There were more dramas played out that day than what Ridgetown called "the drama" of Mabel's acting bridesmaid to Isobel. Ridgetown was delightfully curious in noting that Robin, for instance, looked nervous and disturbed. The darting glances which had so unnerved the Leighton family long ago, dwelt on Isobel only occasionally. Robin would not be at his happiest till the ceremony was over.
Whether by accident or design, Miss Grace, who was unable to join the wedding party on account of her mourning, came in quietly to church with Dr. Merryweather. Here was drama enough if one liked to look further as Isobel had done. Then Mr. Symington had been ordered to be an usher. The groomsman, a Mr. Clive, a friend of the Merediths, was, of course, out of the usher part of the business. So Cuthbert and George Maclean and Lance and Mr. Symington were requisitioned. They had to show in the guests and give the cue to the organist, and take the bridesmaids out afterwards. Miss Meredith had been of opinion that they did not require so many ushers. The girls insisted on four at least.
Elma was not in the seventh heaven which she had inhabited a few days before. There was something still unravelled about Mr. Symington's attitude.
She was not to know, of course, that he had immediately placed himself in Mr. Leighton's hands in regard to Mabel. That much-startled person only thought of another complication--Mabel, when Elma had set her heart on him! In a disturbed manner he had endeavoured to let Mr. Symington know that he might find difficulties in the way. He begged, above all things, that he might not rush matters.
"Give us time to think a little," he pleaded. "We have had so much of this sort of thing lately."
Mr. Symington would have preferred to have had it out then and there. "You understand," he said, "that I left this unsaid before, because I thought, in fact I was led definitely to understand that she was engaged to Meredith, and that my presence here was a trouble to her."
"Ah, that's it--perhaps," said Mr. Leighton. "It was not because of Meredith. There may be other reasons."
Mr. Symington's hopes went down at a rush.
When the girls crowded into the room for tea, his greeting and Mabel's consisted of a mere clasp of the hand on either side with no words spoken at all. But Mabel felt suddenly as though she could face the world. Was it strength he had given her by the mere touch of his hand? She could not raise her eyes to let him or anybody else see what was written there.
The deadlock puzzled the triumphant Elma. Miss Grace comforted her a little. "These things always come right--sooner or later."
These two good friends had not the firmness to probe that remark further, though Elma was dying to ask about Dr. Merryweather.
"I'd like to help them," said Elma instead, "but I should feel like the 'tactful woman' that Mr. Maclean was laughing at. He says that when tactful women write novels they are always making people drop handkerchiefs in order to help the heroine, or having a friend outside or something of that sort at the right moment. It made me feel so silly over sending the invitation to Mr. Symington. Especially," continued she sadly, "since he doesn't seem to be making much use of it. It's very enervating to be tactful, especially when your tact doesn't come off."
Miss Grace looked at her long and kindly.
"Don't bury your sympathies in the cause of others too much, dear," she said. "With some of us, with you and me for instance, it might become more of a weakness perhaps than a real virtue."
Elma immediately thought, "There is something in what Isobel said after all."
Instead of giving voice to it, she said, "I have bothered about Mabs, I know. But then, I haven't any affairs of my own, you see."
"Oh, dear child, never be sure, never be too sure about that," said Miss Grace.
A delightful feeling stole over Elma. Could it be possible that anything exciting could ever happen to herself. But no--how could it?
"I think it's papa always telling us no woman ought to be married until she's twenty-three that de--demoralizes me so," she said. "And lately, since Mabs is nearly that age, he is actually running it on to twenty-five."
"Yes, but they never really mean it," said Miss Grace.
"Well, one thing I intend to see to is that Mr. Symington takes Mabel out of church after the wedding. Sarah wants him. And Sarah is not going to have him."
"I think you are quite right there," said Miss Grace.
Elma got hold of Mr. Symington herself. "I want you to do me a great favour," she said. "I want you to escort Mabel on Tuesday."
