Papa's own girl: A novel

Mrs. Forest was in her element preparing for the “show,” as the doctor called the marriage ceremonies; but Albert won her heart by agreeing with her in everything, orange-blossoms, church, and all. Discussing the matter over for the twentieth time, she reproached her husband for his imbuing Clara with his odd notions, and contrasted them with the love of proper and conventional proceedings, which characterized the future son-in-law.

“I wonder at him,” said the doctor, with some impatience. “He is the only sensible man I ever knew who liked that sort of vulgar show. Men generally submit because it pleases women; but to my eyes a young woman conventionally gotten up as a bride, simply suggests a victim tricked out for sacrifice.”

“How dreadful you are, doctor! You have such monstrous ideas; but I did hope Clara would be sensible.”

“Oh, I’m going to be sensible, mamma dear. Albert is satisfied, and I shall offer no further resistance. I submit even to the orange-blossoms, though I can’t bear their oppressing odor. Papa has had his way about the Unitarian minister, who has no church here, and so I shall escape that part of the show, as papa calls it. There’ll be no kissing the bride either, for that is a vulgar custom, no longer tolerated among refined people. I wonder where the custom came from?”

“It is not easy to say where any custom originated. This one can be traced back to feudal times, when the lord of the manor had the first-fruits of everything, and took the brides home to himself for a time, and the bridegroom was forced to submit.”

“Of course, they did not consult the bride at all,” said Clara.

“No,” replied the doctor. “That slaves have no rights which their masters are bound to respect, is a logical deduction from the doctrine that slavery is right. Women are beginning to see that they are slaves in one sense. They are not permitted, legally or morally, to dispose of their affections according to their tastes. When a man assassinates one whom his wife regards too favorably to please him, he is generally acquitted by the courts. Common sense would show that the wife had sufficient interest in the matter to be consulted; but honor does not admit her rights.”

“That is perfectly right,” said Mrs. Forest. “If a married woman so far forgets the duty she owes to society as to fall in love with any one, she deserves no voice in anything.”

“That is simply the spirit of the inquisition, Fannie, and nothing else. I have always admitted the importance of facts, in my reasoning. Now, some of the best women in the world, and I believe the majority of all that ever lived, have been attracted, in a greater or less degree, by other men than their husbands. What will you do with the facts?”

“If any sensible woman is so unfortunate,” said Mrs. Forest, “she never acknowledges it—never admits it, even to herself, that she loves in any improper way. She can do this at least.”

“There you go again, Fannie! measuring the world with your six-inch rule. If the world don’t square with your measurements, so much the worse for the world. Women and men do not create themselves, nor the motives that govern them. A motive does not determine human action because it is weak, or ought to be weak, according to your measuring; it controls from the mathematical law that the strongest must prevail. Suppose the attracting power to be two and the resisting force one; you can tell beforehand what the result will be; therefore the folly of blaming in such a case.”

“I might pity a woman who listens to the promptings of an illegal affection, but I certainly should never admire her. How could I admire one so weak as not to know that by the very fact of listening to improper declarations of love, she always wins contempt, even from the man himself.”

“Not always—not by any means always. If I should love a married woman, and she should listen to my telling her of it, I should by no means despise her. I should despise her if she insulted me by supposing I wished her to do anything base or unwomanly.”

“Oh, you! You are an anomaly. You know I always count you out, when speaking of general principles. The Lord only knows how far a woman might go without being ‘unwomanly’ in your eyes.”

“Ah!” responded the doctor, with a peculiar accent, which was his way of declaring that there was no more to be said upon the subject.

On the day preceding the important event, Leila and Linnie were running here and there in a state of great excitement. They were for once thoroughly interested in everything, and especially in their own toilettes, if not in the bride’s, for they were to be two of the four bride’s-maids. Mrs. Forest had determined that everything relating to this event should be “respectable,” and she always pronounced the word with severe certainty of what it meant. To be sure, to some persons the term is vague and even unpleasant; but these were all ill-regulated minds, according to Mrs. Forest, and she pitied them. After breakfast, Clara made a long visit to Susie, cheered her by earnest protestations of continued friendship, and by promises to write often. The pretty baby was duly petted and caressed, and invited to “kiss auntie”—words of recognition always infinitely sweet to Susie’s ear. The kissing consisted in the baby’s smobbing its uneasy little wet mouth over Clara’s face; not a very satisfactory operation, one would think; but all the tender grace of the woman that had been developed by Clara’s brave friendship for poor Susie, and by the deep love she cherished for Albert, shone through the halo of happiness surrounding the brow of the morrow’s bride.

The wedding-day dawned auspiciously, and the sun shone bright and warm, though it was the middle of January. A full hour before the ceremony, the twins had the bride dressed and paraded duly before the mirrors, to see that her drapery fell with the proper grace, and that nothing was wanting. Mrs. Kendrick had sent quantities of flowers for the decoration of the parlor, and was herself to be present. Louise, finding that the affair was going to be so “nice,” cried with vexation that she had behaved so meanly to Clara.

Mrs. Forest came in just as the bride was dressed.

“Does she not look sweet, mamma,” asked Linnie.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Forest, hesitatingly; “but you are too flushed, my daughter. Let me see if your corset is not too tight. No? Well, Linnie, get her some lemonade—that is cooling.”

“Oh don’t, mamma! you distract me!” exclaimed Clara, scowling under her orange-blossoms. “I do wish no one could look at me for the next ten years. I feel so like a theatre-queen—so utterly ridiculous.”

Mrs. Forest was distressed. The twins uttered exclamations. “Why, she has not said such a word before!” said Linnie.

