Chapter 24
“But I thought she told me she had no home and never had had one,” said Audrey as they were discussing plans for the wedding.
Kent had come home and gathered his family together and broken the news to them that night, his face shining, his eyes full of a glad humility.
“Dad, Mother, Audrey,” he said standing in their midst and looking around on them, “I’m going to marry Jane, do you mind? I’ve been an awful fool and driven you nearly crazy, I know, going after the wrong girl, and I’m ashamed as I can be about it. I wish I could go back and wipe it all out somehow, out of your memories and mine, and out of Jane’s. But she’s terribly sweet and she’s forgiven me, and I hope you’ll love her. She’s worried sick because she’s afraid you’re going to hate having a button salesgirl for a daughter. But I told her you had lots more sense than she thought you had and I’d tell you about it right away tonight. What do you say, folks, do you like my choice or not?”
“Like it fine, son,” said his father heartily. “Ask Mother. I guess you’ll find she agrees with me.”
“I’m sure I shall love her, my dear boy!” said Mrs. Havenner.
“Cheerio!” shouted Audrey brightly. “Hallelujah! I think it’s the grandest thing you ever did. And I claim the honor of having discovered her.”
“Yes, sister, and that was the grandest thing you ever did! But don’t you dare take anyone less fine for yourself.”
“All right with me, brother!” grinned Audrey. “I get you. I won’t. And maybe I’ll let you be a picker for me. You noticed I began to take your advice several days ago!”
And by such devious means had the family come to an early discussion of the wedding, which had scarcely been much discussed between the principle participants, save that Kent had urged that it be soon.
“Because I want to begin to take care of her,” he explained to his family when they came to broach the question.
It was then that Kent’s mother suggested in her large-heartedness that perhaps Jane would like to be married at their home, or perhaps quietly down at the shore. And Kent had explained that Jane had another plan; she had a place of her own where she thought it was most fitting she should be married, which brought about Audrey’s astonished exclamation.
“Well, she hasn’t ever had a home, Audrey,” explained Kent as if he’d known her history always. “Her father and mother died sometime ago. But this is a place that belonged to her grandfather. It is very old. It has just come into her hands. She has a fancy she would like to be married from it! I think it’s right she should have things as she wants them.”
“Why, yes, of course,” said Kent’s mother thoughtfully. “But have you seen it? Is it all right? Of course I don’t suppose you’ll want a very large assembly, but then we have friends who would be hurt if they weren’t invited. You could have the ceremony at our church, I suppose, and then have a little private reception at our house or hers.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it, Mother, and it’s quite all right. You won’t be ashamed. I think we’d better let Jane manage the way she wants to. You can offer anything you wish of course, but don’t urge.”
Dubiously the mother and daughter turned the matter over together and tried to plan ways they could help Jane out, but Kent went on his way rejoicing.
“We’ll want to see her right away, of course,” said Kent’s mother. “Shall I call her up in the morning and get her to come right down to us?”
“She can’t,” said Kent grinning. “She can’t leave the store right away. She insists she must stay through the month. It’s one of the rules of the store that an employee does not leave without at least two weeks’ notice, and she’s going right on working till we’re married.”
“Why, how will she have any time to get ready?”
“Oh, she’ll get ready afterward,” laughed Kent. “You watch.”
“But, my dear, of course we’ll help her out. I wonder where we ought to begin?”
“Begin by loving her, Mother, that’s the most important thing. When she’s convinced of that, everything else will fall into line.”
“Why, of course we’ll love her! If she only knew how I looked at her in longing the first night she came here, and especially after that other painted girl came, if she could have known how I wished in my heart that it was Jane instead of the other that my boy fancied! Oh, we’ll love her all right, Kent. She’s our kind.”
“Okay, Mother, then everything else is all right!” And Kent went off to his bed well satisfied.
Jane went to work blithely all those days between.
Especially was she lighthearted after receiving the two lovely notes of welcome after his talk with them all. He passed through the store quietly like any customer and merely stopped to hand them to her unobtrusively with a low-spoken promise: “See you at the door at five.”
Not even sharp-eyed Nellie had noticed, for he had chosen the right moment, when all the others were busy and Jane’s customer had just left.
And that night he told her all about the family conclave, and the hearty words of his father.
“But they can’t understand why I won’t let them give you a wedding at our house,” he said with a grin.
“Oh,” said Jane, looking troubled. “Why, I wouldn’t want to disappoint them, they’ve been so lovely!” And then she added wistfully, “But it did seem nice to have a house that belonged. It’s sort of like having a real family of my own, you know.”
“Yes, of course,” said Kent with quick sympathy. “I understand. And so will they after they have time to think it over.”
“Why can’t we take them out to the house pretty soon?” suggested Jane. “If they see it perhaps they will understand why I love it so.”
“Of course,” said Kent, “only I didn’t know but you might want to surprise them at the wedding.”
“No,” said Jane, “they are family. They have a right to know. And then if they still think it would be better for me to go to them, why—it will be all right! They are my family now, you know!”
“You dear!” breathed Kent softly. “Well, all right. Suppose we make it tomorrow after closing?”
