The Boy with Wings 26Part II · Haste to the Wedding!
18
Literature · Romance
The Boy with Wings 26
Part II · Haste to the Wedding!
RuckEnglish
The Tuesday morning that brought Gwenna's wedding-day as the morning of the official declaration of war.
It was in all the papers over which the girls at the Hampstead Club pored, before they went off to their various avocations, staring, half-realising only.
"Can it be true?... War?... Nowadays?... Good gracious!... D'you suppose it means we shall really have to send an army of ours--an English Army--over to France?... What do you think, Miss Armitage?"
Miss Armitage, the suffragette, then became voluble on the subject of how very different all would have been if women had had the casting vote in the matter. Intelligent women. Women with some insight into the wider interests of their sex.... Not mere---- Here, by way of illustration, this Feminist shot a vicious glance at Miss Long. Now, Leslie, dressed in a lilac river-frock and wearing her black picture hat, was going round the breakfast-table, under the very eye of the disapproving Lady Principal with the gold curb brooch, on an errand of her own. She was collecting from it the daintiest bits of dry toast, the nicest-looking pats of butter, a white rose from the nosegay in the centre bowl, and all that was left of the marmalade.
For to Leslie Long the question whether War was to be or not to be seemed now to have been settled an age ago. The burden of that anxiety was lifted. The other anxieties ahead could be put aside for the present. And she turned, with a tranquil face, to the immediate matter in hand. She was going to take a little tray up to Gwenna, whom she had advised to have her breakfast in bed and not to dress until she should make herself all ready for her wedding at that church at the foot of the hill.
"'Good-morning, Madam Bride!'" said Leslie, smiling, as she came, tray in hand, into the little room where Gwenna was still drowsily curled up against her pillow. "Here's a little bit of sugar for the bird." She sat down on the side of the bed, cutting the dry buttered toast into narrow strips for her chum, taking the top off her egg for her.
"But I won't 'help to salt, help to sorrow' for you," she went on talking, just a trifle more brightly than naturally. "Curious thing about a wedding, Taff--I mean one of the curious things about a wedding, is the wide desire it gives you to quote every aged, half-pay proverb and tag that you've ever heard. 'Marriage is a----"
"Not 'lottery,' Leslie! Not that one!" begged the bride-to-be, sitting up and laughing with her mouth full of toast. "We had it four times from Uncle Hugh before we left him last night. 'Few prizes! Many blanks!'" she quoted joyously. All Monday she had been tremulously nervous. The reaction had come at the right moment.
"'Happy is the Bride that the sun shines on,' then," amended Leslie. "You'll be glad to hear it's shining like Billy-oh this morning."
"I saw it," said Gwenna, nodding her curls towards the open casement. "And I shall be getting 'Married in white, sure to be right,' too!"
The white lingerie frock she was to put on was not new, but it was the prettiest that she had. It lay, folded, crisp as a butterfly's wing and fresh from the wash, on the top of her chest-of-drawers, with the white Princesse slip--that was new, bought by her in a hurry the day before!--and the white silk stockings, and the little white suede shoes.
"'Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,'" Leslie capped her quotation. "Where's the 'something blue,' Taffy?"
"Ribbons in my camisole; and I shall 'borrow' your real lace handkerchief, may I?" said the bride-elect.
"Rather! All that I have, even unto the half of the best-man's attention!" said Leslie, smiling gaily into the cherub face opposite.
But, even as she smiled, she felt that pang which is supposed to be known only to the man who sees his chosen pal prepare to be "married and done for."
For this morning, that turned an adoring sweetheart into a wife, was taking something of her own, of the bridesmaid's youth away.
Gwenna Williams married!
That meant one more girl-chum who would never, never be quite the same again to a once-treasured companion. That bubbling fountain of innocent confidences would now run low, as far as Leslie was concerned. No longer would the elder, quickly-sympathising, rebellious-tongued girl be the first to hear what happened to her little, ingenuous friend.
The girlish gossip would have a masculine censor to pass.
Leslie could foretell the little scene when it first happened.
She could hear Gwenna's eager, "Oh, Paul! Leslie would so laugh at----" whatever the little incident might be. "I must tell her that!"
Leslie, the bachelor-girl, could imagine the tilt of the young husband's blonde head, and his doubtful, "Don't see why it should be supposed to interest her."
She could imagine the little wife's agreeing, "Oh! Perhaps not."
And again the young husband's, "Don't you think Miss Long gets a little bit much sometimes? Oh, she's all right, but--I mean, I shouldn't like you to go on quite like that."
It would be only after years of marriage that the once-close chum would turn for sympathy to Leslie Long. And then it would not be the same....
The last of Leslie's forebodings seemed the most inevitable. She heard Gwenna's soft Welsh voice, once so full of unexpectedness, now grown almost unrecognisably sedate. She heard it utter that finally "settled-down"-sounding phrase:
"Say 'how d'you do' nicely to Auntie Leslie, now!"
Ah! That seemed to bring a shadow of Autumn already into the summer sunshine of that bridal room with its white, prepared attire, its bonnie, bright-eyed occupant. It seemed to show what must some day come: Taffy middle-aged!
