I Walked in Arden Part 35

The great day was approaching; sometimes it seemed with great rapidity, and again I thought the end of the month would never come. The trousseau, with all kinds of shopping and trying things on, took up a great deal of Helen's time, and Mrs. Claybourne banished me for days on end. I did a lot of work in the laboratory, with the new chemist, to keep occupied, but I found it hard to take work seriously.

One morning Mrs. Claybourne informed me that she had made an appointment for me at eleven to call upon the minister who was to marry us. I had no chance to find out from Helen what this meant, but was bundled off to keep the engagement.

I entered his study with decidedly mixed feelings. It was reminiscent of going to the dentist's. He was a tall, sandy-haired elderly young man, with a fine but slightly stagey face. "Could play jeune premiers just as he stands," I thought, as he shook my hand and seated me in a deep leathern armchair.

"So you and Helen are to be married," he began, offering me a cigarette.

It did not put me at my ease. The only suitable reply I could think of was "Yes--on the thirtieth." I lit the cigarette, hoping inspiration from it later.

"It is a solemn step you are taking," he continued. "Are you sure you have thoroughly searched your hearts?"

"If you mean, do we love each other, I think there is no doubt of it," I answered, the bristles on my back rising a trifle.

"Did you know I went to your college?" he asked, shifting the attack.

"No. What was your cla.s.s?"

"Before your time, I think." He went on to tell me some reminiscences of Hilltown in his day. He had been a 'varsity half-back, and I remembered now the tradition of him that came down to our crowd. I was annoyed to discover that I was beginning to feel at ease. At last we reached the point. Would I go to communion with Helen the Sunday before our marriage?

I did not know what to say. I did not wish to hurt Mrs. Claybourne's feelings, but I did not see how I could, in honesty. I put my difficulty to him.

"My mother belongs to the Church of England," I explained, "and it is the only one I have ever attended--except cathedrals on the Continent.

But I don't know what I believe."

"Do any of us?" he said with a rather wonderful softness in his eyes.

"Do we have to believe anything? Isn't faith enough?"

I thought for a while. "I don't wish to commit perjury," I said.

He smiled. "You have faith enough to believe it would be perjury?"

"Or false pretences. Your church--the Episcopal--is a great tradition--one I respect as I do our other English-speaking traditions--all the things we stand for that make up the decent things of this world. I value all of it too much to lie about it. Don't you see?--I can't come to communion, for it means too much to come dishonestly."

"You are very young, Edward," he smiled with his hand on my shoulder.

"Will you let an older man decide?"

"I wish I could," I said.

"If Helen comes, you surely won't stand aside?"

"But will she come? Have you asked her?"

His face clouded for a moment with a genuine look of pain.

"Don't you both wish to marry with clean hearts?"

"Yes," I answered, "and we shall. That is why I can't lie to please you."

I knew my retort was unfair, but I wanted him also to see my side. He stood a while looking down at me. It was clear there was nothing theatrical about this man's faith, however like an actor he might look.

I knew he wanted to reach out to me and hold me with the faith that held him. Yet I could not yield. Had he perhaps been less in earnest, less sincere, I might have offered him lip-service for the sake of peace. His very strength gave me strength to resist. It had to be all or nothing. I got to my feet.

"I am sorry," I said, holding out my hand.

"I think you are, Edward," he answered, taking my hand in a firm grip.

"You'll not urge Helen against it?"

"Helen's conscience is her own."

"Come, that's a good beginning. And because you are sorry to refuse, I have still hope." He smiled at me. I shook my head.

"At any rate, you'll come to church next Sunday?"

"Yes"--and with this compromise we parted.

Helen's friends vied with one another in giving us small dinner parties and dances during the last two weeks. There was no limit to the hospitality of Deep Harbor, once you were an accepted member of what was known as "the right people." If I dropped into Mr. Claybourne's down-town club of a late afternoon, a dozen crowded tables would invite me to sit down, with the greeting "We're just ordering a round, Ted.

What will yours be?" I knew all the business men and the younger crowd of my own age, but none of them intimately. Knowlton, curiously enough, was on the same footing of apparent welcome, but he had not been invited to join either the country club or the down-town club. Miss Hershey's refusal to vise his pa.s.sport kept him an outsider, even with the men. No one disliked him, and there was a general appreciation of his business sagacity, but he simply did not belong. I made several efforts to break down these bars for Knowlton. It was useless; they would not give way.

