"Does that mean d.i.c.k--John Ma.s.sey?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. I have told him not to speak of love for a long, long time. We must both be free. He is going to France as a war correspondent next week."
"Don"t you hate to have him go?"
"Yes, I do. But I can"t be selfish enough to keep him hanging round me forever on the slim chance that some time I shall be willing to marry him. He is too fine to be treated like that. He wants to go overseas unless I will marry him now and I can"t do that. It is better that we should be apart for a while. As for me I have my work and I am going to plunge into it as deep and hard as I can. I am not going to be unhappy.
You can"t be unhappy when you love your work as I love mine. Don"t be sorry for me, Carlotta. I am not sorry for myself. Even if I never loved again and never was loved I should still have had enough for a life time.
It is more than many women have, more than I deserve."
The bride white day wore on to twilight and as the clock struck the hour of five Ruth Farringdon came down the broad oak staircase clad in the shining splendor of the bridal gown she had "dreamed," wearing her grandmother"s pearls and the lace veil which Larry"s lovely mother had worn as Ned Holiday"s bride long and long ago. At the foot of the stairs Larry waited and took her hand. Eric and Hester flanking the living room door pushed aside the curtains for the two who still hand in hand walked past the children into the room where the others were a.s.sembled. Gravely and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with importance the guard of honor followed, the latter bearing the bride"s bouquet, the former squeezing the wedding ring in his small fist. Ruth took her place beside the senior doctor. The minister opened his mouth to proceed with the ceremony, shut it again with a little gasp.
For suddenly the curtains were swept aside again, this time with a breezier and less stately sweep and Ted Holiday in uniform and sergeant"s regalia plunged into the room, a thinner, browner, taller Ted, with a new kind of dignity about him but withal the same blue-eyed lad with the old heart warming smile, still always Teddy the beloved.
"Don"t mind me," he announced. "Please go on." And he slipped into a place beside Tony drawing her hand in his with a warm pressure as he did so.
They went on. Laurence LaRue Holiday and Elinor Ruth Farringdon were made man and wife till death did them part. The old clock on the mantel which had looked down on these two on a less happy occasion looked on still, ticking away calmly, telling no tales and asking no questions. What was a marriage more or less to time?
The ceremony over it was the newly arrived sergeant rather than the bride and groom who was the center of attraction and none were better pleased than Larry and Ruth to have it so.
It was a flying visit on Ted"s part. He had managed to secure a last minute leave just before sailing from Montreal at which place he had to report the day after to-morrow.
"So let"s eat, drink, and be merry," he finished his explanation gayly.
"But first, please, Larry, may I kiss the bride?"
"Go to it," laughed his brother. "I"m so hanged glad to see you Kid, I"ve half a mind to kiss you myself."
Needing no further urging Ted availed himself of the proffered privilege and kissed the bride, not once but three times, once on each rosy cheek, and last full on her pretty mouth itself.
"There!" he announced standing off to survey her, both her hands still in his possession. "I"ve always wanted to do that and now I"ve done it. I feel better."
Everybody laughed at that not because what he said was so very amusing as because their hearts were so full of joy to have the irrepressible youngest Holiday at home again after the long anxious weeks of his absence.
Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth"s ear, "Gee! But I"m glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley is some peach of a cousin, I"m telling you, though I"m confoundedly glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast clear for Larry."
He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers met and each looked into the other"s face, for once unashamed of the emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to recover speech.
"Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now.
Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close to me lately especially since I"ve been in this war business." Then seeing Larry"s face shadow he added, "And you mustn"t worry about me, old man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever happens. You know yourself death isn"t so much--not such a horrible calamity as we talk as if it were."
"I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I can"t seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn"t have gone."
"Don"t let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself before you know it and then I"d have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself.
I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and when we have the Germans jolly well licked I"m coming home and find me as pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry her quick as lightning."
Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And irrationally enough he found himself more than a little rea.s.sured and comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done.
"And I say, Larry." Ted"s voice was soberer now. "I have always wanted to tell you how I appreciated your standing by me so magnificently in that horrible mess of mine. I wouldn"t have blamed you if you had felt like throwing me over for life after my being such a tarnation idiot and disgracing the family like that. I"ll never forget how white you and Uncle Phil both were about it every way and maybe you won"t believe it but there"ll never be anything like that again. There are some things I"m through with--at least if I"m not I"m even more of a fool than I think I am."
"Don"t, Ted. I haven"t been such a model of virtue and wisdom that I can afford to sit in judgment on you. I"ve learned a few things myself this year and I am not so c.o.c.k sure in my views as I was by a long shot.
Anyway you have more than made up by what you have done since and what you are going to do over there. Let"s forget the rest and just remember that we are both Holidays, and it is up to both of us to measure up to Dad and Uncle Phil, far as we can."
"Some stunt, what?" Thus Ted flippantly mixed his familiar American and newly acquired British vernacular. "You are dead right, Larry. I am afraid I"m doomed to land some nine miles or so below the mark but I"m going to make a stab at it anyway."
Later there was a gala dinner party, an occasion almost as gay as that Round Table banquet over eight years ago had been when d.i.c.k Carson had been formally inducted into the order and Doctor Holiday had announced that he was going to marry Miss Margery. And as before there was laughter and gay talk and teasing, affectionate jest and prophecy mingled with the toasting.
There were toasts to the reigning bride and groom, Larry and Ruth, to the coming bride and groom Philip and Carlotta, to Tony, the understudy that was, the star that was to be; to d.i.c.k Carson that had been, John Ma.s.sey that was, foreign correspondent, and future famous author. There was a particularly stirring toast to Sergeant Ted who would some day be returning to his native sh.o.r.e at least a captain if not a major with all kinds of adventures and honors to his credit. Everybody smiled gallantly over this toast. Not one of them would let a shadow of grief or dread for Teddy the beloved cloud this one happy home evening of his before he left the Hill perhaps forever. The Holidays were like that.
And then Larry on his feet raised his hand for silence.
"Last and best of all," he said, "I give you--the Head of the House of Holiday--the best friend and the finest man I know--Uncle Phil!"
Larry smiled down at his uncle as he spoke but there was deep feeling in his fine gray eyes. Better than any one else he knew how much of his present happiness he owed to that good friend and fine man Philip Holiday.
The whole table rose to this toast except the doctor, even to the small Eric and Hester who had no idea what it was all about but found it all very exciting and delightful and beautifully grown up. As they drank the toast Ted"s free hand rested with affectionate pressure on his uncle"s and Tony on the other side set down her gla.s.s and squeezed his hand instead. They too were trying to tell him that what Larry had spoken in his own behalf was true for them also. They wanted to have him know how much he meant to them and how much they wanted to do and be for his dear sake.
Perhaps Philip Holiday won his order of distinguished service then and there. At any rate with his own children and Ned"s around him, with the wife of his heart smiling down at him from across the table with proud, happy, tear wet eyes, the Head of the House of Holiday was content.
THE END