Chapter XXI

The court-house was finished, even to the last touches of putting on the brass locks and window-fastenings. The commissioners formerly accepted the building as meeting with all the contracted requirements, and a large check was handed to Cavanaugh by the Ordinary of the county.

Cavanaugh was in high feather for several reasons, the main one being that the whole affair was to be capped by a wedding at the farm-house. Cavanaugh had been expecting his wife to come up, but had a letter saying that she was actually in bed with rheumatism and unable to make the journey.

Only the most intimate friends and relatives of the family were invited, and on the evening of the wedding they began to arrive shortly after sunset in buggies, wagons, and on horseback. Cavanaugh, who had dubbed himself as "the best man," was the busiest person about the house. He met all the guests, showed them where to put their horses and where to sit in the parlor, which was filled with a motley collection of borrowed chairs from cherry-colored rockers of the latest tawdry design to straight-backed, unpainted relics of Cherokee days with concave, split-oak or rawhide bottoms.

With his usual stinginess and contempt of show, Whaley had allowed his daughter little for her trousseau, and her apparel was most simple, and so scant that her small trunk was scarcely filled. As they were to take a train immediately after the wedding supper, she wore a plain traveling-dress of dark gray which made her look as demure as a young Quakeress. As for John, he had considered his new suit as good enough and under Cavanaugh's advice had not bought another.

"I'll tell you one thing you've got to do," Cavanaugh said to him as he was tying John's cravat in John's room before the ceremony, "you've just got to stand up straighter. Here lately, when you are with Tilly, you hump yourself over, or sag down with one leg crooked like you was ashamed of being tall. If there is a time in a fellow's life when he ought to stand straight and look folks square in the eyes it is when he's having the cheek to take to himself a sweet young bride. Stand up, throw your shoulders back, and let them all know that you've got a job before you and that you are going to do your level best to put it through."

"Give me a danger-sign if you see me making any breaks," John smiled. "I do feel shaky and weak-kneed and I might have folded up like a pocket-rule if you hadn't cautioned me."

John went down and mingled with the guests before Tilly joined them. He was near the door when Martha Jane Eperson came in, accompanied by her mother, who went at once to a seat proffered by Cavanaugh, leaving her daughter with John, to whom she had barely nodded.

"You must excuse my mother," Martha Jane said, plaintively, as she shook hands with John. "She is very unhappy over the way Joel is taking it. He simply could not come to-night."

"I understand, and I am awfully sorry," John contrived to say.

"Oh, but you can't understand, Mr. Trott," the girl protested. "You don't know my poor, dear brother as we do. This thing is actually killing him. He is a mere shadow of his old self. You see, he and Tilly were very dear to each other until you came. I don't blame Tilly; my mother doesn't, either. She has the right to decide for herself; but poor Joel! He simply allowed himself to love Tilly all along till this thing came like death itself, or worse. He is very manly about it, though. Don't understand me otherwise. I think he intended to come to-night till almost the last minute, and then decided not to do it. I watched him through the window as he hitched the horse to the buggy for us, and I broke down and cried."

Some others were entering, and Martha Jane, with a little parting nod, moved on to a place by her mother's side. As for John, he could not give much thought to his defeated rival, for a commotion in the room indicated that the bride was descending the steps. She did not, however, come into the parlor just then, but turned into the sitting-room opposite.

"Come"--Cavanaugh came and touched John on the arm--"the preacher is in there with Tilly. He may want to give you both a few lessons on what to do and say."

It was the old minister whom John had heard preach, and he stood stroking Tilly's hand in a paternal way. He paused and greeted John with rather cold formality. "I hope you realize the great prize you have won, my young brother," he said. "I've known this sweet child a long time and love her as if she were my own."

John was chagrined beyond measure, for he found his tongue an unusable appendage. He felt the blood rush in a flood to his face. He stammered out something, he knew not what, and stood fumbling his hands. He disliked the man and his profession, and could have told him so easier than to have uttered some trivial insincerity even on that occasion. John's attitude of sheer helplessness touched Tilly. She put her hand on his arm and smiled up in his face. It was as if she were saying, "I understand, and it is all right."

"Where is your father?" the minister asked of Tilly. "He must give the bride away."

"He refuses to do it," Tilly informed him. "He says it is a silly, new style, and he doesn't believe in it."

