“Of course she doesn’t believe for a moment I think that way but one must keep one’s head up. Now for it.”
Cousin Barbara Morse to a friend,
“So this is what I’ve come all the way from Toronto for! These family ties ... they’re really all hooey. But I always liked Jim ...
“It seems to me I’ve been here for hours. But you have to come early if you want an aisle seat ... and you can’t see much if you have any other one. Besides, it’s really fun looking at everybody as they come in. Not that there’s much to look at here ... most of the people are country folks. I suppose a fashionable wedding like this is a veritable godsend to them. The Blythes of Ingleside seem to be the only ones who can pretend to any culture. I thought Mrs. Blythe a very charming woman. The doctor, like all the men, thinks he knows it all. But they have a charming family ... at least, those I’ve met.
“The bridal party will be late, of course ... none of Jim’s family were ever known to be on time. Everybody seems to have been invited ... and to have come. Of course it’s just the time of year when a trip to P.E.I. has a special charm. I really had no idea what a delightful place it was. I must come again. Oh, so you come every summer? So I suppose you know most of the people well. Oh, you have a summer cottage at Avonlea? That was Dr. Blythe’s old home, wasn’t it? Isn’t it strange that a man of his ability should have chosen to settle in a place like Glen St. Mary? Well, I suppose it is predestination.
“Why doesn’t Mattie Powell get those terrible moles removed? Electrolysis does it so nicely. Really, some people don’t seem to care how they look. How fat Mabel Mattingly is getting. But I shouldn’t talk. I never get weighed now. It simply won’t do ... I’m blue for a week afterwards. Jane Morris of Toronto told me she took four inches off her hips, living just on buttermilk. I wonder ... but I’d never have the grit to do it. I’m too fond of a good bite. I hope they’ll give us something eatable at the house. But Amy never was much of a housewife. Of course Mary Hamilton is a good cook. I suppose that is why they take her with them every summer when they go away. Oh, of course I know she’s just like one of the family. Amy always spoiled her servants.
“Look at Carry Ware ... that stringy old chiffon! You’d have thought she’d have got something new for a wedding, at least. Even Min Carstairs has a new dress. I hear the Carstairs have come into money. They live in Charlottetown, you know. And Andrew Carstairs is as mean as skim milk. Of course that rose and silver is far too young for her. What’s that? Do you mean to tell me she is only as old as Mrs. Blythe? Well, city women always age more rapidly than country women. I agree with you ... Mrs. Blythe is the best dressed woman here ... at least she gives that impression. And yet they say she gets all her clothes made in Charlottetown. But some people have a knack ...
“Talking of ages ... can you tell me how Sue MacKenzie contrives to look thirty-five when she is forty-seven? I’m not uncharitable, heaven knows ... but one can’t help wondering. When she was married ... so the story goes ... her father made her go back upstairs and wash the powder off her face. If he could see her now! No, they tell me Mrs. Blythe never makes up. But country people are so easily fooled. She couldn’t look like that without a little make-up. As for Sue’s father ... he was such an odd man, my dear ... the queer things he would do when he got mad! Said nothing but burned rugs and sawed up chairs! Prue Davis wears well, but she must be getting on. I always feel so sorry for the girls who are on the shelf at a time like this. They must feel it.
“Yes, that is one of the Blythe girls ... but it can’t be Diana ... she is one of the bridesmaids. The idea of having four bridesmaids at a quiet country wedding! But Amy always had very large ideas.
“There’s old Mary Hamilton at the back of the church ... of course the eats are all in the hands of the Charlottetown caterers, worse luck. I’d rather take a chance with old Mary any day. But they say she made the wedding cake ... she and Susan Baker of Ingleside between them. Susan has a recipe I’m told she won’t give to anyone.
“Yes, Jim’s family have always made an absurd fuss over Mary, or Mollie as they call her sometimes. Why, when Jim got his first car nothing would do Mary but she must learn to drive it, too. And they actually let her! I’m told she’s been fined for speeding times without number. Oh, yes, Irish for a thousand years! It’s amazing how she took up with Susan Baker. You couldn’t imagine two people more unlike. She’s devoted to the bride and all that. At least people say so. But Mary knows on which side her bread is buttered ... and to those of us who know a little about Evelyn’s temper! Just look at her staring at everybody and gabbing to Susan Baker. I’ll bet there are some queer tales being told.
