Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
We and Our Neighbors: or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street
CHAPTER LI
THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN
It is said that Queen Elizabeth could converse in five languages, and dictate to three secretaries at once, in different tongues, with the greatest ease and composure.
Perhaps it might have been so – let us not quarrel with her laurels; it only shows what women can do if they set about it, and is not a whit more remarkable than Aunt Maria's triumphant management of all the details of two weddings at one time.
That estimable individual has not, we fear, always appeared to advantage in this history, and it is due to her now to say that nobody that saw her proceedings could help feeling the beauty of the right person in the right place.
Many a person is held to be a pest and a nuisance because there isn't enough to be done to use up his capabilities. Aunt Maria had a passion for superintending and directing, and all that was wanting to bring things right was an occasion when a great deal of superintendence and direction was wanting.
The double wedding in the family just fulfilled all the conditions. It opened a field to her that everybody was more than thankful to have her occupy.
Lovers, we all know, are, ex-officio, ranked among the incapables; and if, while they were mooning round in the fairy-land of sentiment, some good, strong, active, practical head were not at work upon the details of real life, nothing would be on time at the wedding. Now, if this be true of one wedding, how much more of two! So Aunt Maria stepped at once into command by acclamation and addressed herself to her work as a strong man to run a race; and while Angie and St. John spent blissful hours in the back parlor, and Jim and Alice monopolized the library, Aunt Maria flew all over New York, and arranged about all the towels and table-cloths and napkins and doilies, down to the very dish-cloths. She overlooked armies of sewing women, milliners and mantua-makers – the most slippery of all mortal creatures – and drove them all up to have each her quota in time. She, with Mrs. Van Arsdel, made lists of people to be invited, and busied herself with getting samples and terms from fancy stationers for the wedding cards. She planned in advance all the details of the wedding feast, and engaged the cake and fruit and ice-cream.
Nor did she forget the social and society exigencies of the crisis.
She found time, dressed in her best, to take Mrs. Van Arsdel in full panoply to return the call of Mrs. Dr. Gracey, who had come, promptly and properly, with the doctor, to recognize Miss Angelique and felicitate about the engagement of their nephew.
She arranged for a dinner-party to be given by Mrs. Van Arsdel, where the doctor and his lady were to be received into family alliance, and testimonies of high consideration accorded to them. Aunt Maria took occasion, in private converse with Mrs. Dr. Gracey, to assure her of her very great esteem and respect for Mr. St. John, and her perfect conviction that he was on the right road now, and that, though he might possibly burn a few more candles in his chapel, yet, when he came fully under family influences, they would gradually be snuffed out, – intimating that she intended to be aunt, not only to Arthur, but to his chapel and his mission-work.
The extraordinary and serene meekness with which that young divine left every question of form and etiquette to her management, and the sort of dazed humility with which he listened to all her rulings about the arrangements of the wedding-day, had inspired in Aunt Maria's mind such hopes of his docility as led to these very sanguine anticipations.
It is true that, when it came to the question of renting a house, she found him quietly but unalterably set on a small and modest little mansion in the unfashionable neighborhood where his work lay.
"Arthur is going on with his mission," said Angelique, "and I'm going to help him, and we must live where we can do most good" – a reason to which Aunt Maria was just now too busy to reply, but she satisfied herself by discussing at length the wedding affairs with Mrs. Dr. Gracey.
"Of course, Mrs. Gracey," she said, "we all feel that if dear Dr. Gracey is to conduct the wedding services, everything will be in the good old way; there'll be nothing objectionable or unusual."
"Oh, you may rely on that, Mrs. Wouvermans," replied the lady. "The doctor is not the man to run after novelties; he's a good old-fashioned Episcopalian. Though he always has been very indulgent to Arthur, he thinks, as our dear bishop does, that if young men are left to themselves, and not fretted by opposition, they will gradually outgrow these things."
"Precisely so," said Aunt Maria; "just what I have always thought. For my part I always said that it was safe to trust the bishop."
Did Aunt Maria believe this? She certainly appeared to. She sincerely supposed that this was what she always had thought and said, and quite forgot the times when she used to wonder "what our bishop could be thinking of, to let things go so."
It was one blessed facility of this remarkable woman that she generally came to the full conviction of the axiom that "whatever is, is right," and took up and patronized anything that would succeed in spite of her best efforts to prevent it.
So, in announcing the double wedding to her fashionable acquaintance, she placed everything, as the popular saying is, best foot foremost.
