# Brenda's Summer at Rockley/Chapter 23
### XXIII THE WEDDING

Julia and Brenda had been carefully drilled in their small part for the wedding,—to walk immediately in front of the bride and her father on their entrance into the church, and immediately behind the bride and groom after the ceremony. Yet, in spite of this, they naturally felt a little perturbed as they stood in the small vestibule of the chapel for the second or two needed for the bride to arrange her gown and prepare for her march down the long aisle. Brenda and Julia were glad that the aisle was no longer, for they found it rather trying to keep that slow and solemn step with so many eyes gazing at them. For although they knew that they were not the centre of observation, they could not help feeling that almost as much criticism was directed toward them as toward the bride. Even Julia, in talking the wedding over with Brenda, admitted that she had felt like turning about and running home during those solemn moments when Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was pealing from the organ, and the whole congregation was turned toward the bridal party as it made its entry into the church. It was Julia, too, who admitted that she felt herself the most important person in the group, inasmuch as it seemed to her as if every pair of eyes there was fastened directly on her.
​But the girls were able to conceal any embarrassment that they may have felt. Brenda put out her hand for the bride’s bouquet at just the right moment, and Julia helped her adjust her veil as they turned from the altar. Neither of them stumbled over Agnes's train, as they had been afraid they might when they had talked the matter over in advance; and the only criticisms made by the spectators were wholly in commendation of the bride’s youthful attendants. Brenda, as she passed the first pew, saw her mother furtively wiping her eyes, and this for a second made her feel a trifle sad. But she was reassured as she caught sight of the beaming face of Nora who, from her corner of a pew, held one hand against her heart in a manner expressive of the greatest admiration.
Perhaps among all who attended the wedding no one felt more thoroughly satisfied than Amy. The pineapple silk had made up to perfection, and with its dainty trimmings of lace, even her mother, anxious though she always was to discourage vanity, was forced to admit that Amy’s dress would not suffer in comparison with that of any other girl at the wedding. As for Amy herself, it seemed to her as if she could hardly be the same girl who used to write rather melancholy verses on the subject of her loneliness and generally hard lot. Indeed, while preparing for the wedding festivities, she had not had time to write even one poem, either melancholy or cheerful. Her mother did not go with her to the wedding, giving as a reason that she did not care to make even this occasion an exception to her usual rule of declining all invitations.
​“As it is a day affair, and as Fritz will be with you, I have no hesitation in letting you go without me,” and with this decision Amy had had to be content. Mrs. Redmond had not been invited to the reception, although Fritz had been asked to it; and the way in which he happened to get his invitation was rather strange.
“You see, when I discovered uncle Josiah looking at that big, fat envelope directed to papa, I suspected that it was something that might concern me. It had been sent to papa’s club, and instead of forwarding it to Labrador, they had sense enough to forward it to me. So when I opened it,—uncle Josiah hesitated about putting it into my hands,—behold, there was the invitation to this very Barlow wedding, and a note from Mr. Weston, asking papa to be sure to come if he was in this part of the world, and bring his little boy. I smiled out loud when I read that. I think he thought I was a little boy in petticoats. It seems Mr. Weston and papa once travelled together in Europe for two or three months, and consider themselves great chums. Well, I had some work to make uncle Josiah understand the situation; but finally he understood, and I’m thankful that I was able to persuade him to get me one Sunday best suit last spring, without knickerbockers. So here I am, ready to offer my escort to Miss Amy Redmond on that auspicious occasion, and say, Amy, I ’ve ordered some flowers for you; I knew they’d be all gone if we waited until the last thing to get them.”
“Why, it’s very good in you to think of a thing like that!”
​“Well, you see, I ’ve been kept on short allowance this summer, for fear I’d kill myself, or something. So I ’ve just persuaded uncle to pony up, as they say in Greek; and he’s so pleased that I have n’t killed myself or got into bad habits this summer that he came down very handsome indeed,—just like a father, in fact, which is saying a great deal.”
So Amy and Fritz and Ben Creighton sat together in the church. She had already overcome her jealousy of this new friend of Fritz; for although she certainly had not seen as much of Fritz since his arrival as before, still she realized that it was only natural that the boys should sometimes plan excursions in which she could not very well take part.
