Chapter 20

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_ Chapter XX

It was not quite a year afterwards that the wedding-day of Rose and Horace was set. It was July, shortly after the beginning of the summer vacation. The summer was very cool, and the country looked like June rather than July. Even the roses were not gone.

The wedding was to be in the evening, and all day long women worked decorating the house. Rose had insisted on being married in the old White homestead. She was to have quite a large wedding, and people from New York and Boston crowded the hotel. Miss Hart was obliged to engage three extra maids. Hannah Simmons had married the winter before. She had married a young man from Alford, where she now lived, and came over to assist her former mistress. Lucinda had a look of combined delight and anxiety. "It's almost as bad as when they thought we'd committed murder," she said to Hannah.

"It was queer how we found that," said Hannah.

"Hush," said Lucinda. "You remember what we agreed upon after we'd told Albion Bennet that we'd keep it secret."

"Of course I remember," said Hannah; "but there ain't any harm in my reminding you how queer it was that we found the arsenic, that the poor thing had been taking to make her beautiful complexion, in her room."

"It was awful," said Lucinda. "Poor soul! I always liked her. People ought to be contented with what God has given them for complexions."

"I wonder if she would have looked very dreadful if she hadn't taken it," Hannah said, ruminatingly. She was passing the kitchen looking-glass as she spoke, and glanced in it. Hannah considered that her own skin was very rough. "I suppose," said she, "that it would never have happened if she had been careful. I suppose lots of women do use such things."

Lucinda cast a sharp glance at Hannah. "It's downright wicked fooling with them," said she. "I hope you won't get any such ideas into your head."

"No, I sha'n't," replied Hannah. "I'm married."

"I heard pretty straight this morning," said Lucinda, "that Lucy Ayres had got married out West, and had done real well."

"I'm mighty glad of it," said Hannah, sharply. "She was crazy enough to get married when she was here."

Lucinda echoed her as sharply. "Guess you're right," she said. "Albion Bennet told me some things. I shouldn't think she'd make much of a wife, if she has got a pretty face."

"She's just the kind to settle down and be a real sensible woman, after she's found out that she's on the earth and not in the clouds," returned Hannah, with an air of wisdom.

Then Albion Bennet came into the kitchen for some hot water for shaving. He was going to the wedding, and had closed his store early, and was about to devote a long time to preparations. Lucinda, also, was going. She had a new black silk for the occasion.

When Albion left the kitchen he beckoned her to follow him. She made an excuse and went out into the corridor. "What is it?" she said to Albion, who was waiting, holding his pitcher of hot water.

"Nothing," said he, "only I was over to Alford this morning and--I bought some violets. I thought you'd like to wear them to the wedding."

Lucinda stared at him. "What for?" asked she.

Albion fidgeted and his pitcher of hot water tilted.

"Look out, you're spilling the water," said Lucinda. "What for?"

"I--thought you might like to wear them, you know," said Albion. He had never before given violets to a woman, and she had never had any given her by a man.

"Thank you," she said, faintly.

"I've ordered a hack to come for me at half-past seven, and--I thought maybe you'd like to ride with me," said Albion, further.

Lucinda stared. "What for?" she said again.

"I thought you might like to ride."

Then Lucinda colored. "Why, folks would talk," said she.

"Let them. I don't care; do you?"

"Albion Bennet, I'm a lot older than you. I ain't old enough to be your mother, but I'm a good deal older than you."

"I don't care," said Albion. "I know how old you are. I don't care. I'd enough sight rather have you than those young things that keep racing to my store. When I get you I shall know what I've got, and when I've got them I shouldn't know. I'd rather have heavy bread, or dry bread, and know it was bread, than new-fangled things that ain't a mite more wholesome, and you don't know what you've got. I don't know how you feel, Lucinda, but I ain't one who could ever marry somebody he hadn't summered and wintered. I've summered and wintered you, and you've summered and wintered me. I don't know how much falling in love there is for either of us, but I reckon we can get on together and have a good home, and that's what love-making has to wind up in, if the mainspring don't break and all the works bust. I'm making quite a little lot from my store. I suppose maybe the soda and candy trade will fall off a little if I get married, but if it does I can take a young clerk to draw it. You won't have to work so hard. You can let some of this big hotel, and keep rooms enough for us, and I'll hire a girl for the kitchen and you can do fancy-work."

