WEDDING-DAY
WEDDING-DAY. It was curiously unreal. His own face grimaced back at him as he struggled to adjust his tie, a face that no man could feel satisfied with. ‘I sometimes wish Uncle Edgar hadn’t died after all,’ he confided to the looking-glass. Round and pink, with a wisp of light brown moustache that didn’t seem to belong to it, that ghost of himself continued to agonize. Funny, what women could see to admire in men. As for Florrie’s devotion to himself, the unreasonableness of it, the obstinacy, positively vexed him. If it hadn’t been for that little legacy they would have had to wait another five years. Not that he wanted to wait, but still—five years was five years, time to turn round in. That fifty pounds a year had made just the difference; it had brought this day within his immediate reach; his heart’s desire, glowing like luminous fruit upon an inaccessible tree, had bent suddenly towards him, and his hand was already poised to grasp it. Fateful moment.It didn’t bear thinking about. The old man ought not to have sprung it on him like this.
‘Cheer-O, Bert!’ There was a bang upon the bedroom door, and before it could be answered the attacking force entered tumultuously. It was a large red-headed man, dressed unmistakably for the approaching ceremony, tall, clean-shaven, possessing hands a size too big for his body.
‘Hullo, elephant!’ He resented the fellow’s entry, and yet in some vague way he was glad of it. He wanted to be alone with his dreams, but he feared to be alone with his doubts. Well, in a few hours solitude would be a thing of the past indeed. Florrie and he would be together, sleeping and waking, in sickness and in health, till death them did part. Forty years, perhaps, and never alone. Breakfast with Florrie, the eight-thirteen to town, the six-five back, a late tea with Florrie, conversation with Florrie, supper with Florrie; and week-ends spent going to church or digging in the garden. There was no escape now. Escape! Who wanted to escape? Not he, anyhow. And that was fortunate, for here was Maurice, the jubilant best man, and Florrie’s brother to boot. No escape.
‘You’d better pull your socks up, old feller,’ said Maurice, his face bisected by agrin. ‘You haven’t got as much time to spare as you seem to think. Cab’s at the door.’
It was fortunate, he knew, that the tide of events was sweeping him along, or he would have stood for ever staring at himself in a dream of indecision. Yet he hated to be bustled. He was still a free man, and there leapt to life in him a spark of anger against the man who sought to wrest that freedom from his grasp before the hour had struck. It would strike soon enough, but until then ... it seemed suddenly necessary that he should assert his independence of Maurice. His toilet was already completed, but he would delay a while yet.
‘All right. I won’t keep you a minute.’ He spoke with an affected coolness, as though addressing an importunate commercial traveller. And, without haste, he picked up from the dressing-table a small pair of nail-scissors. With these he began cutting off his moustache.
‘Hullo, what’s the game?’ asked Maurice.
‘Time that thing came off,’ replied Bert, still plying the scissors. ‘Pour me out a spot of water for shaving, there’s a good chap... No, cold’ll do.’
The world without was ablaze with summer, a beacon in the grey waste of infinity, a fire-ball flung into the darkness. The sky flamed beauty down upon the responsive pavements. But he, stubbornly, remained shut in his cold introspection. It was as if he alone of all created things was able to resist the infection of gladness that the warm air held. Forty years, forty years. The dailyness of life terrified him. The amiable Maurice became for him the symbol of all-conquering circumstance.
It was a new Florrie who joined him at the altar, a Florrie veiled, mysterious, and therefore seductive. ‘Therefore’ was the word stressed by the devil in his brain. But she was undeniably pretty, and so fragile, so like a piece of exquisite china, that he held his breath in awe when she yielded her hand to his. This was the lovely ingenuous child that life, day by day, year by year, would bend and break, and finally cast aside. His was to be the dubious privilege of watching that process, of watching the hair go grey, the face wrinkle, the child-dreams die one by one. His heart beat with a profound pity. Poor little devil, they were both in the same boat. She too was swearing her freedom away, taking the veil of everlasting monotony. And, irrationally, he blamed nothimself, not her, but the officiating clergyman, the guests, and most of all that fellow Maurice. He was glad that he had not allowed himself to be bustled by Maurice, glad to feel that soreness of the upper lip which bore witness to his not having been bustled.
The clergyman at whose feet he knelt was tactfully gabbling words about the procreation of children. Someone in the pews behind was sniffing tearfully. That would be Florrie’s mother, no doubt, that angular female version of Maurice. He became almost bemused by the drowsy noises, like bees in a bottle, emitted by the priest. The sunlight, pouring through the stained-glass window, cast a luminous many-coloured pattern across the chancel floor. The colours entered him—his eyes, his nostrils, his very veins—and made his blood tingle in tune with their brightness. A faint purple, like wine stains; a rich yellow, like harvested corn—they rang their little bell-melodies in his consciousness till he lost count of time.
‘And I hope you’ll be very happy. Now we’ll go to the vestry.’
With Florrie clinging to his arm he went to the vestry; and there a swarm of relations, like honey-seeking bees, descended upon them. ‘Florrie, you look too sweet!’ ‘Bert, you dear old thing!’ And so on.
Florrie’s younger brother approached, fresh from school. ‘Gratters, old horse. She’s a good girl. I’ve trained her well. But what’s happened to the cricket teams?’
‘The what?’
‘Cricket teams. Eleven a side, you know.’
Florrie translated. ‘He means your moustache, Bert. Why did you shave it off? I wish you hadn’t.’
He experienced a pang of compunction. Curse it, why had he shaved it off? ‘Oh, I don’t know. Thought I’d feel freer without it.’
Maurice, the omnipotent Maurice, bore down on them. ‘Off we go!’ he said briskly. Why was he always in such a devil of a hurry? Bert and his bride began marching down the aisle. He wanted to dance: not with joy, but because it was so difficult to walk against the tempo of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.
Outside, the world still blazed. And a hundred eyes stared. He handed Florrie into the waiting cab, and leaped in after her, with grains of rice trickling down his back. Maurice, the gaoler, shut the door behind them, and then, with incredible agility, thrust his head through the open window-space, elongated his neck, and kissed his sister onthe cheek. ‘Best of luck, both.’ He withdrew. The taxi moved on, gobbling like a turkey. ‘I’m glad I had that shave,’ said Bert viciously. The forty years began.