Wedding Plans
No trouble was spared to clear the name of Wrack Peveril from the shadow that had rested upon it. The confession left by Mose Paget was read out in the meeting-house on the following Sunday. This was the only place and time, at that busy season of the year, when men and women could be got together for the purpose.
Pam was not present. She went across to the Gittins’s place and stayed with Reggie, who was too much of an invalid as yet to stand the shaking and bumping of the wagon on the rough trail. Galena insisted that she was going, and she left the house tricked out in the smartest clothes she possessed. She clambered up into the wagon to sit by the side of her brother, and looked as hard and defiant as you please. Just as the wagon started, Pam, yielding to an impulse, ran out, and, holding up her hand to Nathan to wait a moment, clambered up on the high step. Then, flinging her arms round Galena, she gave her a bear-like hug and a warm kiss.
“What is that for?” demanded Miss Gittins in a caustic tone, and she tossed her head, making the roses on her much-beflowered hat nod vigorously.
“Because I love you,” said Pam, looking into the hard face with the quiet daring of a real affection. She added, with a trifle of hesitation: “I shall be thinking of you every minute of the time you are at meeting.”
“Which means you think I ought not to go. But I should like to know why?” Again Galena tossed her head, and the roses nodded in reply.
“It is splendid and brave of you to be able to bear it, but I am afraid you will find it very hard; that is why I came.” Pam reached up and dropped another kiss on the cheek of Galena, then slid down from the wagon with a nod to Nathan in token that he could go on. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched the two elderly-young people bumping placidly across the rough pasture in the little wagon. She wondered if she could ever go to meeting to hear a confession of Don’s read to clear the name of someone of a wrongfully imputed crime. Of course she and Don were not betrothed. Pam had not really owned to herself in plain speech that she loved him. But standing there that morning, watching the backs of Galena and Nathan, she told herself that she could not have borne it. Then she went back to the house to talk as cheerfully as possible to Reggie, and to make the leaden-footed hours pass for him as pleasantly as might be.
Reggie was very white-faced this morning. He was grieving over his brother’s death in a fashion that seemed strange when one remembered the callous neglect of Mose.
“You see, I had him to look after. Ma left him to me, and I can’t help feeling that I have left something out that I ought to have done.” The boy’s tone was so wistful as he spoke that Pam found her heart aching for him so badly as to make her forget how sorry she had just been for Galena. Really, when one comes to think of it, there are so many people to be sorry for that one’s own private and particular pain has mostly to be thrust into the background.
“I think you did everything a boy could do, but it is hard to influence a man, you know.” Pam spoke soothingly, thinking that if Mose could ignore the affection of his small step-brother, and leave the child as he had done, there could not have been much good stuff in him.
Reggie spoke as if he had read her thoughts.
“Mose would have been different if he had seen anything ahead of him that he could reach. Things were terribly against him. When Galena threw him over because he was lazy, she ought to have said that if he’d work hard and show willing she’d hitch up with him again, but what she did say was that she hadn’t no use for lazy people, and that was all. Then there was that bit of creek frontage. If only Sam Buckle would have put a price on that, then Mose would have stirred round and found the money, and he would have been so busy getting what he wanted that he wouldn’t have had time to be lazy. His trouble was that he could not have what he wanted, and so he lost heart.”
Pam put her head down close beside the thin white face on the pillow.
“Perhaps Galena lost heart too,” she said, “and that was why she was not as wise as you wanted her to be. You will have to leave it now, Reggie, because it is all over, but you must not think hard things of Galena, for I am sure she is suffering horribly.”
“I should say she is by the way she tries to hustle Nathan round, but it takes a deal of pushing to get him to move, so it does not matter. She is downright good to me, and I like living here. I hope they will let me stay always; they won’t lose by it in the long run.”
“I am sure they will not!” said Pam. Then she fetched outThe Pilgrim’s Progress, which was one of the few books to be found in the Gittins’s house, and read to him the stirring account of Christian’s fight with Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. It was when she looked up to answer some eager question of his that she caught a glimpse of a figure in a very much beflowered hat coming rapidly across the field, and she realized that Galena had found the ordeal too much for her after all.
“There is the book, you can read about it yourself if you like,” she said, thrusting the musty-smelling volume into Reggie’s hands. Then she rose from her chair and hurried out to meet Galena.
“I could not face it. I made Nathan stop the horse and let me get out,” said Miss Gittins, who was very pale under the smart hat. “He wanted to turn round and drive me back here, but I just would not have that. Folks would have been able to talk fine if we had both been away from meeting; but if Nathan was there in his place, it would only look as if I had stayed at home with Reggie. I can’t help feeling that it is partly my doing that Mose went so wrong, and I am a miserable woman to-day.”