Also what probably would come: Taffy matter-of-fact! Taffy with all the dreams out of her eyes! Taffy whose only preoccupations were, "Really that stair-carpet's getting to look awful; I wonder if I could manage to get a new one and put it on the upper flight?" or, "I never saw anything like the way my children wear through their boots: it was only the other day I got that quite expensive pair of Peter Pans for little Hughie. And now look at them. Look!..."
Yes! This sort of change was wrought, by time and marriage and domesticity, in girl after golden girl. Leslie had seen it. She would probably see Taffy, the fanciful Celt, grown stodgy; Taffy, even Taffy, the compactly supple, with all her fruit-like contours, grown stout!...
Horrible thought....
Then Miss Long gave a protesting shrug of her slim shoulders. This wouldn't do. Come, come! Not on the wedding-morning itself should one give way to thoughts of coming middle-age! The rose, that must, some day, be overblown, was only just a pouting bud as yet. There were days and fragrant days of beauty still before her.
So Leslie picked up her chum's rough towels, her loofah and her verbena-scented soap.
"I'll turn on the bath for you, Taffy, shall I? Hot or cold?"
"Cold, please," said the Welsh girl, springing out of bed and pattering over the oil-cloth to fetch her kimono. "Perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to have a real swim! Oh, won't that be gorgeous?" For the couple had decided upon Brighton for the honeymoon. It was near enough to London in case young Dampier received a summons; yet near also to country-tramps and sea-bathing. "I haven't had a swim this year, except in the baths. And you can't count that. Oh, fancy the sea again, Leslie!"
Leslie could guess what was at the back of that little exultant skip of the younger girl's through the bathroom door. It was sheer innocent delight over the prospect of being able to display to her lover at last something that she did really well.
For they had never been by the sea together, he and she.
And she was a pretty swimmer.
"Now I'll be your maid for the last time, and fasten you up," said Leslie, when she returned from the bathroom. "I suppose you know there isn't a single eye left at the neck of this dress? Always the way with that laundry! It's nothing to it that untidiness puts a man off worse than anything else (this from me). Never mind, I'll hook it into the lace.... That's all right. 'A bonnie bride is soon buskit.' Almost a pity the girls will all have gone--though I know you'd hate to have them staring. D'you know, you are a little pocket-Venus? No, I'm not piling it on. You're lovely, Taffy. I hope the Dampier boy tells you so, very often and much. He's vastly lucky."
"It's me that's lucky," said the girl in all-white devoutly. "Now where's my hat?"
"Do you think you're going to be allowed to get married in a hat?"
"My best white one with the wings, I meant."
"Pooh! I've arranged for you to have these," said Leslie, and brought out a cardboard box that she had been to fetch while Gwenna was having her bath. From it she drew a slender chaplet of dark leaves, with round white buds with waxen flowers.
"Orange-blossoms! Real orange-blossoms," cried Gwenna, delightedly sniffing up the sensuous perfume of them. "Oh, but where did you get them?"
"Covent Garden. I went down there this morning at five, with one of the housemaids whose young man is at a florist's," explained Leslie, standing above her to set the pretty wreath upon the pretty head. "Now you look like a print of 'Cupid's Coronation,' or something like that. 'Through his curls as the crown on them slips'--I'll twist this a tiny bit tighter. And here's the veil."
Gwenna stared. "A veil, too, Leslie?"
"Rather. Only chance you get of appearing in this thoroughly becoming kit that carries us all back to the worst days of Woman's Enslavement. May as well take that chance!" remarked Miss Long cheerfully, as she shook out soft, transparent folds of finest white net that she herself had embroidered, working late into the night, with a border of leaves in white silk. "This is from me."
"Oh, Les-lie! You got it as a surprise for me," said the little bride, much touched. "You worked all these beautiful little laurel-leaves----"
"Not laurel, child. Meant for myrtle. Pity your geography is so weak," rattled on Leslie, as she heard, outside the Club, the stopping of the taxi which had brought the Reverend Hugh Lloyd to call for his detachment of the bridal party. "Refreshingly unconventional sort of wedding you're having in some ways, aren't you? 'The presents were few and inexpensive' (such a change from the usual report). 'The bride was attended by one bridesmaid: her friend Miss Long, clad in mauve linen, mystic, wonderful'--(taking into consideration that it had done her cousin for Henley last year). 'The ceremony proceeded without a hitch, except for the usual attempt on the part of the officiating clergyman to marry the bride to the best man.' Which must not be, Taffy. You must remember that I've got designs on Mr. Hugo Swayne myself----"
"Don't, Leslie!" protested the bride. "You know I do so hate to think of you getting engaged in that sort of horrible way--instead of just because you can't help it! If only there were somebody you could be really in love with----"
"I shall be really rather in love with Uncle Hugh, I know," prophesied the bridesmaid. "What a pity he isn't thirty years younger! Come along. He's waiting. I'm going to kiss him, anyhow. Got your gloves? Right. Got my hankerfish? You won't want to shed any tears into it, but----"
But there was an added brightness in the green-brown eyes of the little bride as she glanced round the girlish room where Leslie would pack up and put everything to rights for her after she had gone.
