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Title: A Wedding Morn, a Story
Author: Kaye-Smith, Sheila (1887-1956)
Date of first publication: 1928
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot, 1928
   (first edition)
Date first posted: 25 September 2009
Date last updated: 25 September 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #392

This ebook was produced by:
Andrew Templeton




This is number three of the Woburn Books, being A Wedding Morn, a Story
by Sheila Kaye-Smith: published at London in 1928 by Elkin Mathews &
Marrot

Five hundred and thirty numbered copies of this story have been set by
hand in Imprint Shadow, and printed by Robert MacLehose & Co. Ltd., at
the University Press, Glasgow, of which Nos. 1-500 only are for sale and
Nos. 501-530 for presentation.

                          This is copy No. 189

                           Sheila Kaye-Smith


                             A WEDDING MORN

                                   I

An Easter day was slowly breaking over one of those Squares in North
Kensington which an ebbing prosperity has left derelict for many years.
Strips of golden cloud lay across the sky behind the houses, and a
quickening light made the rare street-lamps hang like dim fruit against
the trees of the garden. From innumerable back-yards came the cluck and
croon of waking fowls and every now and then the shrill note of a cock,
sending a dream of farms to the sleeping country-born. The whole place
was held in the dawn like a pearl, full of mysterious glows and a
brooding dimness. It was the Square's moment--a moment in which it was
almost a landscape of high cliffs and deep pools instead of a mere
agglomeration of houses, pavements and lamp-posts, zoning a few exiled
trees. The moment passed as the flight grew and revealed the faces of
crumbling stucco, the waste-paper that filled the gutters and drifted up
the doorsteps, the sooty tanglewood of the garden where the grass grew
rank and tall over the neglected paths and forgotten beds.

The dawn came in at the uncurtained window of a room set high in Number
Seven, Lunar Square. It stroked the sleeping face of Ivy Skedmore, and
she woke, for she was sleeping lightly. She started up, her mind full of
whirling wheels, of a dream that was scarcely done. Her big, round eyes
went wildly round the room, and drew reassurance from the hanging strips
of wallpaper, the walls that were so high that they soared into shadows
under the ceiling, the cornices of plaster fruits, and the matchboard
partition which shut her off from the room where her parents and the
children slept.

Ivy slept with the lodger, who went by the name of Miss Peach Grey,
forgetting some baptismal Maud or Mabel, and worked as mannequin at a
small but aspiring dressmaker's. She was still asleep, and Ivy felt
glad, for she did not want talk or company just yet. She wanted to feel
herself alone, to gather some sort of strength with which to face the
day. How many hours? course, she had no watch or clock. On working days
there was always the big buzzer at the paper works. But to-day was not a
working day, and she suddenly huddled herself over her knees as she
realised that there never would be another working day--no more rising
in clammy dusks, no more dressing in the darkness, no more hastily
swallowed tea--she could feel the hot catch of it now in her
throat--gulped before she ran down the huge rickety flight of stairs,
across the Square into Lunar Street, past the waking shops to the Tube
Station, and then with her worker's ticket into town, to the Oxford
Street restaurant where she washed up dishes, all day, all day . . .
smells of grease and cabbage water, the miserable roughness of her skin
in the constant water, the unutterable weariness of her legs at her
unresting stand before the sink all day . . . all day, all day . . . No,
never, never, never again.

She sprang out of bed, forgetting the slumbers of Peach, which luckily
were too deep to be disturbed. Her heartbeat quickly and her pulses
tingled with the realisation of the new world she was making for herself
by this marriage. She had escaped the tyranny of every-day and all-day,
that deadly grind of going out to work; and she had not done as so many
girls did in marriage, and merely exchanged paid labour for unpaid, the
back-breaking toil of the workshop for the heart-breaking struggle of
the home. From this day forward she would be easy and comfortable; she
would sit in a parlour and sleep in a brass bed, she would have electric
light and eat bacon for breakfast . . . and a girl to help her sometimes
in the house. She, Ivy Skedmore, nearly twenty-seven now, who had slaved
at one ill-paid job after another ever since she had left school, and no
prospect before her but toil till her life's end, she had captured the
heart of a childless widower, earning eight pounds a week as an
electrician, and offering her a snug little flat over at Hammersmith,
full of undreamed-of luxuries in the way of parlours and electric light.

How it had all happened she scarcely remembered now. The first casual
meeting at a friend's house, the next unsought encounter, the appointed
tryst, later walks and excursions, the growth of expectation and the
final settlement, all were merged together in an uncertain fog, in which
stood many dark shapes she was wary of as she glanced back, so she
glanced but seldom. The fog stretched all the way to the year she had
left school. Before that it lightened, and she had neat, clear memories
of family progressions from house to house, of brothers' and sisters'
births and deaths, of her work and play at school and in the streets.
The Skedmores were regarded as quite one of the old families of the
district, as though they had been driven, chiefly by internal expansion,
to many changes of residence, they had never moved out of the withered
Squares and Crescents of Royal Kensington, as she lies north and is
forgotten by her own kingdom in the south.

Ivy knew nothing of East End slum--tradition--of drab rows of houses,
and dreary pillars of tenements, which have never been anything but the
homes of the poor. The houses she had always lived in--the house she
lived in now--had been built with a very different intention. A tablet
in the wall of Number One, Lunar Square, recorded how the first stone of
it had been laid by the Honourable Mrs. Addleham, in 1839. Enterprising
Victorian speculators had planned a new district of wealth and fashion
on the slopes behind the Notting Hill race-course. They had designed
squares and crescents and terraces, and planted trees and gardens. For a
few sweet years, gay crinolines had swung over the pavements, and
elegant carriages had stood at front doors pillared with gleaming
stucco, the music of the waltz and the polka had sounded of a winter's
night, and in the galleried churches Victorian ladies had prayed into
their muffs and Victorian gentlemen into their top hats.