"It isn't a favour," he said. He pulled his big shoulders together and looked magnificent. He was browned and tanned with the sun. Only a slight frown between the eyes to be cleared away and then he would be the old Mr. Symington.
"Well, please do it like this. Ask Mabel if you may."
"Now?" asked Mr. Symington.
"If you like," said Elma.
They were on the lawn after dinner, and Mr. Symington in two days had hardly had a glimpse of Mabel, far less any conversation with her.
She was talking to Isobel.
He walked straight up to her.
"May I escort you out of church on Tuesday?" he asked.
Mabel looked up in a puzzled way, then her eyes lit with shyness and something much more brilliant than had been seen in them for a long time.
"Yes," she said simply.
(Could he know how her heart thumped to that quiet "yes"?)
"Thank you."
(Oh, after all, after all, could the sun shine after all!)
Isobel broke in coldly.
"I had understood from Robin that Mr. Symington would take Miss Meredith."
Mabel turned cold. She could not help it, for the life of her, she could not help it, she turned an appealing glance on Mr. Symington. This he had hardly required, but it helped him to a joyous answer.
"Oh, no, Miss Leighton. Some mistake. I'm bound to Miss Mabel."
Elma strolled up. "It's all because of Cuthbert's insisting on taking Helen. Cuthbert ought to have taken Mabel. Mr. Clive takes the first bridesmaid; Mr. Symington, Mabel; George Maclean, Jean."
"Who takes you?" asked Mr. Symington.
"Oh, I'm not in the procession," said Elma.
"Yes, you are." Mabel was quite animated now. "The whole family trails out in pairs with somebody or another."
George Maclean strolled up.
"I shall take Elma," he said.
"No, you won't! You take Jean."
"I won't be taken by George Maclean," cried Jean. "He's always horrid to me."
"Wire for Slavska," interpolated Betty.
"Is this my wedding, or whose is it?" asked Isobel.
They settled everything once more. The real result lay in Mr. Symington's determination about Mabel.
He came to Elma afterwards.
"Is there anything under the sun you want, which you haven't got?" he asked her. "Because I should like to present it to you here and now."
That cleared up things incalculably for the wedding. Elma sitting in front saw only Mabel, and Mabel's face was the colour of a pink rose. Mr. Symington took her out of church after the wedding, next to the first bridesmaid.
Aunt Katharine followed them with her lorgnette.
"They're a fine couple," she said to Elma. "It's a pity Mabel spoiled herself with this Meredith man. Mr. Symington might lead her out in earnest. I always told your mother what it would be."
There was no squashing of Aunt Katharine.
Mabel had begun to see land after having tossed on what had seemed an endless sea. She had been without any hope at all, but it was necessary to appear throughout as though she had some safe anchor holding her in port. The joy of delivery was almost more than she could bear. She became afraid of looking at Mr. Symington. After the arrival of the guests at the White House, she managed to slip out and disappear upstairs. Her own room had people in it helping to robe Isobel. She stole into the schoolroom. Too late of making up her mind, since Mr. Symington, seeing a trail of pale silken skirts disappear there, tried the only door open to him on that landing. He found Mabel.
"Oh," said she blankly. "I wanted to get away--away from downstairs for a little."
He had some difficulty in replying.
"So I noticed," he said.
They lamely waited. Mabel caught at a window cord and played with it.
"We ought to go downstairs," she whispered.
Why she spoke in a whisper she could not imagine.
Mr. Symington came close to her.
"Mabs," he said, "just for three minutes I mean to call you Mabs. And after that--if you are offended--you can turn me off to the ends of the earth again. You know why I left before."
She bent her head a little.
"You didn't want me to go? You didn't want me to go! Say that much, won't you?"
She could not answer.
"I know what it means if you do," he said. "Oh don't I know what it means? Mabs, I'm going to make you care for me--as I do for you--can you possibly imagine how much I care for you--why won't you speak to me?"
