_Twenty-one_
THE MARRIAGE MORNING
Mrs. Vanderpool watched Zora as she came up the path beneath the oaks."She walks well," she observed. And laying aside her book, she waitedwith a marked curiosity.
The girl's greeting was brief, almost curt, but unintentionally so, asone could easily see, for back in her eyes lurked an impatient hunger;she was not thinking of greetings. She murmured a quick word, and stoodstraight and tall with her eyes squarely on the lady.
In the depths of Mrs. Vanderpool's heart something strange--not new, butvery old--stirred. Before her stood this tall black girl, quietlyreturning her look. Mrs. Vanderpool had a most uncomfortable sense ofbeing judged, of being weighed,--and there arose within her an impulseto self-justification.
She smiled and said sweetly, "Won't you sit?" But despite all this, hermind seemed leaping backward a thousand years; back to a simpler,primal day when she herself, white, frail, and fettered, stood beforethe dusky magnificence of some bejewelled barbarian queen and sought tojustify herself. She shook off the phantasy,--and yet how well the girlstood. It was not every one that could stand still and well.
"Please sit down," she repeated with her softest charm, not dreamingthat outside the school white persons did not ask this girl to sit intheir presence. But even this did not move Zora. She sat down. There wasin her, walking, standing, sitting, a simple directness which Mrs.Vanderpool sensed and met.
"Zora, I need some one to help me--to do my hair and serve my coffee,and dress and take care of me. The work will not be hard, and you cantravel and see the world and live well. Would you like it?"
"But I do not know how to do all these things," returned Zora, slowly.She was thinking rapidly--Was this the Way? It sounded wonderful. TheWorld, the great mysterious World, that stretched beyond the swamp andinto which Bles and the Silver Fleece had gone--did it lead to the Way?But if she went there what would she see and do, and would it bepossible to become such a woman as Miss Smith pictured?
"What is the world like?" asked Zora.
Mrs. Vanderpool smiled. "Oh, I meant great active cities and buildings,myriads of people and wonderful sights."
"Yes--but back of it all, what is it really? What does it look like?"
"Heavens, child! Don't ask. Really, it isn't worth while peering back ofthings. One is sure to be disappointed."
"Then what's the use of seeing the world?"
"Why, one must live; and why not be happy?" answered Mrs. Vanderpool,amused, baffled, spurred for the time being from her chronic _ennui_.
"Are you happy?" retorted Zora, looking her over carefully, from silkenstockings to garden hat. Mrs. Vanderpool laid aside her little mockeryand met the situation bravely.
"No," she replied simply. Her eyes grew old and tired.
Involuntarily Zora's hand crept out protectingly and lay a moment overthe white jewelled fingers. Then quickly recovering herself, she startedhastily to withdraw it, but the woman's fingers closed around the darkerones, and Mrs. Vanderpool's eyes became dim.
"I need you, Zora," she said; and then, seeing the half-formed question,"Yes, and you need me; we need each other. In the world liesopportunity, and I will help you."
Zora rose abruptly, and Mrs. Vanderpool feared, with a tightening ofheart, that she had lost this strangely alluring girl.
"I will come to-morrow," said Zora.
As Mrs. Vanderpool went in to lunch, reaction and lingering doubts cametrouping back. To replace the daintiest of trained experts with the mostbaffling semi-barbarian, well!
"Have you hired a maid?" asked Helen.
"I've engaged Zora," laughed Mrs. Vanderpool, lightly; "and now I'mwondering whether I have a jewel or--a white elephant."
"Probably neither," remarked Harry Cresswell, drily; but he avoided thelady's inquiring eyes.
Next morning Zora came easily into Mrs. Vanderpool's life. There waslittle she knew of her duties, but little, too, that she could not learnwith a deftness and divination almost startling. Her quietness, herquickness, her young strength, were like a soothing balm to the tiredwoman of fashion, and within a week she had sunk back contentedly intoZora's strong arms.
"It's a jewel," she decided.
