I"m the last of the line."
"That will all be taken care of as the rest has been. There isn"t half as much left for us to manage as we think," said Desire, putting back into the desk the copy of Uncle t.i.tus"s will which they had been reading over together. "He knew the executorship into which he gave it."
Shall I stop here with them until the Easter tide, and finish telling you how it all was?
There is a little bit about Bel Bree and Kate Sencerbox and the Schermans, which belongs somewhat earlier than that,--in those few pleasant days when March was beguiling us to believe in the more engaging of his double moods, and in the possibility of his behaving sweetly at the end, and going out after all like a lamb.
We can turn back afterwards for that. I think you would like to hear about the wedding.
Does it never occur to you that this "going back and living up" in a story-book is a sign of a possibility that may be laid by in the divine story-telling, for the things we have to hurry away from, and miss of, now? It does to me. I know that _That_ can manage at least as well as mine can.
Christopher Kirkbright and Desire Ledwith were married in the library, where they had betrothed themselves; where Desire had felt all the sacredness of her life laid upon her; where she took up now another trust, that was only an outgrowth and expansion of the first, and for which she laid down nothing of its spirit and intent.
Mrs. Ledwith and the sisters--Mrs. Megilp and Glossy--were there, of course.
Mrs. Megilp had said over to herself little imaginary speeches about the homestead and old a.s.sociations, and "Daisy"s great love and reverence for all that touched the memory of her uncle, to whom she certainly owed everything;" about the journey to New York, and the few days they had to give there to Mr. Oldway"s life-long friend and Desire"s adviser, Mr. Marmaduke Wharne ("_Sir_ Marmaduke he would be, everybody knew, if he had chosen to claim the English t.i.tle that belonged to him"),--who was too infirm to come on to the wedding; and the necessity there was for them to go as fast as possible to their estate in the country,--Hill-hope,--where Mr.
Kirkbright was building "mills and a village and a perfect castle of a house, and a private railroad and heaven knows what,"--all this to account, indirectly, for the quiet little ordinary ceremony, which of course would otherwise have been at the Church of the Holy Commandments; or at least up-stairs in the long, stately old drawing-room which was hardly ever used.
But none of the people were there to whom any such little speeches had to be made; n.o.body who needed any accounting to for its oddity was present at Desire Ledwith"s wedding.
Mr. Vireo officiated; there was something in his method and manner which Mrs. Megilp decidedly objected to.
It was "everyday," she thought. "It didn"t give you a feeling of sanct.i.ty. It was just as if he was used to the Almighty, and didn"t mind! It seemed as if he were just mentioning things, in a quiet way, to somebody who was right at his elbow. For her part, she liked a little lifting up."
Hazel Ripwinkley heard her, and told Sylvie and Diana that "that came of having all your ideas of home in the seventh story; of course you wanted an elevator to go up in."
Desire Ledwith looked what she was, to-day; a grand, pure woman; a fit woman to stand up beside a man like Christopher Kirkbright, in fair white garments, and say the words that made her his wife.
There was a beautiful, sweet majesty in her giving of herself.
She did not disdain rich robes to-day,--she would give herself at her very best, with all generous and gracious outward sign.
She wore a dress of heavy silk, long-trained; the cream-white folds, unspoiled by any frippery of lace, took, as they dropped around her, the shade and convolutions of a lily. Upon her bosom, and fastening her veil, were deep green leaves that gave the contrast against which a lily rests itself. Around her throat were links of frosted silver, from which hung a pure plain silver cross; these were the gift of Hazel. The veil, of point, and rarely beautiful, fell back from her head,--lovely in its shape, and the simple wreathing of the dark, soft hair,--like a drift of water spray; not covering or misting her all over,--only lending a touch of delicate suggestion to the pure, cool, graceful, flower-like unity of her whole air and apparel.
"Desire is beautiful!" said Hazel Ripwinkley to her mother. "She never _stopped_ to be _pretty_!"
White calla-lilies, with their tall stems and great shadowy leaves, were in the Pompeiian vases on the mantel; in the India jars in the corners below; in a large Oriental china bowl that was set upon the closed desk on the library table, wheeled back for the first time that anybody there had seen it so, against the wall.
Hazel had hung a lily-wreath upon the carved back of Uncle t.i.tus"s chair, that no one might sit down in it, and placed it in the recess at Desire"s left hand, as she should stand up to be married.