It was all gone now. For some reason or other the district had never
really thriven. Those who wanted suburban air went to Putney and
Tooting, those who wanted the town remained clustered round Mayfair and
Belgravia. No one wanted to be either so far or so near as Paddington.
So rents and glory fell. The houses which had once been so respectable
and inviolate became disreputable and common. They sheltered two, three,
four, five families. Even their floors and finally their rooms were
divided. Their basements seethed. Strings of washings were run out,
fowls clucked in their areas. Their back gardens became backyards, and
their Square gardens became jungles, the haunt of the sleeper-out and
the unnchartered lover.



                                   II

When Ivy looked out of the window, she might, had she been so made, have
seen the ghosts of the happy and respectable people who once had lived
in Lunar Square and must have been vexed to haunt it by its present
ways. But instead of ghosts, she saw only one or two cats prowling among
the rubbish in the gutter. The place was void and silent, alight, but
without the sun. The dawn wind rustled to her through the trees, and she
shivered.

Then she noticed a movement an the tanglewood of the Square garden. At
first she thought it was the wind, then that it was a pair of those
unchartered lovers. But the next moment a man pushed his way up to the
railings, and beckoned to her to come down.

She stood motionless, her round eyes staring from under the shock of her
hair. So it was Bill--so he had come over, though she'd never thought
he'd do it. Bill . . . there was no matching him for cheek. There was
nothing he'd stop at. She caught her breath. Bill . . . he might have
left her alone. He was one of those dark shapes in the fog, and now he
had come out to stand in the dawn of her wedding day. How dared he? How
dared he, the swine! She clenched her hands fiercely and helplessly.
What was she to do? She couldn't make him go. She couldn't shout to him
across the silence of the Square. He was making signs to her. He was
beckoning her down. His lips were forming her name. The window was shut
and she could not hear distinctly, but she knew that he was calling her.
He mustn't call her. He mustn't wake the place.

She opened the window very softly and put her head out. She made signs
to him to go away, but he only grinned and shook his head.

"Come down," he called to her.

"Shut up!"

"Come down."

"I can't. Do go away. They'll hear you."

"I don't care. If you don't come down, I'll come up."

"You can't."

But she knew he could. The catch of the front door at Number Seven was a
weak makeshift, and once he was in the house there were no keys between
him and her. She would have to go down. If she wanted peace and quiet
and decorum on her wedding day she would have to go down. She could
easily talk him into sense--she had done so many times. Then he would
go, and she could get on with her business.

Ivy did not wear a nightgown. She had always done so until recently, but
her couple, were both worn out, and though she had bought three for her
wedding, a pink, and a blue and a mauve, everyone knows that it is
unlucky to wear your wedding clothes before the wedding day. So for the
last month she had slept in her vest and petticoat, and  dressing this
morning was merely a matter of pulling on her old blue coat frock,
thrusting a comb through the tousle of her bobbed hair, and slipping her
feet into her old black shoes with their worn soles, and trodden-over
heels. What a blessing it would be never to wear them again. Of late
they had hurt her badly, and they let in the wet besides. She thought of
the comfortable new pair waiting for her feet.

New clothes, new shoes, new furniture, a comfortable home, a comfortable
bed, light work, warm fires, good food. She thought of all these things
as she ran down the staircase of Number Seven. The bannisters had most
of them gone for firewood, but the great and splendid width of the
stairs allowed her to run without fear of falling. She dragged open the
front door, and was out in a sudden snatch of cold.

The gate of the Square garden had long been pulled off its hinges, so
she was soon treading through the high grass to where Bill waited for
her, mercifully discreet, in a thicket of lilac.

"Don't let anybody see us," she said wildly, as he grasped her.

"They can't see us here."

"But they might have. . . . Oh, Bill, how could you? You nearly got me
into ever such a fix."

"Nonsense. Nobody will wake up here for hours yet."

"Why did you come?"

"That's a pretty question. I came to see you."

"But why should you? I mean how dare you? You've no right to see me.
I've done with you, Bill."

"Yes, so you told me once. But that's no reason why I shouldn't come to
wish you luck on your wedding day."

"You know that's not why you've come."

"Of course it is; what else should it be?"

"Then why didn't you come at the proper time?"

"Because I'm going out for a day in Epping Forest. That's one reason,
and another is you never asked me. If I come to your wedding I come by
invite from the bride, like a proper little gentleman. But I've a
feeling the card went astray in the post."

"I didn't know you were back," she said sulkily. "I thought your ship
didn't get in till the end of the month."

"So that's why you fixed to get married to-day."

"No Mr. Smart; I'm getting married to-day because it's Easter Sunday."

"Is it really, Miss Clever? Well, we live and learn. And may I ask why
you're in such a temper on your wedding morning? Haven't things been
going as smooth as they ought?"

"Not since you came."

"But I haven't been here half-an-hour, and that temper of yours has been
brewing for days. I know my little Ivy."

"Don't!"

She did not forbid his words so much as his hands, which had come
suddenly about her waist.

"Don't, Bill."

"Why not?"

"Because if you've only come to wish me luck, you've no right to--to
mess me about."

"Oh, so that's it. You think it should be 'hands off' because I've only
come to pay you the compliments of the season. But suppose I told you
that I'd come to give you one last chance of changing your mind before
it is too late."

"Don't, Bill."

"It seems you can say nothing but 'don't.'"

"I--I can't bear it."

"Then _I_'ll say 'don't.' Don't bear it, little girl."

Her hands flew up between them against his breast, but it was too late.
His arms were round her and his mouth on hers, forcing back her head.
The tears ran out of the corners of her eyes, but she made no resistance
and no sound; she merely seemed to melt and fade and grow weak, and then
suddenly to break, as love and sorrow smote her at once.



                                  III

After that they talked more quietly together. She had tried at first to
be angry, but she knew all the time her anger was unjust. She was vexed
with herself rather than with him--not for any moral failure, but for
allowing the past to come and upset the present, now at the very last
moment, when everything had seemed settled and she herself was ready for
everything. The fire in her had suddenly died, and she was cold and
abstracted as he talked on.

