CHAPTER XVI
IF Reba had struck Nathaniel Cawthorne dumb with her loveliness on that lovely May morning, she was something of a surprise to the young clergyman. He had not expected any such bride as this! And his mother, a belaced little woman, all aflutter since breakfast over such an usual event as this about to take place in mid-morning on a Saturday, in her yellow-brocaded drawing-room, was so upset after the arrival of the bride and groom, that she begged her son to have nothing to do with the ceremony.
She had received them in the hall as they came in, shaking hands with them both, and, to cover her surprise at the contrast between them, had twittered like an excited bird over Reba, leading her upstairs to the dainty chintz-hung guest-room, and effusively urging her to take off her things and "make herself at home." Reba blushed and hesitated over the unexpected hospitality, but she acquiesced in what seemed to be expected of her, laying her dust-coat upon the bedspread, and beside it her gray silk jacket, exposing to the clergyman's now thoroughly alarmed mother, Madame Boulangeat's triumphant panniers.
It was when Reba was in the bathroom, washing her already immaculate hands with soft, violet-perfumed soap and drying them on an embroidered bit of fine bird's-eye linen, that the clergyman's mother approached the silk jacket lying upon the embroidered bedspread, gingerly picked it up, and looked inside it. Madame Marie Boulangeat! There was only one Madame Marie Boulangeat in Boston, and the clergyman's mother knew her well—at least she knew her to the extent of two gowns a year.
Warily she lay the jacket back upon the bedspread, hastened downstairs, called her son away from the sailor and led him into the dining-room, closing the door cautiously behind them. In little gasps, she told him what she had discovered. Surely there was something wrong—"out of the way," she expressed it, about such a nice, refined-looking girl, dressed in such a gown, marrying a big, clumsy, uneducated young man like that!
"Surely, surely, Robert, you mustn't do it. Madame Boulangeat! Oh—please, please, son, refuse to have anything to do with this marriage."
Robert Barton patted his mother kindly on the shoulder. "Don't you worry, mother," he said. "She may be one of the sewing-girls at your Madame Boulangeat's for all we know. Besides, I couldn't go back on the poor fellow now. You come along and be good."
"I don't like it. I don't like the looks of it," his mother remonstrated. "She speaks like a lady, Robert, the few times she's spoken. Oh, dear, I don't see why you allow yourself to become involved in so irregular an affair."
Robert Barton led his mother gently toward the door.
"Don't let's keep them waiting," he said, and went out into the hall.
Reba was coming down the stairs. Mrs. Barton hastened toward her protectingly.
"If I must, I must, I suppose," she whispered to herself, and outloud, holding out both her hands to Reba, "Come into the drawing-room, my dear," she said.
That same afternoon, from behind her silver teakettle, purring comfortably as usual at a five o'clock on Saturday, Mrs. Barton could talk of nothing with the two or three intimate friends who had dropped in to see her and drink a cup of her tea, but the marriage she had witnessed in the morning.
"I simply couldn't keep the tears out of my eyes. I've been to more weddings than I am years old, I suppose, but never to one that affected me like this. To hear the voice of that great big hulk of a young man trembling over those familiar phrases, and no music, and no flowers, and no audience but just me, for a background, and Norah the chamber-maid for an extra witness, and Robert there before me, so solemn and grave—well!" She shrugged prettily.
"I told Robert afterward that I just couldn't send that sweet young thing down to the train, or wherever they were going, away from my house after her wedding, on foot. So I made them come upstairs and sit down a little while here, and while we waited for the limousine to come I served them some of these little currant-cakes, though the young man wouldn't eat a thing. And I put a piece of one in a little empty wedding-cake box I had, and gave it to the bride for her to take away. And I kissed her when she went! She just won me, somehow—so modest and refined—and I told her that I hoped she'd be happy, and if she was lonely, when her husband was away on his boat, she must come and see me because I'd be lonely too, with my son away on the same boat. I don't suppose she will, but somehow I'm going to find out more about her, if I have to go to Madame Boulangeat."
Nathan had never ridden in a limousine before his wedding-day, and Reba only when Mr. Joseph Horween, the general-manager of the mills at home, had picked her up, on one or two occasions as he had been passing her in his car. The sailor glanced shyly at Reba, and was struck with the harmony between her and the luxurious background. The limousine was lined with dark, purplish-colored broadcloth, and it set off Madame Boulangeat's costume like a velvet-lined box a jewel. It matched the very heliotropes in the tiny bunches of flowers that Reba wore. Everything about himself, on the other hand, clashed and swore with the purple richness. A wave of humility swept chokingly over him. Why, but for the clergyman's gently detaining hand upon his arm, in his awkwardness he would have plunged into the car in front of the girl he had just promised to love and cherish. She must have noticed! She must be aware of his utter unfitness for such an interior as this—silk-curtained and tasseled—for such dainty exquisiteness as hers! His first words alone with her after their marriage were murmured apologetically, in a low tone.
