The Episcopal proprieties having thus been satisfied, the clergyman put on his glad robes, and there was a ceremony in an ancient family garden by the banks of the swiftly flowing Rappahannock, with the odor of violets and crocuses in the air, and a mother and a greataunt and several old-maid cousins standing by in a state of uncertain romance. As for the bride and groom—the world had battered them too much, and they could hardly squeeze out a tear or a smile. Thyrsis had even forgotten the ring, and with sudden tears his mother-in-law slipped her own wedding ring from her finger into his hand. Apart from this lapse, and the single “damn,” he played his part perfectly. He promised to love, honor, and obey—and did so for a total of forty-eight years thereafter.
At home in Mississippi sat the elderly Judge, having been forewarned of the event and waiting for the storm to break. The telephone rang: the Memphis Commercial Appeal—or perhaps it was the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “Judge Kimbrough, we have a dispatch from Fredericksburg, Virginia, saying that your daughter has married Upton Sinclair.” “Yes, so I understand.” “The dispatch says that the husband is an advocate of socialism, feminism, and birth control. Does your daughter share her husband’s ideas on these matters?” Said the Judge: “My daughter does not share any of her husband’s ideas!” And so the interview went out to the world.
9
New Beginning
I
The fates who deal out marriages seldom chose two more different human personalities for yoking together. Craig was all caution and I was all venture. She was all reticence, and I wanted to tell of my mistakes so that others could learn to avoid them. Craig would have died before she let anyone know hers. When she got some money she wanted to hide it like a squirrel; when I got some I wanted to start another crusade, to change a world that seemed to me in such sad shape. Craig agreed about the shape, but what she wanted to do was to hide us from it. This duel was destined to last for forty-eight years.
My mother and hers had proudly produced their family trees, and behold, we were both descended from the same English king. We had traveled by different routes: Craig’s ancestor, Lady Southworth, had come to Massachusetts to be married to the colonial governor, William Bradford; mine had come to Virginia and entered the Navy. One of my ancestors had been a commander in the Battle of Lake Huron in the War of 1812, and his son, Captain Arthur Sinclair, my grandfather, had commanded one of the vessels with which Admiral Perry opened up Japan. That grandfather, three uncles, and several cousins had fought in the Confederate States Navy. Craig’s great-grandfather had been appointed by President Jefferson the first surveyor general of the Territory of Mississippi. So those two mothers had got along conversationally, and Mama Kimbrough had good news to take back to Leflore County.
The youngest Kimbrough daughter, Dolly, was at a school in Tarrytown, on the Hudson, and I escorted Mama Kimbrough there. On the way she set out to make a Christian out of me, and I was so attentive that we went an hour past our station; we had to get out and wait for a train to take us back. We found Dolly in bed, blooming in spite of an appendix operation. By the time we returned to New York I had been able to persuade Mama that my socialism was just Christian brotherhood brought up to date; also Mama had decided that a trip to Europe with Craig and me would be educational for Dolly.
II
The first place we visited was Hellerau, in Germany, where the Dalcroze School was holding its annual spring festival. Hellerau means “bright meadow.” Rising from that meadow was a temple of art, and we witnessed a performance of Gluck’s Orpheus, represented in dance as well as in music. It was one of the loveliest things I had ever seen, and a quarter of a century later I used it for the opening scene of Worlds End—the world’s beginning of Lanny Budd. The young Lanny met on the bright meadow—as we ourselves had met—Bernard Shaw with his golden beard outshining any landscape. I had already had lunch at his home in London and at his country home; he welcomed us, and our joy in the Dalcroze festival was confirmed by Britain’s greatest stage critic. He was always so kind, and the letters he wrote me about the Lanny Budd books helped them to win translation into a score of foreign languages.