Читать книгу Gerald Cranston's Lady - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 10

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Outwardly, however, even the donning of his wedding-garments failed to disturb Gerald Cranston’s composure.

When, at midday to the second, he began divesting himself of the blue serge suit in which he had been working, as when, at twelve thirty-five precisely, he reappeared in black morning-coat, high collar, patent-leather boots, white spats, and “sponge-bag” trousers, he remained, so far as Harold or Rennie could perceive, utterly unmoved. Eating his lunch and drinking his one whisky and soda, he gave rather the impression of a business man about to meet his co-directors in the City than of a bridegroom about to be united to his bride in St. Margaret’s, Westminster. He even attempted to talk business, the business of Cranston’s, Limited, over the small but perfect Havanas which followed their meal.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that it wouldn’t be a bad scheme if we had a cut at the London retail coal-trade. What’s your opinion, Harry? Not that it’s much good asking your opinion. Your nerves are all over the shop. For goodness’ sake, pull yourself together. What’s the trouble now?”

“That will of yours.” Harry had risen. “I left it in my other coat.”

“Then let Rennie fetch it. Where’s the ring?”

“Oh, the ring’s all right. I’ve got that here.” And Cranston’s brother fumbled at the pocket of his white-slipped waistcoat, muttering, “Dash it, Gerry, the next three quarters of an hour are going to be pretty trying.”

“Trying?” The bridegroom took a last puff at his cigar. “Not if you keep your head.”

All the same, as Rennie, having retrieved the will, handed them their hats and gloves and, with a dutiful, “Lees is waiting at the Arlington Street entrance, sir,” escorted them to the lift, even Gerald Cranston knew himself a trifle on edge. Responding to the blue-uniformed liftman’s, “I hope I may be allowed to offer my good wishes, sir,” it came to him that his marriage, in addition to marking a definitive stage in the battle of his career, altered his entire social status. Already, or so it seemed to him, there was a new note in the liftman’s voice, a deferential note which implied: “You aren’t only rich now, Mr. Cranston. You’ve a position. You’re a somebody.”

The one-time corn-chandler was no snob; yet the new note pleased him. In it, he sensed a fresh foretaste of power; and that sense of foretasted power grew on him when—the lift decanting them in the hall—he saw various people among the usual luncheon crowd waiting, perfectly politely but perfectly obviously, to catch a glimpse of “that chap Cranston, the fellow who’s marrying Lady Hermione Cosgrave.” And, “I’ve got to keep a tight rein on myself,” thought “that chap,” politely outstaring the polite starers.

The chef-de-réception expressed the hope that “We shall see you and Lady Hermione with us after your honeymoon, Mr. Cranston”; the hall-porter volunteered, “Your car is waiting, sir”; a page-boy fled to warn the six-foot door-keeper—and the two brothers passed out of the Ritz, down the steps between two thin lines of London’s inevitable gapers, into the waiting Rolls.

“When did you acquire this luxury?” asked Harold, as Lees let in his clutch and the deep-royal-blue salon gathered noiseless way down Arlington Street.

“Bought it at the Show.”

Cranston subsided into silence. For now, suddenly, he knew a need for all his self-control. Excitement mounted his imagination. His thoughts reared like restive horses against the curb of mental discipline.

But Cranston’s thoughts were not of his bride’s beauty, sensual; nor of her position, snobbish. Rather were they personal, triumphant: the thoughts of one who, having accomplished much, realizes himself capable of accomplishing a thousandfold more.

In those thoughts, the past galloped side by side with the present, till he saw himself, a gawky hobbledehoy in his ill-tailored provincial clothes, entering the dusty corn-chandler’s office for his first day’s business. How he had pored, night after night, over the melancholy ledgers of that business! How inexperienced he had been, and how nervous, on that unforgettable morning when he set out in the rain-drizzle to take train for the colliery whose proprietor was to finance him in his first coal-trading! How self-conscious he had been—buying horses for his coal-carts; how anxious when, substituting motor-traction for horse-traction, he had begun to reach out over all Leicestershire—and beyond Leicestershire—into Rutland, into the fen country, into Northampton itself!

Inexperience—nervousness—self-consciousness—anxiety? What had he to do with such emotions—he, Gerald Cranston, who was even now passing St. James’s Palace in his own three-thousand-pound motor-car—he, Gerald Cranston, who was about to take his bride from the English peerage?

Then, as his blue eyes gave him a sudden picture of the sentry outside Marlborough House, the past out-galloped the present in the turmoil of his mind. Once again, he knew the thrill of the lost years. Momentarily, he visualized himself, awkward in the unaccustomed khaki, handing over the reins of business to the man at his side, abandoning Cranston’s for a greater service.

How long a service it had been! Four mortal years! How often, during those years, he had cursed himself for a fool! Had he been a fool, he with his capacity for bigger if more humdrum things, to risk his brain, voluntarily, in the hazard of the firing-line? Perhaps! Yet to-day, more than any other day, he knew a clean pride in that folly.

A growl from his brother steadied Gerald Cranston’s galloping thoughts. Emerging from day-dreams, he realized his car, already through Pall Mall, blocked in Trafalgar Square. “Curse it,” his brother was growling. “Curse it, we’re going to be late.”

“Don’t be such a fool, Harry. There’s oceans of time. It’s not twenty to, yet.” The voice was the voice of the sometime gunner-major; and Harold, wise to the command in it, ceased his growling. Presently the block of motor-buses broke up, and they were off again, past the War Office, down Whitehall.

“That’s the new Cenotaph,” said Cranston; and he uncovered his head. For the thrill of the old years was still on him, so that, abruptly, this plain monument with its flowers and its flags symbolized his own especial dead, those uncomplaining warriors who had passed out as he bade them. “My men!” he thought, simply as a child; and again, visualizing their haggard faces, “My men!”

But not one of all these swiftly culminating emotions betrayed itself on Gerald Cranston’s countenance. To Harold, regarding him as he uncovered, the hat-lifting appeared merest formality. “He’s hard,” thought the sentimental Harold, “hard as iron”; and when, the Cenotaph passed, Gerald, never batting an eyelash, picked up the speaking-tube to give his quiet order, “It isn’t the door with the awning, Lees. It’s to the left, opposite the House of Commons,” it seemed to him as though this amazing brother of his were a man bereft of all feeling, a lover incapable of romance.

So they came, each with his own thoughts, into sight of that low gray-towered church which fronts the Abbey; and saw, high on their left, its clock-hands pointing the quarter, Big Ben.

The day had not failed the promise of early morning. Under Big Ben, Parliament towers spired sharp brown against a sharp blue sky. Mellow sunshine had vanquished hoar-frost, so that the statued square shone almost with the green of springtime, while beyond it, where the car-procession crawled orderly for the red awning, mounted policemen already shepherded the impatient crowd.

“Idlers!” thought Gerald Cranston.

Yet the presence of the crowd pleased him, much as the liftman’s deference had pleased. More, it served to stay the turmoil of his nerves, so that, quickly as it had overcome him, his excitement passed and self-discipline, habit of a lifetime, reasserted itself. Calm now, with that peculiar frozen calmness which serves big men in big issues, he took notice—as the car swung slowly round the green statued square—of inessential details: of the fact that the clock over the awning had stopped at five minutes to twelve, of the sun-glint on a policeman’s helmet, of a graybeard with a wooden leg selling matches outside the low-porched east entrance of St. Margaret’s.

“Give the old chap something, Harry,” he said, as the Rolls stopped; and Lees, a white wedding-favor at the buttonhole of his uniform, sprang from car-wheel to car-door.