Part 14

"You're light-headed I think. But it will wear off later on. And it's better than being gloomy. Do you remember how awful Marjorie was? I shall never forget how you and I spent the whole morning propping her up, and talking endlessly about all sorts of imbecile things, because as soon as we stopped she cried."

Drusilla and Jessica laughed out loud at the thought of their eldest sister's wedding four years ago when the bride had gone to the altar as if to a sacrifice, with tears and forebodings.

"How ugly our bridesmaids' frocks were too," said Jessica reminiscently. "You know it's funny how unlike us Marjorie is; you and I always laugh at the same things, and take the same things seriously, and we look alike too, but Marjorie is hopelessly different; so very homespun somehow."

"You're not quite homespun enough you know; I often wonder how you'll stay the course."

"Oh Drusilla, don't be so sinister I implore you, or I'll go all weepy like Marjorie. Besides I'm not half so trivial and erratic as you think. I'm pretty solid really; it's only when I think of Hugh I feel like a gas-filled balloon."

"This is a ghastly thing," said Drusilla inconsequently lifting up a heavy silver cake stand and turning it about to see if there was any angle at which it could be considered anything but ugly.

"Yes, isn't it atrocious. But at least it's silver. Just think of the Blakes giving us that awful electro-plate tea-pot when they are as rich as Crœsus too. I think it's pretty stingy of them, and it's a hideous shape too."

"Well they don't like you, you know," said Drusilla calmly, "They think you're aggressively modern and probably rather fast, so really it was very good of them to give you anything."

"I don't see that at all. They only did give it me because they like Mother and Daddy; it was nothing to do with me at all. Drusilla, isn't it funny how people show off with wedding presents? That huge china jar from the Carters I mean, obviously chosen for its bulk, and I'd simply have loved it if it had been so small you could hardly see it; about as big as a thimble perhaps."

Jessica wandered down the long table, touching the silver objects carelessly, but gently stroking the china. Drusilla, who was draping a Spanish shawl more elegantly over a screen, looked up and laughed at her.

"You really are impossible," she said, "How could you want a jar the size of a thimble. That one will be useful for umbrellas too."

Jessica clasped her hands passionately.

"I know," she said, "I know one must have umbrellas, and things must be big, but I'd like to be a dwarf and live in an exquisite little Japanese garden. Small things are so very rare."

"Not really," Drusilla disagreed, "they're often very mean and cunning."

"How vile you are to disagree with me to-day," said Jessica happily. "Oh, Drusilla, just look at this! Four sets of coffee cups all cheek by jowl! How shockingly tactless! All the people who gave me coffee cups will have their feelings terribly hurt, and wish they had given me mustard pots instead. I must rearrange them. One here and one there wouldn't be so noticeable."

Drusilla picked up a small jeweller's box and looked at the long string of jade curled round on the white velvet lining.

"A gorgeous present," she commented, "Jade is lovely stuff, and it suits you too. Really I think it very decent of old Mrs. Hugh to give you a personal present like that."

"I like her; she's rather a pet. And I like Hugh's Grannie too, she's frightfully nice. I do hope she likes me because I know she loves Hugh and I'd hate to come between them. It's only Hugh's mother I'm frightened of, though I like her too. You know, sooner or later I'm bound to shock her. She thinks I'm a child, and Hugh and I are a pretty little couple and so on, and if I said something was bloody--and I might easily, even with her there--she'd have a fit."

"You probably will give her a shock some time. She's absolutely wrapped in illusions as far as I can see, especially about her children."

"I know she is," Jessica sighed, "you know, Drusilla, I'd like to have a good many children, especially boys I think, but I'd rather drown them at birth than live on them as Mrs. Greene does."

"How do you mean?"

Jessica relapsed into vagueness. "I don't know," she said, "only she seems so mixed up with them somehow, and Hugh is so utterly exquisite when you think of him as an isolated identity."

"He is rather, but you'd better not think of him as an isolated identity; he isn't ever likely to be, he's part of a very compact family and you'll be part of it too."

"I know, I'll have to get used to it, and it doesn't really matter. I'd swallow a clan of Jews from Whitechapel to get Hugh, if I had to."

The hall clock struck seven.

"Haven't you finished fussing over the presents yet," said Drusilla. "You must have spaced out the coffee cups by now, and I do think you ought to go back to bed again for a bit."

"All right, I'll come now. The maids will be up in a minute, and we'd better creep back now before they hear us."

They stole quietly upstairs and Jessica got into bed again.

"Stay a minute, Drusilla, sit on the bed and let's talk," she said, and immediately fell silent. Drusilla waited.

"Well, what about it?" she asked at last.

"I don't know," said Jessica seriously, "there really is nothing to say at all. Here I am sort of suspended in mid-air between never-been-married, and never-again-be-unmarried, and I'm not sure that I'll ever feel anything much lovelier than this, just waiting till I see Hugh this afternoon at 2.30 exactly."