"You don't love this chap Hurley."

"Don't I?"

"Of course you don't. You love me--you've just shown me that."

"I dunno."

"What d'you mean by you 'dunno'? I bet you do. I bet you wouldn't have
kissed me like that if you hadn't loved me."

She shivered.

"Ivy, little Ivy, give yourself a chance. Give me a chance. You didn't,
you know, last summer. There was I, all burning for love of you, and you
sent me away."

"I didn't--your ship sailed."

"But you could have given me your promise to take with me."

"What 'ud have been the good of it? You said yourself you couldn't marry
for years."

"If you'd loved me you could have waited."

"That's just it--that's what I'm telling you the whole time. I don't
love you."

"Yes, you do--you've shown me that. You do love me--but it's the waiting
you can't manage. You're afraid of waiting. Well, I'll tell you
something. You shan't wait. I'll chuck the sea and get a job ashore. I'm
handy at most things and we could manage if you didn't mind having a job
of your own at the start. It was only as I didn't want you to have to
work, and if I'd gone on I could have done better for myself and you,
too, some day. But if waiting's all that's the matter, I tell you what
I'll do. I can't do nothing now, for I've only three days' leave--on
Wednesday we go to Middlesbrough to refit. But I'll make it my last
voyage. We'll be back in September, and I'll marry you then. I'll get a
job in a garage--or maybe we could both go as caretakers somewhere . . .
I knew a chap in the Navy who got a thundering good job as porter in a
block of flats . . . anyhow, we'll manage fine. So you go home, Ivy, and
tell 'em the wedding's off."

Ivy did not speak. She was still thinking--thinking, as she always
thought--in a series of pictures. She saw herself as she had been, going
out with Bill last summer, pleased with the places where he took her on
Saturdays and Sundays, and sometimes of an evening in the week when she
was not too late or too tired. He had spent money freely and done her
proud, and other girls  had envied her. He had kissed her freely, too,
and asked her to marry him when he was better off. At present he was
just an ordinary seaman on the _Clio_, one of a small steamship line
plying between London and Halifax. Like her, he knew what it was to be
out of a job, though, as he said, he was handy at most things--at too
many, perhaps, she had criticised in her heart, and the reviving
criticism gave her a new set of pictures, this time of the future. She
saw herself standing in front of the sink--standing till
September--another six months of early and weary days, of roughened
hands and greasy water, of aching legs . . . she already started what
the Square called "various" veins, and the dreaded threat of "bad legs"
was upon her . . . she had thought it all over and done with, in time,
before the evil happened--another six months might bring it about, and
she would have legs like those of so many women she knew, like her own
mother's, aching and ulcerated, perpetually swathed in greasy bandages
as one patent ointment was tried after another. . . . At the thought her
mouth and nose wrinkled up adorably and her pictures were destroyed by
Bill's provoked kiss.

"Sweetheart, I've got a better idea. Come away with me now, so as you
won't have to face them at home. I'll take you straight to Mother's, and
you can stop along of her till I come back. You'll like it, you know.
You and Mother always did get on together. You can go to work just as
easy from there as from here, and give her something for your keep and
save the rest."

Ivy laughed shortly. That showed the way he thought of things--"save the
rest"--as if there'd be any "rest." Bill was too cocksure by half. He
saw things much too bright. He saw them married in September, when most
likely they wouldn't have a penny piece to do it on. He'd have spent all
his money--he always did--and she wouldn't have managed to save any of
hers. He'd have to get another job, and try to save on that . . . not
likely . . . more years of waiting, more years of working. Then there'd
be more working after she was married--standing before the washtub just
as now she stood before the sink, standing over the kitchen fire, always
cleaning, always trying to manage on just too little. Bill's would be
the sort of home in which there was never quite enough, because Bill's
would be the sort of home in which there would always be periods of
unemployment, lean weeks that would eat up any small fullness, lean
weeks of struggle on the dole . . . she shivered again. She knew the
dole, and so did he--it was failure to get work on land that had sent
him to sea in the first place. Poor Bill . . . poor, darling, adored
Bill! For, of course, she adored him, loved him . . . ever so much.
. . . Oh, God! That made another picture come. She had a picture of
babies--babies coming year after year, wearing her out as she had seen
so many women worn out, binding her yoke upon her without pity or rest.
Ivy had no illusions about marriage in general, and, more remarkably,
she had no illusions about marriage with Bill.

"Well, precious, what's it going to be?"

"Nothing," she jerked at him shortly.

"Ain't you coming with me?"

"No. And I'm not going to stop the marriage neither."

"Oh, yes you are."

He tried to pull her close for another kiss, but she pushed him from her
almost violently.

"No, I say. Stop pawing me about. I won't have it. Gawd! You ought to
know better than to speak as you do to me, as good as married. I tell
you I've made up my mind and I know what I am doing. You leave me
alone."

"Very well, Miss Spitfire. If you want to be miserable all your life,
you're free and welcome, and maybe I've had a lucky escape."

"I shan't be miserable. I'd be miserable if I married you, but I'll be
ever so happy if I marry Sid Hurley."

"Bah! He's old enough to be your father."

"He ain't. He's only forty-six; and, anyway, better be an old man's
darling than a young man's slave."

"So that's it, is it?" His young face darkened, and at the same time his
lip quivered childishly. She could not bear it. She turned from him with
a little moan and fought her way out of the bushes. He did not attempt
to follow her as she rustled through the wilderness towards the gate.
One or two sick flowers went down under her feet. Her frock caught on a
twig, tearing a shoddy seam. She cursed and ran on. She wanted to
forget. She wanted to blot out that picture of him standing there with
his angry eyes and childish, trembling mouth.



