Children of the Archbishop (33 page)

It was while Mrs. Gurnett was stitching up the frock-coat and Dr. Trump was standing in his shirt-sleeves looking out of the window and tapping impatiently with his foot, that he pondered on the difficulty that he had experienced in selecting a best man. At a pinch, one of the unmarried masters, he supposed, would have done—Mr. Rushgrove, or Mr. Pippett, for example; not Mr. Prevarius certainly, or dirty Mr. Dawlish. But to have had a member of his staff would have savoured too much of compulsion. And it was odd now that he came to think about it that he had no real friends of his own. No friends! Good gracious, whatever sort of man did that make him sound? He shuddered to think. And then, as he saw things in true light once more, he smiled indulgently. It was all so simple when looked at
properly, so perfectly understandable. He had been too
busy
to make friends.

That was why he had so gratefully accepted when the Bishop had offered him his own Chaplain as best man. It had seemed a most admirable solution. Not that he actually liked the fellow. He was inclined to be just a shade too familiar, to presume too often on his new-found intimacy. Dr. Trump felt perfectly well able to snub him, of course, if occasion demanded; had already done so once or twice, in fact. But that had been for another reason. It was because this conceited young Chaplain chose to regard himself as a born organiser. And ever since Dr. Trump had been saddled with him, the Rev. Edgar Parker had been ringing him up every minute of the day with one footling question after another. Had he got the ring? Had he got a buttonhole? Had he got a present for the bridesmaids? Were the Press to be admitted to the church or only into the porch and churchyard? Did he know that the train to Torquay left fifteen minutes earlier on Saturdays? Were the friends of the bride and bridegroom to mingle or sit separately? Had …? Did …? Were …? Was …? Should …? Could …? Would?

At last Dr. Trump had been able to stand it no longer and he had given instructions that he was permanently out to Mr. Parker. There was, in fact, only one supreme merit about the man. He did know the Church of England service backwards. With him there as a leader and exemplar, the congregation would know exactly when to stand and when to kneel. There would be none of those absurd half-postures like imperfectly practised physical exercises that Dr. Trump had noticed so often when heathens and agnostics attend the service of Christian matrimony. Mr. Parker would be able to put the congregation through its paces like a drill sergeant …

“I've done it,” Mrs. Gurnett remarked suddenly. “It won't show if you don't bend.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Trump replied coldly. “I have no intention of bending.” And then feeling that the occasion called for something more forthcoming, altogether more spontaneous, he suddenly turned his special smile full on her.

“How helpless, truly helpless, man is without woman,” he observed. “You have indeed been more than kind. The coat itself, as you see, is practically new.”

It was while he was sliding stealthily into the coat, keeping his
shoulders well back so that there should not be even the slightest pressure, that a letter was brought into him by Miss Phrynne. He glanced at it idly and recognised Mr. Dawlish's handwriting. Again his face softened into an indulgent smile.

“Dear old Dawlish,” he reflected; “how kind, how generous of him to send me his good wishes.”

And then, as he opened the letter and began to read, his face clouded. He drew his lips in sharply and the flute-like breathing began immediately.

“
Dear Dr. Trump
,” was what he read, “
I have naturally been giving a great deal of thought to my future. At the time of my interview, you told me that you wished me to leave the Hospital in nine weeks' time. Since the interview, however, I have re-read my letter of appointment and find that I am entitled to twelve weeks' notice with the alternative that I can leave at once if it is more convenient. In the circumstances I feel that the latter would be preferable because it would give me more time to look around. With your permission, therefore, I would like to leave at the end of the current month as it will take me that time to tidy up
…”

Dr. Trump could read no farther. He crushed the offending letter in his hand and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. Abominable! Truly abominable! The miserable man was simply trying to skulk out of his responsibilities by quoting some foolish phrase that Canon Mallow must have written. Dr. Trump would see his lawyers immediately. But how? He could hardly call a conference in the vestry when he should be signing the register. And to-morrow would be worse still: he would be in Torquay by then. Dr. Trump ground his heel into the carpet as though it were Mr. Dawlish himself that he was destroying. Why, oh why, of all times did the man have to choose this particular day for his rebellion?

