Chapter XXVI: Giving in Marriage

There were two little graves now by Margaret’s, and in the house two vacant chairs, and two voices hushed, while Squire Russell counted four children where he had numbered six, and yet the unselfish man would hear of no delay to Dora’s marriage.

“Let it go on the same,” he said. “It will make me feel better to know that there are around me some perfectly happy ones.”

And so the day was appointed, and Bell and Mattie were summoned again from Morrisville, whither the latter had gone during the children’s illness. Judge Verner was lonely with both of his daughters absent, and as of the two he was most accustomed to Bell, he would have been quite content with having her back again if she had not told him how Jessie had turned nurse to Squire Russell’s children, and was consequently in danger of taking the disease. This roused him, and in a characteristic letter to Jessie he bade her “not make a fool of herself any longer by tending children with canker-rash and feeding them with sweetened water, but to pack up her traps and come home.”

To this the saucy Jessie replied that “she should not come home till she was ready; that the Judge could shut up, and what he called sweetened water was quite as strong as the medicine which once cured his colic so soon.” Then, in the coaxing tone the Judge could never resist, she added, “You know I’m just in fun, father, when I talk like that, but really I must stay till after Dora is married, and you must let me, that’s a dear, good old soul,” and so the “good old soul” was cajoled into writing that Jessie might stay, adding in postscript, “Bell tells me you say all sorts of extravagant things about that widower, and this is well enough as long as they mean nothing, but for thunder’s sake don’t go to offering yourself to him in a streak of pity. A nice wife you would make for a widower with six children,—you who don’t know how to darn a pair of stockings, nor make a bed so that the one who sleeps the back side won’t roll out of the front. Mind, now, don’t be a fool.”

“I wonder what put that idea into father’s head,” Jessie said, as she read the letter. “I would not have Squire Russell, let alone offering myself to him. And I do know how to darn socks. Any way, I can pull the holes together, which is just as well as to put in a ball and peek and poke and weave back and forth, and make lacework of it just as Bell does. It’s a real old-maidish trick, and I won’t be an old maid anyhow, if I have to marry Squire Russell,” and crushing the letter into her pocket Jessie went dancing down the stairs, whistling softly for fear of disturbing the sick children.

That afternoon Dora found her, with her face very red and anxious, bending over a basket of stockings and socks, which she was trying to darn after the method most approved by Bell. “Clem had so much to do that day,” she said, “that she had offered to help by taking the darning off her hands.” But it was a greater task than Jessie had anticipated, and Johnnie’s aid was called in before it was finished, the boy proving quite as efficient as the girl, and as Clem secretly thought, succeeding even better. This was before Letitia and Jimmie died, and since their death the Judge had made no effort to call her home, but suffered her to take her own course, which she did by remaining in Beechwood, where they would have missed her so much, and where, if she could not darn socks neatly, she made herself generally useful as the day for the wedding approached. It was arranged to take place on Christmas Eve, and it was Jessie who first suggested that the house should be trimmed even more elaborately than the little church upon the common, where the ceremony was to be performed. With Johnnie as her prime minister, Jessie could accomplish almost anything, and when their work was done, every one joined heartily in praise of the green festoons and wreaths, on which were twined the scarlet berries of the mountain ash, with here and there a blossom of purest white, purloined from the costly flowers which Squire Russell ordered in such profusion from the nearest hothouse. Dora took but little part in the preparations. She was very happy, but her joy was of that quiet kind, which made her content to be still and rest, after the turmoil and wretchedness through which she had passed. The doctor was with her constantly, and to Jessie, who saw the look of perfect peace upon his face and Dora’s, they seemed the impersonation of bliss, while even Bertie noted the change in Dora, saying to her once as she sat with the doctor:

“You don’t look now, Auntie, as you did when you was married to pa.”

Dora could only blush, while the doctor laughingly tossed the little fellow upon his shoulder and carried him off to the office. If Squire Russell suffered, it was not perceptible, and Jessie thought he had recovered wonderfully, while Dora, too, hoped the wound had not been so deep as even to leave a scar. He was very kind and thoughtful, remembering everything that was needful to be done, and treating Dora as if she had been his daughter. He wished her to forget the past; wished to forget it himself; and by the cheerful, active course he took, he bade fair to do so. He should give the bride away, he said, and when Mattie Randall, to whom he was a study, asked kindly if he was sure he was equal to it, he answered, “O yes, wholly so. I see now that Dora would never have been happy with me. I should have laid her by Madge in less than a year. I am glad it has all happened as it has.”

