An Act in a Backwater

CHAPTER XX

A brilliant June sun lay sparkling on tree and tower and over the roofs of Wroxton and the downs which rise above the city. The morning might have been ordered, like the wedding-cake, with carte-blanche, and no expense to be spared. The promise of that first day of spring when Jeannie had played golf with her fiancÉ was royally fulfilled, the vigour and glory of the year was at its midmost. A light wind tempered the heat of the morning, and set all the leaves of the trees chattering to each other, and woke innumerable songs in the throats of the lawn-haunting birds.

The marriage was to take place at two, and for an hour before people had streamed into the Cathedral. The rows of free seats in nave and transepts were full of the boys and girls of Jeannie’s classes, and the combined length of feather in the girls’ hats would have stretched from Bolton Street to the altar. Many of them knew exactly how to behave at a marriage, and long before anything happened at all were crying profusely into their pocket-handkerchiefs. This very proper proceeding was interrupted with interested glances toward the west door, and when, a few minutes before two, it was rumoured that the bridegroom had arrived, the handkerchiefs were discreetly put away, for if you weep you are apt to miss points of interest.

The choir was kept for the invited guests, who had come in enormous numbers. A whole clan of Aveshams and Fortescues were there, and Colonel Raymond felt it was quite a family gathering, and was conscientiously able to congratulate himself on their appearance. The Collingwood party, he considered, lacked that fine air of distinction which marked his race, and the Colonel looked immensely interesting, and quite distinctly caught the eye of a countess no less, who instantly looked away.

Among the women present there was only one dark spot of colour. In a seat near the screen was Miss Clara. She was in black.

Weddings tend to be like each other. There are the same pieces on the organ, and for the most part the same hymns. There is the same anxiety to see how the bride behaves, and the same disappointment to find that she behaves like most other brides.

Jeannie was perhaps a little different; she looked quite radiantly happy, and not self-conscious at all; she said her own word very audibly, and on the way down from the altar she caught sight of Miss Clara, stopped the whole procession to kiss her in the face of the assembled congregation, and all the Avesham contingent said to their neighbours, “Who is that woman in black?”

Afterward there was a reunion at Bolton Street, and Collingwoods mixed in a manner which did not suggest chemical affinity with Aveshams, and each found the other just a shade trying. The bridegroom’s mother, for instance, was, to say the least of it, puzzled with Lady Tamar, the bride’s aunt, who smoked a cigarette with the whole of the close looking on, and really did not seem to be aware how unusually she was behaving. It was idle to explain, and Lady Tamar, on her side, at the end of the interview, said to herself, “Poor Jeannie!” However, as neither knew (or cared) what the other thought of her, there was no harm done. It was lucky indeed that Mrs. Collingwood was not aware what the world in general said about Lady Tamar; lucky also that Lady Tamar did not know the innermost truth about Mrs. Collingwood! She believed that the whole world was made to amuse her, and, if she had known, Mrs. Collingwood would have amused her so much that her inextinguishable laughter might have caused offence. Colonel Raymond alone, perhaps, was of all present in the seventh heaven of bliss; he did not talk to anybody, but he listened with both ears, and stocked himself with distinguished names. He had an excellent memory and the Peerage. Thus his old cronies were likely to hear more of collateral Aveshams.

Both bride and bridegroom effaced themselves from the party until their appearance was necessary. They were to leave Wroxton by a train soon after four, and the interval between their mingling with the party and the last possible moment of catching their train was short. Jack held that wedding parties were a barbarity, Jeannie that it was better not to be a principal actor; and, as a matter of fact, they sat quietly in the nursery and amused the baby till Arthur warned them it was time to go to their train. For both there was rice and slippers, for each there was the other.

The family who had taken Merton were in London, and were delighted that the two should spend their honeymoon there. Merton was only a couple of stations from Wroxton, and they arrived soon after five. All about her were the dear familiarities of childhood, by her the crown of her womanhood. Nowhere else, she thought, could Jack have known her as well as here.

From tea till dinner-time they wandered about the place; like two children, the one introducing the other to her home. This was the hedge where the long-tailed tit built, and this the copse where wild lilies-of-the-valley flowered in May. There was a reminiscence dear to her, and infinitely dear to him, about every yard of the place. The old boat-house with a leaky punt had given her many a Columbus voyage to the island on the lake, and the clusters of water-lilies to surprised eyes had been a Sargasso Sea. The punt was gone, but a newer boat was there, and they rowed about for nearly an hour, and watched the quick fishes in the water, and gathered the tall rushes and the golden-hearted lilies, and together were rung to dressing time, as Jeannie in the old days had been rung to bed. And as before they delayed to obey.

Dinner was over, and they sat on the south of the terrace-fronted house; a full moon moved like a queen bee among the swarming stars, and the world was refashioned out of soft darkness and ivory and pearl. Pearl-coloured was Jeannie’s dress, and she the pearl of pearls.

“How strange one’s life goes in acts,” she said. “The act at Wroxton is over now, but what a pleasant one it was. Oh, Jack, I hope this act will be a long one. Do you remember the plank bridge by the mill, and Toby shaking himself?”

“Do I remember?” echoed Jack. “Do I remember?”

“Only think, it is not a year ago,” she said. “And until then we had lived without each other. What a pity we did not advertise for each other before. It has been such a waste of time. Ah, there is the nightingale; there is always one in the elms at the end of the terrace. I remember how it sang all that night on which my father died.”

“It does not hurt you to think of that?” said Jack, gently.

“No, why should it? Life, love, death, the three great gifts of God. ‘What further can be sought for or declared?’” she quoted.

For a long time they sat in silence. The moon, still not yet in zenith, shone with a very clear light across the lake, and made a pathway of silver to the dim farther shore. To the right the nightingale trilled and bubbled, a few lights gleamed from the great house behind. A spell seemed cast over the world, and over the two sitting there a spell was cast.

Suddenly Jeannie turned and laid her arm round his neck.

“You are happy?” she asked. “You have made no mistake?”

But in her heart there was no question, but utter conviction.

“God knows I am happy!” he said.

“And you, Jack, you?” she asked. “Do you know it?”

“You know that I know it,” he replied. “Is that not enough?”

And they rose and walked softly through the softness of the night back to the house.

THE END

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