He walked home in silence beside his father. He was in no mood for the strain of the exacting situation, the astonishment, the implied reproach that lay in front of him. But he was resigned to it. It had to come; there was no loophole.
He made his announcement quite quietly during a pause in the talk just after dinner. And it was received, as he had anticipated, in a stupefied silence.
"What!" said Mr Whately at last. "Engaged to Muriel Marston!"
"Yes, Muriel Marston, the daughter of my employer, and I'm to become a junior partner in the firm."
"But——" Mr Whately paused. He was not equal to the pressure of the situation. He was not perplexed by the ethics of Roland's action; his critical faculties had only appreciated the first fact, that a plan had been altered, and he was always thrown off his balance by the alteration of any plan. He was accustomed to thinking along grooves; he distrusted sidings. He got no further than the initial "But." His wife, however, had recovered from the shock and was by now able to face the matter squarely. When she spoke her voice was even.
"Now, please, Roland, we want to know all about this. When did you propose to Miss Marston?"
"During the week-end—on Saturday evening."
"And her parents agree to it?"
"Yes, yes," said Roland, a little impatiently. "Didn't I tell you that I've been offered a junior partnership in his business."
"Of course; I forgot. I'm sorry. This is rather difficult for us. Now, you say——"
But at this point her husband, whose thoughts had by now travelled a certain distance along the new groove, interrupted her.
"But how can you talk about being engaged to this Muriel Marston when you've been engaged for nearly three years to April?"
Roland's retort came quickly.
"I've never been engaged to April."
"You know you have! Why!..."
But Mrs Whately had held up her hand.
"Hush, dear," she said. "Roland's quite right. He's never been officially engaged to April."
Roland shivered at the venom that was revealed by the stressing of the word "officially."
"And how long," she went on, "have you been in love with Miss Marston?"
"Oh, I don't know, mother; I can't tell. Please let me alone." And there was genuine misery behind the words. "One doesn't know about a thing like this."
But Mrs Whately would not spare him. She shook her head impatiently.
"Don't be absurd, Roland; you're behaving like a child. Of course one knows these things. You've known Miss Marston for four or five years now. You couldn't suddenly find yourself in love with her."
"I suppose not, mother, but——"
"There's no 'but.' You must have been thinking of her for a long time. On Friday night—Saturday morning, I mean—you must have gone down there with the full intention of proposing to her; didn't you?"
Roland did not answer her. He rose from his seat and walked across to the window.
"It's no good," he said, and his back was turned to them. "It's no good. I can't make you understand. You won't believe what I say. I seem an awful beast to you, I know, but—oh, well, things went that way."
And he stood there, looking out of the window through the chink of the blind towards the long, grey stretch of roofs, the bend of the road, the pools oflamplight, till suddenly, like a caress, he felt his mother's hand upon his shoulder.
"Roland," she said, and for the first time there was sympathy in her voice, "Roland, please tell me this. You're not, are you, marrying this girl for her money?"
He turned and looked her full in the eyes.
"No, mother," he said, "I love Muriel Marston. I love her and I want to marry her." As he spoke he saw the kind light vanish from her eyes, her hand fell from his shoulder and the voice that answered him was metallic.
"Very well, then, if that's so, there's no more to be said. As you've arranged all this yourself, you'll let us know when the marriage will take place."
She turned away. He took a step towards her.
"Mother, please——"
But she only shrugged her shoulders, and when her husband asked what was going to be done about April, she said that she supposed that it was no affair of theirs, and that no doubt Roland would make his own arrangements. She picked up the paper and began to read it. Roland wondered what was going to happen next; the silence oppressed him. He listened to the slow ticking of the clock till he could bear it no longer.
"Oh, please, one of you, won't you say something?"
They both turned their heads in surprise as though they would survey a curiosity, a tortoise that had been granted miraculously the gift of speech.
"But, my dear Roland, what is there to be said?"
"I don't know, I——"
"Your mother's quite right," said Mr Whately. "You're your own master; you've arranged to marry the girl you want. What is there to be said?"
And their heads were again turned from him. He stood looking at them, pondering the wisdom of an appeal to their emotions. He half opened his mouth, took a step forward, but paused; what purpose would it serve? One could not appeal to stone; they were hard, unreceptive, hostile; they would turn cold eyes upon his outburst. He would look ridiculous. It would do no good.
"Oh, very well," he said, and walked out of the room.
As he sat on his bed that night he remembered how, five years ago, he had returned to his study after that tempestuous interview with the Chief and had reflected on the impossibility of one mortal making clear his meaning to another. Life went in a circle: here was the same situation in a different setting. Everything was repetition. Had not the Eastern critic laid it down that in the whole range of literature there could be discovered only seven different stories? He remembered the Chief telling him that; it had stuck in his mind: music had evolved from seven notes, painting from three colours, literature from twenty-four letters, the chronicle of mankind from seven stories. Variety, new clothes, new accents, but at heart the same story, the same song.
One problem, however, that he had not previously considered, had become clear for him during that discussion. How was April to be told? He had imagined that he had only to tell his parents for the matter to be settled. They would do the rest. He had never thought that the responsibility of breaking the news to April would rest with him. And he could not do it; it was no good pretending that he could. He could no more tell April himself than he could murder a man in cold blood. He knew also that if he once saw her he would be unable to carry through the part. She would open the door for him and as soon as they were alone in the hall she would throw her arms about his neck and kiss him, and how should he then find words to tell her? His old love for her would return to him; there would be further complications. Perhaps he might write a letter to her, but he had only to take up pen and paper to realise that this was impossible. He could not express himself in writing; the sentences that stared at him from the paper were cold and stilted; they would wound her cruelly. He was accustomed in times of perplexity to turn for advice to Gerald. But this was hardly an occasion when that was possible. Gerald was, after all, Muriel's brother. There were limits.
The next day brought Roland no nearer to a solution of his immediate problem. Indeed he had not thought of one till, on his way home, he boarded the wrong bus, and on handing threepence and saying "Hammerton Town Hall" was informed that the bus he was on would take him only as far as Donnington before turning off to Richmond. The word "Richmond" gave him his idea. Richmond, that was it, of course that was it! Why had he not thought of it before? He would go round to Ralph at once and send him on an embassy to April. So pleased was he with this inspiration that he was actually shaking hands with Ralph before he realised that the battle was not won yet, and that he had before him a very awkward interview.
"Ralph," he said, "I want a word with you alone. I don't want to be disturbed."
"Shall we go out for a walk then?"
"Right."
