“Oh Charlie! You simply take my breath away! Why do you try to have it so soon, if all this is really true? Why don’t you make a real affair of it?”
“Because neither Astra nor I care a red cent for ‘affairs’ of that sort. We’re just having a plain little wedding. I have to go back to Washington tomorrow for a few days, and I want to take my wife with me. We’re not going to accommodate the general public. We’re getting married, and if our relatives would like to be present they can come; otherwise we’ll go on without them. I’m calling up my stepmother and a few of my friends. Mr. John Sargent, Astra’s guardian, is on his way home from Florida by plane and expects to be here. So will Astra’s lawyer, Mr. Lauderdale, and his wife, and a few others of that ilk, and if that isn’t enough for you, then stay at home and sulk, for I’m getting married tonight. Now, could you call up our sisters and brothers for me and inform them what’s going on and that they are invited, or must I take time out and do it?”
“Oh, I’ll do it of course, Charlie. But Charlie, I’m going to invite Camilla. I think she has a right to come, after the way you treated her. Besides, I would like to have her see that everything is all right, if you really think the house will be fine enough. Anyhow, I’m going to invite her.”
“Help yourself, Roz, only get to work quick and invite the others who live at a distance first. So long! See you tonight, and don’t forget to bring the kids or else we won’t let you in.”
So Rosamond had the time of her life inviting people to a wedding of which she would have highly disapproved but a short time before, and when she finally reached Camilla, she certainly enjoyed herself telling the story.
“Not the daughter of that famous Dr. Everson! You don’t mean it, Roz! Well, I think that’s about the meanest thing Charles ever did to a play a joke like that on you, letting you think she was a servant!
“And that explains that marvelous portrait I saw, then. And of course the house is unique. Everything about it is real. It explains, too, why I was so puzzled about a lovely girl like that being a servant, but I thought she was just a nightclub dancer or a fashion model or something like that!”
“Well, I thought perhaps you’d enjoy coming to the wedding and seeing the whole show. I understand she’s fabulously rich, my dear! Of course, Charlie didn’t tell me so, but from other things he’s said, I imagine it’s true. But how do you suppose she’ll manage a wedding with only a day to prepare?”
“Oh, well I don’t imagine it’ll trouble her much. She’s that kind. She’d just as soon wear a sports dress or even a bathing suit, perhaps; although, no, I think she’s prudishly modest. She may have an old wedding dress salted away. Her great-grandmother’s or something. If she were not so frank and free from airs, I’d be frightfully ashamed to go after having asked her, really begged her, to be your maidservant. However, wonders never cease. I wonder how Charles will get along with such a frightfully religious person. I never thought he was particularly religious himself.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Rosamond. “Maybe that’s what has always been the matter with him. Maybe he was religious and didn’t know how to express himself. Maybe that’s what has made him so kind to that old frumpy stepmother! He’s even asking her to the wedding himself.”
“Oh, is she coming? Well, that settles it. I always wanted to see her. I’ll come. And really, after this, Roz, I’ve got to get busy and polish up some of my old discarded sweethearts, for Charlie’s deserting me this way leaves me high and dry. Do you know, Roz, I really was almost fond of Charlie!”
“Oh yes?” said Rosamond significantly. “Well good-bye, I’ll see you tonight.”
And so there was a hasty gathering of the Cameron clan, and of the Everson friends, invited by telephone, and some by telegraph. They came one and all, with very few exceptions. By train and trolley and bus they came, by plane and car and one even by bicycle.
Astra wrote a sweet note to Miriam and Clytie.
Dear ones: It is my twenty-first birthday, and I am going to be married tonight at eight o’clock to Charles Cameron. It is very hastily arranged, too late to get you here even by plane from so far. But I’ll be thinking of you, and I hope you will be thinking of me as very happy indeed. Will write you later. We are leaving for Washington tonight for a brief honeymoon, and then back to the old family home.
Loving wishes to you all.
Astra
And then after it was written she decided to send it as a telegram. They would feel more as if they had not been entirely left out. They received it about the time the ceremony began. Clytie read it sullenly with smoldering eyes.
“Seems as if some people have all the luck!” she remarked to her mother in a sort of wail.
But Miriam, as she read, was taken back through the years to the time when Astra’s mother had taken her, a motherless child, into her home and made her happy, and there were tears upon her cheeks. For a great trouble rested upon her heart. She did not know just where Duke had gone—in an airplane one night without warning—nor what he had gone to do, and she was greatly worried about that. Sometimes she suspected that Duke’s ways were not always the ways of righteousness. If she had known that he was at that moment forlornly in a cell by himself, reflecting on the ways of the wicked as he had never done before, and realizing that the incriminating letters that had been found upon his person when he was arrested would probably keep him in confinement a good many of the best years of his life, she would not have been any happier.
But the wedding was going on, and nobody of the family so far realized anything about him.
The guardian had come home by plane to be present at the coming of age of Astra, and his presence filled her with great delight.
The stepmother was there and beamed upon Cameron and pressed the bride’s hand tenderly, saying, “I hope you’ll have a happy life. Charles always was a good boy.”
The lawyer, Mr. Lauderdale, and his wife were there, smiling happily over it all. Lewis Sargent and Will were both there, apologizing because they hadn’t been on hand to greet her when she first arrived, and even old Tilly was there, peering out from the pantry door where she had so many times been queen of that kitchen. Even the office boy at the Association was there, because he had brought her the flowers and messages on Christmas. And Rosamond’s three children were present with glee. They had to be restrained forcibly from bringing what was left of Bethlehem to be used as table decorations.
They had a charming wedding supper served by a caterer. Astra had gotten out her mother’s treasured dishes and silver to add to the occasion. It didn’t seem that there was anything more that could have been done, even if they had six months in which to prepare.
Astra had no ancient dress of family lore to wear, but she found in the shops a little simple white satin, quite plain and sweet, its only decoration a wide collar of lovely old Honiton lace that had been her mother’s. Even Rosamond said how wonderful she looked.
Afterward, when it was all over and they were alone at last on the train that was bearing them to Washington, Astra said with a sweet, thoughtful look, “Wasn’t it wonderful that God showed me that verse yesterday just when all that was coming to frighten me? ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.’ ”
“Yes,” said Cameron. “We have a wonderful God and a wonderful heritage, and it’s going to be grand to live our lives together, for His glory!”
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.
Grace Livingston Hill, Astra
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