by Ursula Bloom
George had been very clever and had discovered that she had money. It seemed that poor Papa had made a will of which Mamma and Johnny were trustees. A certain sum had been set aside for Mary when she became twenty-five, or when she married. As poor Papa had died in her extreme youth the interest had been accumulating, with the result that George, who did amazing calculations with the aid of pencil and paper, estimated that it would be a nice two hundred a year. George’s salary at Seaport would be one hundred and fifty, and altogether matters seemed very propitious. When Mamma was approached about the money she flared into a towering rage; she said that she thought it was disgraceful that people could be so mercenary, and thought it despicable of George totting up ways and means.
‘But we have to arrive at some decision as to what we can or cannot afford,’ Mary explained.
‘I daresay. But fancy counting on your poor Papa’s money. Your poor Papa. Poor man! Perhaps it is as well he did not live to see it; enough to make him turn in his grave …’
‘But it’s mine. The will says so,’ Mary announced.
‘Oh, dreadful, dreadful, most shocking! I’d forgotten all about it; anyhow, I don’t see that it signifies very much.’
‘I suppose it is still there?’ Mary hazarded.
‘Of course it is there. Trustees cannot realise as easily as all that, as well I know. I can’t think how you came to find out. When I was a girl I was nice-minded, I didn’t know anything about money. I just took what was given to me, as was right and proper. Girls were girls in those days.’
Mary said nothing, but she felt hotly guilty. She wished that the wedding were over and done with, for Mamma had been terribly vexed ever since the first rumour of it, and kept working herself up into a violent passion for no reason at all, at every opportunity.
‘She agrees it is a mistake,’ said Wally.
‘Yes, but it isn’t. I’m doing well for myself, and George is a dear.’
‘God!’ said Wally, and he tore his hair.
Then, a fortnight before the wedding, it happened. Mrs. Lambert had returned the underlinen that she had been making: twelve of everything in fine cambric, because large trousseaux were dying out, and Mary felt that this would be quite sufficient. She was laying them out in piles on her bed, the smooth white nightdresses in the softest material, the frilled petticoats with their delicate muslin embroideries, the neat stockings; she was laying them in little tiers, when she heard a sound from below. She went to the door and listened, and then out on to the landing with its good grey carpet and the three uncomfortable chairs. She bent over the banisters and listened again. In the hall stood Johnny. He was worried. She knew that by the way in which he stood, and the frown on his gallant brow. She went down the stairs slowly, and at that very moment Mamma came out of the morning-room and the same idea seemed to strike her.
‘Ho, ho!’ said she, ‘and what’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Johnny with a forced brightness.
‘Nonsense!’ Mamma retorted. ‘I can see there is something wrong. You can’t deceive me. Out with it.’
‘I am going to be married,’ Johnny stated, and he hung up his hat. Mamma took in the first little breath preparatory to a scream, but he turned round on her smartly. ‘Now then, it’s no use you starting that. I am going to be married, and to Isabel.’
‘What?’ Mamma shrieked.
‘You heard what I said: it is Isabel. I’ve been trying to avoid it, but I can’t. It’s got to be gone through with.’
‘But‒’ gasped Mamma.
‘You see,’ Johnny went on, ‘I’ve tried every mortal argument, but she won’t see it. And she’s right. She’s a damned fine-looking filly, and I am not sorry to have a wife like her.’
‘I won’t allow it,’ said Mamma with spirit.
‘Yes, you will,’ Johnny announced, ‘Grandmamma.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the truth. You are going to be a grandmamma. Now it’s no use you screaming over that. I want my tea. It’s damned cold out.’
He walked in leisurely fashion into the dining-room, where Mr. Jones sat looking most uncomfortable. The door had been open and he had heard every word, but he was unsure as to the sagacity of admitting that he had heard. Mamma charged in after her son. Being unnerved by Johnny’s calmness, it was Mr. Jones whom she attacked.
‘Did you hear?’ she demanded. ‘Oh, the wicked boy. Now have you heard what has happened? That hussy, that brazen-faced little hussy, and my Johnny. Why do you allow these things to take place? You’re the head of the house, and yet you sit there and never open your mouth. I’m surprised the man in you doesn’t do something about it. The wicked boy …’
‘I want my tea,’ repeated Johnny.