The door opened quietly and a face appeared round it. It was Mr. Parker's face. But this time, Dr. Trump was ready for him. He got his question in first.

“Did you remember to stipulate no rice as well as no confetti?” he asked. “Very often, you know, the specific injunction against the one is taken to imply tacit approval of the other.”

The wedding was now over and bride and bridegroom, changed into their going-away clothes, were standing self-consciously among their guests. Champagne—a great deal of it, Dr. Trump noted—had been handed round, and the tiered white ice-berg of a cake had been divided into small sections like window-wedges. Everyone else was now wearing the expression of arch benevolence that is peculiar to weddings, and for the eleventh time Dr. Trump had replied. “Oh, Torquay. For a fortnight. Felicity adores the sea. The swimming you know. And the … er … ozone.”

But he was not at that moment thinking of Torquay. Or the fortnight. Or even of the sea. He was thinking only of Felicity.

“Quite extraordinary,” he was reflecting, “that she should have chosen puce. By itself extraordinary. But with that complexion really astonishing.”

Because of his bride's colour scheme, even the champagne could do nothing to raise his spirits though he sipped away valiantly, and smiled obediently whenever he had caught the Bishop's eye. It was not, however, merely Felicity's going-away costume that had upset him. Too many other things as well had gone wrong since he had crossed the threshold of St. Mark's for mere champagne to be able to dispel them.

In the first place, there had been the regrettable sudden illness of the organist—something that he had eaten, it was said. In consequence, Mr. Prevarius had been roped in,
volunteered
so Bishop Warple assured him, to assist. And Mr. Prevarius had played execrably. Simply execrably; almost as though he were doing so on purpose, in fact. Very loud and very fast, with fistfuls of grace notes and arpeggios that Handel and Sullivan had never authorised flung about all over the place. The Wedding March, in particular, had been murdered; played with a kind of saucy insouciance that would have been more in keeping with a parade of Pearly Kings. The majesty and jubilation had been lost entirely, and an irreverent and offensive cockiness substituted for it, as though the abominable creature were leering at the bridal pair in his little mirror. And for no conceivable reason the Bishop had invited the monster back afterwards. At this very moment he was over at the buffet stuffing himself. Even as Dr. Trump looked, Mr. Prevarius was dipping his bridge roll, which was a little hard, into his champagne and sucking the end noisily like a schoolboy.

But Mr. Prevarius had been no more than one of Dr. Trump's mortifications. Two other mortifications had travelled all the way up from Swansea specially for the wedding. They were relations of Dr. Trump's; poor, ageing and obscure. Dr. Trump's only relations, in fact. It would be untrue to say that he had forgotten about them because Auntie Flo and Auntie Caroline never allowed Dr. Trump to forget. They were proud, very proud, of their successful nephew. And they were always writing to him, keeping him in touch with himself as it were, posting him extracts from newspapers where the name of Archbishop Bodkin's Hospital happened to be mentioned. Indeed, it often seemed to Dr. Trump that these two old ladies must have organised a sort of amateur Press-cutting agency to keep track of him. At times it had become distinctly trying. Do what he might, Dr. Trump could not escape the sensation that he was being spied on. Round every corner of his life either Auntie Flo or Auntie Caroline seemed always to be peeping. And in their last letter, they had even threatened that they might sell the shop and come to live near him.

He had not, of course, invited them to his wedding; had not considered doing so. And, looked at frankly, how could he possibly have done so? For the fact had to be faced, that, through no fault of his own, their ways on life's stream had drifted steadily apart. Or rather they had drifted while he, Samuel, had cleaved his way against the current, drawing farther and more decisively away from them with every stroke.

He could now scarcely remember—possibly because he had always been anxious to forget—the tiny shop with its stacked-up newspapers and balls of string and bottles of cheap sweets, to which Auntie Flo had taken him after his poor mother's funeral. And, in the circumstances, he had already forgiven himself as he had uttered the white lie that he had no living relatives.

“You take me as I am, Felicity,” he had said. “Myself alone. No living kith or kin that bears my name.”

But that was what made it so devilish awkward—almost as though he had been deliberately lying to Felicity—when the two Miss Lewises, one elderly, one ancient, came tramping up the aisle to do honour to him.

