The Golden Road [76]
"That's a dreadful thing to say," commented Felicity in a shocked tone.
Sara Ray looked bewildered.
"I don't see what is dreadful in it," she protested.
"People don't go to funerals for the fun of it," said Felicity severely. "And you just as good as said you hoped somebody you knew would die so you'd get to the funeral."
"No, no, I didn't. I didn't mean that AT ALL, Felicity. I don't want anybody to die; but what I meant was, if anybody I knew HAD to die there might be a chance to go to the funeral. I've never been to a single funeral yet, and it must be so interesting."
"Well, don't mix up talk about funerals with talk about weddings," said Felicity. "It isn't lucky. I think Miss Reade is simply throwing herself away, but I hope she'll be happy. And I hope the Awkward Man will manage to get married without making some awful blunder, but it's more than I expect."
"The ceremony is to be very private," said the Story Girl.
"I'd like to see them the day they appear out in church," chuckled Dan. "How'll he ever manage to bring her in and show her into the pew? I'll bet he'll go in first--or tramp on her dress--or fall over his feet."
"Maybe he won't go to church at all the first Sunday and she'll have to go alone," said Peter. "That happened in Markdale. A man was too bashful to go to church the first time after getting married, and his wife went alone till he got used to the idea."
"They may do things like that in Markdale but that is not the way people behave in Carlisle," said Felicity loftily.
Seeing the Story Girl slipping away with a disapproving face I joined her.
"What is the matter, Sara?" I asked.
"I hate to hear them talking like that about Miss Reade and Mr. Dale," she answered vehemently. "It's really all so beautiful-- but they make it seem silly and absurd, somehow."
"You might tell me all about it, Sara," I insinuated. "I wouldn't tell--and I'd understand."
"Yes, I think you would," she said thoughtfully. "But I can't tell it even to you because I can't tell it well enough yet. I've a feeling that there's only one way to tell it--and I don't know the way yet. Some day I'll know it--and then I'll tell you, Bev."
Long, long after she kept her word. Forty years later I wrote to her, across the leagues of land and sea that divided us, and told her that Jasper Dale was dead; and I reminded her of her old promise and asked its fulfilment. In reply she sent me the written love story of Jasper Dale and Alice Reade. Now, when Alice sleeps under the whispering elms of the old Carlisle churchyard, beside the husband of her youth, that story may be given, in all its old-time sweetness, to the world.
CHAPTER XXV
THE LOVE STORY OF THE AWKWARD MAN
(Written by the Story Girl)
Jasper Dale lived alone in the old homestead which he had named Golden Milestone. In Carlisle this giving one's farm a name was looked upon as a piece of affectation; but if a place must be named why not give it a sensible name with some meaning to it? Why Golden Milestone, when Pinewood or Hillslope or, if you wanted to be very fanciful, Ivy Lodge, might be had for the taking?
He had lived alone at Golden Milestone since his mother's death; he had been twenty then and he was close upon forty now, though he did not look it. But neither could it be said that he looked young; he had never at any time looked young with common youth; there had always been something in his appearance that stamped him as different from the ordinary run of men, and, apart from his shyness, built up an intangible, invisible barrier between him and his kind. He had lived all his life in Carlisle; and all the Carlisle people knew of or about him--although they thought they knew everything--was that he was painfully, abnormally shy. He never went anywhere except to church; he never took part in Carlisle's simple social life; even with most men he was distant and reserved; as for women, he never spoke to or looked at