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Further Chronicles Of Avonlea: 03. Her Father’s Daughter
by
“Rachel! Rachel! My child, I hope and pray that you may be happy,” she said brokenly.
In the surge of the suddenly merry crowd of well-wishers around the bride and groom, Isabella was pushed back into a shadowy corner behind a heap of sails and ropes. Looking up, she found herself crushed against David Spencer. For the first time in twenty years the eyes of husband and wife met. A strange thrill shot to Isabella’s heart; she felt herself trembling.
“Isabella.” It was David’s voice in her ear–a voice full of tenderness and pleading–the voice of the young wooer of her girlhood–“Is it too late to ask you to forgive me? I’ve been a stubborn fool–but there hasn’t been an hour in all these years that I haven’t thought about you and our baby and longed for you.”
Isabella Spencer had hated this man; yet her hate had been but a parasite growth on a nobler stem, with no abiding roots of its own. It withered under his words, and lo, there was the old love, fair and strong and beautiful as ever.
“Oh–David–I–was–all–to–blame,” she murmured brokenly.
Further words were lost on her husband’s lips.
When the hubbub of handshaking and congratulating had subsided, Isabella Spencer stepped out before the company. She looked almost girlish and bridal herself, with her flushed cheeks and bright eyes.
“Let’s go back now and have supper, and be sensible,” she said crisply. “Rachel, your father is coming, too. He is coming to STAY,”–with a defiant glance around the circle. “Come, everybody.”
They went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn fields, faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the hills. The young bride and groom lagged behind; they were very happy, but they were not so happy, after all, as the old bride and groom who walked swiftly in front. Isabella’s hand was in her husband’s and sometimes she could not see the moonlit hills for a mist of glorified tears.
“David,” she whispered, as he helped her over the fence, “how can you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “We’re only just married. Who ever heard of a bridegroom talking of forgiveness? Everything is beginning over new for us, my girl.”