‘You shan’t have any tea in my house. You don’t deserve any tea. Here’s Mary marrying George, and you marrying Isabel. It’s all wicked and dreadful and horrible, and ‒’
Johnny laughed. ‘You don’t suggest that Mary is marrying George for the same reason that I am marrying Isabel?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, you naughty boy!’ She turned again on Mr. Jones, who was opening his mouth and shutting it, and again opening it preparatory to a grand speech which never came. ‘Does nothing make you feel a sense of duty?’ she challenged him; ‘does nothing ever stir you? You hear what he says? He dare even laugh at his own vileness. You hear what he says?’
‘My dear, he amazes me.’
‘Of course,’ said Johnny, intent on loosening the clogged bowl of his pipe with a knife, ‘it may be George. He was more than a little fond.’
Then Mary flung herself into the attack. She felt that at all costs she must clear the suspicion from her beloved. ‘It’s a horrible lie!’ she declared. ‘Johnny has done this dreadful thing, and now he is trying to blame George. It’s terrible of him. I demand an apology.’
‘You look like getting it,’ commented Johnny, still busy with his pipe. ‘Anybody got a hairpin?’
‘You shall apologise,’ said Mary with gleaming eyes, ‘I’ll make you apologise.’
Mamma gave another piercing scream. ‘If you marry that girl I’ll never speak to you again,’ she declared. ‘I’ll cut you out of my will, and I’ll make you rue the day. If you marry that girl ‒’
‘I haven’t an option,’ Johnny explained, ‘so what’s the use of you laying down these rules and regulations? You’ll have to cut me out of your will, and you’ll have to make me rue the day, and you needn’t speak to me again, or’ ‒ as she gave a gasp ‒ ‘scream at me either; now you know. Have you got a hairpin?’
Johnny’s method of going on with any little banal task which he had in hand, in the face of a fierce controversy, was diabolical. It galled Mamma more than all else. ‘I have not got a hairpin,’ she bellowed, and snatched at the pipe. A little dazed, Mary left them to it. Later, she faced George in the dining-room.
‘You ought to speak to Johnny,’ she said wanly; ‘there has been the most horrible scene here to-night; he is going to marry Isabel, because … because ‒’
‘I know,’ said George, quietly, ‘and I’m sorry.’
‘He even went so far as to suggest that you … you knew a good deal about it. He inferred you might be responsible.’
‘Good Heavens!’
‘George, you oughtn’t to let him say things like that.’
‘It’s despicable,’ said George, and his face was flushed; ‘it’s disgusting of him, but the point is, ought I to interfere?’
‘Of course you ought.’
‘I don’t know. There will only be a dreadful quarrel, and we do want to keep the peace where we can. Johnny will say anything, and you can’t swerve him from his point. Whatever I say he will persist.’
‘But George …’
He came nearer and stood there with his hands on her slight shoulders, looking down into her eyes. ‘My sweet, you forget my profession. We have to learn to forgive a lot for our faith, my precious; to look tolerantly upon our fellows, t
o be fair.’
She put her arms about his neck. ‘It’s lovely of you,’ she said, ‘but …’
‘I know how you feel; you want to stand up for me, but it won’t do any good. How could it? The accusation is contemptible, it is far better to let it go at that. Johnny must be so dreadfully worried.’
‘If he is he doesn’t show it.’
George stroked the golden-brown hair back from her deep, dark eyes. ‘You ought to have been a pugilist, you’ve got the temperament. Can it be that there is a little of Mamma in you?’
‘Oh no, George, never.’
‘Perhaps.’ He stooped and kissed her in that tender, hungry way of George’s, as though nothing else mattered, nothing ever would matter, save their two selves.
‘We are going to be married,’ she whispered.
‘Every night I pray I may be worthy of you.’
Here, clinging to him, her face hidden in his warm throat, these little things did not sound silly. They were real and vivid, they were splendid forces jutting up in their lives, faith and strength, love and marriage. ‘I ‒ I’m a little afraid,’ she murmured. ‘You’re so good and clever. I’m so dull and
stupid.’