Pam slid her arm through Galena’s, and turned with her to the strip of forest that still remained on one side of the home pasture. There were big trees here, spruce and birch and maple, and to walk in their shade on this glowing summer morning was like being in some vast cathedral. There were the hush and the calm of the cloistered building, and the sense of nearness to the Infinite. Oh, the forest was wonderful on a day like this! especially when one could turn away from the sordid little brown house, with its clustering barns and piggeries, that stood on the edge of this forest fane.
Galena was sobbing and moaning in her pain. All the way back from the place where she had stopped the wagon she had walked with her head in the air and her mouth set in hard lines of endurance, but when Pam had met her with that silent sympathy, and had drawn her into the shade of the trees, her stoicism broke down, and she could only sob in her misery.
“If I could have the past over again!” wailed the stricken woman.
“You have the present and the future,” Pam reminded her, with the rare wisdom which came to her in moments of need like this.
“What do you mean?” demanded Galena sharply. “Mose is dead, and you can’t bring the dead to life, so the past is past—done with, altogether, I take it.”
“For him, not for you,” ventured Pam softly. How fearful she was of saying the wrong word, or of uttering a word too many! “You have the boy left, and the mistakes you feel you made with Mose can be rectified with his brother.”
“Reggie is not Mose,” snapped Galena, and Pam fairly winced at the revelation of heart hunger and exceeding wretchedness that the words revealed.
“No, I fancy he is much better stuff than Mose, so more worth the helping,” replied Pam. After much hesitation she ventured to say gently: “Don’t scorn him too much when he goes wrong. You could not expect a boy brought up as he has been to keep always above reproach, but it will help him to recover when he stumbles if he knows you love him all the time.”
“I wish that I was dead!” moaned Galena, and she looked a really tragic figure, her eyes swollen and red with weeping, her smart hat tipped rakishly askew, and her equally smart blouse pulled open at the throat, where she had clutched at it in order to give herself more air.
“No, you don’t!” said Pam cheerfully. “Down at the bottom you are just as glad to be alive as I am. You are very miserable just now, but when you have had a rest you will feel better. Shall I run to the house and fetch a rug for you to lie on out here, or would you rather go to your own bedroom?”
“Oh, I will go indoors, thank you, and lie on my bed like a Christian.” Galena turned back towards the house with something of her old arrogance as she spoke. “I don’t hold with sleeping rough when one can get shelter. Besides, the wind in the trees makes such a noise when you have nothing to do but listen to it, and the creeping things in the grass all seem to talk at once. Oh, I have no fancy for lying on the ground when I have a decent bed to go to.”
Pam laughed, but she made no further protest. It was good to hear the old dictatorial tone creeping into Galena’s speech; it was a sure and certain sign of returning spirit and courage. They went to the house together, then Pam went back to amuse Reggie for a while, and Galena went to her own chamber.
Nathan drove Pam back to Ripple when he got home from the meeting, and he imparted a piece of news on the way that made her cry out in dismay. Two of the young Griersons had sickened with something that looked like scarlet fever, and the Doctor would not allow Sophy to enter the house when she went home that morning.
“How dreadful for poor Mrs. Grierson!” cried Pam, and indeed the Doctor’s wife seemed to have anything but a rosy time with those younger children. “Whatever will they do about the wedding?”
“Miss Grierson will have to be married from some other place,” replied Nathan. “It is quite certain that the Doctor won’t let the wedding be held at an infected house. He is always preaching to other people to take care when there is infection about, and he is bound to do as he tells other folks to do. It is a chance for you, but if you don’t want the bother, there are plenty of other people ready and willing for the job.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Pam, turning a startled look on her companion.
Nathan cleared his throat, making so much noise over the business that the horse mistook it for a command to make haste, and tore onward at top speed, so that its driver had to quiet it down before he could say what was on his mind. Then he wanted to cough again, but did not dare because of upsetting the nerves of the horse.
“It is like this,” he began at last, and his speech was slower and more lumbering than usual; “Miss Grierson has been in your house all winter, and you would have been hard put to it without her.”
“Indeed I should!” said Pam in fervent outburst.
“Well, then, it is for you to insist that you shall have the wedding at your place.”
“But we haven’t things for a wedding!” cried Pam, aghast at the bare suggestion. “There are two cups with handles, and one without; we have four whole saucers and a half; there are six plates in the house, and about three dishes, and other things to correspond. Sophy wants to have a big wedding—that is, she has asked a lot of people. And—and—it is horrid to have to say it, but it is the truth, we have no money for a show of that sort. Besides, it is Grandfather’s house, and oh, suppose for yourself what would happen if he came home in the middle!”
Nathan laughed, and his great guffaws rang out with astonishing noise on the noontide stillness of the forest; and distressed as Pam was at the thing which had been suggested to her, she could not help laughing also.
