Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (106 page)

I murmured my obligations.

Cousin Joseph, ‘whom I found no difficulty in recognising by reason of his watery eyes, appeared not so chirpy as of yore.

“You take my tip,” advised Cousin Joseph, drawing me aside, “and keep out of it.”

“You speak from experience?” I suggested.

“I’m as fond of a joke,” said the watery-eyed Joseph, “as any man. But when it comes to buckets of water—”

A reminder from the maternal Sellars that breakfast had been ordered for eleven o’clock caused a general movement and arrested Joseph’s revelations.

“See you again, perhaps,” he murmured, and pushed past me.

What Mrs. Sellars, I suppose, would have alluded to as a cold col-la-shon had been arranged for at a restaurant near by. I walked there in company with Uncle and Aunt Gutton; not because I particularly desired their companionship, but because Uncle Gutton, seizing me by the arm, left me no alternative.

“Now then, young man,” commenced Uncle Gutton kindly, but boisterously so soon as we were in the street, at some little distance behind the others, “if you want to pitch into me, you pitch away. I shan’t mind, and maybe it’ll do you good.”

I informed him that nothing was further from my desire.

“Oh, all right,” returned Uncle Gutton, seemingly disappointed. “If you’re willing to forgive and forget, so am I. I never liked you, as I daresay you saw, and so I told Rosie. ‘He may be cleverer than he looks,’ I says, ‘or he may be a bigger fool than I think him, though that’s hardly likely. You take my advice and get a full-grown article, then you’ll know what you’re doing.’”

I told him I thought his advice had been admirable.

“I’m glad you think so,” he returned, somewhat puzzled; “though if you wanted to call me names I shouldn’t have blamed you. Anyhow, you’ve took it like a sensible chap. You’ve got over it, as I always told her you would. Young men out of story-books don’t die of broken hearts, even if for a month or two they do feel like standing on their head in the water-butt.”

“Why, I was in love myself three times,” explained Uncle Gutton, “before I married the old woman.”

Aunt Gutton sighed and said she was afraid gentlemen didn’t feel these things as much as they ought to.

“They’ve got their living to earn,” retorted Uncle Gutton.

I agreed with Uncle Gutton that life could not be wasted in vain regret.

“As for the rest,” admitted Uncle Gutton, handsomely, “I was wrong. You’ve turned out better than I expected you would.”

I thanked him for his improved opinion, and as we entered the restaurant we shook hands.

Minikin we found there waiting for us. He explained that having been able to obtain only limited leave of absence from business, he had concluded the time would be better employed at the restaurant than at the church. Others were there also with whom I was unacquainted, young sparks, admirers, I presume, of the Lady ‘Ortensia in her professional capacity, fellow-clerks of Mr. Clapper, who was something in the City. Altogether we must have numbered a score.

Breakfast was laid in a large room on the first floor. The wedding presents stood displayed upon a side-table. My own, with my card attached, had not been seen by Mrs. Clapper till that moment. She and her mother lingered, examining it.

“Real silver!” I heard the maternal Sellars whisper, “Must have paid a ten pound note for it.”

“I hope you’ll find it useful,” I said.

The maternal Sellars, drifting away, joined the others gathered together at the opposite end of the room.

“I suppose you think I set my cap at you merely because you were a gentleman,” said the Lady ‘Ortensia.

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” I answered. “We were both foolish.”

“I don’t want you to think it was merely that,” continued the Lady ‘Ortensia. “I did like you. And I wouldn’t have disgraced you — at least, I’d have tried not to. We women are quick to learn. You never gave me time.”

“Believe me, things are much better as they are,” I said.

“I suppose so,” she answered. “I was a fool.” She glanced round; we still had the corner to ourselves. “I told a rare pack of lies,” she said; “I didn’t seem able to help it; I was feeling sore all over. But I have always been ashamed of myself. I’ll tell them the truth, if you like.”

I thought I saw a way of making her mind easy. “My dear girl,” I said, “you have taken the blame upon yourself, and let me go scot-free. It was generous of you.”

“You mean that?” she asked.

“The truth,” I answered, “would shift all the shame on to me. It was I who broke my word, acted shabbily from beginning to end.”

“I hadn’t looked at it in that light,” she replied. “Very well, I’ll hold my tongue.”

