Chapter 19

The day was fresh, with a spring wind full of dust. The old ladies wore faded dark furs and white furs yellowed with age.

A sharp storage smell rose from the front pews, the long wooden church seats. It came from powder used to protect stored furs. It almost covered the faint spring smell of lilies. These tall white flowers stood high around the altar, the church's holy table.

At a signal, Archer left the small side room. He stood before the altar in Grace Church, beside his best man. This friend helped the bridegroom, the man being married.

The signal meant May's brougham was in sight. But no bride, or woman being married, came straight in. She and her father would stop for changes and advice. There the bridesmaids already floated like Easter flowers.

Custom put the bridegroom on show during this wait. He stood before all the guests to prove his eagerness. Archer accepted this ancient-looking New York wedding rite.

Everything before him seemed equally easy, or equally painful. He obeyed his worried best man. Years earlier, Archer had guided other bridegrooms through this same winding path.

So far, he met every duty. Eight bouquets of white flowers and lilies-of-the-valley went to the bridesmaids. The eight ushers, who seated guests, received gold sleeve-buttons with deep blue stones. The best man received a cat's-eye pin.

Archer spent half the night thanking friends and former loves for gifts. He tried to give each note different words.

The best man held money for the Bishop, a chief church minister, and the Rector. Archer's bags and travelling clothes waited at Mrs. Mingott's, where breakfast would follow.

A private train room waited for the couple. It would carry them to an unknown place. No one could know their wedding-night stop. Hiding it was a sacred, ancient rule.

"Got the ring all right?" whispered young van der Luyden Newland. His new duty as best man frightened him.

Archer made the usual bridegroom's movement. His bare right hand felt inside his dark grey waistcoat. The gold ring was there. Inside were the words: _Newland to May, April __, 187_._

He faced the church door, holding his tall hat and pearl-grey gloves with black thread.

Handel's March rolled under the false-stone roof. Its waves carried faded memories of many weddings. Archer once watched other brides float toward other bridegrooms from this step.

"How like a first night at the Opera!" he thought. The same faces sat in the same boxes. No, the same pews.

At the world's end, would Mrs. Selfridge Merry still wear those tall feathers? Would Mrs. Beaufort keep her diamonds and smile? Did the next world already hold good seats for them?

He studied the front rows. Curiosity sharpened the women's faces. The men looked cross about wearing formal coats before lunch. Soon they must fight through the crowd for breakfast food.

Archer imagined Reggie Chivers saying, "Too bad breakfast is at old Catherine's. Lovell's cook will prepare it, so it should be good."

He imagined Sillerton Jackson adding, "My dear fellow, haven't you heard? They will use small tables, in the new English fashion."

His mother sat on the left, crying under her Chantilly lace veil. Mr. Henry van der Luyden brought her in. Her hands rested in her grandmother's white fur muff.

"Poor Janey!" he thought. Even by turning around, she saw only the plain Newlands and Dagonets in front.

A white band marked the family seats. Tall, red-faced Beaufort studied the women proudly. His wife wore shining grey fur and purple flowers. Across the band, Lawrence Lefferts guarded "Good Form," the unseen god of the rite.

How many faults would Lefferts find? Archer too once thought such questions important.

His old concerns now seemed like children playing at life. They resembled ancient scholars fighting over words no one understood.

Before the wedding, adults fought over showing the gifts. Archer could not believe such a small matter upset them.

Mrs. Welland ended it with angry tears. "I would as soon turn newspaper reporters loose in my house." The gifts stayed hidden.

Archer once fought over such questions too. Every custom of his tribe, his small closed group, had seemed important to the whole world.

"And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things were happening to them ..."

"There they come!" the best man whispered excitedly. But the bridegroom knew better.

The church door opened carefully. Mr. Brown, the horse keeper, was studying the scene before ordering his forces. Today he also served as church helper, dressed in black.

The door closed softly again. Then, after another wait, it swung open in a grand way. A low sound of voices ran through the church: "The family!"

Mrs. Welland came first, on her eldest son's arm. Her large pink face was serious. People approved her purple-red satin, pale blue panels, and blue feathers.