"Well, Mr. Trott," the old man said, still distantly, "you will have to bring her in on your arm after I get to my place at the end of the room. I never marry with a ring. That belongs to the Episcopalian service. Now"--looking at his watch--"it is about time."

He walked from the room, leaving John and Tilly alone now, standing ready, arm in arm. John had not seen her in her new hat and dress before, and somehow now she seemed the same and yet not exactly the same Tilly who had worn such plain frocks in her work about the house. A chill of suspended delight was on him. It seemed a dream of some transcendental event, worked through the alchemy of love. He could not have uttered a word had he tried. How could she look so placid, so fearless, while the very earth seemed unstable under his feet, the skies ready to drop further glories about him and her?

Cavanaugh suddenly thrust his head in at the door. "The parson is ready," he called out, with a laugh swelling with expectancy. "He says send you in. That bunch in there is crazy to see the bride. I tried to get somebody to play a march on the organ, but nobody is able. Now move along. Stand up straight, John. My Lord! you are not a jack-knife! Lift your feet! Quit sliding them along! Look how Tilly walks--as light and dainty as a pigeon on a clean barn floor."

Tilly laughed almost merrily, but John felt the far-reaching gravity of the moment too deeply even to smile. He wondered how he could meet the curious faces packed together in the adjoining room. His whole frame was in a tremor, but he was sure that Tilly's hand and wrist on his arm were as steady as they had ever been. He was seeing her from a new angle, and admired her more than ever.

"Come on," she said, simply, and she it was who led into the parlor.

It was soon over. The minister kept them standing before him only a few minutes. The women pressed forward to kiss the bride, and John found himself quite ignored. His place was by her side at that moment, surely, but, blind to custom, as usual, he extricated himself from the throng and joined Cavanaugh in the hall.

"What are you doing here?" the contractor demanded, as he shook hands warmly and congratulated him. "They will expect you in there with the bride. I know that is where I stayed when I went through it."

"I am all right here," John replied, doggedly. "I don't want to talk to all that mob."

At this juncture Whaley appeared--Whaley, of all others. He was chewing tobacco and nonchalantly wiped his lips on a clean, folded handkerchief. John felt more than he had ever felt before the man's intuitive dislike for him, and it was significant now that Whaley should address Cavanaugh rather than him.

"I'm sorry you are going off," he said. "I've had some pretty fair talks with you off and on, though we are still wide apart on doctrine. Do you know a man like me can learn to handle his own theories by arguing even with a fellow that lies down at every point, as you'll have to admit you've done time after time."

"That's so, but this is a wedding," Cavanaugh smiled, "and I'm here to tell you, old horse, that this young man is going to make you proud some day."

"We'll hope so--we'll hope so." Whaley frowned till his heavy brows clashed. "I'm relying on your opinion. You've known him longer than I have."

Hearing this and being infuriated by it, John shrugged his shoulders, sniffed audibly, and went out on the veranda, fully aware that by his act he had shown contempt for his father-in-law. Outside the yard, a heap of pine-knots was being burned to furnish light for the unhitching and hitching of horses, and the red, smoke-broken rays fell over the street and house. Through the window John saw the throng within the parlor. Tilly and her mother stood side by side, surrounded by friends. Never had he felt more alien from his surroundings than on this most successful night. What was wrong with him? he asked himself. Why was he unlike all other men? Why was he forced to feel like an unwilling interloper among people he could not understand and who did not understand him? But what did it matter? Tilly was his, all his, and in a short while he would be bearing her away. In a short while he and she would be left unmolested in their cozy home. He and she alone, away from all that gaping, meddling throng. What happiness! But how could it be?

Cavanaugh came to him out of breath. "Good gracious! Where have you been?" the old man cried. "I'll be hanged if I wasn't afraid you'd got scared, turned tail, and run off and hid. You oughtn't to have treated the old man like that right on the start. You and him will have to sort of pull together in future. He is thick-skinned, but he looked sort of flabbergasted when you whisked off just now with that snort of yours. Come on. They are going out to supper, and there will be no end of talk if you don't take part. They've got a lot of lemonade in there, and somebody may want to drink your health. If they do, for the Lord's sake stand up like a man and say, 'Thank you,' if nothing more. Remember how well you done when the corner-stone was laid."

John smiled faintly, and the two went back into the parlor as the guests were filing out into the dining-room. Tilly was waiting for him at the door.