“If they don’t come soon I’ll be carried out screaming ... it’s ten minutes past the time now. Perhaps Evelyn has changed her mind! Or maybe D’Arcy has faded out of the picture like Elmer. You can say what you like but I’ll never believe he really cares much about Evelyn. Look at the Walter Starrocks! Will you ever forget the day they were married and him standing there with his coattails all over cat hairs? Walter is getting pouches under his eyes. Yes, it’s true we’re all getting on. But I fancy the life Ella Starrocks leads him ... you don’t mean to tell me you’ve never heard! Well, just remind me some day.
“There they come at last. I don’t care for those halo veils but Evelyn must always have the very latest fad. How is she going to indulge her expensive tastes on D’Arcy’s salary? That shade certainly doesn’t become Marnie. Diana Blythe looks very well in it, though. As for Rhea ... well, it doesn’t matter what she wears ... only it’s a pity to have the harmony spoiled, isn’t it? Marnie is the plain sister so she’ll make the best match, take my word for it. I don’t know why it is, but you’ll always see it. I suppose they’re not so particular.
“D’Arcy looks as if he’s carried Evelyn off from a hundred rivals instead of being Hobson’s choice. But of course he doesn’t know that. He’s positively ugly, I think ... except for his eyes ... but I believe the women with the ugly husbands have the best of it. They don’t have to be everlastingly scheming how to hold their man.
“Well, it really went off very well. I’m glad for Amy’s sake ... she’s so fussy over small things. No doubt she has been praying for fine weather every night for a month. I hear that Mrs. Blythe says she believes in prayer. Did you ever hear anything so funny in this day and age?”
Uncle Douglas March, thinking,
“Lot of lean women here. Never see anything of fine figures nowadays. That was back in the days when girls wore bangs and balloon sleeves ... and were the same girls underneath, as Dr. Blythe says. His wife is the best-looking woman here. Looks like a woman. The church is dolled up all right. I must take in all the fixings to tell ma. Too bad she couldn’t have come. But rheumatism is rheumatism, as Dr. Blythe says.
“Some difference between this and my father’s wedding. His dad gave him a fourteen-year-old horse and a two-year-old colt, a set of harness, a bobsled, and some provisions. He paid twenty dollars for his clothes, the minister and licence, bought some chairs, a table, and an old stove. Her dad gave her twenty-five dollars and a cow. Well, well, what do we work and slave for if it isn’t to give the tads something better than the old folks had? And yet they don’t seem any happier than we did. It’s a queer old world.
“Here they come. Evelyn fills the eye all right. When she ain’t in sight I can never believe she is as pretty as I remember her. That’s Jim’s nose ... a chip off the old block. Just as well ... though Amy is a nice old puss ... always liked her. Nice-looking boy Evelyn’s got, too ... not too handsome ... but sort of dependable looking. Some dress! Ma was married in nun’s veiling. Does anybody ever wear nun’s veiling now? Such a pretty name ... and pretty stuff. Ah, it’s times like this makes a body realize that he’s no longer young. My day’s over ... but I’ve had it ... I’ve had it.
“If there ain’t old Mollie Hamilton back there, grinning like the frisky old girl she always was. She was a russet-haired jade when Am
y got her ... one time when she was visiting the Island. Mary’s grey as a badger now. They must have treated her well, the way she’s stuck to them. They don’t hatch her breed of cats nowadays. She always declared she would never marry ... you couldn’t trust any man, she said. Well, she’s kept her word. Don’t know but she was wise. There’s mighty few men you can trust ... if I’m a man myself. Except Dr. Blythe now. I’d trust that man with my wife.
“Now for the spread. Though they don’t have the wedding suppers we had in the good old days. ‘Don’t eat things you can’t digest, pa,’ ma told me. ‘You can digest anything if you have the courage to, ma,’ I told her. I heard Dr. Blythe say that once but ma didn’t know it. Doesn’t hurt a woman to think her man can say smart things. A pretty wedding ... yes, a pretty wedding. And a happy bride! I’ve lived long enough to know the real thing when I see it. By gum, I have. They’ll stay married. Ma will have to read up about the wedding in the Enterprise. I couldn’t ever do justice to it. Between the Enterprise and Mrs. Blythe she’ll get a pretty good idea of it. Only I must warn Mrs. Blythe not to tell ma she saw me eating indigestible things. It’s lucky she’s a woman you can trust. They’re few and far between. Dr. Blythe’s a lucky man.”
