by George Moore
Frank had therefore to sit up writing till one o’clock, for the whole task of bringing out the paper was thrown upon him. Lizzie sat by him sewing. Noticing how pale and tired he looked, she got up, and putting her arm about his neck, said —
“Poor old man, you are tired; you had better come to bed.”
He took her in his arms affectionately, and talked to her.
“If you were always as kind and as nice as you are to-night … I could love you.”
“I thought you did love me.”
“So I do; you will never know how much.” They were close together, and the pure darkness seemed to separate them from all worldly influences.
“If you would be a good girl, and think only of him who loves you very dearly.”
“Ah, if I only had met you first!”
“It would have made no difference, you’d have only been saying this to some one else.”
“Oh, no; if you had known me before I went wrong.”
“Was he the first?”
“Yes; I would have been an honest little girl, trying to make you comfortable.”
Throwing himself on his back, Frank argued prosaically —
“Then you mean to say you really care about me more than any one else?”
She assured him that she did; and again and again the temptations of women were discussed. He could not sleep, and stretched at length on his back, he held Lizzie’s hand.
She was in a communicative humour, and told him the story of the waiter, whom she described as being “a fellow like Mike, who made love to every woman.” She told him of three or four other fellows, whose rooms she used to go to. They made her drink; she didn’t like the beastly stuff; and then she didn’t know what she did. There were stories of the landlady in whose house she lodged, and the woman who lived up-stairs. She had two fellows; one she called Squeaker — she didn’t care for him; and another called Harry, and she did care for him; but the landlady’s daughter called him a s —— , because he seldom gave her anything, and always had a bath in the morning.
“How can a girl be respectable under such circumstances?” Lizzie asked, pathetically. “The landlady used to tell me to go out and get my living!”
“Yes; but I never let you want. You never wrote to me for money that I didn’t send it.”
“Yes; I know you did, but sometimes I think she stopped the letters. Besides, a girl cannot be respectable if she isn’t married. Where’s the use?”
He strove to think, and failing to think, he said —
“If you really mean what you say, I will marry you.” He heard each word; then a sob sounded in the dark, and turning impulsively he took Lizzie in his arms.
“No, no,” she cried, “it would never do at all. Your family — what would they say? They would not receive me.”
“What do I care for my family? What has my family ever done for me?”
For an hour they argued, Lizzie refusing, declaring it was useless, insisting that she would then belong to no set; Frank assuring her that hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart they would together, with united strength and love, win a place for themselves in the world. They dozed in each other’s arms.
Rousing himself, Frank said —
“Kiss me once more, little wifie; good-night, little wife …”
“Good-night, dear.”
“Call me little husband; I shan’t go to sleep until you do.”
“Good-night, little husband.”
“Say little hussy.”
“Good-night, little hussy.”
Next morning, however, found Lizzie violently opposed to all idea of marriage. She said he didn’t mean it; he said he did mean it, and he caught up a Bible and swore he was speaking the truth. He put his back against the door, and declared she should not leave until she had promised him — until she gave him her solemn oath that she would become his wife. He was not going to see her go to the dogs — no, not if he could help it; then she lost her temper and tried to push past him. He restrained her, urging again and again, and with theatrical emphasis, that he thought it right, and would do his duty. Then they argued, they kissed, and argued again.
That night he walked up and down the pavement in front of her door; but the servant-girl caught sight of him through the kitchen-window and the area-railings, and ran up-stairs to warn Miss Baker, who was taking tea with two girl friends.
“He is a-walking up and down, Miss, ’is great-coat flying behind him.”
Lizzie slapped his face when he burst into her room; and scenes of recrimination, love, and rage were transferred to and fro between Temple Gardens and Winchester Street. Her girl friends advised her to marry, and the landlady when appealed to said, “What could you want better than a fine gentleman like that?”
