Delta Wedding (30 page)

"Oh, Aunt Ellen!"

"All right, I'll tie you up myself. I wish you'd prevail on India to wear curls just for tonight. She won't let anybody touch her."

"Mama used to curl my hair in curls," said Laura shyly. "Mary Lamar—what are you playing?" and she walked near the music, spreading her dress.

"It's not always anything," said Mary Lamar in a soft voice. "I'm improvising."

Up close, beautiful Mary Lamar's arm showed great covering freckles below the chiffon sleeve, her arms were leopard-like!

"Well, Pinchy," said Dabney, frowning.

There stood Pinchy in the dining room, swatting an old September fly. For a few days a creature of mystery, now that she had come through she was gawking and giggling like the rest.

"You swat every fly, Pinchy. That's what you're for, now, this whole day," she said sternly.

"I'll git 'em," said Pinchy.

On the back porch, surrounded by fireless-cooker pots and cake pans of cut flowers, Shelley and Dabney were making shiny bows. Battle wandered out.

"What are those made of, now?"

"Material," said Dabney.

Nobody else seemed to be around, except Ranny, who sat on the back steps motionless, looking at his father over a bright beard of what seemed also to be material.

"Well, Dabney, little girl, I wanted to confer my blessing, my paternal blessing," Battle said rather heartily.

"Two princess baskets of pink and white Maman Cochet roses, Miss Tessie at the icehouse sent up, Dabney," said Ellen, carrying them onto the porch. "She sent them over by
twins.
"

"Then it was every one she had," called Tempe's voice from within. Her brother looked in the direction of her voice as if in a moment he would comprehend Tempe.

"Who sent these real late Cape jessamines—Miss Parnell Dortch?" Shelley leaned over and buried her face in them while Vi'let held them out.

"Yes, Miss Parnell." Ellen whispered, "I don't know what we'll do with old Roxie's nasturtiums—little bitty short stems, look, they don't even peep over that shoe box. But it was every nasturtium Roxie had—she
loves, Dabney.
"

"We can float them in an old card tray. She'll be looking for them at the wedding," Shelley said.

"She used to let me pick them, nasty-turtiums," said Dabney idly. "I'd pick them and eat them all the way from the stems up, when I was little."

"Then you can eat these," said Ellen with a little laugh. She leaned on the door.

"Come here and let me kiss you, puddin'," Battle said.

But, "Look at Miss Bonnie Hitchcock's
fern
" groaned Shelley.

Four little colored boys holding a tub balanced on the handle of a broom staggered up the back path. Tub, boys, and all were in the shade and glow of an enormous fern that tilted its weight over them and fluttered its fronds in every direction like a tree in a gale.

"Mama! She sent that up for Aunt Annie Laurie's funeral!" Dabney said in an awe-struck voice.

"We almost never got it back to her after
that,
" Shelley said doubtfully. "Or did we?"

"I don't want it where it was before," said Dabney.

"Dabney!" Battle said. "Come kiss me."

"It can go behind Jim Allen and India serving punch," said Ellen. "It will go fine there. It won't do anything but hide the china closet. If we could put it by the outdoor table! But that would hurt Miss Bonnie's feelings—it will have to come in the house."

"Mama, I think it's so tacky the way Troy comes in from the side door," said Shelley all at once. "It's like somebody just walks in the house from the fields and marries Dabney."

"You're sure you wouldn't rather have a trip to Europe than get married?" Battle remarked into the air off the porch. "Ranny, will you take off that beard, or stop looking at me?"

Dabney ran to her father, the shiny material in hand, and laughed as his whispering lips tickled the nape of her neck. "Or go back to college?" he said.

"Horrors, Papa," she said.

"You don't have but one silver champagne bucket, I know that," said Tempe, stepping out dramatically from the kitchen. "Why didn't I think to bring you mine? It would have been no trouble in the world. Mercy!" she spoke to the fern, which was at the door.

"It's grown, Mama!" said Dabney, leaning back as the fern went by, vibrating and seemingly under its own power, up the steps and across the back porch. Battle pinned her backwards against him and kissed the crown of her head.

"Well, one thing," said Tempe in a low voice to Shelley, looking after the fern with a sigh of finality, "when people marry beneath them, it's the woman that determines what comes. It's the woman that coarsens the man. The man doesn't really do much to the woman, I've observed."

"You mean Troy's not as bad for us as Robbie," whispered Shelley intently.

"Exactly!"

