第22章
The night after the wedding the boy stood at the window of his pleasant attic bedroom, with one wall sloping, and a faint smell of mice.He was tired and excited, and his brain, full of pictures.
This was his first wedding, and he was haunted by a vision of his sister's little white form, and her face with its starry eyes.She was gone--his no more! How fearful the Wedding March had sounded on that organ--that awful old wheezer; and the sermon! One didn't want to hear that sort of thing when one felt inclined to cry.
Even Gordy had looked rather boiled when he was giving her away.
With perfect distinctness he could still see the group before the altar rails, just as if he had not been a part of it himself.Cis in her white, Sylvia in fluffy grey; his impassive brother-in-law's tall figure; Gordy looking queer in a black coat, with a very yellow face, and eyes still half-closed.The rotten part of it all had been that you wanted to be just FEELING, and you had to be thinking of the ring, and your gloves, and whether the lowest button of your white waistcoat was properly undone.Girls could do both, it seemed--Cis seemed to be seeing something wonderful all the time, and Sylvia had looked quite holy.He himself had been too conscious of the rector's voice, and the sort of professional manner with which he did it all, as if he were making up a prescription, with directions how to take it.And yet it was all rather beautiful in a kind of fashion, every face turned one way, and a tremendous hush--except for poor old Godden's blowing of his nose with his enormous red handkerchief; and the soft darkness up in the roof, and down in the pews; and the sunlight brightening the South windows.All the same, it would have been much jollier just taking hands by themselves somewhere, and saying out before God what they really felt--because, after all, God was everything, everywhere, not only in stuffy churches.That was how HE would like to be married, out of doors on a starry night like this, when everything felt wonderful all round you.Surely God wasn't half as small as people seemed always making Him--a sort of superior man a little bigger than themselves! Even the very most beautiful and wonderful and awful things one could imagine or make, could only be just nothing to a God who had a temple like the night out there.
But then you couldn't be married alone, and no girl would ever like to be married without rings and flowers and dresses, and words that made it all feel small and cosy! Cis might have, perhaps, only she wouldn't, because of not hurting other people's feelings; but Sylvia--never--she would be afraid.Only, of course, she was young! And the thread of his thoughts broke--and scattered like beads from a string.
Leaning out, and resting his chin on his hands, he drew the night air into his lungs.Honeysuckle, or was it the scent of lilies still? The stars all out, and lots of owls to-night--four at least.What would night be like without owls and stars? But that was it--you never could think what things would be like if they weren't just what and where they were.You never knew what was coming, either; and yet, when it came, it seemed as if nothing else ever could have come.That was queer-you could do anything you liked until you'd done it, but when you HAD done it, then you knew, of course, that you must always have had to...What was that light, below and to the left? Whose room? Old Tingle's--no, the little spare room--Sylvia's! She must be awake, then! He leaned far out, and whispered in the voice she had said was still furry:
"Sylvia!"
The light flickered, he could just see her head appear, with hair all loose, and her face turning up to him.He could only half see, half imagine it, mysterious, blurry; and he whispered:
"Isn't this jolly?"
The whisper travelled back:
"Awfully."
"Aren't you sleepy?"
"No; are you?"
"Not a bit.D'you hear the owls?"
"Rather."
"Doesn't it smell good?"
"Perfect.Can you see me?"
"Only just, not too much.Can you?"
"I can't see your nose.Shall I get the candle?""No--that'd spoil it.What are you sitting on?""The window sill."
"It doesn't twist your neck, does it?"
"No--o--only a little bit."
"Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Wait half a shake.I'll let down some chocolate in my big bath towel; it'll swing along to you--reach out."A dim white arm reached out.
"Catch! I say, you won't get cold?"
"Rather not."
"It's too jolly to sleep, isn't it?"
"Mark!"
"Yes."
"Which star is yours? Mine is the white one over the top branch of the big sycamore, from here.""Mine is that twinkling red one over the summer house.Sylvia!""Yes."
"Catch!"
"Oh! I couldn't--what was it?"
"Nothing."
"No, but what WAS it?"
"Only my star.It's caught in your hair.""Oh!"
"Listen!"