Changing Winds Part 74

"I don't think I'd like to go on living here," he exclaimed, "particularly if Roger and Ninian go away. Perhaps we could share a flat or something, Gilbert?"

"That's a notion," Gilbert answered.

"There's no reason why the Improved Tories should collapse just because I'm going to get married," Roger a.s.serted. "This house really isn't the most convenient place to meet. We might hire a room in a hotel near the Strand and meet there...."

7

The house was let unfurnished. The incoming tenant was willing to take on the remainder of their lease and continue in occupation of the house after its expiry, but he had furniture of his own, and so he had no use for theirs. Roger took his furniture to a small house in Hampstead, and offered to buy most of what was left, but they would not listen to his proposals. "We'll give it to you as a wedding present," they insisted.

"If there's anything you don't want, well sell it!" Magnolia was presented with a couple of months' wages and a new dress, and bidden to get another home as soon as she could conveniently do so ... and then the house was abandoned.

"It's funny," said Gilbert, as they shut the door behind them for the last time, "it's funny that we hardly ever thought of that old woman, and yet, the minute she dies, we sort of go to pieces. We didn't even know she'd got a husband. Her name was Jennifer. I saw it on the coffin lid!..."

Their arrangements for quitting the house were not completed for a month after the burial of Mrs. Clutters, and before they finally settled their affairs, Ninian was told that he was to proceed to South America with the junior partner. He was to have a couple of months' leave ... "I shall go down to Boveyhayne," he said ... after which he would leave England for a lengthy while. "And then there were three!" said Gilbert, when Ninian told them of his appointment. "Three little clever boys," he went on, "going up to fame. One little clever boy got married and then there were two!..."

Until they could make some settlement of their future, they decided to live in a boarding house in Russell Square.

"We shall loathe it," Gilbert said, "but that will be good for us!"

8

And then Roger and Rachel got married. They walked into a Registrar's office, with Gilbert and Ninian and Henry to bear them company, and made their declarations of fealty to each other.

"My father would have been horrified," Roger said at luncheon afterwards. "If he'd been alive, Rachel, we'd have had to get married in a church!"

Rachel smiled. "I shouldn't have minded, Roger!" she answered. "You'll laugh, I know, when I tell you that half-way through the service I began to long for a surplice and the Voice that Breathed O'er Eden. A marriage in a church is a lot prettier than one in a Registrar's office!..."

"If only the Mayor of the Borough had performed the ceremony," Gilbert lamented. "In his nice furry red robes and c.o.c.ked hat, joining you two together in the name of the Borough of Holborn, he 'd have looked rather jolly! Roger, we ought to get the Improved Tories to consider the question of Civil Marriage. We want more beauty in it. Rachel, my dear, I haven't kissed you yet. I look upon myself as Roger's best man, and I ought to kiss you!"

"Very well, Gilbert," she answered, turning her face towards him.

"You've deceived us all, Rachel," he said as he kissed her. "We'd made up our minds to hate you because you were taking our little Roger from us, and at first we thought we were right to hate you because you were so aggressive to us, but you've deceived us. We don't hate you. We like you, Rachel!"

"Do you, Gilbert?" She turned to Ninian and Henry. "Do you like me, too?" she said.

"I shouldn't mind marrying you myself," Ninian replied.

"I don't see why Gilbert should get all the kisses," said Henry. "After all, I more or less gave you away, didn't I? I was there anyhow!...."

So she kissed Ninian and Henry too. Then, a little later, Roger and she went off to spend a honeymoon in Normandy.

9

"I feel horribly lonely somehow," said Gilbert to Henry. Ninian, in a hurry to catch the train for Boveyhayne at Waterloo, had left them at Charing Cross.

Henry nodded his head.

"This marrying and giving in marriage is the devil, isn't it?" Gilbert went on. "We ought to cheer ourselves up, Quinny!"

"We ought, Gilbert!"

"Let's go and see my play. Perhaps that'll make us feel merry and bright!..."

"No," said Henry. "It wouldn't. It 'ud depress us. We'd keep thinking of Ninian and Roger. I think we ought to get drunk, Gilbert, very and incredibly drunk...."

"I should feel like Mrs. Clutters' husband if I did that," Gilbert answered. "Aren't there any other forms of debauchery? Couldn't we go to a music-hall or a picture-palace or something? Or we might discuss our future!..."

"I'm sick of this boarding house we're in," Henry exclaimed.

"So am I, but I don't feel like setting up house again. I'm certain you'd go and get married the moment we'd settled into a place...."

"I'm not a marrying man, Gilbert," Henry interrupted.

"Well, what are you, Quinny?"

"I don't know!"

They were wandering aimlessly along the streets. They had drifted along Regent Street, and then had drifted into Oxford Street, and were going slowly in the direction of Marble Arch.

"Quinny!" said Gilbert after a while.

"Yes?" Henry answered.

"Have you ... have you seen Cecily since you came back?"

"Yes. Twice!"

Gilbert did not ask the question which was on the tip of his tongue, but Henry was willing to give the answer without being asked.

"She didn't appear to know I'd been away," he said.

"She knew all the same!..."

"She just said, 'Hilloa, Paddy I' and went on talking to the other people who were there too. I tried to outstay them, but Jimphy came in the first time, and there was a painter there the second time, who wouldn't budge. He's painting her portrait. I've not seen her since...."

"You're glad, aren't you, that I kidnapped you, Quinny?"

"In a way, yes!"

"You got on with your book, anyhow. You'd never have done that if you'd stayed in town, trailing after Cecily!"

"I can't quite make you out, Gilbert," Henry said, turning to his friend. "Are you in love with Cecily?"

Gilbert nodded his head. "Of course, I am, but what's the good? Cecily doesn't love me any more than she loves you. She doesn't love any man particularly. She's ... just an Appet.i.te. You and I are no more to her than ... than the caramel she ate last Tuesday. The only hope for us is that we shall grow out of this caramel state or at all events get the upper hand of it.... In the meantime, what are we going to do?"

"Work, I suppose. 'Turbulence' is nearly finished, and I'm itching to get on with a new story I've thought of. I'm calling it 'The Wayward Man.' ..."