Americans -- England -- Fiction; Diary fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- England -- Fiction
Our wedding feast was the simplest ever set before mortals, unless
possibly our Pilgrim fathers and mothers had a simpler in starvation
days in the old colony, with bride cake made perhaps of Indian meal! We
had tables in the garden, and a few simple things to eat and drink,
centering in that wedding cake upon which Peter had insisted. Had not
Madge and I spent a whole morning over it, with its raisins and its
currants, its spices and its chopped nuts? "Leave off the frosting,
'm!" Madge had ejaculated in horror. "That would be a heathing thing to
do!" When I told her that for most people nowadays the frosting was
rubbed off of life, she looked at me as if she thought me mad. So she
does, but harmless mad.
Perhaps the mild November air, which harmonizes all things,--sad, soft
and sweet,--helped harmonize the diverse elements at that wedding
feast. There were the Vicar and the Roman priest peacefully grazing as
one; the Vicaress was affably chatting with mine host and hostess as on
equal terms; one of my county ladies was entertaining the little
dressmaker who cannot sew. I did my best in inviting them to outrage as
many conventions as possible; they submitted to the necessities of the
occasion, and still the House of Lords stands, or sits, King George is
on his throne, and the kingdom has not fallen.
I hope it never will!
It had been hard to induce the Vicar to come, but I reminded him that
our Church had been a Roman Catholic Church before Queen Elizabeth's
day, and that, in the holy ground of the churchyard, Roman Catholic
dust was mingled with Church of England dust. How, at this cruel moment
in the world's history, the truth cries out that there should be no
struggle between Christian and Christian, only between Christian and
Pagan! He came; high and low alike nibbled our little cakes and
consumed our ices, and drank the simple beverage made of lemons and
other ingredients served from a wonderful old blue punch bowl. Ay, we
were all allies that day!
So they were married and fêted, and when it was all over, mine host
drove them to the railway station, and I followed with Puck and the
pony cart, Don sitting beside me, and the gingerbread baby with two of
its brothers sitting on the other side. The village windows and
doorways were crowded with friendly faces, for the story of the two
re-united lovers had spread far, and many a kindly good-bye was spoken
by people who had never met them. I had determined that Puck, who had
found Marie, and to whom the happy outcome of the story was due, should
have a place of honour at the parting moment, but Marie's last glimpse
of him showed him indignantly shaking off the white rosettes that had
been fastened to his headstall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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