The consummation of her life's dream was too near, too sweet and wonderful for Jane's croakings to distress Mary Adams beyond the moment. She had, of course, wished her friend to be present at the wedding—yet the curt refusal had only aroused anew her pity at stupid prejudices. It was out of the question to ask her father to leave his work in the Kentucky mountains and come all the way to New York. She would surprise him with the announcement. After all, she was the one human being vitally concerned in this affair, and the only one save the man whose life would be joined to hers.
In five minutes after the painful scene with Jane she had completely regained her composure, and her face was radiant with happiness when she waved to Jim. He was standing before the door in the car, waiting to take her to the City Hall to get the marriage license.
“Gee!” he cried, “you're the prettiest, sweetest thing that ever walked this earth, with those cheeks all flaming like a rose! Are you happy?”
“Gloriously.”
She motioned him to keep his seat and sprang lightly to his side.
“Aren't you happy, sir?” she added gayly.
“I am, yes—but to tell you the truth, I'm beginning to get scared. You know what to do, don't you, when we get before that preacher?”
“Of course, silly——”
“I never saw a wedding in my life.”
She pressed his hand tenderly.
“Honestly, Jim?”
“I swear it. You'll have to tell me how to behave.”
“We'll rehearse it all tonight. I'll show you. I've seen hundreds of people married. My father's a preacher, you know.”
“Yes, I know that,” he went on solemnly; “that's what gives me courage. I knew you'd understand everything. I'm counting on you, Kiddo—if you fall down, we're gone. I'll run like a turkey.”
“It's easy,” she laughed.
“And this license business—how do we go about that? What'll they do to us?”
“Nothing, goose! We just march up to the clerk and demand the license. He asks us a lot of questions——”
“Questions! What sort of questions?”
“The names of your father and mother—whether you've been married before and where you live and how old you are——”
“Ask you about your business?” he interrupted, sharply.
“No. They think if you can pay the license fee you can support your wife, I suppose.”
“How much is it?”
“I don't know, here. It used to be two dollars in Kentucky.”
“That's cheap—must come higher in this burg. I brought along a hundred.”
“Nonsense.”
“There's a lot of graft in this town. I'll be ready. I've got to get 'em—don't care how high they come.”
“There'll be no graft in this, Jim,” she protested gayly.
“Well, it'll be the first time I ever got by without it—believe me!”
The ease with which the license was obtained was more than Jim could understand. All the way back from the City Hall he expected to be held up at every corner. He kept looking over his shoulder to see if they were being followed.
Arrived in her room, they discussed their plans for the day of days.
“I'll come round soon in the morning, and we'll spend the whole day at the Beach,” he suggested.
She lifted her hands in protest.
“No—no!”
“No?”
“Not on our wedding-day, Jim!”
“Why?”
“It's not good form. The groom should not see the bride that day until they meet at the altar.”
“Let's change it!”
“No, sir, the old way's the best. I'll spend the day in saying good-by to the past. You'll call for me at six o'clock. We'll go to Dr. Craddock's house and be married in time for our wedding dinner.”
The lover smiled, and his drooping eyelids fell still lower as he watched her intently.
“I want that dinner here in this little place, Kiddo——”
She blushed and protested.
“I thought we'd go to the Beach and spend the night there.”
“Here, girlie, here! I love this little place—it's so like you. Get the old wild-cat who cleans up for you to fix us a dinner here all by ourselves—wouldn't she?”
“She'd do anything for me—yes.”
“Then fix it here—I want to be just with you—don't you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But I'd rather spend that first day of our new life in a strange place—and the Beach we both love—hadn't you just as leave go there, Jim?”
“No. The waiters will stare at us, and hear us talk——”
“We can have our meals served in our room.
“This is better,” he insisted. “I want to spend one day here alone with you, before we go—just to feel that you're all mine. You see, if I walk in here and own the place, I'll know that better than any other way. I've just set my heart on it, Kiddo—what's the difference?”
She lifted her lips to his.
“All right, dear. It shall be as you wish. Tomorrow I will be all yours—in life, in death, in eternity. Your happiness will be the one thing for which I shall plan and work.”
Ella was very happy in the honor conferred on her. She was given entire charge of the place, and spent the day in feverish preparation for the dinner. She insisted on borrowing a larger table from the little fat woman next door, to hold the extra dishes. She dressed herself in her best. Her raven black hair was pressed smooth and shining down the sides of her pale temples.
The work was completed by three o'clock in the afternoon, and Mary lay in her window lazily watching the crowds scurrying home. The offices closed early on Saturday afternoons.
Ella was puttering about the room, adding little touches here and there in a pretense of still being busy. As a matter of fact, she was watching the girl from her one eye with a wistful tenderness she had not dared as yet to express in words. Twice Mary had turned suddenly and seen her thus. Each time Ella had started as if caught in some act of mischief and asked an irrelevant question to relieve her embarrassment.
Mary could feel her single eye fixed on her now in a deep, brooding look. It made her uncomfortable.
She turned slowly and spoke in gentle tones.
