University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
SOMEDAY—A CHAPTER YOU WILL SLIGHT.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 494EAF. Page 160. In-line Illustration. Decorative chapter head. Image of two birds surrounded by ivy.]

SOMEDAY came in midwinter, when the
ground was covered with snow, and nature's
heart seemed very cold. It came
on a Sabbath day. Far and near the sky was
muffled in gray, woolly clouds, like a sentinel
who found it severe out of doors.

There was no outward glory added to Some-day.
Grace Church—which had taken great
interest in Helen Dimmock's affairs latterly—
was astonished that she came to church this
morning, played for service, then went quietly
down-stairs to meet her lover and her adopted
son at the foot, and was led before the altar
to be married in nothing more gorgeous than
white muslin and white rosebuds.

She might have ordered a robe from Babylon,
and all the cymbals which society ever clashes
on such occasions. Bridesmaids and best men
there were in plenty, and people stood ready to
rush to her “reception” and criticise all its
appointments. But she issued no invitations.

She did not even tell Grace Church on what
date her Someday would fall. But when it
came, and Launt brought her to church with his
heart and face full of what he could not speak,
she was ready with a more beautiful preparation
than Grace Church usually saw in its brides.

She loved the pretty vanities of dress, and
now that she could afford them, would have
them in abundance and wear them with grace;
but she wanted her marriage to be more inward
than outward.

And so it was that Grace Church forgot to
count her flounces, to notice the number of buttons
on her glove, in the absorbing sympathy
which Launt and she awakened while they knelt,
holding each other's hands and making sweet,
firm promises. George stood near—not separated
from them even by the marriage rite—his
chubby hands folded behind him and his chubby
face full of speculation on the meaning of these
things.

So he, Lancelot, took her, Helen, to be his
wedded wife—to love, protect, cherish her
through evil report and good report; for better,
for worse.

And in the same way she, Helen, took him,
Lancelot, to be her husband.

No rustle of bridal satin, nor posing of bridesmaids,
nor glitter of shining things covered the
wedding from the eyes and hearts of them that
looked.

When the ring was put upon Helen's hand
and the benediction on both their heads, and
they rose up before the congregation, made one
in life as they had before been in love and aims,
Grace Church did them reverence, and was better
pleased with their pageant after all than if it
had been a loud one.

The two Misses Stokesbury-Jones, who were
engaged to theological students, made up their
secret minds to be married in just that way; and
their mamma pursed up her mouth to hold
back the emotion of her woman's heart, and had
no criticisms to make.

Up-gallery—where people unaccustomed to
Grace Church were gathered in costumes evidently
just from the old clothes-shops—there
was an audible snuffling and a half-murmur of
blessing.

The organ, under strange hands, burst into
a joyful march. Launt took his wife on his
arm and his adopted son by the hand. So
they went out between seas of earnest faces
which looked on them to love them, with that
quick love which we call admiration. For he
was so upright and fine of face, and she who
leaned on his arm, and looked made for all the
delicate uses of womanhood, looked also capable
of holding that arm up instead of burdening
it.

In the organ loft Billy Sinks pumped both
the instrument and his sympathetic nose. He

wanted to be down in the vestibule, wringing
Helen's hand instead of either, and grinning up
joyfully into her husband's face. But this was
the last sacrifice and service he could offer her,
perhaps, and he would stand at his post in spite
of his tremors.

They went under the gray, woolly sky, got
into their carriage, and went home.

The small house was full of warmth and gladness.
Rikka, in a gown cut with astonishing
angles and adorned by the reddest of ribbons,
grinned delightedly at them from the dining-room,
where she was bringing up a sumptuous
banquet. They shook her hands—those two
big children—they appeared to go about shaking
hands with everything in the familiar room.

On this day the faces over the mantel wore a
white garland untouched with black. Then
Launt and his wife sat in their usual places before
the grate, and George lay on the floor at
Helen's feet. Though they talked little they
were thinking rapidly, and they half-disregarded
the chatter of the small boy, who was full of
what he had seen.

They were thinking of the wide home place
they would build very soon, and of the warm,
true, social life they would bring into it; of the
travel and pleasant luxuries they might have as
soon as they desired; of their very independence
of wealth; for either of them could drop
that Aladdin's lamp and rub bread and butter

and a few et cæteras out of his own exertions at
any time.

They were thinking of Launt's aims in journalism
and general literature. They were glad
of the leisure he would have to mature his
thoughts; for because his drawing-room was to
be full of elegance his office was not to be full of
cobwebs. Stanthorne had not married an heiress
to sit by her fire.

They were thinking of what they would do
for the child, worse than orphaned, whom they
had taken unto themselves. And they were
thinking how dear a Sabbath wedding was, and
wondering why everybody who had such promises
to make didn't go quietly to church and
make them on Sunday.

Ah, life looked just begun, then. They were
sitting at the foot of the hill, contemplating it
in the most prosaic fashion possible, as they
thought. They were accustomed to being together,
but at the beginning of this new being
together they tried to see everything in a practical
light.

However, Launt the dreamer could not resist
gathering her face in his hands, and fancying
what she would be to him when worse came after
the better. A pencil of sunshine struck light
across her forehead, she laughed in his face, but
catching his thought, dreamed it out with him.

The curves of their young faces would shrink;
they should see each other less clearly: strength

would shrivel out of their hands. Oh, these
things were sad to think of on their wedding
morning, till they remembered and exchanged
the joy of the thought that those marks in their
faces would only be the grooves of cords drawing
them closer together; that the failing eyes and
hands of one would supplement the failing eyes
and hands of the other, making them more
compactly one—though, who knew whether
they might not fall in the rush and dew of their
strength? It would make no difference. They
were on a march TOGETHER.

And right across their soldierly meditations
came Rikka's call—that call which falls pleasantly
even upon the ears of a commander-in-chief—that

“Dinner vos been ready.”

So my Real Woman, my faulty but my true
Helen Dimmock, marches on. She is alive.
Her heart throbs near you.

If you need aid—in your living or enduring—
reach out toward her, and her heart and hands
will leap to help you. If you need stirring out
of a stagnant, foul life, dare only to look up in
her brave face and she will stir you!

She came into the world and groped till she
found her place. Having found it she began to
live, and she will live forever.

God sent her hard work and sorrow. He
also sent her love and good gifts.

But had He sent her nothing except the hard

work and sorrow, she would have marched on
just as she does now, under His eye, doing and
giving her best, and proving to them that see,
that woman is no helpless, weakling species of
the genus man, but an independent, a cherishing,
a strong, a daring nature, who in the armor
of her own uprightness can fight the battles of
the world and win them.