“No; I meant to be very good, and what mamma calls sensible, but I am so horridly nervous.”

“You are such an incomprehensible child,” remarked Mrs. Forest, severely. “You are veritably sauvage, as the French say. This, the supreme hour to all well-regulated young ladies, you seem to regard as a misfortune.”

“Well, I do. I suppose I am not a well-regulated young lady, for I hate the hot-house odor of these flowers. I hate myself, that I have submitted to make a spectacle of myself. This is the supreme hour for girls, is it? Well, I wonder that they have no more refinement.”

“What on earth do you set out to marry Dr. Delano for, I should like to know,” said Leila, concealing her crossness with difficulty.

“Because I love him, you goosey! but it don’t follow, therefore, that I like to make a guy of myself.”

“A guy! oh! oh!” exclaimed the much-tried sisters. “You never began to look anything like half so sweet before.” Mrs. Forest stood in mute bewilderment, and Clara began to relent.

“There,” she said. “It’s all over. I am sensible now, mamma—a perfect stoic. There’s papa coming!” and opening the door herself, she threw herself into his arms, and sobbed a little, though laughing at the same time. “Oh, I can’t enjoy crying one bit, papa. I’m thinking all the time of my orange-blossoms. Look, papa, and see if you haven’t crushed one of the things.”

“Well, I never saw anybody behave so!” exclaimed Leila, in disgust. “If I ever get married——”

“Your conduct will be perfectly exemplary,” interrupted the doctor, and then giving all his attention to Clara, he said, tenderly: “My poor darling! They would have it so. They don’t understand papa’s girl. Her poetry is inside, and this paraphernalia don’t fitly express it.”

“Now, doctor, you should not encourage Clara’s strange notions. There’s a carriage. I must go. Do calm the child. She is not fit to be seen.”

“That’s just true, mamma. It’s exactly what I feel.”

“All this nonsense, besides being in bad taste, is against common sense,” the doctor said, not noticing his wife’s flurry. “Marriage festivals should take place after marriage, if at all, when the union has proved a success, and there is something to rejoice over. This is like celebrating the purchase of a lottery-ticket.” Mrs. Forest left in despair. The twins bore the “coddling,” as they called the father’s tender manifestations to his favorite child, as long as they could, and then they begged him to go, as they had “only a half hour to dress”; by which they meant but a very small part of the operation, being bathed, and coiffed, and dressed already, except for the robes and veils.

“Well, go on with your dressing,” the doctor said, provokingly. “I don’t mind girls’ dressing, or undressing, for that matter. On the whole, I rather like this flummery, and I think I won’t go without a consideration.”

“I’ll give you two kisses, papa, if you’ll go this minute.”

“Oh, fie! You were always too mercenary with your favors, Leila. I’ll take the kisses, though; but not for going.”

The doctor on leaving, went to his wife’s room, where she was fuming because of his want of sense on such an occasion. “There is not ten minutes,” she said, “and you have not done one thing toward dressing.”

“Bless my soul! I never once thought of it,” he answered. “Why, I’m to put on that new claw-hammer. If I should fail to wear that, the earth’s inclination to the ecliptic would be disturbed.”

“Do, for mercy’s sake, go, if you have any regard for me.” Thus appealed to, the doctor sought his room. Once there, he surveyed the scene. Every article was carefully laid out in the most perfect order. He had only thought of the new claw-hammer, and here was evidently the preconceived design for a perfect change of every rag. Every article was placed where it should naturally come in the order of dressing. New toilet articles, scented soaps, hot water—everything silently commanding him to fall into line. First there escaped from the good doctor a smothered laugh; then a protest, and then—submission to the letter. He set about the work of rejuvenation with a perfect fury of dispatch, and when he found he should be ready in time, the spirit of fun seized him. He kept opening his door and bawling to his wife his distress at a thousand imaginary oversights and delinquencies. Once he declared she had forgotten his “pouncet box,” then his “hoops,” his “chignon,” his “chemisette,” his “gored waistcoat,” and lastly, in an agony, he called for tweezers, pretending he had discovered one hair too many in his “back hair.” But finally he emerged radiant, and sought Clara at once. “Behold me, my daughter!” he said in a tragic voice, applying a delicate, scented pocket handkerchief to his lips. “Are you resigned to your fate now?”

“Why, we thought you were crazy, papa,” said Clara; “but how quickly you have performed all this change. I must say you are looking magnificent. You are one of the very few men I ever saw, who look well in a dresscoat.”

“Well, I came to you for sympathy. Is this my reward?”

“I can’t pity you in the least, papa; you are too sweet.”

“Yes, I am,” he said, sniffing the perfume of his fine handkerchief. “Here, take this, Linnie. I must go and see if I can’t find a handkerchief that will not make me smell so much like a lady’s maid.”

Leila and Linnie both laughed. “You’ll have to smell sweet to-day, papa,” they said, “for mamma has kept all your clothes in a drawer with a perfume sachet, these two weeks!” He left the room to a perfect chorus of laughter, and a few minutes later might have been seen in his study, diligently puffing at his pipe, first for his own comfort, and then to do what he could, at that late hour, to render negative the effect of Mrs. Forest’s sachets.

Notwithstanding all the perturbation of Mrs. Forest, the whole “show” went off in the most perfect order, and without the slightest “impropriety” of any kind. Clara was not flushed, like a hoydenish country bride, but looked very pale and “interesting;” while the bridegroom, in every word and motion, was perfection itself in her eyes, no less than in Clara’s, though judged from a very different standpoint.