For Love Alone (7 page)

“Do you see where Annette is?” asked Aunt Bea. “Malfi insisted upon having Anne beside her, because you know they were childhood playmates and Malfi has a loving little heart, bless her, whatever her quick temper may lead her to do,” and she went on, “Don't think you're left out in the cold, because you're here. I'm here too, among the poor relations, but I'm lucky to be near my two fondest nieces, aren't I? I always look on the bright side, because there always is a bright side; and when I look up there and see my girlie sitting there, so pretty in her blue—do you notice how lovely Anne's hair is to-day? It's the electricity in the air, I suppose—I can't help the tears starting when I think that one of these days she will be a blushing bride and I will be losing my little girl for ever! I asked Eliza how she felt about losing her daughter, but she said: ‘I am not losing Malfi but gaining a son.' You know, the old saw is true, I never thought of that. I thought, How should I like to have a son-in-law! Well, and you two girls—your time will come. Look at the chances Malfi had and she is older than you—stand up, girls, it's the toast!”

The champagne had been passed round, a speech had been made by a bald, squat man at the head of the table, and he had said
that though he was best man, he was only second best to-day, and he gave them the charming bride and happy groom. They were all standing now and Kitty whispered to Aunt Bea to ask whether she couldn't have water, for Daddy didn't allow them to drink wine and had made a point of it, in fact, just before leaving. Aunt Bea flushed and said angrily: “But you must drink Malfi's health.”

“Not in wine,” said Kitty unhappily, the colour in her face ebbing.

“But you must drink the bride's health, it would be awful——”

“Not in wine,” said Kitty several times. “Couldn't we have water?” Aunt Bea was almost in tears, and whispered madly: “It's unkind, it's rude!” They were drinking, they half emptied the glasses. Kitty's glass stood in front of her, while Teresa held hers in her hand, out of politeness.

“Silly little idiots,” hissed Aunt Bea with tears in her eyes, as they put down the glasses. The Hawkins girls stood feeling mean and stupid. When they sat down, Aunt Bea protested in an undertone, while they became red with confusion, and Kitty began to weep quietly.

“Your father's not here, you billies,” said Aunt Bea.

“It's wrong to drink wine,” muttered Teresa, raising her eyes.

“He made us promise,” said Kitty.

“It's so rude, whatever will Eliza think, and your own cousin—do you wish her bad luck? It's heartless, drink it, drink it, before anyone notices.”

Teresa frowned, Kitty raised her swimming eyes and looked about. Both were in the throes of cruel doubt; they alone had not tasted. The glasses had not been drained, but stood waiting for the toast to the bride's parents, which was now coming up. When they rose again, Teresa, with an obstinate look, seized her glass, and saying: “It's for Malfi too,” sipped it cautiously, and at once drained the glass. Kitty, with a startled look, sipped hers and then put it down. Aunt Bea smiled.

“Silly billies! You didn't take the pledge after all!”

“Will we get drunk ?” asked Kitty.

Teresa put out her hand tentatively, seized Kitty's glass, and drank what remained in it.

The wedding party had been delayed and it was now nearly time for the bride to dress. The sun was going down behind the buildings opposite, so that the glaze on the plates shone and blood-red spindles went through the drops of claret in the jugs. The velvet air, full of moisture and dust, clung to their faces and was palpable when they moved their hands. The seats were hot to their bodies. The bride rose and the crowd with her. A fuss began round her and as she jumped up she found the tall heel of her white satin slipper caught in two rungs of the chair. Impatiently, she wrenched it and suddenly the slipper itself flew out into the room with a devil-may-care swoop, while the heel remained in the chair. Several were bending down, pulling it out, one ran for the slipper and while the bride stood one-legged by the chair with a grimace, her father and husband worked over the heel, wedging it back into the slipper. Without a word, she took it from them, slipped it on and walked smartly round the table, with an angry shrug. Then she noticed her cousins standing, round-eyed, disorderly, half-scared and half-laughing at her mishap. She walked back and took her cousin Anne by the hand.

“Keep close to me, Anne,” she said, “I want you to get it, I want you to be the next to go,” and she took her bouquet from the bridesmaid and carried it to the door.

