Father of the Bride (10 page)

Each day an increasing number of people, known and unknown, accepted with pleasure. Apparently Kay had selected a day for her wedding when no one within a range of four hundred miles had anything to do. The Banks-Dunstan marriage was evidently an oasis in a desert of boredom.

Mr. Banks became increasingly impressed with the stupendousness of the spectacle which he was about to produce, and with the importance of the role which he was slated to play. It wasn’t a wedding. It was a pageant. There should be an electric sign on the awning into the church:

MARRIAGE BELLS. A SUPERCOLOSSAL SCENIC DISPLAY. PRODUCED, DIRECTED AND ACTED BY STANLEY BANKS.

As a form of self-torture the idea pleased him. He developed it leisurely as he composed himself to sleep that night. No one had thought of loud-speakers outside the church to take care of the overflow, or of putting the show on the air, or of billboards.

Sometime during the night he woke up filled with vague apprehension. For a few minutes he couldn’t figure out what was bothering him. Then, gradually, the interior of a great cathedral took shape in his half-conscious brain. Its monolithic columns towered up and up, disappearing finally into the darkness above. The place was jammed to the doors with flashily dressed people. Somewhere an organ was thundering like a summer storm.

Suddenly the organ stopped and there was a dead silence broken only by the creaking of stiff collars and the rattle of pearls as a thousand heads turned as if on swivels to the point where he, Stanley Banks, found himself standing, quite alone, at the head of the aisle.

He tried to slip into one of the rear pews, but his feet were rooted to the floor. Then there was a series of terrific boomps from the organ and the peals of the wedding march resounded through the vaulted shadows. A shaft of white light sprang from the gloom above him and placed him in the center of a glaring pool of brilliance.

Alone . . . he started down the aisle.

Alone, pacing slowly to the measured rhythm of the organ, he started down the aisle. It was several hundred yards long and at the end of it he could distinguish the figure of the minister which kept growing larger and larger until it towered over the whole scene and reached into the shadows—huge, sinister, forbidding, daring him to run the gauntlet.

Now he could hear titters from either side. “It’s Banks. How grotesque! Why, his clothes don’t fit him. Look at his figure! Why, he can’t even get his coat buttoned! What a clown of a man!”

The tittering was giving way to shrieks of laughter. People were standing on the seats of the pews and pointing at him. “Look at his knees shake! He’ll never make it. He’ll go down in a minute. How could a man like that have such a beautiful daughter? They say she isn’t his. It’s a joke. He’s a joke. Banks is nothing but a big fat joke—a big fat joke—a big fat joke. My God, his pants are undone!”

He was sitting up in bed. His forehead was clammy.

“Why don’t you take a sleeping pill, dear?” said Mrs. Banks. “It’ll quiet you down.”

•  •  •

Of course Mr. Banks realized that this sort of nocturnal shenanigans was immature and silly. For a successful lawyer it indicated an alarming lack of self-control. However, in spite of his efforts to reason the matter through logically, he felt queasy all day. When he arrived in Fairview Manor late in the afternoon it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to go up and look at the church. Not that he wasn’t thoroughly familiar with it. He merely wished to look it over in its new role as a Wedding Church.

The side door was open. The leveling rays of the late afternoon sun sifted through the stained-glass windows and filled the interior with a rich tapestry of subdued color. The place was deserted. He felt like an intruder bursting in on its introspective silence.

Standing at the head of the aisle, he studied the terrain like a hunter. Why had he thought of this intimate place as a cathedral? The pillars on either side, as he studied them critically for the first time, looked rather short and dumpy. As for the aisle, from where he stood a hop, skip and a jump would land him in the minister’s arms.

“Anything I can do for you, sir?” It was Mr. Tringle, the sexton of St. George’s. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Banks. I didn’t recognize you. Come to look things over for the wedding? Well, don’t get nervous, Mr. Banks. We’ll handle everything the way you want it.”

“I’m
not
nervous,” said Mr. Banks irritably.

“Of course not. No sir. Some fathers get nervous, though. Good Lord, you wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it with your own eyes. Fine upstanding men falling to pieces like that. Why, I’ve had ’em out in the vestry shakin’ so’s their hair was in their eyes. Shockin’, some of ’em. Didn’t think I’d ever get ’em down the aisle. Somethin’ about the sight of a church seems to set ’em off. Seems like men’s more highstrung than women that way. Everything’ll be all right. Don’t give it a thought, sir. Worryin’ won’t make it any better anyways. I can remember—Oh, have you got to go? Will you go out this door please. Good night, Mr. Banks.”

•  •  •

A short time later he found himself sitting on the livingroom sofa with Kay, sipping his evening old-fashioned. Delilah was out. Mrs. Banks was in the kitchen. Kay suddenly slipped her arm through his. He patted her hand absently, his mind on Mr. Tringle.

“I know I’m a
fool,
Pops, but I want to talk to you about something. You won’t think I’m
silly,
will you?”

