Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 292, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1918 — The Wedding Knives [ARTICLE]

The Wedding Knives

By S. B. HACKLEY

(Copyright, 1818, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) / They were very beautiful —those delicate trifles of the ancient wedding toilet of the seventeenth century bride —the wedding knives of Mistress Anne Hogarth. ** ■'.- Margery Byers took them reverently from their faded green brocade sheaths and running her fingers over the elaborately chased blades, and the quaint pearl set handles, handed them to Stephen Palmer. The young physician turned them over curiously. “So these!pretty trinkets were necessary to theJiridal toilet away back in the days of your grandmother ancestress, Margie?” he remarked. “I don’t remember of ever reading of them.” . Margery’s brown eyes sparkled with interest and admiration. “Why, don’t you remember. Steve?” she cried. “Juliet wore them at her girdle when she was tn the Friar’s cell, and she had them on when she was about to take the sleeping potion.” “What did they symbolize?” asked Palmer. “They had something to do with severing the knot of love, I believe.” answered Margery vaguely, “anyway, whatever they meant, they were beautiful things to wear.” , “And you, Margie, I suppose you’ll wear these when you’re married.” Palmer hesitated a little over his work. When a girl has a well-defined, relative Implanted idea of engaging herself when she gets to the seashqre summer resort to a rich man she doesn’t care for. but who is going tp ask her to marry see unexpected love in the eyes of the man she’d like to marry, even though disapproved of by the relatives, is disconcerting. Margery turned away and replaced the trinkets In their places before she answered a bit tremulously:

• “My—my wedding day is a long time off. most likely, Stephen. I’m not quite twenty, you know.” “I —listen, Margie,” Stephen tried to keep his voice steady, “I want to tell you something.” “Hurry, Margie,” an Impatient voice called from the next room. “Are you we have an engagement this evening?” “I’m coming, mother,” the girl answered. “Come down to the station tomorrow, Steve,” she said in hasty goodby, “ehrly. I’ll go down a half hour before mother does, and we—we can talk before the train leaves.” But a man In a factory got himself cut up badly the next day an hour before Margery’s train was to leave, and Palmer was called to hold life in him. There was not even time for telephoning Margery, and the letter of explanation he sent her was returned to him unopened. ’- > » " When three weeks, later Margery’s engagement to Elmer Troxbll was announced Stephen worked so many extra hours at the hospital that the head surgeon protested. In September the Byers family returned, and Palmer could not escape the accounts of the wedding that was to be one of the city’s social events. A few days before .the, wedding, unable to deny himself the uncertain unhappiness of tryjng to catch a glimpse of the bride-to-be, he found himself passing the Byers house. As he went by, driving at a snail’s pace, he heiiril frightened screams from within. He leaped from his car. As he ran up the walk a terrified maid thrust open the door. “Oh. Doctor Palmer!” she cried, recognizing him, “come in, quick!” Another one of the maids had fallen, carrying a tray of glasses, anti had cut her wrist. She was shrieking in fear and clinging to Margery; who with a pencil and a handkerchief was twisting a tourniquet about the wounded arm. while the blood spattered her lovely white dress. “Come away, Margery.” frowhed a heavy browed, man in a white serge costume, standing at a safe distance from the maid, as Palmer came forward. “arid let the man attend to her. It’s his business —besides you’re getting your frock spoiled, and we were ready for our drive.”

Margery shook off his hand. “Go away. Elmer!”—Palmer detected a note of dislike in her tone-£“jyou are in Doctor Palmer’s way. Igfeser mind the drive. I shall stay with Sophie.” As Troxell sulkily left the room his foot touched something lying on the rug something that tinkled, as with a murmur of disgust he tehoved it aside. The next morning when Palmer returned to the house to attend the injured maid he found her crying. “I’m not scared for myself, it’s Miss Margie I’m worried about/’ she told him. “He —that man ain’t fit for her nor anybody else. Miss Margie tol,d him yesterday she was going to "wear her great grandmother’s wedding knives (maybe she’s showed them to you) at her wedding, and he got awfully mad —asked her howi she would look, standing up there inlier bridal robes, before all his friends with ‘those absurd things dangling at her belt, like a housekeeper’s keys;’ And he threw them on the floor, and when I came in with the tray I stumbled over them and fell and cut my arm.” Palmer patted as he listened, and though he made no comment he had to set his * teeth to keep the words that came in his mind. Two days later Palmer read the fol-

lowing paragraph ip l the evening papert <<•_ - ■ 1 1 ‘ . “Troxel! Neglects to Get License.” ran the headline. "After being supposedly joined in matriinony at the most elaborate society wedding of the year at noon today, with both Rev. Robert Clinton and Bishop Phelps officiating, Miss Margery Byers and Elmer Troxell were informed by County Clerk Veal in the most matter-of-fact way that they were not married at all, They had been married without a license.” The paper further stated that the guests had left Miss Byers’ residence after the reception, when the vital omission-was discovered. A messenger was hastened io find Bishop Phelps, and the good prelate was begged to come to the house in an emergency situation. He did so, and when he reached the residence he was told the nerves of the bride were so shaken that the ceremony would have to be deferred until the next morning. For eight hours Stephen had thought her Troxell's wife, and she was not married—not married 1 An errand boy touched his elbow. “You’re wanted at the telephone, doctor.” “Is that Dr. Stephen Palmer?” the voice was trembling. “This Is Margie Byers. Oh, Steve, come to the house right away. „Come quick; I—l want you I” i: Palmer stumbled out to the street and hailed a cab. The maid, Sophie, her arm in a sling, let him in. ...i . “Miss Margie' wants to see you alone,” she told him, and led him to a little upstairs room at the back of the house. As the door closed behind him something in a white dress flew to him. “Oh, Steve, I want you to save me.!” Margery gasped. “They put it in the paper that I was so shaken the second ceremony would havejto be deferred, but I’ve told father and mother I’m not going to marry him at all.” “Not marry him!” he echoed.

“No! Father, ihother, everybody, thought it would be so fine for me, I agreed to marry him. I never loved him, but that day he quarreled with me, over wearing great-grandmother’s wedding knives at my wedding (the day Sophie cut her arm) I knew I hated him. But I thought It was too late then. They talked to me until I was nearly crazy this afternoon when I told them my eyes were opened-and I was thankful the license was forgotten. They said it would be a scandal to the family if I. didn’t marry him now’, and they’ve set the hour for eight in the morning.” “Margie,” the young man’s lips were white, .“did you send back my letter that I wrote to explain why I didn’t come to the train the day you went to Bar Harbor?” .“I never received any letter,” . she faltered; “I looked nnd looked for It; then X thought you didn’t care. Mother—” ' ' ’ • • “But I did care—l do care—so much I don’t dare advise you. I wanted to tell you that day—l wanted to tell you—” She looked up at him and her wet eyes began to shine. “Tell me now, Stevie!" she cried softly. “Oh, Steve, it wouldn’t be any scandal for you to let me run away with you and marry you tonight, would* it?” At seven o’clock the next morning the justice of the peace, just over the state line, stood before a tall young professional man holding the hand of a pretty girl clad in a gray traveling suit of French design, and wearing at her belt her great-grandmother’s knives, and pronounced a ceremony that was binding and fast. : t