Part 9

Winfield was presented to the bridal couple, but there was no time for conversation, since Aunt Jane was in a hurry. After the brief ceremony was over, Ruth said wickedly:

“Aunty, on the way to the minister's, Mr. Winfield told me he was going to kiss the bride. I hope you don't mind?”

Winfield looked unutterable things at Ruth, but nobly fulfilled the obligation. Uncle James beamed upon Ruth in a way which indicated that an attractive idea lay behind it, and Winfield created a diversion by tipping over a vase of flowers. “He shan't,” he whispered to Ruth, “I'll be darned if he shall!”

“Ruth,” said Aunt Jane, after a close scrutiny of Winfield, “if you' relayin' out to marry that awkward creeter, what ain't accustomed to a parlour, you'd better do it now, while him and the minister are both here.”

Winfield was willing, but Ruth said that one wedding at a time was enough in any family, and the minister, pledged to secrecy, took his departure. The bride cut the wedding cake and each solemnly ate a piece of it. It was a sacrament, rather than a festivity.

When the silence became oppressive, Ruth suggested a walk.

“You will set here, Niece Ruth,” remarked Aunt Jane, “until I have changed my dress.”

Uncle James sighed softly, as she went upstairs. “Well,” he said, “I'm merried now, hard and fast, and there ain't no help for it, world without end.”

“Cheer up, Uncle,” said Winfield, consolingly, “it might be worse.”

“It's come on me all of a sudden,” he rejoined. “I ain't had no time to prepare for it, as you may say. Little did I think, three weeks ago, as I set in my little store, what was wuth four or five hundred dollars, that before the month was out, I'd be merried. Me! Merried!” he exclaimed, “Me, as never thought of sech!”

When Mrs. Ball entered, clad in sombre calico, Ruth, overcome by deep emotion, led her lover into the open air. “It's bad for you to stay in there,” she said gravely, “when you are destined to meet the same fate.”

“I've had time to prepare for it,” he answered, “in fact, I've had more time than I want.”

They wandered down the hillside with aimless leisure, and Ruth stooped to pick up a large, grimy handkerchief, with “C. W.” in the corner. “Here's where we were the other morning,” she said.

“Blessed spot,” he responded, “beautiful Hepsey and noble Joe! By what humble means are great destinies made evident! You haven't said you were glad to see me, dear.”

“I'm always glad to see you, Mr. Winfield,” she replied primly.

“Mr. Winfield isn't my name,” he objected, taking her into his arms.

“Carl,” she whispered shyly, to his coat collar.

“That isn't all of it.”

“Carl--dear--” said Ruth, with her face crimson.

“That's more like it. Now let's sit down--I've brought you something and you have three guesses.”

“Returned manuscript?”

“No, you said they were all in.”

“Another piece of Aunt Jane's wedding cake?”

“No, guess again.”

“Chocolates?”

“Who'd think you were so stupid,” he said, putting two fingers into his waistcoat pocket.

“Oh--h!” gasped Ruth, in delight.

“You funny girl, didn't you expect an engagement ring? Let's see if it fits.”

He slipped the gleaming diamond on her finger and it fitted exactly.

“How did you guess?” she asked, after a little.

“It wasn't wholly guess work, dearest.” From another pocket, he drew a glove, of grey suede, that belonged to Ruth's left hand.

“Where did you get that?”

“By the log across the path, that first day, when you were so cross to me.”

“I wasn't cross!”

“Yes you were--you were a little fiend.”

“Will you forgive me?” she pleaded, lifting her face to his.

“Rather!” He forgave her half a dozen times before she got away from him. “Now let's talk sense,” she said.

“We can't--I never expect to talk sense again.”

“Pretty compliment, isn't it?” she asked. “It's like your telling me I was brilliant and then saying I wasn't at all like myself.” “Won't you forgive me?” he inquired significantly.

“Some other time,” she said, flushing, “now what are we going to do?”

