"Very well—I will. But it's funny I should want to."
Then suddenly her expression changed. Her eyes half closed, her lips parted, and she held out her arms to him with a laugh like a sob.
§ 5.
Reuben and Rose were married in the January of '70. It was the earliest date compatible with the stocking of her wardrobe, a business which immediately absorbed her to the exclusion of everything else.
Meantime Reuben, having repapered the parlour and given a new coat of whitewash to the best bedroom ceiling, discussed settlements with old Lardner. These did not turn out as large as he had hoped—the old man was close, and attempts on his generosity only resulted in embarrassing doubts as to the disinterestedness of his son-in-law's affections. Reuben comforted himself with the thought that Lardner most certainly had a cancer.
At the wedding Rose fairly dazed the onlookers. She wore a dress of heavy white satin, with a white lace veil—and a bustle. It was the first bustle that had ever been seen in Peasmarsh, or even in Rye. In itself it was devastating enough, but it soon acquired a prophetic and metaphorical significance which made it even more impressive. Spectators saw in it the forecast of Odiam's downfall—"He can't stand that," said Brazier, the new man at Totease, "she's a Jezebubble."—"Only it äun't her head as she's tired this time," said Ticehurst.—"She shud have worn it in front of her, and then we shud have bin interested," said Cooper of Kitchenhour.
Alice Jury and her father were in church. Reuben saw them as he marched up the aisle with an enormous flower in his buttonhole, accompanied by Ginner of Socknersh as his best man. It struck him that she looked more pretty and animated than usual, in a woolly red dress and a little fur cap under which her eyes were bright as a robin's. Even then he felt a little offended and perplexed by her behaviour—she should have drooped—it would have been more becoming if she had drooped.
The remnants of his family were in a front pew—Pete with an elaborately curled forelock, Jemmy casting the scent of cheap hair oil into the prevalent miasma of camphor and moth-killer, and between the two boys, Caro in an unbecoming hat which she wore at a wrong angle, while her dark restless eyes devoured Rose's creamy smartness, from her satin shoes to the wave of curling-irons in her hair. Harry had been left at home—he was in an impossible mood, tormented by some dark current of memory, wandering from room to room as he muttered—"Another wedding—another wedding—we're always having weddings in this house."
After the ceremony nearly a hundred guests were fed at Starvecrow. All the most important farmers of the neighbourhood were there, except of course Realf of Grandturzel. Rose was like her name-flower, flushed and scented. Very different from his earlier bride, she sat beside Reuben with head erect and smiling lips—she drank with everyone, and the wine deepened the colour of her cheeks and made her eyes like stars. She talked, she laughed, she ate, she was so happy that her glances, full of bold languor, swept round the table, resting on all present as well as the chosen man—she was a gay wife.
Dancing at weddings was dying out as a local fashion, so when the breakfast was over the guests melted away, having eaten and drunk themselves into a desire for sleep. Reuben's family went home. He and Rose lingered a little with her uncle, then as the January night came crisping into the sky and fields, he drove her to Odiam in his gig, as long ago he had driven Naomi. She leaned against his shoulder, for he wanted both hands for his horse, and her hair tickled his neck. She was silent for about the first time that day, and as eager for the kisses he could give her while he drove as Naomi had been shy of them. Above in the cold black sky a hundred pricks of fire shuddered like sparks—the lump of Boarzell was blocked against a powder of stars.