Emily's Quest (1927)

Chapter 25

I

Only two weeks till the wedding. Emily found out how long two weeks can be, in spite of the fact that every waking moment was crowded with doings, domestic and social. The affair was much talked of everywhere. Emily set her teeth and went through with it. Ilse was here--there--everywhere. Doing nothing--saying much.

"About as composed as a flea," growled Dr. Burnley.

"Ilse has got to be such a restless creature," complained Aunt Elizabeth. "She seems to be frightened people wouldn't know she was alive if she sat still a moment."

"I've got forty-nine remedies for seasickness," said Ilse. "If Aunt Kate Mitchell gets here I'll have fifty. Isn't it delightful to have thoughtful relatives, Emily?"

They were alone in Ilse's room. It was the evening Teddy was expected. Ilse had tried on half a dozen different dresses and tossed them aside scornfully.

"Emily, what will I wear? Decide for me."

"Not I. Besides--what difference does it make what you put on?"

"True--too true. Teddy never notices what I have on. I like a man who does notice and tells me of it. I like a man who likes me better in silk than in gingham."

Emily looked out of the window into a tangled garden where the moonlight was an untroubled silver sea bearing softly on its breast a fleet of poppies. "I meant that Teddy--won't think of your dress--only of you."

"Emily, why do you persist in talking as if you thought Teddy and I were madly in love with each other? Is it that Victorian complex of yours?"

"For heaven's sake, shut up about things Victorian!" Emily exclaimed with unusual, un-Murray-like violence. "I'm tired of it. You call every nice, simple, natural emotion Victorian. The whole world to-day seems to be steeped in a scorn for things Victorian. Do they know what they're talking of? But I like sane, decent things--if that is Victorian."

"Emily, Emily, do you suppose Aunt Elizabeth would think it either a sane or decent thing to be madly in love?"

Both girls laughed and the sudden tension relaxed.

"You're not off, Emily?"

"Of course I am. Do you think I'd play gooseberry at such a time as this?"

"There you go again. Do you think I want to be shut up alone a whole evening with undiluted Teddy. We'll have a scene every few minutes over something. Of course scenes are lovely. They brighten up life so. I've just got to have a scene once a week. You know I always did enjoy a good fight. Remember how you and I used to scrap? You haven't been a bit of good at a row lately. Even Teddy is only half-hearted in a set-to. Perry, now--he could fight. Think what gorgeous rows Perry and I would have had. Our quarrels would have been splendid. Nothing petty--or quarrelsome--about them. And how we would have loved each other between them! O-hone-a-rie!"

"Are you hankering after Perry Miller yet?" demanded Emily fiercely.

"No, dear infant. And neither am I crazy about Teddy. After all, ours is only second-hand love on both sides, you know. Cold soup warmed over. Don't worry. I'll be good for him. I'll keep him up to the notch in everything much better than if I thought him a little lower than the angels. It doesn't do to think a man is perfection because he naturally thinks so, too, and when he finds some one who agrees with him he is inclined to rest on his oars. It riles me up a bit when every one seems to think I'm so amazingly lucky to 'get' Teddy for a husband. Comes Aunt Ida Mitchell--'You are getting a perfectly wonderful husband, Ilse'--comes Bridget Mooney from Stovepipe Town scrubbing the floor--'Gosh but you're gettin' a swell man, Miss'--'Sisters under their skins,' you perceive. Teddy is well enough--especially since he found out he isn't the only man in the world. He has learned sense somewhere. I'd like to know what girl taught it to him. Oh, there was one. He told me something about the affair--not much but enough. She used to snub him terribly--and then after she had led him on to think she cared she turned him down cold. Never even answered the letter in which he told her he loved her. I hate that girl, Emily--isn't it odd?"