Читать книгу Iron and Smoke - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 12

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In spite of northern prejudice, the wedding took place in London. Mallard pointed out that his friends would find it impossible to come to the ceremony if it took place in Middlesbrough, and as Mallard’s friends would be the chief lustre of the day, and Bastow’s friends were invited only to be dazzled by Mallard’s friends, it was essential to find some middle ground where both could fulfill their appointed functions.

He also insisted that the wedding should take place in a church and not in a chapel. He had been a little disconcerted to find that his bride was a Noncomformist. He did not say much about it, for he did not want to stir up opposition to the changes he was resolved to make, but he pointed out to Bastow as delicately as he could that in the South nobody was a Noncomformist unless he were a labourer or a tradesman, that the Squire was the backbone of the Church, and Rector’s warden, and that scandal would follow if he entered a chapel for any purpose whatsoever.

Bastow too was disconcerted, but he did not argue the matter. He feared, as he had feared before, that if he argued, his conscience might be roused, and might force him to raise an opposition that would mean strife and perhaps disruption. Experience told him that his conscience was best left alone, as it invariably held views that were contrary to its owner’s true wishes and interests. Like a wise man he listened to the voice of experience, knowing that if he had listened to the voice of conscience he would not now be a wealthy iron-master about to marry his daughter to a baronet.

He brought his family up to London and engaged a suite for them at the Langham Hotel. The wedding was to be at All Souls, Langham Place, so the position was convenient, though it cramped Bastow in the display of carriages he had meant to make in the London streets. The last day or two were spent in and out of shops by the bride and her mother, in and out of banks and lawyers’ offices by the bridegroom and her father. There seemed to be nothing to a wedding but clothes and money, and when the last evening had come and the last document was signed and the last trunk was packed, Jenny sat a little forlorn in the drawing-room of the family suite, feeling that the main business of matrimony was over.

It was here that her brother found her, sitting in the twilight, looking a little ghostly, as if she belonged already to the past.

“Hullo, Jen—actually sitting still!”

“Yes, there’s nothing more to do now. It’s all finished.”

“Finished! What a thing to say—I should say it’s not begun.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

She spoke with an irritation that was new to her, and she suddenly struck him as pathetic and forlorn. He wondered what of real preparation for marriage she had made in the midst of all this fuss.

He came and sat beside her.

“You’re quite happy, Jen?”

“Of course I am—I’m only so very tired.”

“Where’s mother?”

“Lying down.”

“I suppose you’ve had some talks with her about your marriage.”

“Oh, yes, heaps. But there’s really no need for her to bother so much. You see all the servants have been there for years, and know much more about the house and housekeeping than I do.”

“Yes, I should say you would find all that part of the business very plain sailing. But, of course, it’ll be different from Slapewath, you know—less cash but more credit, if you see what I mean. You’ll be the lady of the Manor, and expected to behave as such, but on the other hand you won’t have half the luxuries we have at home.”

She did not seem to have considered this aspect of things.

“Shall I have to entertain a lot?”

“I expect so. You’re going to live right in the midst of your husband’s friends. It’ll be quite a different society from ours up in the North—old families, you know, not self-made.”

“Oh, dear—” she seemed troubled, and he felt sorry to have disturbed her with what was, after all, only one of the many non-essentials with which the situation was overlaid. The true heart of the business seemed as remote as ever, and being only her brother he felt he could not draw nearer. They had always been fond of each other, but lately one or two small barriers had risen between them—the different outlook that Oxford had given him, and her distrust of his “ideas,” which she had been taught to consider silly and unsuitable.

But suddenly, of her own accord, and to his surprise, she drew closer.

“Tim, you like Humphrey, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“He’s very clever, isn’t he?”

“He’s all that.”

“Sometimes I feel you know him better than I do.”

“How can I?”

“Well, he talks to you about the things that interest him—the land and industry and war and so on. I don’t seem able to make him talk to me.”

“I expect he’s got something better to do when he’s with you. But don’t worry. The talk ull come later, if you show him you’re waiting for it.”

“I must try to learn to talk—cleverly—like you do. Tim, you’ll come and stay with us sometimes, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, when you want me, but I don’t suppose you’ll want me much at first.”

“Oh, yes, I will, I’ll want you to talk to Humphrey—till I’m able to do it myself.”

“Jenny, don’t be so very, very young.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this. Don’t believe what you’ve probably been told—that a man likes sweet, flower-like, child-like innocence, ad nauseam and ad infinitum. You’re very young and sweet and beautiful, but don’t kid yourself with the idea that men prefer beauty to brains. Some may—though not nearly so many as is supposed—but a man like Humphrey doesn’t.”

“But if I haven’t got any brains ...”

“You have—if you’d get rid of the idea that you haven’t and that it’s rather creditable of you.”

“I don’t think it’s creditable—I do want—I do try—. Oh, Timothy, I think you’re being very unkind.”

Yes, he knew that he was, and it was unkindness thrown away. Now was not the time to attempt to shatter conventions. Let ’em stand—and do what they can to protect the venturer into the estate which is at once life’s most primitive experience and biggest convention.