“Well,” he began, “I saw the oculist, and he says that my eyes are almost well again, but that I mustn't use them for two weeks longer. Then, I can read or write for two hours every day, increasing gradually as long as they don't hurt. By the first of October, he thinks I'll be ready for work again. Carlton wants me to report on the morning of the fifth, and he offers me a better salary than I had on The Herald.”

“That's good!”

“We'll have to have a flat in the city, or a little house in the country, near enough for me to get to the office.”

“For us to get to the office,” supplemented Ruth.

“What do you think you're going to do, Miss Thorne?”

“Why--I'm going to keep right on with the paper,” she answered in surprise.

“No you're not, darling,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Do you suppose I'm going to have Carlton or any other man giving my wife an assignment? You can't any way, because I've resigned your position for you, and your place is already filled. Carlton sent his congratulations and said his loss was my gain, or something like that. He takes all the credit to himself.”

“Why--why--you wretch!”

“I'm not a wretch--you said yourself I was nice. Look here, Ruth,” he went on, in a different tone, “what do you think I am? Do you think for a minute that I'd marry you if I couldn't take care of you?”

“'T isn't that,” she replied, freeing herself from his encircling arm, “but I like my work and I don't want to give it up. Besides--besides--I thought you'd like to have me near you.”

“I do want you near me, sweetheart, that isn't the point. You have the same right that I have to any work that is your natural expression, but, in spite of the advanced age in which we live, I can't help believing that home is the place for a woman. I may be old-fashioned, but I don't want my wife working down town--I've got too much pride for that. You have your typewriter, and you can turn out Sunday specials by the yard, if you want to. Besides, there are all the returned manuscripts--if you have the time and aren't hurried, there's no reason why you shouldn't do work that they can't afford to refuse.”

Ruth was silent, and he laid his hand upon hers. “You understand me, don't you, dear? God knows I'm not asking you to let your soul rust out in idleness, and I wouldn't have you crave expression that was denied you, but I don't want you to have to work when you don't feel like it, nor be at anybody's beck and call. I know you did good work on the paper--Carlton spoke of it, too--but others can do it as well. I want you to do something that is so thoroughly you that no one else can do it. It's a hard life, Ruth, you know that as well as I do, and I--I love you.”

His last argument was convincing. “I won't do anything you don't want me to do, dear,” she said, with a new humility.

“I want you to be happy, dearest,” he answered, quickly. “Just try my way for a year--that's all I ask. I know your independence is sweet to you, but the privilege of working for you with hand and brain, with your love in my heart; with you at home, to be proud of me when I succeed and to give me new courage when I fail, why, it's the sweetest thing I've ever known.”

“I'll have to go back to town very soon, though,” she said, a little later, “I am interrupting the honeymoon.”

“We'll have one of our own very soon that you can't interrupt, and, when you go back, I'm going with you. We'll buy things for the house.”

“We need lots of things, don't we?” she asked.

“I expect we do, darling, but I haven't the least idea what they are. You'll have to tell me.”

“Oriental rugs, for one thing,” she said, “and a mahogany piano, and an instrument to play it with, because I haven't any parlour tricks, and some good pictures, and a waffle iron and a porcelain rolling pin.”

“What do you know about rolling pins and waffle irons?” he asked fondly.

“My dear boy,” she replied, patronisingly, “you forget that in the days when I was a free and independent woman, I was on a newspaper. I know lots of things that are utterly strange to you, because, in all probability, you never ran a woman's department. If you want soup, you must boil meat slowly, and if you want meat, you must boil it rapidly, and if dough sticks to a broom straw when you jab it into a cake, it isn't done.”

He laughed joyously. “How about the porcelain rolling pin?”

“It's germ proof,” she rejoined, soberly.

“Are we going to keep house on the antiseptic plan?”

“We are--it's better than the installment plan, isn't it? Oh, Carl!” she exclaimed, “I've had the brightest idea!”

“Spring it!” he demanded.

“Why, Aunt Jane's attic is full of old furniture, and I believe she'll give it to us!”

His face fell. “How charming,” he said, without emotion.

“Oh, you stupid,” she laughed, “it's colonial mahogany, every stick of it! It only needs to be done over!”

