AT precisely eight-thirty she turned the key in the side door of the post-office building, and, hurrying to the sidewalk, almost ran along it. Twenty minutes later, when she reëntered the yard, she was not alone. She was shooing before her, as she might have shooed a stray chicken, a thin young man, who wore eyeglasses and whose cheeks were ornamented with a pair of sidewhiskers of the kind much affected at that date by theological students or youths active in the Y. M. C. A. The irreverent laity called such whiskers “fire escapes.”
The young man was the Reverend Mr. Barstow and he was the newly called minister of the Baptist chapel in Harniss. He had lived in the village less than a month. Consequently his acquaintance in the community was limited and his awe of the great Foster Townsend not yet overpowering. Reliance had chosen him with this fact in mind. Mr. Colton, the big mogul’s own parson, would have found some excuse for refusing to marry a niece of that mogul to any one, without being first assured of his patron’s presence or consent. To suggest that he perform a ceremony uniting her to a grandson of Elisha Cook would have been like suggesting that he commit suicide.
But the Reverend Mr. Barstow was not aware that he was being shooed into danger by the bustling, energetic woman behind him. He was young and callow and innocent and, although the haste with which he had been dragged from his study in the parsonage seemed peculiar, the thought of the fee he was to receive was very pleasing. It was his first wedding in Harniss. There had been two funerals, but funerals were not remunerative.
Miss Clark ushered him into the little sitting-room. Bob and Esther were there. Both were rather pale and nervous, Esther especially so. Neither had before met the new minister and Reliance performed the introductions. Then she turned to Griffin.
“Did you get it?” she asked, breathlessly. “Would he give it to you?”
Bob produced from his pocket a folded document.
“I got it, finally,” he said, with a smile. “It took considerable persuasion and an extra five dollar bill, but here it is.”
Reliance glanced it over. “Seems to be all right,” she observed. “I’ve never had any experience with such things, but I guess it is.”
“Oh, it is. When I gave him Esther’s name you should have seen his eyes open. He all but refused then. To hear him talk you would have thought Captain Townsend was—”
“Sshh!” hastily and with a glance at the minister. “Well then, I guess we are all ready to go ahead. Where do you want them to stand, Mr. Barstow? Or had you rather be married in the parlor, Esther?”
Esther shook her head. “No, Auntie,” she said. “I like this room better. It is more like home than the parlor to me. If Bob—or you—don’t mind I had rather it were here.”
Bob, of course, did not mind and said so. Reliance glanced about the apartment.
“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “I wish I had had time to pick up a little and to get a few flowers—or somethin’. But there! I haven’t had time to get my breath scarcely, have I? Is everything ready? Then I guess you can go right ahead, Mr. Barstow.”
The reverend gentleman—he had already examined the marriage certificate which Griffin handed him—stepped forward. Bob and Esther stood facing him. Reliance stood further back, in the shadow.
It was, of course, the simplest of ceremonies. And soon over. The minister’s prayer was longer than all the rest. As he prayed Reliance stepped back farther and farther from the lamplight. The tears were streaming down her face, but she wiped them hastily away and at the “Amen” ran forward, beaming, her hands outstretched. She threw her arms about the bride’s neck and kissed her.
“The Lord bless you, dear,” she cried. “I hope he’ll bless both of you always. And I know he will. Young man,” turning to Bob, “I’m goin’ to kiss you, too. I’m an old maid and, if I can’t go to my own weddin’, I expect to be kissed at other folks’s.... There!”
Mr. Barstow lingered but a few minutes. To tell the entire truth he received no pressing invitation to remain. After he had gone Reliance turned to the wedded pair.
“I don’t want to hurry you a bit,” she said. “Heaven knows I don’t! But it is almost ten o’clock and—well, if anybody should come here to-night, they had better not find you. It will be just as easy to explain after you have gone as before. You know what I mean, of course.”
It was evident that they did. Griffin nodded.
“I am perfectly willing to explain—to Captain Townsend or any one else,” he said, emphatically. “And so is Esther. We are not ashamed of what we have done.”
Esther was looking at her aunt. She understood, perhaps even more clearly than did Bob, the thought in Reliance’s mind. She knew what sort of scene would follow Foster Townsend’s arrival.
“Oh, Auntie,” she cried, distressfully, “this is terrible for you. If we go away before—before he comes—you will have to tell him, and he will blame you, and—and— No, I can’t let you. I won’t. Bob and I will stay—and wait.”
Reliance shook her head. “Indeed you will not wait,” she declared. “There is nothing to be gained by it. What is done is done, and nobody,” with a momentary smile, “even the great Panjamdrum of this part of creation can change it.... Besides,” she added, with a sudden shake in her voice, “I want somethin’ pleasant to remember when I think of this evenin’. I have seen you married, Esther, and I want to see you and—how queer it seems to say that—your husband leave this house happy. I don’t want to remember your leavin’ it in the middle of a fight. Don’t worry about me. The letter you have written your uncle will tell him almost everything and I shall tell him the rest.... There! Now you must go. Bob, go out and get your horse and buggy.”
Bob went. When he reëntered the sitting-room, he found that Miss Clark had cleared a space on the center table and had placed thereon three plates, three glasses of milk, and a chocolate cake.
“I almost forgot that you two hadn’t had a mouthful to eat since dinner,” she explained. “I haven’t either, but I’d forgotten that, too. I only wish I could offer you somethin’ worth while, but I haven’t got it and there isn’t time, anyway. I baked this cake yesterday. It is a real nice receipt, but I was in a hurry and it fell in the bakin’. I’m ashamed to give it to you, but it’s somethin’, anyhow.... Oh, I know you don’t feel like eatin’. Neither do I, so far as that goes. But I’ll eat a piece of your weddin’ cake if I choke with every swallow. So must you. Please!”
So they ate a little of the cake and drank the milk. Then Reliance shooed them, as she had shooed the Reverend Barstow, out to the buggy which Bob had brought to the door. He shook hands with her.
“I can’t thank you for what you have done, Miss Clark,” he began, “but—”
She interrupted. “You can stop callin’ me Miss Clark,” she declared. “That’s one thing you can do. I’m your Aunt Reliance now, same as I am Esther’s, and I shan’t let you forget it. Take good care of her, won’t you? She’s a precious girl and you are a lucky young man.”
The parting with Esther was harder for them both. Reliance tried her best to make it cheerful.
“There, there, dearie,” she said, as Esther sobbed on her shoulder, “don’t cry—don’t cry. You have done the right thing, you’ve got a good husband and I know you are goin’ to be happy. Write to me often, won’t you? Just as soon as you get to Boston and again as soon as you know what your plans are. And be sure and tell me where to write you.... Now don’t cry any more.”
Bob helped his wife into the buggy. From its seat she leaned down for a final word.
“Auntie,” she begged, “you will tell Uncle Foster why I did this, won’t you? You will tell him I do love him and—”
“Yes, yes. I’ll tell him everything. And I’ll see that he gets your letter.... Good-by. God bless you both.... Be sure and write me to-morrow from Boston.... Good-by.”
The buggy rolled out of the yard. She stood there, looking and listening. She heard Bob get down, open the big gate, close it behind the carriage. Then the sound of the horse’s hoofs moved off up the road.
Reliance waited until the sound died away. Then she turned and reëntered the sitting-room. Sitting down in the rocker, she laid her arms upon the center table, beside the empty glasses and the plate of cake, dropped her head upon them—and wept.