Testimony Of Two Men (41 page)

A small tiara of pearls and sparkling stones rode high on her golden pompadour, and from it fell her lace veil to far below her knees. The veil covered her virgin face, so that one caught a glimpse only of a faintly pink lip, a glimmer of eye, a shadow of gilt which was her hair. She carried a bouquet of yellow roses with a trail of green ivy.

Jon watched her, stiff and entranced, as she swayed on her uncle’s arm and the Wedding March made the hot and scented air tremble. He felt both exultance and joy, and he also felt intoxicated. It was not only Mavis’ beauty which fired him, which made him breathe heavily—to Harald’s fresh amusement. It was the promise the girl held for him, the hint of new life, of delirious adventure, of some deliverance from the strange and heavy torment which had bedeviled his life from his very early consciousness. He felt that he was on the threshold of being reborn to a more joyous world, to a world of infinite variety and innocence and promise. To a lightheartedness he had never known, to a sort of delirious abandon, and new concepts. With Mavis he would be released from something that had made his existence somber and gloomy. He would be free, finally, from himself.

With Mavis he would be carefree as he had never been carefree, and he would be young as he had never been young. She would laugh away many of his intensities, and her humor would make him smile, and he would be unburdened. He would, in short, play and be refreshed, and he would even laugh, himself, at some of the things which he now found intolerable. Life would become, not a conflict as it had been all his life, but light and airy and gay, and their mutual love and adoration would be like a garden to him, restful and full of color, serene and youthful, bright and exciting. He might even become innocent, himself, and accepting.

He knew nothing whatsoever about Mavis Eaton, standing demurely at his side, with her beautiful head bent reverently, and her profile hidden from him by her veil. He endured the long ceremony, and his knees shook, and Mavis’ scent, also imported from France, was in his nostrils and he felt that it was the natural odor of her youth and beauty and the wonderment she was keeping for him, alone. When her veil was lifted by her matron of honor, and he saw her face in the candlelight he was stunned with his rapture and his delight and his passion and his love. He dared—he felt he was very daring and irreverent—to kiss her soft cool lips, and he tried to look into her blue eyes. But they were only crescents of thick golden lashes, and he thought it was maidenly reserve and maidenly fear.

Then the Wedding March was resumed on a high and exalted note, and Mavis was on his arm, going down the aisle, beautiful as a dream. She did not look up at him. She smiled widely at the wedding guests and swayed expertly so that all could admire her gown and her jewels and the great diamond on her finger, which Jonathan had given her. It was her triumphant day, her hour, her glory, and Jonathan to her was only the accessory. She had married the most eligible bachelor in town, the richest, and she was a queen. If Jonathan knew nothing about her, she knew nothing about him, either. He would have been horrified if he had known of his own ignorance. But Mavis would not have cared in the least. To herself, she had no faults and no flaws. She had considered Jonathan lucky in marrying her, and, unfortunately, he agreed with her. The guests agreed also, with the exception of Jonathan’s mother and brother.

The reception for hundreds of guests was held on the lawns and among the gardens of Martin Eaton’s vast and hideous house. There was champagne and whiskey and a magnificent feast. Long hot shadows fell below the trees as the day swung toward evening. Beyond the lawns the river shone like a wide path of blue, and in it stood the silly island, Heart’s Ease, and beyond the river and the island rose the violet mountains brilliant with the falling sun.

Mavis was gracious and ebullient, and her loud and husky laughter, so joyous and so abundant, was everywhere, as she moved among the guests and accepted their toasts. They pressed about her, stroking her gown, tenderly kissing her cheek, patting her hands. Her sparkling white gown set her apart in all that color. It was her uncle she chose to walk beside her, and Jonathan and Flora Eaton moved in her train, Flora in lavender taffeta, a color most unbecoming. Marjorie stood apart, watching and fearing and aching but outwardly serene in her gown of soft rose silk, her dark hair shaded by her rosy hat of tulle. Her head was aching, and her heart also, and there was a tumult in her ears of congratulations and mirth and merrymaking and happiness. Above all, she heard Mavis’ laughter and her sudden whoops of rough glee and it seemed to Marjorie that it was the most insensitive sound she had ever heard, totally crude and distasteful, and even repellent. Marjorie had given the girl a gentle kiss, and then Mavis’ eyes, sunken and secret, had opened a little and Marjorie had seen the old blue gleam, the indifferent yet cunning gleam, as far removed from warm humanity as polar ice.