Ralph went into the hall, fidgeting his fingers in the umbrella stand in search of his walking stick, did not find it, and paused there indeterminate.
"Now, where did I put that stick?"
"Oh, don't bother, please don't bother; we're only going for a stroll."
"Yes, I know, but if I don't find it now—let me see, perhaps it's in the kitchen." And for the next three minutes everyone seemed to be shouting all over the house: "Mother, have you seen my walking stick?" "Emma, have you seen Mr Ralph's walking stick?" And by the time that the stick was eventually discovered, in the cupboard in Ralph's bedroom, Roland's patience and composure had been shattered.
"Such a fuss about a thing like that," he protested.
"All right, all right; I didn't keep you long. Now, what's it all about?" And there was firmness in his voice which caused Roland a twinge of uneasiness. Ralph had developed since he had gone to Oxford. He was no longer the humble servant of Roland's caprice.
"It's not very easy," said Roland; "I want you to dosomething for me. I'm going to ask you to do me a great favour. It's about April."
"Why, of course," said Ralph, "I know what it is; you're going to be married at once, and you want me to be your best man—but I shall be delighted."
"Oh, no, no, no," said Roland, "it's not that at all."
Ralph was surprised. "No?"
"No, it's—oh, well, look here. You know how things are; there's been a sort of understanding between us for a long time—three or four years—hasn't there? Well, one alters; one doesn't feel at twenty-three as one does when one's seventeen; we're altering all the time, and perhaps I have altered quicker than most people. I've been abroad a lot." He paused. "You understand, don't you?" he asked.
Ralph nodded, understanding perfectly. Though he did not quite see where he himself came in, he understood that Roland was tired of April. But he was not going to spare him. There should be no short-cuts, no shorthand conversation. Roland would have to tell him the whole story.
"Well?" he said.
Their eyes met, and for the first time in their relationship Roland knew that he was in the weaker position and that Ralph was determined to enjoy his triumph.
"All right," said Roland, "I'll go on, though you know what I've got to tell you. I don't know whose fault it is. I suppose it's mine really, but things have happened this way. I'm not in love with April any more."
Again he paused and again Ralph repeated that one word, "Well?"
"I don't love her any more, and I've fallen in love with someone else and we want to get married."
"Who is it?"
"Muriel Marston."
"The sister of that fellow you play cricket with?"
"Yes, that's it." He paused, hoping that now Ralph would help him out, but Ralph gave him no assistance, and Roland was forced to plunge again into his confession. "Well, you see, April knows nothingabout it. I've been a bit of a beast, I suppose. As far as she is concerned the understanding still holds good. She's still in love with me, at least she thinks she is. It's—well, you see how it is."
"Yes, I quite see that. You've been playing that old game of yours, of running two girls in two different places, only this time it's gone less fortunately and you find you've got to marry one of them, and April's the one that's got to go?"
"If you put it that way——"
"Well, how else can I put it?"
"Oh, have it as you like."
"And what part exactly do you expect me to play in this comedy?"
"I want you to break the news to April."
There was a long silence. They walked on, Ralph gazing straight in front of him, and Roland glancing sideways at him from time to time to see how the idea had struck him. But he could learn nothing from the set expression of his companion's face. It was his turn now to employ an interrogatory "Well?" But Ralph did not appear to have heard him. They walked on in silence, till Roland felt some further explanation was demanded of him.
"It's like this, you see——"
But Ralph cut him short. "I understand quite well; you're afraid to tell her. You're ashamed of yourself and you expect me to do your dirty work!"
"It's not that——"
"Oh, yes, it is. I know you'll find excuses for yourself, but that's what it amounts to. And I don't see why I should do it."
"I am asking it of you as a favour."
"That's like you. Since you've met these new friends of yours you've dropped your old friends one by one. I've watched you, and now April, she's the last to go. You haven't been to see me for three or four months and now you've only come because you want me to do something for you."
The justice of the remark made Roland wince. Hehad seen hardly anything of Ralph during the last three years.
"But, Ralph," he pleaded, "how can I go and tell her myself?"
"If one's done a rotten thing one owns up to it. It's the least one can do."
"But, it isn't——"
"What isn't it? Not a rotten thing to make a girl believe for four years that you're going to marry her and then chuck her! If that isn't a rotten thing I don't know what is!"
Roland was wise enough not to attempt to justify himself. He would only enrage Ralph still further and that was not his game.
"All right," he said. "Granted all that, granted I've done a rotten thing, it's happened; it can't be altered now; something's got to be done. Put yourself in my place. What would you do if you were me?"
"I shouldn't have got myself in such a place"; his voice was stern and official and condemnatory. In spite of the stress of the situation Roland was hard put to it not to kick him for a prig.
"But I have, you see, and——"
"Even so," Ralph interrupted, "I can't see why you shouldn't go and tell April yourself."
"Because April herself would rather be told by anyone than me."
It was his last appeal and he saw that it had succeeded. Ralph repeated the words over to himself.
"April would rather be told——Oh, but rot! She'd much rather have it out straight."
"Oh, no, she wouldn't; you don't know April as well as I do. She hates scenes; she could discuss it impersonally with you. With me—can't you see how it would hurt her; she wouldn't know how to take it, whether to plead, or just accept it—can't you see?"
He had won, and he knew it, through the appeal to April's feelings. Ralph would do what he wanted, because he would think that he was performing a service for April.
"I expect you're right," he said; "you know her better than I do, but I'm doing it for her, not for you, mind."
"Yes, yes, I understand."
"If it wasn't for her I wouldn't do it. A man should do his own dirty work. And you know what I think of it."
"Oh, yes, I know." He would make no defence. Ralph might be allowed in payment the poor privilege of revenge.
"And you'll tell me what she says?"
"You shall have a full account of the execution."
They walked a little farther in silence. They had nothing more to say to each other, and at the corner of a road they parted. It was finished.
Roland walked home, well satisfied at the successful outcome of a delicate situation—the same Roland who had congratulated himself five years earlier on the diplomacy of the Brewster episode.
THERE'S ROSEMARY ...