“I will admit the poor old fellow might have reason for complaint if he came back to find the place stuffed as full of women and girls as it will be if the wedding is held there,” said Nathan. “You want him back, though, and everyone wants the mystery cleared up about his going, and as the wedding will certainly bring him back if anything will, I should just advise you to get on with it as fast as you can, and to keep smiling. As to the cups and that sort of thing, there ain’t no cause to fuss; you just say what you want, and the folks will bring it. That way saves a lot of trouble. We don’t give wedding presents in these parts, because we can’t afford it, and we haven’t the sort of stores that sell the kind of trash that is used for that purpose. But when anyone is asked to a wedding they understand that they will have to provide some of the food, or lend crockery or table-cloths, or truck of that sort, only they mostly wait until they are told what is wanted, because it saves confusion.”
“What a perfectly lovely idea!” cried Pam, with her eyes shining, as they always did at any mention of a frolic. “Thank you so much for telling me where my duty lies. But you will have to stand by me if Grandfather should suddenly appear on the scene, for I can imagine that the poor old man would be simply horrified at the bare idea of a wedding at Ripple.”
“Perhaps if there had been a wedding at Ripple in bygone years, instead of the runaway match your mother had to make, things would have been happier all round. But don’t you worry, Miss Walsh, we will all stand by you through thick and thin, though I am thinking you don’t need much outside championing when the Doctor’s son is knocking round, for he is a oner for making things hum!”
Nathan had had his joke, and he appreciated it so immensely that at the sight of the crimson he had called into the cheeks of Pam he burst into another guffaw that ended in a choking fit, and Ripple was reached before he had properly recovered.
“Will you come in and have some dinner?” asked Pam out of politeness, though she did not really want him. But he had driven her home and it was getting late, so she felt she must ask him.
“No, thank you, and you don’t want no company either. Just you get indoors and fix up about the wedding before anyone else chips in. And when you ask me and Galena, you ask her to bring food, and you ask me for the loan of our Mam’s best chinay, and the table-cloths that Aunt Selina gave us.”
“Oh, suppose the china got broken!” cried Pam, as Nathan swung her to the ground.
“A good thing if it did. Then we would buy a common sort that was not too good to use. I don’t hold with things that you can’t use, so you can smash the lot so far as I am concerned.” Nathan waved his hand in an airy flourish as he clambered back into the wagon, and then he drove off along the trail he had come by, while Pam went into the house with mingled feelings, for she rather doubted her ability to organize a proper wedding for Sophy, and yet she owed her friend so much that she would gladly do anything towards paying part of it back.
Jack was in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and told Pam that Sophy had gone upstairs to lie down, saying that she did not want anything.
“Did Nathan tell you that two of the kids have scarlatina, and so Sophy can’t be married at home?” he asked. “She is frightfully down about it. George being away for the week-end makes it all the worse for her, because she hasn’t him here to say comforting things to her.”
“I am going to say comforting things to her!” announced Pam, with her head in the air, although her heart was beating fast with excitement. “We are going to have the wedding here, Jack, and we must make the biggest splash possible, just to show Sophy how really we appreciate what she has done for me. Oh, I know we can’t afford it, but Nathan has told me how it can be done with but little expense, and for Sophy’s dear sake I am going to put my pride in my pocket, and ask my neighbours to lend me all the things we have not got. If you come to think of it, that is a tremendously long list, for we really have nothing except house-room, and it seems a mad venture, but we have got to do it somehow. Go on getting dinner ready, and be sure to lay a place for Sophy, for I am certain I can coax her into coming down.”
“You can mostly get people to do as you wish!” said Jack, and he began to stir round at a lively rate, while Pam went up the stairs two steps at a time, and burst into the bedroom where Sophy was lying face downwards on the bed with despair in every line of her body.
“Sophy, Sophy, we are going to have the wedding here, and the best sitting-room shall justify its existence for once!” cried Pam, hurling herself into the room with so much force that she caught her foot in a board that stood a little above the rest of the flooring. She stumbled and lurched forward, falling on to the bed and getting sadly mixed up with Sophy, who had sprung up at the sound of her voice, and who started at once to protest.
“Pam dear, it is most fearfully good of you, but I could not think of letting you do it. Father thinks I had better have a meeting-house wedding, and he will drive us straight from the church to Hunt’s Crossing to catch the down-river boat. Of course it is rather horrid, and I would much rather have had a house wedding, but no one can have all they want in this world.”
“Yes, they can!” stoutly affirmed Pam. “People can always get what they want, if only they will be careful only to want what they can get. We are going to have a gorgeous time, dearie, and I am really grateful to those children for taking fever just now, and giving me a chance to pay back something of my debt.”
“Pam, you must not take that money you had for the spruce; I could not bear it!” cried Sophy.