Frank was conscious of nothing but her, and every vision of Mount Rorke that had risen in his mind he had unhesitatingly swept away. All prospects were engulfed in his desire; he saw nothing but the white face, which like a star led and allured him.
One morning the marriage was settled, and like a knight going to the crusade, Frank set forth to find out when it could be. They must be married at once. The formalities of a religious marriage appalled him. Lizzie might again change her mind; and a registrar’s office fixed itself in his thought.
It was a hot day in July when he set forth on his quest. He addressed the policeman at the corner, and was given the name of the street and the number. He hurried through the heat, irritated by the sluggishness of the passers-by, and at last found himself in front of a red building. The windows were full of such general announcements as — Working Men’s Peace Preservation, Limited Liability Company, New Zealand, etc. The marriage office looked like a miniature bank; there were desks, and a brass railing a foot high preserved the inviolability of the documents. A fat man with watery eyes rose from the leather arm-chair in which he had been dozing, and Frank intimated his desire to be married as soon as possible; that afternoon if it could be managed. It took the weak-eyed clerk some little time to order and grasp the many various notions which Frank urged upon him; but he eventually roused a little (Frank had begun to shout at him), and explained that no marriage could take place after two o’clock, and later on it transpired that due notice would have to be given.
Very much disappointed, Frank asked him to inscribe his name. The clerk opened a book, and then it suddenly cropped up that this was the registry office, not for Pimlico, but for Kensington.
“Gracious heavens!” exclaimed Frank, “and where is the registry office for Pimlico in Kensington?”
“That I cannot tell you; it may be anywhere; you will have to find out.”
“How am I to find out, damn it?”
“I really can’t tell you, but I must beg of you to remember where you are, sir, and to moderate your language,” said the clerk, with some faint show of hieratic dignity. “And now, ma’am, what can I do for you?” he said, turning to a woman who smelt strongly of the kitchen.
Frank was furious; he appealed again to the casual policeman, who, although reluctantly admitting he could give him no information, sympathized with him in his diatribe against the stupidities of the authorities. The policeman had himself been married by the registrar, and some time was lost in vain reminiscences; he at last suggested that inquiry could be made at a neighbouring church.
Frank hurried away, and had a long talk with a charwoman whom he discovered in the desert of the chairs. She thought the office was situated somewhere in a region unknown to Frank, which she called St. George-of-the-Fields; her daughter, who had been shamefully deserted, had been married there. The parson, she thought, would know, and she gave him his address.
The heat was intolerable! There were few people in the streets. The perspiration collected under his hat, and his feet ached so in his patent leather shoes that he was tempted to walk after the water-cart and bathe them in the sparkling shower. Several hansoms passed, but they were engaged. Nor was the parson at home. The maid-servant sniggered,
but having some sympathy with what she discovered was his mission, summoned the housekeeper, who eyed him askance, and directed him to Bloomsbury; and after a descent into a grocer’s shop, and an adventure which ended in an angry altercation in a servants’ registry office, he was driven to a large building which adjoined the parish infirmary and workhouse.
Even there he was forced to make inquiries, so numerous and various were the offices. At last an old man in gray clothes declared himself the registrar’s attendant, and offered to show him the way; but seeing himself now within range of his desire, he distanced the old chap up the four flights of stairs, and arrived wholly out of breath before the brass railing which guarded the hymeneal documents. A clerk as slow of intellect as the first, and even more somnolent, approached and leaned over the counter.
Feeling now quite familiar with a registrar’s office, Frank explained his business successfully. The fat clerk, whose red nose had sprouted into many knobs, balanced himself leisurely, evidently giving little heed to what was said; but the broadness of the brogue saved Frank from losing his temper.
“What part of Oireland do ye come from? Is it Tipperary?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so; Cashel, I’m thinking.”
“Yes; do you come from there?”
“To be sure I do. I knew you when you were a boy; and is his lordship in good health?”
