CHAPTER XV

A GOLDEN DAY

Most people detest tears at a wedding, and yet weddings give much more cause for tears than funerals.

At last Maudie Whittaker's wedding day dawned--a golden July day, fair and still, without being oppressively hot. I think I have already said that the houses of Marksby and Whittaker were situated in one of the main roads of that favorite residential locality which is known to Londoners as Northampton Park, and to its residents as "the Park," without any distinguishing prefix. A stranger passing along Milton Avenue might have wondered what great function was afoot, for at both houses flags were flying, and on lines stretched across from house to house, amidst streaming pennons, was a great green and white marriage bell. From the gate to the porch of Ye Dene Alfred Whittaker had, some two years before, erected a covered glass way, almost a conservatory. This was lined with flowers and carpeted with red felt. A couple of stalwart commissionaires stood at either side of the entrance, and a crowd of the poorer denizens of the Park had gathered to watch the coming and going of the wedding guests. I must tell you at once that on this occasion Regina was truly great.

"Mother," Maudie had said on the previous evening, when she bade her parents good-night for the last time as Maudie Whittaker. "Mother darling, there's one thing that you must not do to-morrow."

"What is that, my love?" said Regina.

"You will not cry when you get to church, and you will not cry when we go away, will you? Remember that in Harry you are gaining a son, not losing a daughter."

"No," said Regina, "no, I shall not disgrace you. At the same time, Maudie, my love, if I am not losing a daughter I am losing my little girl."

"Not a bit of it, mother," said Julia, chiming in to support her sister and resolutely keeping her thoughts turned from the fact that on the morrow half her life would be torn away; "you mustn't think that, dearest. You know the old saying, 'my son is my son till he gets him a wife, but my daughter's my daughter all the days of my life.'"

"Then I hope," said Regina, solemnly, to the bride-elect, "that you will never make that poor little woman across the road feel that _her_ son is her son till he gets him a wife. But rest assured of one thing, Maudie darling, your mother will not disgrace you on your wedding day. I was at a wedding a few years ago when the bride's mother howled persistently all through the ceremony and till the bride departed on her honeymoon. They had not been on such terms as we have always been--in fact, if Constance Colquhoun had not fortunately found a husband, it is very certain that Mrs. Colquhoun and she would have parted company rather than have gone on living together in a continual state of wrangling. I have no regrets for the past and very few fears for the future. You will have your ups and downs, my darling, as your mother has had before you and as your children will have after you. You must look for them in this vale of tears, but anticipation of them on a joyful occasion is foolish even to criminality."

Probably no sweeter bride had ever passed up the aisle of the fantastic little church which was alike the spiritual and material centre of Northampton Park. It was not that Maudie Whittaker was a very pretty girl--no one but her mother had ever given a second thought to personal beauty as one of her attributes--but she was soft and round and fair, with radiant eyes and a winning smile. Her bridal gown was simple and girlish, and her veil of plain tulle enveloped her like a cloud of innocence. Her only jewel was the diamond heart which her bridegroom had given her for his wedding-day present. Her bouquet was a real ornament, a loosely-arranged posy of flowers tied with broad white ribbon--not the usual over-weighted bundle of blossoms showering from the hand to the ground, conveying the idea that if the bride was sufficiently unlucky to tread upon the mass of trails, the result would be the complete downfall of bride and bouquet alike. The bridesmaids were quite reasonably attired. Maudie had been inflexible on that point. "My dear Ju," she had said to her sister when the question was first mooted, "the bride ought to choose the bridesmaids' dresses. I have seen bridesmaids in Charles II. dresses, in Tudor dresses, in Directoire costumes, and such close copies of Boughton's Dutch maidens, that one felt they only wanted sabots to be entirely correct. I have seen bridesmaids with their gathers under their arms, and with pouches down to their knees. I am going to have none of these monstrosities. You and I are ordinary-looking girls, but, between ourselves, we are dreams of style compared with Rachel and Emmeline Marksby."

"Harry seems to have monopolized all the style in the Marksby family," said Julia, with a judicial air.

"Oh, Harry has style enough," rejoined Maudie, with not a little pride in her tones.

"Yes, you are quite right, Rachel and Emmeline are two dear little girls, but they are dumpy and snub-nosed, and would look ridiculous in any sort of fancy dress. You could hardly find a greater contrast than the Ponsonby-Piggots."

"Oh, my dear, where could you find a greater contrast than the Ponsonby-Piggots themselves? One girl as tall as a lamp post, has straight features, and is definite and rather commanding; and the other is a little slip of a thing, with curly red hair, misty blue eyes, and an air of fragility which completely deceives the ordinary observer. So no monstrosities and eccentricities of bridesmaids' dresses for me. I should like white _crepe de chine_ frocks over turquoise blue petticoats, belts of some handsome embroidery with clasps studded with big blue stones that will look like turquoise, and big black hats with a touch of blue under the brim; Harry is going to give them blue enamel watches. There, I think that is as smart an idea for bridesmaids' dresses as we need trouble about."

