H G Wells Omnibus, page 786
He became aware of Miriam breathing close to him.
“Hullo!” he said, and feeling that was clumsy and would meet the eye’s disapproval; “Grey dress-suits you no end.”
Miriam’s eyes shone under her hat-brim.
“Not reely!” she whispered.
“You’re all right,” he said with the feeling of observation and criticism stiffening his lips. He cleared his throat.
The verger’s hand pushed at him from behind. Someone was driving Miriam towards the altar rail and the clergyman. “We’re in for it,” said Mr. Polly to her sympathetically. “Where? Here? Right O.”
He was interested for a moment or so in something indescribably habitual in the clergyman’s pose. What a lot of weddings he must have seen! Sick he must be of them!
“Don’t let your attention wander,” said the eye.
“Got the ring?” whispered Johnson.
“Pawned it yesterday,” answered Mr. Polly and then had a dreadful moment under that pitiless scrutiny while he felt in the wrong waistcoat pocket… .
The officiating clergy sighed deeply, began, and married them wearily and without any hitch.
“D’b’loved, we gath’d ’gether sight o’ Gard ’n face this con’gation join ’gather Man, Wom’ Holy Mat’my which is on’bl state stooted by Gard in times man’s innocency… .’”
Mr. Polly’s thoughts wandered wide and far, and once again something like a cold hand touched his heart, and he saw a sweet face in sunshine under the shadow of trees.
Someone was nudging him. It was Johnson’s finger diverted his eyes to the crucial place in the prayer-book to which they had come.
“Wiltou lover, cumiler, oner, keeper sickness and health…”
“Say ’I will.’ ”
Mr. Polly moistened his lips. “I will,” he said hoarsely.
Miriam, nearly inaudible, answered some similar demand.
Then the clergyman said: “Who gifs Wom married to this man?”
“Well, I’m doing that,” said Mr. Voules in a refreshingly full voice and looking round the church. “You see, me and Martha Larkins being cousins—”
He was silenced by the clergyman’s rapid grip directing the exchange of hands.
“Pete arf me,” said the clergyman to Mr. Polly. “Take thee Mirum wed wife—”
“Take thee Mirum wed’ wife,” said Mr. Polly.
“Have hold this day ford.”
“Have hold this day ford.”
“Betworse, richpoo’—”
“Bet worsh, richpoo’. . . .”
Then came Miriam’s turn.
“Lego hands,” said the clergyman; “got the ring? No! On the book. So! Here! Pete arf me, ’withis ring Ivy wed.’ ”
“Withis ring Ivy wed—”
So it went on, blurred and hurried, like the momentary vision of an utterly beautiful thing seen through the smoke of a passing train… .
“Now, my boy,” said Mr. Voules at last, gripping Mr. Polly’s elbow tightly, “you’ve got to sign the registry, and there you are! Done!”
Before him stood Miriam, a little stiffly, the hat with a slight rake across her forehead, and a kind of questioning hesitation in her face. Mr. Voules urged him past her.
It was astounding. She was his wife!
And for some reason Miriam and Mrs. Larkins were sobbing, and Annie was looking grave. Hadn’t they after all wanted him to marry her? Because if that was the case—!
He became aware for the first time of the presence of Uncle Pentstemon in the background, but approaching, wearing a tie of a light mineral blue colour, and grinning and sucking enigmatically and judiciously round his principal tooth.
5
It was in the vestry that the force of Mr. Voules’ personality began to show at its true value. He seemed to open out and spread over things directly the restraints of the ceremony were at an end.
“Everything,” he said to the clergyman, “excellent.” He also shook hands with Mrs. Larkins, who clung to him for a space, and kissed Miriam on the cheek. “First kiss for me,” he said, “anyhow.”
He led Mr. Polly to the register by the arm, and then got chairs for Mrs. Larkins and his wife. He then turned on Miriam. “Now, young people,” he said. “One! or I shall again.”
“That’s right!” said Mr. Voules. “Same again, Miss.”
