Роберт Эйкман - The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

There was no doubt he had a well-shaped body and much patient persistence in pursuit. It was necessary to hope.

On Christmas Eve it was foggier than on the day Miss Otter died and Griselda inherited the shop. Griselda and Peggy took forty minutes to find the Registry Office from Holborn Station; but fortunately (at Peggy’s suggestion) they had started very early. Of the two Peggy looked much more like a bride: at extravagant expenditure she had acquired a magenta woollen dress with a salmon-coloured belt. The gesture testified all the more to her warmth of feeling, because, as she explained to Griselda in the Underground, it would be out of the question for her to wear the garment to the office.

The occasion had attracted an excellent attendance from among the friends of both bride and bridegroom (whose friends, as it happened, were largely held in common), and from the people of the surrounding district. Among the latter was even a barrister, on his way from Gray’s Inn to Lincoln’s Inn, whose large black hat and resonant professional diction enormously raised the tone and spirits of all present. When Griselda arrived, he was explaining that he had just been consulting his solicitor on a normal routine matter and had since been lost in the fog. The contingent from Juvenal Court had shared the cost of a taxi (which the barrister explained was a breach of statute) and stood grouped together protecting the bridegroom. They all wore sapphire coloured orchids paid for by Lotus, who, dressed in black chiffon and a Persian lamb coat, and pale to the lips and ears, was a centre of speculation among all who did not know her. Guillaume wore a fashionable suit hired from a reputable but humble competitor of Messrs Moss Brothers; Florence a pale grey coat and skirt, home-made but none the less well made, and dark stockings sent as a Christmas present from Paris by an old admirer who had fled despairing her marmoreal devotion to another. Monica Paget-Barlow crotcheted away behind the Registry Office font. Freddy Fisher was interviewing the press, who took him for the bridegroom because he looked young and innocent and wore morning dress.

Kynaston entirely resembled Prince Charming in a midnight-blue suit he had salved from an unsuccessful production of a play by Maeterlinck.

As Griselda handed her raincoat to Peggy (she had followed Mrs Hatch’s precept and acquired a substantial one), Kynaston stepped forward from his ring of supporters, extended both his hands, and said ‘My love! This is our day. Let us not flinch.’

‘All right,’ said Griselda. ‘Shall we start?’

The Registrar’s wife ceased her voluntary, and the Registrar himself loomed through the fog which filled the precincts. He was an impressive figure with a cold and wearing a frock coat, at which Griselda stared with interest. It was exactly like that worn by Joseph Chamberlain in Herkomer’s portrait, a fine engraving of which hung above the sideboard in her Mother’s dining room. Griselda supposed that her Mother might have forgiven her as it was her wedding-day. On the whole, she was glad that the chance did not offer.

The sacristan, a sleek young man in a pepper-and-salt suit reminiscent of Kempton Park, arranged the bride and bridgroom into a procession. At that moment, Griselda’s eye fell upon Lena, for whom she had been searching. Lena, in a semi-polar outfit (she was much the most suitably dressed person present), sat in a corner of the Registry Office, obviously trying to comfort someone in distress, whose face was entirely concealed by Lena’s handkerchief. The distressed one’s clothes at once spoke for themselves, however. Before Griselda lighted up the entire half-forgotten panorama of society at Beams. Horror! It was Doris Ditton.

Now Griselda began herself to weep. The picture of Louise had projected itself with the rest in the so far greater intensity that memory offers than life.

Kynaston held out a twilight blue artificial silk handkerchief which went with the suit.

‘Be strong, Griselda,’ he said. ‘Soon we shall be alone together, and I shall be needing you .’ Lena waved to her slightly, affectionately. Kynaston had presumably not yet identified Doris. Or perhaps she was there by his invitation? Griselda could not see how else she had learned of the event; and had always understood that the bridgroom’s guests at weddings consist predominantly of his past passions. Then she realized the answer: Lotus.

‘Bride and bridegroom stand. All the rest sit,’ bawled the sacristan, his voice filled with the wind off Newmarket Heath.

Kynaston, in the hope of checking her tears, introduced Griselda to a small smooth man in a morning suit made splendid with orders and decorations.

‘Colonel Costa-Rica, darling,’ he said. ‘The Orinocan Commercial Attachй.’

Griselda transferred her handkerchief and extended the appropriate hand. The Colonel fell upon it with his lips. His movement was like that of a closing knife. His cold eyes looked straight through Griselda’s handkerchief and into her shivering soul.

‘Enchantй mademoiselle. Et trиs bonne chance.’ When he spoke, his lips scarcely moved.

‘English is the only European language the attachй doesn’t speak,’ explained Kynaston.

‘Excusez-moi?’

‘Yes, certainly. Mais oui,’ replied Griselda in reasurrance. The Colonel sat down and began to brood upon the state of trade.

‘All set,’ roared the sacristan. The bride and bridegroom were propelled forward to where the Registrar stood waiting, his book of runes in one hand, a small flask of eucalyptus in the other; there was a sound of military orders in the fog outside, and of rifle butts crashing on paving stones: and the greatest moment in Griselda’s life had begun.

For one presumably experienced in his work, the Registrar seemed strangely dependent upon his little book. That being so, moreover, it was difficult to understand why he had never acquired a larger volume with better print. As it was, the limited natural visibility and archaic lighting (by gas produced from coal) clearly caused him much distress. He peered at the minute screed, varying its distance from his eyes, and every now and then looking upwards at the burner above his head with a demeanour which in another would have passed for distaste. Sometimes he stopped for several seconds in the middle of a passage or sentence. Punctuation, indeed seemed a complete stumbling-block. In consequence of all this, however, the literal dreadful moaning of the words merged happily into a synthesis properly evocative of a half-forgotten rite. Behind the Registrar the east wall of the building was crudely painted with admonitions headed ‘Rules and Regulations Touching the State and Condition of Holy Matrimony,’ varied by long closely printed notices signed on behalf of the Home Secretary. The stained glass window above the Registrar’s head depicted a bygone Chairman of the London County Council kneeling before the goddess of fertility, represented traditionally. Doris’s intermittent sobs offered an emotional continuo. Every now and then the heating system rumbled towards animation. The Registrar forged ahead, his mind on higher things. Regarding the grave mysterious figure, all goodness and wisdom, and his richly significant background, Griselda remembered that this was something she must never forget, even though she had great-grandchildren. Again she shuddered slightly. The congregation sympathetically attributed it to the weather.

Suddenly there was an interruption. The great pitch-pine doors parted and someone entered with firm, stamping tread. Griselda could not but look over her shoulder. It was a fine figure of a man in naval uniform. Before seating himself in the back row of chairs (next to Lotus), he caught Griselda’s eye and waved breezily. Griselda stiffly inclined her head; then returned her attention to the service. Could this officer be responsible for the martial clatter outside? Possibly he was the next bridegroom, though he seemed elderly.