"Land!" said Lucinda. "I can do the work for only two."

"You're going to have a hired girl," said Albion, firmly. "I know of one I can get. She's a real good cook. Are you going in the hack with me, Lucinda?"

Lucinda looked up at him, and her face was as the face of a young girl. She had never had an offer, nor a lover. Albion Bennet looked very dear to her.

"Good land!" said Albion, "you act as if you were a back number, Lucinda. You look as young as lots of the young women. You don't do up your hair quite like the girls that come for soda and candy, but otherwise--"

"I can do up my hair like them, if I want to," said Lucinda. "It's thick enough. I suppose I 'ain't fussed because I didn't realize that anybody but myself ever thought about it one way or the other."

"Then you'll go in the hack?" said Albion.

Lucinda made a sudden, sharp wheel about. "I sha'n't get ready to go in a hack if I don't hurry and get these biscuits made for supper," said she, and was gone.

It is odd how individuality will uprear itself before its own consciousness, in the most adverse circumstances. Few in all the company invited to the wedding wasted a thought upon Albion Bennet and Lucinda Hart, but both felt as if they were the principal figures of it all. Lucinda really did merit attention. She had taken another role upon her stage of life. The change in her appearance savored of magic. Albion kept looking at her as if he doubted his very eyes. Lucinda did not wear the black silk which she had made for the occasion. She had routed out an old lavender satin, which she had worn years ago and had laid aside for mourning when her father died. It was made in one of those quaint styles which defy fashion. Lucinda had not changed as to her figure. She hesitated a little at the V-shape of the neck. She wondered if she really ought not to fill that in with lace, but she shook her head defiantly, and fastened around her neck a black velvet ribbon with a little pearl pin. Then she tucked Albion's violets in the lavender satin folds of her waist. Her hair was still untouched with gray, and she had spoken the truth when she had said she could arrange it like a girl. She had puffed it low over her temples and given it a daring twist in the back.

Albion fairly gasped when he saw her. "Lord!" said he, "why ain't you been for candy and soda to the store, too?"

Few people at the wedding noticed Lucinda and Albion, but they noticed each other to that extent that all save themselves seemed rather isolated from them. Albion whispered to Lucinda that she would make a beautiful bride, and she looked up at him, and they were in love.

They stood well back. Neither Lucinda nor Albion were pushing. Lucinda considered that her wonderful city boarders belonged in the front ranks, and Albion shared her opinion. It was a beautiful wedding. The old house was transformed into a bower with flowers and vines. Musicians played in the south room, which was like a grove with palms. There was a room filled with the wedding-presents, and the glitter of cut glass and silver seemed almost like another musical effect.

The wedding was to be at eight o'clock. Everybody was there before that time. Meeks and Henry stood together in the hall by the spiral staircase, which was wound with flowers and vines. Henry wore a dress-suit for the first time in his life. Meeks wore an ancient one, in which he moved gingerly. "I believe I weigh fifty pounds more than I did when the blamed thing was made," he said to Henry, "and the broadcloth is as thin as paper. I'm afraid to move."

Henry looked very sober. "What's the matter, Henry?" asked Sidney.

"It's Sylvia."

"Sylvia? I thought--"

"Yes, I thought, too, that she had got what was on her mind off it, but she hasn't. I don't know what ails her. She ain't herself. I'm worried to death about her."

Then the wedding-march was played and the bridal party came down the stairs. Rose was on the arm of the lawyer who had acted as her trustee. He was to give her away. The task had been an impossible one for Henry to undertake, although he had been the first one thought of by Rose. Henry had told Meeks, and the two had chuckled together over it. "The idea of a man from a shoe-shop giving away a bride in real lace at a swell wedding," said Henry.

"She was the right sort to ask you, though," said Meeks.

"Bless her little heart," said Henry, "she wouldn't care if Uncle Henry smelled strong enough of leather to choke out the smell of the flowers. But I ain't going to make a spectacle of myself at my time of life. If I stand that dress-suit I shall do well. Sylvia is going to wear black lace with a tail to it. I know somebody will step on it."

