Father of the Bride Read online

  It all struck Mr. Banks as lacking in forthrightness. Obviously, however, this was an inappropriate time to suggest revision of the marriage service, so he decided on “I do.” His next problem was the tone of voice to be used.

  He didn’t want to mumble it in a shamefaced kind of way. On the other hand if he boomed it out it would have an eager-beaver quality suggesting that he was delighted to get Kay off his hands. He compromised on a well-modulated, dignified delivery; about the tone a man would use if someone asked who would volunteer for a dangerous mission.

  He was mindful of the fact that, when his one line had been spoken, his final part played, he was supposed to drop back a step, turn on his heel, and join his wife in the front pew. He wished that he had noticed just what lay in his immediate rear. He had an unpleasant vision of stepping back and tripping over something unexpected like an upturned corner of carpet or the end of the pew. He began to reach behind him stealthily with his right foot, using it like the antenna of an insect. He hoped that no one would notice it. People were always so quick to attribute such fumblings to alcohol.

  “Who giveth this woman—?” intoned the rich baritone of the Reverend Mr. Galsworthy from far above him.

  It caught him off guard in spite of all precautions. Kay nudged him and placed her hand in his. “I do,” he murmured almost inaudibly, and passed her hand to Buckley. As he performed the simple act he was conscious that something deep within him ripped slightly.

  He did not see the rest. Turning slowly, he stared defiantly at the rows of faces, then entered the first pew and stood beside Mrs. Banks. He tried in vain to listen to the words of the service—and then suddenly it was all over.

  It seemed impossible, but it was definitely over. Kay and Buckley were kissing. The organ had broken into the joyous notes of the Mendelssohn Wedding March, like a little boy released from Sunday school into spring sunshine. The maid of honor was struggling with Kay’s train. The wedding guests were searching under the pews for lost gear and poking out hats that wives had sat on.

  Kay beamed at them happily as she went by, her arm through Buckley’s, and again Mr. Banks felt that queer little rending in the center of his being. The flashing of bulbs indicated that Weisgold and Weisgold were still their old candid selves. Tommy appeared, to take his mother out.

  It was over. The wedding dress, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the struggles with cutaways, the invitations, the flowers, the lists, the rehearsal, the arguments, apprehensions, doubts and bewilderments had all suddenly become memories.

  A wedding was like the experimental explosion of an atom bomb, thought Mr. Banks as he walked out behind his wife, smirking to right and left. You made the most careful preparations for months, then someone like Mr. Tringle pressed a button—and it was all over. There was scarcely any present tense in connection with weddings. They existed either in the future or in the past.

  “Stanley, your hat looks like a cat in a thunderstorm,” said Mrs. Banks as they descended the entrance steps of the church. “But it was lovely, darling, wasn’t it?”

  He walked out behind his wife, smirking to right and left.

  15

  RECEPTION

  It is traditional that, between the church and the house, wedding guests are free agents. This is the one period in the schedule where they can express their own individuality.

  The majority appreciate this unsupervised interlude and are apt to turn it into a kind of hare-and-hound race in which the bride, groom and immediate progenitors are the hares, the guests assuming the role of hounds.

  The latter are held in check briefly by a few yards of satin ribbon and a rear guard of ushers whose hearts are no longer in their work. Scarcely have the hares disappeared down the striped tunnel of awning than the pack is after them with lolling tongues.

  Gone the little pre-wedding courtesies when one car waited politely for another to pull in to the curb and friends exchanged genial words of greeting while trying to crawl out of underslung sedans. Now it is every man for himself, sauve qui peut, and devil take the hindmost, for the last man to arrive at the house knows that he must spend the balance of the afternoon standing in the reception line watching his more active neighbors guzzling free champagne.

  • • •

  Mr. and Mrs. Banks arrived at 24 Maple Drive a few minutes behind the bridal party. During their absence Mr. Massoula had taken over completely in accordance with his promises. His Buckingham Caterers were darting about like Walt Disney gnomes.

