For a moment n.o.body moved. Then Mollie Bell stood up in the choir seat, and, down by the stove, Eben, his flushed, boyish face held high, rose st.u.r.dily to his feet in the midst of his companions.
"Thank G.o.d," whispered Mary Bell.
"Amen," said her husband huskily.
"Let us pray," said Mr. Bentley.
XIV. ONLY A COMMON FELLOW
On my dearie"s wedding morning I wakened early and went to her room. Long and long ago she had made me promise that I would be the one to wake her on the morning of her wedding day.
"You were the first to take me in your arms when I came into the world, Aunt Rachel," she had said, "and I want you to be the first to greet me on that wonderful day."
But that was long ago, and now my heart foreboded that there would be no need of wakening her. And there was not. She was lying there awake, very quiet, with her hand under her cheek, and her big blue eyes fixed on the window, through which a pale, dull light was creeping in--a joyless light it was, and enough to make a body shiver. I felt more like weeping than rejoicing, and my heart took to aching when I saw her there so white and patient, more like a girl who was waiting for a winding-sheet than for a bridal veil. But she smiled brave-like, when I sat down on her bed and took her hand.
"You look as if you haven"t slept all night, dearie," I said.
"I didn"t--not a great deal," she answered me. "But the night didn"t seem long; no, it seemed too short. I was thinking of a great many things. What time is it, Aunt Rachel?"
"Five o"clock."
"Then in six hours more--"
She suddenly sat up in her bed, her great, thick rope of brown hair falling over her white shoulders, and flung her arms about me, and burst into tears on my old breast. I petted and soothed her, and said not a word; and, after a while, she stopped crying; but she still sat with her head so that I couldn"t see her face.
"We didn"t think it would be like this once, did we, Aunt Rachel?" she said, very softly.
"It shouldn"t be like this, now," I said. I had to say it. I never could hide the thought of that marriage, and I couldn"t pretend to. It was all her stepmother"s doings--right well I knew that. My dearie would never have taken Mark Foster else.
"Don"t let us talk of that," she said, soft and beseeching, just the same way she used to speak when she was a baby-child and wanted to coax me into something. "Let us talk about the old days--and HIM."
"I don"t see much use in talking of HIM, when you"re going to marry Mark Foster to-day," I said.
But she put her hand on my mouth.
"It"s for the last time, Aunt Rachel. After to-day I can never talk of him, or even think of him. It"s four years since he went away. Do you remember how he looked, Aunt Rachel?"
"I mind well enough, I reckon," I said, kind of curt-like. And I did. Owen Blair hadn"t a face a body could forget--that long face of his with its clean color and its eyes made to look love into a woman"s. When I thought of Mark Foster"s sallow skin and lank jaws I felt sick-like. Not that Mark was ugly--he was just a common-looking fellow.
"He was so handsome, wasn"t he, Aunt Rachel?" my dearie went on, in that patient voice of hers. "So tall and strong and handsome.
I wish we hadn"t parted in anger. It was so foolish of us to quarrel. But it would have been all right if he had lived to come back. I know it would have been all right. I know he didn"t carry any bitterness against me to his death. I thought once, Aunt Rachel, that I would go through life true to him, and then, over on the other side, I"d meet him just as before, all his and his only. But it isn"t to be."
"Thanks to your stepma"s wheedling and Mark Foster"s scheming,"
said I.
"No, Mark didn"t scheme," she said patiently. "Don"t be unjust to Mark, Aunt Rachel. He has been very good and kind."
"He"s as stupid as an owlet and as stubborn as Solomon"s mule," I said, for I WOULD say it. "He"s just a common fellow, and yet he thinks he"s good enough for my beauty."
"Don"t talk about Mark," she pleaded again. "I mean to be a good, faithful wife to him. But I"m my own woman yet--YET--for just a few more sweet hours, and I want to give them to HIM. The last hours of my maidenhood--they must belong to HIM."
