Роберт Эйкман - The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

In the end the Registrar with a final ejaculation of disgust, decided to abbreviate the liturgy; Kynaston produced the ring in excellent order (he had been wearing it on his forefinger); Griselda made a rash and foolish promise; and all was over. The ring was much too big for Griselda’s particularly slender finger: it might have been made for a giantess, indeed probably had been.

‘Sign please,’ said the sacristan producing a mouldering book from under the front row of chairs.

‘Have your witnesses managed to get here?’ enquired the Registrar.

‘They’re all our witnesses,’ exclaimed Kynaston full of the beauty of the ceremony and gesticulating expansively. Instantly he was deflated. ‘Dad!’ he cried and looked quickly round him. The naval officer was thrusting forwards through the congratulatory crowd.

‘Bravo, my boy,’ he cried. ‘I never thought you had it in you.’ His hand was extended. He was examining Griselda closely and added ‘Indeed I never thought it.’

‘Hullo, Dad,’ said Kynaston. In his blue suit, he looked quite green.

‘Take your Father’s hand and say no more. Remember I’m waiting to kiss the bride.’ He wrenched his son’s hand.

‘You must introduce me, Geoffrey,’ said Griselda hastily.

‘My Father. Admiral Sir Collingwood Kynaston. This is Griselda, Dad.’

‘Delighted to meet my daughter.’ He kissed her overwhelmingly. ‘My boy and I have fought like tigers ever since he was born, but that’s all over and you mustn’t believe a thing he says about me.’

Griselda thought it might be discourteous to say that Kynaston had never mentioned him (as was the case); and all the witnesses were waiting to sign.

‘A good hard cudgelling on both sides hurts neither,’ affirmed the Admiral, scrawling his name ahead of the rest. ‘And the old man’s made full amends. Wait for them. Just wait.’

Freddy Fisher took the opportunity to ask for the Admiral’s autograph. ‘I only collect leaders of the services,’ he said.

‘Lucky to find one who can write,’ replied the Admiral jovially. ‘Is that one of your bridesmaids, my dear?’ he enquired of Griselda, indicating Lotus.

In the end everyone had signed and the Registrar had come forward with his account.

‘Leave it me,’ said the Admiral. ‘It’s only once in a man’s life that his boy gets himself spliced and he must expect to pay the piper. Though that reminds me,’ he continued, while the Registrar stood respectfully in the background, ‘what about you, my dear? Are you an orphan?’

‘My Father died of Spanish influenza,’ replied Griselda. ‘I never knew him. From my Mother I have long been estranged.’

‘Lone wolf, eh? See yourself in the same galley with Geoffrey. Never mind. You’ll grow. Being a widower I’m always persuasive with women of my own generation.’ He made a handsome settlement on the Registrar, who became profuse with improbable felicitations before retiring into his vestry.

‘Now then,’ said the Admiral. ‘Just you see.’

The sacristan threw back the big shining doors and Griselda saw. Outside, drawn up in the fog, were two lines of bluejackets. As the doors opened, an order rang out, and they crossed carbines.

‘I really must protest,’ said Guillaume, his face grey with inner conflict, ‘at the use of force. Surely the occasion is sacramental?’

The Admiral only beamed at him. Then he glared at Kynaston.

‘Well, my boy, get on with it. Give her your arm, like a man. If you don’t, I shall.’

The reconciliation between father and son seemed already strained.

Kynaston was white to the finger-nails. For a moment there was silence, broken by one of the bluejackets tittering.

‘No, Dad,’ cried Kynaston. ‘I refuse.’ He gathered strength. ‘Come on Griselda. Let’s find another way out of this place.’

‘Oh, well done,’ said Guillaume under his breath. Florence drew closer to him.

The admiral seemed unexpectedly taken aback. ‘You can’t refuse,’ he cried in a shrill voice. ‘I’ve ordered luncheon for everyone at the Carlton.’

‘Sorry, Father,’ replied Kynaston. ‘Griselda and I have another engagement.’

Peggy had drawn back some time ago, embarrassed by the Admiral’s display of emotion, and had somehow got into what seemed mutually satisfying intercourse with Doris, who was regarding Kynaston’s heroism with soft wondering tear-soaked eyes. By this time all the strangers had withdrawn to form a crowd outside.

The Admiral looked with some anxiety at the guard of honour. Clearly he felt that the situation could not be much longer continued without becoming legendary on both lower and upper decks for years to come.

He glared at his son. ‘Boy,’ he said sotto voce, ‘I have only one thing to say. Be a man.’

‘That’s just it, Father. I am a man.’

‘Oh I say,’ interposed Freddy Fisher, who had lost sympathy with Kynaston. ‘Surely you can compromise?’

Outside, the Petty Officer cleared his throat. The men were tiring under the strain of the crossed carbines.

The admiral wheeled. ‘Dismiss your men.’ Then amid the necessary bellowing and stamping, he cried to the party ‘Those who wish for luncheon may follow me. There are cars outside;’ and, ignoring the newly married couple, he left the building.

There was another pause.

‘Go on,’ said Kynaston. ‘Have lunch. Griselda and I will see you later.’ Lena’s eyes were moving round the group. The sacristan was waiting to lock up.

‘I would rather beg my bread on the Victoria Embankment,’ said Guillaume. He was in a passion of indignation. The guard of honour could be heard marching away. Soon the fog hushed them.

‘Please go and enjoy yourselves,’ said Griselda.

A motor-horn blared commandingly. Florence looked out into the murk. ‘That lawyer’s got in,’ she reported.

Among the rest of them Guillaume’s opinion seemed to prevail. Even Freddy Fisher, though horribly disappointed by the turn of events, abided by an unconscious loyalty, to none could clearly say what.

After another minute or two the cars drove off; the Admiral in the first of them, with his only guest; the remainder empty.

Griselda felt still further cut off from the world which had been hers until she visited Beams; a feeling enhanced by Peggy coming up to her, thanking her for the wedding, wishing her happiness, and then departing, her new dress hardly displayed, clearly much upset. Doris, after quietly congratulating the bridal couple, departed with her.

XXX

They lunched at the Old Bell Restaurant, recommended by Barney, who now appeared. He had been delayed by the completion of a commission, his work being much in demand about Christmas time.

‘You can depend on a Trust House for a sound middle of the road meal,’ he said. ‘Besides there’s a dome of many coloured glass: the finest thing of its kind in London.’

In the Ladies’ Room, two things happened. Griselda found that she had already lost her overlarge ring (and Kynaston, of course, had been unable to afford an engagement ring: indeed there seemed, in retrospect, to have been no very clear period during which Griselda had been engaged). Then Lotus pinned her in a corner and said ‘Remember.’ It was just like the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Griselda wondered what would come out of it all.

At luncheon (where Monica would eat nothing but salad) Barney enquired after Peggy; Lana, ostensibly for Barney’s information, told the story of the Admiral’s intervention; Kynaston kept feeling for Griselda’s hand; and Freddy Fisher became drunk with extraordinary rapidity. Lotus seemed increasingly out of it. Griselda wondered whether she was contemplating a final disappearance to a wealthier milieu; then supposed that she could not be, in view of her reminder in the Ladies’ Room. Lotus’s beauty and passion and sense of dress would make her rather a forlorn figure in any modern environment that Griselda could conceive. After a while, Lena, who, unlike Freddy, was drinking heavily, removed her polar outfit, and emerged in her usual shirt and trousers. As well as drinking, she was talking continuously, and without adapting her talk to the particular listener. Griselda looked at her a little doubtfully. Lena often seemed hightly strung for a business partner.