                                   IV

It was eight o'clock in the Square--very different from the eight
o'clock of most days. Usually at eight o'clock the pavements echoed with
the patter of girls' feet. From under the solemn porticoes, which long
ago had sheltered the slow, swaying exits of crinolined ladies, tripped
groups and strings of prettily dressed girls. No Victorian belle had
looked smarter or sweeter than these in their stockings of sunburn silk,
in their patent-leather shoes, in their big wrap coats, and little
cloche hats. It was incredible that they should emerge from these ruins
of homes, that the muddle of the common living and sleeping room should
produce anything so fresh and delicate and gay. Yet out they came, on
their way to the dressmaker, the hairdresser, the cafe, the drapery
store, to spend the day waiting on elegance and learning from it their
natural lesson of charm, to return at night with step less springy and
eye less bright, and maybe mud on the patent shoes (which often let in
water) and spots and stains on the sunburn stockings (which often
defeated the efforts of the wrap coat to protect its wearer from
chills).

Ivy had never counted herself as a member of this society. She belonged
to a smaller, inferior troupe that set out at an earlier, more
unfashionable hour, and went to wait on necessity rather than on
elegance. Yet it was she and not one of them who had been chosen to live
in a four-roomed flat, to preside over the glories of a bathroom, a
gas-cooker and electric light, to run an eight-pound-a-week home in
unimagined honour. _They_ would marry men like Bill, and in five years
become middle-aged slatterns, slaving in three-pound-a-week homes, that
periodically would become fourteen-and-sixpenny homes as prosperity
ebbed and flowed over the district and the dole took the place of wages.
Ivy Skedmore could pity them as she fled from passion to security,
running across the empty Square, and up the many steps of Number Seven
to where the giant door stood unlatched.

It was lucky that the Sabbath was in the Square, or she and Bill would
have been discovered and the story down all the streets by this time.
But on Sunday no one ever thought of getting up before nine o'clock. At
nine-thirty the shops opened, and the market and the streets were full
of those who bought and sold fish and meat and vegetables that the
main-road shops had not been able to get rid of on Saturday night.

The Skedmores had not on this occasion left their shopping till Sunday
morning, but had done it in superior fashion on Saturday afternoon. The
wedding feast had shared their sleeping chamber, the more perishable
parts bestowed for safety on the window-sill. As she passed her parents'
door, Ivy was surprised to hear the sound of voices. She felt uneasy.
Had they somehow discovered her absence? Had Peach wakened and gone in
search of her to the main room? She decided to go in and find out the
worst.

But she need not have alarmed herself. Her parents' early rising was due
entirely to social reasons. To-day was their eldest daughter's
wedding-day, and they had already received one, or rather several,
wedding guests. A large woman, with a baby in her arms, was seated on
one of the two double beds that the room contained. Round her knees
squirmed a mass of children, four of whom were her own, the other three
being little Skedmores, arrayed only in their underclothing, as their
wedding garments were for obvious reasons not to be taken out of the
drawer till the last moment. On the other bed lay Mr. Skedmore, smoking
a pipe while his wife struggled with the fire.

The room was big, and even now almost handsome, with its soaring walls
and richly decorated cornice. Peach's and Ivy's room was a mere slice
cut off it, and much remained in the chief apartment to suggest the
splendour of the rock out of which it had been hewn. It was crammed with
furniture--two big beds, a big table, and one or two smaller ones, a
chiffonier, a chest of drawers, innumerable chairs, most of them
decrepit, and a broken backed sofa. The walls were gay with pictures,
and ornaments and the family china and glass, for which there was no
cupboard, adorned all available space. Clothes were everywhere--they
hung from hooks on the wall, they were rolled up in piles in corners,
and eked out the blankets on the beds. The place in its litter and
hugeness suggested a parish hall rather inefficiently stocked for a
jumble sale. The Skedmores had many possessions, none of which was
intact, unblemished or really serviceable, but all of which were loved,
prized and hoarded till the day of final disintegration.

"Well dearie," cried Mrs. Skedmore cheerily, lifting a blackened face
out of the smoke--"and how are you this morning? I thought I'd leave you
to have your sleep out."

"Thanks, Mum, but I couldn't sleep late this morning."

"Of course she couldn't," the lady on the bed declared with
cheeriness--"when it's her wedding day and all."

"A pity to waste a Sunday, though," said Mrs. Skedmore.

"What's that matter to her, marrying Sid Hurley? She may flay in bed all
day if she likes."

"Of course she can--and will sometimes, I dessay. It'll all be ever so
nice, I tell her."

"I bet she don't want to be told. Ivy, you're looking fine this
morning."

Ivy's cheeks were blazing and her eyes were bright.

"It's ever so kind of Mrs. Housego to come in and help us," said her
mother. "I thought I'd got everything straight yesterday, but it's all
gone and got messed up again. Drat this fire--it won't catch and I've
gone and used up all the newspaper."

"Let me help you, dear," said Mrs. Housego, heaving from the bed. There
was a flaw in the Skedmores' grate which involved desperate measures
every morning, with a threat of suffocation throughout the day.

"Try a drop of paraffin, dearie."

"There isn't any in the place."

"I'll try and find you some downstairs. Mrs. Spiller has some, I know,
for I saw her bring it in yesterday."

"Don't you go chucking paraffin on the fire!" shouted Mr. Skedmore from
his bed. "You got me fined a bob last year for setting fire to the
chimbley--it'll be half-a-crown next time."

The matrons heaved and struggled amidst clouds of smoke. Finally, one of
Mrs. Housego's children found a piece of newspaper under the bed, and,
by holding this in front of the grate, a flame was persuaded to kindle
and grow. By the time the paper had caught fire and whirled blazing up
the chimney there was some chance of the kettle being boiled for a cup
of tea.

"And we'll all be glad of that," said Mrs. Skedmore. "What you standing
there for, Ivy, like a stuck pig? You'll be tired before you've gone
through half to-day."

Ivy sat down upon the bed.



                                   V

"Let's talk about the wedding," sand Mrs. Housego. "How many are you
expecting, dearie?"