‘You are my little precious.’
‘It’s all so wonderful … wonderful …’
After all, they had each other. Nothing else mattered very much.
X
Johnny was married very quietly, without any ‘fuss or fal-lals’, as he put it. An early morning affair; and Mamma had bought him shares in a concern in the North Country, far remote from the ever-wagging tongues of scandalmongers. After all, a very wise procedure of hers.
Mamma had invited Isabel to tea one afternoon. It had been a very trying tea for everybody. Isabel wore one of the newest blouses trimmed with a great deal of lace, and a cartwheel hat, and had been very ill at ease. Mamma had tactlessly asked George to meet her, as she thought that the presence of a clergyman might give a little balance to the proceeding. George had replied that after Johnny’s remarks he preferred to stop away. Johnny had not been abashed. To Mary’s chagrin he had exclaimed: ‘There now, what did I tell you? He daren’t face it. I guessed as much.’
Johnny had married and had taken himself and his wife to Yorkshire, but the main bulk of the accounts for furnishing, etc., he left with Mamma for settlement. Mary had felt very sorry for Mamma, because after all it had been an ordeal, and Johnny had behaved badly; also, he had furnished rather expensively and had caused great perturbation in the home.
This was followed by Mary’s wedding. Mamma did not contribute handsomely to this; she said that she did not believe in expensive weddings. She had said as much to Johnny, but he had ignored her remarks, and had gone his own sweet way, which had been his wont.
Mary awoke on her wedding morning with a vague sense of relief. The strain was ending. For a fortnight now Mamma had been in a positively vile temper. She had been unbearable; the maid’s eyes were red and swollen with weeping; the usually mild Mr. Jones had got so far as to say: ‘Well, upon my soul!’ and matters had been singularly strained. It was ending to-day, a bright day with streams of palely yellow sunlight, a January day with an austere bleakness about the dark lace of leafless trees and a soppiness about the lawns and the verdure. She lay there snugly under the blankets, wondering about things. The day which was such a big day in her life, the great step into the future, and what would it all mean? Perhaps George would get preferment; he preached an excellent sermon, and he was an able man all round. She closed her eyes and dreamed delicious dreams of George as a bishop, and herself as his lady. And what would Mamma do as mother-in-law of a bishop? Then she opened her eyes and saw that her little watch was pointing at eight, and heard the dim sounds of Harriet’s stealthy movements without. Yes, and something else. A bell tolling as though for a funeral, surely not an auspicious sign. She listened tensely. Harriet’s muffled knock, and her entry.
‘What is that bell?’ Mary demanded. ‘It’s tolling.’
‘They do say as the poor dear Queen is dead, miss,’ said Harriet. ‘Died of old age down at Osborne.’
Mary had been so busy preparing for her wedding that she had not had time to notice a little thing like that. ‘Well, I wish she hadn’t done it on my wedding day,’ was all she said.
‘A wonderful old lady, and a sad pity, miss,’ said Harriet. All the same, Mary felt that it was an insult to herself; why had the Queen died? Would it spoil everything? Mamma, who had always been an ardent Victorian, appeared red-eyed and mottled with tears.
‘The darling Queen,’ explained Mamma. ‘A loss from which the land will never recover. And she died whilst we were at war; so terribly sad for her.’
They all seemed to have forgotten that it was Mary’s wedding day; she felt a chill creep over her. She wanted to cry too. It was cruel of Mamma to be so upset over the poor Queen and to forget her own daughter. Mr. Jones unfolded a black-edged paper with a solemn expression.
‘This dreadful news ‒’ Mr. Jones began.
Had they expected the Queen to live for ever? Why, she was already a great-grandmother many times over. Mary felt a terrible insubordination in her heart. ‘It’s my wedding day,’ she said slowly.
‘I feel we oughtn’t to have a wedding with the poor dear Queen dead,’ sniffed Mamma.
‘You none of you think of me,’ Mary challenged her. ‘I feel awful about it. It’s my wedding and nobody cares. You aren’t any of you interested.’