“Ruth, you're a genius.”

“Wait till I get it, before you praise me. Just stay here a minute and I'll run up to see what frame of mind she's in.”

When she entered the kitchen, the bride was busily engaged in getting supper. Uncle James, with a blue gingham apron tied under his arms, was awkwardly peeling potatoes. “Oh, how good that smells!” exclaimed Ruth, as a spicy sheet of gingerbread was taken out of the oven.

Aunt Jane looked at her kindly, with gratified pride beaming from every feature. “I wish you'd teach me to cook, Aunty,” she continued, following up her advantage, “you know I'm going to marry Mr. Winfield.”

“Why, yes, I'll teach you--where is he?”

“He's outside--I just came in to speak to you a minute.”

“You can ask him to supper if you want to.”

“Thank you, Aunty, that's lovely of you. I know he'll like to stay.”

“James,” said Mrs. Ball, “you're peelin' them pertaters with thick peelins' and you'll land in the poorhouse. I've never knowed it to fail.”

“I wanted to ask you something, Aunty,” Ruth went on quickly, though feeling that the moment was not auspicious, “you know all that old furniture up in the attic?”

“Well, what of it?”

“Why--why--you aren't using it, you know, and I thought perhaps you'd be willing to give it to us, so that we can go to housekeeping as soon as we're married.”

“It was your grandmother's,” Aunt Jane replied after long thought, “and, as you say, I ain't usin' it. I don't know but what you might as well have it as anybody else. I lay out to buy me a new haircloth parlour suit with that two hundred dollars of James's--he give the minister the hull four dollars over and above that--and--yes, you can have it,” she concluded.

Ruth kissed her, with real feeling. “Thank you so much, Aunty. It will be lovely to have something that was my grandmother's.”

When she went back to Winfield, he was absorbed in a calculation he was making on the back of an envelope.

“You're not to use your eyes,” she said warningly, “and, oh Carl! It was my grandmother's and she's given us every bit of it, and you're to stay to supper!”

“Must be in a fine humour,” he observed. “I'm ever so glad. Come here, darling, you don't know how I've missed you.”

“I've been earning furniture,” she said, settling down beside him. “People earn what they get from Aunty--I won't say that, though, because it's mean.”

“Tell me about this remarkable furniture. What is it, and how much of it is destined to glorify our humble cottage?”

“It's all ours,” she returned serenely, “but I don't know just how much there is. I didn't look at it closely, you know, because I never expected to have any of it. Let's see--there's a heavy dresser, and a large, round table, with claw feet--that's our dining-table, and there's a bed, just like those in the windows in town, when it's done over, and there's a big old-fashioned sofa, and a spinning-wheel--”

“Are you going to spin?”

“Hush, don't interrupt. There are five chairs--dining-room chairs, and two small tables, and a card table with a leaf that you can stand up against the wall, and two lovely rockers, and I don't know what else.”

“That's a fairly complete inventory, considering that you 'didn't look at it closely.' What a little humbug you are!”

“You like humbugs, don't you?”

“Some, not all.”

There was a long silence, and then Ruth moved away from him. “Tell me about everything,” she said. “Think of all the years I haven't known you!”

“There's nothing to tell, dear. Are you going to conduct an excavation into my 'past?'”

“Indeed, I'm not! The present is enough for me, and I'll attend to your future myself.”

“There's not much to be ashamed of, Ruth,” he said, soberly. “I've always had the woman I should marry in my mind--'the not impossible she,' and my ideal has kept me out of many a pitfall I wanted to go to her with clean hands and a clean heart, and I have. I'm not a saint, but I'm as clean as I could be, and live in the world at all.”

Ruth put her hand on his. “Tell me about your mother.”

A shadow crossed his face and he waited a moment before speaking. “My mother died when I was born,” he said with an effort. “I can't tell you about her, Ruth, she--she--wasn't a very good woman.”

“Forgive me, dear,” she answered with quick sympathy, “I don't want to know!”

