The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor Part 10

"Sir Feal!" echoed Phil, in amazement.

"Oh, I forgot that you don't know the Princess play. I meant Mister Malcolm. While so many people were in here congratulating us and shaking hands, I heard him say something to her in an undertone, and then he sang sort of under his breath, you know, so that n.o.body else but me heard him, that verse from the play:

"'Go bid the Princess in the tower Forget all thought of sorrow.

Her true love will return to her With joy on some glad morrow.'

"Then he bent over her and said still lower, 'By _my_ calendar it's the glad morrow _now_, Princess.'

"He went on just like he was in the play, you know. I suppose they have rehea.r.s.ed it so much that it is sort of second nature for them to talk in that old-time way, like kings and queens used to do."

"Maybe," answered Phil. "Then what did _she_ say?" he demanded, frowning.

"I don't know. She walked off toward the house with him, and that's the last I saw of them. Why, what's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing!" he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Nothing's the matter, little Vicar. _Let us keep inflexible, and fortune will at last change in our favor._"

"Now whatever did he mean by that!" exclaimed Mary, as she watched him walk away. It puzzled her all the rest of the evening that he should have met her question with the family motto.

CHAPTER IX.

"SOMETHING BLUE"

A rainy day followed the lawn fete, such a steady pour that little rivers ran down the window-panes, and the porches had to be abandoned.

But n.o.body lamented the fact that they were driven indoors. Rob and Joyce began a game of chess in the library. Lloyd and Phil turned over the music in the cabinet until they found a pile of duets which they both knew, and began to try them, first to the accompaniment of the piano, then the harp.

Mary, sitting in the hall where she could see both the chess-players and the singers, waited in a state of bliss to be summoned to the sewing-room. Only that morning it had been discovered that there was enough pink chiffon left, after the bridesmaids' gowns were completed, to make her a dress, and the seamstress was at work upon it now. So it was a gay, rose-colored world to Mary this morning, despite the leaden skies and pouring rain outside. Not only was she to have a dress, the material for which had actually been brought from Paris, but she was to have little pink satin slippers like the bridesmaids, and she was to have a proud place in the wedding itself. When the bridal party came down the stairs, it was to be her privilege to swing wide the gate of roses for them to pa.s.s through.

Joyce had designed the gate. It was to be a double one, swung in the arch between the hall and the drawing-room, and it would take hundreds of roses to make it, the florist said.

In Mary's opinion the office of gate-opener was more to be desired than that of bridesmaid. As she sat listening to the music, curled up in a big hall chair like a contented kitten, she decided that there was n.o.body in all the world with whom she would change places. There had been times when she would have exchanged gladly with Joyce, thinking of the artist career ahead of her, or with Betty, who was sure to be a famous author some day, or with Lloyd, who seemed to have everything that heart could wish, or with Eugenia with all her lovely presents and trousseau and the new home on the Hudson waiting for her. But just now she was so happy that she wouldn't even have stepped into a fairy-tale.

Presently, through the dripping window-panes, she saw Alec plodding up the avenue under an umbrella, his pockets bulging with mail packages, papers, and letters. Betty, at her window up-stairs, saw him also, and came running down the steps, followed by Eugenia. The old Colonel, hearing the call, "The mail's here," opened the door of his den, and joined the group in the hall where Betty proceeded to sort out the letters. A registered package from Stuart was the first thing that Eugenia tore open, and the others looked up from their letters at her pleased exclamation:

"Oh, it's the charms for the bride's cake!"

"Ornaments for the top?" asked Rob, as she lifted the layer of jeweller's cotton and disclosed a small gold thimble, and a narrow wedding-ring.

"No! Who ever heard of such a thing!" she laughed. "Haven't you heard of the traditional charms that must be baked in a bride's cake? It is a token of the fate one may expect who finds it in his slice of cake.

Eliot taught me the old rhyme:

"'Four tokens must the bridescake hold: A silver s.h.i.+lling and a ring of gold, A crystal charm good luck to symbol, And for the spinster's hand a thimble.'

"Eliot firmly believes that the tokens are a prophecy, for years ago, at her cousin's wedding in England, she got the spinster's thimble. The girl who found the ring was married within the year, and the one who found the s.h.i.+lling shortly came into an inheritance. True, it didn't amount to much,--about five pounds,--but the coincidence firmly convinced Eliot of the truth of the superst.i.tion. In this country people usually take a dime instead of a s.h.i.+lling, but I told Stuart that I wanted to follow the custom strictly to the letter. And look what a dear he is! Here is a _bona fide_ English s.h.i.+lling, that he took the trouble to get for me."