Ralphwent round to see April on the next morning, shortly after eleven o'clock. She had just been out for a long walk by herself and, on her return, had taken up a novel with which to while away the two hours remaining to lunch-time. She had left school eighteen months earlier, and time often hung heavily on her. She did little things about the house: she tidied her own room, mended her own clothes, did some occasional cooking, but she had many hours of idleness. She wished sometimes that she had trained for some definite work. Women were no longer regarded as household ornaments. Many careers were open to her. But it had not seemed worth while during the last year at school to specialise in any one subject. What was the good of taking up a career that she would have to abandon so soon? The first year in any profession was uninteresting, and by the time she had reached a position where she would be entrusted with responsibilities her marriage day would be approaching. And so, instead of looking for any settled work, she had decided to stay at home and help her mother as much as possible. It was lonely at times, especially when Roland was away; she was, in consequence, much given to daydreams. Her book, on this September morning, had slipped on to her lap, and her thoughts had refused to concentrate on the printed page, and fixed themselves on the time when she and Roland would be married. He had not been to see her at all the day before. But the memory of his last kiss was very actual to her. He had loved her then. She had had her bad moments, when she had wondered whether,after all, he really cared for her, but she was reassured by such a memory. And soon they would be married. She would make him happy. She would be a good wife.
A knock on the front door roused her from her reverie, and, turning her head, she saw Ralph Richmond standing in the doorway. She rose quickly, her hand stretched out in friendly welcome.
"How nice of you to come, Ralph; you're quite a stranger. Come and sit down." And as soon as he was seated she began to talk with fresh enthusiasm about their friends and acquaintances. "I saw Mrs Evans yesterday and she told me that Edward had failed again for his exam. She was awfully disappointed, though she oughtn't really to have expected anything else. Arthur's form master told him once that he couldn't imagine any examination being invented that Edward would be able to pass."
Ralph sat in silence, watching her, wondering what expression those bright features would assume when she had heard what he had to tell her. He dreaded the moment, not for his sake, but for hers. He hardly thought of himself. He loved her and he would have to give her pain. In the end he stumbled awkwardly across her conversation.
"April, I have got some bad news for you."
"Oh, Ralph, what is it? Nothing about your people, is it?"
"No, it's nothing to do with me. It's about Roland."
Although she made no movement, and though the expression of her face did not appear to alter, it seemed to him that, at the mention of Roland's name, her vitality was stilled suddenly.
"Yes?" she said, and waited for his reply.
"He's not hurt, or anything. You needn't be frightened. But he wanted you to know that he has become engaged to Muriel Marston."
She said nothing for a moment, then in a dazed voice:
"Oh, no, you must be mistaken, it can't be true, it can't possibly!"
"But it is, April, really. I'm awfully sorry, but it is."
She rose from her chair, swayed, steadied herself with her left hand, took a half pace to the window and stood still.
"But what am I to do?" she said. She could not bear to contemplate her life without Roland in it. What would her life become? What else had it been, indeed, for the last four years but Roland the whole time? Whenever she had bought a new frock or a new hat she had wondered how Roland would like her in it. When she had heard an amusing story her first thought had been, "Roland will be amused by that." When she had opened the paper in the morning she had turned always to the sports' page first. "Roland will be reading these very words at this very moment." Roland was the measure of her happiness. It was a good day or a bad day in accordance with Roland's humour. She would mark in the calendar the days in red and green and yellow—yellow for the unhappy days, when Roland had not seen her, or when he had been unsympathetic; the green days were ordinary days, when she had seen him, but had not been alone with him; her red days were the happy days, when there had been a letter from him in the morning, or when they had been alone together and he had been nice and kissed her and made love prettily to her. Her whole life was Roland. Whenever she was depressed she would comfort herself with the knowledge that, in a year or so she would be married and with Roland for always. She could not picture to herself what her life would become now without him. She raised her hand to her head, in dazed perplexity.
"What am I to do?" she repeated. "What am I to do?" Then she pulled herself together. There were several questions that she would wish to have answered. She returned to her seat. "Now tell me, when did this happen, Ralph?"
"He told me last night."
"I don't mean that; when did he propose to Miss Marston?"
"During the week-end—on Saturday evening, I think."
"Saturday evening!" she repeated it—"Saturday evening!" Then he had been engaged to this other girl on Monday night when he had kissed her. He had loved her then, he had meant that kiss; she was certain of it. And to April, as earlier to Mrs Whately, this treachery seemed capable of explanation only by a marriage for money. It was unworthy of Roland. She could hardly imagine him doing it. But he might be in debt. People did funny things when they were in debt.
"Is she pretty, this Miss Marston?"
That was her next question, and Ralph replied that he thought she was.
"But you've never seen her?"
"No."
"Roland told you she was pretty. Did he say anything else about her?"
"No, hardly anything."
There was another pause. Then:
"I can't think," she said, "why he didn't come and tell me this himself."
She said nothing more. Ralph saw no reason why he should remain any longer. He rose awkwardly to his feet. As he looked down at her, beaten and dejected, his love for her flamed up in him fiercely, and, with a sudden tenderness, he began to speak to her.
"April," he said, "it's been awful for me having to tell you this. I've hated hurting you—really I have. I know you don't care for me, but if you would look on me as a friend, a real friend; if there's anything I can do for you just now.... I can't explain myself, but if you want anything I'll do it. You'll come to me, won't you?"
She smiled at him, a tired, pathetic smile.
"All right, Ralph, I'll remember."
But the moment he had left the room all thought of him passed from her, and she was confronted with the grey, interminable prospect of a future without Roland.She could not believe that he was lost to her irretrievably. He would return to her. He must love her still. It was only two days since he had kissed her. He was marrying this girl for her money; that was why he had been ashamed to tell her of it himself. He would not have been ashamed if he had really loved this Muriel. Well, if it was money she would win him back. She was not afraid of poverty if Roland was with her; she would fight against it. She would earn money in little ways; she would do without a servant. His debts would be soon paid off. She would tell him this and he would return to her.
That evening she walked towards the Town Hall at the hour when he would be returning from the office. She had often gone to meet him without her mother's knowledge, and they had walked together down the High Street in the winter darkness, his arm through hers. Bus after bus came up, emptied, and he was not there. She watched the people climbing down the stairs. She had decided that as soon as she saw Roland she would walk quietly down the street, as though she had not come purposely to meet him. She would thus take him off his guard. But, somehow, she missed the bus that he was on; perhaps a passing van had obscured her sight of it. And she did not realise that he was there till she saw him suddenly on the other side of the pavement. Their eyes met, Roland smiled, raised his hat and seemed about to come across to her; then he seemed to remember something, for he hurried quickly on and was lost almost at once in the dense, black-coated crowd of men returning from their office. The smile, the raising of the hat, had been an involuntary action. He had not remembered till he had taken that step forward, that he had now no part in her life. He felt she would not want to speak to him now. And this action naturally confirmed April in her belief that Roland was marrying Muriel for her money.