Impulsively she put her arms round that good chum.
"You've been so--so frightfully sweet to me, Leslie, always. Thanks so awfully----"
"Don't kiss me through a veil, my child!" protested Leslie, drawing back. "D'you want to bring me ill luck?"
"Oh, Leslie! I should want to bring you all the good luck in the world," cried the younger girl, earnestly, over her shoulder as they went out. "If I were given three wishes now for a wedding-present, one of them would be that you would some day be as happy as me!"
"My dear lamb!" said Leslie lightly, running downstairs after her, "How do you know I'm not quite as happy in another--in my own way?"
Gwenna shook the curly head under the orange-blossom wreath and the misty veil. It seemed to her that there was only The One Way in which a woman could be happy.
"And the other two wishes?" suggested Leslie, at the sitting-room door. "What are they?"
"Mustn't tell," smiled the little bride of Superstition with her finger at her lips. "If I told they might not come true!"
Very earnestly she hoped that those two wishes might come true. She thought of them again, presently, as she stood, there in church, a small, white-mist-clad figure, backed by the coloured window and the crimson altar. She had the kindly glances upon her of her uncle, of her tall girl-chum, and of Hugo Swayne--who wore a perfect morning coat with a white flower and grey trousers, admirably pressed by his man Johnson. Hugo, but for his Chopin stock, would have looked the very model of a prosperous and conventional bridegroom. He did, in fact, look far more like the popular conception of a bridegroom than did young Paul Dampier in his well-cut but ancient grey tweed suit.
--"The only togs I've got in the wide world," he'd confided to Gwenna, "except working clothes and evening things!"
She stood with her hand in his large, boyish one, repeating in her soft, un-English accent the vows that once seemed to her such a vast and solemn and relentless undertaking.
"To love, honour, and obey ... as long as we both shall live...."
It seemed now so little to have to promise! It seemed only a fraction of all that her heart gave gladly to the lord of it!
"Till Death us do part," she repeated quietly.
And it was then she thought of the two wishes. One was that Paul should be always as much in love with her as he was at that moment.
She was too young fully to realise the greater wisdom of her own second wish.
It was that she herself should always remain as much in love with Paul.
If only God would be very, very kind to them, she thought, and allow just this to be!
"And you sign your name here," said the clergyman in the vestry to the newly-made husband, who put down in his small neat handwriting, "Paul Dampier, Lieutenant Royal Flying Corps," on the grey-blue sheet, which, duly witnessed and blotted, he was going to tuck away into the breast-pocket of his tweed jacket.
"No. Those marriage lines are not yours," the parson stopped him with a smile. "Those are the property of your wife."
Gwenna, dazed, realised that this referred to herself. She took the folded marriage-certificate and slipped it into the white satin ribbon girding her pretty frock. She looked very childish for "a wife"! But for that bright wedding-ring on her finger (half a size too large for it) she might have passed for one of the veiled and white-clad First Communicants of an Easter Sunday in Paris. Then she turned up the little face, from which the veil had been thrown back, to be kissed by the others who had followed them into the vestry. Vaguely she heard Leslie's voice, arranging in murmurs with Hugo Swayne. "No. Perhaps I'll come on afterwards.... After I've helped her to change.... No; you take Mr. Lloyd and feed him somewhere. No! I'm sure those two won't want to come on to any lunch. Lunch? My dear man!... Send them in your car to Victoria and Johnson can bring it back.... They'll be getting away at once."
At once! Gwenna looked up into her young husband's blue eyes.
He caught her hand.
"Got you now," he said softly. "Can't run away this time."
By rights she should have walked down the church on his arm. But he did not loose her hand. So it was hand-in-hand, like children, that they hurried out again, ahead of the others, into the sunshine of the porch. The merry breeze took the bride's veil and spread it, a curtain of mist, across the pair of them. Gwenna Dampier caught it aside, laughing gleefully as they stepped out of the porch. The gravity of the service had sparkled into gaiety in their eyes. He crushed her fingers in his. Her heart sang. They would be off----! It was almost too lovely to be true, but----
Yes. It was too lovely to be true.
A shadow fell across the path; across the bride's white shoe.
Johnson, Hugo's man, who had been waiting with the car, stepped quickly up to the bridegroom.
"Excuse me, sir, but this message.... Came just as you'd gone into church. I waited. The woman brought it on from your rooms, sir."
Paul Dampier took the wire and read it.
The white-frocked girl he had just married stood at the church entrance watching him, while the breeze lifted her veil and stirred her curls and tossed a couple of creamy petals, from her wreath, on to the breast of his coat. She herself stood motionless, stony.
She knew that this was no wire of congratulation such as any bridal couple may expect to receive as they come out of church from their wedding. She knew, even before she heard his deep voice saying--blankly and hurriedly:
"I say. It's from the War Office. I shall have to go. I've got to leave you. Now. I'm ordered to join at once!"