"I've got food for ten besides ourselves. Mr. Hurley's mother 'ull be
coming and his sister Grace. And then there's yourself, Mrs. Housego,
and the Lockits and the Gaits and old Mr. Willard. We'll be a crowd, I
tell you. But don't you worry--nobody shall go without. I've got salmon
and crab and tongue and prawns, a lovely cake and some fancies and a
vealanam pie, and two-dozen of ale and a dozen of Guinness for a start."

"Coo! Listen to that! Ivy, your mother couldn't have done you prouder,
if it had been your funeral."

"Well, I didn't want Sid Hurley's people to think he was marrying dirt,"
said Mrs. Skedmore modestly.

"They won't think it after this. What a breakfast! What a treat! When I
married, my mother didn't give us nothing but fish-and-chips and
tea--not but what she didn't have to pawn her crocks to get that much.
Pore mother! Which reminds me, I've got my five-shilling parcel back,
and it's got my best hat in it as well as the sheets, so I shan't look
such a guy at your wedding, Ivy, after all."

"Are you coming to the church?"

"You betcher life!--Now I've got my hat. I'm all for the church, as I
told the clergyman the other day. Why, I was as weak as a rat after
Monty was born till I had any churching. I said to the nurse, 'for
mercy's sake, let me out. I know what's good for me.' And I did. She
found me cleaning the windows the next time she came. Now that Mrs.
Winter, at Number Three, has never had herself churched nor her baby
christened. I tell her the child won't ever be strong and healthy till
it's done. And it don't cost nothing like being vaccinated, and you
don't have to fuss about keeping the place clean afterwards. I tell you,
I'm all for the Church."

"Well, I wish the Church 'ud let us get married a bit earlier. They
won't have us till a quarter past twelve, which means nearly half the
day gone."

"That doesn't matter to Ivy. She'll have more than the day for her
holiday. Is he taking you away, Ivy?"

"We're going down to Eastbourne till Tuesday."

"Did you ever, now! Eastbourne! I've heard that's a fashionable place.
Ivy Skedmore, you're a lucky girl, as I've always said. Now, I believe I
hear that kettle boiling. Let's have a nice cup of tea all round."

She went to the tea-making, while Mrs. Skedmore spread a piece of
newspaper on the table and set out the heel of a loaf and some
dissolving margarine.

"We don't want more than just a bite just now. There's plenty coming
later."

"Only a cup of tea to freshen us all a bit. Ivy 'ull have to think about
getting dressed soon."

"Oh, there's time enough. She might spoil her gown if she sat about in
it."

"Is she having any bridesmaids?"

"Just our Nellie. We've got her a wreath of flowers. That's why I've
done up her hair like that in rags. I thought maybe it 'ud curl."

"She'll look ever so sweet. Oh, it'll be a pretty wedding, Mrs.
Skedmore--quite like the ones you read about. Who else is getting
married with Ivy?"

"I don't know for certain, except that there'll be young Spiller and
Rose Chown--at last and not before it was time, to my way of thinking;
and there'll be the gipsies."

"Who?"

"Those Lees--Tom and Dinah. I'm sorry about it, but it can't be helped."

"We've too many gipsies in these parts. My Jim was saying to me only
yesterday as they've quite spoilt the barrer trade. They always seem to
think of better things to take round on barrers than ordinary
Christians."

"Talking of barrers, Mr. Skedmore's thinking of a new job. There's a
chap asked him to go shares in an ice-cream stall."

"Ice-cream's no good. People are mostly too cold these days to want it."

"Well, you can do chestnuts and baked potatoes in the winter."

"Yes, and tortusses in the spring. Don't I know it? Haven't I been
through it all with my poor Jim? I tell him that's the way to keep our
homes about us--ha! ha!" and she pulled out a handful of pawn-tickets.
"It ain't every woman who carries her home in her pocket."

"I hope you haven't too many things away, dear--nothing that's really
wanted, I mean."

"Not now I've got my five-shilling parcel back. But I've not had a hat
to me head nor a sheet to me bed these six months, and all because my
man wants to be his own master."

"Quite right, too," growled Mr. Skedmore into his tea-cup. "It's a dog's
life working for a boss. I'm all for being me own capitalist."

"He's getting quite red--Mr. Skedmore," said his wife proudly--"sings
the 'Red Rag' and all. But I'd rather he stayed at the works; then I
know where I am. Even as it is, I'd have had a lot of things away if it
hadn't been for Ivy's Mr. Hurley's kindness, getting everything back for
us in time for the wedding."

"Did he reelly? Well, that's what I call generous and handsome. My Gawd!
Ivy's in luck."

"Ivy!" cried her mother--"what are you staring at? Come away from that
winder and take some notice of us all."



                                   VI

Ivy was looking down at the Square garden. She could see tracks in the
grass, the spoor as it were, of some wild animal escaped. Down in that
garden a wild beast, sleek and lovely, had threatened her, had opened
its jaws to devour Sid Hurley's meek head and prosperous home. But it
was gone now. The garden lay empty, tossed by wind, while the Easter sun
at last shone down on it over the house-tops, spattering its undergrowth
with dusty light--queer, shifting spots and speckles, as if a beast
really moved there . . . Ivy turned away."

"Hullo, everybody; I'm all right."

"Betcher life you are!"

The door had opened as she turned and Peach Grey had come in--a very
different Peach from the tall girl who trod indifferently the showrooms
of Madame Bertha. Her hair lay close under the shingle-cap in which she
slept, for a wave cost one and sixpence to put in and must be preserved
as long as possible. She wore a shabby but still colourful wrapper, and
an edge beneath it proclaimed the aristocracy of a lace-trimmed
nightgown. Nevertheless Peach was not exactly your idea of a successful
mannequin--even of a mannequin who is the only one employed by a small
Queen's Road establishment, and has to take on occasionally the role of
saleswoman, as pressure demands. Her voice was certainly different from
what you would expect from those disdainful lips, and different from the
voice in which she made occasional rare utterances while on duty. "This
little dress would be very becoming to Moddom." "A model straight from
our French house, Moddom." "The price is really quate ridiculous,
Moddom, when you look at the material."