  Mr. Massoula met them at the front door. “Everything is in hand,” he said. “Don’t worry about anything. Go right into the living room. They’re taking pictures of the bridal party.”

  In the living room Mr. Weisgold of Weisgold and Weisgold was perspiring freely and photographing the bridal party in various combinations. Those not engaged in being self-consciously photogenic stood about making wisecracks about those who were, between deep draughts of Mr. Banks’ champagne, which had already begun to flow. A Buckingham representative approached with a tray full of glasses.

  Mr. Banks took one. He felt like those men in the whiskey ads who go through nerve-shattering experiences in jungles or on mountain precipices, then, their job well done, settle down calmly with friends in the last picture to a glass of their favorite grog. He had also gone through his own private ordeal and, he thought complacently, not without distinction. Now it was all over but the shouting. “Don’t go away,” he hissed to the waiter.

  The bridesmaids were being photographed. Finally the Bankses and the Dunstans took their places before the flash bulbs. Mr. Weisgold’s ability to produce an endless supply of bulbs fascinated Mr. Banks. The man must have been a hand grenade thrower in the war.

  Over Mr. Weisgold’s shoulder he suddenly noticed a cluster of faces in the doorway of the living room. Behind them were other faces. Faces jammed the front doorway. Through the window he could see them stretching in close formation halfway down the walk. Mr. Massoula blocked the entrance to the living room with firm urbanity, like the headwaiter of the Persian Room on a busy night.

  He noticed a cluster of faces in the doorway.

  The faces that peered at him were not of the happy, laughing type traditionally associated with wedding feasts. They were, rather, the glum, frustrated faces of those who had broken their fenders to get there early and were now denied the fruits of their sacrifices. They were the faces of citizens who definitely wanted to get this runkydunk over with and proceed with the main business of the afternoon.

  Mr. Weisgold stopped flashing. The receiving line suddenly snapped to attention as if at the bark of a phantom drill sergeant. Mr. Massoula stepped aside nimbly to avoid being trampled. Mr. Banks never had a connected memory of the next forty-five minutes.

  No one had told him whether or not he was to be part of the receiving line. For a moment he decided against it. Then it occurred to him that if he just stood in the middle of the living room he might be mistaken for the caterer. He slid quietly into place between his wife and Mrs. Dunstan as the first guest began to pump Mrs. Banks’ arm.

  It became immediately apparent that one of his duties was to introduce the guests to Mrs. Dunstan. Introducing one old friend to another had always been enough to give him complete aphasia. On ordinary occasions when guests arrived he disappeared into the pantry and busied himself with the refreshment department, leaving to Mrs. Banks the task of making people known to one another.

  Those who were now so eagerly pushing forward to shake his hand were, for the most part, lifelong friends. In spite of this he fell immediately into his accustomed groove and could not remember anyone’s name. Occasionally he would recollect their first names, but he couldn’t very well say to Mrs. Dunstan, “This is Joe and Booboo.” For once his retreat to the pantry was blocked.

  Mrs. Banks felt herself jabbed from the rear with a thumb. She jumped slightly and turned toward her husband with the injured look common to all people when jabbed unexpectedly from the rear. “Sing out
the last names,” he whispered desperately.

  Mrs. Banks glanced at him anxiously. She knew he had been going through a considerable strain, but she had hoped with all her being that he would hold together for another couple of hours. “Why, Jack and Nancy Hilliard” she cried gaily. “My dear, you look adorable. Yes. Wasn’t it. I am so glad you thought so. And Grace Lippincott, I am so glad you could get here.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Lippincott,” mumbled Mr. Banks uncertainly in the general direction of Mrs. Dunstan. “I mean—that is to say—Mr. and Mrs. Hilliard.”

  He gave it up. He found that, by turning to the next pair of guests before they left Mrs. Banks, it was possible to pass up the whole business and let Mrs. Dunstan rock along as best she could. After all, she would probably never see any of these people again. Maybe she had something there.