"Will you two take each other, to love and dwell together, and to do G.o.d"s work, as He shall show and help you, so long as He keeps you both in this his world? Will you, Desire Ledwith, take Christopher Kirkbright to be your wedded husband; will you, Christopher Kirkbright, take Desire Ledwith to be your wedded wife; and do you thereto mutually make your vows in the sight of G.o.d and before this company?"
And they answered together, "We do."
It was a promise for more than each other; it was a life-consecration. It was a gathering up and renewal of all that had been holy in the resolves of either while they had lived apart; a joining of two souls in the Lord.
Hilary Vireo would not have dared to lead to perjury, by such words, a common man and woman. It was enough for such to ask if they would take, and keep to, each other.
Mrs. Megilp thought it was "so jumbled!" "If it was _her_ daughter, she should not think she was half married."
Mrs. Megilp put it more shrewdly than she had intended.
Desire and Christopher Kirkbright were very sure they had _not_ been "half married." It was not the world"s half marriage that they had stood up there together for.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
KITCHEN CRAMBO.
Elise Mokey and Mary Pinfall came in one evening to see Bel Bree and Kate.
There had been company to tea up-stairs, and the dishes were more than usual, and the hour was a little later.
Kate was putting up the last of the cooking utensils, and scalding down the big tin dish-pan and the sink. Bel was up-stairs.
A table with a fresh brown linen cloth upon it, two white plates and cups, and two white _napkins_, stood out on the kitchen floor under the gas-light. The dumb-waiter came rumbling down, with toast dish, tea and coffee pots, oyster dish and m.u.f.fin plate. Several slices of cream toast were left, and there was a generous remnant of nicely browned scalloped oysters. The half m.u.f.fins, b.u.t.tered hot, looked tender and tempting still.
Kate removed the dishes, sent up the waiter, and producing some nice little stone-ware nappies hot from the hot closet, transferred the food from the china to these, laying it neatly together, and replaced them in the closet, to wait till Bel should come. The tea and coffee she poured into small white pitchers, also hot in readiness, and set them on the range corner. Then she washed the porcelain and silver in fresh-drawn scalding water, wiped and set them safely on the long, white sideboard. There they gleamed in the gas-light, and lent their beauty to the brightness of the room, just as much as they would have done in actual using.
"But what a lot of trouble!" said Elise Mokey.
"Half a dozen dishes?" returned Kate. "Just three minutes" work; and a warm, fresh supper to make it worth while. Besides rubbing the silver once in four weeks, instead of every Friday. A Yankee kitchen is a labor-saving inst.i.tution, Mrs. Scherman says."
Down came the waiter again, and down the stairs came Bel. Kate brought two more cups and plates and napkins.
"Now, girls, come and take some tea," she said, drawing up the chairs.
Mrs. Scherman was not strict about "kitchen company." She gave the girls freely to understand that a friend or two happening in now and then to see them, were as welcome to their down-stairs table as her own happeners in were to hers. "I know it is just the cosiness and the worth-while of home and living," she said. "And I"ll trust the "now and then" of it to you."
The hint of reasonable limit, and the word of trust, were better than lock and law.
"How nice this is!" said Mary Pinfall, as Bel put a hot m.u.f.fin, mellow with sweet b.u.t.ter, upon her plate.
"If Matilda Meane only knew which side--and where--bread _was_ b.u.t.tered! She"s living on "relief," yet; and she buys cream-cakes for dinner, and peanuts for tea! But, Bel, what were you up-stairs for? I thought you was queen o" the kitchen!"
"Kate gives me her chance, sometimes. We change about, to make things even. The best of it is in the up-stairs work, and waiting at table is the first-best chance of all. You see, you "take it in at the pores," as the man says in the play."
"Tea and oysters?" said Elise, with an exclamatory interrogation.
"You know better. See here, Elise. You don"t half believe in this experiment, though you appreciate the m.u.f.fins. But it isn"t just loaves and fishes. There"s a _living_ in the world, and a way to earn it, besides clothes, and bread and b.u.t.ter. If you want it, you can choose your work nearest to where the living is. And wherever else it may or mayn"t be, it _is_ in houses, and round tea-tables like this."
"Other people"s living,--for you to look at and wait on," said Elise. "I like to be independent."
"They can"t keep it back from us, if they wanted to," said Bel. "And you _can"t_ be independent; there"s no such thing in the world. It"s all give and take."