He had spotted them out of the corner of his eye the moment they came in. And he recoiled at the recognition. It was bad enough that they should have come at all. But in those clothes! They had evidently fitted themselves out specially for the occasion, combing the smaller shops of Swansea for their finery. And the
effect was deplorable. Auntie Flo's hat had obviously been designed for a much younger woman, and Auntie Caroline had bought a blouse that any sensible barmaid would have avoided. But it was the steel-framed spectacles that were worse: completely out of fashion, but devilishly efficient. He could feel them probing into him like exultant gimlets.

Even so, he would not have minded if only these two old ladies had shown the good feeling not to declare themselves. But Swansea to Putney is a long way. And Auntie Flo was determined to get her money's worth: she wanted to embrace her brilliant nephew, nothing less. Nor was Dr. Trump left in any doubt as to her intention. Just as he was getting into the car he heard her voice—strident with purpose, high and cracked with age—saying to Mr. Parker: “Well, even if he hasn't invited us, I'm still his Auntie, aren't I?”

But by then Dr. Trump was too angry about something else to waste time reflecting on the shame of his own past that had followed and caught up with him. And that was because of the confetti that was in his ears and nostrils, and the rice that had run down inside the hard, unyielding collar. Either Mr. Parker had entirely forgotten his instructions, or had deliberately defied him.

For with no warning, the bombardment had suddenly begun. Under the twin influences of sex and ceremony, even quite sedate sensible sort of people had become overpowered by the sense of carnival. They had produced little cartons of confetti from their handbags, flung stinging charges of rice full into his unprotected face. Dame Eleanor herself had gone lunatic. She had her own personal brand of nuisance to bestow—little silver paper bells with serrated edges that clung like burrs to his clothing. And all the while, roaring out through the Gothic doorway of the church, there was that dreadful
tootle-ee-oot-tee-toot
played
ff
by Mr. Prevarius upon the organ.

The ordeal, moreover, showed every sign of mounting rather than subsiding. For no sooner had they left the church than Felicity began talking about her mother. She was, in fact, so much concerned about her mother that Dr. Trump found himself wondering whether she could really have been attending properly while the service was still on. In the first place, Dr. Trump now learned to his astonishment, that it somehow hadn't seemed like a proper wedding at all without Mummie. But if Mummie had been there, so Dr. Trump was led to understand, she would undoubtedly have broken down. And this seemed extraordinary
because Felicity explained in the same breath that Mummie had simply been living for to-day; it was the one thing that had been keeping her alive. Indeed, only the arrival of the bridal car at the episcopal home saved Dr. Trump from saying something that he would unquestionably have regretted: another hundred yards of that awful journey and he would indignantly have demanded whether it was his wedding or Mummie's that he had just been attending.

But even if Mrs. Warple had missed the ceremony, she was undeniably mistress of the reception. Wearing a blue silk dress with a lace jabot and hung with a double row of her most dubious-looking pearls, she had availed herself of the invalid's privilege of remaining seated. On a high upholstered chair she was enthroned like an aloof female Buddha. And as Felicity came into sight the dams and flood-gates of emotion opened. There in full view of the arriving guests, Mrs. Warple let herself go. She wept. As Dr. Trump looked at her, he acknowledged respectfully that Felicity had been right: in a small church such an outburst would have been disastrous. It would have drowned even Mr. Prevarius's playing.

As soon as Mrs. Warple was sufficiently recovered, the Bishop brought the guests over to her one by one. And, not knowing any better, he brought Auntie Flo as well. Just as Dr. Trump was brushing aside a local reporter with the words: “Torquay is the destination. Not Switzerland as we had hoped. And then only for the briefest spell. The Hospital requires me back. So much to do, you understand. So many responsibilities …” Auntie Flo way saying to Mrs. Warple: “Well, I'm his Auntie. I ought to know. I tell you if he sets foot in a boat he's finished …” And when Mrs. Warple, making polite social conversation, remarked how proud Auntie Flo must be to see her nephew to-day with his bride beside him, the answer came, prompt and horrifying: “Proud? It's like black magic. When I remember the nights I sat up rubbing his poor chest I never thought I'd live to see him standing at the altar”