Mr. Polly was overcome with modest confusion, and turning, found a refuge from this publicity in the arms of Mrs. Larkins. Then in a state of profuse moisture he was assaulted and kissed by Annie and Minnie, who were immediately kissed upon some indistinctly stated grounds by Mr. Voules, who then kissed the entirely impassive Mrs. Voules and smacked his lips and remarked: “Home again safe and sound!” Then with a strange harrowing cry Mrs. Larkins seized upon and bedewed Miriam with kisses, Annie and Minnie kissed each other, and Johnson went abruptly to the door of the vestry and stared into the church—no doubt with ideas of sanctuary in his mind. “Like a bit of a kiss round sometimes,” said Mr. Voules, and made a kind of hissing noise with his teeth, and suddenly smacked his hands together with great éclat several times. Meanwhile the clergyman scratched his cheek with one hand and fiddled the pen with the other and the verger coughed protestingly.
“The dog cart’s just outside,” said Mr. Voules. “No walking home to-day for the bride, Mam.”
“Not going to drive us?” cried Annie.
“The happy pair, Miss. Your turn soon.”
“Get out!” said Annie. “I shan’t marry—ever.”
“You won’t be able to help it. You’ll have to do it—just to disperse the crowd.” Mr. Voules laid his hand on Mr. Polly’s shoulder. “The bridegroom gives his arm to the bride. Hands across and down the middle. Prump. Prump, Perump-pump-pump-pump.”
Mr. Polly found himself and the bride leading the way towards the western door.
Mrs. Larkins passed close to Uncle Pentstemon, sobbing too earnestly to be aware of him. “Such a goo-goo-goo-girl!” she sobbed.
“Didn’t think I’d come, did you?” said Uncle Pentstemon, but she swept past him, too busy with the expression of her feelings to observe him.
“She didn’t think I’d come, I lay,” said Uncle Pentstemon, a little foiled, but effecting an auditory lodgment upon Johnson.
“I don’t know,” said Johnson uncomfortably. “I suppose you were asked. How are you getting on?”
“I was arst,” said Uncle Pentstemon, and brooded for a moment.
“I goes about seeing wonders,” he added, and then in a sort of enhanced undertone: “One of ’er girls gettin’ married. That’s what I mean by wonders. Lord’s goodness! Wow!”
“Nothing the matter?” asked Johnson.
“Got it in the back for a moment. Going to be a change of weather I suppose,” said Uncle Pentstemon. “I brought ’er a nice present, too, what I got in this passel. Vallyble old tea caddy that uset’ be my mother’s. What I kep’ my baccy in for years and years—till the hinge at the back got broke. It ain’t been no use to me particular since, so thinks I, drat it! I may as well give it ’er as not… .”
Mr. Polly found himself emerging from the western door.
Outside, a crowd of half-a-dozen adults and about fifty children had collected, and hailed the approach of the newly wedded couple with a faint, indeterminate cheer. All the children were holding something in little bags, and his attention was caught by the expression of vindictive concentration upon the face of a small big-eared boy in the foreground. He didn’t for the moment realise what these things might import. Then he received a stinging handful of rice in the ear, and great light shone.
“Not yet, you young fool!” he heard Mr. Voules saying behind him, and then a second handful spoke against his hat.
“Not yet,” said Mr. Voules with increasing emphasis, and Mr. Polly became aware that he and Miriam were the focus of two crescents of small boys, each with the light of massacre in his eyes and a grubby fist clutching into a paper bag for rice; and that Mr. Voules was warding off probable discharges with a large red hand.
The dog cart was in charge of a loafer, and the horse and the whip were adorned with white favours, and the back seat was confused but not untenable with hampers. “Up we go,” said Mr. Voules, “old birds in front and young ones behind.” An ominous group of ill-restrained rice-throwers followed them up as they mounted.
“Get your handkerchief for your face,” said Mr. Polly to his bride, and took the place next the pavement with considerable heroism, held on, gripped his hat, shut his eyes and prepared for the worst. “Off!” said Mr. Voules, and a concentrated fire came stinging Mr. Polly’s face.
