Roland Whately: A Novel

by Alec Waugh

In all this fret and fluster Mr. Marston took the most intense interest. It reminded him of his own marriage and, finding his youth again in theirs, he spoke often of his honeymoon.

“Do you remember, dear, when we went out for a picnic in the woods and it came on to rain and we went to that little cottage under the hill?” And again: “Do you remember that view we got of the sea from the top of Eversleigh?” Little incidents of his courtship that he had forgotten a long time were recalled to him, so that he came to feel a genuine tenderness for the wife whom he had neglected for business, for cricket, and his children; from a distance of thirty years the perfume of those scented months had returned to him.

Gerald was alone unmoved. He was annoyed one morning when he found the floor of the billiard room covered with packing cases, but he retained his hardly won composure. He accepted the duties of best man without enthusiasm. “At any rate it will soon be over,” he had said, and had proceeded to give Roland two new white wood bats.

“They won’t last long, but you can’t help making a few runs with them.” And his friend was left to draw from that present what inference he might think fit.

They were hectic days, but at last everything was finished. The house was papered and furnished, rooms had been booked at Bamfield, and in the last week in April Roland returned to Hammerton. He had had scarcely a moment’s rest during the last two months. Life had moved at an incredible pace, and only with an enormous struggle had he managed to keep pace with it. He had had no time to think what he was doing. Each morning had presented him with some fresh difficulty, each night had left some piece of work unfinished. And, now that it was over, he felt exhausted. The store of energy that had sustained his vitality at so high a pressure was spent.

The sudden marriage was naturally a disappointment to his parents. Their opinion had not been asked; the arrangements had been made at Hogstead. Roland had just told them that such and such a thing had been decided, and they were hurt. They had known, of course, all along that as soon as their son was married they would lose him, but they had expected to retain his confidence up till then; and, being sentimental, they had often spoken together of the wife that he would choose. They had looked forward to his days of courtship, hoping to have a share in that fresh happiness. But the pleasure had been given to others; they had had no part in it.

In consequence Roland did not find them very responsive. They listened attentively to all he told them, but they asked no questions, and the conversation was not made easy. Roland was piqued by their behavior; he had intended to arrange a picnic for the three of them on the last day, but now decided that he would not. After all, why should he: it would be no pleasure for any of them, not if they were going to sit glum and silent. Two days before his marriage he went for a walk in the evening with his father, and as Gerald would be coming on the next day to stay the night with them this was the last walk they would have together. But in nothing that they said to each other was implied any appreciation of the fact. When Mr. Whately returned from the office he handed the evening paper to his wife, commented on the political situation in Russia and on the economical situation of France, and was, on the whole, of the opinion that Spanish cooking was superior to Italian. “Not quite so much variety,” he said, “but there’s a flavor about it that one gets nowhere else.” He then proceeded to remove his boots: “And what about a walk, Roland?”

Roland nodded, and Mr. Whately went upstairs to change his suit. They walked as usual down the High Street, they turned up the corner of College Road, they crossed by the Public Library into Green Crescent, and completed their circuit by walking down into the High Street through Woolston Avenue. They talked of Fernhurst, of the coming cricket season, of the marriage ceremony, of the arrangements that had been made for meeting the guests at the church, of the train that Roland and Muriel would catch afterwards. But there passed between them not one sentence, question, intonation of the voice that could be called intimate, that could be said to express not remorse, but any attitude at all towards the severing of a long relationship. As they walked up the steps of 105 Hammerton Villas they were discussing the effectiveness of the new pull stroke that in face of prejudice so many great batsmen were practicing.

“I think I shall go down to the nets at the Oval to-morrow morning, father, and see what I can make of it.”

It was a bleak morning and the Oval presented a dismal appearance; a few men were pottering about with ladders and paint brushes; a cutting machine was clanking on the grass; the long stone terraces were cold and forbidding; the clock in the pavilion had stopped; far over at the Vauxhall end a couple of bored professionals were bowling to an enthusiastic amateur who had no idea of the game, but demanded instruction after every stroke. Roland stood behind the net and watched for a while an exhibition of cross-bat play that was calculated to make him forever an advocate of the left shoulder, the left elbow and the left foot. He had a few minutes’ chat with one of the groundsmen.