pg28948 [66]
How did one grow old-how could one become confident? He wished he felt older. Why, what difference was there, as far as he felt matured or completed, between him now and him at his own wedding? He might be getting married over again—he and his wife. He felt himself tiny, a little, upright figure on a plain circled round with the immense, roaring sky: he and his wife, two little, upright figures walking across this plain, whilst the heavens shimmered and roared about them. When did one come to an end? In which direction was it finished? There was no end, no finish, only this roaring vast space. Did one never get old, never die? That was the clue. He exulted strangely, with torture. He would go on with his wife, he and she like two children camping in the plains. What was sure but the endless sky? But that was so sure, so boundless.
Still the royal blue colour burned and blazed and sported itself in the web of darkness before him, unwearyingly rich and splendid. How rich and splendid his own life was, red and burning and blazing and sporting itself in the dark meshes of his body: and his wife, how she glowed and burned dark within her meshes! Always it was so unfinished and unformed!
There was a loud noise of the organ. The whole party was trooping to the vestry. There was a blotted, scrawled book—and that young girl putting back her veil in her vanity, and laying her hand with the wedding-ring self-consciously conspicuous, and signing her name proudly because of the vain spectacle she made:
"Anna Theresa Lensky."
"Anna Theresa Lensky"—what a vain, independent minx she was! The bridegroom, slender in his black swallow-tail and grey trousers, solemn as a young solemn cat, was writing seriously:
"William Brangwen."
That looked more like it.
"Come and sign, father," cried the imperious young hussy.
"Thomas Brangwen—clumsy-fist," he said to himself as he signed.
Then his brother, a big, sallow fellow with black side-whiskers wrote:
"Alfred Brangwen."
"How many more Brangwens?" said Tom Brangwen, ashamed of the too-frequent recurrence of his family name.
When they were out again in the sunshine, and he saw the frost hoary and blue among the long grass under the tomb-stones, the holly-berries overhead twinkling scarlet as the bells rang, the yew trees hanging their black, motionless, ragged boughs, everything seemed like a vision.
The marriage party went across the graveyard to the wall, mounted it by the little steps, and descended. Oh, a vain white peacock of a bride perching herself on the top of the wall and giving her hand to the bridegroom on the other side, to be helped down! The vanity of her white, slim, daintily-stepping feet, and her arched neck. And the regal impudence with which she seemed to dismiss them all, the others, parents and wedding guests, as she went with her young husband.
In the cottage big fires were burning, there were dozens of glasses on the table, and holly and mistletoe hanging up. The wedding party crowded in, and Tom Brangwen, becoming roisterous, poured out drinks. Everybody must drink. The bells were ringing away against the windows.
"Lift your glasses up," shouted Tom Brangwen from the parlour, "lift your glasses up, an' drink to the hearth an' home—hearth an' home, an' may they enjoy it."
"Night an' day, an' may they enjoy it," shouted Frank Brangwen, in addition.
"Hammer an' tongs, and may they enjoy it," shouted Alfred Brangwen, the saturnine.
"Fill your glasses up, an' let's have it all over again," shouted Tom Brangwen.
"Hearth an' home, an' may ye enjoy it."
There was a ragged shout of the company in response.
"Bed an' blessin', an' may ye enjoy it," shouted Frank Brangwen.
There was a swelling chorus in answer.
"Comin' and goin', an' may ye enjoy it," shouted the saturnine Alfred Brangwen, and the men roared by now boldly, and the women said, "Just hark, now!"
There was a touch of scandal in the air.
Then the party rolled off in the carriages, full speed back to the Marsh, to a large meal of the high-tea