"Darling, you're all agog. It is nice. I wish I could fall in love like that."

"I used to think you were a little fond of Stephen Wilcox, weren't you?" asked Jessica curiously, "but don't say so if you'd rather not; it's an indelicate question." She blushed furiously, but Drusilla answered quite unmoved.

"Well, yes, I was rather, but one night at a dance he kissed me a lot, and got very worked up, and it struck me as just funny and rather clumsy. I didn't have the faintest thrill, so I knew it wouldn't do."

"I'm not at all like that," Jessica spoke with solemn emphasis. "I get the most extraordinary thrills when Hugh kisses me. He musses all my clothes and untidies my hair, and my face gets all blotched and red, and I simply love it. In fact I think I'm very passionate, and it's a good thing if I am, because Hugh says he is."

"God knows how he manages it with those parents, but I should think he may be all the same, he's so good-looking." Drusilla yawned. "I think I'd better go now," she said, "you look sleepy, and I am too, and it's still nearly two hours till breakfast."

"Oh don't go yet, stay one more minute," Jessica begged, "I do like talking to you. Drusilla; I feel most awfully glad I'm a virgin. Isn't it lucky? It would be terrible to have a past, don't you think, so disappointing somehow."

"You're being incredibly Victorian; all worked up and excited and old-fashioned, and besides, my girl, you have a past. What about that awful boy Richardson when you were seventeen?"

Jessica's face and neck crimsoned slowly.

"Don't tease me about that," she said, "I can hardly bear to think of it, it was so undignified and vulgar, and when Mother found us kissing in the garage it was absolute Hell. I can hardly believe it's two years since it happened; it feels like yesterday."

"I'm sorry I teased you then," said Drusilla smiling, "honestly I thought you'd have forgotten all about it by now. Anyhow it's not important in the least I promise you." She stood up and looking down at Jessica added "Really you're not to fuss about it now; Hugh is charming, and you'll be married to him in a minute and live happily ever after."

"I know I will," said Jessica lazily, and as Drusilla shut the door she turned over and smoothed her pillow happily conscious that the next morning Hugh's dark head would be lying on it, beside her. Darling Hugh, she thought drowsily, and fell asleep regardless of the sunlight on her face.

II

The sound of her mother's voice woke her for the second time.

"My dear child, do you know it's half past ten? I really thought I'd better wake you to have some breakfast."

She was followed by a maid carrying a tray, and as Jessica pushed back her hair, rubbed her eyes and sat up, Mrs. Deane took the tray, put it on a table and sat down on the bed. She kissed Jessica and smiled.

"You know I feel quite sentimental," she said, "and a little excited too. After all, here you are, my youngest daughter on her wedding day, a most thrilling event for any mother."

"You're every bit as bad as I am, Mother. Do you know when I was awake before, I felt so silly that I couldn't stop giggling! Do you know the feeling?"

"Of course I do, but oh, my dear"--Mrs. Deane caught her breath--"I'm going to miss you terribly. The house will be as quiet as a tomb without you. When I sit in the front pew this afternoon watching you and your father come up the aisle, I shall shed tears into my bouquet."

"You mustn't darling, really you mustn't. I'll be completely mortified if you do. I can't have you weeping at my wedding. I know Marjorie will, and that'll be bad enough, heaven knows."

"Well, you must have your breakfast now, anyhow," said Mrs. Deane getting up decisively to pour out the coffee, "but I warn you that whatever you say, I shall shed a tear or two. What I shall do when Drusilla marries I can't think. Thank goodness I've still got her."

"By that time you'll have shoals of grandchildren to console you," Jessica suggested comfortably.

"My dear Jessica----" began Mrs. Deane, but broke off suddenly and continued, "Oh well I suppose you young things know your own business best, but I could never even have thought a thing like that on my wedding morning."

"No darling, I don't suppose you could, but then your generation was so stuffy, wasn't it?" said Jessica gently.

"Some of us were very happy anyhow," retorted Mrs. Deane, kissing Jessica again, "I couldn't want anything better for you than to be as happy with Hugh as I've been with your father. But really, my dear, it's very naughty of you to keep me here gossiping. I have a hundred and one things to see to, in fact I must go this minute and see if the bouquets have arrived yet. Eat a proper breakfast and don't hurry."

As Mrs. Deane opened the door Drusilla appeared on the threshold.

"Oh Mother," she said with an accent of the deepest reproach, "you're no good at all. You ought to have been having a serious talk with Jessica. I've been eavesdropping for hours, hoping you would begin to instruct her in the facts of life, and all I heard was her telling you you were stuffy!"

When Mrs. Deane blushed she looked like both her daughters, and now she twisted her fingers in a gesture that Jessica, too, was betrayed into in moments of embarrassment.