With this verdict, the house agreed. The servants waited on "Miss Zora"gladly; the men scarcely saw her, and the ladies ran to her for help inall sorts. Harry Cresswell looked upon this transformation with anamused smile, but the Colonel saw in it simply evidence of dangerousobstinacy in a black girl who hitherto had refused to work.
Zora had been in the house but a week when a large express package wasreceived from John Taylor. Its unwrapping brought a cry of pleasurefrom the ladies. There lay a bolt of silken-like cambric of wondrousfineness and lustre, marked: "For the wedding-dress." The explanationaccompanied the package, that Mary Taylor had a similar piece in theNorth.
Helen and Harry said nothing of the cablegram to the Paris tailor, andHelen took no steps toward having the cambric dress made, not even whenthe wedding invitations appeared.
"A Cresswell married in cotton!" Helen was almost in tears lest theParis gown be delayed, and sure enough a cablegram came at last sayingthat there was little likelihood of the gown being ready by Easter. Itwould be shipped at the earliest convenience, but it could hardly catchthe necessary boat. Helen had a good cry, and then came a wild rush toget John Taylor's cloth ready. Still, Helen was querulous. She decidedthat silk embroidery must embellish the skirt. The dressmaker was indespair.
"I haven't a single spare worker," she declared.
Helen was appealing to Mrs. Vanderpool.
"I can do it," said Zora, who was in the room.
"Do you know how?" asked the dressmaker.
"No, but I want to know."
Mrs. Vanderpool gave a satisfied nod. "Show her," she said. Thedressmaker was on the edge of rebellion. "Zora sews beautifully," addedMrs. Vanderpool.
Thus the beautiful cloth came to Zora's room, and was spread in a glossycloud over her bed. She trembled at its beauty and felt a vague inneryearning, as if some subtle magic of the woven web were trying to tellher its story.
She worked over it faithfully and lovingly in every spare hour and inlong nights of dreaming. Wilfully she departed from the set pattern andsewed into the cloth something of the beauty in her heart. In new andintricate ways, with soft shadowings and coverings, she wove in thatwhite veil her own strange soul, and Mrs. Vanderpool watched hercuriously, but in silence.
Meantime all things were arranged for a double wedding at CresswellOaks. As John and Mary Taylor had no suitable home, they were to comedown and the two brides to go forth from the Cresswell mansion.Accordingly the Taylors arrived a week before the wedding and the hometook on a festive air. Even Colonel Cresswell expanded under the genialinfluences, and while his head still protested his heart was glad. Hehad to respect John Taylor's undoubted ability; and Mary Taylor wascertainly lovely, in spite of that assumption of cleverness of which theColonel could not approve.
Mary returned to the old scenes with mingled feelings. Especially wasshe startled at seeing Zora a member of the household and apparentlyhigh in favor. It brought back something of the old uneasiness andsuspicion.
All this she soon forgot under the cadence of Harry Cresswell's pleasantvoice and the caressing touch of his arm. He seemed handsomer than ever;and he was, for sleep and temperance and the wooing of a woman had put atinge in his marble face, smoothed the puffs beneath his eyes, and givenhim a more distinguished bearing and a firmer hand. And Mary Taylor wasvery happy. So was her brother, only differently; he was making money;he was planning to make more, and he had something to pet which seemedto him extraordinarily precious and valuable.
Taylor eagerly inquired after the cloth, and followed the ladies toZora's room, adjoining Mrs. Vanderpool's, to see it. It lay uncut andshimmering, covered with dim silken tracery of a delicacy and beautywhich brought an exclamation to all lips.
"That's what we can do with Alabama cotton," cried John Tay
lor intriumph.
They turned to him incredulously.
"But--"
"No 'buts' about it; these are the two bales you sent me, woven with asilk woof." No one particularly noticed that Zora had hastily left theroom. "I had it done in Easterly's New Jersey mills according to an oldplan of mine. I'm going to make cloth like that right in this countysome day," and he chuckled gayly.