  Mr. Weisgold struggled through the line. “Look- it,” he complained. “You told me you was goin’ to have somebody with me to tell me who to shoot. I can’t shoot no specials if I dunno who they are.”

  Mr. Banks looked despairingly around for Ben and Tommy. He had covered this point with the greatest care. Both had assured him that they would not leave Mr. Weisgold’s side come hell or high water. Now they had disappeared. “Good God,” he said. “Find one of the boys. Find one of the ushers. I’ve got my hands full here and besides I don’t know who these people are any more than you do. Shoot anybody for all I care. Shoot them all. How do you do. So nice to see you. Wasn’t it? Yes, she is a grand girl.”

  “O.K.,” said Mr. Weisgold. “You’ll get what you get. I ain’t no mind reader.”

  A battle-ax of a woman was wringing his hand. “Buckley is my sweetheart,” she was saying. “I have known him since he was a little boy.” She released his hand to indicate how very tiny Buckley was. “He used to visit us at North Deering, you know. I expect he’s told you all about me. I am Mrs. Butterton. Mrs. Matilda Butterton. Buckley was a darling little—” Mr. Banks took her great hand in both of his and transferred it to Mrs. Dunstan.

  If only people wouldn’t stop and talk. There should be a law requiring them to pass silently in front of receiving lines the way they did before the biers of statesmen. They were still pouring in the front door. Glancing through the window, he could see the line extending beyond his field of vision. God knew where it ended. Had someone issued a general invitation by radio?

  “Well, well, well.” It was Joe Bludsoe and his diminutive wife. Joe was exuding good-fellowship and looking as if he might have apoplexy at any moment. “So you’re on your way to joining the grandfather’s club, eh? Well, well, well, I’m glad you lived through the wedding. God, you certainly looked awful when you came down that aisle. I said to Martha, ‘Let me go out and drag him off the course. He’s never going to make it.’ You don’t look so good now either. Still look green. When Mary was married—”

  He continued to pump Mr. Banks’ arm rhythmically. Mr. Banks transferred him to Mrs. Dunstan without causing him to miss a beat. “How do you do, Mrs. Karp,” he said. “It was good of you to come. Oh, excuse me. Of course. Mrs. Park. Why, of course I knew it. Yes, we couldn’t be happier about the whole thing.”

  It was over at last and not a minute too soon. If another person had injected himself into the living room the receiving line would have been squeezed into the fireplace.

  Something was wrong, very wrong, with Mr. Massoula’s “circulation.” Theoretically the guests were supposed to slither off the end of the reception line, through a French door, and into the marquee where Mr. Massoula had set up his bar and buffet tables. It was all laid out like a pinball game.

  Something was wrong with Mr. Massoula’s “circulation.”

  The first few couples to come off the line, however, had chosen the French door in which to hold a long, eager conversation. Those who followed had merely rebounded from this obstacle back into the living room. The pinball idea still held, but it was not working according to plan.

  Mr. Massoula’s gnomes were so efficient that no one needed to go to the bar anyway. They slid like eels through the melee, mysteriously carrying trays full of champagne glasses where no amateur could have transported an uncorked bottle.

  It seemed to Mr. Banks that these busy little figures must be paid on a piece basis—so much per glass dispensed. Never had he seen men more devoted to their work. The moment a person tilted his glass they were at his elbow waiting eagerly with a fresh supply. It was true that he had told Mr. Massoula to keep things moving. He had merely been thinking of other weddings where he had stood around for hours with an empty glass talking to someone whose name he did not know. It was one thing to avoid that and another to hurl the stuff down people’s throats every time they opened their mouths.

  The sickening idea occurred to him that at this rate it would be all gone in half an hour. For the third time that day he felt damp and clammy. His emotions were beginning to set up a distasteful system of hot and cold running perspiration.

  They slid like eels through the melee.

  He decided to go to the marquee and investigate. As he started for the door he tripped over a dog which, he noted, was being followed by another dog. To the best of his knowledge he had never seen either animal before. However, even if they had been his two favorite canines this did not seem a proper place for dogs.

