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on the chancel step of Grace Church.
The signal meant that the brougham bearing the bride and her father was in sight; but there was sure to be a
considerable interval of adjustment and consultation in the lobby, where the bridesmaids were already
hovering like a cluster of Easter blossoms. During this unavoidable lapse of time the bridegroom, in proof of
his eagerness, was expected to expose himself alone to the gaze of the assembled company; and Archer had
gone through this formality as resignedly as through all the others which made of a nineteenth century New
York wedding a rite that seemed to belong to the dawn of history. Everything was equally easy--or equally
painful, as one chose to put it--in the path he was committed to tread, and he had obeyed the flurried
injunctions of his best man as piously as other bridegrooms had obeyed his own, in the days when he had
guided them through the same labyrinth.
So far he was reasonably sure of having fulfilled all his obligations. The bridesmaids' eight bouquets of white
lilac and lilies-of-the-valley had been sent in due time, as well as the gold and sapphire sleeve-links of the
eight ushers and the best man's cat's-eye scarf-pin; Archer had sat up half the night trying to vary the
wording of his thanks for the last batch of presents from men friends and ex-lady-loves; the fees for the
Bishop and the Rector were safely in the pocket of his best man; his own luggage was already at Mrs. Manson
Mingott's, where the wedding-breakfast was to take place, and so were the travelling clothes into which he
was to change; and a private compartment had been engaged in the train that was to carry the young couple to
their unknown destination--concealment of the spot in which the bridal night was to be spent being one of
the most sacred taboos of the prehistoric ritual.
"Got the ring all right?" whispered young van der Luyden Newland, who was inexperienced in the duties of a
best man, and awed by the weight of his responsibility.
Archer made the gesture which he had seen so many bridegrooms make: with his ungloved right hand he felt
in the pocket of his dark grey waistcoat, and assured himself that the little gold circlet (engraved inside:
Newland to May, April ---, 187-) was in its place; then, resuming his former attitude, his tall hat and
Information about Project Gutenberg 84
pearl-grey gloves with black stitchings grasped in his left hand, he stood looking at the door of the church.
Overhead, Handel's March swelled pompously through the imitation stone vaulting, carrying on its waves the
faded drift of the many weddings at which, with cheerful indifference, he had stood on the same chancel step
watching other brides float up the nave toward other bridegrooms.
"How like a first night at the Opera!" he thought, recognising all the same faces in the same boxes (no, pews),
and wondering if, when the Last Trump sounded, Mrs. Selfridge Merry would be there with the same
towering ostrich feathers in her bonnet, and Mrs. Beaufort with the same diamond earrings and the same
smile--and whether suitable proscenium seats were already prepared for them in another world.
After that there was still time to review, one by one, the familiar countenances in the first rows; the women's
sharp with curiosity and excitement, the men's sulky with the obligation of having to put on their frock-coats
before luncheon, and fight for food at the wedding-breakfast.
"Too bad the breakfast is at old Catherine's," the bridegroom could fancy Reggie Chivers saying. "But I'm told
that Lovell Mingott insisted on its being cooked by his own chef, so it ought to be good if one can only get at
it." And he could imagine Sillerton Jackson adding with authority: "My dear fellow, haven't you heard? It's to
be served at small tables, in the new English fashion."
Archer's eyes lingered a moment on the left-hand pew, where his mother, who had entered the church on Mr.
Henry van der Luyden's arm, sat weeping softly under her Chantilly veil, her hands in her grandmother's
ermine muff.
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