One of the guests, of a cynical turn of mind, thinking,
“H’m ... white mums and palms. They’ve done it very well ... though I did hear the mums came from the little Ingleside conservatory. And everybody is here who should be ... no end of relations ... and of course all the curious folks of the Glen and surrounding districts. I hope the groom won’t be kissed to death ... though there’s not so much of that nowadays, thank whatever gods there be. They’ve even got old Uncle Douglas from Mowbray Narrows. He’s inside the ribbon so he’s a guest. How they must have hated having him ... at least Amy! Jim always had a bit of family feeling ... but I doubt if Amy has any. Of course, he’s Jim’s uncle, not hers, but it would have been all the same. Poor Prue Davis ... smiling with her lips but not her eyes ... hope deferred maketh the heart sick. Odd ... I learned that verse in Sunday school fifty years ago. If only Prue knew how well off she was! Mothballs! Who in the world is smelling of mothballs at this time of year? Here they come ... Evelyn looks well ... her profile and eyelashes always carried her ... ‘off with the old love and on with the new’ ... engaged to Elmer Owen two months ago ... and now marrying a man she has hated all her life. Poor D’Arcy! I suppose all this flummery was really planned out for her wedding with Elmer, even to the dress. Amy looks worried. Well, I had to see both my daughters marry the wrong man.
“Marnie’s quite sparkling ... she has got twice the pep Evelyn has but nobody ever looks twice at her when Evelyn is around. Maybe she’ll have a chance, now that Evelyn is going.
“Jim is doing everything very correctly ... a well-trained husband ... he was crazy about me before he met Amy. If I’d married him he’d have been more successful from a business point of view ... but would he have been so happy? I doubt it. I couldn’t have made him believe himself the wonder Amy has done. My sense of humour would have prevented it. We would likely have ended up in the divorce court.
“Does that minister spin out his sermons like that? He seems to have perfected the art of talking for fifty minutes and saying nothing. Not that I’m an authority on sermons, goodness knows. They say the Blythes go every Sunday. Habit is powerful. But they say there is some engagement between the families. I suppose they want to keep on good terms with each other.
“That stately old dowager in blue chiffon, with the old-fashioned pearls, must be D’Arcy’s mother. They say she has devoted her life to him ... and now she must hand him over to a chit of a girl. How she must hate Evelyn! Osler was right when he said everybody should be chloroformed at forty ... or was it sixty? Women anyhow. And isn’t it odd how women hate to give their sons up when they are always so glad to get their girls well married off?
“What a sight Rhea Bailey is! Those big gaunt girls should never wear flimsy dresses. But of course in this case she had no choice. It wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. Those Bailey girls never had any taste in dress.
“‘For better, for worse.’ That sounds wonderful ... but is there really such a thing as love in the world? We all believe it until we are twenty. Why, I used to believe it. Before I married Ramsay I used to lie awake at nights to think about him. Well, I did it after we were married, too, but not for the same reason. It was to wonder what woman he was with. I wonder how his new marriage is turning out. Sometimes I think I was a fool to divorce him. A home and position means a good deal.
“Well, it is over. Miss Evelyn March is Mrs. D’Arcy Phillips. I give them three years before the divorce ... or at least before they want one. Of course, D’Arcy’s bringing-up may prevent it. I don’t suppose the farmers of Mowbray Narrows get divorces very often. But I wonder how many, even of them, would marry the same woman over again? Dr. Blythe would, I really do believe ... but as for the rest! It’s just as that queer old Susan Baker says, ‘If you don’t get married you wish you had ... and if you do you wish you hadn’t.’ But one likes to have had the chance.”
The mother of the bride thinking, rather disconnectedly,
“I won’t cry ... I’ve always said I wouldn’t cry when my girls got married ... but what are we going to do without darling Evelyn? Thank goodness, Jim hasn’t got in the wrong place ... Evie does look rather pale ... I told her she should make up a little ... but neither Jim nor D’Arcy like it. I remember I was a dreadful brick red when I was married ... of course, a bride who made up in those days would have been beyond the pale ... Marnie looks very well ... happiness becomes the child.