“I didn't know about it until a few years ago,” he continued, “when some kindly disposed relatives of father's gave me full particulars. They're dead now, and I'm glad of it. She--she--drank.”

“Don't, Carl!” she cried, “I don't want to know!”

“You're a sweet girl, Ruth,” he said, tenderly, touching her hand to his lips. “Father died when I was ten or twelve years old and I can't remember him very well, though I have one picture, taken a little while before he was married. He was a moody, silent man, who hardly ever spoke to any one. I know now that he was broken-hearted. I can't remember even the tones of his voice, but only one or two little peculiarities. He couldn't bear the smell of lavender and the sight of any shade of purple actually made him suffer. It was very strange.

“I've picked up what education I have,” he went on. “I have nothing to give you, Ruth, but these--” he held out his hands--“and my heart.”

“That's all I want, dearest--don't tell me any more!”

A bell rang cheerily, and, when they went in, Aunt Jane welcomed him with apparent cordiality, though a close observer might have detected a tinge of suspicion. She liked the ring on Ruth's finger, which she noticed for the first time. “It's real pretty, ain't it, James?” she asked.

“Yes'm, 't is so.”

“It's just come to my mind now that you never give me no ring except this here one we was married with. I guess we'd better take some of that two hundred dollars you've got sewed up in that unchristian belt you insist on wearin' and get me a ring like Ruth's, and use the rest for furniture, don't you think so?”

“Yes'm,” he replied. “Ring and furniture--or anythin' you'd like.”

“James is real indulgent,” she said to Winfield, with a certain modest pride which was at once ludicrous and pathetic.

“He should be, Mrs. Ball,” returned the young man, gallantly.

She looked at him closely, as if to discover whether he was in earnest, but he did not flinch. “Young feller,” she said, “you ain't layin' out to take no excursions on the water, be you?”

“Not that I know of,” he answered, “why?”

“Sea-farin' is dangerous,” she returned.

“Mis' Ball was terrible sea sick comin' here,” remarked her husband. “She didn't seem to have no sea legs, as you may say.”

“Ain't you tired of dwellin' on that?” asked Aunt Jane, sharply. “'T ain't no disgrace to be sea sick, and I wan't the only one.”

Winfield came to the rescue with a question and the troubled waters were soon calm again. After supper, Ruth said: “Aunty, may I take Mr. Winfield up to the attic and show him my grandmother's things that you've just given me?”

“Run along, child. Me and James will wash the dishes.”

“Poor James,” said Winfield, in a low tone, as they ascended the stairs. “Do I have to wash dishes, Ruth?”

“It wouldn't surprise me. You said you wanted to work for me, and I despise dishes.”

“Then we'll get an orphan to do 'em. I'm not fitted for it, and I don't think you are.”

“Say, isn't this great!” he exclaimed, as they entered the attic. “Trunks, cobwebs, and old furniture! Why have I never been here before?”

“It wasn't proper,” replied Ruth, primly, with a sidelong glance at him. “No, go away!”

They dragged the furniture out into the middle of the room and looked it over critically. There was all that she had described, and unsuspected treasure lay in concealment behind it. “There's almost enough to furnish a flat!” she cried, in delight.

He was opening the drawers of a cabinet, which stood far back under the eaves. “What's this, Ruth?”

“Oh, it's old blue china--willow pattern! How rich we are!”

“Is old blue willow-pattern china considered beautiful?”

“Of course it is, you goose! We'll have to have our dining-room done in old blue, now, with a shelf on the wall for these plates.”

“Why can't we have a red dining-room?”

“Because it would be a fright. You can have a red den, if you like.”

“All right,” he answered, “but it seems to me it would be simpler and save a good deal of expense, if we just pitched the plates into the sad sea. I don't think much of 'em.”

“That's because you're not educated, dearest,” returned Ruth, sweetly. “When you're married, you'll know a great deal more about china--you see if you don't.”

They lingered until it was so dark that they could scarcely see each other's faces. “We'll come up again to-morrow,” she said. “Wait a minute.”

