While she sat there, with her prayer-book in her hand, and her eyes on the purple veil of the distance, it seemed to her that her joy was so complete that there was nothing left even to hope for. All her life she had looked forward to the coming of what she thought of vaguely as "happiness," and now that it was here, she felt that it put an end to the tremulous expectancy which had filled her girlhood with such wistful dreams. Marriage appeared to her (and indeed to Oliver, also) as a miraculous event, which would make not only herself, but every side of life, different for the future. After that there would be no vain longings, no spring restlessness, no hours of drab weariness, when the interests of living seemed to crumble from mere despondency. After that they would be always happy, always eager, always buoyantly alive.
Leaving the marriage service, her thoughts brooded in a radiant stillness on the life of love which would begin for her on the day of her wedding. A strange light--the light that quivered like a golden wing over the autumn fields--shone, also, into the secret chambers of her soul, and illumined the things which had appeared merely dull and commonplace until to-day. Those innumerable little cares which fill the lives of most women were steeped in the magic glow of this miraculous charm. She thought of the daily excitement of marketing, of the perpetual romance of mending his clothes, of the glorified monotony of pouring his coffee, as an adventurer on sunrise seas might dream of the rosy islands of hidden treasure. And then, so perfectly did she conform in spirit to the cla.s.sic ideal of her s.e.x, her imagination ecstatically pictured her in the immemorial att.i.tude of woman. She saw herself waiting--waiting happily--but always waiting. She imagined the thrilling expectancy of the morning waiting for him to come home to his dinner; the hushed expectancy of the evening waiting for him to come home to his supper; the blissful expectancy of hoping that he might be early; the painful expectancy of fearing that he might be late. And it seemed to her divinely right and beautiful that, while he should have a hundred other absorbing interests in his life, her whole existence should perpetually circle around this single centre of thought. One by one, she lived in antic.i.p.ation all the exquisite details of their life together, and in imagining them, she overlooked all possible changes that the years might bring, as entirely as she ignored the subtle variations of temperament which produce in each individual that fluid quant.i.ty we call character. She thought of Oliver, as she thought of herself, as though the fact of marriage would crystallize him into a shape from which he would never alter or dissolve in the future. And with a reticence peculiar to her type, she never once permitted her mind to stray to her crowning beat.i.tude--the hope of a child; for, with that sacred inconsistency possible only to fixed beliefs, though motherhood was supposed to comprise every desire, adventure, and activity in the life of woman, it was considered indelicate for her to dwell upon the thought of it until the condition had become too obvious for refinement to deny.
The shadow of the church tower lengthened on the gra.s.s, and at the end of the cross street she saw Susan appear and stop for a minute to speak to Miss Priscilla, who was driving by in a small wagonette. Then the girl and the teacher parted, and ten minutes later there came Susan"s imperative knock at Virginia"s door.
"Miss w.i.l.l.y told mother that your wedding dress was finished, Jinny, and I am dying to see it!"
Going to the closet, which was built into one corner of the wall, Virginia unpinned a long white sheet scented with rose-leaves, and brought out a filmy ma.s.s of satin and lace. Her face as she looked down upon it was the face of girlhood incarnate. All her virginal dreams cl.u.s.tered there like doves quivering for flight. Its beauty was the beauty of fleeting things--of the wind in the apple blossoms at dawn, of the music of bees on an August afternoon.
"Mother wouldn"t let me be married in anything but satin," she said, with a catch in her voice. "I believe it is the first time in her life she was ever extravagant, but she felt so strongly about it that I had to give in and not have white muslin as I wanted to do."
"And it"s so lovely," said Susan. "I had no idea Miss w.i.l.l.y could do it.
She"s as proud, too, as if it were her own."
"She took a pleasure in every st.i.tch, she told me. Oh, Susan, I sometimes feel that I haven"t any right to be so happy. I seem to have everything and other women to have nothing."
For the first time Susan smiled, but it was a smile of understanding.
"Perhaps they have more than you think, darling."
"But there"s Miss w.i.l.l.y--what has she ever got out of life?"
"Well, I really believe she gets a kind of happiness out of saving up the money to pay for her tombstone. It"s a funny thing, but the people who ought to be unhappy, somehow never are. It doesn"t seem to be a matter of what you have, but of the way you are born. Now, according to us, Miss w.i.l.l.y ought to be miserable, but the truth is that she isn"t a bit so. Mother saw her once skipping for pure joy in the spring."