"It is me that he loves really," she told herself, and she felt that if she were a clever woman she would be able to win him back to her.
"But I am not a clever woman," she said. "I was not made for intrigues and diplomacy." She remembered how, four years earlier, she had learnt from a similar experience that she was not destined for a life of action. "All my life," she had told herself, "I shall have to wait, and Romance may come to me, or it may pass me by. But I shall be unable to go in search of it." And it seemed to her that this fate had already been accomplished. Roland still loved her; that she could not doubt. But she had no means by which she might recall him to her. "If I had," she said, "I should be a different woman, and, as likely as not, he would not love me."
On her return home she went straight upstairs to her bedroom and, without waiting to take off her hat, opened the little drawer in her desk in which were stored the letters and the gifts that she had at various times received from Roland. There was the copper ring there that he had slipped on to her finger at the party, the tawdry copper ring that she had kept so bright; there was the score card of a cricket match, the blue and yellow rosette he had worn at the school sports when he had been a steward, a photograph of him in Eton collars. She held them in her hand and her first instinct was to throw them into the fireplace. But she thought better of it. After all he loved her still. Why should she not keep them? Instead, she sat down in the chair and laid the little collection in her lap and, opening the letters, she began to read them through, one by one; by the time she had finished the room had darkened. She would have to put on another dress for the evening and do her hair. Already she could hear her father's voice in the hall, but she felt lazy, incapable of action; her hands dropped into her lap, and her fingers closed round the letters and cards and snapshots. Her thoughts travelled into the past and were lost in vague, wistful recollection. Her mother's voice sounding in the passage woke her from a reverie. It was quite dark; she must light the gas, and she would have to hurry with her dressing. It wasgetting late. She rose to her feet, walked over to the bureau and put the letters back into the little drawer. Her fingers remained on the handle after she had closed it. And again she asked herself the question to which she could find no answer: "What is going to happen to me now?"
THE SHEDDING OF THE CHRYSALIS
Theofficial position of fiancé was a new and fascinating experience, in the excitement of which Roland speedily forgot the unpleasantness that its announcement had caused in Hammerton. It was really great fun. Important relatives were asked to meet him, and he was introduced to them by Mr Marston as "my future son-in-law." Muriel insisted on taking him for walks through the village for the pleasure of being able to say to her friends: "This is my fiancé." And when he complained that he was being treated like a prize dog, she asked him what else he thought he was. Muriel had always been a delightful companion and the engagement added to their relationship a charming intimacy. It was jolly to sit with her and hold her hand; and she was not exacting. She did not expect him to be making love to her the whole time. Indeed, he did not make love to her very often. They kissed each other when they were alone, but then kisses were part of the game that they were playing. April had at first been too shy to pronounce the actual word "kiss." She had evaded it, and later, when she had come to use it, it had been for a long while accompanied by a blush. There was no such reserve between Muriel and Roland. Kisses were favours that she would accord to him if he were good. "No," she would say to him sometimes, "I don't think I'm going to let you kiss me this afternoon. You haven't been at all the faithful and dutiful lover. You didn't pay me any attention at lunch; you were talking to father about some silly cricket match and I had to ask you twice to pass me the salt. I oughtn't to have to askyou once. You ought to know what I want. No! I shan't let you kiss me."
And then he would entreat her clemency: he would hold her hand and kneel on the wet grass, an act of devotion to which he would call her notice, and beseech her to be generous, and after a while she would weaken and say—yes, if he was very good he might be allowed one kiss. No more! But when his arms were round her he was not satisfied with one, he would take two, three, four, and she would wriggle in his arms and kick his shins and tell him that he had taken a mean advantage of her; and when he had released her she would vow that as a punishment she would not kiss him again—no, never, not once again, and then would add: "No, not for a whole week!" And he would catch her again in his arms and say: "Make it a minute and I'll agree," and with a laugh she had accepted his amendment.
There were no solemn protestations, no passion, no moments of languid tenderness. They were branches in neighbouring boughs that played merrily in the wind, caring more, perhaps, for the wind than for each other.
They talked exhaustively of the future—of the house they were going to build, the garden they would lay out. "We'll have fowls," he said, "because you'll look so pretty feeding them."
"And we'll have a lawn," she repeated, "because you'll look so hot when you've finished mowing it."
They would discuss endlessly the problem of house decoration. She was very anxious to have bright designs, "with lots of red and blue in it." And he had told her that she could do what she liked with the drawing-room as long as she allowed him a free hand with his own study.
"Which means that you'll have a nasty, plain brown paper, and you'll cover it with ugly photographs of cricket elevens, and it'll be full of horrid arm-chairs and stale tobacco."
One day he took her up to Hammerton to see hisparents and his friends. They intrigued her by the difference from the type to which she was accustomed.
"It's awfully interesting," she said. "They are so different from the sort of people that we see—all jammed together in these funny little houses—all furnished just the same."
"Yes, and all doing the same things," said Roland—"going to the office at the same time, coming back at the same time, and if it hadn't been for Gerald that would have been my life. That's what I should have been. I should have done exactly the same things every day of my life except for one fortnight in the year. And it would have been worse for me than for most of them, because I've been at a decent school, because I'd seen that life needn't be like that. These people don't believe it can be different." He spoke with a savage sincerity that surprised Muriel. She had never known him so violent.
"Roland! Roland!" she expostulated. "I've never heard you so fierce about anything before. Your proposal to me was the tamest thing in the world compared with that."
"I'm sorry."
"I should hope so. I believe you hate Hammerton more than you love me."
So the autumn passed, quickly and happily. And by Christmas time they had begun to speak of an April wedding. There was no reason for delay. Roland was now making over seven hundred pounds a year, and the Marstons were too certain of their son-in-law to demand a long engagement. Yet it was on the very evening when the date was fixed that Roland and Muriel had their first brief quarrel. Roland had been tired by the long discussion, and Muriel's keen vitality had exasperated him. She was talking so eagerly of her trousseau, her bridesmaids, the locality of her honeymoon. She seemed to him to be sharing their love, his and hers, with all those other people who had no part in it. He was envious, feeling that their love was no longer theirs. He was still angry when theystood together on the landing to say good-night to each other.
"I don't believe you care for me at all," he said, "that you regard our marriage as anything more than a pantomime, a glorified garden-party!"
A look of hurt amazement crossed her face.
"But, Roland!"