“Of course not, Kitten. What’s bothering?”

“I’m scared, Pops. Scared to
death.
”

Mr. Banks started and took a substantial swallow. “Scared? What are you scared of? Getting married isn’t anything to be scared of. Marriage is the most normal—”

“Oh, Pops, I’m not scared of
marriage
. It’s much sillier than
that
. You see—” He always had a particular yen for Kay when she said “You see” and snuggled.

“It’s this way, Pops. You know how I wanted a
simple
wedding—out in the country somewhere. Well, that’s
out
. We don’t
live
in the country. Period. But this thing is getting bigger an’ bigger an’
bigger
. Oh, I know it’s ungrateful, Pops. You’re wonderful. But sometimes it scares the living daylights out of me.”

Mr. Banks glanced toward the kitchen and dropped his voice. “You mean like going down the aisle?”

“Every time I
think
of it, Pops, I turn into a cold sweat. Suppose my
knees
got shaking just as I started. And suppose they shook so finally that they let me down
entirely
and you had to
drag
me to the altar like a sack of
meal.
”

Mr. Banks regarded her for some moments with despair in his eyes. “We might both have a short snort just before the show starts,” he suggested finally, but without conviction.

“No
sir. That won’t do, Pops. I’m not going to blow gin in the minister’s face at my own wedding.”

“I was thinking of a whiskey and soda,” said Mr. Banks. Then he pulled himself together with an almost visible effort. “Listen, Kitten. Get this into your head. There’s nothing to worry about. See?
Nothing
to worry about. All your life when you’ve been bothered
I’ve
been there, haven’t I? Well, I’ll be there when that wedding march starts. All you’ve got to do is to take my arm, lean on me and think about how you’re the most beautiful bride in the world and how proud I am of you. That’s all. Just relax. I’ll do the rest.”

“Oh, Pops!” Kay was looking at him with loving reverence. “You
are
wonderful.
Nobody
could be scared with you. Nothing
ever
fazes you,
does
it, Pops?”

   10   

IT IS EASIER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE

Anyone faced with the necessity of giving a wedding present should remember that only the first few to arrive will receive the admiration they deserve. Shop early and avoid oblivion.

The first present came two days after the engagement had been announced in the papers. It was a hand-painted tray. Mrs. Banks had cleared out the spare room and set up, against the wall, a card table covered with her best tablecloth. Kay placed the tray on it like an acolyte arranging an altarpiece, while the family gathered reverently around. The boys became a bit shy and treated Kay with a new respect.

The family gathered reverently around.

For a few days it looked as if the first present might achieve the double honor of being the last as well. Then they began to move in; a thin trickle at first, growing steadily to a mighty stream. Mrs. Banks borrowed more card tables. Kay fluttered over them like a maternal barn swallow.

The Banks family had not yet become accustomed to endless bounty. That someone should take the trouble to go out and purchase with hard money a gift of any sort, still filled them with tender gratitude. Regardless of merit, utility or beauty, these first presents were snatched from their wrappings with cries of wonder and delight.

What puzzled Mr. Banks was that neither Mrs. Banks nor Kay ever forgot a detail in connection with any gift. For twenty-three years he had been impressed by the fact that neither of them seemed capable of grasping or retaining the most elementary details. Mrs. Banks could never remember, for example, whether the mortgage company owed Mr. Banks money or vice versa, and Kay still thought that the Rubaiyat was a toothpaste, but when it came to the matter of wedding presents, their donors and their sources, they both had memories like rogue elephants.

In an attempt to show paternal interest Mr. Banks tried to compete during the early days. By occasionally visiting the spare room for a private refresher course he was in control of the situation up to the thirty-sixth present. Then, while he was at the office one day, Mrs. Banks borrowed three more card tables and shifted everything around.

After that he struggled for a short while, then gave up. He never forgot the first thirty-five presents, however. Occasionally he tried to establish himself by picking up some object from this restricted group and remarking, “This bowl from the Appleblossoms is a nice thing.” No one paid any attention to him, but it made him feel that he still had a stake in the situation.

At first he had taken special pleasure in the drinking merchandise. This department led off with a dozen old-fashioned glasses. Then came ditto highball glasses. A cocktail shaker from Steuben, he was chagrined to note, was better than anything of the sort he had ever owned or probably ever would. A gleaming copper bar-table with red leather side rails filled him with envy.

Time passed and in its course Kay accumulated three dozen old-fashioned glasses, two dozen glass muddlers, four dozen highball glasses, three large cocktail shakers, two martini stirrers, two bride and groom midget cocktail sets, two whiskey decanters, five silver bottle openers, a half acre of wineglasses, a portable bar and sundry jiggers and corkscrews. The place began to look like a setup for
The Lost Weekend.
Mr. Banks’ connoisseur’s enthusiasm was displaced by misgivings.

He was no teetotaler. On the other hand he now began to wonder whether he possibly had not overdone things a bit and conveyed to the world the impression that he was rearing a brood of alcoholics.