Mabel never spoke to him at all.
He happened to take her hand just then, and the same confidence which had so strangely come to her a few days ago on his arrival, came to her once more. He took her hand, and time stood still.
Somebody outside, a vague time afterwards, called for Mabel. It dawned on them both that they were attending Isobel's wedding.
"We ought to go downstairs," whispered Mabel.
Her conversation was certainly very limited. They both smiled as they noticed this, a comprehensive, understanding, oh! a different smile to any they had ever allowed themselves.
"We will, when you've just once--Mabs--look up at me. Now--once."
Time stood still once more, but it took the last of the frown from between the eyes of Mr. Symington.
"Now for Isobel's wedding party," cried he.
Mr. Leighton was stunned a little with the news. "Only one stipulation," said he. "I want to tell Elma myself."
Mabel was terribly disappointed.
"Oh, papa--of all people--I wanted to tell Elma."
He was adamant however, even when Mr. Symington added his requests.
"You've interfered seriously enough between me and one of my daughters," Mr. Leighton said severely. "Leave me the other."
So nothing was mentioned until Mr. Leighton should tell Elma. Mrs. Leighton was nervous about the whole thing, yet in an underhand way very proud of Mabel.
"I can't see that any of you are at all suited to be the wife of a man like Mr. Symington," she said to Mabel pessimistically. "But your father thinks it is all right." She had had rather a long day with Aunt Katharine.
Elma saw that the clouds had lifted where Mabel was concerned, and Mr. Symington was in magnificent spirits. She thought they might have told her something, but she was sent to lie down with no news at all until the dance in the evening. Isobel left regally. There was not much of the usual scrimmage of a wedding-leave-taking about her departure. Her toque and costume were irreproachable. Miss Meredith attended her dutifully, as though she were a bridesmaid herself. But with Robin she had felt too motherly for that. Indeed, some new qualities in Miss Meredith seemed to be coming uppermost.
Dancing was in full swing in the evening when Mr. Leighton methodically put on an overcoat and took Elma to sit out in the verandah. "It is to prevent your dancing too much," he told her.
Elma had the feeling of being manipulated as she had been when she was ill. What did all this mystery mean? She tucked in readily enough beside her father. The night was warm, with a clear moon, and the lights from the drawing-room and on the balcony shed pretty patches of colour on her white dress and cloak.
Mr. Leighton began to talk of Adelaide Maud of all people. She was there, with her sisters. They had at last dropped the armour of etiquette which had prevented more than one from ever appearing at the Leightons.
"I don't suppose any of you really know what that girl has come through," said Mr. Leighton. "All these years it has gone on. A constant criticism, you know. Mrs. Dudgeon found out long ago about Cuthbert, and what Cuthbert calls 'roasted' her continually. Adelaide Maud remained the fine magnificently true girl she is to-day. That is a difficult matter when one's own family openly despises the people one has set one's heart on. She never gave a sign of giving in either way--did she?"
"Not a sign," said Elma. "Adelaide Maud is a delicious brick, she always has been. The Story Books have come true at last."
"It does not sound like being in battle," said Mr. Leighton, in a pertinacious way. "But a battle of that sort is far more real than many of the fights we back up in a public manner. One relieves the poor, and you girls give concerts for hospitals, but who can give a concert to relieve the like of the trouble that Adelaide Maud has gone through? She never wavered."
Elma thought of another fight--should she tell her father?
"We talk about Ridgetown being a slow place, but what a drama can be lived through here!" went on Mr. Leighton. "Isobel, for instance, thinks there's nothing in life unless one attends fifty balls a month. Yet she lived her little drama in Ridgetown. And she has learned to be civil to Miss Meredith. There's another fight for you. It cost her several pangs, let me tell you."
("What did it all lead to?" thought Elma.)
"Oh, there were other fights too, papa, but one I think is over. Have you seen Mabel's face to-night?"
Mr. Leighton started.