"But people who haven"t things can"t be as grateful to G.o.d as those who have. I feel that I"d like to spend every minute of my life on my knees thanking Him. I don"t see how I can ever have a disappointed or a selfish thought again. I wonder if you can understand, you precious Susan, but I want to open my arms and take the whole world into them."
"Jinny," said Susan suddenly, "don"t spoil Oliver."
"I couldn"t--not if I tried every minute."
"I don"t know, dear. He is very lovable, he has fine generous traits, he has the making of a big man in him--but his character isn"t formed yet, you must remember. So much of him is imagination that he will take longer than most men to grow up to his stature."
"Oh, Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, and turned away.
"Perhaps I oughtn"t to have said it, Jinny--but, no, I ought to tell you just what I think, and I don"t regret it."
"Mother said the same thing to me," responded Virginia, looking as if she were on the point of tears; "but that is just because neither of you know him as I do."
"He is a Treadwell and so am I, and the chief characteristic of every Treadwell is that he is going to get the thing he wants most. It doesn"t make any difference whether it is money or love or fame, the thing he wants most he will get sooner or later. So all I mean is that you needn"t spoil Oliver by giving him the universe before he wants it."
"I can"t give him the universe. I can only give him myself."
Stooping over, Susan kissed her.
"Happy, happy little Jinny!"
"There are only two things that trouble me, dear--one is going away from mother and father, and the other is that you are not so happy as I am."
"Some day I may get the thing I want like every other Treadwell."
"Do you mean going to college?"
"No," said Susan, "I don"t mean that," and into her calm grey eyes a new light shone for an instant.
A clairvoyance, deeper than knowledge, came to Virginia while she looked at her.
"You darling!" she exclaimed. "I never suspected!"
"There"s nothing to suspect, Jinny. I was only joking."
"Why, it never crossed my mind that you would think of him for a minute."
"He hasn"t thought of me for a minute yet."
"The idea! He"d be wild about you in ten seconds if he ever thought----"
"He was wild about you ten seconds ago, dear."
"He never was. It was just his fancy. Why, you are made for each other."
A laugh broke from Susan, but with that large and quiet candour which was characteristic of her, she did not seek to evade or deny Virginia"s suspicion. That her friend should discover her feeling for John Henry seemed to her as natural as that she should be conscious of it herself--for they were intimate with that full and perfect intimacy which exists only between two women who trust each other.
"There goes Miss w.i.l.l.y," said Susan, looking through the window to where the little dressmaker tripped down the stone steps to the street.
"Mother wants to have early supper, so I must be running away."
"Good-bye, darling. Oh, Susan, I never loved you as I do now. It will be all right--I trust and pray that it will! And, just think, you will walk out of church together at my wedding!"
For a minute, standing on the threshold, Susan looked back at her with an expression of tender amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes. "Don"t imagine that I"m unhappy, dear," she said, "because I"m not--it isn"t that kind--and, after all, even an unrequited affection may be simply an added interest in life, if we choose to take it that way."
When she had gone, Virginia lingered over her wedding dress, while she wondered what the wise Susan could see in the simple John Henry? Was it possible that John Henry was not so simple, after all? Or did Susan, forsaking the ancient tradition of love, care about him merely because he was good?
For a week the hours flew by with golden wings, and at last the most sacred day of her life dawned softly in a sunrise of rose and flame.
When she looked back on it afterwards, there were three things which stood out unforgettably in her memory--the kiss that her mother gave her when she turned to leave her girlhood"s room for the last time; the sound of her father"s voice as he spoke her name at the altar; and the look in Oliver"s eyes when she put her hand into his. All the rest was enveloped in a shining mist which floated, like her wedding veil, between the old life and the new.
"It has been so perfect--so perfect--if I can only be worthy of this day and of you, Oliver," she said as the carriage started from the rectory gate to the station.
"You angel!" he murmured ecstatically.
Her eyes hung blissfully on his face for an instant, and then, moved by a sudden stab of reproach, she leaned from the window and looked back at her mother and father, who stood, with clasped hands, gazing after her over the white palings of the gate.
CHAPTER II
VIRGINIA"S LETTERS
MATOACA CITY, West Virginia, October 16, 1884.
DEAREST, DEAREST MOTHER: