The older guests were sitting on the chairs provided at the sides of the hall, and they turned to find her, the ones who did not see so well asking each other, “Is she there? Is she coming now?”

The others, standing, turned too, and their faces were all strange to Selma. There was no face she knew, only masks from nightmare. She stopped, but Leon held her hand in his arm, her body against his, and when he stepped again, she found herself forced to step with him.

There was Deborah, her back stiff, her head round as a melon—and Aunt Nell who, having arranged for all the clothes, now affected to be fainty-weak; Uncle Felix, an arm supporting Aunt Nell; Benjamin Davis in his wheeled chair, attended by his wife Edna and the ever-present Monday; Trudy alone because Rooster acted as Best Man; Selma’s old school friend, Elizabeth-Ann Malone, looking as if she might at any moment succumb to laughter.

There, finally, was Bonard with his brother. Bonard’s face was turned to her, his lips set in a grimace that might have begun as a smile, his eyeballs moving only a little, and that with seeming effort, as though to keep from freezing in their sockets.

Beyond Bonard was the Reverend Curtis Lamont, looking solemn as a crow, and beyond him, crowding the breezeway, were the dark, entranced faces of the Negroes of Beulah Land, made suddenly anonymous in their mute curiosity. Jesus on the cross, Joan at the stake and feeling the flames climb her legs, could not have felt more forsaken than Selma, putting one foot before the other until she stood beside Bonard. As he took her hand and her brother stepped back and away, Selma picked out one face from the otherwise unrecognized dark tapestry of faces on the breezeway behind the rector. It was Pauline, who looked back at her as if her heart had broken.

9

After the period of eating and drinking that followed the wedding ceremony, the married couple, the bridegroom’s father and mother, the father’s attendant, the brother and sister-in-law had finally taken their leave and made their way in two carriages to Oaks, where they found another celebration party in progress. Fatigued nearly to hysteria, Selma yet found strength to walk smiling among the slaves who were so energetically rejoicing in her marriage.

Seeing how she was and remembering his and Trudy’s feelings at the time of their still recent wedding, Rooster took matters in hand. His father was tired, so Rooster urged him to go to bed, which he did, helped there by Monday. Rooster and Trudy and Edna remained at the party, mingling and talking and smiling and clapping their hands with the rhythm of the dancing, while Bonard and Selma slipped away upstairs to begin their honeymoon.