“Don’t worry, that money shall not be touched, dear; I am going to do the wedding at the expense of my neighbours. Nathan Gittins has put me on to the idea, and I am going to run it for all I am worth. He told me to ask for his mother’s best china—the loan of it, you know—and her table-cloths. He says that we can smash up the china if we like. Isn’t he a dear?”
“Of course, we could do the wedding that way; people often do. But, Pam, it will be most fearfully hurting to your pride. Just fancy how you will feel when you are pouring out the coffee if that awful Mrs. Brown should say: ‘Be careful how you spill that coffee, Miss Walsh; I paid top-price for it, and I can’t abide seeing things wasted!’ Oh, you would just squirm!”
“I am going to enjoy every bit of it!” announced Pam in a valiant tone, and she meant what she said. “Put your hair tidy and come down to dinner; I am fearfully hungry. We must make out the lists of what we want the folks to lend us to-day. By the way, who has a nice new sitting-room carpet? That will be a first necessity, for you can’t stand up to be married on bare boards.”
“It would have been bare boards at the meeting-house. Oh, Pam, it is lovely of you not to mind asking for the things! I had set my mind on a home wedding, and this house is just made for weddings and things of that sort; there is so much room, and the sitting-room is so big!”
Sophy was standing at the glass now, and winding up the heavy masses of her hair with quick fingers; all the despair was gone from her figure, and she looked almost radiant, in spite of red eyes and a swollen nose.
“Make haste down, we have got to hustle. Oh, I wish I could think of someone who had bought a new carpet this spring, for I do want you to have something gorgeous to stand upon. I know what I will do; I will get Galena to drive me to the houses over the Ridge, and we will make a systematic house-to-house collection, the same as they do in England when they want to have a rummage sale. Oh, it will be great fun!”
“Pam, you are shameless! It will be absolute begging!” laughed Sophy, and then she came hurrying downstairs in the wake of Pam, and Jack gave a long whistle of pure amazement. His last vision of her had been dismal enough. She had walked with him across the forest from the meeting-house, punctuating the distance with her sobs, and he had wanted to run away as badly as he had ever wanted to do anything, for this was a form of grief that he could not understand. To his way of thinking a fussy wedding was more bother than comfort, and provided she got married, nothing else really mattered.
Pam understood things better, and was able to view the situation from Sophy’s standpoint. All through the long, dark winter Sophy had sewed and planned. Her plans had all centred round her wedding day. Her new home would be a back district of the far west, so distant that her imagination would not stretch so far: but her wedding she could see in fancy, and she had planned and planned for it until she was perfect as to detail. Then came this crowning disaster of being shut out of her home by the infectious illness of the younger children, and her house of cards had tumbled all about her ears. A disaster of this sort would not have meant so much to Pam, for she was cast in a different mould, and the details of her wedding would not have mattered at all. But she sympathized so keenly with Sophy that she was ready to go to almost any length on behalf of her friend.
Dinner was a merry meal, with pencil and paper in constant requisition for jotting down the things that would be required to give Sophy a really good send-off. The ceremony was fixed for next Thursday, it was the busiest time of the year, and what had to be done must be done at once.
“It is lucky that I did not have to walk home this morning, because I am not tired,” said Pam. “If you and Jack will get the dinner dishes out of the way, I will toddle back to the Gittins’s place, and get Galena to take me out driving. She is a bit low-down herself to-day, and so the little outing will do her good. The turkeys will want looking after, Jack, for I may not be home until late. Do you think that we have put down everything that we shall need, Sophy? I am not used to this sort of thing, and so it is easy to make a muddle.”
“If you get all that you have set your mind on we shall have a record show,” replied Sophy briskly, and then she hurried to help Pam to get ready, for the afternoon was wearing, and the distances to be traversed were so great that Pam would hardly get through her list of friendly calls before bedtime.
Just as Pam was going out of the house, who should come driving up but Galena! Nathan had pitched her such a tale when he got home, after driving Pam to Ripple, that Galena cast her own sorrow and her private regrets to the winds, and leaving Nathan to wash the dinner dishes and look after Reggie, she had hitched the horse to her own wagon, and had come to offer everything she could to furnish the wedding feast.
Of course her prompt appearance on the scene made all the difference to Pam’s venture, and the two of them started out to make the round of their friends and neighbours. They went with the comfortable certainty of getting what they wanted, and they soon found that the chief difficulty lay in drawing a line as to the amount to be lent or given. Pam even secured the loan of the new carpet on which she had set her heart—a gorgeous affair, with roses as big as cabbages, and the sort of colouring that “hits you in the eye”; but it was new and gay, so nothing else really mattered. It was late when the day was ended, and Pam was tired, but her efforts were going to be crowned with success.