She settled into the pew opposite Mrs. Archer's with a slow, grand sound of satin. Before she sat, every watcher stretched to see who followed.

The day before, wild stories ran through the town. Old Mrs. Manson Mingott, people said, meant to be present at the wedding, in spite of her failing body. The plan was so like her bold, sporting spirit that bets ran high at the clubs. Could she walk up the church and squeeze herself into a seat?

It was known that she sent her own workman to the church. He was told to see if the end panel of the front pew could come out. He measured the space between the seat and the front. But the answer gave no hope.

For one anxious day, her family watched her play with another plan. She might be rolled up the middle of the church in her enormous wheeled chair. There she would sit, like a queen in state, at the foot of the altar steps.

Her family hated this public show. Then someone found the chair was too wide for the covered path outside. The cloth cover ran from church to street. Her family would gladly have covered that person with gold.

Only taking down the cover would solve this. Outside, dressmakers and reporters fought to see the bride. Even old Catherine would not face them, though she considered it.

Mrs. Welland heard the plan. "They might photograph my child and put it _in the papers_!" The whole tribe drew back in shame.

The old mother gave in, but demanded the wedding breakfast under her roof. Washington Square cousins complained. The Wellands lived nearby, but now Brown would charge for the distant drive.

The Jacksons spread every detail. Some still expected old Catherine. When her daughter-in-law appeared instead, the crowd's excitement cooled like the air.

Mrs. Lovell Mingott's new dress made her face red and her eyes glassy. Still, people approved her black Chantilly lace over pale purple satin. Her purple flowers contrasted well with Mrs. Welland's colors.

Far different was the lady who followed on Mr. Mingott's arm. She was thin and bony, and she stepped along in small, dancing steps. She came in a wild storm of stripes and hanging threads and floating scarves. As this last strange figure floated into view, Archer's heart tightened and stopped beating.

He thought the Marchioness was still in Washington with Madame Olenska. They went there four weeks earlier.

Ellen wanted her aunt away from Dr. Carver's dangerous talk. He nearly drew Medora into the Valley of Love. No one expected either woman at the wedding.

Archer stared at Medora and searched behind her. But the line ended. The other family members were already seated.

The eight tall ushers were already slipping through the side doors into the entrance hall. They drew together as they went, like birds or insects preparing some great seasonal flight.

"Newland, I say, _she's here!_" the best man whispered.

Archer woke with a start. His heart seemed to have stopped for a long time. The pink and white bridesmaids were already halfway up the church. White sleeves made the Bishop's two helpers look winged. Spohr's first notes fell before May like flowers.

Archer opened his eyes. But were they really shut before, as he imagined? He felt his heart take up its usual work again.

Music and lilies filled the church. May's cloud of white cloth and orange flowers came nearer. Mrs. Archer cried with joy. The Rector spoke his blessing. Pink bridesmaids and black ushers moved in order.

Every one of these sights and sounds was familiar. Yet in his new relation to them, they were strange past all words, and empty of meaning. They ran together in a mist inside his brain.

"My God," he thought, "_have_ I got the ring?" And once more he made the bridegroom's sudden, shaking movement of the hand.

Then, in a moment, May was beside him. Such light streamed from her that a little of its warmth reached him through his frozen feeling. He straightened himself and smiled into her eyes.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here ..." the Rector began.

The ring reached her hand, and the Bishop blessed them. The bridesmaids formed their line. The organ, the church's great music instrument, began Mendelssohn's March. No New York couple left church without it.

"Your arm, _give her your arm!_" young Newland whispered. Archer returned from far away. Perhaps a dark coil of hair among the strangers sent him there.

The hat turned, showing an unknown woman with a long nose. She looked nothing like Ellen. Was Archer starting to see things that were not there?

Now he and his wife walked slowly down the middle of the church. The light waves of the Mendelssohn March carried them forward. The spring day called to them through the wide open doors.

At the far end of the cloth tunnel, Mrs. Welland's tall red-brown horses danced and showed themselves off. Each horse wore a big white cloth flower on its head-band, in honour of the wedding.