  A lovely young creature approached.

  “Mr. Banks,” she cried. “What a darling, darling wedding. Kay looked too, too beautiful. You should be so proud, Mr. Banks. And Buckley’s just divine. We are all crazy for him. And Mrs. Banks looked too, too—”

  “Where the hell are all the dogs coming from?” interrupted Mr. Banks. He had just noted a brown and tan number entering the room through the legs grouped in the French door. It was apparently in search of some friend. “Is this a Bide-a-Wee Home or a wedding?” He wondered if the Buckingham Caterers were beginning to pour his champagne into the neighborhood crossbreeds.

  His unknown companion gave a silvery laugh. “Oh, Mr. Banks, that’s cute. The place does seem to be getting filled up with pooches, doesn’t it.”

  “Listen,” said Mr. Banks. “Do me a favor. Get hold of Tommy or Ben, if they haven’t left town, and tell them that part of an usher’s job is to throw out livestock.”

  “Oh, I will, Mr. Banks. I will. That’s darling.” She gave him a look that might have meant anything—but didn’t—and disappeared into the crowd. He made another start for the marquee, but the impromptu reunion in the French door had grown to such proportions that he gave it up for the moment and pushed his way about the room at random.

  Later he could remember a roar of voices—and people making faces at him—and making faces back at people—but it was a scene which would remain forever out of focus in his memory. Eventually he felt a tug at his sleeve. Kay and Buckley were standing behind him, Kay holding her crumpled train over her arm and grinning.

  “Hi, Pops. We’re going to get ready now. Don’t you want to see me hurl my bridal bouquet?”

  He followed them to the front hall while the wedding guests whooped noisily after. Kay and Buckley were already looking down from the landing.

  Mr. Banks was astonished to discover an entirely new expression on Kay’s face. Vanished the ethereal look she had worn as they started down the aisle. Now her ordinarily placid features radiated a self-confident, roguish gaiety that he had never seen before.

  For twenty-four years Kay had been as satisfactory a daughter as any man could desire. His only complaint, if one could use so strong a word, was that she was too repressed, too shy—not a scared rabbit exactly, but lacking that bold grasp of the realities which he admired in women.

  He had thought of her thus handicapped, leaving the cloisters and facing the world, in all the intimacy of married life and with a man whom she scarcely knew. Until this moment it had seemed to Mr. Banks that convention forced a transition that was brutal in its suddenness and completeness—a transition floodlighted by a glare of publicity which conventi
on also demanded. From Mr. Banks’ point of view it was enough to make the boldest maiden hesitate.

  Yet here was Kay, who only a few days before had been telling him that she didn’t have the nerve to go through with it, standing beside Buckley on the landing, looking over the faces below her with all the happy, relaxed assurance of a hunting dog which has just retrieved a bird.

  His eye rested balefully for a moment on Buckley. Ordinarily a shy fellow in crowds, he now had a look of smug possessiveness that sent an unexpected wave of irritation down Mr. Banks’ spine.

  The maid of honor was jockeying for position under the landing. Kay was waiting for her with the bridal bouquet poised. Small chance for the eager virgins clamoring with outstretched arms, their faces expressing in half-light what glowed so brightly and unashamed in Kay’s. It struck Mr. Banks that the accepted belief that men married women was a colossal hoax—they were merely married by women.

  There was a shrill yelping as the bridal bouquet came sailing over the rail and fell, with its usual precision, into the outstretched arms of the maid of honor. Then Kay and Buckley disappeared around the corner of the stairs followed by the bridal party.

  The crowd began to spread out again and Mr. Massoula’s walking dispensaries, apparently refreshed by the pause, went into action with renewed enthusiasm. Again Mr. Banks was struck by the need for taking inventory and he turned once more toward the marquee. Ralph Dixon collared him at the French door. He was a lawyer who took two things in life seriously. One was Ralph Dixon, the other the law.