Mr. Fellows was a young man of fine talents, great industry and elegant manners, a great favorite in society, and likely to take the highest rank in his profession. Alice had refused richer offers – she might perhaps have done better in a worldly point of view, but it was purely a love match, &c., &c. And Mr. St. John, a young man of fine family and independent fortune, who might command all the elegancies of life, was going to live in a distant and obscure quarter, to labor in his work. These facts brought forth, of course, bursts of sympathy and congratulation, and Aunt Maria went off on the top of the wave.
Eva had but done her aunt justice when she told her mother that Aunt Maria would be all the more amiable for the firm stand which the young wife had taken against any interference with her family matters. It was so. Aunt Maria was as balmy to Eva as if that discussion had never taken place, though it must be admitted that Eva was a very difficult person to keep up a long quarrel with.
But just at this hour, when the whole family were at her feet, when it was her voice that decided every question, when she knew where everything was and was to be, and when everything was to be done, she was too well pleased to be unamiable. She was the spirit of the whole affair, and she plumed herself joyously when all the callers at the house said to Mrs. Van Arsdel, "Dear me! what would you do, if it were not for your sister?"
Verily she had her reward.
CHAPTER LII
EVA'S CONSULTATIONS
"Now see here," said Jim, coming in upon Eva as she sat alone in her parlor, "I've got something on my mind I want to talk with you about. You see, Alice and I are to be married at the same time with Angie and St. John."
"Yes, I see it."
"Well, now, what I want to say is, that I really hope there won't be anything longer and harder and more circumlocutory to be got through with on the occasion than just what's in the prayer-book, for that's all I can stand. I can't stand prayer-book with the variations, now I really can't."
"Well, Jim, what makes you think there will be prayer-book with the variations?"
"Oh, well, I attended a ritualistic wedding once, and there was such an amount of processing and chanting, and ancient and modern improvements, that it was just like a show. There were the press reporters elbowing and pushing to get the best places to write it up for the papers, and, for my part, I think it's in confounded bad taste, and I couldn't stand it; you know, now, I'm a nervous fellow, and if I've got to take part in the exercises, they'll have to 'draw it mild,' or Allie and I will have to secede and take it by ourselves. I couldn't go such a thing as that wedding; I never should come out alive."
"Well, Jim, I don't believe there's any reason for apprehension. In the first place, the ceremony, as to its mode and form, always is supposed to be conducted according to the preferences of the bride's family, and we all of us should be opposed to anything which would draw remark and comment, as being singular and unusual on such an occasion."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Jim.
"And then, Jim, Mr. St. John's uncle, Dr. Gracey, is to perform the ceremony, and he is one of the most respected of the conservative Episcopal clergymen in New York; and it is entirely out of the question to suppose that he would take part in anything of the sort you fear, or which would excite comment as an innovation. Then, again, I think Mr. St. John himself has so much natural refinement and just taste that he would not wish his own wedding to become a theme for gossip and a gazing stock for the curious."
"Well, I didn't know about St. John; I was a little afraid we should be obliged to do something or other, because they did it in the catacombs, or the Middle Ages, or in Edward the Sixth's time, or some such dodge. I thought I'd just make sure."
"Well, I think Mr. St. John has gone as far in those directions as he ever will go. He has been living alone up to this winter. He has formed his ideas by himself in solitude. Now he will have another half to himself; he will see in part through the eyes, and feel through the heart, of a sensible and discreet woman – for Angie is that. The society he has met at our house in such men as Dr. Campbell and others, has enlarged his horizon, – given him new points of vision, – so that I think the too great tendencies he may have had in certain directions have been insensibly checked."
"I wish they may," said Jim, "for he is a good fellow, and so much like one of the primitive Christians that I really want him to get all the credit that belongs to him."
"Oh, well, you'll see, Jim. When a man is so sincere and good, and labors with a good wife to help him, you'll see the difference. But here comes little Mrs. Betsey, Jim. I promised to get her up a cap for the occasion."
"Well, I'm off; only be sure you make matters secure about the ceremony," and off went Jim, and in came little Mrs. Betsey.
"It's so good of you, dear Mrs. Henderson, to undertake to make me presentable. You know Dorcas hasn't the least interest in these things. Dorcas is so independent, she never cares what the fashion is. Now, she isn't doing a thing to get ready. She's just going in that satin gown that she had made twenty years ago, with a great lace collar as big as a platter; and she sits there just as easy, reading 'Pope's Essay on Man,' and here I'm all in a worry; but I can't help it. I like to look a little like other folks, you know. I don't want people to think I'm a queer old woman."