“Lovely!” said Jane, her eyes sparkling. “I told the gardener’s wife to wash the windows, and dust and take off the chair covers. Maybe Audrey would like to help us put up the curtains. Then it will look really livable.”
“Of course she will, dear little housewife! I didn’t know you were wise to those things.”
But Jane only laughed.
“Perhaps you’d better get wise, too,” she said. “You might do something about getting the gas and electricity turned on.”
“I’ll attend to that, right away today,” he said humbly.
So the Havenner family, including the father, because he utterly refused to be left out of such an important occasion, arrived at the old Scarlett home in state, a few minutes after Jane and Kent got there, on Saturday afternoon.
They stared in wide-eyed amazement at the beautiful old house and grounds, and there was utmost approval and wonder in their eyes as they came up the brick walk to the porch.
“Why, Jane dear!” said Mother Havenner. “Such a wonderful old place! Of course you would want to be married here! How marvelous that you have it!”
Then they went inside.
Jane had had time to put flowers from the garden in most of the rooms, and it looked so homey they all exclaimed.
It was almost like a gathering of the two families as they sat down in the big living room and looked up at the great oil paintings while Jane explained who they all were, and then got out the old album that included her mother’s wedding pictures.
And while they put up the living room curtains of delicate old yellowed lace, and admired everything, they settled all the plans for the wedding.
It was agreed that it should be a quiet wedding, no fuss and show. Just the dearest, most intimate friends, invited by note or called up on the telephone, and then the Havenners
would give a small reception in their city house afterward to introduce their new daughter a trifle more formally to their acquaintances.
“Oh, it’s lovely, lovely, Jane!” said Audrey, patting the filmy folds of the last curtain. “And how I do love my new sister!” And she caught Jane in a warm embrace and whirled her around the room happily. “What a grand time you and I are going to have! I never supposed my brother would have the sense to pick out such a wonderful girl as you are!”
They would all have spoiled her if Jane hadn’t been through so many hard things that she was impervious to spoiling.
And just before they turned out the lights and left for the night, Audrey looked around the lovely room and said: “Say, Jane, this would be a grand place to have a Bible class sometime! I just know Pat would enjoy teaching in a place like this!”
“Wouldn’t it?” said Jane with a sparkle in her eyes. Audrey had been to the Thursday night Bible class with them this week, and Jane had been longing to know how she liked it. “I have been thinking about that. When we get acquainted with the people around here perhaps we can get a group together. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“It certainly would,” said Audrey.
As the days went by Jane flitted here and there in the store, picking out a few pretty clothes. The green coat she had wanted so long she could now buy outright and not have to arrange for it by installments. She made it the basis of her fall wardrobe. A lovely green wool dress, and another of crepe. A brown wool, a lighter brown silk, some bright blouses, and then a couple of bright prints for morning around the house. How she enjoyed getting them together, and all the little accessories of her modest trousseau, and realizing that she could pay for them and not need to worry lest there wouldn’t be enough left over to pay her board for another week. Her heart was continually singing at the great things the Lord had done for her.
It was a pretty wedding, no ostentation, no fuss.
There were about fifty guests present, most of them relatives and intimate friends of the Havenner family. A few from the store: Miss Leech, Mr. Windle, Mr. Clark and his little girl, Hilda and the two other girls from the button counter.
Pat Whitney married them, and Audrey was the maid of honor. The rest of the wedding procession they skipped.
Jane wore her mother’s wedding dress and veil and looked very sweet and quaint in the rich satin and real lace, a trifle yellowed from the years.
As the bride stood beneath her grandmother’s portrait, some people thought they saw a resemblance between the two.
Mr. Havenner went about beaming, almost as if he were getting married himself. Hilda and the two girls from the button counter sat around adoringly and watched their former co-laborer going about these sweet old rooms, mistress of it all, wife of that “perfectly swell” looking young man. They thought of Jane going untiringly about her work behind the counter, and wondered wistfully if a like change could ever come to them.
And when it was all over and the wedding supper eaten, the bridal cake cut and distributed, Jane went upstairs, throwing down her bouquet straight into the arms of her new sister-in-law, who stood at the foot of the stairs with Pat looking up.
Jane went into her room where she had stayed when she was a little girl visiting in that house so long ago, and changed to her lovely green suit. Then she and Kent slipped down the back stairs and out through a basement door to Kent’s car, which was hidden in a backstreet. The wedding guests, waiting to see them off with old shoes and rice in the decked-out car that stood before the door, were unaware that they were gone.
As they rounded the corner and caught another glimpse of the lighted windows, Jane turned to look.
“It’s a dear house,” she breathed.
“Yes!” said Kent. “I love it, too, you know.”
She nestled toward him and slipped her arm inside his.
“I’m glad!” she said softly. And then after a minute added: “It will always make me think of my heavenly mansion. It seems just as if it was sent to me at a time when I had nothing, as a sort of picture-promise of our home in heaven. It’s just a place where God wants us to be happy and work for Him while we are waiting for the heavenly home.”
Then softly she began to sing, and Kent chanted with her, as they drove out into their new life:
“Oh Lord, You know
We have no friend like You,
If heaven is not our home,
Oh Lord, what shall we do?
The angels beckon us
To heaven’s open door,
We can’t feel at home
In this world anymore.”
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote over one hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.
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