Evelyn Waugh - The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh

And before Tom knew whether he was pleased or not, the engagement had been announced.

He was making eight hundred a year; Angela had two hundred. There was “more coming” to both of them eventually. Things were not too bad if they were sensible about not having children. He would have to give up his occasional days of hunting; she was to give up her maid. On this basis of mutual sacrifice they arranged for their future.

It rained heavily on the day of the wedding, and only the last-ditchers among the St. Margaret’s crowd turned out to watch the melancholy succession of guests popping out of their dripping cars and plunging up the covered way into the church. There was a party afterwards at Angela’s home in Egerton Gardens. At half past four, the young couple caught a train at Paddington for the West of England. The blue carpet and the striped awning were rolled away and locked among candle-ends and hassocks in the church store-room. The lights in the aisles were turned out and the doors locked and bolted. The flowers and shrubs were stacked up to await distribution in the wards of a hospital for incurables in which Mrs. Watch had an interest. Mrs. Trench-Troubridge’s secretary set to work dispatching silver-and-white cardboard packets of wedding cake to servants and tenants in the country. One of the ushers hurried to Covent Garden to return his morning coat to the firm of gentlemen’s outfitters from whom it was hired. A doctor was summoned to attend the bridegroom’s small nephew, who, after attracting considerable attention as page at the ceremony by his outspoken comments, developed a high temperature and numerous disquieting symptoms of food poisoning. Sarah Trumpery’s maid discreetly returned the travelling clock which the old lady had inadvertently pouched from among the wedding presents. (This foible of hers was well known and the detectives had standing orders to avoid a scene at the reception. It was not often that she was asked to weddings nowadays. When she was, the stolen presents were invariably returned that evening or on the following day.) The bridesmaids got together over dinner and fell into eager conjecture about the intimacies of the honeymoon, the odds in this case being three to two that the ceremony had not been anticipated. The Great Western express rattled through the sodden English counties. Tom and Angela sat glumly in a first-class smoking carriage, discussing the day.

“It was so wonderful neither of us being late.”

“Mother fussed so…”

“I didn’t see John, did you?”

“He was there. He said good-bye to us in the hall.”

“Oh, yes… I hope they’ve packed everything.”

“What books did you bring?”

A thoroughly normal, uneventful wedding.

Presently Tom said: “I suppose in a way it’s rather unenterprising of us, just going off to Aunt Martha’s house in Devon. Remember how the Lockwoods went to Morocco and got captured by brigands?”

“And the Randalls got snowed up for ten days in Norway.”

“We shan’t get much adventure in Devon, I’m afraid.”

“Well, Tom, we haven’t really married for adventure, have we?”

And, as things happened, it was from that moment onwards that the honeymoon took an odd turn.

“D’you know if we change?”

“I rather think we do. I forgot to ask. Peter got the tickets. I’ll get out at Exeter and find out.”

The train drew into the station.

“Shan’t be a minute,” said Tom, shutting the door behind him to keep out the cold. He walked up the platform, purchased a West country evening paper, learned that they need not change and was returning to his carriage when his arm was seized and a voice said:

“Hello, Watch, old man! Remember me?” And with a little difficulty he recognized the smiling face of an old school acquaintance. “See you’ve just got married. Congratulations. Meant to write. Great luck running into you like this. Come and have a drink.”

“Wish I could. Got to get back to the train.”

“Heaps of time, old man. Waits twelve minutes here. Must have a drink.”

Still searching his memory for the name of his old friend, Tom went with him to the station buffet.

“I live fifteen miles out, you know. Just come in to meet the train. Expecting some cow-cake down from London. No sign of it… Well, all the best.”

They drank two glasses of whisky—very comforting after the cold train journey. Then Tom said:

“Well, it’s been jolly seeing you. I must get back to the train now. Come with me and meet my wife.”

But when they reached the platform, the train was gone.

“I say, old man, that’s darned funny, you know. What are you going to do? There’s not another train tonight. Tell you what, you’d better come and spend the night with me and go on in the morning. We can wire and tell your wife where you are.”

“I suppose Angela will be all right?”

“Heavens, yes! Nothing can happen in England. Besides, there’s nothing you can do. Give me her address and I’ll send a wire now, telling her where you are. Jump into the car and wait.”

Next morning Tom woke up with a feeling of slight apprehension. He turned over in bed, examining with sleepy eyes the unaccustomed furniture of the room. Then he remembered. Of course he was married. And Angela had gone off in the train, and he had driven for miles in the dark to the house of an old friend whose name he could not remember. It had been dinnertime when they arrived. They had drunk Burgundy and port and brandy. Frankly, they had drunk rather a lot. They had recalled numerous house scandals, all kinds of jolly insults to chemistry masters, escapades after dark when they had gone up to London to the “43.” What was the fellow’s name? It was clearly too late to ask him now. And anyway he would have to get on to Angela. He supposed that she had reached Aunt Martha’s house safely and had got his telegram. Awkward beginning to the honeymoon—but then he and Angela knew each other so well… It was not as though this were some sudden romance.

Presently he was called. “Hounds are meeting near here this morning, sir. The Captain wondered if you’d care to go hunting.”

“No, no! I have to leave immediately after breakfast.”

“The Captain said he could mount you, sir, and lend you clothes.”

“No, no! Quite impossible.”

But when he came down to breakfast and found his host filling a saddle flask with cherry-brandy, secret threads began to pull at Tom’s heart.

“Of course we’re a comic sort of pack. Everyone turns out, parson, farmers, all kinds of animals. But we generally get a decent run along the edge of the moor. Pity you can’t come out. I’d like you to try my new mare, she’s a lovely ride… a bit fine for this type of country, perhaps…”

Well, why not?… after all, he and Angela knew each other so well… it was not as though…

And two hours later Tom found himself in a high wind galloping madly across the worst hunting country in the British Isles—alternations of heather and bog, broken by pot-holes, boulders, mountain streams and disused gravel pits—hounds streaming up the valley opposite, the mare going perfectly, farmers’ boys on shaggy little ponies, solicitors’ wives on cobs, retired old sea-captains bouncing about eighteen hands high, vets and vicars plunging on all sides of him, and not a care in his heart.

Two hours later still he was in less happy circumstances, seated alone in the heather, surrounded on all sides by an unbroken horizon of empty moor. He had dismounted to tighten a girth, and galloping across a hillside to catch up with the field, his mount had put her foot in a rabbit hole, tumbled over, rolled perilously near him, and then regaining her feet, had made off at a brisk canter towards her stable, leaving him on his back, panting for breath. Now he was quite alone in a totally strange country. He did not know the name of his host or of his host’s house. He pictured himself tramping from village to village saying: “Can you tell me the address of a young man who was hunting this morning? He was in Butcher’s house at Eton!” Moreover, Tom suddenly remembered he was married. Of course he and Angela knew each other so well… but there were limits.