Of course, it was a sad feature of the case that we were not to be married at our own home. I suppose we might have been. In fact, mother told me as much, and I knew she had it straight from uncle. But I knew right well that it couldn't be a happy wedding there, with matters as they were; and, besides, it would have raked into fire the smouldering embers of that awful blaze that I have told about already. And the whole town would have been agog—not in the way, either, that every girl likes a town to be when she gets married. So it was arranged that our wedding was to take place quietly in Baltimore, at the house of a girl friend of mine whose marriage had taken her there to live. Gordon was to meet me there—though I really believe he would have preferred to beard the lions in their den—and mother was to go North and see me launched on this unknown sea.
The first time I was ever angry with Gordon was about six weeks before our wedding day. He wrote me a long letter, full of details about the humbleness of his position, and the slimness of his prospects—and the scarcity of his cash. He wanted to go ahead, of course, he said; but he thought it only fair to tell me, accustomed as I had been to a life of comparative luxury, of the great sacrifice I was making, and to give me a chance even yet, should I shrink from it, to etc., etc. I wrote him that very night and I told him I'd marry him if we had only the north side of a corn-cob to live on, which I inwardly thought was a pretty vigorous stroke and worthy of a nimbler pen than mine. Gordon always kept that letter, he told me long after, lest the corn crop should ever fail.
It was a lovely wedding, though there were only four people besides ourselves to see it. Gordon held my hand so tight in his; and what I felt the most, and gloried in, was this—that he was so much stronger than I. My gown looked beautiful, they all said; and I cried a little—two things that are necessary, it seems to me, to any really successful wedding. I remember how Gordon cautioned me to be careful about packing my lovely dress, because, he explained, he wanted his people to see me at my best. This struck me as rather odd, considering the class of people I was to live among—I fancied a linsey-woolsey would please them as well as anything else. And I wondered when I would ever get a chance to wear the beautiful creation. But I had no idea of the surprise that was in store for me.
Mother went home by train. My husband and I started on our way by boat. It was a sweet and delicate suggestion on Gordon's part that we should go southward again for a day or two, to begin our married life under the dear familiar skies I loved so well. Wherefore we set sail that evening, exactly at seven o'clock, on the Old Bay Line, our destination to be Old Point Comfort, which we would reach the following morning.
It is really a pathetic thought that the bridal joy comes only once into a maiden's life, so quickly past and gone. It leads, no doubt—or ought to lead—into a deeper peace and a more steadfast love; but it leads, too, away from the tranquil care-free days of youth, on in to the storm and stress of life's long battle. I remember yet, with a thrill that never seems to die, the rapture of that hour as we steamed slowly out from Baltimore. There were not many passengers—none that we had ever seen before. We were alone—together. And by and by we found a place on a deserted corner of the deck, our chairs close together, our hands sometimes passionately clasping as we looked out over the darkening bay and thought in silence of the waiting years through which we were to be parted never more. By and by the rising moon clothed the bay in a robe of glory; and thus, with love and light about us, as happy as though no storm could ever disturb our lifelong way, we started on the long, long journey we were to take together.
"I've got some news for you, dear," Gordon suddenly startled me by saying.
"Do tell me quick, Gordon," said I. Only Gordon wasn't the name I used.
"Try and guess."
I thought a moment. "They've papered that old house," I said, "without waiting till I came," for Gordon had told me that the natives of his country parish had designs on the old stone manse against my arrival.
"Oh, no," he said, laughing. "No, it's good news—at least, I hope it may turn out to be."