How it was Done
Never in her life had Pam worked so hard as she did in that week before Sophy was married. The house must be scrubbed from top to bottom. It had seemed clean enough for everyday occupation, and she would not have troubled about it until some wet spell had given her the leisure from outside tasks necessary for cleaning out the one or two rooms which seemed to need it most. But the wedding altered everything. Pam cared not at all because the place needed almost everything in the way of household plenishing; that was not her fault, nor her responsibility. But her pride would have been hurt in its most vital part if those neighbour women had come in to find dirty floors, and windows bunged up with cobwebs. She was astir at dawn on Monday morning, and started on her campaign against dirt in the most energetic fashion possible. When she began to stir the rooms out she was dismayed to find how really dirty they were, and she worked so hard that Jack declared there would be nothing of her left by Thursday.
Sophy wanted to help with the cleaning, but was sternly reminded that brides were looked upon as being rather ornamental than useful, and she was not allowed to soil her hands for that one week at least. Don came over on Tuesday and scrubbed the big kitchen for Pam; he had been away over the week-end with George Lester, and knew nothing of the trouble at home until he got back late on Monday evening, to find himself billeted at the stores, in company with George, and ordered to keep away from home. The two children who had sickened were not really ill, but of course the next cases might be very bad indeed, so the Doctor was taking no risks. Mrs. Grierson shut herself up with the small invalids, and the rest of the children were taken to a lone house where there were no other children, and their father saw them twice a day to make certain they were not developing the complaint.
Dr. Grierson had done so many kind things for people in his time that all the neighbours vied with each other in their efforts to smooth for him the present embarrassment. Pam had to refuse so many offers of help, and to insist so strongly that supplies should be kept down to the limit she had asked for, that she was amazed, not only at the kindness of everyone, but also at the resources at their disposal. She would not allow them to bring anything to the house until Wednesday, by which time she would have the place in fit trim to receive all the things that were to be loaned, and all the food that was to be given.
She had refused to let Jack scrub, for she had her own ideas as to how the work should be done, and she meant to have the house brought up to standard somehow. But when Don appeared and took bucket and brush away from her by sheer force, there was nothing for it but to give way, because he was the stronger, and she knew she could not get the things away from him if she tried. Then, too, he did the work in a masterly fashion. It was pure pleasure to see the energy he put into the brush-work, and the capable manner in which he swabbed up the water; the corners, too, got such a routing-out that after watching him for five minutes, Pam stretched her weary arms above her head, and went away to put her hair straight, feeling that so far as the scrubbing was concerned, her responsibility was at an end.
By Wednesday night the house was so transformed that Pam declared her grandfather would not know the place if he came back.
“Do you think he will come back?” asked Jack, as the two had a final look round before going to bed.
“Nathan said that if anything would bring him back it would be the wedding. He would be so scandalized at the thought of having so many women and girls about the place that he would certainly turn up if he were still alive. That is one of the reasons why I have been so keen to have a great fuss. Of course he may be very angry, but even that will be worth while if it only ends this suspense, and lets us know where we are.” Pam sighed. She was so very tired of the uncertainty of her present life, and she so badly wanted her mother and the others to come before the summer was really over. Their help would be useful, too, for each day brought so many things to be done, and two pairs of hands seemed quite inadequate for the task.
Sophy’s trunks were packed and labelled for the far west. There was nothing left to be done, except the custards and the coffee, and there would be plenty of help in the morning for them. Dr. Grierson had been over for a last talk with his daughter, and Sophy had gone off to bed drowned in tears, for it did seem cruelly hard that she could not have the support of her mother’s presence at this, the most important time in her life. But her father had promised that her mother should come to pay her a visit before very long, and that was a very real consolation. Still, there were tears to be shed, and Sophy was just having a really good cry before Pam came upstairs.
Jack was going to sleep on the settle in the kitchen to-night, because his bedroom had been requisitioned as an extra sitting-room, and it was all arranged, and in the most splendid order. A big table formed from boards from the barn stretched the length of the kitchen, and was duly spread for the feast with borrowed knives and forks, spoons, and crockery. Oh, it was a fine sight! for no one had been niggardly, and everyone had done their bit to give the Doctor’s daughter a good send-off.
“What a lot of fuss for one wedding!” remarked Jack. “If I were you and Don, I would get married at the same time, now that we have got all the things here. It seems a real pity to waste all this fine spread on one couple, and you could not get such a smart carpet every day.”
“I am not going to get married yet awhile, so don’t worry about that; and if you think the show is wasted on two people, you had better find a wife for yourself, or else help Nathan Gittins to find one,” laughed Pam. But her colour mounted, for privately she had been thinking what a lovely place Ripple was for a wedding.
“I should not wonder if it puts the idea in his head,” Jack answered soberly; and then he pranced up and down the room, looking at all the things that had been loaned, and wondering what would happen if a burglar came along.
