The bridegroom arrived. Yes, he was certainly good-looking in his new suit from “down East.” Dressed as he was he did not belong to Barnriff. He looked what he had been brought up, of an altogether different class to the folks gathered in the room.
One or two of the matrons shook their heads. They did not altogether approve of him. He was well enough known for a certain unsteadiness; then, too, there was a boyishness about his look, an irresponsibility which was not general among the hard features of the men they knew. Most of these thought that Eve was rather throwing herself away. They all believed that she would have done far better to have chosen Jim Thorpe.
Then came the bride, and necks craned and skirts rustled, and audible whisperings were in the air. Annie Gay, following behind, heard and saw, and a thrill of delight brought tears to her sympathetic eyes. She knew how pretty Eve was. Had she not dressed her? Had she not feasted her eyes on her all the morning? Had she not been a prey to a good honest feminine envy?
And Eve’s dress was almost as pretty as herself. There were just a few touches of a delicate pink on the white lawn to match her own warmth of coloring. Her gentle eyes were lowered modestly as she walked through the crowd, but if their pretty brown was hidden from the 128 public gaze her wealth of rich, warm hair was not, and Eve’s hair was the delight and envy of every woman in Barnriff. Yes, they were all very, very pleased with her, particularly as she, being a dressmaker with all sorts of possibilities in the way of a wedding-dress within her reach, had elected to wear a dress which any one of them could have afforded, any one of them had possibly worn in her time.
The ceremony proceeded with due solemnity. The minister was all sympathetic unction, and was further a perfect model of dignified patience when Peter Blunt finally scrambled the ring into the bridegroom’s hand several lines later than was his “cue,” but in time to save himself from utter disgrace. And the end came emotionally, as was only to be expected in such a community. Kate Crombie, being leader of the village society, started it. She promptly laid her head on Jake Wilkes’ shoulder and sniveled. Nor was it until he turned his head and fumbled out awkward words of consolation to her, that the reek of stale rye warned her of her mistake, and she promptly came to and looked for her husband to finish it out on.
Annie Gay wept happy tears, and laughed and cried joyously. Jane Restless borrowed her man’s bandana and blew her nose like a steam siren, declaring that the heat always gave her catarrh. Carrie Horsley guessed she’d never seen so pretty a bride so elegantly dressed, and wept down the front of Eve’s spotless lawn the moment she got near enough. Mrs. Rust sniffed audibly, and hoped she would be happy, but warned her strongly against the tribulations of an ever-increasing family, and finally flopped heavily into a chair calling loudly for brandy.
It was, in Doc Crombie’s words, “the old hens who got emotions.” It was only the younger women, the spinsters, who laughed and flirted with the men, giggling hysterically at the sallies ever dear at a matrimonial function which flew from lip to lip. But then, as Pretty Wilkes told her particular crony Mrs. Rust later on at the sociable––
“It was the same with us, my dear,” she said feelingly. “Speaking personal, before I was married, I’d got the notion, foolish-like, that every man had kind o’ got loose out of heaven, an’ we women orter set up a gilded cage around ’em, an’ feed ’em cookies, an’ any other elegant fancy truck we could get our idiot hands on. They was a sort of idol to be bowed an’ scraped to. They was the rulers of our destiny, the lords of the earth. But now I’m of the opinion that the best man among ’em couldn’t run a low down hog ranch without disgracin’ hisself.”
It was not till after the ceremony was over, and before the “sociable,” which was to precede the bride and bridegroom’s departure for Will’s shack up in the hills, where she was to spend a fortnight’s honeymoon before returning to Barnriff to take up again the work of her dressmaking business, that Peter Blunt had time to think of other things. He was not required in the ordering of the “sociable.” The women would look to that.