“Get me a chair,” she said to her father, “I'm too small to throw it.” He smiled down at her and then at the crowd of relatives driving towards him, mothers and aunts, elderly women, Aunt Di, pushing the young girls forward towards the bouquet. Don March bent down and lifted Malfi who put one arm round his neck and with a “Well, here it is, girls!” threw the bouquet towards Anne Broderick.

What a scene! They had nearly all discarded their hats and posies and stood breathing upwards, their eyes darkly fixed, with pain, not pleasure, on the bouquet. As it left the bride's hand,
involuntary cries burst from them and they leapt at what was falling towards them, jumping sideways, knocking their neighbours out of the way, pushing, and if they fell back too soon they leapt again with open mouths and eyes and not a smile, their red, damp faces flushing deeper and taking on hungry, anguished and desperate expressions, as in the fatal superstitious moment they struggled for the omen of marriage. Anne, a plump, soft, timid butterfingers, only touched a spray of maidenhair fern with two fingers; the bouquet fell lower, was batted dextrously away from her by Madeline, a tennis-player and cousin Sylvia Hawkins, the eldest of Rodney Hawkins, the rowboat-owner, a thin, tall girl, grabbed it, pushing her way through the darting, jostling mass, when it was wrenched from her by a long thin freckled hand on a bony wrist which protruded without its owner being seen. The arm to this hand, in a poor flowered stuff, was squeezed and released the bouquet; at this moment, Kitty, who had been hovering miserably, all indecision as usual, snatched the bouquet and as she did so it fell to pieces.

“A foul,” said Uncle Don, laughing slyly.

The bouquet had disappeared. The slippery thing had found its way down between tossing plump shoulders, sparring elbows and tumultuous thighs. Where was it?

In the fear of having ruined the beautiful loose spray of lilies, roses, larkspur, and fern, the girls parted, billowing away from the spot like swans. Anne, desolate, stared down at the dusty floor and cried: “You've got your foot on it!”

On the farther edge of the circle stood Teresa, her long lavender dress creased and the hem dusty; from under the skirt a long branch of budding roses strayed out. She looked down, moved her foot a little and murmured: “I have not.”

She had not jumped for the bouquet, though pushed forward by Aunt Bea with her sister Kitty, because in that blink of the eye she had seen the awful eagerness of the others and the smiling, waiting circle of adults, witnesses of their naked need; and so she had drawn back a bit, with a thumping heart, disappointed but grim, at the very
moment the bouquet was thrown. She picked up her skirt now and retired, not daring to pick up the branch which she so much wanted. A slight pause followed.

“Toss for it, girls,” said a boy's voice. Everyone burst into a laugh. They were laughing at them, at her, because they had been struggling for a husband. But Aunt Bea came forward, picked up what remained of the flowers and saying: “Is it all right, Malfi dear?” she went among the cousins, giving a flower here, a spray of buds there. “A star-burst of weddings, it will be,” she said happily, saving the situation. The girls smiled timidly at her and took the offering. Malfi, having seen this distribution, picked up her skirt without a word and ran to the stairs, clicking her little high heels, but half-way up she paused again and looked curiously at the girls, getting her flowers. When her thick dark lashes flew up, her eyes could be seen, of medium size, clear grey and keen.

“It is a shame, Mother's cherub,” said Aunt Bea to Anne, as she handed her daughter a pink rosebud, “sweets to the sweet, but I know Malfi meant it for you, well, all's well that ends well. What a sly one you are,” she continued to Teresa, who had now crossed over to Anne's side, “kicking it under your skirt.”

“But I didn't know,” protested the girl.

“How's the bunfight getting on?” said a male voice, near, teasing. “Does this mean you girls have to share the same man? How about me?”

Teresa's face became sullen and she thrust back the fern spray which Aunt Bea was handing her. “I don't want it. Here, take it,” she said, pushing the spray at Anne. “Put it with that!”

“Teresa,” remonstrated Aunt Bea, “can't you take a joke?”

“Not that kind of joke,” shouted Teresa, in a sudden blow of voice that made the crowd, now disbanding and streaming off to coats and hats, turn and stare at her. People began to smile, laughs broke out, the men guffawed and some of the women looked hurt, severe.

“You can't take part,” said Aunt Bea. “Look how you've hurt Aunt Eliza.”