Elma required some sort of confidant, "or I shall explode or something," she explained. She told her father about Mr. Symington.
"And I've been worrying so because it seemed so sad about Mabel. And she never gave it away, did she? And when you all thought so much of Isobel when she first came, and Mabel was getting dropped all round, she never said a word, did she?"
"No," said Mr. Leighton, with a long-drawn impatient sort of relief in his voice. "No, but you did. You talked so much about the man all through your illness that your mother thought you were in love with him yourself. Ridiculous nonsense," he said testily. "And here have I been trying to brace you up to hearing that Mabel is engaged to him, and the scoundrel wishes to marry her at once."
Dr. Merryweather, who had said that Elma was not to be excited, ought to have been on the spot just then. She sat on her father's knee and hugged him.
"Oh, papa, papa, how glorious," said she. "Never mind, I shall always stay with you, I shall, I shall."
"Oh, will you?" said Mr. Leighton dismally. "Mabel said the same thing not so long ago."
Mrs. Leighton and Aunt Katharine came on the balcony, and behind them, Mabel and Mr. Symington.
"Isn't this a midsummer's night's dream?" sighed Elma, after the congratulations were over. "I shall get up in the morning ever afterwards, and I shall say, 'Now here there dawneth another blue day'--even although it's as black as midnight."
"Well, now that we're rid of Mabel," said Aunt Katharine placidly, "when will your turn come along?"
"Oh, Elma is going to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton.
"H'm. Well, she always admired Miss Grace," said Aunt Katharine. "There's nothing like being an old maid from the beginning."
Elma stirred herself gently, and laughed in the moonlight.
"Miss Grace is to be married to Dr. Merryweather," she said with a smile. It was her piece of news, reserved till now for a proper audience.
Miss Grace had told her anxiously in the course of the afternoon. "Oh," Elma had said, "how nice! Dr. Merryweather is such a duck!"
"Do you think so?" had asked Miss Grace seriously. "Miss Annie used to think he was a little loud in his manners."
Miss Grace would ever be loyal to Miss Annie. Adelaide Maud came out just then with Cuthbert. "How much finer to have been loyal to the like of Cuthbert!" Elma could not help the thought. Ah, well, there were fights and fights, and no doubt Miss Grace had won on her particular battlefield.
A new dance commenced indoors, and some came searching for partners.
"Mr. Leighton," said the voice of George Maclean, "won't you spare Elma for this dance?"
They turned round to look at him.
"Elma wants to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton gravely, putting his arms round her.
"Hph!" said Aunt Katharine in an undertone. "It's another Miss Grace, sure enough."
"Why don't you go and dance?" asked Adelaide Maud of Elma.
There were her two ideals, Miss Grace and Adelaide Maud, crossing swords as it were with one another. And there was George Maclean waiting at the window of the drawing-room. A Strauss waltz struck up inside, one which she loved. Ah, well, there were several kinds of fights in the world. She felt in some inscrutable way that it was "weak" to stay with her father.
She went in with George Maclean.
Mr. Leighton pulled up a chair for his wife, as the others, including even Aunt Katharine, faded from the balcony.
"I take this as an omen, they are all leaving us," he said in a sad manner.
Mrs. Leighton sighed gently. "We did the same ourselves, didn't we, John?"
And with a Strauss waltz hammering out its joyous commanding rhythm, a son and daughter engaged, and Elma just deserted, Mr. Leighton replied very dismally indeed, "I suppose so."
"Hush," said Mrs. Leighton. "Who knows? This may be another."
It was Jean with a University acquaintance of Cuthbert's.
He placed her carefully in a chair and bent in a lounging manner over her.
"You see," said Jean in a high intense voice, "it's the method that does it."
"Ha," said Mr. Leighton joyously. "Herr Slavska may yet save me a daughter."
Butler and Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
* * * * * * * *
BOOKS BY
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Nina's Career
Uncle Hilary's Nieces
The Five Macleods
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