Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall

'I don't want to say anything discouraging, said Mr Prendergast, 'but I've known Flossie for nearly ten years now, and ‑

'There isn't anything you can tell me about Flossie that I don't know already. I almost wish it was Dingy. I suppose it's too late now to change. Oh dear! sait Grimes despondently, gazing into his glass. 'Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! That I should come to this!

'Cheer up, Grimes. It isn't like you to be as depressed as this, said Paul.

'Old friends, said Grimes ‑ and his voice was charged with emotion ‑ 'you see a man standing face to face with retribution. Respect him even if you cannot understand. Those that live by the flesh shall perish by the flesh. I am a very sinful man, and I am past my first youth. Who shall pity me in that dark declivity to which my steps inevitably seem to tend? I have boasted in my youth and held my head high and gone on my way careless of consequence, but ever behind me, unseen, stood stark Justice with his two‑edged sword.

More food was brought them. Mr Prendergast ate with a hearty appetite.

'Oh, why did nobody warn me? cried Grimes in his agony. 'I should have been told. They should have told me in so many words. They should have warned me about Flossie, not about the fires of hell. I've risked them, and I don't mind risking them again, but they should have told me about marriage. They should have told me that at the end of that gay journey and flower‑strewn path were the hideous lights of home and the voices of children. I should have been warned of the great lavender‑scented bed that was laid out for me, of the wistaria at the windows, of all the intimacy and confidence of family life. But I daresay I shouldn't have listened. Our life is lived between two homes. We emerge for a little into the light, and then the front door closes. The chintz curtains shut out the sun, and the hearth glows with the fire of home, while upstairs, above our heads, are enacted again the awful accidents of adolescence. There's a home and family waiting for every one of us. We can't escape, try how we may. It's the seed of life we carry about with us like our skeletons, each one of us unconsciously pregnant with desirable villa residences. There's no escape. As individuals we simply do not exist. We are just potential home‑builders, beavers, and ants. How do we come into being? What is birth?

'I've often wondered, said Mr Prendergast.

'What is this impulse of two people to build their beastly home? It's you and me, unborn, asserting our presence. All we are is a manifestation of the impulse of family life, and if by chance we have escaped the itch ourselves, Nature forces it upon us another way. Flossie's got that itch enough for two. I just haven't. I'm one of the blind alleys off the main road of procreation, but it doesn't matter. Nature always wins. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! Why didn't I die in that first awful home? Why did I ever hope I could escape?

Captain Grimes continued his lament for some time in deep bitterness of heart. Presently he became silent and stared at his glass.

'I wonder, said Mr Prendergast, 'I wonder whether I could have just a little more of this very excellent pheasant?

'Anyway, said Grimes, 'there shan't be any children; I'll see to that.

'It has always been a mystery to me why people marry, said Mr Prendergast. 'I can't see the smallest reason for it. Quite happy, normal people. Now I can understand it in Grimes' case. He has everything to gain by the arrangement, but what does Flossie expect to gain? And yet she seems more enthusiastic about it than Grimes. It has been the tragedy of my life that whenever I start thinking about any quite simple subject I invariably feel myself confronted by some flat contradiction of this sort. Have you ever thought about marriage ‑ in the abstract, I mean, of course?

'Not very much, I'm afraid.

'I don't believe, said Mr Prendergast, 'that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed. Don't you agree?

'I don't think you can be quite right, said Paul; 'you see, animals fall in love quite a lot, don't they?

'Do they? said Mr Prendergast. 'I didn't know that. What an extraordinary thing! But then I had an aunt whose cat used to put its paw up to its mouth when it yawned. It's wonderful what animals can be taught. There is a sea‑lion at the circus, I saw in the paper, who juggles with an umbrella and two oranges.

'I know what I'll do, said Grimes. 'I'll get a motor bicycle.

This seemed to cheer him up a little. He took another glass of wine and smiled wanly. 'I'm afraid I've not been following all you chaps have said. I was thinking. What were we talking about?

'Prendy was telling me about a sea‑lion who juggled with an umbrella and two oranges.

'Why, that's nothing. I can juggle with a whacking great bottle and a lump of ice and two knives. Look!

'Grimes, don't! Everyone is looking at you.

The head‑waiter came over to remonstrate. 'Please remember where you are, sir, he said.

'I know where I am well enough, said Grimes. 'I'm in the hotel my pal Sir Solomon Philbrick is talking of buying, and I tell you this, old boy: if he does, the first person to lose his job will be you. See?

Nevertheless he stopped juggling, and Mr Prendergast ate two pêches Melba undisturbed.

'The black cloud has passed, said Grimes. 'Grimes is now going to enjoy his evening.

Six days later the school was given a half holiday, and soon after luncheon the bigamous union of Captain Edgar Grimes and Miss Florence Selina Fagan was celebrated at the Llanabba Parish Church. A slight injury to his hand prevented Paul from playing the organ. He walked down the church with Mr Prendergast, who, greatly to his dismay, had been instructed by Dr Fagan to give away the bride.

'I do not intend to be present, said the Doctor. 'The whole business is exceedingly painful to me. Everybody else, however, was there except little Lord Tangent, whose foot was being amputated at a local nursing‑home. The boys for the most part welcomed the event as a pleasant variation to the rather irregular routine of their day. Clutterbuck alone seemed disposed to sulk.

'I don't suppose that their children will be terribly attractive, said Beste‑Chetwynde.

There were few wedding presents. The boys had subscribed a shilling each and had bought at a shop in Llandudno a silver‑plated teapot, coyly suggestive of art nouveau. The Doctor gave them a cheque for twenty‑five pounds. Mr Prendergast gave Grimes a walking‑stick — 'because he was always borrowing mine' ‑ and Dingy rather generously, two photograph frames, a calendar, and a tray of Benares brassware. Paul was the best man.

The service passed off without a hitch, for Grimes's Irish wife did not turn up to forbid the banns. Flossie wore a frock of a rather noticeable velveteen and a hat with two pink feathers to match.

'I was so pleased when I found he didn't want me to wear white, she said, 'though, of course, it might have been dyed afterwards.

Both bride and bridegroom spoke up well in the responses, and afterwards the Vicar delivered a very moving address on the subject of Home and Conjugal Love.

'How beautiful it is, he said, 'to see two young people in the hope of youth setting out with the Church's blessing to face life together; how much more beautiful to see them when they have grown to full manhood and womanhood coming together and saying, "Our experience of life has taught us that one is not enough."

The boys lined the path from the church door to the lychgate, and the head prefect said: 'Three cheers for Captain and Mrs Grimes!