“You've been so sweet to me today, Ella—father and mother and best friend. I'll never forget your kindness. You'd better rest awhile now until we go to Dr. Craddock's. I want you to be there, too——”
“To see the marriage—ja?” she asked softly.
“Yes.”
“Oh, no, my dear, no—I stay here and wait for you to come. I keep the lights burning bright. I welcome the bride and groom to their little home—ja.”
A quick glance of suspicion shot from Mary's blue eyes. Could it be possible that this forlorn scrubwoman would carry her hostility to her lover to the same point of ungracious refusal to witness the ceremony? It was nonsense, of course. Ella would feel out of place in the minister's parlor, that was all. She wouldn't insist.
“All right, Ella; you can receive us here with ceremony. You'll be our maid, butler, my father, my mother and my friends!”
There was a moment's silence and still no move on Ella's part to go. The girl felt her single eye again fixed on her in mysterious, wistful gaze. She would send her away if it were possible without hurting her feelings.
Mary lifted her eyes suddenly, and Ella stirred awkwardly and smiled.
“I hope you are very happy, meine liebe—ja?”
“I couldn't be happier if I were in Heaven,” was the quick answer.
“I'm so glad——”
Again an awkward pause.
“I was once young and pretty like you, meine liebe,” she began dreamily, “—slim and straight and jolly—always laughing.”
Mary held her breath in eager expectancy. Ella was going to lift the veil from the mystery of her life, stirred by memories which the coming wedding had evoked.
“And you had a thrilling romance—Ella? I always felt it.”
Again silence, and then in low tones the woman told her story.
“Ja—a romance, too. I was so young and foolish—just a baby myself—not sixteen. But I was full of life and fun, and I had a way of doing what I pleased.
“The man was older than me—Oh, a lot older—with gray hairs on the side of his head. I was wild about him. I never took to kids. They didn't seem to like me——”
She paused as if hesitating to give her full confidence, and quickly went on:
“My folks were German. They couldn't speak English. I learned when I was five years old. They didn't like my lover. We quarrel day and night. I say they didn't like him because they could not speak his language. They say he was bad. I fight for him, and run away and marry him——”
Again she paused and drew a deep breath.
“Ah, I was one happy little fool that year! He make good wages on the docks—a stevedore. They had a strike, and he got to drinking. The baby came——”
She stopped suddenly.
“You had a little baby, Ella?” the girl asked in a tender whisper.
“Ja—ja,” she sobbed—“so sweet, so good—so quiet—so beautiful she was. I was very happy—like a little girl with a doll—only she laugh and cry and coo and pull my hair! He stop the drink a little while when she come, and he got work. And then he begin worse and worse. It seem like he never loved me any more after the baby. He curse me, he quarrel. He begin to strike me sometimes. I laugh and cry at first and make up and try again——”
Again she paused as if for courage to go on, and choked into silence.
“Yes—and then?” the girl asked.
“And then he come home one night wild drunk. He stumble and fall across the cradle and hurt my baby so she never cry—just lie still and tremble—her eyes wide open at first and then they droop and close and she die!
“He laugh and curse and strike me, and I fight him like a tiger. He was strong—he throw me down on the floor and gouge my eye out with his big claw——”
“Oh, my God,” Mary sobbed.
Ella sprang to her feet and bent over the girl with trembling eagerness.
“You keep my secret, meine liebe?”
“Yes—yes——”
“I never tell a soul on earth what I tell you now—I just eat my heart out and keep still all the years, I can tell you—ja?”
“Yes, I'll keep it sacred—go on——”
“When I know he gouge my eye out, I go wild. I get my hand on his throat and choke him still. I drag him to the stairs and throw him head first all the way down to the bottom. He fall in a heap and lie still. I run down and drag him to the door. I kick his face and he never move. He was dead. I kick him again—and again. And then I laugh—I laugh—I laugh in his dead face—I was so glad I kill him!”
She sank in a paroxysm of sobs on the floor, and the girl touched her smooth black hair tenderly, strangled with her own emotions.
Ella rose at last and brushed the tears from her hollow cheeks.
“Now, you know, meine liebe! Why I tell you this today, I don't know—maybe I must! I dream once like you dream today——”
The girl slipped her arms around the drooping, pathetic figure and stroked it tenderly.
“The sunshine is for some, maybe,” Ella went on pathetically; “for some the clouds and the storms. I hope you are very, very happy today and all the days——”
“I will be, Ella, I'm sure. I'll always love you after this.”
“Maybe I make you sad because I tell you——”
“No—no! I'm glad you told me. The knowledge of your sorrow will make my life the sweeter. I shall be more humble in my joy.”
It never occurred to the girl for a moment that this lonely, broken woman had torn her soul's deepest secret open in a last pathetic effort to warn her of the danger of her marriage. The wistful, helpless look in her eye meant to Mary only the anguish of memories. Each human heart persists in learning the big lessons of life at first hand. We refuse to learn any other way. The tragedies of others interest us as fiction. We make the application to others—never to ourselves.
Jim's familiar footstep echoed through the hall, and Mary sprang to the door with a cry of joy.
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