-hat at her own wedding, she smiled. She thought this some subtle flattery, though I spoke in all sincerity, having seen her that very day gowned as she will be when she follows the Duchess of Nocastle down the aisle. Ethel Bumpschus is wise. She is putting her close friends in good seats with the family while she will lead up the aisle five of the fairest of the town. Angelica Clime and Gladys Tumbleton, Clarissa Mudison and Emily Lumpley, Hebes every one, with Pearl Veal still more glorious, will turn all eyes from the tiny Duke and his towering bride. I should like to stand in a pew and watch them myself as they move down the flowery pathway, for I am still simple enough to find more charm in a lovely face than in a lovely voice or a pedigree. But I shall have to follow them, to be of the unfortunate four who risk everything to gain nothing, who win undying hatred by putting aunts with the old family servants, husbands next former wives, and mere business friends where the cousins ought to be; that bring on themselves the ridicule of the society-writers who hover on the outskirts of the charmed circle and scoff at us because we wear pink waistcoats and white spats.
No, I do not suppose that I shall wear a pink waistcoat and white spats at my own wedding. Heaven knows I would rather choose tennis flannels, but I must follow orders for the Bumpschus nuptials, and we will do things for a duke that we would do for no other man, particularly when we contemplate spending a season in London. I do not think his Grace has any ideas even on clothes, but attribute the pink waistcoats to Ethel, and the white spats to her brother Williegilt. She wants pink waistcoats to harmonize with the bridesmaids' gowns, and Williegilt's hobby is spats. You can see him any day on the avenue displaying his feet in a new shade. Pearl says that it distracts attention from his head, but I protest against such an uncharitable view, for I must say he has been extremely square to me. The Duke, of course, cabled for his brother, Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit, to sail for this side at once, as he is to be best man, which seems to be almost like taking part in his own funeral, he being the heir to the dukedom. As the Captain cannot get here until the day before the wedding, Williegilt is arranging for the ushers, and while Ethel is going in for beauty, he is choosing for size, to make some sort of a showing against the soldier, who is six feet four. I think Williegilt with Stuyve Mint, Tommy Clime and myself will average around six feet two, and, as I told Pearl, when we get fixed up in our uniform we should make a rather imposing showing, so I find myself looking forward to the occasion with considerable interest. It will be a real adventure, no doubt, and I am training for it—have even taken to spats, which I abhor, and have accustomed myself to walking without looking at my feet, though I am a little afraid white will rather discompose me.
Pearl declines to be excited at all, but she is an unusually quiet soul, and says she is not going to rush herself into a decline simply because Ethel Bumpschus, a mere acquaintance, is to marry a nobleman that she could have had herself if she would have spent the money. She will go to the church and walk down the aisle and back, looking as well as she can, fight her way through the mob outside, drive to the house, sip the health of the happy pair, and go home to oblivion. Of course I am the oblivion. She must have some lingering regret for the Duke, and I cannot blame her for it. She says frankly that she would give anything to be the Dowager Duchess of Nocastle, but that title is not purchasable, so she is perfectly satisfied with her real-estate agent. Pearl has a way of saying things like that when we are walking on Madison Avenue, but even there a few people are always about, which makes it rather aggravating. And we walk on Madison Avenue a great deal now, and she seems to delight in such maddening remarks, but when we are home in the quiet of the library, when Mrs. Radigan has made the tea and become absorbed in picture-papers, when she is in her deep chair and I in mine, close by, I try again to draw them from her, but she just smiles—blows a ring of smoke, and smiles inscrutably as she watches it float away.