Getting Married
by
I.–THE DAY
Probably you thought that getting married was quite a simple business. So did I. We were both wrong; it is the very dickens. Of course, I am not going to draw back now. As I keep telling Celia, her Ronald is a man of powerful fibre, and when he says he will do a thing he does it–eventually. She shall have her wedding all right; I have sworn it. But I do wish that there weren’t so many things to be arranged first.
The fact that we had to fix a day was broken to me one afternoon when Celia was showing me to some relatives of hers in the Addison Road. I got entangled with an elderly cousin on the hearth-rug; and though I know nothing about motor-bicycles I talked about them for several hours under the impression that they were his subject. It turned out afterwards that he was equally ignorant of them, but thought they were mine. Perhaps we shall get on better at a second meeting. However, just when we were both thoroughly sick of each other, Celia broke off her gay chat with an aunt to say to me:
“By the way, Ronald, we did settle on the eleventh, didn’t we?”
I looked at her blankly, my mind naturally full of motor-bicycles.
“The wedding,” smiled Celia.
“Right-o,” I said with enthusiasm. I was glad to be assured that I should not go on talking about motor-bicycles for ever, and that on the eleventh, anyhow, there would be a short interruption for the ceremony. Feeling almost friendly to the cousin, I plunged into his favourite subject again.
On the way home Celia returned to the matter.
“Or you would rather it was the twelfth?” she asked.
“I’ve never heard a word about this before,” I said. “It all comes as a surprise to me.”
“Why, I’m always asking you.”
“Well, it’s very forward of you, and I don’t know what young people are coming to nowadays. Celia, what’s the good of my talking to your cousin for three hours about motor-bicycling? Surely one can get married just as well without that?”
“One can’t get married without settling the day,” said Celia, coming cleverly back to the point.
Well, I suppose one can’t. But somehow I had expected to be spared all this bother. I think my idea was that Celia would say to me suddenly one evening, “By the way, Ronald, don’t forget we’re being married to-morrow,” and I should have said “Where?” And on being told the time and place, I should have turned up pretty punctually; and after my best man had told me where to stand, and the clergyman had told me what to say, and my solicitor had told me where to sign my name, we should have driven from the church a happy married couple … and in the carriage Celia would have told me where we were spending the honeymoon.
However, it was not to be so.
“All right, the eleventh,” I said. “Any particular month?”
“No,” smiled Celia, “just any month. Or, if you like, every month.”
“The eleventh of June,” I surmised. “It is probably the one day in the year on which my Uncle Thomas cannot come. But no matter. The eleventh let it be.”
“Then that’s settled. And at St. Miriam’s?”
For some reason Celia has set her heart on St. Miriam’s. Personally I have no feeling about it. St. Andrew’s-by-the-Wardrobe or St. Bartholomew’s-Without would suit me equally well.
“All right,” I said, “St. Miriam’s.”
There, you might suppose, the matter would have ended; but no.
“Then you will see about it to-morrow?” said Celia persuasively.
I was appalled at the idea.
“Surely,” I said, “this is for you, or your father, or–or somebody to arrange.”
“Of course it’s for the bridegroom,” protested Celia.
“In theory, perhaps. But anyhow not the bridegroom personally. His best man … or his solicitor … or … I mean, you’re not suggesting that I myself—- Oh, well, if you insist. Still, I must say I don’t see what’s the good of having a best man and a solicitor if—- Oh, all right, Celia, I’ll go to-morrow.”