书虫5级《纯真年代》6. 婚礼及其后

6. THE WEDDING AND BEYOND

The sun shone weakly down on Grace Church, and a light spring wind blew dust everywhere. Inside the church almost every seat was taken, and in the centre stood the bridegroom and his best man, waiting for the bride to arrive.

Newland was familiar with the preparations necessary for a fashionable New York wedding, as he had often been a best man himself at his friends' weddings. For his own wedding he had obeyed all his best man's commands, following his instructions down to the last detail. It was easier to obey blindly than to think, to doubt, to question. 'I've sent flowers to the eight bridesmaids,' he thought, 'I've written thankyou letters for the wedding presents, paid for the use of the church, and made arrangements for the honeymoon. I think I've done everything.'

Got the ring all right?' whispered his best man, looking pale. He was feeling the heaviness of the responsibility.

Newland did what he had seen so many bridegrooms do – feel quickly in a jacket pocket – and found the little gold ring, which had Newland to May, April 22, 1874 written inside.

He looked at the faces he knew so well in the seats all around him. 'How like a first night at the opera,' he thought, 'waiting for the curtain to rise!' He saw his mother and Janey, crying with happiness, he saw Julius Beaufort next to his beautiful wife, he saw Lawrence Lefferts, the expert on 'form'. He wondered how many social mistakes Lefferts' eager eyes would discover during the wedding, and then he suddenly remembered that he too had once thought such things important. A stormy discussion about whether the wedding presents should be put on show to the guests had darkened the last hours before the wedding, and it seemed unbelievable to him that adults could get so angry over something so meaningless. Yet there was a time when he had had just as strongly-felt opinions on such matters.

And all the while, I suppose,' he thought, 'real people were living somewhere, and real things were happening to them...'

She's coming!' the best man whispered excitedly, but Newland knew better. It was true the great doors had opened, but only for the arrival of May's family, not the bride herself.

As the family came in, there was a thin older woman, who almost made his heart stop beating. Medora Manson and her niece were now living in Washington, and neither of them was expected at the wedding. Newland stared hard at Medora, trying to see who came behind her. There was no one.

Newland – I say – she's here!' said the best man.

Newland realized he had been in a kind of dream for the last few minutes, because the bride, on her father's arm, with her bridesmaids behind her, was already halfway towards him. He opened his eyes and felt his heart begin to beat normally again. The music, the flowers, the cloud-like figure all in white coming closer, all these sights and sounds, so familiar in themselves, so very strange to him today, were making him feel confused.

The bride, on her father's arm, was already halfway towards him.

My God,' he thought, 'have I got the ring?' and once more he did what all bridegrooms do, desperately pushing his hand down into his pocket until his fingers touched gold.

Then, in a moment, May was beside him, looking so beautiful that he stood a little straighter and smiled into her eyes.

A short time later, the ring was on her finger, and they were ready to walk through the church past their smiling friends and then out into the sunshine as man and wife. 'Your arm – give her your arm!' whispered the best man, and once more Newland came back to reality. 'What was it that set me dreaming this time?' he wondered. Perhaps it was seeing a dark-haired lady at the back of the church, who, when she turned round, was laughably unlike the person he was thinking of.

And now he and his wife were getting into the carriage. She turned to him with a brilliant smile and they held hands.

Dearest!' said Newland – and suddenly a black hole opened up in front of him and he felt himself falling deeper and deeper into it, while his voice went on speaking smoothly and cheerfully. 'Yes, I thought I'd lost the ring – well, every bridegroom thinks that, I suppose. But you did keep me waiting, you know. I had time to think of every horror that might possibly happen.'

She surprised him by throwing her arms round his neck, right in the middle of Fifth Avenue. 'But none can ever happen now, can it, Newland, as long as we two are together?'

Newland's aunts, the du lacs, had offered the young couple their country home near Skuytercliff for the first week of the honeymoon, but when Newland and May got out of the train at the nearest station, they discovered one of the van der Luydens' servants waiting for them.

I'm sorry, sir,' he said, 'but there's a problem with the water at the du lacs', so Mr van der Luyden has arranged for you to stay at the Patroon's house at Skuytercliff instead.'

Newland stared at the man, unable to speak, but May's eager voice broke out, covering the embarrassed silence, 'Oh, the Patroon's house will be perfect – won't it, Newland? It's so kind of the van der Luydens to think of it!'

And as they stepped into the van der Luydens' carriage, she said to Newland, 'I've never been inside it – have you? The van der Luydens opened it to show Ellen, it seems, when she was staying at Skuytercliff. She told me it's the only house she's seen in America where she could imagine being completely happy.'

Well, that's what we're going to be, isn't it?' cried her husband, smiling brightly.

Ah, it's just our luck beginning,' she replied, 'the wonderful luck we're always going to have together!'