"Oh, you know what I mean, Muriel, you—well, all these others!" He paused, unable to express himself, then caught her quickly, roughly into his arms, and kissed her hungrily. "I don't care," he said, "you'll be mine soon, mine!"
She pushed away from him, her face flushed and frightened.
"Oh, don't, Roland, don't!"
He was instantly apologetic.
"I'm sorry, Elfkin. I'm a beast. Forgive me, but oh, Elfkin, you really are anxious about the marriage for my sake?"
"Of course, silly!"
"I mean you're glad that we're going to be married soon?"
She was surprised and at the same time amused by the look of entreaty in his eyes.
"Don't look so tragic about it, of course I'm glad."
"But...." He got no further, for she had taken his hands and was playing with them, slapping them against his sides.
"Don't be such a silly, Roland, darling; you ought to know how pleased I am. I'm looking forward to it frightfully; and I know you'll be an awful dear to me."
She brought his hands together in one last triumphant smack, and leaning forward imprinted a light kiss upon his forehead. He tried to draw her again into his arms, but she broke from him.
"Oh, no, no, no," she said, and ran lightly up the stairs. She turned at the corner of the landing to blow a kiss to him. "Good-night, darling," and she was gone.
It was not repeated. Doubt, remorse, hesitationwere alike forgotten in the excitement of preparation. He had arranged to take over the lease of a small house on the edge of the Marston estate, and the furnishing of it was a new and delightful game. The present tenants did not relinquish possession till the end of February, and during the intervening weeks Muriel and Roland would prowl round the house like animals waiting for their prey. They were finely contemptuous of the existing arrangements. Fancy using that big room as a drawing-room; it faced south-east, and though it would be warm enough during the morning, it would be freezily cold in the afternoon. Of course they would make that the dining-room; it would be glorious for breakfast. And that big room above it should be their bedroom; they would wake with the sunlight streaming through the window.
"You'll see the apple-tree while you brush your hair," he told her. And they both agreed that they would cut down the large walnut-tree in the garden. It was pretty, but it shut out the view of Hogstead. "It'll be much better to be able to look out from the drawing-room window and see the funny old people going up and down the village street." And Roland reminded her how they had looked down on them that day when they had leant against the gate: "Do you remember?" And she had laughed and told him that he was a stupid old sentimentalist, but she had kissed him all the same. And then the great day had come when the tenants began to move; they stood all the afternoon watching the workmen stagger into the garden, bowed with the weight of heavy furniture.
"I can't think how all that stuff ever got in there," Muriel said, and began to wonder whether they themselves would ever have enough. "We've nothing like as much as that."
And Roland had to assure her that they could always buy more, and that anyway the house had been over-furnished.
"You couldn't move for chairs and chesterfields and bureaux."
It was two days before the last van rolled away and Muriel and Roland were able to walk up the garden path "into our own house." But it was a bitter disappointment. The rooms looked mean and small and shabby now that they were unfurnished. The bare boards of the floors and staircases were dirty and covered with the straw of packing cases, the plaster of the wall showing white where the book-shelves had been unfixed. And the paper that had been shielded by pictures from the sunshine struck a vivid contrast to its faded environment. Muriel was on the verge of tears.
"Oh, Roland, what's happened to our pretty house?" she cried. And it took all his skill to persuade her that rooms always did look small till they were furnished, and that carpets and pictures covered many things.
"But our pictures won't fit exactly in those places," Muriel wailed, "and all our small pictures will have haloes."
"Then we'll get new papers," Roland said.
There were moments when it seemed that things could not be possibly finished in time. On the last week of March there was not a carpet on the floor, not a curtain over a window, not a picture on the walls.
"I know what it'll be," said Muriel in despair, "we shall have to go and leave it half-finished, and while we're away mother'll arrange it according to her own ideas, and her ideas are not mine. It'll take us all the rest of our lives getting things out of the places where she has put them. It's going to be awful, Roland, I know it is. We oughtn't to have arranged our marriage till we'd arranged our house."
Muriel was a little difficult during those days, but Roland was very patient and very affectionate.
"You only wait," he said; "it looks pretty awful now, but one good day's shopping'll make a jolly big difference."
And it did. In one week they bought all the carpets, the curtains, the chairs and tables, and Gerald was dispatched with a list that Mrs Marston had drawn upof the uninteresting things—saucepans, frying-pans, crockery—and with a blank cheque. "We can't be bothered with those things," said Roland.
It was a hectic week. They had decided to spend three hundred pounds on furnishing, and every evening, for Roland was staying with the Marstons, the two of them sat down to adjust their accounts, and to Muriel, who had never experienced a moment's anxiety about money, this checking of a balance-sheet was a delightful game. It was such fun pretending to be poor, adding up figures, comparing price-lists, as though each penny mattered. She would sit, her pencil on her lips, her account-book on one side, her price-list on the other, and would look up at Roland with an imploring, helpless glance, and: "Roland, dear, there's such a beautiful wardrobe here; it's fifty pounds, but it'll hold all my things; do you think we can afford it?"
And Roland would assume dire deliberation: "Well," he would say, after an impressive pause, "I think we can, only we'll have to be very careful over the servant's bedroom if we get it." And Muriel would throw her arms round his neck and assure him that he was a darling, and turn again to the price-list.
And all the while the wedding presents were arriving by every post. That, too, was great fun, or rather it had been at the start.
The first parcels were opened with unbounded enthusiasm.
"Oh, Roland, Mrs Boffin has sent us a silver inkstand; isn't it sweet of her?"
"Muriel, come and look at these candlesticks; they are beauties."
And letters of eager thanks were written. After a week or so the game began to lose its fascination. The gifts resembled each other; they began to forget who had given what, and as they wrote the letters of acknowledgment they would shout to each other in despair:
"Oh, Roland, do tell me what Mr Fitzherbert sent us!"
"I can't remember. I'm trying to think who I've got to thank for that butter-dish."
"The butter-dish!—that was Mr Robinson—but Mr Fitzherbert?"
"But the butter-dish wasn't Mr Robinson; he was the clock!"
"Then it was Mrs Evans; and, Roland, do, do think what Mr Fitzherbert gave us."
And so it went on, till at last they began to show a decided preference for cheques.
And there was the honeymoon: that had to be arranged. Muriel would rather like to have gone abroad.
"I've been only twice. We'll see all the foreigners, and sit in cafés, and go to theatres and see if we can understand them."
But Roland was not very anxious to go abroad. He went there too often in the way of business. He might meet people who at other times were charming, but were not on a honeymoon the most comfortable company. There would be the fatigue of long journeys, and besides, he wanted Muriel to himself.