“Oh, don’t even mention such a thing!” cried Pam. “I should not know where to put my head if anything happened to any of the things. You must sleep with one eye open, and if you hear a sound you must make a clamour at once. Would you rather that I stayed here with you? I could get quite a lot of sleep sitting in a chair. Indeed, I am so tired that I think I could have a comfortable nap standing on my feet, as Mrs. Buckle’s old horse does.”
“No, no, my child, you toddle off upstairs and get your beauty sleep, and then you will be properly good-looking for to-morrow,” said Jack, taking her by the shoulders and gently pushing her towards the door. “It does not do for a girl to play fast and loose with her complexion; she can only take care of what she has got, and she can’t hope to get another when that is gone, unless she can afford to buy one, and even that is not like the real thing. Don’t you worry about me. If a burglar comes nosing round after this co-operative furnishing, he will get more than he bargains for from the old dog and me. We are in fine feather to-night I can tell you, so there is no need for you to worry.”
Sophy had cried herself to sleep by the time that Pam got upstairs. Pam herself was so sleepy that it was almost too much trouble to slip out of her garments. But when she lay down, and her tired body could rest, she suddenly became tremendously wide-awake. It was the thought of her grandfather that was keeping her from sleep. Ever since Nathan Gittins had declared that the wedding would fetch him back if anything did, Pam had been expecting that he would come, and she was stirred to a wonderful pitch of excitement about it. Of course he would be angry, that was only to be expected. But if only the ceremony was over, and Sophy safely turned into Mrs. George Lester, Pam decided that she did not much care what happened in the way of a disturbance. There would be plenty of people on hand ready to manage the old man, and she herself could render a good account of her stewardship.
What was it Nathan had said yesterday? Oh, she remembered! He had said that he had never seen the land at Ripple in such a fine state of cultivation before, and he had known the place for a good many years. For much of this he was responsible himself, as he had cultivated the land—that is to say, he had ploughed it and planted it, as he had done Mrs. Buckle’s land. But Pam and Jack had paid for this by lending him the use of their hands and their strength on his own fields, and they had kept the crops at Ripple hand-hoed ever since the first bit of green had shown through. It had been hard work, and they had been appallingly ignorant, but they had done exactly as they had been told, and had worked so hard that success was bound to come.
Pam flounced round uneasily. If only she could go to sleep! When morning came she would be so tired that it would be positive misery to drag herself from her bed. Oh, it was stupid to be so wakeful when she could sleep! The moon poured a flood of silvery light into the room, and before it paled dawn would come stealing up over the forest, for the summer nights were at their shortest. She rose softly from the bed she shared with Sophy, and walked to the window. This room looked out on the side of the house where the forest came nearest, which was one of the reasons why Pam loved it so; another of her reasons for being fond of it was because it had been her mother’s room—indeed, she had found one of her mother’s old cotton frocks hanging in the funny home-made wardrobe that stood in one corner of the wide room.
The forest came so close on this side that only a strip of pasture lay between it and the house. It was here that Pam had shot at the wolves to scare them when they howled round the house in the winter. What a difference between those nights and this one! Pam leaned out of the window, and enjoyed the cool breeze, fragrant with the odours of hemlock and pine, which stole across the wide reaches of the forest. Then her ear was caught by a faint, rustling sound. What was it? Surely the cow had not broken bounds again! It would be too annoying to have to go hunting on Sophy’s wedding day. But no, by dint of craning her neck at a most uncomfortable angle Pam got a glimpse of the cow lying peacefully near to the big maple at the far end of the small strip of pasture. Then she heard the rustling again, and she was positive she saw a head poked out from the bracken and brambles.
A head! But whose head? Suddenly there rushed into her mind what Nathan had said about her grandfather, and thrusting her head farther from the window, so that she might not disturb Sophy, she called softly, “Grandfather, Grandfather, is it you?”
How loud her voice sounded in the silence of the forest! The whirring of the grasshoppers grew faint, as if they had paused listening for the answer to her call; then a cock crowed lustily from the barn, under the mistaken impression that morning was close at hand, and a sleepy bird in a thicket hard by let loose a rippling cadence ending in a plaintive chick-a-dee-dee-dee.
Though Pam strained her ears she heard not a single further movement, and after a long while she crept back to bed, and fell asleep immediately, not waking in the morning until she was aroused by Sophy.
Had it been fancy, or did someone really poke his head from that thicket last night? she wondered. Directly she was dressed, she ran downstairs, and made an exhaustive search of the spot. She got very wet from the dew, and tore a three-corner slit in the sleeve of her blouse, but she accomplished nothing else, and went back to the house feeling very cross with herself for being so foolish.
Sophy was radiantly happy this morning, just as a bride should be. The tears of last night had washed away her natural regret that her mother could not stand by her to-day. After all, it might have been worse; and Don, who came over early, told her that the two invalids were so well that they refused to stay in bed, and were only kept in the house by main force.
“Oh, it is a shame!” cried Sophy. “But there must always be a drawback somewhere, and better that than some things. But it is horrid to be parted from one’s mother!”