When the wedding party had left the church, all the other guests gathered in little groups, and admired the skill with which the church had been trimmed,—the masses of white and green against a background of palm in the chancel, the festoons of green, and great bows of white ribbon between the pews. Nora quickly joined Amy, and introduced Edith, and the five young people went back in the same carriage to the house.
“How young Agnes looked!” said Edith; “hardly more than seventeen, with all those little ringlets curling around her forehead.”
“And she’s really twenty-three,” said Nora.
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Edith, and both girls sighed, as young girls will sigh, to whom “twenty years of age” seems to mark the boundary of youth and ​youthful enjoyment. Indeed, to many girls of fifteen and under, eighteen seems the climax of happiness. When they think of the years beyond eighteen, they can hardly imagine themselves taking any active enjoyment in life. Even Edith and Nora, and Amy, too, who were certainly rather sensible girls for their age, wondered that at twenty-three Agnes could still appear so young and cheerful.
The carriages that rolled away from the little church that bright September morning made an imposing array in the eyes of the natives who gathered at various points of vantage to see them pass. Nearly all of those who witnessed the wedding went on to the reception, for the Barlows had a large circle of intimate friends, and the spacious rooms of Rockley were soon crowded to overflowing. Many of the guests, indeed, found it pleasanter to wander out on the lawn, where two or three tables had been set under canopies.
Mr. Weston’s best man was a little too old to devote himself to Julia and Brenda, although he had ridden to the house in the carriage with them, and had treated them with a deference that, to Brenda especially, was very pleasing. The ushers, too, who had been chosen from the special friends of Agnes and Mr. Weston, were also, from Brenda’s point of view, very old, ranging anywhere from twenty-five to thirty. The one exception was a younger brother of Ralph Weston’s, Arthur by name, a junior at Yale, who, in consequence, took great delight in keeping himself at swords’-points with Philip and Tom and the rest of the Harvard men. But the girls, almost against their ​will, were obliged to like him, and they found him altogether an exceedingly merry and agreeable youth. Mr. Weston’s mother, and the rest of his family were in Europe, so that Arthur was the only one of his near relatives to whom the Barlows were able to offer much hospitality. Brenda from the first moment took a fancy to the nonchalant young man, who seemed so absolutely confident of everything he said, and who was not for a moment discomfited by the fact that he was the only Yale man in a company that included many Harvard graduates.
On their first arrival at the house Mr. and Mrs. Weston took their place at one end of the long sitting-room that had been prepared for them, under the bell of flowers that had been hung there in their honor. But after a time, Agnes announced that she was very tired of this formality, and that if every one would excuse her, she would move about with the rest of the company.
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said to-day,” exclaimed the new husband, with a sigh of relief. He, too, had grown very tired of the unnatural position of standing up (“like the President,” he had complained) to have his hand shaken. “We must stay a certain length of time,” Agnes had said when his first objections reached her ear,—“An uncertain time,” he had rejoined, “and the day is growing rather warm—for September.”
“Oh, well, it would n’t do to leave this place until we have received all the older guests,” Agnes had added. “As artists, we are naturally regarded with more or less ​suspicion, and we must do the properly conventional thing.”
“I don’t mind their knowing that I am a Bohemian, and what I am, that thou art also,” he had whispered; and then in the next breath he had turned to receive the congratulations of an elderly lady who had known Agnes from infancy, and wished to tell him what a pretty baby she had been, “Contrary to the proverb,” he had said proudly, “that handsome infants grow up to be far from pretty. Come, Agnes, after such a compliment, you ought to let me depart from this bower of beauty and enjoy myself.”
“Without me?” cried Agnes, in mock alarm, to the great amusement of Nora, who stood near by.
“No, indeed, not without you; I think that you are needed out there on the lawn to chaperone your sister and my brother, who seem to be enjoying themselves in shameless comfort seated in chairs, while we have had to stand here for ages.”