Frank replied that Lord Mount Rorke was in excellent health, and feeling himself obliged to be civil, he asked the clerk his name, and how long it was since he had been in Ireland.
“Well, this is odd,” the clerk began, and then in an irritating undertone Mr. Scanlon proceeded to tell how he and four others were driving through Portarlington to take the train to Dublin, when one of them, Michael Carey he thought it was, proposed to stop the car and have some refreshment at the Royal Hotel.
Frank tried several times to return to the question of the license, but the imperturbable clerk was not to be checked.
“I was just telling you,” he interposed.
It seemed hard luck that he should find a native of Cashel in the Pimlico registrar’s office. He had intended to keep his marriage a secret, as did Willy Brookes, and for a moment the new danger thrilled him. It was intolerable to have to put up with this creature’s idle loquacity, but not wishing to offend him he endured it a little longer.
When the clerk paused in his narrative of the four gentlemen who had stopped the car to have some refreshment, Frank made a resolute stand against any fresh developments of the story, and succeeded in extracting some particulars concerning the marriage laws. And within the next few days all formalities were completed, and Frank’s marriage fixed for the end of the week — for Friday, at a quarter to eleven. He slept lightly that night, was out of bed before eight, and mistaking the time, arrived at the office a few minutes before ten. He met the old man in gray clothes in the passage, and this time he was not to be evaded.
“Are you the gentleman who’s come to be married by special license, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Neither Mr. Southey — that is the Registrar — nor Mr. Freeman — that’s the Assistant-Registrar — has yet arrived, sir.”
“It is very extraordinary they should be late. Do they never keep their appointments?”
“They rarely arrives before ten, sir.”
“Before ten! What time is it now?”
“Only just ten. I am the regular attendant. I’ll see yer through it; no necessity to hagitate yerself. It will be done quietly in a private room — a very nice room too, fourteen feet by ten high — them’s the regulations; all the chairs covered with leather; a very nice comfortable room. Would yer like to see the room? Would yer like to sit down there and wait? There’s a party to be married before you. But they won’t mind you. He’s a butcher by trade.”
“And what is she?”
“I think she’s a tailoress; they lives close by here, they do.”
“And who are you, and where do you live?”
“I’m the regular attendant; I lives close by here.”
“Where close by?”
“In the work’us; they gives me this work to do.”
“Oh, you are a pauper, then?”
“Yease; but I works here; I’m the regular attendant. No need to be afraid, sir; it’s all done in a private room; no one will see you. This way, sir; this way.”
The sinister aspect of things never appealed to Frank, and he was vastly amused at the idea of the pauper Mercury, and had begun to turn the subject over, seeing how he could use it for a queer story for the Pilgrim. But time soon grew horribly long, and to kill it he volunteered to act as witness to the butcher’s marriage, one being wanted. The effects of a jovial night, fortified by some matutinal potations, were still visible in the small black eyes of the rubicund butcher — a huge man, apparently of cheery disposition; he swung to and fro before the shiny oak table as might one of his own carcasses. His bride, a small-featured woman, wrapped in a plaid shawl, evidently fearing that his state, if perceived by the Registrar, might cause a postponement of her wishes, strove to shield him. His pal and a stout girl, with the air of the coffee-shop about her, exchanged winks and grins, and at the critical moment, when the Registrar was about to read the declaration, the pal slipped behind some friends and, catching the bridegroom by the collar, whispered, “Now then, old man, pull yourself together.” The Registrar looked up, but his spectacles did not appear to help him; the Assistant-Registrar, a tall, languid young man, who wore a carnation in his button-hole, yawned and called for order. The room was lighted by a skylight, and the light fell diffused on the hands and faces; and alternately and in combination the whiskied breath and the carnation’s scent assailed the nostrils. Suddenly the silence was broken by the Registrar, who began to read the declarations. “I hereby declare that I, James Hicks, know of no impediment whereby I may not be joined in matrimony with Matilde, Matilde — is it Matilde or Matilda?”