After their stay at the Patroon's house, they sailed to Europe to continue their honeymoon. They spent June in Paris, so that May could order new clothes, July in the Swiss mountains, and August in a quiet little town on the northern French coast. Their final two weeks were in London, so that Newland could order his clothes. They did not go to the Italian lakes – thinking about it, Newland could not imagine his bride there. In fact, travelling interested her even less than he had expected.

Newland had decided to behave to May exactly as all his friends behaved to their wives, and to put away his thoughts about freedom for women. There was no use giving freedom to a wife who had not the smallest idea that she was not free. He knew that the fineness of May's feeling for him, and her nobility of character, made her a wife of whom he could be proud, but her insistence on obeying the rules of society worried him.

In London, at a dinner party given by some friends of Mrs Archer's, the Carfrys, they met a young Frenchman called Monsieur Rivière. Newland liked him, in spite of his thin, ugly face, and had an interesting conversation about books with him. Later, Newland suggested to May that they could invite the Frenchman to dinner, to continue the conversation.

May was surprised. 'But he's almost like the Carfrys' servant! They pay him to teach French to their nephew! Why would we invite him to dinner? Surely not, Newland!'

Newland did not protest, because he did not feel strongly enough about it. He realized, with a sudden cold feeling inside him, that in future many problems would be solved for him in this way, and he tried to find comfort in the old saying that the first six months of marriage were always the most difficult.

When they returned from their honeymoon, and moved into the well-built, expensively furnished house Mr Welland had bought for them, life became easier for Newland. He had his routine of going to the office, and then seeing some of his friends in a bar or a club, and occasionally taking May to the theatre or the opera.

But in the spring of the following year May persuaded him that they should spend August with her parents in their comfortable beach house in fashionable Newport. Newland had agreed, because he could think of no good reason for refusing, but he knew he would not enjoy it. May reminded him that when he was single, he had enjoyed spending the summer there, and he knew it was true. He was surprised to find how much his opinions had changed since then.

But he could not say that he had been mistaken in his choice of bride. May was one of the handsomest and most popular young married women in New York, and a thoughtful, sweet-tempered companion. He had trained himself to think of his feelings for her cousin as a momentary madness, as the last of a young man's attempts to find love. It now seemed unthinkable that he could have dreamed of marrying Ellen Olenska, and she remained in his memory as the saddest of a long line of ghosts.

One day, while they were in Newport, he and May visited old Mrs Manson Mingott, who had her own house there. Newland discovered from the two women's conversation that Ellen and her aunt were spending the summer with some people called the Blenkers, at Portsmouth, a much less fashionable town further north. Then old Mrs Mingott added, 'But dear Ellen's come to spend the day with me today,' and Newland's heart almost stopped beating, as it had done at his wedding.

She's just outside, I think.' Mrs Mingott said, and she called out through the window across the garden, 'Ellen! Ellen!'

There was no answer, so Mrs Mingott rang for a servant.

Where's the Countess Olenska?' she demanded.

Walking down to the beach, madam,' replied the servant.

The old lady turned to Newland. 'Be a good boy – run and fetch her for me,' she said. He stood up in a kind of dream – he was seeing the little fire-lit sitting room again, and hearing the sound of Ellen's horses returning down the deserted street.

He walked down to the beach, and stopped before he reached the sand. There, in front of him, on a long grassy piece of land, was a wooden summerhouse, with windows and doors open to the warm summer air. Inside the summerhouse stood a lady, looking out to sea. 'Have I just woken up?' wondered Newland. That figure from the past was a dream, and the reality was what was waiting for him away from the beach – his young wife, dinner with the Wellands, summer with the Wellands... 'What am I? Just a son-in-law and a husband,' he thought.

The figure in the summerhouse had not moved. For a long moment the young man stood there, watching the sailing boats out at sea. The lady seemed to be held by the same sight.

She doesn't know – she hasn't guessed,' he thought. 'Would I know if she came up behind me, I wonder?' And suddenly he told himself, 'If she doesn't turn before the red sail crosses in front of that rock, I'll go back up to the house.'

The boat with the red sail was moving out to sea with the tide. It moved slowly towards the rock, and then passed it. Newland waited until the sail was a long way past the rock, but still the figure in the summerhouse did not move.

He turned and walked up the hill to the house.

As they drove home in the gathering darkness, May said, 'I'm sorry you didn't find Ellen. I'd have liked to see her again. But perhaps she no longer cares for her friends. I mean, why give up New York and go to Washington? I wonder if she would be happier with her husband, after all.'

Newland burst into an angry laugh. 'That's cruel of you – you know she would suffer terribly if she went back to him!'

It's a pity she ever married a foreigner, then,' said May calmly, sounding very like her mother. Newland did not reply.

That evening, at May's parents' home, he felt it was the Welland house, and the life he was expected to live in it, that had become unreal, while the short scene at the beach was as close to him as the blood in his body.

All that night he lay awake at May's side, watching the moonlight on the carpet, and thinking of Ellen Olenska.