For Love Alone by Christina Stead Read Free Book Online Page B

embarrassment set in for the hundred mixed relations. Aunt Bea kept running about keeping up the good-will, while Malfi’s parents were continually shaking hands, kissing and greeting people. But the strangers brought together by Aunt Bea broke apart again at once, rendered indifferent by the heat of the extraordinary day which had now reached its maximum and was, as the men kept saying, one hundred and twelve, right outside now, the mercury frying. At first they created a little turbulency and gaiety by saying: “Have the bride and groom arrived yet?” “Were you at the church?” Many of the guests had not been invited to the church for the queer reason that Malfi, a party-giver and the showpiece of the family, wanted a very quiet ceremony. Presently these questions failed too, especially when it became certain that the newly married pair had already arrived but were staying in a small room, because Malfi was tired.
    Sylvia Hawkins, a dark cousin of twenty-eight, came bursting in with the news, creating a small unrest for a while by saying that Malfi was crying and her husband comforting her; and Aunt Bearushed about at once saying the poor child was over-wrought, over-excited, the happiest day of a girl’s life often brought tears, even though they might be deep-down tears of joy, but happy is the bride the sun shines on, and it certainly was bursting a blood-vessel to blaze on Malfi, the sun never shone so yet on any Hawkins bride, and then a good-natured joke to cover the awkwardness: “How do you like that—a June bride in February? But if all brides were to get married only one month in the year, such procrastination might cause certain things to happen, for time, time waits for no man and sometimes the Little Stranger comes out of the nowhere into the here rather sooner than he is expected.”
    â€œOh, Mother,” said Anne, Aunt Bea’s daughter, blushing to the roots of her hair.
    â€œDon’t blush, my cherub,” said Aunt Bea, “though a day like today no one knows whether it’s blush or sunburn, but whatever anyone may say, I don’t think it’s out of place at a wedding to talk of babies. Babies do come, you know, and from weddings, and under some circumstances”, and here she giggled reminiscently, and lowered her voice, “you might almost say it is the baby who is being married.”
    â€œMother!” cried Anne, mortified.
    â€œFear not, my little darling,” said Aunt Bea, ashamed, but only of having hurt her child’s feelings. “Mother will shut up. I open my mouth and put my foot in it.”
    â€œDon’t be a fool, Bea,” said Aunt Esmay fatly. “My! my dress is sticking to me, they’ll think I came in a bathing suit if this goes on much longer. We do need an electric fan. Wouldn’t you think they’d have one? At the whist drive on Saturday they had one over each table.”
    â€œA ninon bathing suit is just right for today,” said Bea, giggling, “or Eve’s bathing suit.”
    â€œI’m just waiting to rip these rags off my back and step into a cold bath,” said Maggie.
    â€œLook at me in my old serge suit,” said Bea, with a poor smile. “Well, all I had, don’t think I wouldn’t prefer ninon.”
    â€œNinon over none-on,” said Aunt Esmay, laughing at the old joke as if she had just made it up.
    â€œNinon over none-on,” said Aunt Bea disconsolately. But she brightened at once. “Never say die, for my own precious cherub’s wedding I’ll wear purple and fine linen if I have to scrub floors for a six-month before. Anne will have whatever she wants, ivory satin, watered silk, Chantilly lace and of course, the family diamonds.” Aunt Bea lifted one foot and wrenched at her shoe with a grimace. “These were a bargain at Joe Gardiner’s, but you know I am so ashamed to keep the poor young man showing me samples that I