Hattie suffered extreme grief and shock at her grandfather’s sudden death. Love is joy, even impeded love is joy while hope remains, and of course Hattie did indeed love her ‘newly found’ grandfather and did not really believe his ‘nevermore’. The instant frightful loss was hard to bear. She felt it moreover as ‘her fault’, because she had obeyed him and gone away, and had not, by staying, altered that accidental (as she thought) chain of events which led to that senseless fall on that slippery edge. Although she knew how unhappy John Robert was and why, I do not think that, given the circumstances, she has ever wondered whether that death was other than accidental. She has not, so far as I know, discussed John Robert’s final revelation with anybody, probably not even with Tom. She has decided (here I am guessing) that this secret of the old man whom she so suddenly and strangely and briefly came to know and love is hers and hers alone. (Remarks which she made to me when very upset would have been comparatively obscure had I not had access to other sources of information.) Herein, as in other ways, she has shown herself to be a strong character. As for Tom McCaffrey, if he ever wondered whether he were not really being recruited to protect Hattie against John Robert himself, he has probably by now dismissed these speculations or indeed, in the felicity of his happy nature, forgotten them.
When it was that Tom untied Hattie’s virgin knot is not known for certain. Perhaps it was during that first strange protected aeon of their love which lasted from Sunday morning to Monday evening, when they were told of John Robert’s death. (The news that Hattie Meynell and Tom McCaffrey were together at the Slipper House had circulated in Ennistone as early as noon on Sunday. No doubt I was not the only witness of that early morning flight.) However that may be, Tom and Hattie were married in the autumn following all these events. Perhaps a period of mourning is not a bad preparation for a marriage. The match gave universal satisfaction in the town, not dimmed by those who enjoyed asserting that he would have done much better to marry Anthea Eastcote who was now so fearfully rich. As for Hattie’s dowry, Tom did not do too badly. John Robert turned out to have saved quite a lot of money, even apart from his two houses in California, one at Palo Alto and one at Malibu.
The marriage took place according to the Quaker rite at the Meeting House, in the course of the usual meeting for worship, with only Friends present. Here, taking Hattie by the hand, Tom declared,
‘In the presence of this assembly, I take my friend Harriet Meynell to be my wife, promising, with God’s help, to be unto her a loving and faithful husband, so long as we both on earth shall live.’
After Hattie had made her answering declaration, Tom placed Feckless Fiona’s wedding-ring upon Hattie’s finger. A lot of people cried, not only Gabriel. There was a party afterwards at Belmont, instigated and, with remarkable success, organized by Gabriel who was suddenly able to put into practice a lot of her hitherto frustrated conceptions of what family life should be like. (Alex, who survived her fall, was at this time, as I shall explain later, in eclipse.) Brian walked about, saying with satisfaction, ‘What a waste of money, thank God we’re not paying.’ Pearl was present as unofficial ‘bridesmaid’ and Emma in the role of ‘best man’. Tom wanted him to sing but he refused. There were no speeches. The occasion, like that of many weddings, brought together a number of lively persons, who had not all hitherto met, and who all seemed very pleased with themselves. Milton Eastcote was present. So was Steve Glatz, who is now editing John Robert’s surviving notebooks which constitute the ‘great work’, of which so much is expected. Margot (née Meynell) Markowitz turned up with her Jewish lawyer husband, Albert (who had, Pearl and Hattie agreed, greatly improved her). Verity Smaldon, Hattie’s pretty school friend, made a refreshing dint in the grieving heart of Andrew Blackett. I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Stella’s father, Sir David Henriques, with whom, as she predicted, I got on extremely well. Hector Gaines, lately engaged to a well-known academic lady, came especially to show off his recovery to Anthea, but suffered, on seeing her, a regrettable relapse. (This may be the place to add that, in spite of all our various misfortunes, The Triumph of Aphrodite was successfully performed - the show must go on, as Hector said – and even attracted the favourable attention of London critics.) Joey Tanner made his first appearance as Anthea’s fiancé. He made a bad impression on the town gossips, but chiefly because they were determined to think he was marrying her for her money. Emma’s mother on the other hand, looking incredibly young, charmed everyone. Matchmakers, who abound at weddings, were certain that she and Sir David were made for each other. Gavin Oare was not invited, but Mike Seanu came under the wing of Nesta, Olivia and Valerie to ‘cover’ the event for the Gazette. Ruby, no longer employed at Belmont, came as a guest but helped Gabriel and Dorothy Osmore with the washing-up. Judy Osmore, to please Gabriel (for she was a kind-hearted girl), wore the dress which had been dyed with tea. (She did not know the details of its misadventure.) Zed, wearing a white ribbon and a red rose, was petted by many and stepped on by not a few. Adam, who in the intervening months had suddenly decided to grow considerably, wore a dark suit especially made for him by Dominic Wiggins. In this he hovered, hardly recognizable as a tall slim solemn youth with large eyes. George too was present for a while, watchfully piloted by Stella. He was generally and vaguely known to have been ‘rather ill’. A lot of people made a point of greeting him but retiring quickly.
I must now try to give some account of what happened to George. This is difficult because, as I say, I have not yet had the opportunity of talking with him, although I have talked at length with Stella; she remains puzzled about her husband and may even still harbour long-standing misconceptions about him. It is a feature of marriages, including happy ones, that two people who live together may have quite false ideas of each other. This does not at all necessarily lead to disaster or even inconvenience. Stella, to speak of her first, has suffered from feelings of guilt which may well be a good deal more rational than those of Hattie. Her image has remained in my mind of George hooked by a long invisible line by which she held him fast while letting him run: an image which she agreed to be terrible. More simply, Stella assumed that George would somehow be restored to her ‘in the fullness of time’, that she would at last, and satisfactorily, ‘get him back’. Meanwhile she was prepared to watch and wait because, as she had put it, George ‘interested her absolutely’. This could also be put as ‘because she loved him absolutely’, which indeed she did with her whole intense almost fanatical being. Some people thought Stella was simply afraid of George, others blamed her for ‘abandoning’ him. Rozanov’s death was counted as the event which brought her back and ‘sobered George up’, while visibly, in some sense which remained difficult to determine, changing him.