The whole social organization of Deep Harbor was an interesting study in practical democracy. The inner circle of business men, who seemed to treat a barber with the same intimate friendliness that they did each other, nevertheless were a close corporation into which it was not easy to gain admittance. The women were, of course, even more strict. A few men belonged to the down-town club whom we never saw at dinners or dances. There were only three streets on which it was permissible to live; Myrtle Boulevard was the chief of these, but two more, parallel to it, were allowable. On the connecting cross streets the newly married couples of "the right people" lived in two-family houses, against the day they would move to the important thoroughfare. A house anywhere else was taboo, unless one went right out into the country, on the country-club side of the town. It was a matter of considerable uneasiness to Mrs. Claybourne that my little study and bedroom was on the wrong side of State Street. I heard from her that that had been also one of the earlier objections to "taking me up." I had, however, stuck to my rooms, for they were both comfortable and inexpensive.

I do not pretend to know how the aristocracy of Deep Harbor came into being. Success, which implied the possession of brains as a corollary, coupled with long residence in the town, appeared to be the general basis of it. On the other hand, Knowlton had brains and had made a success of his work; yet he was excluded. Furthermore, the men all admitted that he was "a thorough good fellow" and "a good mixer," as they expressed it. I could see no logic in keeping him out. The essence of an aristocracy, though, is the absence of any logical premise for its elections. My position, of course, was solely owing to the Claybournes.

But I must not permit my reflections on the social mysteries of Deep Harbor to interrupt too long the narrative of events. A day came when our wedding was but three more days away. It was the last time Helen and I could ride together over the hills. The final hours, according to Mrs.

Claybourne, were to be spent in such frenzied preparations as would entirely forbid my presence at the house, to say nothing of riding. We determined to make the most of this ride. We packed a luncheon, bought down-town, summoned Leonidas, and rode forth.

We went slowly, a little stunned by the fact that this was our last ride. Up the hill, past "Henery" Tyler's Five Mile Farm, was our way, for we wanted to retrace all the steps of that day which had opened our eyes. We stopped at the Tylers' for a word of greeting. "Henery" was not at home--he was "in the city somewheres, most likely as not wastin' his time," but Mrs. Tyler was delighted to see us, in spite of her momentary bitterness on the subject of "Henery."

"He'll be down-right sorry to miss you young folks," she said. "It's mighty nice of you to come 'way out here to say good-bye. But Henery's always gallivantin' round when he ought to be at home 'tending to the farm. Men is restless creatures anyway, Miss Helen. Won't you come in and set in the parlour? I've got some new milk cooling out in the shed."

We accepted and dismounted.

"Walk right in and make yourselves to home. I guess you better leave the dog outside. Dogs track up a house so."

With a hasty apology for her thoughtlessness, Helen tied Leonidas to the fence. We entered the familiar little room with its horsehair furniture and the conch sh.e.l.ls in a gla.s.s case, and sat on the very sofa where Helen had lain that evening with a wrenched knee. Mrs. Tyler disappeared in search of the milk. In a few minutes she returned with milk, a plate of cookies, and a jar of apple-b.u.t.ter.

"Kind of warm today," she rattled on, busy with her offering of hospitality, "but I guess we've got to expect a little hot weather in July. Milk's mighty refreshing on a warm day, 'specially if you been exercisin'. Help yourself to the apple-b.u.t.ter, Miss Helen. It's a good spread on cookies."

We sat and ate, grateful for her genuine friendliness. Her cookies would have taken a prize anywhere.

"Seems like it was only yesterday, Miss Helen, when you used to be in short dresses and drive out by here with your father on the way to the old cider mill. And to think of you gettin' married and goin' off across the ocean to live! Must be pretty hard on your mother to lose her daughter that way. 'Tain't as if you was to have your home across the street. I never had any children, so I ain't had to suffer. Sometimes I think it's a blessin' when I hear of the goings-on of the young folk today. Well, you never know how things might have been. Takes all my time to keep up with what is. It's the Lord's will, I tell Henery--He knows best. Take another gla.s.s of milk, Miss Helen. There's plenty more where that come from. Feed's gettin' scarce, though. It dries up in this weather."

We chatted awhile with Mrs. Tyler--perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we inserted with difficulty monosyllables at intervals into her monologue--and finally persuaded her to let us go.

A little further up the road we paused again at what we thought was about the spot where Helen's horse had fallen with her. We slid off our saddles and sat on the bank by the roadside, staring at the patch of dusty road where the miracle had been revealed to us.

"It seems years and years ago, Ted," Helen whispered. "I can't remember very much back of it. I just feel as if we had always known each other."

"In Avalon a day is a thousand years," I whispered back as she put her head against my shoulder. "Count up the number of days and see how many thousand years we have lived."