Sylvia, in her black lace, came down the stairs in the wake of the bridal party. She did not seem to see her husband as she passed him.

"By Jove!" said the lawyer, in a whisper. "What does ail her, Henry? She looks as if she was going to jump at something."

Henry did not answer. He made his way as quickly as possible after Sylvia, and Sidney kept with him.

Horace and Rose, in her bridal white, stood before the clergyman. The music had ceased. The clergyman opened his mouth to begin the wedding-service, when Sylvia interrupted him. She pushed herself like a wedge of spiritual intent past the bridal pair and the bridesmaids and best man, and stood beside the clergyman. He was a small, blond man, naturally nervous, and he fairly trembled when Sylvia put her hand on his arm and spoke.

"I have something to say," said she, in a thin, strained voice. "You wait."

The clergyman looked aghast at her. People pressed forward, craning their necks to hear more distinctly. Some tittered from nervousness. Henry made his way to his wife's side, but she pushed him from her.

"No," she said. "Stand back, Henry, and listen with the others. You had nothing to do with it. You ain't concerned in it."

Then she addressed the assembly. "This man, my husband," she said, "has known nothing of it. I want you all to understand that before I begin." Sylvia fumbled in the folds of her black lace skirt, while the people waited. She produced a roll of paper and held it up before them. Then she began her speech.

"I want," said she, "before all this company, before my old friends, and the friends of these two young people who are about to be married, to make my confession. I have not had the courage before. I have courage now, and this is the fitting time and place, since it metes out the fittest punishment and shame to me, who deserve so much. You have assembled here to-night thinking that you were to be at my house at this wedding. It is not so. It is not my house. None of this property is mine. I have known it was not mine since a little while after we came to live here. I have known it all belonged to Rose Fletcher, Abrahama White's own niece. After Rose came to live with us, I tried to put salve on my conscience by doing every single thing I could for her. When my husband went to work again, I spent every cent that came from her aunt's property on Rose. I gave her all her aunt's jewelry. I tried to salve over my conscience and make it seem right--what I had done, what I was doing. I tried to make it seem right by telling myself that Rose had enough property of her own and didn't need this, but I couldn't do it. I have been in torment, holding wealth that didn't belong to me, that has gnawed at my very heart all the time. Now I am going to confess. Here is Abrahama White's last will and testament. I found it in a box in the garret with some letters. Abrahama wrote letters to her sister asking her to forgive her, and telling her how sorry she was, and begging her to come home, but she never sent one of them. There they all were. She had tried to salve her conscience as I have tried to salve mine. She couldn't do it, either. She had to give it up, as I am doing. Then she made her will and left all her property to Rose."

Sylvia unfolded the roll of paper and began reading. The will was very short and concise. It was as follows:

"I, Abrahama White, being in sound mind and understanding, and moved thereunto by a desire to make my peace with God for my sins before I give up this mortal flesh, declare this to be my last will and testament. I give and bequeath to my niece, Rose Fletcher, the daughter of my beloved sister, deceased, my entire property, real and personal, to her and her heirs forever. And I hereby appoint Sidney Meeks, Esquire, as my executor.

"(Signed) Abrahama White."

Sylvia read the will in her thin, strained voice, very clearly. Every word was audible. Then she spoke again. "I have kept it secret all this time," said she. "My husband knew nothing of it. I kept it from him. I tried to hide from God and myself what I was doing, but I could not. Here is the will, and Miss Rose Fletcher, who stands before you, about to be united to the man of her choice, is the owner of this house and land and all the property which goes with it."

She stopped. There was a tense silence. Then Sidney Meeks spoke. "Mrs. Whitman," he said, "may I trouble you for the date of that document you hold, and also for the names of the witnesses?"

Sylvia looked at Sidney in bewilderment, then she scrutinized the will. "I don't see any date," she said, at last, "and there is no name signed except just Abrahama's."

