HYMEN

If Hubert had known how difficult a job it was to get married, he would never have attempted it. Or so at least he told himself. All Boyd's advice, all his own misgivings about lonely age, all Ruth's scenes, would not have driven him to so much real hard work that had no definite connection with his mapped and beloved life-career.

He always had imagined that the thing took half an hour, and even then was managed by some luckless friend you roped in as best man. And here he was, worried all day about presents, relatives, guests, leases, settlements, and heaven itself even probably could not say what else, till he despaired about his autumn work.

Ruth, in particular, drove him almost frantic.

He was absolutely certain she loathed his marrying, and yet to judge from the outside, nothing in the whole world could have pleased her more than making the arrangements. She would talk for forty minutes about buying six new pairs of socks. Her air of Willing Service maddened him. When she had nothing else to do, she would divide her time between telling him that he was a cold lover and a.s.suring him that there was no need whatsoever to worry about her. _She_ would be all right. He mustn't think of _her_....

"I don't," he would hurl back at length, firmly convinced of her hypocrisy (he was a great believer in his intuitions), at which point she usually cried. Then he would go out and shake the pictures crooked by slamming the door. At their next meeting, all forgiveness, Ruth would take up again the subject of those socks.

Finally he abandoned all idea of finishing his novel. This would be the first blank autumn since he started writing. He felt cross with Fate.

In all this, romanticists will no doubt be gratified to hear, Helena was the sole consolation.

He was pleased with her--and he was pleased with his own cleverness in having lit upon her. If marriage was essential to him, he felt sure she was just the very girl to be a wife who wouldn't get upon his nerves. The more he saw of her, the more he liked her; and that, too, was encouraging. She had, of course, come up to London with her mother, no less busy than himself, and her delight with the great shapeless place--its crowds, its fogs, its lights--was beautiful to see. She never wanted to be taken to theatres or show-places; the spectacle of London being London was enough for her, as it should be, indeed, for any one. She loved the ceaseless motion, the sense of something getting done; the whole feeling of energy ma.s.sed in a little s.p.a.ce seemed to inspire this girl used only to the sleepy, uneventful fields.

"Well, and how do you like it? How does it strike you?" he asked, as from an omnibus he showed her, for the first time, that thrilling crowd which pa.s.ses, ant-like, this way and that, seemingly purposeless yet always full of purpose, past the Bank of England. He loved to hear her quaint, unformed ideas.

Helena thought for a moment. "It makes me feel so _useless_," she replied.

She was a delightful child, Hubert told himself--unspoilt, original, and modest. When he forgot about his ruined novel, he certainly was happy. His unhid admiration helped a little to melt Mrs. Hallam, who was still looking pathetically for the absolute objection which she felt sure she ought at last to find. And all this while the day was coming near.

Mrs. Hallam had rather naturally planned that the wedding should take place in Devonshire; but the bridegroom had been so hideously shocked, and Helena thought a London wedding so much better "fun," that Mrs.

Hallam, already feeling n.o.body, had given in to them with a weak smile.

She did not mind where it took place, so long as they were happy and it was really for the best. Besides, she had a brother who lived in a big house in Langham Place. He always had been very mean, and was a bachelor, and it was time altogether that he did something for the family....

On the last night, however, before the wedding-day, she tuned herself at bedtime to a final effort. She was sad and depressed: they had talked long downstairs; her own instinct would have been to cry or go to sleep; but she decided that, for her own later peace of mind if for no higher motive, she must do something far less pleasant. So along she went to the second-best spare-room in the mean brother's house.

"Helena dear," she said, to meet her daughter's startled look, "I've come along, although we've had our talk downstairs, because I feel I can't sleep till I have asked you a question."

Helena was not greatly rea.s.sured. She had not really understood a lot of what her mother had sobbed out to her downstairs, and now when she had thought it all over and had been feeling very sorry for the poor lonely dear, there was to be another question!

"Why, what?" she asked, trying to put away unseen her going-away hat, which she had been trying on. She was afraid her mother might think it unfeeling.

"A very important question," answered Mrs. Hallam, dropping frailly on the sofa. "And I'm afraid you may think it an extraordinary one. Do you really love Hubert? Do you really want to marry him?"

Helena let go of the hat, which fell very gently on the floor beside the dressing-table; then she went across and put her arms around her mother.

"Why, you curious old dear," she said. "What on earth makes you ask that? I _do_ call it extraordinary!" And she laughed.

But her mother was serious. "Don't think it would be wrong or wicked to say no if you do not. It would be very wicked not to...." She paused, and as Helena said nothing, she went on; "You see, darling child, I feel responsible. You are so young, and Mr. Brett being almost the first man you ever spoke to, except just at At Homes and so on---- It's not too late, my dear girl, although perhaps I should have spoken sooner if I could have brought myself to it. Girls often see more clearly at the last. We can easily announce that the wedding is postponed, and then you could come down home for a few months and see--if you're not sure----"

She spoke almost keenly by now, questioning with a hope quite pathetic.

The world for her held nothing but her daughter.

In Helena, however, the words raised a depressing vision.