"I don't want to go and see foreigners, I want to see you."
"Well, you'll have seen a good deal of me before you've finished."
"But, Muriel," and the firm note in his voice forced her to capitulate.
"All right, all right, have it as you like."
And so, after much discussion, it was decided that they should get a cyclist map of England, find a Sussex village that was at least three miles from any railway station, and then write to the postmaster and ask whether anyone there would be ready to let them rooms for a month.
"Three miles from anywhere! Heavens! but I shall be bored; still it's as you wish. Go and get your map, Gerald."
And with the map spread on the table they selected,after an hour's argument, to see if anything was doing at Bamfield.
"It should be a good place," said Roland. "It's just under the Downs."
In all this fret and fluster Mr Marston took the most intense interest. It reminded him of his own marriage and, finding his youth again in theirs, he spoke often of his honeymoon.
"Do you remember, dear, when we went out for a picnic in the woods and it came on to rain and we went to that little cottage under the hill?" And again: "Do you remember that view we got of the sea from the top of Eversleigh?" Little incidents of his courtship that he had forgotten a long time were recalled to him, so that he came to feel a genuine tenderness for the wife whom he had neglected for business, for cricket, and his children; from a distance of thirty years the perfume of those scented months had returned to him.
Gerald was alone unmoved. He was annoyed one morning when he found the floor of the billiard-room covered with packing cases, but he retained his hardly won composure. He accepted the duties of best man without enthusiasm. "At any rate it will soon be over," he had said, and had proceeded to give Roland two new white wood bats.
"They won't last long, but you can't help making a few runs with them." And his friend was left to draw from that present what inference he might think fit.
They were hectic days, but at last everything was finished. The house was papered and furnished, rooms had been booked at Bamfield, and in the last week in April Roland returned to Hammerton. He had had scarcely a moment's rest during the last two months. Life had moved at an incredible pace, and only with an enormous struggle had he managed to keep pace with it. He had had no time to think what he was doing. Each morning had presented him with some fresh difficulty, each night had left some piece of work unfinished. And, now that it was over, he felt exhausted. The store ofenergy that had sustained his vitality at so high a pressure was spent.
The sudden marriage was naturally a disappointment to his parents. Their opinion had not been asked; the arrangements had been made at Hogstead. Roland had just told them that such and such a thing had been decided, and they were hurt. They had known, of course, all along that as soon as their son was married they would lose him, but they had expected to retain his confidence up till then; and, being sentimental, they had often spoken together of the wife that he would choose. They had looked forward to his days of courtship, hoping to have a share in that fresh happiness. But the pleasure had been given to others; they had had no part in it.
In consequence Roland did not find them very responsive. They listened attentively to all he told them, but they asked no questions, and the conversation was not made easy. Roland was piqued by their behaviour; he had intended to arrange a picnic for the three of them on the last day, but now decided that he would not. After all, why should he: it would be no pleasure for any of them, not if they were going to sit glum and silent. Two days before his marriage he went for a walk in the evening with his father, and as Gerald would be coming on the next day to stay the night with them this was the last walk they would have together. But in nothing that they said to each other was implied any appreciation of the fact. When Mr Whately returned from the office he handed the evening paper to his wife, commented on the political situation in Russia and on the economical situation of France, and was, on the whole, of the opinion that Spanish cooking was superior to Italian, "Not quite so much variety," he said, "but there's a flavour about it that one gets nowhere else." He then proceeded to remove his boots: "And what about a walk, Roland?"
Ronald nodded, and Mr Whately went upstairs to change his suit. They walked as usual down the HighStreet, they turned up the corner of College Road, they crossed by the Public Library into Green Crescent, and completed their circuit by walking down into the High Street through Woolston Avenue. They talked of Fernhurst, of the coming cricket season, of the marriage ceremony, of the arrangements that had been made for meeting the guests at the church, of the train that Roland and Muriel would catch afterwards. But there passed between them not one sentence, question, intonation of the voice that could be called intimate, that could be said to express not remorse, but any attitude at all towards the severing of a long relationship. As they walked up the steps of 105 Hammerton Villas they were discussing the effectiveness of the new pull stroke that in face of prejudice so many great batsmen were practising.
"I think I shall go down to the nets at the Oval to-morrow, father, and see what I can make of it."
It was a bleak morning and the Oval presented a dismal appearance; a few men were pottering about with ladders and paint brushes; a cutting machine was clanking on the grass; the long stone terraces were cold and forbidding; the clock in the pavilion had stopped; far over at the Vauxhall end a couple of bored professionals were bowling to an enthusiastic amateur who had no idea of the game, but demanded instruction after every stroke. Roland stood behind the net and watched for a while an exhibition of cross-bat play that was calculated to make him for ever an advocate of the left shoulder, the left elbow and the left foot. He had a few minutes' chat with one of the groundsmen.
"Yes, sir, it do look pretty dismal, but you wait. April's a funny month; why, to-morrow we shall probably have brilliant sunshine, and there'll be twenty or thirty people down here, and when you go away you'll be thinking about getting out that bat of yours and putting a drop of oil on it." Roland expressed a hope that this prophecy would prove correct.
April was a funny month: it was cold to-day, but within a week the sun would be shining on green grassand new white flannels. Only another week! The fixing of this date, however, reminded Roland that in a week's time he would be in a small village under the Downs, three miles from the nearest station, and this reminder was somewhat of a shock to him. He would miss the first four weeks of the season. By the time he came back everyone else would have found their form; it was rather a nuisance. Still, a honeymoon! Ah, well, one could not have it both ways.
Gerald was not arriving till the afternoon, and the morning passed slowly for Roland. He walked from Kennington over Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment to Charing Cross; he strolled down the Strand, looking into the shop windows and wondering whether he was hungry enough to have his lunch. He decided he was not and continued his walk, but boredom made him reconsider the decision, and he found himself unable to pass a small Italian restaurant at the beginning of Fleet Street; and as he had a long time, with nothing to do in it, he ordered a heavy lunch. When the waiter presented him with his bill he had become fretfully irritable—the usual penalty of overeating.
What on earth should he do with himself for two hours? How slowly the time was passing. It was impossible to realise that in twenty-four hours' time he would be standing beside Muriel before the altar, that in two days' time they would be man and wife. What would it be like? Pondering the question, he walked along to Trafalgar Square, and still pondering it he mounted a bus and travelled on it as far as a sevenpenny ticket would take him. Then he got on to a bus that was going in the opposite direction, and by the time he was back again at Trafalgar Square, Gerald's train from Hogstead was nearly due.