"A cup of tea, Miss Grey?"

"I don't mind if I do."

Peach sat down, and produced a packet of cigarettes from somewhere about
her person.

"Have a fag, anybody?"

However, nobody smoked but Mr. Skedmore, who preferred his pipe. There
was a subtle, social distinction of which all were conscious between
Peach and the others in the room. Her wages were in point of fact no
more than Ivy's, but she worked in elegance for elegance instead of in
squalor for appetite, and the difference was appreciated. She sat with
her kimono pulled modestly over her crossed knees, while Mrs. Skedmore
poured her out a cup of tea, which Ivy brought to her.

"Well, Ivy, you were up fine and early this morning."

"How d'you mean?" blurted Ivy, taken unawares.

"Well I heard you go out, and it wasn't more'n half past seven, for the
church bells hadn't finished."

"How do you know? You were asleep."

"I heard you go out, I say, and I heard the bells, too."

"I tell you I didn't go out--not till after eight. I didn't come in here
till after eight, did I, Ma?"

"No, you didn't. Mrs. Housego had been sitting with us a quarter of an
hour before you came."

"There's bells at eight, too," continued Ivy desperately; "what should I
get up earlier for on a Sunday?"

"Oh, well, you didn't then," said Peach airily. She felt quite sure that
Ivy had got up and gone out before half past seven, but if she didn't
want it mentioned, she certainly was not going to give her away.

"Did you go to the pictures, Peach, last night?"

"I did. We went to see Norma Talmadge at the Pavilion."

"What was she like?" asked Ivy wistfully.

"Ever so nice."

"Ivy will be able to go to the pictures any day she chooses now," said
Mrs. Skedmore--"the price of a seat won't be no object, and she loves
the pictures."

"Well if you ever get the chance, Ivy," said Peach, "go and see Norma
Talmadge in 'Love Makes New.' It's ever such a beautiful picture."

"What's it about?"

"Oh, about a girl in temptation. On one side there's a nice poor boy and
on the other side a rich old chap, and she has to choose between them."

Ivy wished she hadn't asked.

"Who does she choose?" asked Mrs. Housego.

"Why, the boy, of course. But not till the end of the picture. The old
chap brings her lovely pearls. I didn't half think I'd have married him
in her place."

"And jilted your Algy?" rallied Mrs. Skedmore.

"Oh, the boy in the picture wasn't near so nice as Algy."

Here again Peach outraged your convention of a mannequin, who is always
supposed to be superior and expensive in her love affairs, having been
engaged for the last four years to a young salesman at a Brixton
draper's, who might be able to afford to marry her in another four
years' time.

"Well, I'm all for Romance," said Mrs. Housego. "Love in a
cottage--that's what I like on the pictures. I pity the girl who sells
herself for money."

"Lots of them do,' said Mrs. Skedmore, shaking her head.

"But they always regrets it," said Mrs. Housego.

"And ends up old and grey, sitting in the empty nursery," said Mrs.
Skedmore with a catch in her voice.

Ivy hung down her head, and her hands quivered and locked together,
though she knew that her mother and Mrs. Housego were talking of another
life than this, the Life of the Pictures, in which things happen
differently from this life, and therefore a life into which it is
sometimes good to escape.



                                  VII

"Albie," said Mrs. Skedmore, "run down to Mrs. Spiller and ask her
kindly what time it is."

The youngest Skedmore emerged from beneath a bed, and trotted off. He
came back with the alarming intelligence that it was a quarter past ten.

"A quarter past ten! Did you ever! And we haven't even begun to get
things straight. Come, girls, make a start, or Sid will be here and none
of us ready."

"What time is he coming?"

"He said he'd be round with a keb at a quarter to twelve. Come, hustle,
girls! Bless me! You'd never think I'd spring-cleaned this room all over
yesterday."

"We can't do nothing, Ma, with the children here. Can't they go out for
a bit?"

"Of course they can--no, they can't for they ain't dressed, and they
mustn't play in the street with their new clothes on."

"They can wear their old knickers and jerseys, just to run out. Mrs.
Housego's Gertie will look after them and see as they come back in
time."

"I wan'er go to church," said Gertie.

"Did you ever!" cried her mother. "You'll have plenty of church later,
when you go to see Ivy married."

"But I won't get a pitcher. I get a pitcher if I go to church now."

"I wan'er pitcher--I wan'er pitcher," chimed in the other little
Housegos.

"I wan'er pitcher," echoed the little Skedmores.

"Oh, let them go, Ma," cried Ivy impatiently; "they'll be out of the
way, anyhow."

"The children's service begins at a quarter to ten," said Peach, "not
much good their going at a quarter past."

But such a distinction was merely trivial in the Skedmore conception of
time. It being decided that the children were best out of the way, that
church was safer than the street, and that they were more likely to
return from it than from more thrilling and scattered pursuits, they
were accordingly dispatched there, to add their arrival to the confusion
at the end of the Children's Mass.

As soon as they were gone Mrs. Housego and Mrs. Skedmore settled down to
what they called euphemistically "a good clean." The crockery of the
wedding feast was washed anew and would have to be washed again more
than once in the course of the meal if the glasses and plates were to go
round. A bunch of flowers, bought last night in Lunar Street market, was
dispersed among Mrs. Skedmore's vases. Pictures and ornaments were
finally dusted, the hearth cleaned and the food spread out on the
newly-washed tablecloth. In the midst of it all Mr. Skedmore shaved,
with blasphemous interludes, and Ivy, in the next room, helped by Peach,
put on her rosewood cloth dress with the detachable cape, the
nigger-brown straw hat, the silk stockings and suede shoes that formed
the chief splendours of her wedding.