"Are you sorry you've done it?" he asked.
Reba turned steady eyes toward him. She never felt calmer in her life. The miraculous assurance of the early morning had not deserted her one whit. When she spoke her voice had a glad, defiant tone.
"I'm not the least bit sorry in the world!" she exclaimed.
For months and months Nathan fed his hungry heart on the memory of that reply. And Reba during many of those same months, perplexed and bewildered, strove desperately to call back the wonderful moment in the limousine when, as one inspired, she was consumed with the conviction of the ultimate rightness of her marriage.
They rode in rapt silence for the rest of the little journey to the South Station, where the tactful clergyman, conscious of the sailor's hesitation when asked where the chauffeur should take him and his wife (the poor fellow had gone purple at the use of so staggering a term) immediately suggested the railroad station.
"But tell him differently if you want to, after you start," Mr. Barton had added as he stood, bare-headed on the sidewalk beside the car. "Wedding-trips are supposed to be kept a dark secret."
But they hadn't told the chauffeur differently. They had made no plans in way of a celebration. Reba's train left for Ridgefield a little after four, and she had told Nathan previously that she would have to return to her room immediately after the marriage ceremony was performed.
However, the face of a clock, which Nathan caught a glimpse of in passing, set him to wondering, uncomfortably, if he ought not to take her into a restaurant somewhere, and in view of their new relations at least eat a meal together. It was after half-past twelve. But he distrusted himself too much to run the risk of shocking her with bad table-manners! There was his crippled hand to consider too! He had refused to touch the little cakes, which the clergyman's mother had offered them, for fear of committing some sort of awkward error. So when the automobile finally drew up to the edge of the sidewalk outside the entrance of the station, and Reba and her companion stepped out, they were both a little at a loss to know exactly what to do or say next, after they had watched the limousine disappear in the traffic.
For the first time since the solemn words of the wedding ceremony Reba felt self-conscious. She glanced up at the man beside her, then hastily away. The ring she had bought for him was still lying in the bottom of the shopping-bag she carried. How could she tell him about it here on the crowded sidewalk? She looked about her on all sides. People everywhere!
He caught her despairing expression.
"Do you want to go back to your room now?" he asked solicitously.
"I suppose I better," she acquiesced, but made no move to start.
At last, as she continued to hesitate, and glance about, "Do you want that I should see you back?" he attempted.
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Reba. "I think you better not do that! I'll just run up here and take the elevated. O dear!" she broke out, "we never have any place to talk—just sidewalks, and public benches—and there's something—" her face brightened suddenly. "Why couldn't we go into the waiting-room of the station?" she suggested.
"I don't see why we couldn't," he replied.
Before Reba sat down on one of the long, high-backed, oak benches (they found one unoccupied), she said first, instinctively protective of her new dress, "Perhaps I better put my coat on. If you'll hold these," passing Nathan her bag, the little white box with the cake in it, and the lilies-of-the-valley.
He held them carefully, while she slipped into the long black coat, tucking all her wedding-day finery out of sight, concealing completely the smart lines of Madame Boulangeat's costume, and the feather boa, too, as she buttoned the coat up snug about her neck.
"There!" she ejaculated with satisfaction. "Now!" and took back her belongings, and sat down.
Nathan sat down too.
"You look more suited to a rough fellow like me now," he remarked with a sigh of relief, "though I won't be forgetting," he was quick to assure her, "those little bunches of heliotrope and pink rosebuds you wore. I always thought that the heliotrope plant my mother got to bloom for her on the sunny window-sill at home had just the sweetest, rarest, sort of most-expensive smell there was. I won't be forgetting, rough, nasty nights at sea, how like a pretty, cultivated garden you looked to-day—all neat and trimmed, and expensive, and just sprinkled, and nice-kept."
Reba gave a little embarrassed laugh. "How queerly you put things, sometimes," she said. "I don't believe anybody puts things so queerly as you." Then abruptly changing the subject, first drawing in her breath deep as if about to dive off a springboard, "The minister didn't ask me what symbol I had for you," she said, and glanced down at her hands in her lap. She had not put on her gloves, and she began turning about the broad gold band on the third finger of her left hand.
Nathan, finally comprehending, replied, "No, he didn't. That's so. They don't in that book of mine. But it was legal," he hastened to assure her. "Mr. Barton told me it was just dead-sure legal, all right."
