“Just imagine how the bride must be feeling by now—look, that little patch of grass is ever so green!”
“ ‘Shoo fly! Don’t bother me!
Shoo fly! Don’t bother me!’ ”
“What’s got into you, Maggie? Hold your skirt up higher in the back.”
“Oh, girls, smell that spring smell!”
And, as they stepped out of the Wilmington station, the big warm drops began to fall, making dark stars on the pavement. Great, warm, wet splashes of spring rain, falling on her face. Maggie was happy enough to cry.
“We’ll take a cab.”
“Have you enough with you?”
“Yes, it’s all right. We can’t walk in the rain in our silks, and with our hair and everything.”
They changed into their slippers and pulled on their white gloves, rumbling up Market Street.
“Look—it’s raining hard now.”
“May, how much do you think I ought to fee the driver?”
“Girls! Look at the line of carriages, if you please! Did you ever?”
“Ten cents is plenty.”
“I know, but it’s so wet, and he looked sort of shabby.”
“See, they have a red carpet out—I’m glad we changed into our slippers, they won’t get a bit wet.”
Maggie shoved some money into the driver’s hand and hurried after the others. May need never know how much it was, and anyway it was her own egg-money. He looked so forlorn, and his nose was so red, with a little drop trembling from it. She wanted everyone to be happy tonight.
And then the church, and Victor. Lily pretended it was his wedding, and the idea melted her into tears. Where was her handkerchief? She must have brought one—
“Maggie—”
“Yessum.”
“I can’t find my handkerchief—”
People smiled at each other with knowing little nods. They understood all about it, whatever it was. The organ warbled high and tremulous. Silk rustled past as the ushers towed lady after lady up the aisle.
“What, May?”
“The lilies are too sweet—they make me feel faint.”
“Victor looks nice, doesn’t he? His coat’s just a teeny bit too big, but don’t ever tell him so.”
“There go the Hollys—I should think she’d be just about dead with that sealskin sacque on a night like this, but let’s be stylish or die. I guess they must have driven in, they weren’t on the train.”
“They’re late—the bride is, I mean. I wonder if anything could have happened.”
The organ rumbled so that Maggie couldn’t hear the rain, but she could feel it falling on her heart, life-giving and warm.
“Here they come!”
The organ agreed. Ta dardy da! Ta dardy da! The river of white silk and lace, pink sashes, and black coats, the river of life, flowed up the aisle.
The Hollys gave them a lift to the reception; and, as Mrs. Holly wanted to stop at her sister’s on the way, just for half a second, they were half an hour late. And then in the room where they took off their wraps Maggie saw a line of white petticoat showing under Lily’s skirt, and had to stop for that.
“Walk off, Lily—nobody’s going to notice—walk off a little way—here, back up.”
“Ouch, Maggie!”
“Oh, did I run it into you? You’re all right now. Come on, girls!”
For two pins she’d slide down the banisters! Clatter, scream, a little thread of “Il Bacio” as they pushed slowly past the orchestra under the stairs. May talked to her sisters vivaciously, as if she had just been introduced to them, but her eyes wandered anxiously.
“What a lovely wedding!”
“Doesn’t the bride look sweet?”
What a lovely wedding! Doesn’t the bride look sweet? What a lovely wedding! Doesn’t the bride look sweet?
May had a man now, and was shrieking at him through the racket. Maggie and Lily were carried on by the tide.
“See, Lily, how nice our present looks.”
They hadn’t been able to afford anything new. There were the pair of high-shouldered dark blue vases with the gold polka-dots and white stomachers painted with seaweed and shells, that had stood on the dining-room mantelpiece practically forever. How surprised they must be at their new surroundings, a blue velvet case of pearl-handled fish knives on one side, pink cake-plates with gold stippling on the other, and an onyx clock with a bronze Minerva behind them. It seemed almost disloyal to go away and leave them there—such old friends.
Lily found a nice little corner where she was hidden away and didn’t have to bother about her bustle or her petticoat or keeping her shawl just so. When the colored waiter thrust the plate into her hands, she tried to explain that she had already had one supper, but he hurried away without paying any attention. So she ate the broiled oysters and chicken salad lingeringly, shedding a sentimental tear now and then when the violin, close by her ear, grew extra piercing.
Maggie was just going to dive in after her when Mrs. Craig backed her against a palm.
“Oh, Miss Campion! Well! I haven’t seen you, since dear knows when—how are you? Wasn’t it a pretty wedding? And dear little Annie made such a sweet bride, didn’t she? Have you had your supper? I thought the mayonnaise was sort of poor, didn’t you? But then I’m fussy about mayonnaise, I guess, at least so they always tell me—and then there’s always so much celery in caterer’s chicken salad—more of everything than chicken. I said to Mr. Craig, I guess the chicken this salad was made of had a mother that mooed and had horns and four legs—look! That dress with the orange trimmings—someone ought to tell her how she looks, really it would be kinder. Fat people ought to be careful what they wear.”
So they ought, thought Maggie, looking at Mrs. Craig’s round little body almost bursting out of its rose-colored silk. Just like a watermelon, and those jet buttons were the watermelon seeds.
“ ‘I feel, I feel, I feel,
I feel like a morning star—’ ”
Oh, she must get that out of her head.
“Frank! Coo-hoo! Frank! You’ve met my husband, haven’t you, Miss Campion? Frank, I could eat another plate of ice-cream if I was sufficiently urged, couldn’t you, Miss Campion? Couldn’t you? Frank! Miss Campion says she