“So I think,” murmured Pam with a wistful sigh. “I have kept you from Mrs. Grierson such a lot, too, that my conscience is troubling me a bit.”
“Oh, you could not help yourself, and I have had a lovely chance of doing my sewing,” said Sophy. “I cannot think how girls like to have that sort of work done for them. I have had no end of real happiness from making my trousseau.”
“That is because you are a hopelessly old-fashioned and stodgy person. Early Victorian, we should call you in London, and we should tilt our noses in quite a superior fashion. But all the same we should admire your industry, and envy you the garments your clever fingers have made.” Pam gave Sophy a big hug as she spoke, and then rushed away to look after the custards. Weddings had their sad side, and it would be a real grief to her to lose Sophy from her daily life. But she was not going to shed tears to-day, however bad she might feel. Plenty of time for weeping when the show was over and the guests were gone. She stirred the custards with so much vigour that she spilled the stuff on to the hot plate of the cooking stove, raising awful odours, and rousing the wrath of Galena, who had come over early and assumed the leadership of the food department.
There was so much to do that the hours of the morning simply flew. Pam gave her turkeys a big meal in the middle of the day, and told them that they would have very short commons for supper, and might even get none at all. Then when the poultry and the young pigs had been stuffed until they could eat no more, she and Jack rushed indoors to get into festal attire. There was not much in the way of dress that either of them could manage. Jack’s Sunday suit was rather shabby, and too small also, for he had grown so fast since coming to New Brunswick. But he would not be the only person with well-worn garments at the wedding, and when one listened to his jokes, and joined in the laughter he raised, one forgot all about his garb, and thought only of him.
Pam was not in much better case, for she had had no new clothes this summer; but a girl’s things are easier to manage, and her white frock, washed and ironed by her own hands, was fresh enough to pass muster anywhere.
The company began to arrive quite early, for everyone was anxious to have as much of the fun as possible. The horses were unharnessed, and turned into the farther pasture with the cow. The poor beasts thought that Sunday had come a little earlier than usual. They were worked so hard at this time of the year that a few extra hours off work meant a lot to them. Some of them had come fourteen or fifteen miles, but they would rest until late in the evening, and so they enjoyed the treat in their own way as much as the humans did in theirs.
Pam and Jack received the company. It was not etiquette that Sophy should be seen as yet, so she remained upstairs, feeling rather out of it, if the truth be told, and wondering what all the laughter was about down below. By peeping from the big empty room which was next to their bedroom she could get glimpses of wagons driving up to the house, filled with people, and every minute the laughter and the fun downstairs grew louder and merrier.
“What a time they are having!” she murmured, then she paced the room restlessly, her little high-heeled shoes making a fitful tapping on the bare floor as she walked. Of course it was lovely to be the bride, the person of most consequence in the crowd, the one to whom all the others were looking; but she realized that the others had their compensations, and that there was a large amount of fun to be got in the hard work of organizing and carrying the festivity through.
Then a hush fell on the place, and the house grew suddenly quiet. Sophy began to tremble then, for she realized that the minister had come, and she guessed that she would soon hear Pam’s foot on the stairs. It was Pam who was coming to fetch her. Pam had to act in a good many rôles that day. She was bridesmaid, she was hostess, and she had to mother the poor fluttering little bride as well. These manifold interests left her with no time to think of herself; she had scarcely a moment either to think of her grandfather, or to wonder what sort of a scene there would be if he chose this moment for his return to his home.
A light run of feet up the stairs, then the door flew open, and Pam burst into the room.
“Oh, you are lovely!” she cried, with positive awe in her voice. “My dear, I never realized before what a beautiful face you have; it has always been the beauty of your character that has appealed to me. Come, it is time, and the clergyman is waiting!”
All Sophy’s impatience and restlessness dropped from her as if it had never been. She rose slowly, and without a word she put her hand in that of Pam, then went with her down to the crowded sitting-room, where the bridegroom awaited her coming. The silence was so profound that the tapping of Sophy’s heels sounded quite loud as she crossed the kitchen and entered the sitting-room, where her father came forward to lead her on to the bright-hued carpet. A bobolink was singing in the tree outside, and the sunshine filtered in through the elegant pair of white lace curtains which Mrs. Luke Dobson of Hunt’s Crossing had lent to adorn the window.
A low murmur of approval swept round the crowded room as the bride walked forward to take her stand on the carpet. It was doubtful whether Sophy heard it, for the full solemnity of what she was doing was on her now, with the exaltation of a great happiness. It was Pam who heard it, and to her it was like sweet music, for she knew that she had succeeded in her undertaking, and that Sophy’s wedding, regarded from the standpoint of a social function, was all that it should be.
