[XIII]
July 9, 1913
As soon as we got back to Bath I was sent to a doctor, who told me that I was suffering from a very severe nervous breakdown, and that I must do literally nothing till September but laze. So I have parted from Radchester for ever. Once I was married he said I should probably become normal again. Elspeth and I spent our days shopping and making arrangements for the wedding. We went down to Marlton to find a suitable house to live in and found one about a mile from the school, right on the outskirts of the town, a semi-detached "villa," rather like the house in Stratford-on-Avon in which Shakespeare was born: it has a tiny stretch of garden and a superb view from the dining-room and bedroom windows of the park and the wooded hills of the south away towards the sea. £35 a year is the rent. We measured every nook of it for carpets and stairs and hall furniture, and made an inventory of everything that we should want. We spend many happy hours searching through catalogues for all that we shall require in the house. I have insured my life for £1000, so that Elspeth will not be left quite penniless if I die suddenly. We play tennis a good deal and I read a fair amount, but I haven't the heart to write very much. I don't quite know why.
July 30, 1913
Elspeth and I have had one or two minor tiffs over matters of judgment. She has a decided will of her own. It is going to take me a little time to learn the much-needed lesson that marriages to be successful must be largely a matter of give and take. We are both rather obstinate. I must learn to give in to her more readily.
August 30, 1913
As the time drew nearer to the day fixed for the wedding, people began to arrive from all over the country. A good many Radchester boys and masters, all my relatives, and friends of all sorts began to arrive in Bath. We had an amazing number of presents, but those which touched me most were from Heatherington's House and my form. So I'm not forgotten even yet at Radchester. They had a lively time after I left. In my place as a temporary substitute they got a parson who drank heavily and had to be carried out of chapel twice. Because I am so poor and because our house at Marlton is so small I was prevailed upon to sell all my books, which I now see was one of the grossest mistakes I ever committed in my life. At the time I thought of it as a piece of heroism and great self-sacrifice. The episode reminds me of Charles Lamb and the cake. As a matter of fact it was a piece of unmitigated foolishness. I only got £50 for the lot, and the notes that I had made in them might be worth that if I had kept and used them.
We were married with a great show of pomp and splendour on the sixth of August. I didn't at all like the gorgeous ceremony: there were too many people. It was too much of an orgie: far too much fuss was made of us. As I look back it appears now as a medley of changing clothes, cutting cake, drinking champagne, uttering platitudes to visitors, complying with endless superstitions, and never seeing Elspeth. I had no idea that there were so many million omens attached to weddings. They must be very unlucky things. It began to mean something when the day was nearly over and we found ourselves locked in a first-class carriage bound for Porlock.