Just then the best man, Mr. Moffit, came forward to say that word had been sent by him to Mr. and Mrs. Weston, requesting their immediate presence in the dining-room. Then Agnes realized that her father and mother were no longer in the “bower,” as Ralph called it, and suddenly she felt a little tired, and she admitted that she was hungry; and, leaning on her husband’s arm, she entered the dining-room, while an orchestra stationed on the rear piazza played the “Lohengrin” wedding march; and a murmur of admiration ran around the room as the ​well-matched couple took their places at the head of the table. It would be a long story to describe the speeches made in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Weston, the healths drunk in apollinaris, and the occasional tears that fell from the eyes of Mrs. Barlow and other near relatives, as the thought came to them that all this rejoicing meant more or less sorrow in the end, as Agnes so soon must return to Europe for an indefinite stay. There was room at the table only for the older guests, and the younger people sat about in small groups on the piazza, or on chairs ranged along the wall of the dining-room. But with the long French windows open to the piazzas, they could hear what was said as well as those inside.
Finally, came the crowning event of the feast,—the cutting of the wedding cake, which had been the conspicuous decoration of one end of the flower-trimmed table. It was a real old-fashioned bride cake, with tiers and tiers of corrugated frosting, surmounted by a pagoda-like structure, within which was the tiny effigy of a bride with a flowing veil. At the corners of the cake were groups of cupids and doves, and, altogether, it is doubtful if the North Shore had ever seen a more elaborate and tempting wedding cake.
“This for the bride!” exclaimed Mr. Moffit, stepping forward, and, handing her a large silver knife, requested Agnes to cut carefully, as untold treasures were concealed within, the distribution of which might have an important effect on the destiny of several in the assembled company.
​At these words the guests looked at one another with some curiosity, and one or two of the initiated exclaimed, “Oh, yes, the ring and the thimble, you know, and those things that they sometimes put into a cake!” But although some had evidently heard of the custom, to the majority it was entirely new. Brenda, for example, was altogether taken by surprise, and enjoyed this all the more because she had not previously been taken into the secret. During the excitement of going to the church and assisting at the wedding, she had half-forgotten the unpleasant incident of the gypsy’s visit; but now, for a moment, it all came back to her, and her face clouded a little at the remembrance.
By some artful contrivance of the confectioner’s the cake separated itself into slices without any exertions on the part of Agnes, beyond that of raising each slice with the silver knife, and handing it to the ushers, who, in turn, passed it to the guests. It happened that Nora and Brenda were standing together, when Arthur Weston gave to them each her piece of wedding cake.
“Now, choose,” he said, mischievously, balancing a plate on each hand. “I should not for a moment dare to make the choice for you, as in that way I might be settling your fate for you.”
“Oh, Brenda would n’t mind that,” replied Nora; “she rather likes to have her future read for her.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the young man, with a searching glance at Brenda. “Perhaps she traffics with fortune-tellers.”
​“Oh, Nora, how silly you are!” and with this thoroughly schoolgirlish and inconsequential remark Brenda tried to turn the young man’s attention from herself; for she had felt her cheek reddening under his gaze.
“Now, choose,” he repeated, still balancing the plates impartially, “for I’m anxious to know what you get.”
“Why, we shall probably get nothing.”
“Well, at any rate, I wish to know that you have nothing,” and he stood there, smiling, while Brenda cut her piece of cake with her fork.
“There certainly is something here,” she cried, breaking the thick slice in two to disclose—a small silver thimble.
“Aha!” and the young man laughed in what Brenda considered a thoroughly unfeeling way, “that means that you will be an attractive spinster lady, and spend your latter days in the quiet domestic pursuit of sewing. There, you ought to be much obliged to me!”
“I believe that you knew what was in it!” said Brenda, crossly.
Nora’s slice contained no treasure; but from the opposite corner, Julia and Miss South had a look of much amusement in their faces, and presently Julia held up a ring, and a moment later she came over to her cousin to tell her that the little golden circlet, which had been found in Miss South’s slice, was supposed by the believer in signs to indicate a speedy marriage; and then, as the girls looked over toward the corner where Julia had left Miss South, they saw cousin Edward Elston bending over her ​in an attitude that indicated great admiration; and the three schoolgirls exchanged glances which said,—
“Well, really, it looks as if cousin Edward had found some one worth talking to.” It was a standing complaint of Mr. Elston’s that the modern young woman was so frivolous that a sensible man was not justified in wasting his time talking to her.
“Oh,” explained Julia, in answer to a question of Brenda’s, “Miss South has known cousin Edward for a month or so. She wrote me about it. She met him first at a concert at the Eastern club-house, and she has friends on the Neck who know him very well.”