My place at breakfast was to the left of the maternal Sellars, the Signora next to me, and the O’Kelly opposite. Uncle Gutton faced the bride and bridegroom. The disillusioned Joseph was hidden from me by flowers, so that his voice, raised from time to time, fell upon my ears, embellished with the mysterious significance of the unseen oracle.

For the first quarter of an hour or so the meal proceeded almost in silence. The maternal Sellars when not engaged in whispered argument with the perspiring waiter, was furtively occupied in working sums upon the table-cloth by aid of a blunt pencil. The Signora, strangely unlike her usual self, was not in talkative mood.

“It was so kind of them to invite me,” said the Signora, speaking low. “But I feel I ought not to have come.

“Why not?” I asked

“I’m not fit to be here,” murmured the Signora in a broken voice. “What right have I at wedding breakfasts? Of course, for dear Willie it is different. He has been married.”

The O’Kelly, who never when the Signora was present seemed to care much for conversation in which she was unable to participate, took advantage of his neighbour’s being somewhat deaf to lapse into abstraction. Jarman essayed a few witticisms of a general character, of which nobody took any notice. The professional admirers of the Lady ‘Ortensia, seated together at a corner of the table, appeared to be enjoying a small joke among themselves. Occasionally, one or another of them would laugh nervously. But for the most part the only sounds to be heard were the clatter of the knives and forks, the energetic shuffling of the waiter, and a curious hissing noise as of escaping gas, caused by Uncle Gutton drinking champagne.

With the cutting, or, rather, the smashing into a hundred fragments, of the wedding cake — a work that taxed the united strength of bride and bridegroom to the utmost — the atmosphere lost something of its sombreness. The company, warmed by food, displaying indications of being nearly done, commenced to simmer. The maternal Sellars, putting away with her blunt pencil considerations of material nature, embraced the table with a smile.

“But it is a sad thing,” sighed the maternal Sellars the next moment, with a shake of her huge head, “when your daughter marries, and goes away and leaves you.”

“Damned sight sadder,” commented Uncle Gutton, “when she don’t go off, but hangs on at home year after year and expects you to keep her.”

I credit Uncle Gutton with intending this as an aside for the exclusive benefit of the maternal Sellars; but his voice was not of the timbre that lends itself to secrecy. One of the bridesmaids, a plain, elderly girl, bending over her plate, flushed scarlet. I concluded her to be Miss Gutton.

“It doesn’t seem to me,” said Aunt Gutton from the other end of the table, “that gentlemen are as keen on marrying nowadays as they used to be.”

“Got to know a bit about it, I expect,” sounded the small, shrill voice of the unseen Joseph.

“To my thinking,” exclaimed a hatchet-faced gentleman, “one of the evils crying most loudly for redress at the present moment is the utterly needless and monstrous expense of legal proceedings.” He spoke rapidly and with warmth. “Take divorce. At present, what is it? The rich man’s luxury.”

Conversation appeared to be drifting in a direction unsuitable to the occasion; but Jarman was fortunately there to seize the helm.

“The plain fact of the matter is,” said Jarman, “girls have gone up in value. Time was, so I’ve heard, when they used to be given away with a useful bit of household linen, maybe a chair or two. Nowadays — well, it’s only chaps wallowing in wealth like Clapper there as can afford a really first-class article.”

Mr. Clapper, not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy, possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him: the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct with all the characteristics of genuine delight.

“Give and take,” observed the maternal Sellars, so soon as Mr. Clapper’s roar had died away; “that’s what you’ve got to do when you’re married.”

“Give a deal more than you bargained for and take what you don’t want — that sums it up,” came the bitter voice of the unseen.

“Oh, do be quiet, Joe,” advised the stout young lady, from which I concluded she had once been the lean young lady. “You talk enough for a man.”

“Can’t I open my mouth?” demanded the indignant oracle.

“You look less foolish when you keep it shut,” returned the stout young lady.

“We’ll show them how to get on,” observed the Lady ‘Ortensia to her bridegroom, with a smile.

Mr. Clapper responded with a gurgle.

“When me and the old girl there fixed things up,” said Uncle Gutton, “we didn’t talk no nonsense, and we didn’t start with no misunderstandings. ‘I’m not a duke,’ I says—”

“Had she been mistaking you for one?” enquired Minikin.

Mr. Clapper commented, not tactfully, but with appreciative laugh. I feared for a moment lest Uncle Gutton’s little eyes should leave his head.