So she talked of him, me sitting there and holding her, with her lovely hair hanging down over my arm, and my heart aching so for her that it hurt bitter. She didn"t feel as bad as I did, because she"d made up her mind what to do and was resigned. She was going to marry Mark Foster, but her heart was in France, in that grave n.o.body knew of, where the Huns had buried Owen Blair--if they had buried him at all. And she went over all they had been to each other, since they were mites of babies, going to school together and meaning, even then, to be married when they grew up; and the first words of love he"d said to her, and what she"d dreamed and hoped for. The only thing she didn"t bring up was the time he thrashed Mark Foster for bringing her apples.
She never mentioned Mark"s name; it was all Owen--Owen--and how he looked, and what might have been, if he hadn"t gone off to the awful war and got shot. And there was me, holding her and listening to it all, and her stepma sleeping sound and triumphant in the next room.
When she had talked it all out she lay down on her pillow again.
I got up and went downstairs to light the fire. I felt terrible old and tired. My feet seemed to drag, and the tears kept coming to my eyes, though I tried to keep them away, for well I knew it was a bad omen to be weeping on a wedding day.
Before long Isabella Clark came down; bright and pleased-looking enough, SHE was. I"d never liked Isabella, from the day Phillippa"s father brought her here; and I liked her less than ever this morning. She was one of your sly, deep women, always smiling smooth, and scheming underneath it. I"ll say it for her, though, she had been good to Phillippa; but it was her doings that my dearie was to marry Mark Foster that day.
"Up betimes, Rachel," she said, smiling and speaking me fair, as she always did, and hating me in her heart, as I well knew.
"That is right, for we"ll have plenty to do to-day. A wedding makes lots of work."
"Not this sort of a wedding," I said, sour-like. "I don"t call it a wedding when two people get married and sneak off as if they were ashamed of it--as well they might be in this case."
"It was Phillippa"s own wish that all should be very quiet," said Isabella, as smooth as cream. "You know I"d have given her a big wedding, if she"d wanted it."
"Oh, it"s better quiet," I said. "The fewer to see Phillippa marry a man like Mark Foster the better."
"Mark Foster is a good man, Rachel."
"No good man would be content to buy a girl as he"s bought Phillippa," I said, determined to give it in to her. "He"s a common fellow, not fit for my dearie to wipe her feet on. It"s well that her mother didn"t live to see this day; but this day would never have come, if she"d lived."
"I dare say Phillippa"s mother would have remembered that Mark Foster is very well off, quite as readily as worse people," said Isabella, a little spitefully.
I liked her better when she was spiteful than when she was smooth. I didn"t feel so scared of her then.
The marriage was to be at eleven o"clock, and, at nine, I went up to help Phillippa dress. She was no fussy bride, caring much what she looked like. If Owen had been the bridegroom it would have been different. Nothing would have pleased her then; but now it was only just "That will do very well, Aunt Rachel,"
without even glancing at it.
Still, nothing could prevent her from looking lovely when she was dressed. My dearie would have been a beauty in a beggarmaid"s rags. In her white dress and veil she was as fair as a queen.
And she was as good as she was pretty. It was the right sort of goodness, too, with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness.
Then she sent me out.
"I want to be alone my last hour," she said. "Kiss me, Aunt Rachel--MOTHER Rachel."
When I"d gone down, crying like the old fool I was, I heard a rap at the door. My first thought was to go out and send Isabella to it, for I supposed it was Mark Foster, come ahead of time, and small stomach I had for seeing him. I fall trembling, even yet, when I think, "What if I had sent Isabella to that door?"
But go I did, and opened it, defiant-like, kind of hoping it was Mark Foster to see the tears on my face. I opened it--and staggered back like I"d got a blow.
"Owen! Lord ha" mercy on us! Owen!" I said, just like that, going cold all over, for it"s the truth that I thought it was his spirit come back to forbid that unholy marriage.
But he sprang right in, and caught my wrinkled old hands in a grasp that was of flesh and blood.
"Aunt Rachel, I"m not too late?" he said, savage-like. "Tell me I"m in time."
I looked up at him, standing over me there, tall and handsome, no change in him except he was so brown and had a little white scar on his forehead; and, though I couldn"t understand at all, being all bewildered-like, I felt a great deep thankfulness.