Home--Devonshire--the lanes and muddy fields--the vicar--the farmyard--the ill.u.s.trated papers--the picked novels--the dull people--her dear, good mother's absurd care of her.... And then, flashing and dazzling by its contrast, London--its crowds and mystery--its freedom--Hubert, so brilliant and kind--those jolly times with him beside the sea or on the 'bus-tops--the talks on Art and Life and all the things she couldn't understand but longed to--the liberty to cease being a fool and ignorant--the open gate to real existence....

"I _am_ sure," she answered, with a pa.s.sion that surprised herself.

"Quite sure." She was not sure about love, but she wished to marry....

Hubert, in fact, wanted to escape his fond sister and a lone old age; Helena desired to get away from a loving home and her own ignorance.

It is quite possible to fall in love with even negative abstractions.

At any rate they were very fond of one another, and practised wedding-goers were able to make their usual remark: "How utterly devoted they seem! It is so nice to see them look at one another!"

Everybody said too, of course, that Helena had never looked so pretty.

She had been arranging presents until one o'clock and not left time to get her hair in order, besides having been dog-tired for a week, and the wedding-veil is seldom becoming, but all the guests seemed pleased.

Certainly, with bright eyes sparkling ever so gaily behind the old veil of Argentan lace, and little wisps of hair exuding everywhere, Helena, if not at her best, looked natural and young.

Hubert, on the other hand, looked old for his age and self-conscious as only a man can look at his own wedding, but yet unusually handsome. He had not recovered from the dismal farce of a bachelor dinner, where n.o.body had liked the champagne, the idea of speeches had fizzled out, and every one had gone home before ten o'clock. He was pale and nervous. Yet Helena's relatives decided quite honestly, and in fact unexpectedly, that he was a good-looking man, and even Helena was quite surprised. His new Sunday coat revealed a slim, tall figure generally hidden by old, well-loved tweeds, for he was not a London-dresser. A stiff collar made the greatest change in him, and (had he but guessed!) so soon she decided he must always wear one. His very agony improved his looks. Of the dark, clear-cut type, he was spoilt usually by a too erratic mouth, which rambled on his face and lent a look of weakness to the stern contour. To-day his lips were pressed and firm. He felt a fool and told himself that the whole business was astounding rubbish.

If only she had liked it, he would have been married at a registrar's--or down in Devonshire!... He went about with an air of doom among the revellers, and all of them said once again, if with more truth than about Helena, that they had never seen him look so well.

"Only shows," whispered Mrs. Boyd, who did not love him or any author over-much, "that those artistic people could easily look gentlemen.

It's nothing but a pose."

None the less, it was a genuine enough relief to Hubert when the time came at which he was able to go upstairs and shed his fair raiment.

True, they were not his old tweeds that he was allowed to don, nor was the collar soft; but still he felt more himself as he hastily descended one flight and then waited ten minutes, with all of a new husband's still untamed impatience, for his wife to be ready.

At last, when he was within four minutes of being able to feel justified in shouting out that they would miss their train, Helena appeared: full of amused excitement, still thinking it all the greatest of great fun and very sweet in a quite married-looking velvet gown, with the most colossal m.u.f.f that matched a very cloud of furs, and over all of it a plume that waved above her never steady hat until it looked like a pillar of thin smoke.

Hubert, all impatience, quite forgot to say that she looked charming.

It was really lucky she had not been taught yet to expect it.

"Come along," he said instead. "We're getting a bit late. I rather dread this part!"

"Oh, I don't know," she laughed. She had loved all of it.

They went down to the lower flight, where all the guests were pitilessly ranged on each side of the broad Georgian stairs.

Of course there was the funny man, who will happen even in the best-born families. Perhaps he has some use at such a time as this.

Ruth and Mrs. Hallam, both united in feeling tearful yet mutually hostile, found amus.e.m.e.nt in his constant parrot-cry of "Here they are!"

or when he felt specially inspired, even "Here they aren't!" It was a relief to have any excuse at all to laugh.

And there at length they were, smiling gaily, shaking countless hands, quailing under genial pats, avoiding silver horseshoes and gold slippers. (Rice and confetti were vetoed by the mean brother.) And so into the car, with Ruth and Mrs. Hallam smiling crookedly through tears, until the funny man, dutifully fumbling with string and an old slipper, was lost in a vast cloud of steam or something white let out by the fresh-started engine, which sent the couple off amid a bellow of good-omened laughter, and every one surged in with relief to say good-bye and to agree they should have gone away much earlier. It had been hideously long, but weddings always were.

Helena, as a corner blotted out the house, came back into the car with a gay laugh.

"Got your camera, my dear?" asked Hubert. It is odd how soon a man acquires the air of a proprietor.

"I _wish_ I'd thought of taking them as we went off," said Helena.

"They looked so funny."

He made no reply. He seemed to be thinking. She wondered what about.

Then, as he sat silent, she began to be afraid to interrupt his thoughts. Besides, she did not know quite what to say. It was so curious! She realised, with rather a shock, how little really she knew about this man, and here she was going away alone with him for life!...

But probably brides always felt like that? It was a biggish thing to do, anyhow, getting married. She expected it would feel a bit funny with any one. Probably the man made very little difference....