She groped over to the east window, where there was still a faint glow, and lighted the lamp, which stood in its accustomed place, newly filled.

“You're not going to leave it burning, are you?” he asked.

“Yes, Aunt Jane has a light in this window every night.”

“Why, what for?”

“I don't know, dearest. I think it's for a lighthouse, but I don't care. Come, let's go downstairs.”

XIV. “For Remembrance”

The next day, while Ruth was busily gathering up her few belongings and packing her trunk, Winfield appeared with a suggestion regarding the advisability of outdoor exercise. Uncle James stood at the gate and watched them as they went down hill. He was a pathetic old figure, predestined to loneliness under all circumstances.

“That's the way I'll look when we've been married a few years,” said Carl.

“Worse than that,” returned Ruth, gravely. “I'm sorry for you, even now.”

“You needn't be proud and haughty just because you've had a wedding at your house--we're going to have one at ours.”

“At ours?”

“At the 'Widder's,' I mean, this very evening.”

“That's nice,” answered Ruth, refusing to ask the question.

“It's Joe and Hepsey,” he continued, “and I thought perhaps you might stoop low enough to assist me in selecting an appropriate wedding gift in yonder seething mart. I feel greatly indebted to them.”

“Why, of course I will; it's quite sudden, isn't it?” “Far be it from me to say so. However, it's the most reversed wedding I ever heard of. A marriage at the home of the groom, to say the least, is unusual. Moreover, the 'Widder' Pendleton is to take the bridal tour and leave the happy couple at home. She's going to visit a relative who is distant in both position and relationship--all unknown to the relative, I fancy. She starts immediately after the ceremony and it seems to me that it would be a pious notion to throw rice and old shoes after her.”

“Why, Carl! You don't want to maim her, do you?”

“I wouldn't mind. If it hadn't been for my ostrich-like digestion, I wouldn't have had anything to worry about by this time. However, if you insist, I will throw the rice and let you heave the shoes. If you have the precision of aim which distinguishes your sex, the 'Widder' will escape uninjured.”

“Am I to be invited?”

“Certainly--haven't I already invited you?”

“They may not like it.”

“That doesn't make any difference. Lots of people go to weddings who aren't wanted.”

“I'll go, then,” announced Ruth, “and once again, I give you my gracious permission to kiss the bride.”

“Thank you, dear, but I'm not going to kiss any brides except my own. I've signed the pledge and sworn off.”

They created a sensation in the village when they acquired the set of china which had been on exhibition over a year. During that time it had fallen at least a third in price, though its value was unchanged. Ruth bought a hideous red table-cloth, which she knew would please Hepsey, greatly to Winfield's disgust.

“Why do you do that?” he demanded. “Don't you know that, in all probability, I'll have to eat off of it? I much prefer the oilcloth, to which I am now accustomed.”

“You'll have to get used to table linen, dear,” she returned teasingly; “it's my ambition to have one just like this for state occasions.”

Joe appeared with the chariot just in time to receive and transport the gift. “Here's your wedding present, Joe!” called Winfield, and the innocent villagers formed a circle about them as the groom-elect endeavoured to express his appreciation. Winfield helped him pack the “101 pieces” on the back seat and under it, and when Ruth, feeling like a fairy godmother, presented the red table-cloth, his cup of joy was full.

He started off proudly, with a soup tureen and two platters on the seat beside him. The red table-cloth was slung over his arm, in toreador fashion, and the normal creak of the conveyance was accentuated by an ominous rattle of crockery. Then he circled back, motioning them to wait.

“Here's sunthin' I most forgot,” he said, giving Ruth a note. “I'd drive you back fer nothin', only I've got sech a load.”

The note was from Miss Ainslie, inviting Miss Thorne and her friend to come at five o'clock and stay to tea. No answer was expected unless she could not come.

The quaint, old-fashioned script was in some way familiar. A flash of memory took Ruth back to the note she had found in the dresser drawer, beginning: “I thank you from my heart for understanding me.” So it was Miss Ainslie who had sent the mysterious message to Aunt Jane.