VIII
The nuptials between Guy Perry and Miss Peggy Blake took place the following summer—midway in June, the month of brides. They were married in the little Episcopal church at Westfield, which since the advent of the colony and of millionnaires had thriven like the traditional bay tree, for most of the sporting element belonged, nominally at least, to that fashionable persuasion. Hence the rector, the Rev. Percy Ward, who had assumed this cure of souls with modest expectations regarding numbers and revenues, had been pleasantly astonished by the rapid increase in both. This had not made him proud, but appropriately ambitious. It had allowed him to keep the appearance and properties of the church up to the mark, æsthetically speaking, by vines, flowers and fresh paint, and at the proper moment it had encouraged him to ask for a new house of worship adapted to the needs of his growing congregation. Success had crowned his efforts. Plans were being drawn for an artistic and sufficiently spacious building to take the place of the rustic quarters in use. But the bride had expressed herself as devoutly thankful that she could be married in the original building, for she had pious associations with it, and its smaller proportions seemed to her more in keeping with a country wedding. For Peggy desired that the ceremony should be an out-of-door affair. She had even thought at first of being married under a bell of roses on her father's lawn. Yet, when it came to the point she adhered to a ceremony in church. She wished to be wedded to her true love as securely as possible, consequently she invoked for the purpose full religious rites at the altar, but her energies respecting the other features of the occasion were bent on the production of open-air effects. They were to be simple and rurally picturesque.
The guests of the happy pair endeavored to comply with the wishes of the bride consistently with regard for their own personal appearance. That is, the women came in light summer attire, but with frocks of fascinating shades, and straw hats of the latest dainty design with gay feathers. The little church was packed to the doors, and on the green fronting the vestibule stood those of the men for whom there was no room inside. The leading members of the hunt were in pink, at Peggy's suggestion; among them Andrew Cunningham with an immaculate stock and a new waistcoat of festal pattern. It was a radiant, rare June day; not a cloud was in the sky. The ceremony went off without a hitch save the momentary hesitation occasioned by the bridegroom's diving into the wrong pocket for the ring. All Peggy's family had expressed fears lest her veil should fall off in keeping with her tendencies, so it had been more than securely pinned to forestall such a calamity. She walked, on her father's arm, modestly yet firmly up the aisle as became a strenuous spirit; her responses were agreeably audible; and on her way down, though she obeyed the instructions given her to keep her eyes straight ahead—on the ball, as one of her friends had cautioned her—it was clear from her blissful, confident expression that she found difficulty in not nodding to her friends right and left by way of letting them know how happy she was. She was dressed as nearly like a village maiden as prevailing fashions in wedding garments would allow, and the simplicity of her garb set off her fine physique and hue of health, which not even the conventional pallor of brides was able wholly to dispel. Four bridesmaids tripped behind her, the picture of dainty shepherdesses.
On reaching the portal, however, Mrs. Peggy was unable to repress her exuberance; and, before jumping into the carriage which was to carry them to the breakfast at "Valley Farm," her father's residence, she grasped and shook ecstatically a half dozen of the nearest hands. Then as the vehicle containing the happy pair rolled away, while the bride threw a kiss to the group of friends at the door, the swell of a horn rose melodiously above other sounds, and along the meadow flanking one side of the foreground the pack of hounds belonging to the Westfield Hunt came into view headed by the Master, and every hound wore a wedding favor. This feature had been devised as a surprise to the couple and a tribute to their devotion to equestrian sport. Besides, it had a special touch of interest for the women in that everyone knew that Kenneth Post, the Master, would fain have been in the shoes of the fortunate bridegroom. Yet he played his part with so much dignity and spirit, as he led the way toward their destination, that the contagion of his demeanor spread to the entire retinue of guests which followed in their various equipages and the omnibuses or so-called "barges" provided, and the procession swept along on the wings of gayety.
In the midst of the confusion of getting away, the pole of pretty Mrs. Baxter's village cart was broken through collision with the champing steeds bearing the phaeton containing Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Wallace. Among the many proffers of succor the first and most acceptable emanated from Mrs. Walter Cole, who had obviously a spare seat in her neat oak station wagon. The fact was that Mrs. Cole's husband, having been detained in town by pressing business, had telephoned his wife at the last moment to go without him to the ceremony, and that he would follow by the next train. Consequently she had arrived only barely in time to get a seat, and that by dint of crowding the pew a little.
She had sat there as in a trance, unable to fasten her attention on the charming spectacle as fixedly as it deserved. Her mind kept wandering elsewhere; reverting to certain amazing news of which she had become possessed only the afternoon before, and which she had had no opportunity to impart to the many who would be thrilled by it. She was revelling in the thought of the sensation it would produce, and her own intelligence was agreeably busy with the clever novelty of the procedure and with trying to decide whether, in spite of the heartlessness displayed, the solution devised was not perhaps the best under the peculiar circumstances. She had felt that she should burst if she could not tell some kindred soul soon; but such an astounding piece of information was not to be wasted on people whose faculties were already fully occupied; it merited a single mind. Therefore the moment she became aware of Mrs. Baxter's mishap, she exclaimed with almost hysterical eagerness:
"Rachel, there's a seat for you here. Do come with me; I'm all alone."
When the invitation was accepted, Mrs. Cole pressed her hand and leaned back with a happy mien. There was no use in speaking until they were free from the concourse and were sweeping along the road toward "Valley Farm." That auspicious moment having arrived, she turned to her friend and said:
"Well, dear, the mystery is solved."