Muriel turned from the mirror.
“See my pearls, girls,” she said brightly. “Aren’t they lovely? Bert sent them this morning.”
Jane winked away her tears. The bridesmaids circled about the pearls with little cries of admiration.
“I must go,” said Isabel. She kissed Muriel and turned toward the curtain. Flora was just coming in. Jane caught a glimpse of Mr. Furness standing alone in the outer vestibule beyond. Isabel joined him.
“How lovely Flora looks!” said Isabel brightly. “What a beautiful day for a wedding!” They turned toward the church door in the slanting sunshine. Jane wasn’t deceived for a moment by Isabel’s airy inconsequence. Jane knew that before Isabel sank decorously on her knees beside her mother in the third left-hand pew, she would whisper that Mrs. Furness hadn’t come.
Edith was kissing Muriel, when Jane turned around.
“Come, Mother,” she said.
Mrs. Lester took Muriel in her arms. Mrs. Lester was frankly crying.
“Don’t muss her veil!” cried Rosalie.
Mrs. Lester relinquished her daughter. Rosalie rearranged Muriel’s draperies. The Cleveland brother-in-law offered his arm.
“How’s your nerve?” he asked cheerfully.
“Fine!” said Muriel. Her eyes were dancing behind the folds of white lace. Her cheeks were very pink.
“Come, Mother,” said Edith again. They turned toward the church door.
Jane fell into line with Flora. They were to be the first pair of bridesmaids. The ushers were lining up in the vestibule. The one in front of Jane was quite bald. He had one absurd long brown lock of hair, combed carefully over the thin place on top of his head. Flora nodded at it and nudged Jane’s arm and giggled. The organ throbbed forth a solemn premonitory strain. The ushers began to move slowly through the inner door. The first notes of the Lohengrin wedding march swelled out over the heads of the congregation.
Jane and Flora walked very slowly, keeping their distance carefully from the ushers in front of them. Jane held her head very high and her shower bouquet very stiffly so her hands wouldn’t tremble. The church looked very dark, after the afternoon sunshine, and the aisle very long indeed. Over the heads of the ushers Jane could see the green palms and the white Easter lilies and the twinkling candles of the altar. They seemed very far away.
The pews were crowded with people, all rustling and moving and craning their necks to look at the wedding party as it went by. Jane suddenly remembered the Commencement procession in the Bryn Mawr chapel. She turned her head very slightly, half expecting to see Agnes’s funny freckled face under a black mortarboard at her side. But no. There was Flora’s pure pale profile beneath the blue straw hat-brim. Her lips were curved, just the least little bit, in a self-conscious smile. Her step was a trifle unsteady. Jane felt her own smile growing set and strained and her own knees wobbling disconcertingly. It was hard to walk so slowly, with so many people staring.
Suddenly she noticed Mr. Bert Lancaster. He was standing with the best man at the left hand of old Dr. Winter, the clergyman, on the chancel steps. He looked very calm and handsome, just as he always did. Just as Jane had seen him look at innumerable other weddings, that were not his own. The ushers were forming in two rows along the chancel steps. Jane and Flora passed them slowly, separated and took their places at the head of the line. Jane could see Muriel now. Her head was bowed under the white lace veil. At the chancel steps she raised it suddenly and smiled at Mr. Bert Lancaster. Mr. Lancaster wheeled to face the clergyman. Jane could see both their faces now, upturned toward the altar. They were so near her that it seemed indecent to look at them, at such a moment. Jane turned away her eyes.
The organ sobbed and throbbed and sank into silence. The voice of the clergyman could be distinctly heard.
“Dearly beloved brethren, we are met together in the sight of God and this company to join together this man and this woman in the holy estate of matrimony—”
“This woman,” thought Jane. Muriel was a woman, of course, not a kid any longer. Muriel was twenty. Jane would be twenty, herself, next month. Flora was twenty-one. They were grown up, all of them. Capable of entering the holy estate of matrimony, if, and when, they chose. Mrs. Lester had hated this marriage. But she hadn’t stopped it. She couldn’t stop Muriel. Nevertheless, Jane knew that if Muriel had been her mother’s child something would have been done. Still—Jane wondered. Muriel was—Muriel. Greek would have met Greek. Jane’s mother, at any rate, Jane knew very well, would always prevent Jane from doing anything that she didn’t think was wise. But who, Jane wondered, was the best judge of wisdom? Didn’t you know yourself, really, better than anyone, what you really wanted, what was the real right thing for you?
André—Jane knew, now, of course, that the family couldn’t have let her marry him at seventeen. She couldn’t even imagine, now, what their life would have been together, what her life would have been without all those other experiences that had crowded into it since she had closed the door on that early romance. Bryn Mawr and all the things she had learned there. Agnes and Marion and, yes, Miss Thomas, with her flaming torch of enlightenment, and that gay, carefree life in Pembroke Hall. The beauty of the Bryn Mawr countryside. This last year, too, with its funny frivolities, its social amenities, its growing friendships with people that Jane knew, really, in her heart of hearts, were awfully unlike herself. All those experiences were part of her, now. Inalienable. Not ever to be ignored, or belittled, or set lightly aside.
But, nevertheless, there was the memory of that
