Part 34 (2/2)
It was the queerest, most unromantic wedding. The streets were full of the Sat.u.r.day night crowd of pleasure seekers. The chapel was next to a Chinese laundry; glancing in at the door through the steam she got a swift vision of two Chinamen ironing collars vigorously. Outside the chapel door stood a gawky-looking group--a young sailor, very fat and jolly-looking was being married to a rather elderly woman. Both had short white kid gloves that showed a little rim of red wrist; their friends were chaffing them unmercifully; the bride was giggling, the sailor looking imperturbable. Louis edged towards Marcella.
”I don't want those two c.h.i.n.ks to see me,” he whispered nervously.
She stared at him.
”I wish they'd open the door,” whispered Marcella.
”So do I. My hat, I wish Violet could come past. She'd kill herself with laughing. She was married at St. George's, Hanover Square.”
That conveyed nothing to Marcella. She was watching a German band composed of very fat, pink Germans who, on their way to their nightly street playing outside various theatres and restaurants, had noticed the group and scented a wedding. They began by playing the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise”
and made her laugh by the extreme earnestness of their expression; then they played the Lohengrin ”Bridal March” and had only just reached the tenth bar when the chapel door opened with a tremendous squeaking and creaking. The conductor paused with his baton in mid beat and his mouth wide open as he saw his audience melting away inside the door. Marcella, laughing almost hysterically, whispered to Louis:
”Give them a s.h.i.+lling or something. They look so unhappy!”
”They're spying on me,” he whispered, tossing them a coin which fell among them and received the conductor's blessing.
Marcella and Louis sat on a bench in a Sunday-school cla.s.sroom, looking at ”Rebecca at the Well” and a zoological picture of the millennium while the sailor got married. Both were subdued suddenly. She found herself thinking that, if ever she had children, she would never let them go to such a dreary place as Sunday-school.
”Isn't this awful?” she whispered at last. ”People ought to be married on the tops of hills, or under trees. But it makes you feel solemn, and sort of good, doesn't it--even such a fearful place?”
He nodded. They heard the sailor and the bride chattering suddenly and loudly in the next little room and guessed that they were married. A bent little woman--the chapel cleaner--came along and asked them where their witnesses were. Her dark eyes looked piercingly among grey, unbrushed hair; her hands were encrusted with much immersion in dirty water.
”Witnesses?” said Louis anxiously.
”Two witnesses,” she said inexorably. ”Haven't you got 'ny?”
”We didn't know--” began Marcella. The old woman looked pleased.
”Well, I was wondering if yous 'ud have me an' my boss. We often make a couple of bob like that.”
Louis nodded, and she shuffled off, appearing a few moments later with an old man who had evidently been waiting about for the chance of earning a few s.h.i.+llings.
”It isn't a bit like Lochinvar,” whispered Marcella, ”or Jock of Hazeldean.”
”Poor old lady,” he whispered, suddenly gentle.
The two old people sat down on the form beside Louis, who edged a little closer to Marcella.
”It's forty years since we was married, my boss and me,” began the old woman. ”Forty years--and brought up twelve--”
”Buried six,” mumbled the old man, shaking his head and wiping a watery eye on his coat sleeve.
”I say, I feel no end of an a.s.s, don't you?” whispered Louis. ”Tell the old idiots to shut up.”
”Poor old things--forty years ago they thought it was all going to be so s.h.i.+ning,” she whispered.
”It isn't as if he's had very good work,” went on the old woman, ”but you must take the rough with the smooth.”
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