"Oh, yes. I supposed so," Reba replied. "Only most married couples I know, both wear wedding-rings."
"Oh, do they?"
"I wanted that you and I should be like other married people, as near as we could," she persevered, opening her bag and fumbling in its depths. "Of course," she went on, "it may not fit. I had to guess about the size, but anyhow"
"Did you buy a ring for me?"
"Oh, it isn't much," Reba belittled, and she stretched out her hand toward him. There was a tiny little white package lying in her palm.
Nathan took the package, placed it on his knees hugged tremblingly together, produced a handkerchief, and wiped his hands; then with what fingers he possessed, proceeded to untie the red string around it—or at least to try to.
"I'll do it," offered Reba.
"Oh, thanks," he mumbled, perspiration standing out in beads upon his brow.
"It's just a plain gold wedding-ring," she explained, when, her fingers having quickly loosened the string, she lifted the cover and passed back the box with the band of gold shining inside.
He gazed down upon it in silence for a second or two.
"But I haven't got any wedding-ring finger," he murmured at last. "That Chinaman chap"
"Oh, it doesn't matter," interrupted Reba, "which hand you wear it on, I guess. Try it on."
Very cautiously Nathan drew forth the ring, slipped it over the third finger of his right hand (the nail of even that was broken) and sheepishly glanced up at Reba when, half-way down, the gold circle stuck fast. It wouldn't pass the second joint of even his little finger! There was a moment of rueful silence.
"Oh well, then," exclaimed Reba, "give the silly thing back to me, then. It's no use as it is. It was foolish anyway to get it, I guess."
But Nathan did not give it back. He placed it in its little white velvet nest, and slipped it—box and all—into an inner pocket somewhere.
"If you wouldn't object," he said, "I'd like to wear it on a ribbon around my neck, like you're going to wear mine." He paused a second. "Right next to me," he added in an undertone.
"Oh, all right, all right," Reba replied hastily. "I don't care, I'm sure," and she stood up, blushing a little.
"Were you going now?"
"Why, yes," Reba said, avoiding his disturbing eyes, "I was. It's getting late, and I've got to change my dress."
"I don't suppose," he went on, gazing up at her, for it had not occurred to him to rise too, "I don't suppose you could just sit down, and take off your pretty hat a minute, could you?"
Reba looked surprised. It was such a curious thing to ask!
"I think it's very pretty—your hat, I mean, all gray to match everything—but I thought, if you'd just take it off a minute, so I could just take away one more look of you—like you were at the movies when you let me—when we got acquainted, you know"
Reba cast down her eyes.
"People would wonder why," she objected in a low voice.
"I suppose so," he agreed, and urged no more.
"Of course—if you want me to—but—but it seems"
"Oh, never mind—never mind."
Suddenly Reba sat down, raised both her hands and took off her hat with a little determined jerk. "There!" she said, all aflush.
There was an intimacy, a sweet familiarity about her bared forehead and the outline of her uncovered head that Nathan had taken deep pleasure in, in the crowded theater. His long silent contemplation of her now, as she sat bare-headed before him in the station, was his farewell caress.
"Thanks—for letting me," he said after a moment.
Reba pinned on her hat and stood up again, Nathan rising too this time.
"Well, I guess I better run now for the elevated," she said. "It's getting later and later needn't come. I know the way. It's just up those steps out there. I think you better not come."
"All right."
There was a pause. "Good-by," jerkily Reba ejaculated.
"Good-by," Nathan replied quietly, not offering even to shake hands.
Reba hesitated. Was this to be their parting? A sudden fear that the significance of their marriage had not been deeply enough impressed upon the sailor swept over Reba. A determination to make him realize her claim upon him gripped her.
"You won't—you won't forget we're married, will you?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No," briefly he replied.
"And—and—you'll surely come back sometime, won't you?"
He nodded. "Yes."
Then, "Good-by—Nathan," she murmured, and there was a note of wistfulness in her voice, this time.
"Good-by, Rebecca," the sailor answered.
She stretched out her hand. He took it, and suddenly, unurged, of her own free will, the timid, but now resolute and desperate Reba gave the sailor both her hands.
"I'm going to be true to every word I promised at the minister's," she told him fervently.
"I'm going to, too," he said.
She lifted her face, stood on tiptoes a little—oh, she would seal that compact now without a shadow of doubt, whatever it cost. Scarlet-cheeked, "We're married, you know," she said, "and married people when they say good-by"
He understood at last.
"You mean—" he whispered.
"Well, don't you think we ought to?" she queried.
He leaned, and awkwardly, shyly, they kissed each other, somehow, somewhere. She turned then, and without another word nor another glance, hurried away.