"I'm hungry. Aren't you?" she asked. "I want some of that chicken salad. I know it is good, for I made it."

The dining-room was furnished with two long impromptu tables made of rough boards covered with white cloths and flanked by rows of chairs, stools, benches, and inverted boxes. Whaley stood at the head of one of the tables, his wife at the head of the other. Near the center of one two bows of white ribbons marked the seats reserved for the bride and bridegroom. Tilly called John's attention to them and somehow he managed to lead her to them, but he failed to do what he ought to have done. He did not draw Tilly's chair back and place it for her use, but stood staring helplessly while she did it herself. Then he sat down beside her. All were seated now and Whaley rapped on the edge of his plate, producing a tinkling sound that invoked silence.

"Now," he said, solemnly, "it is our duty to ask the blessing of our Creator on what we are about to receive, and as the parson had to leave, I'll call on Brother Cavanaugh to perform this rite for us."

Cavanaugh, who sat opposite John and Tilly, actually paled, and then he flushed. He was silent for a moment, glancing appealingly first at Whaley, then his wife, and finally at Tilly, as if for succor from overwhelming disaster.

"Why, I--I'm not a good hand at it," he stammered. "I don't believe in doing things half-way, especially on what you might call a gala occasion like this. Brother Whaley, in my opinion--and I'm sure all the rest feel the same--you are the man who is best qualified for the job. I know I'd enjoy hearing you do it to-night more than I would to sit and listen to my own voice."

"Why not let Tilly do it?" a young wag farther down the table asked, merrily. "Any bride these days ought to be thankful to get a square meal on the first day of her married life, if never afterward."

"You will all excuse me, I know," Tilly said, simply, and with a sweet, half-forced smile.

Thereupon her father, who was getting the opportunity he wanted, cleared his throat, tapped on his plate for silence, and with lowered head prayed long and unctuously. He touched on the duties of the newly married to God and the Church, that they might be examples for the generations who were to follow them. He hinted--and John knew what was meant--that there were young men of the present age who were indifferent to the full meaning of a Christian life and its forms, and upon all such delinquents he implored the mercy of a long-suffering and patient God.

John's eyes were on his plate. He imagined that every one present was taking note of the veiled rebuke to him. How odd that he should hate Tilly's father so profoundly and feel like striking the cold face between the spiritless eyes. How strange that he should feel almost the same toward that silent, didactic copy of her husband, his mother-in-law, who now seemed to be weighing so judiciously the subtle charges against him, the new member of the family!

The prayer was over; a great clatter swept from end to end of the tables. Everybody was eating, proffering food, laughing, and jesting in munching, mouthful tones. Suddenly, and before she had turned up her plate, John felt Tilly's little hand steal into his.

"Never mind what he said." She smiled as she pressed his fingers. "That was in him. It has rankled a long time and he had to get it out."

"It doesn't matter," John responded, defiantly. "He has the upper hand and he uses it like all men of his brand."

The supper went off merrily, and when it was ended the guests began to depart. All said good-by to Tilly. Some shook hands with John and congratulated him, but that there was a certain restraint between him and all those present he as well as they did not doubt. A few thought that he was "stuck up," but the more penetrating attributed his attitude to his youth and the belief that men of his trade were really not so refined as farmers, who were more or less like the slaveholding planters of the past, from whom the countryside had inherited its manners.

Cavanaugh had provided a livery-stable trap to convey the bride, the bridegroom, and himself to the station, and as the time was up he hurried John and Tilly away. Mrs. Whaley kissed her daughter coldly on the cheek, as if unaccustomed to open affection, and Whaley simply shook hands with her and his son-in-law. The trap contained only two seats, and Cavanaugh sat with the negro driver on the front one, giving the rear seat to John and Tilly.

"Now don't mind me and this chap here," he said, his eyes fixed on the back of the horse as they started on. "We are not going to look, and you can hold hands and hug and kiss all you want to."

Tilly laughed cheerily. "You backed out to-night; you know you did," she bantered him. "You said you were going to kiss the bride, but failed to do it."

"I wanted to, mighty bad, but I was afraid they would all think I was powerful cheeky." Then the contractor fell into talk with the negro, and John heard Tilly sigh.

"What is the matter?" he inquired.

"Oh, I'm sorry for mother," she explained. "I was just thinking that the poor old thing will get up as usual in the morning before daylight and start in to do my work as well as hers. Father won't hire any one to help her and she will have a hard time from now on."

