CHAPTER XXII.
EPITHALAMY.
For three indelible days Lewisham's existence was a fabric of fineemotions, life was too wonderful and beautiful for any doubts orforethought. To be with Ethel was perpetual delight--she astonishedthis sisterless youngster with a thousand feminine niceties andrefinements. She shamed him for his strength and clumsiness. And thelight in her eyes and the warmth in her heart that lit them!
Even to be away from her was a wonder and in its way delightful. Hewas no common Student, he was a man with a Secret Life. To part fromher on Monday near South Kensington station and go up Exhibition Roadamong all the fellows who lived in sordid, lonely lodgings and wereboys to his day-old experience! To neglect one's work and sit back anddream of meeting again! To slip off to the shady churchyard behind theOratory when, or even a little before, the midday bell woke the greatstaircase to activity, and to meet a smiling face and hear a soft,voice saying sweet foolish things! And after four another meeting andthe walk home--their own home.
No little form now went from him and flitted past a gas lamp down afoggy vista, taking his desire with her. Never more was that tobe. Lewisham's long hours in the laboratory were spent largely in adreamy meditation, in--to tell the truth--the invention of foolishterms of endearment: "Dear Wife," "Dear Little Wife Thing," "SweetestDearest Little Wife," "Dillywings." A pretty employment! And theseare quite a fair specimen of his originality during those wonderfuldays. A moment of heart-searching in that particular matter led tothe discovery of hitherto undreamt-of kindred with Swift. ForLewisham, like Swift and most other people, had hit upon, the LittleLanguage. Indeed it was a very foolish time.
Such section cutting as he did that third day of his married life--andhe did very little--was a thing to marvel at. Bindon, the botanyprofessor, under the fresh shock of his performance, protested to acolleague in the grill room that never had a student been so foolishlyoverrated.
And Ethel too had a fine emotional time. She was mistress of ahome--_their_ home together. She shopped and was called "Ma'am" byrespectful, good-looking shopmen; she designed meals and copied outpapers of notes with a rich sense of helpfulness. And ever and againshe would stop writing and sit dreaming. And for four bright week-daysshe went to and fro to accompany and meet Lewisham and listen greedilyto the latest fruits of his imagination.
The landlady was very polite and conversed entertainingly about thevery extraordinary and dissolute servants that had fallen to herlot. And Ethel disguised her newly wedded state by a series ofingenious prevarications. She wrote a letter that Saturday evening toher mother--Lewisham had helped her to write it--making a sort ofproclamation of her heroic departure and promising a speedyvisit. They posted the letter so that it might not be delivered untilMonday.
She was quite sure with Lewisham that only the possible dishonour ofmediumship could have brought their marriage about--she sank themutual attraction beyond even her own vision. There was more than atouch of magnificence, you perceive, about this affair.
It was Lewisham had persuaded her to delay that reassuring visit untilMonday night. "One whole day of honeymoon," he insisted, was to betheirs. In his prenuptial meditations he had not clearly focussed thefact that even after marriage some sort of relations with Mr. andMrs. Chaffery would still go on. Even now he was exceedinglydisinclined to face that obvious necessity. He foresaw, in spite of aresolute attempt to ignore it, that there would be explanatory scenesof some little difficulty. But the prevailing magnificence carried himover this trouble.
"Let us at least have this little time for ourselves," he said, andthat seemed to settle their position.
Save for its brevity and these intimations of future trouble it was avery fine time indeed. Their midday dinner together, for example--itwas a little cold when at last they came to it on Saturday--wasimmense fun. There was no marked subsidence of appetite; they ateextremely well in spite of the meeting of their souls, and in spite ofcertain shiftings of chairs and hand claspings and similar delays. Hereally made the acquaintance of her hands then for the first time,plump white hands with short white fingers, and the engagement ringhad come out of its tender hiding-place and acted as keeper to thewedding ring. Their eyes were perpetually flitting about the room andcoming back to mutual smiles. All their movements were faintlytremulous.
She professed to be vastly interested and amused by the room and itsfurniture and her position, and he was delighted by her delight. Shewas particularly entertained by the chest of drawers in the livingroom, and by Lewisham's witticisms at the toilet tidies and theoleographs.
And after the chops and the most of the tinned salmon and the very newloaf were gone they fell to with fine effect upon a tapiocapudding. Their talk was fragmentary. "Did you hear her call me_Madame? Madame_--so!" "And presently I must go out and do someshopping. There are all the things for Sunday and Monday morning toget. I must make a list. It will never do to let her know how little Iknow about things.... I wish I knew more."
At the time Lewisham regarded her confession of domestic ignorance asa fine basis for facetiousness. He developed a fresh line of thought,and condoled with her on the inglorious circumstances of theirwedding. "No bridesmaids," he said; "no little children scatteringflowers, no carriages, no policemen to guard the wedding presents,nothing proper--nothing right. Not even a white favour. Only you andI."
"Only you and I. _Oh_!"
"This is nonsense," said Lewisham, after an interval.
"And think what we lose in the way of speeches," he resumed. "Cannotyou imagine the best man rising:--'Ladies and gentlemen--the health ofthe bride.' That is what the best man has to do, isn't it?"
By way of answer she extended her hand.
"And do you know," he said, after that had received due recognition,"we have never been introduced!"
"Neither have we!" said Ethel. "Neither have we! We have never beenintroduced!"
For some inscrutable reason it delighted them both enormously to thinkthat they had never been introduced....
In the later afternoon Lewisham, having unpacked his books to acertain extent, and so forth, was visible to all men, visibly in thehighest spirits, carrying home Ethel's shopping. There were parcelsand cones in blue and parcels in rough grey paper and a bag ofconfectionery, and out of one of the side pockets of that East-endovercoat the tail of a haddock protruded from its paper. Under suchmagnificent sanctions and amid such ignoble circumstances did thishoneymoon begin.
On Sunday evening they went for a long rambling walk through the quietstreets, coming out at last into Hyde Park. The early spring night wasmild and clear and the kindly moonlight was about them. They went tothe bridge and looked down the Serpentine, with the little lights ofPaddington yellow and remote. They stood there, dim little figures andvery close together. They whispered and became silent.
Presently it seemed that something passed and Lewisham began talkingin his magnificent vein. He likened the Serpentine to Life, and foundMeaning in the dark banks of Kensington Gardens and the remote brightlights. "The long struggle," he said, "and the lights at theend,"--though he really did not know what he meant by the lights atthe end. Neither did Ethel, though the emotion was indisputable. "Weare Fighting the World," he said, finding great satisfaction in thethought. "All the world is against us--and we are fighting it all."
"We will not be beaten," said Ethel.
"How could we be beaten--together?" said Lewisham. "For you I wouldfight a dozen worlds."
It seemed a very sweet and noble thing to them under the sympatheticmoonlight, almost indeed too easy for their courage, to be merelyfighting the world.
* * * * *
"You 'aven't bin married ver' long," said Madam Gadow with aninsinuating smile, when she readmitted Ethel on Monday morning afterLewisham had been swallowed up by the Schools.
"No, I haven't _very_ long," admitted Ethel.
"You are ver' 'appy," said Madam Gadow, and sighed.
"_I_ was ver' 'appy," said
Madam Gadow.