"Don't stop, don't stop! This way!" Ellen hurried ahead of the fern and led it into the house.

"The crooks have come, the crooks have come!" cried Orrin, racing in. "Dabney, I brought your crooks! Watch!" He reached in Little Uncle's arms as Little Uncle ran up with yellow sticks everywhere, and began throwing them in the air like a juggler. All the children ran picking them up—each got one.

"Orrin!"

"I was watching for the Dog! I saw them take everything off, and I wanted to bring you the crooks ahead of everything, Dabney! Only I went in swimming a minute—I was on Junie—"

"Oh, Orrin! Oh, I hate to go off and leave you and everybody!" Dabney kissed his smiling lips, and he untied her sash behind her.

"Give me one," she said, looking at the running children. "Ranny, I want that one."

"What's that old Bojo brought on the mule?" asked Ellen.

"Aunt Primrose's cheese straws," said Shelley, rushing to lift the lid of the corset box. "From the secret recipe!"

"I just have to have
one,
" said Aunt Tempe, putting in her hand. "Excuse me, you all."

Dabney took the box, laughing, and ran to the kitchen.

Aunt Studney was in the kitchen taking a little coffee. Howard's little boy, Pleas, who was on the back porch twisting smilax on the altar, came stealing in behind Roxie and tried to look in Aunt Studney's sack. But Aunt Studney was up with a kettle off the stove and like lightning poured it over him, making him yell and run off as if the devil had him.

"Why, Aunt Studney," said Dabney. "I wanted to invite you to my wedding!"

"Ain't study in' you," said Aunt Studney. She lifted her coffee cup in her quick, horny hand that was bright pink inside, and drank. Then she was gone with her sack.

Primrose and Jim Allen came up to Shellmound only in time to sit down to dinner, to Battle's teasing. And as it turned out, Primrose was making the chicken salad (which Roxie had luckily cut up for her), Ellen baking the beaten biscuit with Robbie (swallowed in a Fairchild apron) watching the pans, Tempe rolling out her cornucopias, and Roxie and Pinchy squeezing the fruit for the punch all in the kitchen together. Jim Allen had spent the morning making green and white mints, which they all declared were better than the Memphis mints, so she lay down and dozed a little on a bed.

"Mr. Horace," Vi'let said, coming through the shade in the yard with more napkins dry enough to iron, "you standin' up pretty good." All Horace had to do was wash cars and shine them, and get his flashlight ready for tonight, make sure it would burn. Preacher, the Grove chauffeur, who thought yesterday he had better not try to carry so much as a paper lantern in his old age, never do anything except drive an electric automobile, felt younger today and said he would be glad to fish seeds out of cook's juice, give him a spoon. Some wagons loaded with planks came up in the yard and Howard was told to fix a dancing place as he saw fit, but hurry! out of an old landing Mr. Battle was sending up from the river. "Mr. Battle sure love doin' things at las' minute, don't he, Miss Ellen?" laughed Howard from the top of his ladder, making it sound attractive, even irresistible of Mr. Battle.

"Don't you fall off that ladder, Howard, before you come down and nail those planks! Dancing on the platform's what the lanterns are
for.
"

"No'm, I ain't goin' fall off
dis
ladder. Dance, yes, ma'am!"

Laura heard behind the bathroom door sounds of great splashing, and in between the splashes Dabney's voice, talking to Bluet.

"Now, Bluet, you mustn't ever brag."

"What's brag?"

Splash, splash.

"And, Bluet, you mustn't ever tell a lie."

"What's tell a lie?"

Splash, splash.

Laura banged on the door. "Let me in! I have to get ready too!"

They let her in. There were all the girls—tall Shelley too, naked and splashing. And they had Ranny, so little and sweet still. There was water everywhere, even dotting the fireplace like beads on a forehead. Bluet was in the center of the big pedestaled bathtub and they were squeezing washrags over her and putting soap on her hands, which she stuck forward for them. Bluet, her long hair pinned up in a topknot, was very serious today, at the same time slithering like a fish.

"And, Bluet," said Laura comfortably, "you mustn't ever steal."

"Don't
you
tell me," said Bluet gently, "just Dabney," and they all dashed her with water.

Finally, people began to come out in the halls or downstairs dressed. "Orrin! You look like a man!" cried Ellen. "Oh, the idea!"