The horse shied, and when the bridegroom could look at the world again it was manifest the dog cart had just missed an electric tram by a hairsbreadth, and far away outside the church railings the verger and Johnson were battling with an active crowd of small boys for the life of the rest of the Larkins family. Mrs. Punt and her son had escaped across the road, the son trailing and stumbling at the end of a remorseless arm, but Uncle Pentstemon, encumbered by the tea-caddy, was the centre of a little circle of his own, and appeared to be dratting them all very heartily. Remoter, a policeman approached with an air of tranquil unconsciousness.
“Steady, you idiot. Stead-y!” cried Mr. Voules, and then over his shoulder: “I brought that rice! I like old customs! Whoa! Stead-y.”
The dog cart swerved violently, and then, evoking a shout of groundless alarm from a cyclist, took a corner, and the rest of the wedding party was hidden from Mr. Polly’s eyes.
6
“We’ll get the stuff into the house before the old gal comes along,” said Mr. Voules, “if you’ll hold the hoss.”
“How about the key?” asked Mr. Polly.
“I got the key, coming.”
And while Mr. Polly held the sweating horse and dodged the foam that dripped from its bit, the house absorbed Miriam and Mr. Voules altogether. Mr. Voules carried in the various hampers he had brought with him, and finally closed the door behind him.
For some time Mr. Polly remained alone with his charge in the little blind alley outside the Larkins’ house, while the neighbours scrutinised him from behind their blinds. He reflected that he was a married man, that he must look very like a fool, that the head of a horse is a silly shape and its eye a bulger; he wondered what the horse thought of him, and whether it really liked being held and patted on the neck or whether it only submitted out of contempt. Did it know he was married? Then he wondered if the clergyman had thought him much of an ass, and then whether the individual lurking behind the lace curtains of the front room next door was a man or a woman. A door opened over the way, and an elderly gentleman in a kind of embroidered fez appeared smoking a pipe with a quite satisfied expression. He regarded Mr. Polly for some time with mild but sustained curiosity. Finally he called: “Hi!”
“Hullo!” said Mr. Polly.
“You needn’t ’old that ’orse,” said the old gentleman.
“Spirited beast,” said Mr. Polly. “And,”—with some faint analogy to ginger beer in his mind—“he’s up to-day.”
“ ’E won’t turn ’isself round,” said the old gentleman, “anyhow. And there ain’t no way through for ’im to go.”
“Verbum sap,” said Mr. Polly, and abandoned the horse and turned to the door. It opened to him just as Mrs. Larkins on the arm of Johnson, followed by Annie, Minnie, two friends, Mrs. Punt and her son and at a slight distance Uncle Pentstemon, appeared round the corner.
“They’re coming,” he said to Miriam, and put an arm about her and gave her a kiss.
She was kissing him back when they were startled violently by the shying of two empty hampers into the passage. Then Mr. Voules appeared holding a third.
“Here! you’ll ’ave plenty of time for that presently,” he said, “get these hampers away before the old girl comes. I got a cold collation here to make her sit up. My eye!”
Miriam took the hampers, and Mr. Polly under compulsion from Mr. Voules went into the little front room. A profuse pie and a large ham had been added to the modest provision of Mrs. Larkins, and a number of select-looking bottles shouldered the bottle of sherry and the bottle of port she had got to grace the feast. They certainly went better with the iced wedding cake in the middle. Mrs. Voules, still impassive, stood by the window regarding these things with a faint approval.
“Makes it look a bit thicker, eh?” said Mr. Voules, and blew out both his cheeks and smacked his hands together violently several times. “Surprise the old girl no end.”
He stood back and smiled and bowed with arms extended as the others came clustering at the door.
“Why, Un-cle Voules!” cried Annie, with a rising note.
It was his reward.
And then came a great wedging and squeezing and crowding into the little room. Nearly everyone was hungry, and eyes brightened at the sight of the pie and the ham and the convivial array of bottles. “Sit down everyone,” cried Mr. Voules, “leaning against anything counts as sitting, and makes it easier to shake down the grub!”