"Really you are terrible," she said distractedly, "both of you. I don't know which of you is the most indelicate. I shall go and take refuge with the caterers and the furniture men. They have much nicer minds than either of my daughters. Good-bye, darlings."

She hurried out and Drusilla took her place on Jessica's bed.

"I'm holding a series of audiences this morning," said Jessica, "Obviously it's the proper thing for all the family to tip-toe in and peep at me ghoulishly to make sure I haven't faded away in the night. Isn't mother a duck?"

"Yes, she's rather sweet," answered Drusilla, "and frightfully competent too. You know there is a vast amount of arranging to be done for a show like this, and you and I haven't done a hand's-turn to help, have we?"

Jessica's white forehead wrinkled into a frown.

"It's rather worrying," she began. "Of course I shan't have to bother about anything on my honeymoon. Hugh is marvellous about trains and arrangements and he can do it all, but I suppose in a month when we come home I'll have to settle down and be a proper person, and everyone will criticise me."

"Not any more than they do now surely?"

"Yes, far more. A few of the Greene relations may swallow me, but most of them will think everything I do is wrong, and they'll be sorry for Hugh, and you know quite well, Drusilla, that I shall never be able to scold the servants."

"I think that probably comes with practice," Drusilla reassured her, "and, anyhow, you aren't going to be living so far away that we can't keep an eye on you."

"I know. That does help of course. But Drusilla I do feel I must go on letting Hugh be a Greene; I mustn't try to absorb him into our family. I really have a scruple about it."

"Well, I don't think you need have. There isn't the faintest chance of Hugh being disassociated from his family. But anyhow you're full of contradictions; only this morning you said you thought of him as an isolated fragment or something."

"Really Drusilla, you're very dense sometimes," said Jessica a little piqued, but Drusilla only laughed.

"You can't possibly understand," began Jessica, but at the sound of a car drawing up at the front door below with a good deal of unnecessary hooting, she stopped and sat bolt upright, a scarlet patch of excitement on either cheek.

"Drusilla, that's Hugh!" she said, and jumping out of bed she darted over to the window, pushed it up and hung out, waving wildly.

Drusilla leaned over her shoulder, and saw Hugh standing on the steps below carrying two huge parcels and smiling up at Jessica.

"Darling, come up and see me," called Jessica, "it's most unseemly of you to be here on our wedding day, but since you are here you must come up. What have you come for anyhow?"

"Two important presents from two important people," said Hugh gaily, "Mother wants them shown in most conspicuous places, and incidentally she thought she'd better give me a job to keep my nerves steady."

"Oh are you nervous, Hugh? Do come up at once, dearest. Why does nobody let you in?"

"I don't suppose you've rung, have you?" Drusilla called down.

"Heavens, I forgot," said Hugh laughing, "I was just going to when Jessica appeared for the balcony scene."

He laid down one parcel, and rang the bell, still looking up.

"Couldn't you throw me a flower or something romantic?" he asked.

Jessica tore a small bow of gold ribbon off the shoulder of her nightgown, kissed it and flung it down to him.

"There you are," she called, watching it flutter slowly and uncertainly down to the street, "my God, it's going down into the area; it'll be wasted on cook. No it isn't; it's all right."

As her shrill excited tones followed the flight of the light scrap of ribbon, a shocked and inquisitive face appeared at the window opposite, and at the same moment she heard her mother's voice behind her.

"Jessica, come in at once. This is really too much; you must not lean out of the window in your nightgown; Drusilla, you shouldn't have allowed her."

Jessica waved airily to Hugh, blew a kiss to the face in the opposite house, drew in her head and shut the window.

"It's Hugh, Mother," she said as if that explained the whole situation, "he's down below with two important parcels from two important people."

"Well, that makes it worse," said Mrs. Deane severely, "you were hanging half out of the window and all the top of your nightgown is transparent lace. Really I feel quite cross with you both."

"Don't be cross, darling," implored Jessica. "My trousseau nighties are far more indecent than this, and look, I'll put on a dressing-gown before he comes up."

"He is certainly not coming up, Jessica. It would be most unsuitable."

Jessica flung her arms round her mother's neck and kissed her.

"Very well, darling," she said, "We won't outrage you any more; he shan't come up; I'll go down to him instead."

Laughing, she snatched up her dressing-gown and ran out of the room and downstairs, her bare feet flashing white over the green carpet.

Mrs. Deane laughed reluctantly.

"I'm perfectly helpless with Hugh and Jessica," she said, "It's no use hoping for any sense from either of them. Jessica is like a child; she's quite fey with excitement."

"It's really all right Mother," Drusilla soothed her. "She's frightfully happy and they do suit each other well. I honestly think Hugh understands her perfectly."

"Yes, I feel that too," said Mrs. Deane, going out on to the landing, "It's very satisfactory because Jessica _is_ so temperamental."