It was not a particularly exciting evening and the atmosphere was distinctly edgy. Mr Whately was bothered about his clothes, and whether he should wear a white or a dark tie; and Mrs Whately was fussing over little things. "Did old Mrs Whately know thatshe had to change at Waterloo? Had anyone written to tell her? And who was going to meet her at the other end?" It was a relief to Roland when they had gone to bed and he and Gerald were left alone.
"It's a funny thing," Gerald said; "five years ago we didn't know each other; you were nothing to me, nor I to you, and then we meet in Brewster's study, and again at the Oval and, before we know where we are you're a junior partner in the business and engaged to my sister. To think what a difference you've made to all of us!"
"And the funniest thing of all," said Roland, "is to think that if I hadn't caught the three-thirty from Waterloo instead of the four-eighteen, none of this would have happened. I shouldn't have met that blighter Howard, nor gone out with those girls; and, even so, none of it would have happened if I had taken my footer boots down to be mended, as I ought to have done, on a Sunday afternoon instead of loafing in my study. One can't tell what's going to be a blessing till one's done with it. If I hadn't had that row I should never have met you and I should never have met Muriel." And he paused, wondering what would have happened to him if he had caught the four-eighteen and taken his boots down to be mended. He would have stayed on another year at school; he would have been captain of the house; he would have gone up to the 'Varsity. He would have had a good time, no doubt, but where would he be now? Probably an assistant master at a second-rate public school, an ill-paid post that had been given to him because he was good at games. Probably also he would be engaged to April, and he would be making desperate calculations with account-books to discover whether it was possible to marry on one hundred and fifty pounds a year.
"That now," he said, "was the luckiest thing for me that ever happened."
And they sat for a while in silence pondering the strange contradictions of life, pondering also the instability of human schemes. One might plan out the future, pigeon-hole it, have everything arranged as bya machine, and then what happened? Someone caught a train at three-thirty instead of at four-eighteen, or was too lazy to take his football boots down to be mended on a wet afternoon, and the plans that had been built up so elaborately through so many years were capsized, and one had to begin again.
"And it's so funny," Roland said, "to think of the fuss they made at Fernhurst about a thing like that—just taking a girl out for a walk, and you'd think I'd broken the whole ten commandments, and all the talk about my corrupting the pure soul of Brewster."
Gerald broke into a great laugh.
"The pure soul of Brewster!" he said. "My lord! if you'd known what he was like after he'd been in the house a term. He'd have taken a blooming lot of corrupting then. Gawd, but he was a lad!" And Gerald supplied some intriguing anecdotes of Brewster's early life. "He was a lad!" And Brewster's name started a train of associations, and Roland asked Gerald whether he had heard of Baker.
"Baker? Baker?" Gerald repeated. "No. I can't say I ever remember hearing anything about him. He must have been after my time."
Roland got up, walked across to his bureau, and taking a bunch of keys from his hip pocket unlocked a small top drawer. He took the drawer out and, bringing it across, laid it on the table. It was full of photographs, letters, ribbons, dance programmes, and he began to fumble among them: "I think we shall find something about Master Baker here," he said. "Ah, yes, here we are!" And he handed across to Gerald a large house photograph. "There he is, bottom row, fourth from the right."
Gerald scrutinised the photograph, holding it to the light.
"Lord, yes," he said, "that tells its own story; what's happened to him now?"
"He was head of the house two years ago; he's gone up to Selwyn. I believe he's going into the Church."
Gerald smiled. "When we all meet at an old boys'dinner in twenty years' time we shall get one or two shocks. Think of Brewster bald, and Maconochie stout, and Evans the father of a family!"
"My lord!"
And they began to rummage in the drawer, till the table was littered with letters and photographs.
The photographs led them from one reminiscence to another; and in that little series of isolated recollections they lived again through all that had remained vivid to them of their school-days.
"Heavens!" said Gerald, "who's that? You don't mean to say that's Harrison! Why, I remember him when he first came, a ridiculous kid; we used to call him 'Little Belly.' About the first week he was there he showed his gym. belt to someone and said: 'Isn't it small? Haven't I a little belly?'"
"And here's Hardy," said Roland. "Do you remember that innings of his in the final house match, and how we lined up on each side of the pavilion and cheered him when he came out?"
"And do you remember that try of his in the three cock?—two men and the back to beat and only a couple of yards to spare between them and the touch-line. I don't know how he kept his foot inside."
And as the store of Fernhurst photographs became exhausted they found among the notes and hotel bills delightful memories of much that they had in common.
"The Café du Nord, Ghent! My son," said Gerald, "do you remember that top-hole Burgundy? Yes, here it is—two bottles of Volnay, fifty-three francs."
"Wasn't that the night when that ripping little German girl smiled at us across the room?"
"And when I said that another bottle of Volnay was better than any woman in the world."
A torn hotel bill at Cologne recalled a disappointing evening in the company of two German girls whom they had met at a dance and taken out to supper—an evening that had ended, to the surprise of both of them, in a platonic pressure of the hands.
"Do you remember how we stood under the cathedraland watched them pass out of sight behind the turning of the Hohe Strasse, and then you turned to me and said: 'There's no understanding women'?"
And then there was the evening when they had gone to the opera in Bonn and had had supper afterwards in a little restaurant, from the window of which they could see the Rhine flowing beneath them in the moonlight, and its beauty and the tender sentimental melodies of Verdi had produced in both of them a mood of rare appreciation; they had sat in silence and made no attempt to express in talk the sense of wonderment. Much was recalled to them by these pieces of crumpled paper, and when Roland put away the drawer it seemed to Gerald that he was locking away a whole period of his life. And when they said good-night to each other on the stairs Gerald could not help wondering whether, in the evening that had just passed, their friendship had not reached the limit of its tether. Roland was beginning a new life in which he would have no part. As he heard his friend's door shut behind him he could not help feeling that never again would they reach that same point of intimacy.
AN END AND A BEGINNING
Nodoubt the groundsman at the Oval rubbed his hands together with satisfaction when he looked out of his bedroom window on the following morning. It was not particularly warm; indeed he must have shivered as he stood with his shaving brush in his hand, looking at the sky instead of at his mirror. But the sky was blue and the sun was shining, and he would, no doubt, be warm enough after he had sent down a couple of overs at the nets. The thoughts of Roland as he surveyed the bright spring morning were not dissimilar. He saw in it a happy augury. Summer was beginning.