‘Hoity toity,’ Mamma burst forth. ‘Control yourself, miss, imagining that you are far more important than the poor dear Queen. I am surprised at you. Nobody has forgotten it is your wedding day. We’ve all been overworked for weeks for your wedding day, we aren’t likely to forget it. I’m sure I’ve not had a wink of sleep for nights. Mr. Jones will testify to that. I’m completely unstrung.’
Mary started to cry. She cried helplessly, from sheer disappointment. She wanted to be so radiantly happy, because it was her wedding day, and she couldn’t be. She pushed her plate away from her, and getting up went out of the room. She wanted to be alone ‒ to think. She sat down in her own bedroom and indulged in a flood of tears. She cried until her eyes were as swollen as the maid’s, then she stood in front of the glass and fanned them, which one of her friends at school had told her was a specially efficacious remedy. It failed utterly. She took off her blouse and skirt, and changed into the pale brown travelling costume which she had chosen for her wedding. It was a delicate shade of biscuit, and there were little cascades of soft lace at the throat and wrists. The hat that went with it was biscuit too, with a softly curling ostrich feather a shade deeper. As she dressed, Harriet came in. She was carrying a small box.
‘Mr. Carew sent it for you, miss.’
Mary opened it; nestling within was a spray of real orange-blossom and a note. The delicious scent assailed her, and in an instant the whole room was impregnated with it. The note was very brief.
To my darling little bride. ‒ George.
She kissed it gratefully.
‘Do let me help you, miss,’ said Harriet. ‘I’d like to do something. Me and Cook both says it don’t seem a bit like a real wedding day.’
And Mary felt that she heartily agreed with ‘me and Cook’ but she didn’t dare speak, in case she started crying again. Harriet fastened the orange-blossoms in the lace ruffles. Mamma, she said, had gone up to dress, and some of the visitors had come already.
Mary remained in her room until Mr. Jones came for her. Mr. Jones, very nervous in his best suit and his best hat. ‘I hate weddings,’ he confided in her, standing awkwardly by the window.
‘So do I,’ she agreed.
What did she feel? She did not know. She was acutely conscious that she wanted to feel more, much more, than she did. She had coveted this hour of her marriage as being a thing apart, something dissociated from all else in her life. An hour when she and George, hand in hand, knelt before their Maker to be made one, a holy hour, upon which sh
e could always look back as an anchorage in her life. Instead, she was grimly conscious of a pushing crowd in the churchyard; of people climbing into the font to get a better view, of George standing very still and rigid at the altar … There were relatives too; she seemed to take them all in as she progressed solemnly up the aisle. Mamma with a purple nose, Mrs. Carew standing a little disdainfully apart, her great-uncle with his wife; Mary saw them all, and she passed on to George.
Mr. Nason hurried the service, or it seemed to Mary that he hurried it. She wanted to dwell upon the beauty of the words, but there was not a chance. She was saying phrases, but dimly conscious of their meaning; she was repeating vows, and then they were all singing again, and she and George kneeling before the altar, with the heavy scent of the orange-blossoms on her breast drifting about them. They did seem a little apart now; smell of incense and orange-flowers and the dim light of candles. She wanted to prostrate herself; she almost wished that she could faint … not to go any further … to know no more …
The service was over. They were in the vestry and signing musty old books. Mary felt terribly strained; something was missing, something ought to happen, she did not know quite what it could be.
Here they were driving home, she and George, and her heart thudding, and a great longing within her, for … she did not know what.
They had arrived at the house. ‘Oh, my dear,’ George whispered, ‘don’t you wish it were all over? I want to be alone with you.’
‘Soon … soon …’ she murmured, and her eyes were misty. They entered.
A tall figure rose to meet them. It was the missing something. Johnny had arrived, late, but here at last. He was warming himself on poor Papa’s port. ‘Just to wish you luck,’ he said. ‘And a health unto his Majesty, and all that. You thought I shouldn’t come. Ha! Ha!’
Others came crowding in. There was eating and drinking, and Mamma crying a little, and laughing a lot, and Mary with one eye on the clock, and aching for the hour when they simply must catch the train for Bournemouth.
It came at last. She and George were saying goodbye. Everybody kissed her. Mrs. Carew cold and pale, even Mamma a little tearful.