But no one except Marjorie could resist the boisterous laughter of the girl, the gaiety that was indeed coarse. Everyone was as bemused as Jon at the way she would throw back her head, unaffectedly, showing all her big white teeth in her mirth, her eyes crinkling above, her cheek glowing. Her spirits, always boisterous, enchanted them all, for they held no reticence but were bold and teasing. She slapped admirers on the arm with her white and jeweled fan, and pushed her bouquet gaily into faces, and joked coaxingly, and looked about for fresh admiration and affection. She had none of the shyness of a bride. When Jonathan would push to her side, she would stare at him and then grin deliciously.

The bridal couple was to spend the wedding night in the Quaker Hotel in its most lavish suite, waiting now and filled with flowers. Tomorrow they would leave for the races at Saratoga, and then to New York for the balance of the honeymoon.

Jonathan did not like champagne, but he thought it decorous today to abstain from whiskey. He was certain that
a
whiskey odor on his breath would revolt his dainty bride. The wine made him queasy, for all his delirium and his joy. He tried to keep up with Mavis, claiming her, but she slipped constantly away from him to new groups of loving friends and entranced admirers. He heard her laughter, and it seemed to him that it was the most lovely sound in the world, the sound which would be the music of his life and its refreshment. He kept smiling inanely, his dark face shining a little. He accepted congratulations and new toasts like one in a dream, and everyone remarked how enchanted he was and how so unusually amiable. When Martin Eaton said to him, his voice breaking, “Be good to my darling little girl, Jon,” Jonathan could only say fervidly, “Don’t worry, Martin. I am going to devote my whole life to her!” This was so unlike Jonathan that Martin blinked through the tears in his adoring eyes. He pressed Jonathan’s hand, moved as he had never been moved before. “It is a sacred promise,” he stammered. “A sacred, sacred promise.” Jonathan agreed, and his own unusual emotion made him suddenly speechless.

He turned—and saw Harald, his brother, standing a little apart in all his hazel handsomeness, and Harald bowed to him ironically and silently toasted him with the champagne. For the first time Jonathan was aware of something a little disagreeable, and he frowned vaguely and walked off looking for Mavis again in her clotted group of worshipful friends. But Flora Eaton appeared out of nowhere, somewhat feverish, her narrow face quivering. She caught his arm in her dark tense hand.

“Jon! Jon! Be good, be kind! Love her, Jon! She is so tender, so young, so inexperienced, such a child! She is a daughter to us, Jon, a daughter to us! Oh, no one deserves our child, no one! Guard her sacredly.”

“I will,” Jonathan actually said, and went looking for his bride again. Marjorie heard this exchange and she closed her eyes briefly.

Harald appeared at her side, smiling, and she started. He lifted his glass and said, “To the Golden Girl.” He laughed a little, his eyes dancing. “And to Jon, who is going to need it.”

“Why?” asked Marjorie.

“He’s a silly damned lamb,” said Harald. “Our charmer is going to teach him a thing or two. Listen to her laugh! Or is it a bray?” He considered. “A bray,” he repeated.

“Don’t be nasty, Harald.”

Japanese lanterns were lit at dusk in the gardens, and there was music over the long lawns, for Marton Eaton had hired the Hambledon German Brass Band for the occasion, without the brass overpowering the violins and the cellos. The first dance, on stiff green carpet laid on the grass, was claimed by Martin and he and Mavis whirled together in a sprightly waltz, Mavis’ train over her white kid arm, and her head thrown back so that her big white teeth glowed and glittered in the lantern light, and her veil flew behind her and her full and lovely figure gleamed in its white satin tightness. Next, she danced with her bridegroom, and she kissed the side of his face cheerfully and squeezed his shoulder affectionately in her gloved hand, and grinned up at him. He recalled with happiness that never had he seen Mavis in a “mood,” or otherwise than her charming, bouncing self, in a cloud of laughter and scent. She was enormously healthy, too, a most desirable trait in a wife, and health had its own enchantment. Her rosy face was damp with heat and exertion, but she did not pause to wipe away the little drops but let them shine on her vibrant skin. Her sleek golden pompadour loosened, and a few ringlets fell from it. Jonathan could feel the soft but vigorous movements of all her muscles, and he thought of the young mares on his farms, silken and fresh and trembling with eager life. He looked down at Mavis and tried to see her eyes, but as usual they were crinkled with mirth and pure animal enjoyment and the awareness of her beauty. Her translucent flesh appeared to palpitate.