She leaned over the banisters and then turned smiling to Drusilla.

"Just look at them on the landing; they wouldn't mind if the servants and the caterers and all the furniture men were drawn up in rows to look at them."

Quickly sensitive to the watching eyes above, Hugh looked up.

"I say, Mrs. Deane," he said apologetically, "I know I oughtn't to be here, but Mother sent me round with a couple of presents, and now I am here I must talk to Jessica for a minute."

"Yes, of course, my dear," agreed Mrs. Deane, entirely forgetting her conventional qualms, "go into my sitting-room; it's the only room in the house that isn't upside-down. But really you can only have ten minutes and then Jessica must come upstairs."

She turned to Drusilla.

"Do go down and talk to your father, dearest. The servants have chased him from room to room, and now he's pacing round the billiard table in a terrible state of nerves. He ought to have gone to his office; it would have been much more sensible, but he had a feeling that Jessica might want him."

"All right, Mother; what are you going to do?"

"I'm just going to see that all her things are properly packed. But you know, Drusilla, I do not think she should have said her nightgowns were indecent."

"My dear Mother," said Drusilla decisively, going downstairs, "if you take seriously any one thing Jessica may say to-day you will forfeit all my respect and admiration."

"I hope she'll be serious in church at least," retorted Mrs. Deane, and went into the spare bedroom to look a little mournfully at Jessica's strapped trunks.

III

In the sitting-room Hugh and Jessica sat down on the rug in front of the fire. Hugh suddenly noticed her bare toes.

"My sweet," he said, "did you come running downstairs to me, all in your bare toes?"

Jessica leaned restfully against him as she answered: "Of course I did. I didn't dare wait in case Mother would stop me, and anyhow, I forgot about slippers."

She took his hand and gently flexed the fingers one by one.

"I've been mad with excitement all morning," she said. "And now you are with me I feel quite comfortable and easy and peaceful."

"We ought always to be together," said Hugh emphatically. "I hate to think I'll have to leave you alone every day when I go to the office."

"Oh, but that's years away. A whole month at least before we need think about it. All the same I would rather like to be a typist, or perhaps something a little grander, in your office. Couldn't it be arranged?"

"It could not, darling; not possibly; but anyhow it will be good coming home to you in the evenings."

"It's a pity there are so many magazine stories," said Jessica hazily, gazing into the fire. "You know the sort of stuff: bright eyes at the window, or the little woman at the garden gate. Now I shall be forced to stay on the sofa in my elegant yellow drawing-room and when you come in I shall just look up from my book in a casual way, and say, 'Hello Hugh!'"

"If you do wait like that I'll know you don't love me any more. You never wait for people you love, or even people you like; you always rush to meet them."

"Yes, but I'm going to be quite different now. When I'm a young matron--isn't it a ghastly expression?--I shall behave like a young matron and put away childish things and stop looking through a glass darkly."

"All at once, sweetheart? Jessica, I do love you so."

Hugh caught her to him and kissed her, but she gently warded him off.

"I love you too, Hugh; I adore you, but you mustn't spoil my face. It isn't vanity, but I do want to look lovely for you to-day."

"My dearest, you will. You couldn't look lovelier than you do now all rumpled and crumpled, but still I've often looked forward to your coming up the aisle to me in the gold frock and train that I've never seen, with a veil all over your darling face."

"I'm not wearing it over my face; it didn't go with my kind of naked forehead. It just falls back from a thing they call a fillet. Have you really imagined that, Hugh?"

"Often. I've lain awake at nights thinking about it, till sometimes I got so wide awake that I had to get up and walk about and hang out of the window, and sometimes I got so drugged with my own thoughts that I went to sleep thinking it was really happening."

"It's queer that you should love me so much, Hugh, but I should die at once if you didn't."

The door opened, and a housemaid came in to see to the fire.

"Go away, Mary," said Jessica, dreamily. "We've only got ten minutes together; we can't be interrupted."

"I'm so sorry, Miss Jessica," said Mary. "I'll see that nobody else disturbs you. The fire can wait."

She closed the door very softly, and went downstairs to inform the other servants that the sitting-room fire could await Miss Jessica's pleasure.

"Wouldn't it be appalling, Hugh, if we really had only ten minutes and then you had to leave me to go to China or some place."

"Awful!" said Hugh shortly, an expression of pain on his face.

"But we needn't worry," Jessica consoled him. "We've got all the time there is, haven't we?"

"Darling, we'll need it; I can't ever have enough of you."

Jessica suddenly shivered.

"Are you cold, my sweet?" he asked anxiously.

"Not a bit. I suddenly thought of something."

Jessica fell silent.

"What did you think of to make you shudder like that? Tell me, darling."

Hugh held her more closely, but Jessica did not answer for a moment, and when she did, she spoke jerkily and nervously.