Meeks stepped forward. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "Mrs. Whitman has, I am pleased to say, been under quite unnecessary anxiety of spirit. The document which she holds is not valid. It is neither dated nor signed. I have seen it before. The deceased lady, Miss Abrahama White, called me in one morning, shortly before her death, and showed me this document, which she had herself drawn up, merely to make her wishes clear to me. She instructed me to make out a will under those directions, and I was to bring it to her for her signature, and produce the proper witnesses. Then, the next day, she called me in to inform me that there had been a change in her plans since she had heard of her niece's having a fortune, and gave me directions for the later will, which was properly made out, signed, witnessed, and probated after Miss White's decease. Mrs. Whitman is the rightful heir; but since she has labored under the delusion that she was not, I am sure we all appreciate her courage and sense of duty in making the statement which you have just heard from her lips."

Sylvia looked at the lawyer, and her face was ghastly. "Do you mean to say that I have been thinking I was committing theft, when I wasn't, all this time?" said she.

"I certainly do."

Henry went to Sylvia and took hold of her arm, but she did not seem to heed him. "I was just as guilty," said she, firmly, "for I had the knowledge of sin in my heart and I held it there. I was just as guilty."

She stared helplessly at the worthless will which she still held. A young girl tittered softly. Sylvia turned towards the sound. "There is no occasion to laugh," said she, "at one who thought she was sinning, and has had the taste of sin in her soul, even though she was not doing wrong. The intention was there."

Sylvia stopped. Rose had both arms around her, and was kissing her and whispering. Sylvia pushed her gently away. "Now," she said to the minister, "you can go on with your marrying. Even if Mr. Meeks had told me before what he has just told me here in your presence, I should have had to speak out. I've carried it on my shoulders and in my heart just as long as I could and live and walk and speak under it, let alone saying my prayers. I don't say I haven't got to carry it now, for I have, as long as I live; but telling you all about it was the only way I could shift a little of the heft of it. Now I feel as if the Lord Almighty was helping me carry the burden, and always would. That's all I've got to say. Now you can go on with your marrying."

Sylvia stepped back. There was a hush, then a solemn murmur of one voice, broken at intervals by other hushes and low responses.

When it was over, and the bridal pair stood in the soft shadow of their bridal flowers--Rose's white garment being covered with a lace-like tracery of vines and bride roses, and her head with its chaplet of orange-blossoms shining out clearly with a white radiance from the purple mist of leaves and flowers, which were real, yet unreal, and might have been likened to her maiden dreams--Henry and Sylvia came first to greet them.

Henry's dress-suit fitted well, but his shoulders, bent with his life-work over the cutting-table, already moulded it. No tailor on earth could overcome the terrible, triumphant rigidity of that back fitted for years to its burden of toil. However, the man's face was happy with a noble happiness. He simply shook hands, with awkward solemnity, with the two, but in his heart was great, unselfish exultation.

"This man," he was saying to himself, "has work to do that won't grind him down and double him up, soul and body, like a dumb animal. He can take care of his wife, and not let her get bent, either, and the Lord knows I'm thankful."

He felt Sylvia's little nervous hand on his arm, and a great tenderness for her was over him. He had not a thought of blame or shame on her account.

Instead, he looked at Rose, blooming under her bridal flowers, not so much smiling as beaming with a soft, remote radiance, like a star, and he said to himself: "Thank the Lord that she will never get so warped and twisted as to what is right and wrong by the need of money to keep soul and body together, that she will have to do what my wife has done, and bear such a burden on her pretty shoulders."

It seemed to Henry that never, not even in his first wedded rapture, had he loved his wife as he loved her that night. He glanced at her, and she looked wonderful to him; in fact, there was in Sylvia's face that night an element of wonder. In it spirit was manifest, far above and crowning the flesh and its sordid needs. Her shoulders, under the fine lace gown, were bent; her very heart was bent; but she saw the goal where she could lay her burden down.

The music began again. People thronged around the bride and groom. There were soft sounds of pleasant words, gentle laughs, and happy rejoinders. Everybody smiled. They witnessed happiness with perfect sympathy. It cast upon them rosy reflections. And yet every one bore, unseen or seen, the burden of his or her world upon straining shoulders. The grand, pathetic tragedy inseparable from life, which Atlas symbolized, moved multiple at the marriage feast, and yet love would in the end sanctify it for them all.

[THE END]
Mary E Wilkins Freeman's Book: Shoulders of Atlas: A Novel

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