In the vestry, where the bridesmaids fluttered about like birds in their big floppy hats, there was a last lip rouging and adjustment of pins before Emily should arrive. They represented several stages of Emily’s life—a schoolmate at Briarly, a last unmarried friend of debutante year, a travelling companion of Europe, and the girl she had visited in Newport when she met Brevoort Blair. “They’ve got Wakeman,” this last one said, standing by the door listening to the music. “He played for my sister, but shall never have Wakeman.”
“Why not?”
“Why, he’s playing the same thing over and over—’At Dawning. ’ He’s played it half a dozen times.”
At this moment another door opened and the solicitous head of a young man appeared around it. “Almost ready?” he demanded of the nearest bridesmaid. “Brevoort’s having a quiet little fit. He just stands there wilting collar after collar——”
“Be calm,” answered the young lady. “The bride is always a few minutes late.”
“A few minutes!” protested the best man. “I don’t call it a few minutes. They’re beginning to rustle and wriggle like a circus crowd out there, and the organist has been playing the same tune for half an hour. I’m going to get him to fill in with a little jazz.”
“What time is it?” Olive demanded.
“Quarter of five—ten minutes of five.”
“Maybe there’s been a traffic tie-up.” Olive paused as Mr. Harold Castleton, followed by an anxious curate, shouldered his way in, demanding a phone.
And now there began a curious dribbling back from the front of the church, one by one, then two by two, until the vestry was crowded with relatives and confusion.
“What’s happened?”
“What on earth’s the matter?”
A chauffeur came in and reported excitedly. Harold Castleton swore and, his face blazing, fought his way roughly toward the door. There was an attempt to clear the vestry, and then, as if to balance the dribbling, a ripple of conversation commenced at the rear of the church and began to drift up toward the altar, growing louder and faster and more excited, mounting always, bringing people to their feet, rising to a sort of subdued roar. The announcement from the altar that the marriage had been postponed was scarcely heard, for by that time everyone knew that they were participating in a front-page scandal, that Brevoort Blair had been left waiting at the altar and Emily Castleton had run away.
II
There were a dozen reporters outside the Castleton house on Sixtieth Street when Olive arrived, but in her absorption she failed even to hear their questions; she wanted desperately to go and comfort a certain man whom she must not approach, and as a sort of substitute she sought her Uncle Harold. She entered through the interconnecting five-thousand-dollar pavilions, where caterers and servants still stood about in a respectful funereal half-light, waiting for something to happen, amid trays of caviar and turkey’s breast and pyramided wedding cake. Upstairs, Olive found her uncle sitting on a stool before Emily’s dressing-table. The articles of make-up spread before him, the repertoire of feminine preparation in evidence about, made his singularly inappropriate presence a symbol of the mad catastrophe.
“Oh, it’s you.” His voice was listless; he had aged in two hours. Olive put her arm about his bowed shoulder.
“I’m so terribly sorry, Uncle Harold.”
Suddenly a stream of profanity broke from him, died away, and a single large tear welled slowly from one eye.
“I want to get my massage man,” he said. “Tell McGregor to get him.” He drew a long broken sigh, like a child’s breath after crying, and Olive saw that his sleeves were covered with a dust of powder from the dressing-table, as if he had been leaning forward on it, weeping, in the reaction from his proud champagne.
“There was a telegram,” he muttered.
“It’s somewhere.”
And he added slowly,
“From now on you’re my daughter.”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t say that!”
Unrolling the telegram, she read:
I can’t make the grade I would feel like a fool either way but this will be over sooner so damn sorry for you
EMILY
When Olive had summoned the masseur and posted a servant outside her uncle’s door, she went to the library, where a confused secretary was trying to say nothing over an inquisitive and persistent telephone.
“I’m so upset, Miss Mercy,” he cried in a despairing treble. “I do declare I’m so upset I have a frightful headache. I’ve thought for half an hour I heard dance music from down below.”
Then it occurred to Olive that she, too, was becoming hysterical; in the breaks of the street traffic a melody was drifting up, distinct and clear:
“—Is she fair
Is she sweet
I don’t care—cause
I can’t compete—
Who’s the——”
She ran quickly downstairs and through the drawing-room, the tune growing louder in her ears. At the entrance of the first pavilion she stopped in stupefaction.