"Certainly, it's the most natural thing in the world," said Eva, as she stepped into the little adjoining workroom, and brought out a filmy cap, trimmed with the most delicate shade of rosy lilac ribbons. "There!" she said, settling it on Mrs. Betsey's head, and tying a bow under her chin, "if anybody says you're not a beauty in this, I'd like to ask them why?"
"I know it's silly at my age, but I do like pretty things," said Mrs. Betsey, looking at herself with approbation in the glass, "and all the more that it's so very kind of you, dear Mrs. Henderson."
"Me? Oh, I like to do it. I'm a born milliner," said Eva.
"And now I want to ask a favor. Do you think it would do for us to take our Dinah to church to see the ceremony. I don't know anybody that could enjoy it more, and Dinah has so few pleasures."
"Why, certainly. Dinah! my faithful adviser and help in time of need? Why, of course, give my compliments to her, and tell her I shall depend on seeing her there."
"Dinah is so delighted at the thought that your sister and Mr. Fellows are coming to live with us, she is busy cleaning their rooms, and does it with a will. You know Mr. Fellows has just that gay, pleasant sort of way that delights all the servants, and she says your sister is such a beauty!"
"Well, be sure and tell Dinah to come to the wedding, and she shall have a slice of the cake to dream on."
"I think I shall feel so much safer when we have a man in the house," continued Mrs. Betsey. "You see we have so much silver, and so many things of that kind, and Dorcas frightens me to death, because she will have the basket lugged up into our room at night. I tell her if she'd only set it outside in the entry, then if the burglars came they could just go off with it, without stopping to murder us; but if it was in our room, why, of course, they would. The fact is, I have got so nervous about burglars that I am up and down two or three times a night."
"But you have Jack to take care of you."
"Jack is a good watch dog – he's very alert; but the trouble is, he barks just as loud when there isn't anything going on as when there is. Night after night, that dog has started us both up with such a report, and I'd go all over the house and find nothing there. Sometimes I think he hears people trying the doors or windows. Altogether, I think Jack frightens me more than he helps, though I know he does it all for the best, and I tell Dorcas so when he wakes her up. You know experienced people always do say that a small dog is the very safest thing you can have; but when Mr. Fellows comes I shall really sleep peaceably. And now, Mrs. Henderson, you don't think that light mauve silk of mine will be too young-looking for me?"
"No, indeed," said Eva. "Why shouldn't we all look as young as we can?"
"I haven't worn it for more than thirty years; but the silk is good as ever, and your little dress-maker has made it over with an over-skirt, and Dinah is delighted with it, and says it makes me look ten years younger!"
"Oh! well I must come over and see it on you."
"Would you care?" said Mrs. Betsey, delighted. "How good you are; and then I'll show you the toilette cushions I've been making for the dear young ladies; and Dorcas is going to give each of them a pair of real old India vases that have been in the family ever since we can remember."
"Why, you'll be robbing yourselves."
"No, indeed; it would be robbing ourselves not to give something, after all the kindness you've shown us."
And Eva went over to the neighboring house with Mrs. Betsey; and entered into all the nice little toilette details with her; and delighted Dinah with an invitation in person; and took a sympathizing view of Dinah's new bonnet and shawl, which she pronounced entirely adequate to the occasion; and thus went along, sewing little seeds of pleasure to make her neighbors happier – seeds which were to come up in kind thoughts and actions on their part by and by.
CHAPTER LIII
WEDDING PRESENTS
St. John and Angie were together, one evening, in the room that had been devoted to the reception of the wedding presents. This room had been Aunt Maria's pride and joy, and already it had assumed quite the appearance of a bazar, for the family connections of the Van Arsdels was large, and numbered many among the richer classes. Arthur's uncle, Dr. Gracey, and the family connections through him were also people in prosperous worldly circumstances, and remarkably well pleased with the marriage; and so there had been a great abundance of valuable gifts. The door-bell for the last week or two had been ringing incessantly, and Aunt Maria had eagerly seized the parcels from the servant and borne them to the depository, and fixed their stations with the cards of the givers conspicuously displayed.
Of course the reader knows that there were the usual amount of berry-spoons, and pie-knives, and crumb-scrapers; of tea-spoons and coffee-spoons; of silver tea-services; of bracelets and chains and studs and brooches and shawl-pins and cashmere shawls and laces. Nobody could deny that everything was arranged so as to make the very most of it.