At length it was time for the bridal couple to leave for the Quaker Hotel, and Mavis disappeared with her running bridesmaids and her matron of honor and her Aunt Flora, and there were screams of joy from the lighted house when she threw her bouquet from the stairway. The band continued to play and the guests continued to drink and eat and dance and joke and laugh, and this would go on for hours after the newly married pair left. A little later Mavis reappeared, still vibrant but now cool and softly powdered, and dressed in a white silk suit with a flow of exquisite white lace tumbling from her neck down over her bosom, and a broad white straw hat covered with pale blue roses of silk. The hem of her suit just daringly lifted over the arch of her white stockings and hinted of fragile ankles, and she was dazzling and fresh and shining like the moon.

She never stopped smiling for a moment, her great white-toothed smile, and she kept throwing back her head in a boom of laughter and everyone, as usual, was fascinated and forced to laugh helplessly in return. She stood with Jonathan, her hand on his arm, and cajoled, and affectionately slapped a cheek here and there, or squeezed a hand, or gave a swift kiss, and she was never still for a single second. She was all beguilement and vitality and gusto, though to some ears her laughter frequently sounded like a screech, and it rose even above the music and the loving babble of the many guests.

The bridal couple drove off in Flora’s own victoria and with her coachman, and to the last Mavis waved and laughed and called back to the guests who gave them Godspeed. Jonathan, beside her, thought it was like sitting next to a dynamo, scented and breathing and strongly pulsing. Once on the street, Mavis apparently became aware of him, and she squeezed his arm gleefully, and said with immense cheer, “Wasn’t that a lovely wedding, Jon?”

“Yes, darling,” he said, and lifted her hand and kissed it and she looked down on his thick black hair with affection. “I love you,” she said. Jonathan lifted his head, deeply moved, and suddenly remembered that never before had she said that to him. He pulled her into his arms, in a cloud of rose fragrance, and kissed her lips with passion. She purred against his lips like a big, contented kitten, then drew away. She said, “I wish we were going to Europe, though, to Paris.”

“I told you, darling, that I have several operations in two weeks.”

“I know.” Her voice was husky and a little hoarse always, but now it was more so. “Uncle Martin and Aunt Flora have told me what it means to be a doctor’s wife.” Then he saw her deep dimples in the flare of the lamps on the street. “But I’m not going to let you become dull and smell of ether all the time, like Uncle Martin, and never having fun again.”

“Perhaps next summer we will go to Europe,” said Jonathan. He was exhausted and exhilarated at the same time, and he thought of his coming night with his wife.

“Urn, um,” Mavis crooned, and patted his cheek, and began to hum the Wedding March half under her breath.
“A
lovely wedding,” she said again. “I’d like to get married every day.”

“Why?” asked Jonathan, with adoring fondness.

“It’s such fun,” said Mavis, again gleeful. He did not know why he felt a touch of disappointment. He looked at Mavis’ pretty face, glowing beside him, and there was no shyness on it and no nervousness. When he kissed her again, she responded absently, and her lips were smiling, and he felt that she was hardly aware of him but was indulging in some delightful thoughts of her own, far removed from him.

The bridal suite shone resplendently with crystal chandeliers and was heavy with the fragrance of hundreds of flowers. Mavis had the gift of flattered gratitude, and she went from room to room, exclaiming over the kindness of friends who had sent silver baskets and bowls of rich fruit and bouquets and heaps of little parting gifts. “Everyone loves me,” she said, and looked at Jonathan eagerly.