The Rainbow

It was a beautiful sunny day for the wedding, a muddy earth

but a bright sky. They had three cabs and two big closed-in

vehicles. Everybody crowded in the parlour in excitement. Anna

was still upstairs. Her father kept taking a nip of brandy. He

was handsome in his black coat and grey trousers. His voice was

hearty but troubled. His wife came down in dark grey silk with

lace, and a touch of peacock-blue in her bonnet. Her little body

was very sure and definite. Brangwen was thankful she was there,

to sustain him among all these people.

The carriages! The Nottingham Mrs. Brangwen, in silk brocade,

stands in the doorway saying who must go with whom. There is a

great bustle. The front door is opened, and the wedding guests

are walking down the garden path, whilst those still waiting

peer through the window, and the little crowd at the gate gorps

and stretches. How funny such dressed-up people look in the

winter sunshine!

They are gone--another lot! There begins to be more

room. Anna comes down blushing and very shy, to be viewed in her

white silk and her veil. Her mother-in-law surveys her

objectively, twitches the white train, arranges the folds of the

veil and asserts herself.

Loud exclamations from the window that the bridegroom's

carriage has just passed.

"Where's your hat, father, and your gloves?" cries the bride,

stamping her white slipper, her eyes flashing through her veil.

He hunts round--his hair is ruffled. Everybody has gone but

the bride and her father. He is ready--his face very red

and daunted. Tilly dithers in the little porch, waiting to open

the door. A waiting woman walks round Anna, who asks: "Am I all right?"

She is ready. She bridles herself and looks queenly. She

waves her hand sharply to her father: "Come here!"

He goes. She puts her hand very lightly on his arm, and

holding her bouquet like a shower, stepping, oh, very

graciously, just a little impatient with her father for being so

red in the face, she sweeps slowly past the fluttering Tilly,

and down the path. There are hoarse shouts at the gate, and all

her floating foamy whiteness passes slowly into the cab.

Her father notices her slim ankle and foot as she steps up: a

child's foot. His heart is hard with tenderness. But she is in

ecstasies with herself for making such a lovely spectacle. All

the way she sat flamboyant with bliss because it was all so

lovely. She looked down solicitously at her bouquet: white roses

and lilies-of-the-valley and tube-roses and maidenhair

fern--very rich and cascade-like.

Her father sat bewildered with all this strangeness, his

heart was so full it felt hard, and he couldn't think of

anything.

The church was decorated for Christmas, dark with evergreens,

cold and snowy with white flowers. He went vaguely down to the

altar. How long was it since he had gone to be married himself?

He was not sure whether he was going to be married now, or what

he had come for. He had a troubled notion that he had to do

something or other. He saw his wife's bonnet, and wondered why

she wasn't there with him.