To the music of a small but undoubtedly professional orchestra a dozen young couples were moving about the canvas floor. At the bar in the corner stood additional young men, and half a dozen of the caterer’s assistants were busily shaking cocktails and opening champagne.
“Harold!” she called imperatively to one of the dancers. “Harold!”
A tall young man of eighteen handed his partner to another and came toward her.
“Hello, Olive, How did father take it?”
“Harold, what in the name of——”
“Emily’s crazy,” he said consolingly. “I always told you Emily was crazy. Crazy as a loon. Always Was.”
“What’s the idea of this?”
“This?” He looked around innocently. “Oh, these are just some fellows that came down from Cambridge with me.”
“But—dancing!”
“Well, nobody’s dead, are they? I thought we might as well use up some of this——”
“Tell them to go home,” said Olive.
“Why? What on earth’s the harm? These fellows came all the way down from Cambridge——”
“It simply isn’t dignified.”
“But they don’t care, Olive. One fellow’s sister did the same thing—only she did it the day after instead of the day before. Lots of people do it nowadays.”
“Send the music home, Harold,” said Olive firmly, “or I’ll go to your father.”
Obviously he felt that no family could be disgraced by an episode on such a magnificent scale, but he reluctantly yielded. The abysmally depressed butler saw to the removal of the champagne, and the young people, somewhat insulted, moved nonchalantly out into the more tolerant night. Alone with the shadow—Emily’s shadow—that hung over the house, Olive sat down in the drawing-room to think. Simultaneously the butler appeared in the doorway.
“It’s Mr. Blair, Miss Olive.”
She jumped tensely to her feet.
“Who does he want to see?”
“He didn’t say. He just walked in.”
“Tell him I’m in here.”
He entered with an air of abstraction rather than depression, nodded to Olive and sat down on a piano stool. She wanted to say, “Come here. Lay your head here, poor man. Never mind.” But she wanted to cry, too, and so she said nothing.
“In three hours,” he remarked quietly, “we’ll be able to get the morning papers. There’s a shop on Fifty-ninth Street.”
“That’s foolish——” she began.
“I am not a superficial man”—he interrupted her—“nevertheless, my chief feeling now is for the morning papers. Later there will be a politely silent gauntlet of relatives, friends and business acquaintances. About the actual affair I surprise myself by not caring at all.”
“I shouldn’t care about any of it.”
“I’m rather grateful that she did it in time.”
“Why don’t you go away?” Olive leaned forward earnestly. “Go to Europe until it all blows over.”
“Blows over.” He laughed. “Things like this don’t ever blow over. A little snicker is going to follow me around the rest of my life.” He groaned. “Uncle Hamilton started right for Park Row to make the rounds of the newspaper offices. He’s a Virginian and he was unwise enough to use the old-fashioned word ’horsewhip’ to one editor. I can hardly wait to see that paper.” He broke off. “How is Mr. Castleton?”
“He’ll appreciate your coming to inquire.”
“I didn’t come about that.” He hesitated. “I came to ask you a question. I want to know if you’ll marry me in Greenwhich tomorrow morning.”
For a minute Olive fell precipitately through space; she made a strange little sound; her mouth dropped ajar.
“I know you like me,” he went on quickly. “In fact, I once imagined you loved me a little bit, if you’ll excuse the presumption. Anyhow, you’re very like a girl that once did love me, so maybe you would—” His face was pink with embarrassment, but he struggled grimly on; “anyhow, I like you enormously and whatever feeling I may have had for Emily has, I might say, flown.”
The clangor and alarm inside her was so loud that it seemed he must hear it.
“The favor you’ll be doing me will be very great,” he continued. “My heavens, I know it sounds a little crazy, but what could be crazier than the whole afternoon? You see, if you married me the papers would carry quite a different story; they’d think that Emily went off to get out of our way, and the joke would be on her after all.”
Tears of indignation came to Olive’s eyes.
“I suppose I ought to allow for your wounded egotism, but do you realize you’re