“You ought to be ashamed, Terry,” said Kitty, rather loudly. Teresa looked at them proudly; she felt immortal. The world was like a giant egg of golden glass, she could crush it. She floated; she looked at them, gleaming. “You're cruel to us, making fun of us, this is cruel,” said Teresa. She swept aside, she looked down her nose, she felt her immense strength.

“Terry!” said her sister.

“Jumping, jumping—” replied Teresa contemptuously. Bouquets! She felt she had only to command and men would kneel at her feet.

“Oh, Teresa,” said the kind and always gracious Aunt Eliza, as if broken-hearted. Teresa grew pale, looked at her piteously, and looked from eye to eye of the relatives and strangers, again drawing off and giving her curious cool stares. A suspicion came over her. Why did she suddenly feel so strong and fine? Deserted by all, the girl went to get her hat. When she came back, she pushed her way to the front rank of all those waiting to farewell the bride. Malfi came down in a short time, dressed for the honeymoon journey in a short dove-grey silk suit and as she went slowly past, tapping her neat little shoes, shaking hands, kissing, “Good-bye, good-bye, thank you for coming, good-bye, thank you, good-bye”, Teresa pushed up to her and said: “Malfi, good luck, I'm sorry for my rudeness, I beg pardon.” Malfi stopped and looked straight up at her for a moment. The two cousins had avoided each other all their lives because they were said to be alike in temperament and brain. They were the two “clever ones”. Now Malfi was small and neat and Teresa had outgrown her. Malfi reached up for a kiss, said: “Don't think too badly of me”, and passed on. Teresa stared after her. What could have prompted this reply?

At the door, Malfi turned round and flung herself on her mother, weeping. “There, my poor child,” said her mother, “it's all right, Malfi.” The young husband came up to her, kissed her and wiped her eyes with his handkerchief. The door slammed. The long car drove off.

Those who were left in the thick twilight closing in, in the splendid intoxication of the burning air, reeking with food and body
smells and cheap perfume and faded flowers and all the pleasant riot of a party's end, stood about for a while talking. Soon the girls had got together and the whispers began, while Aunt Bea again rushed from hand to hand and ear to ear and kiss to kiss, saying this time that they weren't going off on the train at all, but to a hotel for the first night. No one but Aunt Eliza knew where it was, not even the bridegroom's mother—and it was better so.

“I can't help thinking,” she said, “how strange it is, the first night, the very first. I can't help thinking of those innocent young babes starting out on life's journey together hand in hand and of them there together, alone at last, you know, for the first night of a lifetime. And then, you know—when you think—they were never allowed to be together till tonight, and now, tonight, it is right and proper, but it must be—” She stopped with a high giggle. Anne was silent. One of the girls said,
sotto voce:
“There'll be a hot time in the—” She was hushed. Some of the girls laughed. “I just can't help it,” said Bea, “and it's only natural, isn't it? It's natural for them to be together now!”

“Mother,” said Anne, in a low voice.

“What is it, darling ?”

“Let's ask Terry home.”

“Why, darling, I think that Aunt Eliza and Uncle Don want me to go along with them and cheer them up. Of course, they'll be feeling rather down in the mouth at spending the first night without their darling girlie, and I have such a natural gift for making people merry, that I think my first duty is with them, you see, and they want you too. They're so fond of you.”

The guests drifted out, saying good-bye again, to each other, to Bedloes they would never see again in their lives, to relations they would see perhaps in another year or two at another family wedding. There were good-byes between cousins who were intimate friends and between Teresa and Anne, who had once been together for several years in their childhood and were closer than sisters. This
was the best of all, a warm, scarcely articulate conversation between friends who hoped to see each other again soon.

But Donald and Eliza March went out to dinner with the bridegroom's parents and left poor Bea stranded there among the very last departing. She turned eagerly to find Teresa left and Teresa went home with them. Teresa was bursting with marvellous news—Kitty, the mouse, the nun, had gone off by herself, at the invitation of Cousin Sylvia, to a moonlight picnic. What would Daddy say? They tried to guess and they laughed.

“I am glad you girls are beginning to come out of your shells at last,” said Aunt Bea. “A little drop of wine didn't hurt you, you see.” Teresa would not admit she had been wrong and so said nothing about it.