WAITING AT THE CHURCH

NZ Truth, Issue 996, 27 December 1924, Page 5

WAITING AT THE CHURCH

Betrayed Woman's Dramatic Act Leaves the Other m the Lurch. (From "Truth's" Melbourne Rep.) Truth is stranger than fiction, is a saying, once fathered by some old-timer, that has more than ordinary application to the romance and marriage of Rob. MeDonell, who, after much preparation and ceremony, and the giving and taking of presents, was due to marry his fair bride on the twenty-second day of May of this year, and who was actually, married on that day; but— remarkable fact! — -to another bride. - It was m the prosperous fruit district of Merbein that Robert McDonell first met his little Violet. She was sweet and coy and lovable. She was innocent, too, and trusting:. Their likeness was mutual and instantaneous —love at first sight! Rob was good to look upon, and the fragrant young Violet ,^aw nothing about him to give her the faintest room for imagining that the day might come when she would hate him. It never occurred to her for one moment' that they would not get married. For was not marriage the mutual climax of a loving courtship such as theirs? The baby came— a dear wee thing, and so pretty. Nature works strangely. In most men the call- of the child-is added affection. In some, strange enough — m those who are not wedded— the voice of the child is often the voice of reproach- — against the woman! So, Rob was m no hurry to mai'ry. He kept putting it off— putting it off. And She, poor desperate girl, compelled by circumstances to reverse the order of courtship, thrust aside all modesty, and pleaded with the man to marry her. » She did not know, poor little Vi, that already the feckless Rob was transferring his affections; that he was paying swift courtship to a fair Lillian, down Wattletree Road, m the prosperous suburb of Malvern. Again, he was an ardent, restless lover, who, loving at first sight, -would have married his sweet Lillian out of hand. But sh/s held him off, and promised that she would marry him "one day m June." v " Suddenly Vi, living on, working and hoping on, heard a little bird whisper the startling intelligence. Rob was going to wed. Vi trembled all over and went a sickly white. . She made an excuse and hurried away home. . ' She felt, she could not live out the day. ; Rob going to marry — and not the mother of his dear vree babe! She spent a very, very sick night. . ABANDONED, When, with the dawn, she rose from her couch the little Merbein Violet was transformed. She: was a mother primitive. Her cub lay at her feet — his cub and hers. ' She 'dressed carefully, and with beating heart. She hardly knew whether she stood on her head or her heels. But she knew what she meant to do, and she -was going to do it. She was going right out to the home of that other woman — that bride of tomorrow — to tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing' but the truth. She would tell her all about Rob aicDonell; that he was the, father of her child. She would ask the girl — indeed, she would demand!; — that she should not marry Bob McDonell. • So, on the eve of the wedding, Vi went to the other woman." What she said, when she was reluctantly admitted, what the' expectant bride said, will probably never be known. It was a shocking 1 occasion '■ for both— shocking to the primitive mother, fighting for her own, and for the bride to hear, at so late an hour, such terrible tidings that seemed to make her marriage, of to-morrow impossible. Naturally there was a sobbing- match. Friends and guests of the family had to be told. The world had to be put off somehow, anyhow. " There was no wedding. Whether Rob McDonell, -bit his tongue through or . just crunched the gold mounting of his second or third molars will probably be unknown to posterity. Anyway, he did not marry his fair Lillian — not tt«n. He went back to his apples and pears at Merbein, and Vi, . wretched but determined, went home, with her-, baby. It had no legal father yet, but it should have. Oh, yes, it should have, i£ Vi could get her way. PHILANDERER'S DUPLICITY. The days, the vreeks and the months sped .on. Still little Vi^ was not married. Her baby was now eighteen months old. Neither was Rob McDonell married. With the cussedness of man, he persisted In paying, his attentions to • the Cair Lillian. What he said. to her, how he excused himself is best known to himself. But persistence gained- him the day.' The fair TiiHian took him back and It came about that they fixed their wedding day for May 22, 1924. And Rob, with Joy m his heart, set his builder to build a nice home for him amid the' tylerbeiri orchards -—the dear little home that Vi had dreamed about, and she and Robin had talked about together. v The eve of the wedding- came. Unconscious of the impending marriage that was to shatter all her hopes and blast for ever her baby's right of legitimisation, was Violet. Fate — mysterious Fate — then took a hand. Violet and her brother were on the Spencer Street station. They had no notion of meeting:, Robin there* no notion that his mother was coming- down by the train. Nevertheless that was the night that Rob was .to. meet -his mother from Mildura. He, too, . was there. Large as life, and twice as pleased with himself,- he came ■•. strolling down the station platform— to meet his, mother. , He .met Vi and her brother. "Look;" exclaimed iVi, clutching her brother's arm; "there's Bob McDonell." The formalities were brief. Vi did not know that this was the eye of Rob's wedding day. She was quite convinced' that the; ceremony she had crushed 12 months before was over and done with forever. "■'•■ "Well, what is it you want me to do?" asked the^, cornered man at last. "I want i you to stand by our child" Vi made reply. "Do you want me to marry you?" It was :a startling question — more startling than even Vi knew, „ m view of the circumstances. "Yes—for the child's sake," she answered simply. What strange shaft of impulse thrust itself into the tumult of Robin's reasoning- it is hard to say. Whether it was some sudden craving to become a man, and father the child he had been the means of ushering into the world , overcame- him; whether it was the threat of ; arrest— Vi told him that she had issued the warrant for failure to maintain— -or. whether it was just the' unexpected sight of the pathetic but still pretty face of Vi beneath the trim hat'that moved him to sudden pity, and the sudden desire to possess that which lie had cast' aside— he made a decision. "I will marry you." . ' "To-morrow?" she queried. : - "To-morrow,", he answered simply. It' was a remarkable decision. Back m Wattletree Roajd, Malvern, waited the bride and her parents' family, counting the minutes when Rob should return with his mother, and they should, discuss, quietly and happily..: the- -events, of the-; great to-mor-^