The two friends from Miriam’s place of business came into the room among the first, and then wedged themselves so hopelessly against Johnson in an attempt to get out again and take off their things upstairs that they abandoned the attempt. Amid the struggle, Mr. Polly saw Uncle Pentstemon relieve himself of his parcel by giving it to the bride. “Here!” he said and handed it to her. “Weddin’ present,” he explained, and added with a confidential chuckle, “I never thought I’d ’ave to give you one—ever.”
“Who says steak and kidney pie?” bawled Mr. Voules. “Who says steak and kidney pie? You ’ave a drop of old Tommy, Martha. That’s what you want to steady you… . Sit down everyone and don’t all speak at once. Who says steak and kidney pie? . . .”
“Vocificeratious,” whispered Mr. Polly. “Convivial vocificerations.”
“Bit of ’am with it,” shouted Mr. Voules, poising a slice of ham on his knife. “Anyone ’ave a bit of ’am with it? Won’t that little man of yours, Mrs. Punt—won’t ’e ’ave a bit of ’am? . . .”
“And now ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Voules, still standing and dominating the crammed roomful, “now you got your plates filled and something I can warrant you good in your glasses, wot about drinking the ’ealth of the bride?”
“Eat a bit fust,” said Uncle Pentstemon, speaking with his mouth full, amidst murmurs of applause. “Eat a bit fust.”
So they did, and the plates clattered and the glasses chinked.
Mr. Polly stood shoulder to shoulder with Johnson for a moment.
“In for it,” said Mr. Polly cheeringly. “Cheer up, O’ Man, and peck a bit. No reason why you shouldn’t eat, you know.”
The Punt boy stood on Mr. Polly’s boots for a minute, struggling violently against the compunction of Mrs. Punt’s grip.
“Pie,” said the Punt boy, “Pie!”
“You sit ’ere and ’ave ’am, my lord!” said Mrs. Punt, prevailing. “Pie you can’t ’ave and you won’t.”
“Lor bless my heart, Mrs. Punt!” protested Mr. Voules, “let the boy ’ave a bit if he wants it—wedding and all!”
“You ’aven’t ’ad ’im ’sick ’on ’your ’ands, Uncle Voules,” said Mrs. Punt. “Else you wouldn’t want to humour his fancies as you do… .”
“I can’t help feeling it’s a mistake, O’ Man,” said Johnson, in a confidential undertone. “I can’t help feeling you’ve been Rash. Let’s hope for the best.”
“Always glad of good wishes, O’ man,” said Mr. Polly. “You’d better have a drink of something. Anyhow, sit down to it.”
Johnson subsided gloomily, and Mr. Polly secured some ham and carried it off and sat himself down on the sewing machine on the floor in the corner to devour it. He was hungry, and a little cut off from the rest of the company by Mrs. Voules’ hat and back, and he occupied himself for a time with ham and his own thoughts. He became aware of a series of jangling concussions on the table. He craned his neck and discovered that Mr. Voules was standing up and leaning forward over the table in the manner distinctive of after-dinner speeches, tapping upon the table with a black bottle. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Voules, raising his glass solemnly in the empty desert of sound he had made, and paused for a second or so. “Ladies and gentlemen,—The Bride.” He searched his mind for some suitable wreath of speech, and brightened at last with discovery. “Here’s Luck to her!” he said at last.
“Here’s Luck!” said Johnson hopelessly but resolutely, and raised his glass. Everybody murmured: “Here’s luck.”
“Luck!” said Mr. Polly, unseen in his corner, lifting a forkful of ham.
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Voules with a sigh of relief at having brought off a difficult operation. “And now, who’s for a bit more pie?”
For a time conversation was fragmentary again. But presently Mr. Voules rose from his chair again; he had subsided with a contented smile after his first oratorical effort, and produced a silence by renewed hammering. “Ladies and gents,” he said, “fill up for the second toast:—the happy Bridegroom!” He stood for half a minute searching his mind for the apt phrase that came at last in a rush. “Here’s (hic) luck to him,” said Mr. Voules.