“Ah!” said Brenda, “I thought cousin Edward never went anywhere. He always talks that way.”
“Well, I know that he has invited Miss South to join these friends in one or two sailing parties on the ‘Crusoe’ but Madame Du Launay is nervous about the water, and will not let her go. ”
“It’s a wonder she let her come here to-day.”
“Oh, she likes her to enjoy herself, when there is n’t any danger! She likes to hear what is going on.”
“Well, she has changed!” said Nora, thinking of the isolated life that the old lady had formerly led.
At this moment a shout was heard from the farther end of the room, and looking across, the three perceived Philip the centre of a group. Soon he was led forward on the arm of Tom Hearst, who insisted on his displaying what Philip had found in his piece of wedding cake,—a small stick-pin, enamelled to imitate a bachelor’s button, and ​with this pinned to the lapel of his coat he made the circuit of the room and piazzas.
The fourth of the wedding-cake treasures, the gold dollar, whose possessor was supposed to become a very rich person, by a curious freak of fate went to old Mr. Anstruthers, who really was perhaps the richest man in the room.
“Dear me!” cried Nora, “if he’s going to inherit anything more, what in the world will he do with it?”
At that moment, looking out of the window, Nora caught sight of a rather forlorn little figure seated on a large chair under one of the apple-trees at the edge of the lawn. Although the larger number of the young girls at the wedding were dressed in white, it took her only a second to recognize Amy, and her first impulse was to rush forward. But a little reflection, or, rather, a flash of insight, showed her that this might not be altogether agreeable to Amy, since it would evidently call attention to her loneliness. Instead, Nora waited a moment until she could speak to Brenda by herself.
“Amy seems to be alone on the lawn. I thought that I saw her on the piazza with Frances and one or two other girls some time ago.”
“Why, yes,” said Brenda, looking a little confused. “Dear me, how careless I am; I ought to have looked out for Amy more. You see I forgot that, she knew so few people here; it seems so like a great family party. I’m afraid that I did n’t even introduce her to Frances, and—”
“Well, that was rather thoughtless. You know how ​foolish Frances is; I don’t suppose that she would say a word to her unless they had been formally introduced.”
“Well, let us both go out and see what the trouble is. Perhaps she has n’t had any wedding cake or anything.”
But Amy, when questioned, refused to say that she felt lonely or neglected.
“But I know that I ’ve been dreadfully thoughtless,” and Brenda, feeling that she had been remiss in her hospitality, was thoroughly repentant.
“Oh, no,” responded Amy. “Of course I did not expect to know many persons here, and a wedding is really a family party. So I thought it better to come out on the lawn. I was in a group with two or three girls. But they did n’t seem much inclined to talk to me. I thought I’d come here and wait for Fritz.”
“No, indeed!” and Brenda spoke in a tone that a stronger willed person than Amy could not have resisted. “You must come back to the house with me. There are ever so many people for you to meet. I am anxious to have them know you.”
So Brenda and Nora crossed the lawn arm in arm with Amy, and they walked past the corner where Frances Pounder and two or three girls and youths were laughing and enjoying themselves mightily. Belle was not there, because at the last moment her grandmother had decided that it was not worth while for her to go to the wedding. But Frances had found other kindred spirits among the wedding guests, and although she had seen that Amy was comparatively a stranger, she had not had enough ​politeness to talk with her, and try to make her feel comfortable. Brenda and Nora, now on their way to the dining-room, stopping in front of Frances, introduced Amy to her and the other girls in the group, and Nora was purposely rather ostentatious in her demonstrations of friendliness toward Amy, calling her by her first name, and addressing one or two questions to her in a tone that implied that she attached much importance to her replies.
“Why, here’s our young oarswoman! Why, I’m delighted to see you!” exclaimed Mr. Elston, who just at this moment approached the girls. “Have you been saving any more lives lately?”
At this speech, which they could not help hearing, Frances and her friends looked up in surprise. Mr. Edward Elston was a man whom even a supercilious girl like Frances had to admit to be worth knowing. Yet here he was, showing undisguised pleasure in meeting this unknown young girl, whom they had set down as not worth knowing, because they did not remember to have met her before.