"Coo, Ivy, but you look ever so nice! You pay for dressing up, you do. I
wish I had a chance with you at Madame's. I could make you look sweet.
But maybe you'll come some day. You'll be able to afford it, you know,
once and again. I bet lots of the women who come to us don't have as
much as eight pounds a week. But you're a lucky girl. I wish I had half
your luck," and she sighed.

Evidently she was not looking at Ivy from the moral view-point of the
pictures. She did not see her friend as "selling herself for money." And
yet she knew all about Bill. She also knew all about life, and that a
girl can't always afford to live up to the exalted moral standard set by
the cinema--that she must occasionally move on a lower level, simply in
order to avoid bad legs . . . Ivy's chosen course suddenly appeared to
her as absolutely sordid and humdrum. Not thus would Norma Talmadge or
Mary Pickford or Mae Murray have chosen. The tears began to roll down
her cheeks.

"Wotever's the matter, Ivy?"

"I feel so bad about it all, Peach."

"Bad about wot?"

"Marrying Sid when I ought to be marrying Bill."

"Now don't start all that nonsense over again. Why ever should you be
marrying Bill? He's not got a penny and never will have."

"I could go on with my job."

"Yes, you could--till the kids came. And what then? No, you forget it,
Ivy. It's no good. I wouldn't say that if he was like Algy, but he
isn't. My own opinion is that he's not straight. Anyhow, _I_ wouldn't
trust him. Now, there's nothing really exciting about Sid, but he's as
straight as they're made. He won't let you down. He's good stuff."

"Do you really think so?"

"Of course I think so, and so do you. You've only got the jim-jams at
the last minute, the way most girls do."

Ivy wondered. Had she really only got the jim-jams? Or was this
Conscience Roused at Last? The words seemed to flicker before her eyes,
as if thrown on a screen. She went to the window and looked out--down at
the garden where the sun-dappled shadows moved like some spotted beast.
Suddenly she saw two figures come arm in arm round the corner of the
Square. It was Bill and an unknown female, whom he led past the house.
She was smartly dressed in green, with a hat to match, and her skirts
displayed much silken leg. Bill's hand lay tenderly over the one he had
pulled through his arm. He was bending towards her and talking eagerly.

"Cad!" shouted Ivy, and brought Peach, who was kneeling to button a
shoe, startled to her feet.

"What is it? Who?--Oh!"

She looked out and saw Bill turning at the Square corner, to lead his
lady back past the window that he wished to mock.

"Why, it's Bill! Who in the Lord's name has he got hold of now?"

"He's brought her to jeer at me. He's a cad. He's a----"

"Shut up, Ivy. You don't want every one to hear. Don't be a fool and
give him his chance like that. Get away from the window"; and she pulled
her back into the room with such violence that she fell across the bed
that filled up most of it.

"There, what did I say?" continued Peach. "I told you he wasn't
straight. He's a rotten sort of chap. You're well rid of him."

Ivy sobbed, stifling, into her pillow.

"Now don't do that, or you'll spoil your face. Come and let me brush
your dress."

"Has he gone?"

"Yes--now you're not looking out any more. He's cleared off"; and Peach
made an unladylike gesture of farewell. "Come, Ivy, and don't be a damn
fool. You'll get yourself all crumpled. Sit up. That's right. Now, let
me give you just a dust over with my powder. Yes, you _must_. You can't
let everyone see you with a red nose and red eyes like that. They'll
think you've been crying. And you've nothing to cry for. You're a lucky
girl."

"If you say that again," said Ivy, sullenly, "I shall scream."

"Well, then, I won't say it, but I'll think it all the same."

A sudden clamour broke out in the next room.

"Girls! Girls!" shrieked Mrs. Skedmore--"Sid's come!"

Doors flew open, footsteps thudded, voices questioned and screamed.

"Sid's come . . . the keb's here . . . the children ain't back. Wherever
can they be? They've got to be dressed, and Nellie to put on her
bridesmaid's clothes and all."

In the midst of the uproar, Sid Hurley's step came quietly up the
stairs.

"Hello, what's the matter? Where's Ivy?"

"Here I am, Sid."

"Don't sound so sad, little girl. What's she been doing, Mrs. Skedmore?
Is she tired?"

"No, but what am _I_ to do, Sid? There's all the children out heaven
knows where."

"Well, if they can't be found, the wedding must go on without them. It's
a quarter to twelve."

"But Nellie's to be bridesmaid. Oh, what shall we do? Ivy, you're
dressed. Run down to the corner and----"

"No, no, Mrs. Skedmore; Ivy mustn't do any more running about this
morning. Why, she's tired already, poor little girl"; and he gently
tucked back a piece of hair that had flown loose under her hat.

"Well, I'll go to the corner, dear, if you like," said Mrs. Housego. "I
can call them, but heaven knows I can't chase after them, being the size
I am."

"Stay where you are, ma'am," said Sid. "I'll see if I can find 'em; and,
if I find 'em, I bet I bring 'em too."

"There!" cried Mrs. Skedmore. "That's a man, dearie."

Peach, too, thought that it was. She nudged Ivy in the ribs.

"Wot price Doug Fairbanks?" she whispered.

Meanwhile, the finishing touches were put to Mr. Skedmore's tie and Mrs.
Skedmore's toque. Mrs. Housego went downstairs to her own room, to put
on the redeemed hat and await such of her family as the bridegroom
should recover in the short time allowed him. His chief efforts were to
be centred on Nellie Skedmore, but it was more than likely that the
children had kept together.

So it proved. Just as the more trustworthy clocks in the Square pointed
to twelve, Sid Hurley reappeared with a little string of grubs. It
appeared that, finding themselves too late at church to receive the
coveted pictures, they had gone on in hope to the Salvation Army Sunday
School, where they had each been rewarded with a coloured text about the
size of a postage stamp. Thus refreshed, they had endured a certain
amount of instruction, agreed that they had found the Lord, and started
off home, stopping on the way to join in a game of "house" on the steps
of the Parish Hall. This was not "house" as played in the nursery, but
as played in the British Army; and, though none of the players had any
money, stakes were put up in the way of buttons, marbles, matchboxes and
similar treasures. The little Skedmores staked their texts and lost
them, and it was in the midst of the ensuing battle that Sid Hurley
arrived and dragged them away.