row. There were the presents heaped for the bride and bridesmaids. There were the responses to the" wedding invitation. There was the Anglican clergyman engaged to celebrate that momentous, and solemn ceremony m the Malvern Church of. England the nqxt day. Knowing all this, McDpnell left the railway station to marry the woman he had wronged,: and so great was the pickle he had gotten himself into that he needs must wrong, a second woman to right the wrong he had done the first and their child. The following morn, on Thursday, May 22— the day fixed fo.r the wedding with his fair Lilian — he was well and truly wed to yiolet. Back m "Wattletree Road, Malvern, anxiety — consternaion. : Rob's mother had arrived — found her own way out — but no Rob! Hour after hour sped by, uVitil the midnight chimes struck loudly, and discordantly on the old timepiece, i ■ Members of the family, recalling that upon the table, including. his presents Rob had drawn a considerable sum of money for his honeymoon expenses, jumped to conclusions, Ro^had been robbed! Knocked down! Mutilated! Killed, maybe! But the fair Lillian, with a woman's instinct, was uneasy with an uneasiness that was all her own. Somehow, somewhere, she felt sure Vi had something to do with Rob's disappearance. ADVISING. THE MORGUE. . But the half-dozen Sherlock Holmes amongst Lillian's relatives would have their way. The CJ-D. was informed. A description of the "missing man was circulated overnight, A copy was even sent to the -Morgue. Robs appearance was described m the daily Press. - ; „ .."••. „ v Vi newly wedded wif.e, read that .description, and for the first time learned of the second attempt at the marrying of her wayward Robin, and of the nearness of her loss of a name for her baby. Her outstanding feeling was one of sorrow—extreme sorrow or _f the outraged feelings of the bride, and of contempt for Rob McDonell. ' • ' She communncated with the bride. There was a hurried rush for Curtain Street, Carlton, where Robin arid, his bride were stopping; swift confirmation of the identity of the married man, and < a hasty, pathetic, heartrending dispatch to the vicar of the Malvern Church, where the 'merry bells did not ring that wedding morn. Rob, assuredly, had woven around him an almost insuperable entanglement, but whatever the motive that prompted him— the psycho-analysts may be able to determine it— he did the right thins in,,th© end,