John found himself unable to properly respond, for he didn't care how hard his mother-in-law worked. He would see to it, however, that Tilly should have a rest from the slave-toil which had been her lot since childhood.

It was nine o'clock when the station was reached, and they got down to await the train. Only the station-master and a switchman with a lantern swinging in his hand were in sight. Cavanaugh paid the negro, and with a low bow and scraping of the feet he got into his trap and drove away.

They had not long to wait. From the distance of a mile they heard the whistle of the approaching locomotive, and in a few minutes it was slowing up at the long, unroofed platform.

"You two go sit in the chair-car," Cavanaugh directed. "I've got a cigar, and I'll try the smoker. I'll come back and see you before we get to Chattanooga."

John led Tilly to the luxurious car in question and helped her in. How strange it was! But now for the first time, as he saw her seated in the big revolving-chair in the almost empty car, she seemed all at once to be in reality his wife. He put his bag and hers into the brass rack overhead and adjusted the footstool so that she might rest her feet on it. No living psychologist could have fathomed his emotions. That had become his which seemed to belong to some outside, ethereal existence.

The train started. John took a chair facing Tilly. When he was not at work his hands seemed extraneous members, and they now hung down between his knees as limply as if they had lost all animation.

"You are already homesick," he said, banteringly, though the placid expression of Tilly's face belied his words.

"No, I am not," she said, a thoughtful smile capturing her mouth and eyes. "How could I be? John, I'm simply crazy to see that little house. I've always wanted a home of my own, all my own."

He locked his twisting fingers in sheer delight, and the blood of his joy warmed his eager face to tenderness. "There is a surprise ahead of us," he said, chuckling. "I say surprise, for Sam thinks I don't know it. He has stocked the pantry full of supplies as our wedding-present. I got on to it by accident. I happened to see one of the bills. Old Sam doesn't do things by halves. Do you know, he is the best man I ever knew?"

A newsboy passed through the car, selling magazines and candies. John bought two flashy periodicals and a box of fresh caramels and put them into Tilly's lap. With a smile she began to look at the pictures. Some of the leaves were uncut and he took out his big workman's knife and clumsily slit them apart. She opened the box of candy, daintily pressed back the lacelike paper covering, and proffered some to him. He shook his head. "I never eat it," he said, and then in brooding confusion he remembered that he had not thanked her.

"I'll never do that kind of thing--never!" he said to himself, in reckless disgust. "All that tomfoolery is for Joel Eperson and his sort. I am of a different breed of dogs."

However, his discomfiture was soon dispelled. The rapid rush of the train through the mountain woodland seemed to brush it away as a thing unworthy of his vast surging happiness. He adored the lashes of Tilly's eyes, which seemed to thwart his efforts to probe the eyes themselves; the sweet curve of her lips; the hair which fell so gracefully over her smooth white brow; the tiny brown freckles on her cheeks; the little feet in the somewhat plain new shoes that shyly peeped out from beneath the new gray skirt. A colored porter brought in some soft pillows, and John secured one and placed it behind Tilly's head.

"There," he said, gently enough, "lean back on it. I'll bet you are fagged out, after all you've done since you got up this morning."

"You mustn't make a baby of me," she mildly protested. "Remember I'm a farmer's daughter who never has been petted."

"It is time you were coddled up a little, then," he answered, fervently. "Somehow you look like a child to me, and a lonely one, too, going off like this with a big no-account hulk of a man whom you have known only a little while."

Tilly beamed at this. It was the quality she loved most in her husband. She had a new purse and card-case combined in her lap, and he opened it, finding only a few dimes and quarters in its immaculate interior.

"That will never do." He laughed, took from his own purse two five-dollar bills and put them into hers as he added: "I never want you to have to run to me for change. I despise that in any man, no matter how long he's been married. A fellow's wife should be as free with the money that comes in as he is. I've felt like knocking a man down many a time for that very thing. I don't believe a delicate woman feels like asking for every cent she spends. I'll watch this pocket-book, and if I don't keep that much or more in it all the time it will be because I'm dead broke, too sick to work, or unable to borrow it."

Tilly's face shed a smile that was tender and full of thought. "You are the best man in the world," she said. "I don't believe many men, even the ones that pretend to be polished and educated, would have thought of that."