The footman wore a still bigger white cloth flower on his coat. He wrapped May's white cloak about her, and Archer jumped into the brougham at her side. She turned to him with a smile full of victory, and their hands found each other under her veil.

"Darling!" Archer said. The same black abyss, a bottomless hole, opened before him. He sank deeper while his voice ran on cheerfully.

"Yes, of course I thought I'd lost the ring," the voice was saying. "No wedding would be complete without that. The poor devil of a bridegroom must always go through it. But you _did_ keep me waiting, you know! I had time to think of every terrible thing that might happen."

She surprised him on Fifth Avenue. Before everyone, she threw her arms around his neck. "But nothing can happen now, can it, Newland, while we are together?"

Every detail was planned. After breakfast, they changed clothes and came down the Mingott stairs. Laughing bridesmaids and crying parents threw rice and satin shoes over their brougham.

They reached the station early and bought papers like old travellers. May's maid put her grey cloak and shining new London bag in their private train room.

The old du Lac aunts offered their Rhinebeck house. This let them visit Mrs. Archer in New York for a week. Archer gladly avoided a hotel "bridal suite," rooms for newly married couples.

May loved the country plan. The bridesmaids failed to discover their hiding place, and their vain efforts amused her.

To have a country house lent to one was thought "very English." The fact gave a last fine touch to what everyone called the most brilliant wedding of the year.

Only their parents knew the house. When asked, they said, "Ah, they didn't tell us..." This was true because they already knew.

The train passed the city's endless wooden houses and entered the pale spring country. Talk came more easily than Archer expected.

May remained yesterday's simple girl. She discussed the wedding as calmly as a bridesmaid with an usher.

Archer thought her calm hid fear. Her clear eyes showed only peaceful unawareness. She trusted him completely. Her husband still seemed yesterday's charming friend.

She liked and trusted no one more. Their delightful adventure now reached its height. She travelled alone with him, finally a grown "married woman."

Her deep feeling lived beside no imagination. He saw both in the Mission garden. Once her conscience felt free, she became a simple girl again.

She would meet each event honestly and fully. But she would never look ahead.

Perhaps unawareness made her eyes clear and her face less personal. She resembled Civic Virtue, public goodness in stone, or a Greek goddess.

Blood showed under her fair skin. It seemed not like fire, but a liquid keeping her forever fresh.

Her lasting youth seemed neither hard nor dull. She looked primitive and pure, untouched and simple.

Archer suddenly saw her like a stranger. He escaped into memories of breakfast. Granny Mingott ruled the feast from her great chair, huge and victorious.

May enjoyed the subject. "Weren't you surprised aunt Medora came? Ellen wrote that both were ill. I wish Ellen got well instead! Did you see her beautiful old lace?"

He knew this moment must come, but hoped his will could hold it off.

"Yes, I, no. Yes, it was beautiful," he said blindly. Would his careful world fall like a house of cards each time he heard "Ellen"?

"Aren't you tired? Tea will be good when we arrive. The aunts will have everything ready," he said, taking her hand.

Her mind rushed to the Beauforts' grand Baltimore silver. It "went" perfectly with uncle Lovell Mingott's dishes.

At spring twilight, the train stopped at Rhinebeck. They walked to the waiting carriage.

"How kind! The van der Luydens sent their man from Skuytercliff," Archer cried. A serious servant without uniform took their bags.

"I'm sorry, sir," the man said. "The Miss du Lacs' water tank leaked yesterday. Mr. van der Luyden heard today and sent a housemaid to prepare the Patroon's house."

"It will be comfortable, sir. The Miss du Lacs sent their cook, so it will be just like Rhinebeck."

Archer stared blankly. The man repeated with deeper apology, "It will be exactly the same, sir. I promise."

May covered the silence. "The Patroon's house? It will be a hundred thousand times better! How kind of Mr. van der Luyden!"

They drove off, with the maid beside the driver and their shining wedding bags on the seat before them. May went on excitedly.

"I've never been inside. Have you? The van der Luydens show so few people. They opened it for Ellen. She called it the only American house where she could be perfectly happy."

"That is what we will be, isn't it?" her husband cried. She gave her boyish smile. "Our wonderful luck together is only beginning!"