“But I’m sure I shan’t sleep a blessed wink, Miss Shirley, ma’am, for fear that something’ll go wrong at the last minute … the cream won’t whip … or Mr. Irving’ll have a stroke and not be able to come.”
“He isn’t in the habit of having strokes, is he?” asked Diana, the dimpled corners of her mouth twitching. To Diana, Charlotta the Fourth was, if not exactly a thing of beauty, certainly a joy forever.
“They’re not things that go by habit,” said Charlotta the Fourth with dignity. “They just HAPPEN … and there you are. ANYBODY can have a stroke. You don’t have to learn how. Mr. Irving looks a lot like an uncle of mine that had one once just as he was sitting down to dinner one day. But maybe everything’ll go all right. In this world you’ve just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.”
“The only thing I’m worried about is that it won’t be fine tomorrow,” said Diana. “Uncle Abe predicted rain for the middle of the week, and ever since the big storm I can’t help believing there’s a good deal in what Uncle Abe says.”
Anne, who knew better than Diana just how much Uncle Abe had to do with the storm, was not much disturbed by this. She slept the sleep of the just and weary, and was roused at an unearthly hour by Charlotta the Fourth.
“Oh, Miss Shirley, ma’am, it’s awful to call you so early,” came wailing through the keyhole, “but there’s so much to do yet … and oh, Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’m skeered it’s going to rain and I wish you’d get up and tell me you think it ain’t.” Anne flew to the window, hoping against hope that Charlotta the Fourth was saying this merely by way of rousing her effectually. But alas, the morning did look unpropitious. Below the window Miss Lavendar’s garden, which should have been a glory of pale virgin sunshine, lay dim and windless; and the sky over the firs was dark with moody clouds.
“Isn’t it too mean!” said Diana.
“We must hope for the best,” said Anne determinedly. “If it only doesn’t actually rain, a cool, pearly gray day like this would really be nicer than hot sunshine.”
“But it will rain,” mourned Charlotta, creeping into the room, a figure of fun, with her many braids wound about her head, the ends, tied up with white thread, sticking out in all directions. “It’ll hold off till the last minute and then pour cats and dogs. And all the folks will get sopping … and track mud all over the house … and they won’t be able to be married under the honeysuckle … and it’s awful unlucky for no sun to shine on a bride, say what you will, Miss Shirley, ma’am. I knew things were going too well to last.”
Charlotta the Fourth seemed certainly to have borrowed a leaf out of Miss Eliza Andrews’ book.
It did not rain, though it kept on looking as if it meant to. By noon the rooms were decorated, the table beautifully laid; and upstairs was waiting a bride, “adorned for her husband.”
“You do look sweet,” said Anne rapturously.
“Lovely,” echoed Diana.
“Everything’s ready, Miss Shirley, ma’am, and nothing dreadful has happened YET,” was Charlotta’s cheerful statement as she betook herself to her little back room to dress. Out came all the braids; the resultant rampant crinkliness was plaited into two tails and tied, not with two bows alone, but with four, of brand-new ribbon, brightly blue. The two upper bows rather gave the impression of overgrown wings sprouting from Charlotta’s neck, somewhat after the fashion of Raphael’s cherubs. But Charlotta the Fourth thought them very beautiful, and after she had rustled into a white dress, so stiffly starched that it could stand alone, she surveyed herself in her glass with great satisfaction … a satisfaction which lasted until she went out in the hall and caught a glimpse through the spare room door of a tall girl in some softly clinging gown, pinning white, starlike flowers on the smooth ripples of her ruddy hair.
“Oh, I’ll NEVER be able to look like Miss Shirley,” thought poor Charlotta despairingly. “You just have to be born so, I guess … don’t seem’s if any amount of practice could give you that AIR.”
By one o’clock the guests had come, including Mr. and Mrs. Allan, for Mr. Allan was to perform the ceremony in the absence of the Grafton minister on his vacation. There was no formality about the marriage. Miss Lavendar came down the stairs to meet her bridegroom at the foot, and as he took her hand she lifted her big brown eyes to his with a look that made Charlotta the Fourth, who intercepted it, feel queerer than ever. They went out to the honeysuckle arbor, where Mr. Allan was awaiting them. The guests grouped themselves as they pleased. Anne and Diana stood by the old stone bench, with Charlotta the Fourth between them, desperately clutching their hands in her cold, tremulous little paws.
Mr. Allan opened his blue book and the ceremony proceeded. Just as Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving were pronounced man and wife a very beautiful and symbolic thing happened. The sun suddenly burst through the gray and poured a flood of radiance on the happy bride. Instantly the garden was alive with dancing shadows and flickering lights.
“What a lovely omen,” thought Anne, as she ran to kiss the bride. Then the three girls left the rest of the guests laughing around the bridal pair while they flew into the house to see that all was in readiness for the feast.
“Thanks be to goodness, it’s over, Miss Shirley, ma’am,” breathed Charlotta the Fourth, “and they’re married safe and sound, no matter what happens now. The bags of rice are in the pantry, ma’am, and the old shoes are behind the door, and the cream for whipping is on the sullar steps.”
At half past two Mr. and Mrs. Irving left, and everybody went to Bright River to see them off on the afternoon train. As Miss Lavendar … I beg her pardon, Mrs. Irving … stepped from the door of her old home Gilbert and the girls threw the rice and Charlotta the Fourth hurled an old shoe with such excellent aim that she struck Mr. Allan squarely on the head. But it was reserved for Paul to give the prettiest send-off. He popped out of the porch ringing furiously a huge old brass dinner bell which had adorned the dining room mantel. Paul’s only motive was to make a joyful noise; but as the clangor died away, from point and curve and hill across the river came the chime of “fairy wedding bells,” ringing clearly, sweetly, faintly and more faint, as if Miss Lavendar’s beloved echoes were bidding her greeting and farewell. And so, amid this benediction of sweet sounds, Miss Lavendar drove away from the old life of dreams and make-believes to a fuller life of realities in the busy world beyond.
Two hours later Anne and Charlotta the Fourth came down the lane again. Gilbert had gone to West Grafton on an errand and Diana had to keep an engagement at home. Anne and Charlotta had come back to put things in order and lock up the little stone house. The garden was a pool of late golden sunshine, with butterflies hovering and bees booming; but the little house had already that indefinable air of desolation which always follows a festivity.
“Oh dear me, don’t it look lonesome?” sniffed Charlotta the Fourth, who had been crying all the way home from the station. “A wedding ain’t much cheerfuller than a funeral after all, when it’s all over, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
A busy evening followed. The decorations had to be removed, the dishes washed, the uneaten delicacies packed into a basket for the delectation of Charlotta the Fourth’s young brothers at home. Anne would not rest until everything was in apple-pie order; after Charlotta had gone home with her plunder Anne went over the still rooms, feeling like one who trod alone some banquet hall deserted, and closed the blinds. Then she locked the door and sat down under the silver poplar to wait for Gilbert, feeling very tired but still unweariedly thinking “long, long thoughts.”
“What are you thinking of, Anne?” asked Gilbert, coming down the walk. He had left his horse and buggy out at the road.
“Of Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving,” answered Anne dreamily. “Isn’t it beautiful to think how everything has turned out … how they have come together again