So it was decided, and the eight bridesmaids who followed Maudie Whittaker to the altar were all dressed alike, as I have just described. On her left breast each wore the enamel watch given by the bridegroom, while the bride's gifts to her bridesmaids were the embroidered belts studded with blue stones.

Yes, it was a very pretty wedding, and Regina, resplendent in ruby velvet, with a white feather waving in her coronet bonnet, and over her ample shoulders a large cape arrangement of rich lace, sailed up the aisle on the arm of Mr. Marksby. She had an air of "alone I did it" about her which was at the same time touching and misleading. In her tightly-gloved hand she carried a large posy of roses, and truly there was nothing of Niobe in her expression and demeanor. The service went off without a hitch, the decorations were lavish, and the little boys, who were all that could be mustered of the regular choir, wore clean surplices. The favors were extremely choice, and the happy face of the bride was more than matched by the radiant self-satisfaction of the bridegroom. "A delightful wedding" was the general verdict. And then there was the streaming back to the house just down the road, there was the string of carriages belonging to friends from town, the Park guests having followed the simpler plan of going afoot. How shall I describe it all? The palms, the flowers, the gay dresses, the gently-murmured felicitations, the health drinking, the speech making, the cake cutting, the present inspecting, which is the usual course of the smart wedding. These things were all there, for the Alfred Whittakers had given their daughter what is generally called "a good send-off."

Then there came the terrible moment when Regina might have been forgiven for breaking down. But Regina was equal to the occasion--Regina was a woman of her word.

"Oh, no, I am not at all inclined to break down," she said in reply to a friend who was offering judicious sympathy. "I feel that in my girl's husband I have gained what I have always longed for--a son. I am going to be a mother-in-law quite out of the ordinary run, and I am not going to begin by making him feel himself a cruel marauder who is taking away my most valued possession. I should not like to have children who did not marry; it is a natural thing, and Maudie's choice is so absolutely ours that I have nothing to regret and everything to be delighted with."

"But did not Maudie choose her own husband?" said someone who was standing by.

"Oh, of course she did, but if we had chosen her husband our choice would have been Harry Marksby."

It chanced that Harry was just entering the house, having been across the road to change his wedding garments for traveling gear. He was in time to hear the whole of his mother-in-law's reply to the question as to whether Maudie had chosen her own husband. He slipped his hand under her arm and twisted her round a little.

"You are not going to be a mother-in-law out of the common," he said, "because you are one. Nothing you could do would be in the common. But I cannot thank you enough for saying that if you had chosen Maudie's husband you would have chosen me. And I'm so glad," he went on in a lower tone, "that you did not think it necessary to treat us to the usual shower of maternal tears on this occasion."

"Perhaps I should have done," cried Mrs. Whittaker, "if I were not so perfectly happy in Maudie's choice. Why should I want to weep over my girl's happiness? Why should your mother want to make herself look a silly fright because you have married the girl of your heart? We are agreed, are we not, Mrs. Marksby?"

"Oh, yes, I always did believe in young men getting married as soon as they are in a position to marry comfortably. As I said to Harry as we were having a little talk last night, 'Remember, my boy, that you are marrying in a very different position to what pa and me did. Pa and me married to a little house with three bedrooms in the southeast district, with never a thought that we should end up west, and see our boy married as we have seen him married this day'--didn't we pa?"

"Yes, mother, we did. And I don't know that we've had any cause to regret it."

"I don't know about you, pa," said Mrs. Marksby, bridling visibly.

"Oh, I don't say but that you might have done better," said Mr. Marksby, "but we were very happy in that little house, and I only hope that the young people will be as happy in their beginning as we were in ours."

"We shall not be less happy because we are able to afford a decent house in the West End," said Harry, sensibly. "If we are, you may take it as certain that we should have been just as unhappy in the cottage with three bedrooms. But, I say, Mrs. Whittaker, isn't Maudie nearly ready? We sha'n't catch that train if we don't look out. Ah, here she is. Come along, my dear girl, come along; we've got none too much time to spare."

Perhaps it was as well. There was a moment's hesitation as Maudie said "good-bye" to her mother; for one instant, Julia standing by, vigilant and keen, feared that her mother was going to break down in spite of all her good resolves. But Mrs. Whittaker was a valiant soul; she pulled herself up sharply as the little bride, holding her father's hand, went out to face the storm of rice and old slippers which was awaiting them outside the house.

"I know," she said, her voice a little tremulous in spite of her self-control, "I know she will make a good wife, because she has been such a good daughter."

"We can cry quits, Mrs. Whittaker," said the mother of the bridegroom, "for a better boy to his father and mother than our Harry I don't believe you could find from one end of the earth to the other."