Claire Ambler (1928, Doubleday)/Part 3/Chapter 7
THE church was not a large one, and the decorously expectant wedding-guests filled it comfortably. A soprano voice had sung nobly from a gallery, long white ribbons had been drawn, and now the organ palpitated profoundly into every ear a majestic vamping. Through a door just opened at the left of the altar, the clergyman in his gown could be seen, and, behind him, the bridegroom and his supporting comrade, composing themselves for the imminent confrontation and erasing from their countenances every token of either emotion or intelligence. All that they allowed to remain visible was accurate tailoring accompanied by the pallor of stage-fright.
The organ developed the heralding signal of the great nuptial approach; the air of the interior trembled to those bars of music so familiar that they seem to invest their composer, not in his chosen solemn mantle, but in the mocking garb of a comedian. To these helplessly satirical measures, the clergyman slowly advanced, followed obscurely by the two sartorial vacancies, while from the rear, dressed as twins, eight embarrassingly self-conscious gentlemen were seen to be approaching rhythmically. After them, eight lovely young women, all in heliotrope and as rhythmic and self-conscious as the eight gentlemen twins, though more becomingly so, passed through stained shafts of light from a pointed window, seeming to float dazzlingly in many colours for a moment before they turned to heliotrope again and paced slowly to their appointed stations.
Then the bride came down the aisle, alone. She walked with her head a little advanced but her face uplifted; and about her grave and tender eyes, and upon her lips, there appeared the faintest foreshadowings of an ineffable smile. Through the fine lace of her veil, there were glints of her fair hair like gold seen in a mist: never had she been so graceful; never had she looked so lovely. And when she passed through the coloured light of the great window, and her bridal white became a drifting rosiness in aureoles of amber and softest blue, a breathed "Ah!" of pleasure was multitudinous upon the air. For she seemed then just such a glimpsed vision of angelic beauty, wistful yet serene, as a devout eye attuned to miracles should have beheld in that place.
She suspected this, herself, for she had seen the bridesmaids passing through that light before her. "I hope it's doing as well by me," she thought. "With this beautiful cream-white it ought to do even a lot better. Thank heaven everything's all right so far! I sha'n't begin to let my smile be more definite just yet—not till I reach the third pew from the end—and I mustn't forget to turn my head to the right and let a gentle little corner of the smile go to poor Mother after I've given Walter that look. He's there, waiting, of course; I'll be able to see him in a moment, poor thing! I'm getting married to him and this is my wedding—my wedding! It doesn't seem to be that. Why don't I realize it? How on earth does it happen? How does it come to be my wedding—if it really is! Am I in love with him? Is it because of that? Was it the contagion, after all? Am I getting married because 'all the rest' were getting married? What is my reason for it? Have I just been crazy? Good heavens, is it happening now?" And that "double" sense of hers was never more strongly with her than then, as she came down the aisle to be wedded. As audience, she saw herself distractedly asking these belated questions and at the same time stage-directing her every movement and expression. But at the third pew from the front, where she intended to look up and seem to become happily conscious of Walter, then to smile exquisitely upon him, there was a moment when the audience within her, and the stage-director, and the actress as well, disappeared.
Walter should have advanced a step to meet her and take her hand; but he did not move. He stood stock-still; and, though he appeared to be looking at her, she saw that he was but dimly aware of her. His eyes were glassy and he trembled from head to foot; she perceived that he was almost helpless, dazed with stage-fright. And at that, a quick emotion rose within her: she was filled with pity, with tenderness and with amusement.
She put out her hand to him, and as he took it gingerly, she grasped his unnerved fingers strongly, and from her bright eyes gave him, not the look she had intended and rehearsed, but one more truly eloquent, wholly impulsive and impromptu.
"You dear goose!" it said so clearly that he understood it completely. "What's the matter with you? I'm here to see you through this, don't you understand? I'll see you through it all right, and I'll see you through, everything—everything—all right. That's what I'm here for. Don't you see?"
He did see: colour came into his stricken cheeks; something of his usual manliness returned to him, and, as he moved forward with her to the altar, his eyes became human again in the look of passionate gratitude he gave her.
She was uplifted with the happiness of a great reassurance; once more she knew that she had forgotten herself and remembered him.
The end
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