But Zora was striding up and down the halls, the blood surging in herears. After they were gone she came back and closed the doors. Shedropped on her knees and buried her face in the filmy folds of theSilver Fleece.
"I knew it! I knew it!" she whispered in mingled tears and joy. "Itcalled and I did not understand."
It was her talisman new-found; her love come back, her stolen dream cometrue. Now she could face the world; God had turned it straight again.She would go into the world and find--not Love, but the thing greaterthan Love. Outside the door came voices--the dressmaker's tones, Helen'ssoft drawl, and Mrs. Vanderpool's finished accents. Her face wentsuddenly gray. The Silver Fleece was not hers! It belonged--She rosehastily. The door opened and they came in. The cutting must begin atonce, they all agreed.
"Is it ready, Zora?" inquired Helen.
"No," Zora quietly answered, "not quite, but tomorrow morning, early."As soon as she was alone again, she sat down and considered. By and by,while the family was at lunch, she folded the Silver Fleece carefullyand locked it in her new trunk. She would hide it in the swamp. Duringthe afternoon she sent to town for oil-cloth, and bade the blackcarpenter at Miss Smith's make a cedar box, tight and tarred. In themorning she prepared Mrs. Vanderpool's breakfast with unusual care. Shewas sorry for Mrs. Vanderpool, and sorry for Miss Smith. They would not,they could not, understand. What would happen to her? She did not know;she did not care. The Silver Fleece had returned to her. Soon it wouldbe buried in the swamp whence it came. She had no alternative; she mustkeep it and wait.
She heard the dressmaker's voice, and then her step upon the stair. Sheheard the sound of Harry Cresswell's buggy, and a scurrying at the frontdoor. On came the dressmaker's footsteps--then her door wasunceremoniously burst open.
Helen Cresswell stood there radiant; the dressmaker, too, was wreathedin smiles. She carried a big red-sealed bundle.
"Zora!" cried Helen in ecstasy. "It's come!" Zora regarded her coldly,and stood at bay. The dressmaker was ripping and snipping, and soonthere lay revealed before them--the Paris gown!
Helen was in raptures, but her conscience pricked her. She appealed tothem. "Ought I to tell? You see, Mary's gown will look miserably commonbeside it."
The dressmaker was voluble. There was really nothing to tell; andbesides, Helen was a Cresswell and it was to be expected, and so forth.Helen pursed her lips and petulantly tapped the floor with her foot.
"But the other gown?"
"Where is it?" asked the dressmaker, looking about. "It would make apretty morning-dress--"
But Helen had taken a sudden dislike to the thought of it.
"I don't want it," she declared. "And besides, I haven't room for it inmy trunks."
Of a sudden she leaned down and whispered to Zora: "Zora, hide it andkeep it if you want it. Come," to the dressmaker, "I'm dying to try thison--now.... Remember, Zora--not a word." And all this to Zora seemed nosurprise; it was the Way, and it was opening before her because thetalisman lay in her trunk.
So at last it came to Easter morning. The world was golden with jasmine,and crimson with azalea; down in the darker places gleamed the mistyglory of the dogwood; new cotton shook, glimmered, and blossomed in theblack fields, and over all the soft Southern sun poured its awakeninglight of life. There was happiness and hope again in the cabins, andhope and--if not happiness, ambition, in the mansions.
Zora, almost forgetting the wedding, stood before the mirror. Layingaside her dress, she draped her shimmering cloth about her, dragging herhair down in a heavy mass over ears and neck until she seemed herself abride. And as she stood there, awed with the mystical union of a deadlove and a living new born self, there came drifting in at the window,faintly, the soft sound of far-off marriage music.
"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"
Two white and white-swathed brides were coming slowly down the greatstaircase of Cresswell Oaks, and two white and black-clothed bridegroomsawaited them. Either bridegroom looked gladly at the flow of hissister's garments and almost darkly at his bride's. For Helen was deckedin Parisian splendor, while Mary was gowned in the Fleece.
"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"
Up floated the song of the little dark-faced children, and Zoralistened.