Then the mystification of poor Frances was still further increased when Ben Creighton approached and spoke to Amy in terms that implied a more or less intimate acquaintance. For Ben was a person whom she met very often in Boston in the winter. In fact, his mother and the mother of Frances were cousins, and as he was called by the girls of her set an especially good dancer and tennis player, Frances would have been more than flattered, had ​she ever been addressed by Ben with the same cordiality that he showed to Amy. It happened, however, that in spite of their distant cousinship, Ben had no great liking for Frances, and indeed he usually went out of his way to avoid her. His eye had been fixed on Amy as he approached the piazza, and his cordial “Oh, Fritz and I have something to show you!” was intended for her ear chiefly. When he came a little nearer, so that the whole group was in view, he showed his embarrassment.
“Can’t we all see it?” asked Nora, mischievously.
“Oh, it is nothing; only something Fritz Tomkins and I have been looking up. Amy and I had a bet against him, and I rather think we ’ve won.”
Just then Fritz himself appeared, crying, “There, Amy, I believe that you and Ben have won after all; see, here are some of those very mushrooms that I thought could n’t be found this side of Ipswich!” and he held up the pale brown and white fungus, which at a little distance did look so like a commonplace vegetable that Frances held up her hands in horror.
“That’s Fritz Tomkins, son of the explorer,” whispered one of her friends to Frances.
“Oh,” said another, “that accounts for his going off to dig mushrooms at a wedding reception. I suppose that he’s very scientific.”
Fritz himself, as he followed Ben up on the piazza, felt bound to make some apologies, especially to Amy. He had left her rather abruptly when Ben whispered that this would be a good time to go down toward the brook on ​Mr. Barlow’s grounds, where the ground was just marshy enough to produce those mushrooms.
“Mushroom-hunting at a party, and all these girls sitting by themselves! Well, well, it was n’t so when I was a boy!” exclaimed Mr. Elston, who had been a rather amused observer of the interview between Ben and Fritz and the girls.
“Oh, we can get on very well by ourselves,” said Nora, independently.
Following her cue, Amy added, “Why, no, I haven’t missed them at all.”
At this moment Edith came out on the piazza, followed by Julia.
“Agnes has gone upstairs,” she said, in a tone which, though meant for Brenda, was still heard by the others.
With a hasty exclamation of surprise, Brenda hastened into the house, and then the others began to speculate whether the absence of Philip and Tom and the other college men might not mean mischief. The older guests by this time had almost all said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, and the house within was quite deserted. Agnes’s especial friends had waited to see her off, and Brenda had made Edith and Nora and her own particular set stay too.
“Agnes and mamma really wish it, so that her going off will seem as bright and jolly as possible.” Presently Philip and the other missing youths came out on the piazza, endeavoring to look so sedate that they were immediately requested by the girls to give an account of their mischief.
​“If you do not,” and Nora tried to make her voice dignified and threatening, “why we shall be obliged to—”
“Obliged to laugh,” said Arthur Weston; “indeed you will. I think that we are even with Moffit; but we must watch for them, for they ’ll probably try to slip off without our seeing them.”
A moment later Brenda appeared, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers, while her eyes looked suspiciously red.
“The side door!” exclaimed Philip; “I never thought of that! ”
With one accord, following Philip’s example, they all ran down on the gravelled walk, just in time to see Agnes in her fawn-colored travelling suit enter the carriage, followed by Ralph Weston, who raised his hat in a last farewell, before taking the reins from Mr. Moffit, who stood at the horses’ head.
“Quick, Brenda, you ’ve forgotten the shoe,” but even as Julia spoke, Brenda threw a white kid shoe after the retreating carriage. It fell far from the mark, but Philip, running nimbly, picked it up, and in a second he had sent it with a hang against the back of the buggy.
“We did n’t accomplish so very much after all,” complained Tom Hearst, turning to Arthur Weston.
“No, Thomas was a base deceiver in making us think that they were going in the carryall. I suppose Moffit made him change. We have wasted a lot of white ribbon. I had great hopes that they would drive into Salem with those long white streamers floating in the wind.”
​“No matter,” said Philip; “there are a number of little white bows as well as a handful or two of rice in their travelling bags. Young Weston here helped us manage that.”
“You did what you could,” said Brenda, sarcastically. “But come, let us go in and gaze at the wedding presents; I feel so blue when I think of Agnes married and away, that I need to look at something bright and shining to cheer me up.”