“And,” said Father Cyprian, “if any
“I do that once,” said Trelawny cheerfully. “Next time I blow his grinning head off.”
“Don’t miss,” said Johanna.
“Miss!” said Trelawny, almost spitting. “Girl, I—”
“Dearly beloved!” interrupted the priest loudly; and then he went on in a conversational tone, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and”—with a wave toward Christabel—“in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
Crawford stood up straighter and smoothed his damp hair and beard.
ALGERNON SWINBURNE HAD SEARCHED the whole of Tudor House, as well as he could — he had looked inside all the lacquered Japanese and Indian brass boxes that seemed to occupy every shelf, and peered behind all the stacked canvases, and stirred the salt and sugar jars with a knife. He had gone through every item in the drawers of the Elizabethan Spanish oak armoire in which Gabriel had once, as a joke, hidden a prized Nankin dish of Howell’s. But the statue the Rossetti siblings had talked about was not to be found. He wondered fretfully how big it might be — not too big to clog an old man’s throat, according to their story.
Gabriel must have it in his bedroom.
Swinburne glanced nervously toward the stairs. Gabriel suffered from insomnia, but in the mornings he did seem to be newly awake — blinking, distracted, grumpy. Perhaps he did all his actual sleeping in the few hours just before he got up, which was generally about noon.
I’ve got to risk it, Swinburne thought as he started up the stairs. If he awakens while I’m in his room, I’ll think of some excuse for being there.
It had been a full week since horrible old Trelawny had knocked Swinburne unconscious after their hasty sword fight, and Swinburne had had no contact with Miss B. since then. He was sure the ghastly old man had succeeded in capturing her in his mirrored box — and so Swinburne needed a new patron. For these last seven days, no verses at all had sprung into his mind, and it was like being color-blind, or … or insomniac. And there were physical effects too — during these last several days, his forehead seemed always to be damp with sweat, and his vision seemed blurred, and his hands shook no matter how much brandy he drank.
At the top of the stairs he took off his shoes and tiptoed in his stocking feet to Gabriel’s bedroom door, where he very slowly turned the knob; he lifted the door against the hinges as he swung it open.
The air was stuffy and stale. The windows that overlooked the back garden were heavily curtained, and the only light was a gray radiance through a closed window in the opposite wall. Swinburne could make out the vast mantelpiece, with its ivory-and-ebony crucifix, facing the mirror on a chest of drawers on the other side of the room and, between them on the broad figured carpet, the enormous old four-post bedstead.
Gabriel’s balding head could be dimly seen above the blankets, and he was breathing audibly enough for Swinburne to be confident that he was in fact asleep. Swinburne stole forward silently, peering about for Gabriel’s trousers or cloak so that he could rifle the pockets.
FATHER CYPRIAN LOOKED UP from his Book of Common Prayer and said, in a stern voice that echoed among the beams of the high ceiling, “I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.”
Crawford couldn’t remember if his wedding to Veronica twenty-five years ago had included this order; possibly Father Cyprian had added it specially after having dispensed with the three-week announcement of the banns.
Crawford hoped Trelawny wouldn’t do anything irresponsible; but the old man made no sound.
After what Crawford thought was a rudely prolonged pause, the priest went on, “John, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will,” said Crawford strongly.
The priest turned to McKee. “Adelaide, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
Crawford was reassured to hear happy firmness in McKee’s voice when she answered, “I will.”
The priest smiled. “And,” he went on, “who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
Peripherally, Crawford saw Trelawny take McKee’s arm and step forward.
“Take her from the hand of an unrepentant sinner,” Trelawny whispered to Crawford.
The priest cocked an eyebrow at the old man, and Crawford restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Shut
It occurred to him that Trelawny’s statement was just reflexive bravado at finding himself on this rainy morning participating in a ritual in a Christian church; but he had mentioned sending his daughter and grandchildren to America, and seven years ago, in the cassowary cage at the London Zoo, he had said,
And he baptized all the Mud Larks.
I don’t believe, thought Crawford, that you’re as unrepentant as you’d like us all to suppose, old man.
SWINBURNE FINALLY SAW GABRIEL’S trousers crumpled in the shadows by the foot of the bed — but as he began to crouch and reach for them, he saw the glass of water on the bedside table.
Something like a short black cigar was sunk in it.
He straightened very slowly, willing his knees not to pop, and took another long step forward and reached out with two fingers. The water was cold and faintly caustic, but he pinched the top of the thing — it did appear to be made of stone — and lifted it out of the glass.
And immediately he knew he had found the described statue, for he felt an alien eagerness and desperation in his mind.
Drops of water fell from it back into the glass with a sound like lightly plucked violin strings, and Swinburne closed his fist around the thing.
As carefully as he had made his way into the room, Swinburne began retracing his steps across the carpet. Now that he had hold of the thing, he was sweating with fear that Gabriel might awaken and take it away from him; but he was able to slide out through the doorway silently, and he turned and hurried down the stairs.
CRAWFORD TOOK HIS MOTHER’S ring out of his waistcoat pocket and slid it onto the fourth finger of McKee’s left hand, and then, prompted by the priest, he said, “With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Trelawny yawned audibly, but when Crawford glanced at him, the old man looked away, as if interested in the framed stations of the cross paintings mounted high on the wall.
The priest was intoning some long prayer involving Isaac and Rebecca now, but Crawford was remembering Christina Rossetti saying that Trelawny had apparently “stopped in a box of mirrors” the woman he had met by moonlight in the Roman ruins of Watling Street years ago, and whom he had traveled with ever since.
Were the words of the wedding affecting him? Perhaps the love of those creatures for their victims, Crawford thought, is not always entirely unrequited.
The priest finished the prayer with “through Jesus Christ our Lord,” and Crawford said “Amen” along with McKee and the priest and Christina in a pew behind them.
Father Cyprian now took Crawford’s right hand and put McKee’s right hand into it; she laced her warm fingers through his.
“Those whom God hath joined together,” said Father Cyprian, “let no man put asunder. Forasmuch as John and Adelaide have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving a ring, and by joining of hands; I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the