"Mr. Ranny growin' up too, in case nobody know it," said Roxie. "Miss Ellen, did you know? That little booger every mornin' befo' six o'clock holler out de window fo' me. 'Roxie! I need my coffee!' and make me come right up."

"The idea!" said Ellen.

When the clock struck for seven, Laura in the flower-girl dress brought the pipe out of the hat and stood in the decorated hall with it until she saw George come through there. She followed him and confronted him at the water cooler on the back porch. Lizards were frolicking and scratching on the wire outside, being gazed at from inside by the old cat Beverley. Nobody else was around.

Bringing it slowly from behind her sash, she gave the pipe to him very slowly, inching it out to him to make the giving longer. At first he did not seem even to understand that he could take it, for she was so ceremonious.

"I wanted to give you a present you really wanted to get, so I kept it away from you a while," explained Laura. He bent his handsome head. He listened to her closely—that was the way Uncle George always listened, as if everyone might tell him something like this. "I wanted to surprise you," she said.

"Yes, honey." He kissed her right between the eyes. He took the pipe. "Thank you," he said. "You're growing up to be a real little Fairchild before you know it."

She was filled with happiness. "Is there any other thing I could give you after this, for a present?" she asked finally.

Instead of saying "No" he said gently, "Thanks, I'll let you know, Laura."

More happiness struck her like a shower of rain. She looked at him dazzled. "Tonight?"

"It might be later," he said. He pulled her hair a little then, her curls. When she waited shyly, he put the pipe in his mouth, lighted it, puffed out a strong cloud, and nodded his head at her to show her the pipe was nice to get back.

Then they both had a drink of water out of the spigot, he drinking from the tarnishy cup, she from the ridgy glass.

"Why is smoke coming out of the hall chimney?" asked India, walking in at the side door. She had been trying out her shepherdess crook.

"Smoke?"

In the hall Roy in his everyday clothes lay on the floor painting with Laura Allen's watercolors. Six or eight pictures—he finished them rapidly—were laid around the stove where his fire dried them as quickly as possible, though the heat did curl the older ones up tight.

"Roy!" cried Dabney in tears. "I'm going to get married in this house in fifteen minutes. Everybody will perish from the heat!"

"It was already as hot as it could be," said Roy. "This fire feels cool to me."

"Do you want your papa to stop Dabney's wedding to give you a switching?" asked Ellen. "I thought you were all in your white suit."

"I'll be there when you look for me," said Roy agreeably.

"Then run!"

"I thought you loved me," said Dabney. She and Shelley and Mary Lamar were all three in tears.

"Shelley, hush crying, who'll be next?" said Ellen, and Bluet came up and cried loudly.

"My God, girls!" shouted Battle, taking a step sideways. "Stop your tears! Can't raise you, can't even marry you, without the shillelagh all over the place."

"What is the picture of, Roy?" asked India in practical tones.

"Lady Clare being hanged by the pirates. That's her tongue sticking out."

"Well, now, it's through, then," said Ellen. "Run! Make Orrin part your hair. It's the first time he's ever wanted to use the paints, as far as I know, Battle."

The bridesmaids came all of a company and flew upstairs to Shelley's room to get into their bridesmaid dresses, with Vi'let and Pinchy to put them over their heads, hot from the iron. "Ever'body git a crook," said Little Uncle, mincing it over and over, where they gathered in the upstairs hall. "Got you a crook, missy? Here a pretty one for you," as if shepherdess crooks were the logical overflow from Fairchild bounty. Old Partheny had come up just at the time she pleased, the time for Dabney to be putting on her wedding dress and be ready to stamp her foot at the way it did, and now appeared at the head of the back stairs clothed from top to bottom in purple. She went straight and speaking to nobody to Dabney's closed door and flung it open. "Git yourself here to me, child. Who dressin' you? Git out, Nothin'," and Roxie, Shelley, and Aunt Primrose all came backing out. The door slammed.

Downstairs, with all the boys in white suits gallantly running about, the family gathering in the parlor around Ellen and Battle greeted the arriving families of the wedding party and too-early arrivers for the reception from the more distant plantations. Aunt Mac and Aunt Shannon came in on Orrin's arm, one at a time. Aunt Mac wore her corsage of red roses and ferns on the shoulder opposite the side with her watch, so she could keep up with things. Aunt Shannon proceeded uncertainly and yet with pride, her little feet in their comfort slippers planted wide apart, as a year-old child walks, her hot little hand digging into Orrin's arm. White sweet peas were what Aunt Shannon wore, and she liked them.