“I calls her Tilly when I am a-cuddling of her; when she riles me, and gets my dander up, I says, ‘Tilder, come here!’” and the butcher raised his voice till it seemed like an ox’s bellow.
“I really must beg,” exclaimed the Registrar, “that the sanctity of — the gravity of this ceremony is not disturbed by any foolish frivolity. You must remember …” But at that moment the glassy look of the butcher’s eyes reached the old gentleman’s vision, and a heavy hiccup fell upon his ears. “I really think, Mr. Freeman, that that gentleman, one of the contracting parties I mean, is not in a fit state — is in a state bordering on inebriation. Will you tell me if this is so?”
“I didn’t notice it before,” said Mr. Freeman, stifling a yawn, “but now you mention it, I really think he is a little drunk, and hardly in a fit …”
“I ne — ver was more jolly, jolly dog in my life (hiccup) — when you gentlemen have made it (hiccup) all squ — square between me and my Tilly” (a violent hiccup), — then suddenly taking her round the waist, he hugged her so violently that Matilda could not forbear a scream,— “I fancy I shall be, just be a trifle more jolly still…. If any of you ge — gen’men would care to join us — most ‘appy, Tilly and me.”
Lizzie, who had discovered a relation or two — a disreputable father and a nondescript brother — now appeared on the threshold. Her presence reminded Frank of his responsibility, so forthwith he proceeded to bully the Registrar and allude menacingly to his newspaper.
“I’m sure, sir, I am very sorry you should have witnessed such a scene. Never, really, in the whole course of my life …”
“There is positively no excuse for allowing such people …”
“I will not go on with the marriage,” roared the Registrar; “really, Mr. Freeman, you ought to have seen. You know how short-sighted I am. I will not proceed with this marriage.”
“Oh, please, sir, Mr. Registrar, don’t say that,” exclaimed Matilda. “If you don’t go on now, he’ll never marry me; I’ll never be able to b
ring ’im to the scratch again. Indeed, sir, ‘e’s not so drunk as he looks. ’Tis mostly the effect of the morning hair upon him.”
“I shall not proceed with the marriage,” said the Registrar, sternly. “I have never seen anything more disgraceful in my life. You come here to enter into a most solemn, I may say a sacred, contract, and you are not able to answer to your names; it is disgraceful.”
“Indeed I am, sir; my name is Matilda, that’s the English of it, but my poor mother kept company with a Frenchman, and he would have me christened Matilde; but it is all the same, it is the same name, indeed it is, sir. Do marry us; I shan’t be able to get him to the scratch again. For the last five years …”
“Potter, Potter, show these people out; how dare you admit people who were in a state of inebriation?”
“I didn’t ‘ear what you said, sir.”
“Show these people out, and if you ever do it again, you’ll have to remain in the workhouse.”
“This way, ladies and gentlemen, this way. I’m the regular attendant.”
“Come along, Tilly dear, you’ll have to wait another night afore we are churched. Come, Tilly; do you hear me? Come, Tilda.”
Frightened as she was, the words “another night” suggested an idea to poor Matilde, and turning with supplicating eyes to the Registrar, she implored that they might make an appointment for the morrow. After some demur the Registrar consented, and she went away tearful, but in hope that she would be able to bring him on the morrow, as he put it, “fit to the post.” This matter having been settled, the Registrar turned to Frank. Never in the course of his experience had the like occurred. He was extremely sorry that he (Mr. Escott) had been present. True, they were not situated in a fashionable neighbourhood, the people were ignorant, and it was often difficult to get them to sign their names correctly; but he was bound to admit that they were orderly, and seemed to realize, he would say, the seriousness of the transaction.
“It is,” said the Registrar, “our object to maintain the strictly legal character of the ceremony — the contract, I should say — and to avoid any affectation of ritual whatsoever. I regret that you, sir, a representative of the press …”