“Not being a natural-born, one-eyed fool,” replied Uncle Gutton, glaring at the unabashed Minikin, “she did not. ‘I’m not a duke,’ I says, and
she
had sense enough to know as I was talking sarcastic like. ‘I’m not offering you a life of luxury and ease. I’m offering you myself, just what you see, and nothing more.’

“She took it?” asked Minikin, who was mopping up his gravy with his bread.

“She accepted me, sir,” returned Uncle Gutton, in a voice that would have awed any one but Minikin. “Can you give me any good reason for her not doing so?”

“No need to get mad with me,” explained Minikin. “I’m not blaming the poor woman. We all have our moments of despair.”

The unfortunate Clapper again exploded. Uncle Gutton rose to his feet. The ready Jarman saved the situation.

“‘Ear! ‘ear!” cried Jarman, banging the table with the handles of two knives. “Silence for Uncle Gutton! ‘E’s going to propose a toast. ‘Ear, ‘ear!”

Mrs. Clapper, seconding his efforts, the whole table broke into applause.

“What, as a matter of fact, I did get up to say—” began Uncle Gutton.

“Good old Uncle Gutton!” persisted the determined Jarman. “Bride and bridegroom — long life to ‘em!”

Uncle Sutton, evidently pleased, allowed his indignation against Minikin to evaporate.

“Well,” said Uncle Gutton, “if you think I’m the one to do it—”

The response was unmistakable. In our enthusiasm we broke two glasses and upset a cruet; a small, thin lady was unfortunate enough to shed her chignon. Thus encouraged, Uncle Sutton launched himself upon his task. Personally, I should have been better pleased had Fate not interposed to assign to him the duty.

Starting with a somewhat uninstructive history of his own career, he suddenly, and for no reason at all obvious, branched off into fierce censure of the Adulteration Act. Reminded of the time by the maternal Sellars, he got in his first sensible remark by observing that with such questions, he took it, the present company was not particularly interested, and directed himself to the main argument. To his, Uncle Gutton’s, foresight, wisdom and instinctive understanding of humanity, Mr. Clapper, it appeared, owed his present happiness. Uncle Gutton it was who had divined from the outset the sort of husband the fair Rosina would come eventually to desire — a plain, simple, hard-working, level-headed sort of chap, with no hity-tity nonsense about him: such an one, in short, as Mr. Clapper himself — (at this Mr. Clapper expressed approval by a lengthy laugh) — a gentleman who, so far as Uncle Gutton’s knowledge went, had but one fault: a silly habit of laughing when there was nothing whatever to laugh at; of which, it was to be hoped, the cares and responsibilities of married life would cure him. (To the rest of the discourse Mr. Clapper listened with a gravity painfully maintained.) There had been moments, Uncle Gutton was compelled to admit, when the fair Rosina had shown inclination to make a fool of herself — to desire in place of honest worth mere painted baubles. He used the term in no offensive sense. Speaking for himself, what a man wanted beyond his weekly newspaper, he, Uncle Gutton, was unable to understand; but if there were fools in the world who wanted to read rubbish written by other fools, then the other fools would of course write it; Uncle Gutton did not blame them. He mentioned no names, but what he would say was: a plain man for a sensible girl, and no painted baubles.

The waiter here entering with a message from the cabman to the effect that if he was to catch the twelve-forty-five from Charing Cross, it was about full time he started, Uncle Gutton was compelled to bring his speech to a premature conclusion. The bride and bridegroom were hustled into their clothes. There followed much female embracing and male hand-shaking. The rice having been forgotten, the waiter was almost thrown downstairs, with directions to at once procure some. There appearing danger of his not returning in time, the resourceful Jarman suggested cold semolina pudding as a substitute. But the idea was discouraged by the bride. A slipper of remarkable antiquity, discovered on the floor and regarded as a gift from Providence, was flung from the window by brother George, with admirable aim, and alighted on the roof of the cab. The waiter, on his return, not being able to find it, seemed surprised.

I walked back as far as the Obelisk with the O’Kelly and the Signora, who were then living together in Lambeth. Till that morning I had not seen the O’Kelly since my departure from London, nearly two years before, so that we had much to tell each other. For the third time now had the O’Kelly proved his utter unworthiness to be the husband of the lady to whom he still referred as his “dear good wife.”