A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus Part 6

'Do you wish to go to either very much?'

'Not unless you do.'

'Well, then, I feel as if either would be a profanation. Let us walk together down to the Embankment, and sit on one of the benches there, and watch the river flowing in the sunshine, and talk and think of all that we have seen.'

CHAPTER VI--TWO SOLOS AND A DUET

The night before the wedding, Frank Crosse and his best man, Rupton Hale, dined at the Raleigh Club with Maude's brother, Jack Selby, who was a young lieutenant in a Hussar regiment. Jack was a horsy, slangy young sportsman who cared nothing about Frank's worldly prospects, but had given the match his absolute approval from the moment that he realised that his future brother had played for the Surrey Second. 'What more can you want?' said he. 'You won't exactly be a Mrs. W. G., but you will be on the edge of first-cla.s.s cricket.' And Maude, who rejoiced in his approval, without quite understanding the grounds for it, kissed him, and called him the best of brothers.

The marriage was to be at eleven o'clock at St. Monica's Church, and the Selbys were putting up at the Langham. Frank stayed at the Metropole, and so did Rupton Hale. They were up early, their heads and nerves none the better for Jack Selby's hospitality of the night before.

Frank could eat no breakfast, and he shunned publicity in his wedding-garments, so they remained in the upstairs sitting-room. He stood by the window, drumming his fingers upon the pane, and looking down into Northumberland Avenue. He had often pictured this day, and a.s.sociated it with sunshine and flowers and every emblem of joy. But Nature had not risen to the occasion. A thick vapour, half smoke half cloud, drifted along the street, and a thin persistent rain was falling steadily. It pit-patted upon the windows, splashed upon the sills, and gurgled in the water-pipes. Far down beneath him on the drab-coloured slimy road stood the lines of wet cabs, looking like beetles with glistening backs. Round black umbrellas hurried along the shining pavements. A horse had fallen at the door of the Const.i.tutional Club, and an oil-skinned policeman was helping the cabman to raise it. Frank watched it until the harness had been refastened, and it had vanished into Trafalgar Square. Then he turned and examined himself in the mirror. His trim black frock-coat and pearl grey trousers set off his alert athletic figure to advantage. His glossy hat, too, his lavender gloves, and dark-blue tie, were all absolutely irreproachable. And yet he was not satisfied with himself. Maude ought to have something better than that. What a fool he had been to take so much wine last night! On this day of all days in their lives she surely had a right to find him at his best. He was restless, and his nerves were all quivering.

He would have given anything for a cigarette, but he did not wish to scent himself with tobacco. He had cut himself in shaving, and his nose was peeling from a hot day on the cricket-field. What a silly thing to expose his nose to the sun before his wedding! Perhaps when Maude saw it she would--well, she could hardly break it off, but at least she might be ashamed of him. He worked himself into a fever over that unfortunate nose.

'You are off colour, Crosse,' said his best man.

'I was just thinking that my nose was. It's very kind of you to come and stand by me.'

'That's all right. We shall see it through together.'

Hale was a despondent man, though the most loyal of friends, and he spoke in a despondent way. His gloomy manner, the London drizzle, and the nervousness proper to the occasion, were all combining to make Frank more and more wretched. Fortunately Jack Selby burst like a gleam of sunshine into the room. The sight of his fresh-coloured smiling face--or it may have been some reminder of Maude which he found in it--brought consolation to the bridegroom.

'How are you, Crosse? How do, Hale? Excuse my country manners! The old Christmas-tree in the hall wanted to send for you, but I knew your number. You're looking rather green about the gills, old chap.'

'I feel a little chippy to-day.'

'That's the worst of these cheap champagnes. Late hours are bad for the young. Have a whisky and soda with me. No? Hale, you must buck him up, for they'll all be down on you if you don't bring your man up to time in the pink of condition. We certainly did ourselves up to the top hole last night. Couldn't face your breakfast, eh? Neither could I. A strawberry and a bucket of soda-water.'

'How are they all at the Langham?' asked Frank eagerly.

'Oh, splendid! At least I haven't seen Maude. She's been getting into parade order. But mother is full of beans. We had to take her up one link in the curb, or there would have been no holding her.'

Frank's eyes kept turning to the slow-moving minute-hand. It was not ten o'clock yet.

'Don't you think that I might go round to the Langham and see them?'

'Good Lord, no! Clean against regulations. Stand by his head, Hale!

Wo, boy, steady!'

'It won't do, Crosse, it really won't!' said Hale solemnly.

'What rot it is! Here am I doing nothing, and I might be of some use or encouragement to her. Let's get a cab!'

'Wo, laddie, wo then, boy! Keep him in hand, Hale! Get to his head.'

Frank flung himself down into an armchair, and muttered about absurd conventions.

'It can't be helped, my boy. It is correct.'

'Buck up, Crosse, buck up! We'll make the thing go with a buzz when we do begin. Two of our Johnnies are coming, regular fizzers, and full of blood both of them. We'll paint the Langham a fine bright solferino, when the church parade is over.'

Frank sat rather sulkily watching the slow minute-hand, and listening to the light-hearted chatter of the boy-lieutenant, and the more deliberate answers of his best man. At last he jumped up and seized his hat and gloves.

'Half-past,' said he. 'Come on. I can't wait any longer. I must do SOMETHING. It is time we went to the church.'

'Fall in for the church!' cried Jack. 'Wait a bit! I know this game, for I was best man myself last month. Inspect his kit, Hale.

See that he's according to regulations. Ring? All right. Parson's money? Right oh! Small change? Good! By the right, quick march!'

Frank soon recovered his spirits now that he had something to do.

Even that drive through the streaming streets, with the rain pattering upon the top of their four-wheeler, could not depress him any longer. He rose to the level of Jack Selby, and they chattered gaily together.

'Ain't we bringing him up fighting fit?' cried Jack exultingly.

'Shows that all the care we have taken of him in the last twenty-four hours has not been wasted. That's the sort I like--game as a pebble!

You can't buy 'em, you have to breed 'em. A regular fizzer HE is, and full of blood. And here we are on the ground.'

It was a low, old-fashioned, grey church, with a Gothic entrance and two niches on either side, which spoke of pre-Lutheran days. Cheap modern shops, which banked it in, showed up the quaint dignity of the ancient front. The side-door was open, and they pa.s.sed into its dim- lit interior, with high carved pews, and rich, old, stained gla.s.s.

Huge black oak beams curved over their heads, and dim inscriptions of mediaeval Latin curled and writhed upon the walls. A single step seemed to have taken them from the atmosphere of the nineteenth to that of the fifteenth century.

'What a ripping old church!' Jack whispered.

'You can't buy 'em. But it's as festive as an ice-house. There's a friendly native coming down the aisle. He's your man, Hale, if you want the news.'

The verger was not in the best of tempers. 'It's at a quarter to four,' said he, as Hale met him.

'No, no, at eleven.'

'Quarter to four, I tell you. The vicar says so.'

'Why, it's not possible.'

'We have them at all hours.'

'Have what?'

'Buryin's.'

'But this is a marriage.'

'I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir. I thought when I looked at you as you was the party about the child's funeral.'

'Good heavens, no.'

'It was something in your expression, sir, but now that I can see the colour of your clothes, why of course I know better. There's three marriages--which was it?'