“How wonderfully everything has turned out! I never liked Evie’s engagement to Elmer ... though he is such a dear boy ... I always felt somehow that her heart wasn’t in it ... mothers do feel these things. But Marnie really loves him. It’s too bad he couldn’t have been here ... but of course it would have looked queer ... nobody would have understood ... and it would never do to announce the engagement yet.
“I’ve always loved D’Arcy ... he isn’t rich but they won’t be any poorer than Jim and I when we started out ... and Evie’s a famous little cook and manager, thanks to dear Mary. It seems like yesterday that we had Evie’s coming-out tea ... how sweet she was ... everybody said so ... just shy enough to really seem like a bud ... as they called them then.
“Patricia Miller and that artist son of hers are here after all. I do hope he won’t be annoyed because we didn’t hang the picture he sent as a gift. But nobody could really tell which side was up ... they do paint such extraordinary pictures nowadays.
“I hope the reception will go off nicely ... I hope nobody will notice the worn place in the hall carpet. And I hope the bills won’t be too terrible. It was sweet of the Blythes to give us the mums ... but I didn’t want all those roses in the reception room. But Jim was so determined his daughter should have a nice wedding. Dear Jim, he’s always worshipped his girls. We’ve been very happy, he and I, though we’ve had our ups and downs ... even our quarrels. They say Dr. Blythe and his wife have never had a single quarrel ... but I don’t believe that. Tiffs, anyhow. Everyone does.
“He’s pronouncing them man and wife ... I won’t cry ... I won’t. It’s bad enough to see Jim with tears in his eyes. I suppose people will think I’ve no feeling ...”
The mother of the groom, calmly reflecting,
“My darling boy! How well he looks! I don’t know if she is just the one I would have chosen for him ... she’s been brought up as a rich man’s daughter ... but if he is happy what does it matter? Susan Baker told me Mary Hamilton told her there was nothing she couldn’t do. If his dear father could have lived to see this day! I’m glad I decided on that Dutch walnut design in the dining room for my present. I had only one bridesmaid when I was married ... she wore a picture hat of white lace, with a dropping brim. Diana Blythe is the prettiest of all the bridesmaids. D’Arcy is kissing his wife ... his wife ... how strange that sounds!
My little baby married! She has a sweet face ... she does love him ... I feel sure of that ... in spite of that engagement to Elmer Owen. There was something I didn’t understand ... I never will, I suppose ... but D’Arcy seemed quite satisfied about it, so I’m sure it’s all right. Oh, what would the world be without youth? And yet it passes so quickly. We are old before we know it. We never believe it ... and then some day we wake up and discover we are old. Ah me! But D’Arcy is happy ... that is all that matters now. And I believe it will last. Strange how they used to quarrel, though ... ever since the Marches began coming to Glen St. Mary, long before they built Merestead. D’Arcy’s father and I never quarrelled. But then we didn’t meet till we were grown up ... and it was love at first sight. Things are different nowadays, let them say what they will. I have no son now ... but if he is happy ...”
The father of the bride, thinking,
“My little girl looks very beautiful. A trifle pale ... but I never like a made-up bride. Thank heaven, decent skirts are in again. It doesn’t seem long since Amy and I were standing like that. Evie isn’t so pretty a bride as her mother was, after all. That dress becomes Amy ... she looks as young as any of them ... a wonderful woman. If I had to choose over again I’d make the same choice. There’s no one I could compare her to. I suppose we’ll soon have to face the loss of Marnie, too. Well, mother and I were alone once and I guess we can stand being alone again. Only ... we were young then ... that makes all the difference. But if the girls are happy ...”
The best man, thinking,
“You’ll never see me in a scrape like this ... though that little bridesmaid is cute ... slant eyes like a fairy’s ... twinkling like a little dark star ... but he travels the fastest who travels alone. The Blythe bridesmaid is a bit of a beauty ... but they tell me she’s bespoken. Bride looks a bit icy ... rather like a cool white nun. Wonder why D’Arcy’s so goofy about her. Seems to me I’ve heard something about another engagement. Hope he’s not just a consolation prize. The gods grant my shoes don’t creak when I’m going down the aisle like Hal Crowder’s did ... and that I won’t drop the wedding ring like Joe Raynor ... it rolled to the very feet of the girl the groom had jilted. They’ve done the decorations rather well for a country church.