Angie was showing the things to St. John, in one of those interminable interviews in which engaged people find so much to tell each other.
"Really, Arthur," she said, "it is almost too much. Everybody is giving to me, just at a time when I am so happy that I need it less than ever I did in my life. I can't help feeling as if it was more than my share."
Of course Arthur didn't think so; he was in that mood that he couldn't think anything on land or sea was too much to be given to Angie.
"And look here," she said, pointing him to a stand which displayed a show of needle-books and pincushions, and small matters of that kind, "just look here – even the little girls of my sewing-class must give me something. That needle-book, little Lottie Price made. Where she got the silk I don't know, but it's quite touching. See how nicely she's done it! It makes me almost cry to have poor people want to make me presents."
"Why should we deny them that pleasure – the greatest and purest in the world?" said St. John. "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
"Well, then, Arthur, I'll tell you what I was thinking of. I wouldn't dare tell it to anybody else, for they'd think perhaps I was making believe to be better than I was; but I was thinking it would make my wedding brighter to give gifts to poor, desolate people who really need them than to have all this heaped upon me."
Then Arthur told her how, in some distant ages of faith and simplicity, Christian weddings were always celebrated by gifts to the poor.
"Now, for example," said Angie, "that poor, little, pale dress-maker that Aunt Maria found for me, – she has worked day and night over my things, and I can't help wanting to do something to brighten her up. She has nothing but hard work and no holidays; no lover to come and give her pretty things, and take her to Europe; and then she has a sick mother to take care of – only think. Now, she told me, one day, she was trying to save enough to get a sewing-machine."
"Very well," said Arthur, "if you want to give her one, we'll go and look one out to-morrow and send it to her, with a card for the ceremony, so there will be one glad heart."
"Arthur, you – "
But what Angie said to Arthur, and how she rewarded him, belongs to the literature of Eden – it cannot be exactly translated.
Then they conferred about different poor families, whose wants and troubles and sorrows were known to those two, and a wedding gift was devised to be sent to each of them; and there are people who may believe that the devising and executing of these last deeds of love gave Angie and St. John more pleasure than all the silver and jewelry in the wedding bazar.
"I have reserved a place for our Sunday-school to be present at the ceremony," said Arthur; "and there is to be a nice little collation laid for them in my study; and we must go in there a few minutes after the ceremony, and show ourselves to them, and bid them good-by before we go to your mother's."
"Arthur, that is exactly what I was thinking of. I believe we think the same things always. Now, I want to say another thing. You wanted to know what piece of jewelry you should get for my wedding present."
"Well, darling?"
"Well, I have told Aunt Maria and mamma and all of them that your wedding gift to me was something I meant to keep to myself; that I would not have it put on the table, or shown, or talked about. I did this, in the first place, as a matter of taste. It seems to me that a marriage gift ought to be something sacred between us two."
"Like the white stone with the new name that no man knoweth save him that receiveth it," said St. John.
"Yes; just like that. Well, then, Arthur, get me only a plain locket with your hair in it, and give all the rest of the money to these uses we talked about, and I will count it my present. It will be a pledge to me that I shall not be a hindrance to you in your work, but a help; that you will do more and not less good for having me for your wife."
What was said in reply to this was again in the super-angelic dialect, and untranslatable; but these two children of the kingdom understood it gladly, for they were, in all the higher and nobler impulses, of one heart and one soul.
"As to the ceremony, Arthur," said Angie, "you know how very loving and kind your uncle has been to us. He has been like a real father; and since he is to perform it, I hope there will be nothing introduced that would be embarrassing to him or make unnecessary talk and comment. Just the plain, usual service of the Prayer-book will be enough, will it not?"
"Just as you say, my darling; this, undoubtedly, is your province."
"I think," said Angie, "that there are many things in themselves beautiful and symbolic, and that might be full of interest to natures like yours and mine, that had better be left alone if they offend the prejudices of others, especially of dear and honored friends."
"I don't know but you are right, Angie; at any rate, our wedding, so far as that is concerned, shall have nothing in it to give offense to any one."
"Sometimes I think," said Angie, "we please God by giving up, for love's sake, little things we would like to do in his service, more than by worship."
"Well, dear, that principle has a long reach. We will talk more about it by and by; but now, good-night! – or your mother will be scolding you again for sitting up late. Somehow, the time does slip away so when we get to talking."