They were a silent party at breakfast; each was preoccupied with his own affairs. They had decided to leave Charing Cross at twelve-thirty-five by a train that reached Hogstead at half-past one; the service was fixed for two o'clock. They would not need to leave the house till a quarter to twelve. They had therefore three hours to put in.
"Now, I suggest," said Gerald, "that you should come down with me to the barber's and have a shave."
"But I've shaved already."
"I daresay you have, but on a day like this one can't shave too often."
And Roland, in spite of his protests, was led down to the shop. Once there, Gerald refused to be satisfied with a mere shave.
"This is a big occasion," he said. And he insisted that Roland should be shampooed, that he should have his hair singed, that his face should be oiled and massaged and his finger-nails polished.
"Now you look something like a bridegroom." And in defiance of Roland's blushes he explained to the girl at the counter that his friend had intended to be married unshaven.
"What would you think," he said, "if your fiancé turned up at the altar with his hair unbrushed and chin all over bristles?"
The girl was incapable of any repartee other than a giggle and the suggestion that he should get along with himself. Gerald then announced his intention of buying a pair of gloves, and when he reached the shop he pretended that he was the bridegroom and Roland the best man. He took the shopmen into his confidence and told them that the bride was very particular—"a very finicking young person indeed"—and he must have exactly the shade of yellow that would match her orange blossom. He produced from his waistcoat pocket a piece of flame-coloured silk. "It's got to go with this," he said.
In the same manner he proceeded to acquire a tie, a pair of spats, a silk handkerchief. As he told his father afterwards, he did splendidly, and kept Roland from worrying till it was time for them to dress.
But the journey to the station was, even Gerald confessed, pretty terrible. It was only five minutes' walk and it had never occurred to them to hire a cab. They wished they had, however, as they stepped down the long white steps into the street that divided the even from the odd numbered houses of Hammerton Villas. Everyone they passed turned to stare at them. They were so obviously a wedding party. "Which is it?" they overheard a navvy ask his mate. "Should be the one with the biggest flower in his button-hole."
"Garn, he's much too young!"
Roland hated it, and the half-hour in the train was even worse. As soon as they reached Charing Cross he made a dash for the platform, leaving Gerald to collect the tickets. But his embarrassment was yet to be made complete, for as he stood on the footboardof the carriage he heard a deep booming voice behind him.
"Hullo, bridegroom!" And he turned to face the bulky figure of a maiden aunt and the snigger of a porter. He did not feel safe till he had heard the scream of the driver's whistle, felt the carriage vibrate beneath him and after two jolts pull slowly out of the station.
He talked little on the journey, but sat in a corner of the carriage watching through the window the houses slip past him, till the train reached meadowland and open country. He knew every acre of that hour's journey. He had made it so often with such eager haste. How much, he wondered, would not have happened to him before the time came for him to make it again? He tried to marshal the reflections that should be appropriate to such an occasion, but he could not. Life moved too fast for thought. A fierce rhythm was completing its circle. He sat watching the landmarks fall one by one behind him, appreciating confusedly the nature of the experience to which he was being hurried.
It was the same at the church. He did not feel in the least nervous. He told a couple of good stories to Gerald in the chancel; he settled the account with the verger; he walked down the aisle and began to speak to his friends as they took their places.
"So good of you to come; hope you had a pleasant journey. See you afterwards."
Gerald was amazed: "You're wonderful! Why, you're as calm as if you were at a tea-party!"
Roland smiled, but said nothing. He attributed no credit to himself. How else should he behave? A swiftly spinning top would, at a first glance, appear to be poised unconsciously upon its point. It did not begin to wobble till its pace was lost. And was not he himself a swiftly spinning top.
He did not even feel nervous when a commotion in the porch warned him of the arrival of his bride; he stood firmly, did not fidget, fixed his eyes upon thedoor till he saw, framed there picture-wise, Muriel, in white and orange, upon her father's arm. He then turned and faced the altar. The organ boomed out its heavy, ponderous notes, but he hardly heard them. His ears were strained for the silken sound that drew nearer to him every moment. He kept his eyes fixed upon the altar, and it was the faint perfume of her hair that told him first that she was beside him.
During the early part of the service he comported himself with a mechanical efficiency. His performance was dignified and correct. When he found a difficulty in putting the ring on to her finger he did not become flustered, but left her to put it on herself. The ceremony had for him a certain emotional significance. Once, as they stood close together, the back of his hand brushed against hers and the cool contact of her fingers reminded him of the serious oath that he was taking and of how he was bringing to it a definite, if vaguely formulated, ideal of tenderness and loyalty. He meant to make of their marriage a reality other than the miserable, dissatisfied compromise that, for the vast majority of men and women, succeeded the first brief enchantment. His lips framed no prayer; it had been for a long while his belief that the moulding of a man's fortunes lay within his own powers. But that desire for happiness was none the less a prayer. It went as quickly as it had come, and he was once again the lay figure whose contortions all these good people had been called together to observe. He remained a lay figure during the rest of the afternoon.
He walked down the aisle proudly with Muriel on his arm; in the carriage he took her hand in his, and when they were out of sight of the church he lifted her veil and imprinted a gentle kiss upon her cheek. He stood beside her in the drawing-room and received each guest with a swift, fluttering smile and a shake of the hand. The majority of them he did not know, or had seen only occasionally. They were the friends and relatives of Muriel. There were only a few in whom Roland was able to take any personal interest. Ralph wasthere, and April. He had not spoken to April since the evening when he had kissed her, and he momentarily lost his composure when he saw, over the shoulder of an old lady whose hand he was politely shaking, the brown hair and delicate features to which he had been unfaithful. In what manner should he receive her? But he need not have worried. She settled that for him. She walked forward and took his hand in simple comradeship and smiled at him. She looked very pretty in a grey coat and skirt and wide-brimmed claret-coloured hat. He recalled the day when she had worn that hat for the first time and her anxiety that she should be pretty with it. "You do like it, don't you, darling?" But someone else was already waiting with outstretched hand. "You looked so sweet, Muriel, darling," an aged female was saying. "Your husband's a lucky man!" And by the time that was over, the cake was waiting to be cut and champagne bottles had to be opened, and Roland was passing from one group of persons to another, saying the same things, making the same gestures: "Yes, we're spending our honeymoon in England ... Bamfield, a little village under the Downs ... Sussex's so quiet ... such a mistake to try and do too much on a honeymoon."
He had barely time to exchange a couple of remarks with Beatrice. She came towards him, her hand stretched out in simple comradeship.