He did seem to be glad, and when, on the night of the 24th, the little bridal party stood waiting in the parlor for the carriages which were to take them to the church, his face was as serene and placid as if he had never hoped to occupy the place the doctor occupied. Through much sorrow he had been tried and purified, until now in his heart, always unselfish and kind, there was room for the holier, gentler feelings which only the peace of God can give. Not in vain had he in the solitude of his chamber writhed and groaned over the crushing pang with which he gave Dora up, while the tears wept over his dead children were to him a holier baptism than any received before, washing him clean and making him a noble-minded Christian man. Margaret’s grave had during those autumn months witnessed many an earnest prayer for the strength and peace which were found at last, and were the secret of his composure. Just before the sun-setting of Dora’s bridal day, he had gone alone to the three lonely graves and laid upon the longest the exquisite cross of evergreen and white wax berries which Jessie’s fingers had fashioned for this very purpose, Jessie’s brain having been the first to conceive the plan. There was also a bouquet of buds for each of the smaller graves, and Squire Russell placed them carefully upon the sod, which he watered with his tears; then, with a whispered prayer, he went back across the fields to where Dora, in her bridal dress, was waiting, but not for him. He was not the bridegroom, and he stood aside as the doctor bounded up the stairs, in obedience to Jessie’s call that he should come and see if ever anybody looked so sweetly as his bride, but charging him not to touch her lest some band, or braid, or fold, or flower should give way.

“It won’t be always so,” he said, standing off as Jessie directed. “By and by she will be all my own, and then I can hug her,—_so_!” and in spite of Jessie’s screams, he wound his arms around Dora’s neck, giving her a most emphatic kiss as his farewell to Dora Freeman. “When I kiss you again you will be Dora West,” he whispered, as he drew the blushing girl’s arm in his, and led her down the stairs.

The church was crowded to its utmost capacity, and it was with some difficulty that the colored sexton had kept a space cleared for the bridal party, which passed slowly up the aisle, while the soft notes of the organ floated on the air. Then the music ceased, and only the rector’s voice was heard, uttering the solemn words, “I require and charge you both,” etc.; but there was no need for this appeal, there was no impediment, no reason why these two hearts, throbbing so lovingly, should not be joined together, and so the rite went on, while amid the gay throng only one heart was heavy and sad. Robert West, leaning against a pillar, could not forget another ceremony, where he was one of the principal actors, while the other was Anna, beautiful Anna, over whose head the snows of many a wintry eve had fallen, and who but for him might have been now among the living. He had visited her grave and Robin’s, had knelt on the turf which covered them, and sued so earnestly for pardon, had whispered to the winds words of deepest love and contrition, as if the injured dead could hear, and then he had gone away to seek the man whom he had so wronged, and who for the brother’s sake had kept his sin a secret. Uncle Jason had forgiven him, had said that all was right, that every trace of his error was destroyed, and Robert had mingled fearlessly again among his fellowmen, who, only guessing in part his guilt, and feeling intuitively that he had changed, received him gladly into their midst.

Summoned by his brother’s letters, he had returned to Beechwood, and now formed one of the party, who, when the rite was over, went back to the brightly illuminated house, where the Christmas garlands, the box, and the pine, and the fir were hung, and where the marriage festivities proceeded rationally, quietly, save as Jessie’s birdlike voice pealed through the house, as she played off her jokes, first upon one and then another, adroitly trying to coax Bell and the young clergyman, Mr. Kelly, under the mistletoe bough, and then screaming with delight as her father and Mrs. David West were the first to pass within the charmed circle. Jessie was alive with fun and frolic, and making Bell sit down at the piano, she declared that somebody should dance at Dora’s wedding if she had to dance alone.

“Take Johnnie,” Dora said, and the two were soon whirling through the rooms, the boy’s head coming far above the black curls of the merry little maiden, who flashed, and gleamed, and sparkled among the assembled guests till more than one heart beat faster as it caught the influence of her exhilarating presence.

Robert West dreamed of her that night; so did Mr. Kelly, the rector; and so did Squire Russell; but the two first forgot her again next morning, as each said good-by to the handsome, stately Bell,—a far more fitting match for either than the black-eyed sprite who for a moment had made their pulses quicken. But not so with the Squire. To him the house was very desolate when he returned to it, after having accompanied the bride, and groom, and guests to the cars, which all took for Morrisville, whither they were going. It was Dora he missed, the servants said, pitying him, he looked so sad, while he too believed it was Dora; and still as he knelt that day in church, there was beside him another face than Dora’s,—a saucy, laughing, face, which we recognize as belonging to Jessie,—who, at that very moment, while keeping her companions in a constant turmoil and her father in a constant scold, was thinking of him and saying mentally:

“Poor Squire Russell! how I pity him,—left there all alone! and how I wonder if he misses me!”