It was decided once again to concentrate on Nellie; the others, having
no prominent part in the coming ceremony, might scramble as they chose
into the new jerseys and knickers laid out for them. But Nellie must be
washed, combed, brushed, and clothed in white raiment, white stockings
and shoes, with a wreath of daisies round her rag-curled hair. Nellie,
though next in age to Ivy, was not yet twelve. She represented the other
side of a gap which had been filled with a variety of births and deaths,
as little Skedmores came into the world and left it in rapid succession.
Three had not survived their birth more than a few weeks, one had died
sensationally in a smallpox epidemic much written of in the newspapers,
while another, as if to show the utter contempt of Providence for the
efforts of the Skedmores, had died of a "bad arm" caused by septic
conditions after vaccination.

While Nellie was being dressed, Ivy and her bridegroom sat together by
the window, their conversation screened by the general uproar.

"Sure you're not tired, darling?"

She shook her head.

"I believe you are a bit."

"Why should I be? I've done nothing to-day."

"But it's all been exciting and trying for you. I'll be ever so glad
when I've got you away all quiet by the seaside."

Ivy shivered.

"What is it, dear?"

"Nothing."

"Ivy, you're not unhappy, are you? You're not feeling--oh, my dear, tell
me that you're glad."

"I am glad," said Ivy.

She suddenly knew that she was glad. "I've only got the jim-jams at the
last moment, the way most girls have," she repeated firmly.

She suddenly knew that she had only got the jim-jams. That was what it
was--what every girl had on her wedding day. There was nothing else--no
regrets, no flight, no sorrow, no wild beast in the garden. . . .



                                  VIII

"There now!" said her mother. "She looks a pitcher!"

"Boo-hoo!" sobbed Nellie. "There's a pin sticking into me."

"There ain't. I tell you there's no pin. Now you behave! If it wasn't
Ivy's wedding day you'd have been well tanned by your dad for the dance
you've led us."

"We only went to the Salvations."

"Well, it wasn't the Salvations who rolled you in the dirt and spoiled
your only decent pair of drawers. Now don't you move till we all go out
together. Albie! Georgie! . . . Oh, thank you, Peach. Now is everybody
ready? Ivy! We can't get far without you, nor Sid either. You'll have
plenty of time for spooning later. Now everybody go out. Dad! Got the
key? That's right. Lock the door after us. Now, Albie, if you start
running. . . ."

Somehow or other they all got downstairs and were not too hopelessly
involved with the emerging Housegos. There stood the cab, and somehow or
other they all got into it. As they drove across the Square, before the
windows became too fogged to see out, Ivy looked her last into the
garden. Nobody was there, neither a spotted beast, nor a maddening,
jeering boy, parading his new love to mock the old. She felt quite quiet
now--quiet and not unhappy. The past was over and done with, and the
future looked brighter than it had looked before the sun was up. It
looked bright as well as comfortable . . . She glanced across at Sid,
and remembered with a little creep of pride that Peach had compared him
to Douglas Fairbanks. Not that he was really very like him, but he was
certainly strong and kind . . . and Peach had also sand he was "good
stuff."

The cab stopped outside the church. They were not so very late after
all, for though it was twenty past twelve, the Easter morning service
was not yet over. The verger cane out and told them to stay in the porch
till it was finished. Looking in, Ivy could see dim figures and dim
lights, and sniff the soft blue haze that reminded her of her
childhood's Sundays. Church-going was either for the very old or for the
very young--the middle years were too, crowded and too hard, and
Saturday night ate up too much of Sunday morning. But perhaps she would
go again now, for there would be leisure in her home, such as there had
never been in her mother's and as there would not be in Peach's when she
married.

How smart Peach looked! Smarter than any of the brides--for Ivy's was
not the only glory of that wedding day. No less than eight other brides
were crowding with their retinues into that narrow porch, while their
friends and neighbours covered the pavement outside.

"Bang! Crash! Bang! Terrumphy! The service was over and the organ had
began to play the congregation out. The various wedding-parties made a
rush for the entrance, but the verger and churchwardens held them back.

"Let the people out first."

Out the congregation came, dribbling a thin line through the brides and
bridegrooms. In the vestry a tired clergyman was taking off his
vestments and scrambling into a surplice for the approaching orgy.

"I wish you'd let me take them," said the new curate, who had not begun
his day's work at five.

"My dear chap, you couldn't start with nine couples at a time. You'd get
'em mixed. I'll polish them off in twenty minutes and then thank the
Lord for food, hot coffee, rest."

He disappeared into the church, where the verger had by this time
marshalled the different couples and arranged them in a long row in
front of the chancel. Those who had no bridesmaids stood in front of the
pews, those who had the longest trail stood in the aisle. Ivy stood a
little way to the right, with Sid on one side and her father on the
other, and Nell behind her, wedged against a Litany desk and still
complaining of a pin. She had time to look round her while they waited
for the priest. There stood the gipsies, right at the end--her hat was
full of feathers like a donah. Rose Chown actually had a white veil.
There was swank for you! Especially after what people said--and Hilda
James . . . she didn't know Hilda was getting married. The other couples
were strangers--two of them were quite middle-aged . . . getting married
again . . . then it couldn't be so bad the first time . . . she looked
round shyly at Sid. Her jim-jams were all gone now--she supposed it had
been just that, just like what every girl has before her wedding . . .
no mistaking Peach for a bride now--she was right behind in one of the
pews.

A great shuffle went through the lines. The clergyman had come in. He
stood before them, turning over the pages of his book, eyeing meanwhile
one of the bridegrooms who was a little drunk. Then he began to read:

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God. . . ."

THE END




[End of _A Wedding Morn_ by Sheila Kaye-Smith]
