The Wedding March was pealing out from the chancel, a great tide of sound blaring down through the church and echoing back from the west window, near the door where they would all go out, in a moment, out into the world. On they went; how swift it all was. … Sarah and Harriett, rescued from poverty and fear … mother’s wedding on a May morning long ago … in the little village church … to walk out of church into the open country; in the morning; a bride. There were no brides in London.
Now to fall in behind Eve and Mr. Tremayne. Mr. Grove walked clumsily. His arm brushed against the shower bouquet.
The upturned faces of the pink carnations were fresh and sweet; for nothing. Tomorrow they would be dead. Harriett’s bouquet, dead too … a wonderful dead bouquet that meant life. “Where are you, my friend, my own friend?”
A wedding seemed to make everybody happy. The people moving in Harriett’s new rooms were happy. Old people were new and young. They laughed. … The sad dark man, following with his tray of glasses as she went from guest to guest with Harriett’s champagne cup had laughed again and again. …
The voices of the grey-clad bridegrooms rang about the rooms full of quiet relieved laughter. The outlines of their well-cut grey clothes were softly pencilled with a radiance of marriage. Round about Sarah and Eve was a great radiance. Light streamed from their satin dresses. But they were untouched. Silent and untouched and far away. What should these strange men ever know of them; coming and going?
She found herself standing elbow to elbow with Harriett. Warm currents came to her from Harriett’s body; she moved her elbow against Harriett’s to draw her attention. Harriett turned a scorched cheek and a dilated unseeing eye. Their hands dropped and met. Miriam felt the quivering of firm, strong fingers and the warm metal of rings. She grasped the matronly hand with the whole strength of her own. Harriett must remember … all this wedding was nothing. … She was Harriett … not the Mrs. Ducayne Bob Greville had just been talking to about Curtain Lectures and the Rascality of the Genus Homo … she must remember all the years of being together, years of nights side by side … night turning to day for both of them, at the same moment. She gave her hand a little shake. Harriett made a little skipping movement and grinned her own ironic grin. It was all right. They were quite alone and irreverent; they two; the festive crowd was playing a game for their amusement. They laughed without a sound as they had so often done in church. The air that encircled them was the air of their childhood.
Gerald’s voice sounded near. It made no break in their union though Harriett welcomed it, clearing her throat with a businesslike cough.
“Time you changed, Mrs. La Reine,” said Gerald, in a frightened friendly voice.
“Oh, lor, is it?” … that kindliness was only in Harriett’s voice when she had hurt someone.
… The edge of Gerald’s voice, kind to everyone, would always be broken when he spoke to Harriett. She would always be this young absurd Harriett to him, always. He would go on fastening her boots for her tenderly, and go happily about his hobbies. She would never hear him call her “my dear.” That old-fashioned mock-polite insolence of men … paterfamilias.
The four of them were together in a room again, fastening and hooking and adjusting; standing about before mirrors. We’ve all grown up together … we can admit it now … we’re admitting it. Everything clear, back to the beginning; happy and good. The room was still with the hush of its fresh draperies, hemming them in. Beautiful immortal forms moved in the room, reaping … voices, steady and secure, said nothing but the necessary things, borne down with wealth, all the wealth there was … all the laughter and certainty. Immortality. Nothing could die. They saw and knew everything. Each tone was a confession and a song of truth. They need never meet and speak again. They had known. The voices of Sarah and Harriett would go on … marked with fresh things. … Her own and Eve’s would remain, separate, to grow broken and false and unrecognisable in the awful struggle for money. No matter. The low secure untroubled tone of a woman’s voice. There was nothing like it on earth. … If you had once heard it … in your own voice, and the voice of another woman responding … everything was there.
Was there anyone who fully realised how amazing it was … a human tone. Perhaps everyone did, really, most people without knowing it. A few knew. Perhaps that was what kept life going.
In a few minutes they would go. They avoided each other’s eyes. Miriam began to be afraid Eve would say something cheerful, or sing a snatch of song, desecrating the singing that was there, the deep eternal singing in each casual tone.
Gerald’s whistle came up from the front garden.
Miriam opened the door. Bennett’s voice came from the hall, calling for Sarah.
“Your skirt sets simply perfectly, Sally.” … Sarah was at the door in her neat soft dark blue travelling dress, and a soft blue straw hat with striped ribbon bands and bows, hurrying forward, her gold hair shining under her