Phil took up the bit of silver she had placed beside the thimble and the ring, and looked it over critically. "Well, I'll declare!" he exclaimed.

"That was Aunt Patricia's old s.h.i.+lling! I'd swear to it. See the way the hole is punched, just between those two ugly old heads? And I remember the dent just below the date. Looks as if some one had tried to bite it.

Aunt Patricia used to keep it in her treasure-box with her gold beads and other keepsakes."

The old Colonel, who had once had a fad for collecting coins, and owned a large a.s.sortment, held out his hand for it. Adjusting his gla.s.ses, he examined it carefully. "Ah! Most interesting," he observed. "Coined in the reign of 'b.l.o.o.d.y Mary,' and bearing the heads of Queen Mary and King Philip. You remember this s.h.i.+lling is mentioned in Butler's 'Hudibras:'

"'Still amorous and fond and billing, Like Philip and Mary on a s.h.i.+lling.'

"You couldn't have a more appropriate token for your cake, my dear," he said to Eugenia with a smile. Then he laid it on the table, and taking up his papers, pa.s.sed back into his den.

"That's the first time I ever heard my name in a poem," said Phil. "By rights I ought to draw that s.h.i.+lling in my share of cake. If I do I shall take it as a sign that history is going to repeat itself, and shall look around for a ladye-love named Mary. Now I know a dozen songs with that name, and such things always come in handy when 'a frog he would a-wooing go,' There's 'My Highland Mary' and 'Mary of Argyle,'

and 'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,' and 'Mary, call the cattle home, across the sands of Dee!'"

As he rattled thoughtlessly on, nothing was farther from his thoughts than the self-conscious little Mary just behind him. n.o.body saw her face grow red, however, for Lloyd's exclamation over the last token made every one crowd around her to see.

It was a small heart-shaped charm of crystal, probably intended for a watch-fob. There was a four-leaf clover, somehow mysteriously imbedded in the centre.

"That ought to be doubly lucky," said Eugenia. "Oh, _what_ a dear Stuart was to take so much trouble to get the very nicest things. They couldn't be more suitable."

"Eugenia," asked Betty, "have you thought of that other rhyme that brides always consider? You know you should wear

"'Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue.'"

"Yes, Eliot insisted on that, too. The whole outfit will, itself, be something new, the lace that was on my mother's wedding-gown will be the something old. I thought I'd borrow a hairpin apiece from you girls, and I haven't decided yet about the something blue."

"No," objected Lloyd. "The borrowed articles ought to be something really valuable. Let me lend you my little pearl clasps to fasten your veil, and then for the something blue, there is your turquoise b.u.t.terfly. You can slip it on somewhere, undah the folds of lace."

"What a lot of fol-de-rol there is about a wedding," said Rob. "As if it made a particle of difference whether you wear pink or green! _Why_ must it be blue?"

There was an indignant protest from all the girls, and Rob made his escape to the library, calling to Joyce to come and finish the game of chess.

That evening, Mary, sitting on the floor of the library in front of the Poets' Corner, took down volume after volume to scan its index. She was looking for the songs Phil had mentioned, which contained her name. At the same time she also kept watch for the name of Philip. She remembered she had read some lines one time about "Philip my King."

As she pored over the poems in the dim light, for only the shaded lamp on the central table was burning, she heard steps on the porch outside.

The rain had stopped early in the afternoon, and the porches had dried so that the hammocks and chairs could be put out again. Now voices sounded just outside the window where she sat, and the creaking of a screw in the post told that some one was sitting in the hammock.

Evidently it was Lloyd, for Phil's voice sounded nearer the window. He had seated himself in the armchair that always stood in that niche, and was tuning a guitar. As soon as it was keyed up to his satisfaction, he began thrumming on it, a sort of running accompaniment to their conversation.

It did not occur to Mary that she was eavesdropping, for they were talking of impersonal things, just the trifles of the hour; and she caught only a word now and then as she scanned the story of Enoch Arden.

The name Philip, in it, had arrested her attention.

"I think the maid of honor ought to wear something blue as well as the bride," remarked Phil.

"_Why?_" asked Lloyd.

There was such a long pause that Mary looked up, wondering why he did not answer.

"_Why?_" asked Lloyd again.

Phil thrummed on a moment longer, and then began playing in a soft minor key, and his answer, when it finally came, seemed at first to have no connection with what he had been talking about.