It was a very novel sight to Pam, and it upset all her previous notions of what weddings were like. She had been a spectator at several weddings in London churches, but this was quite different, and in some peculiar fashion immeasurably more solemn. In fact, before the ceremony was over she was shaking and shivering, and telling herself that matrimony was such a terrible responsibility that she would never dare to face it on her own account. The old dog poked its head in at the open door, but seeing the number of people gathered in serious state, the creature backed out and fled. It had in a measure got used to seeing people, but a number of persons gathered in one place always seemed to upset its nerves.
When the benediction was pronounced, there was a stir and a movement; everyone wanted to crowd about the bride, to congratulate her. But Pam fled to the out-place where the kettles had been set to boil on the cracked stove. She was responsible for the coffee-making, and she knew that the wedding feast must begin directly the register had been signed, for those of the guests who had come long distances would be greatly in need of refreshment, and she was not minded to fall short in her duties as hostess.
Amanda Higgins had been entrusted with the task of looking after matters in this direction, but she was rather a feather-headed young person, and all thought of the kettles and the fire went out of her head directly she heard the tap-tapping of Sophy’s heels on the stairs. She had rushed to see the bride, and getting squeezed into a corner of the sitting-room whence it was not easy to escape, she had stayed there, revelling in the show, while the fire had died down for want of attention, and the kettles were scarcely warm.
Poor Pam! It was really hard to have succeeded so far to fail at this point. She trembled with anger as she stuffed dry kindlings into the stove, and listened to the roaring of the flames up the rusty old stove-pipe. But it was horrid to feel angry on such an occasion; indeed, it seemed almost like an insult to Sophy to give way to such bad temper just now, and Pam fought with might and main to get calm control of herself, the while she plied her fire with sticks.
Her face was hot and red, her hands were dirty, and even her frock had some smudges, when the Irishman who had driven Janey Robinson and her lame sister to the wedding came in from the barn, and took the work out of her hands. He declared that he was a first-rate hand at making fires burn on all occasions, and that nothing would make him happier than to get those kettles to boil. Pam yielded her task thankfully enough, and was turning to wash her hands before going back to the company when the Irishman said:
“There was an old man came a-creeping round here a while ago, and he was after asking if the young lady were to be seen, and I tould him that if it was yourself he was after wanting to see, he would have to be waiting until the wedding was over. He was moighty curious to know whose wedding it would be, and when I had tould all I knew, and a little more, he said that he would be after resting himself in the shade of the trees, until such time as you might find it convenient to see him.”
Pam turned with a jerk, her heart beating so hard that it seemed to her the Irishman must hear it.
“An old man, did you say? Where, oh where has he gone?”
“He said that he would be resting in the shade away out beyant,” and the Irishman, whose name was Riley O’Sheen, flung his hand out in a vague direction of the forest.
It was her grandfather, of course! That was Pam’s first thought, and her second was that he was afraid to enter his own house because of the wedding crowd, and all the bustle that was on hand. She must go and find him, and bring him in to join in the feast! Oh, this tiresome Irishman, why had he not come before to let her know she was wanted?
“Go, find Miss Gittins or Mrs. Buckle, and ask one of them to make the coffee for me, and to begin the meal if I am not back. I must go to find my grandfather, and bring him here as quickly as I can!” Pam was wildly excited. She remembered the rustling that she had heard in the undergrowth, and how she had fancied she saw a face poked out. Could that have been the old man, come to reconnoitre before he ventured back to his home? Then came the maddening wonder as to what it was that had kept him away so long, and why he seemed afraid to come back.
She ran swiftly across the narrow strip of pasture, and plunged in among the trees.
“Grandfather, Grandfather, where are you?” She was sending her voice out in a shout, for she argued he might be hard of hearing, and oh, she must make him understand that she wanted him to come. The Irishman had said that he was going to rest in the shade over there, but that was surely foolish, when there was shade in plenty under the trees which stood almost close to the house.
“Grandfather, Grandfather, where are you?” Try as she would, she could not keep a ring of impatience from her voice. They would be wanting her at the house. Neither Mrs. Buckle nor Galena would know quite how much coffee to make, and it was of all things most exasperating to have to run away in this fashion, when there was so much to be done, and the occasion was so unusually festive.
In spite of all the calling there was no response. Perhaps the man had gone farther away. Pam searched along the narrow tracks made by the pigs and the calves, she wandered here and hurried there with feverish persistency, until the perspiration was pouring down her face. She had torn her frock, and her hair, done more elaborately than usual, was streaming down her back.
How really horrid it all was! She was ready to give up the quest in disgust, and to go back to the house, when, shouting once again, she heard a faint response to her calling, and at once plunged forward to meet the one who called. In her haste she went to jump the rotting trunk of a tree that lay half-buried in fern, but catching the heel of her shoe as she tried to clear the obstacle, she came down with a tremendous crash, and was for the time completely stunned.