“And my lovely Son, eh?”
“I must say it’s a perfectly lovely wedding. Isn’t it, Teddy dear?”
“I’m enjoying it all right,” said Edward Albert.
“Aah!” said Mr Chaser, and held out his large hand to a vigorously dressed plump lady. “So glad you’ve come. Your flowers and my champagne....”
Evangeline pulled her spouse aside.
“He’s doing it all splendidly. Isn’t he, darling? You ought to thank him. Perhaps if you put a sentence in your speech—just at the end.”
Edward Albert looked alarmed. “What d’you think? Feel I can’t sit down without a word of thanks?”
“Generosity and Hospitality,” whispered Evangeline,
“Perfect. You’re a dear.”
They were separated again.
Everything was moving very fast, after the fashion of wedding breakfasts. The dining-room was full of flowers again and champagne bottles had been liberally distributed about the board. A great clatter of knives and forks began. Corks popped and tongues were unloosed. But Edward Albert could not eat. His lips moved. “Lays and gem’n and you my dear Evangeline. I never made a speech’n my life,” He drank off the bubbling glass beside him and felt a rush of small needles to his nose. But it seemed to give him heart and confidence. Someone refilled his glass. “Not too much,” said Pip, close at hand and alert.
Nearer and nearer crept the moment.
“Ori,” he said, and stood up.
“Lays and gem’n, me dear Vanger. Nevangeline. You Nevangeline.” Pause.
Prompter: “Never made a speech in my life.”
Rapidly, “Ne-ma-speech m’life. Who?....
“Now harsh too full. Go bless y’awl.”
Loud and sustained applause. “Siddown,” said Pip, but the bridegroom remained standing. His eye was fixed on the bride,
“Feel I carn sit down vout a word thanks. Pop. Pop Goose—”
Pip had bit him violently on the back and was standing up beside him.
“Hey” he neighed out at the top of his voice. “Magnificent speech. Magnificent. Excellent.” He forced Edward Albert down into his chair. He waved a glass of champagne dangerously, and spilt some down Edward Albert’s vest
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the bride and bridegroom. Our love to them, our good wishes. Hip, Hip, Hurrah.”
Confused applause followed. There seemed to be some hesitation. Glasses were held towards Edward Albert and Evangeline. Old Mr Chaser was addressing his son in protesting tones. “Stick to the programme, Pip,” he was saying. “Where are we? What’s come over you? You ’aven’t got drunk, my boy, by any chance, ’ave you?”
“Sorry, Pop! Drunk with happiness. Hey, Happiness.”
A pause. Then old Chaser rose-to his feet prepared for oratory. Some great danger—no one but Pip was quite clear what it was—had threatened the festival—and passed,
“Ladies and gen’men, Mr Tewler and my dear girl,” said old Chaser, “it gives me great pleasure to-day, to welcome and entertain you here to-day at the nuptials, the nuptials, of one who is and will be I hope always dear to us all, my dear, bright, clever, good god-child Evangeline. I feel I am ’anding over to-day a very loving and precious Treasure to my young friend Tewler, our young friend Tewler....”
“Did I say something wrong?” whispered Edward Albert to his faithful dragoman.
“Did you say something wrong? Lucky I haven’t a weak heart or I’d be dead this moment.” He neighed pianissimo.
“Listen to the speaker. Go easy, that champagne.”
Edward Albert turned a face of deliberate attention to the speech.
“There have been things said and insinuated. The less said about that the better. There ’ave been misunderstandings and they ’ave, to put it plainly, been misunderstood. For all that and all that, all’s well that ends well. I am very ’appy to-day to see ’ere at my table a very great and distinguished figure in our London life, no less a man than the celebrated Inspector Birkenhead.” Applause. “He stands for all that keeps us from being robbed and murdered in our beds. But.... Unhappily, unhappily—”
Pause of expectation.
“I ’ave to report a new crime to ’im, a robbery.”
Sensation.
“’Is own daughter, Evangeline, is the criminal. She ’as stolen all our ’carts and—”
The rest of the sentence was lost in riotous applause and table-banging. Somebody broke a glass unreproved. The only word audible was the concluding word, “Torquay.” Pop Chaser was radiant with oratorical success, and Pip Chaser was slapping him on the back. Apparently the old man had either not heard Edward Albert’s little slip of the tongue or forgotten it, and Edward Albert himself began to doubt whether it had really occurred. He drained a new-filled beaded glass towards his host before Pip could prevent him....
XV. Man and Wife
“Courage!” said Pip, “Be—hey-good to her,” waving to the outgoing train. He slid out of sight past the windows and the young couple were off for their honeymoon....
Edward Albert had slumped into his seat. “Wish I knew who frew that last slipper,” he said. “All bruised I am. Someone must’ve delib’ratly buzzed it straight at my face. Ugh!”
He shut his eyes.
“Merried,” he said, and said no more.
She seated herself diametrically opposite to him.
For a time they sat in silence.
She was perplexed by a disconcerting little incident that had just occurred. A radiant railway official had taken them in charge, led them along the platform and ushered them to their reserved compartment. “Wish you all happiness,” he said, and stood waiting. Edward Albert looked in dull interrogation at his bride. “Wans a tip, I s’pose,” he said, fumbled in his pocket and produced sixpence. The man stared at the coin with a hostile expression and made no movement. Matters hung in suspense.
“All right Evangeline! My affair,” said Pip, and had drawn the resentful official out of the apartment and brightened his face on the platform.
“I suppose” (hiccup) “I can do what I like with my own money,” said Edward Albert answering her unspoken protest.
“But he expected more. Dressed up as we are! He looked so astonished and hurt. He didn’t like you, Teddy.”
“Well, I didn’t like ’is face either.”
He seemed to think the incident concluded. But this assertion that he meant to do what he liked with his own money came as a clear definition of a disposition already very plainly apparent. He had evidently been thinking things over and he had got one reality very clear in his mind. He had the power of the purse. He had insisted on paying himself for every incidental expense for which Pip had not provided already. (Pip’s bill was to come in later.) Evangeline studied his sulky face across the carriage. Edward Albert had never been drunk before and the temporary exhilaration of Old Gooseberry was apt to be followed by an uncomfortable obstinacy.
Her immediate disposition was to leave him alone. But for some days she had been anticipating this moment and preparing a little speech for him, that would re-adjust their relations on a saner basis. And that former resolution was still sufficiently strong to prevail over her discretion.
“Teddy,” she said, “Listen to me.”
He did not open his eyes. “Wassit?” he asked.
“Teddy, we’ve got to make the best of all this. I was a fool to fall in love with you in the first place—oh, yes, I was in love with you right enough—but I fell out quicker than I fell in. Kidnapping—she said. What was her name? Blame. Détournement des mineurs. Are you listening? Face things as they are. You’re young, Teddy, even for your years. And I’m a grown-up woman.”
“Don wan argue. Thing’s done s’done. Wish I knew who chucked that slipper.... Couldn’t have been old Pip.... Pip wount done thin’ like that.”
Nothing more to be said. She sat back, disregarding him. She felt intolerably sober. She wished she had let herself go like the rest of them with Veuve Gooseberry, She tried to reassemble her ideas. She had entered upon a new sort of life in which there would be no weekly pay day. She had never thought of that before and at the time the prospect scared her unduly....