CHAPTER XXI
A JUNE DAY
TO invite every individual in the village to the marriage of the Girl Scout Troop Captain and Mr. Winslow was not possible, and yet there were moments when Mrs. Mason insisted that this appeared to be her daughter’s idea.
On a June morning at an old stone church in Westhaven, set in a wide churchyard filled with ancient elm trees, the wedding was to take place.
Upon the day, shortly before the hour set for the ceremony, the Girl Scout Troop of the Eagle’s Wing, save the original Patrol, who were to act as bridesmaids, entered the church. They were seated in the pews toward the front, just behind the family, that had been set aside especially for them. In less than two years the number of Girl Scouts in Westhaven had increased to half a dozen patrols.
Not long after, the Boy Scouts of the village followed.
Dressed in their uniforms, later, when the other wedding guests had assembled, the Scouts formed a conspicuous note of golden brown color amid the lighter muslins and silks of the women and girls and the darker clothes of the men.
Ignoring the old difficulties which had so long separated them, Memory Frean came to the wedding accompanied by Miss Victoria Fenton and Mr. Richard Fenton. She looked very handsome in a dark-blue chiffon made over a darker shade of red and with a bunch of red roses at her waist.
Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Hammond motored down from their country place, bringing Lucy with them. More than ever the little girl looked like a gorgeous butterfly in a beautiful yellow silk gown, her white leghorn hat trimmed in a wreath of golden poppies.
Half a dozen children from the Gray House on the Hill, who had been Sheila Mason’s special friends among the younger group whom Katherine Moore had once loved and mothered, were also invited.
As a special favor, “Billy Do,” of former days, was asked to sit beside his once-adored little girl friend, “Lucy Don’t.”
A shy little boy, thin and freckled, Billy had greatly altered in the past two years. Not the slightest interest did he display in Lucy, who treated him with unexpected friendliness.
She seemed hurt and puzzled until the ceremony began and then, girl-like, forgot everything and everybody in the intensity of her excitement.
Sheila Mason was a typical June bride, fair and sweet, with a dress of pure white silk covered with a long tulle veil, and her arms filled with white roses.
The eight bridesmaids had adopted Tory Drew’s suggestion. Their dresses shaded from palest green to bronze, every tint of the beech leaf from spring to autumn. Made of tarleton, with several skirts, the uppermost one of green, the sashes and hats were of bronze. They might have been spirits from Beechwood Forest save for their very human interest in themselves, the ceremony, and the great church crowded with their own and Sheila Mason’s friends.
Save for a dozen old-time acquaintances who had come up from New York, Mr. Winslow had invited no one. He had no family save a sister, who had married and lived too far away to be present.
As Tory, with flushed cheeks and wide, dark eyes, listened to the ever-impressive words of the wedding ceremony, which she actually was hearing read in church for the first time in her life, she stared with amazed wonder at her artist friend. Was this the disappointed, half-embittered man she had met in New York City only a few brief months before? For the first time Tory was brought face to face with the change that happiness can bring to a human life.
Two hours later Tory Drew and Dorothy McClain found themselves seated side by side upon a divan in the corner of the drawing-room of Mr. and Mrs. Mason’s home.
The bride and groom had departed; only a few guests were still lingering, the intimate friends of the host and hostess.
The girls appeared weary and dispirited.
Dorothy put out her hand and touched the golden roses in the other girl’s lap.
“There is something a little depressing about a wedding, isn’t there? I wonder why? I was cheerful and happy enough this morning. I suppose it is because things are now over and Sheila and Mr. Winslow no longer here.”
She appeared uncommonly grave.
“Suppose we make a compact with each other, Tory, to keep the promise we made the other day, you, Louise, and I, never to marry.”
Laughing, Tory Drew shook her head.
She had removed her hat, and her hair was a beautiful bright red-gold rising above the pale green of her gown, the stem to some radiant, gayly-colored flower.
“I don’t consider it wise to make rash compacts. We will keep our word only if we really wish. But whatever fate overtakes us, remember ‘I am the master of my fate, I am the Captain of my soul.’
“Now suppose we gather up our possessions, say good-by and start for home.”
THE END