The sight of his fresh-coloured smiling face--or it may have been some reminder of Maude which he found in it--brought consolation to the bridegroom.
'How are you, Crosse? How do, Hale? Excuse my country manners! The old Christmas-tree in the hall wanted to send for you, but I knew your number. You're looking rather green about the gills, old chap.'
'I feel a little chippy to-day.'
'That's the worst of these cheap champagnes. Late hours are bad for the young. Have a whisky and soda with me. No? Hale, you must buck him up, for they'll all be down on you if you don't bring your man up to time in the pink of condition. We certainly did ourselves up to the top hole last night. Couldn't face your breakfast, eh? Neither could I. A strawberry and a bucket of soda-water.'
'How are they all at the Langham?' asked Frank eagerly.
'Oh, splendid! At least I haven't seen Maude. She's been getting into parade order. But mother is full of beans. We had to take her up one link in the curb, or there would have been no holding her.'
Frank's eyes kept turning to the slow-moving minute-hand. It was not ten o'clock yet.
'Don't you think that I might go round to the Langham and see them?'
'Good Lord, no! Clean against regulations. Stand by his head, Hale! Wo, boy, steady!'
'It won't do, Crosse, it really won't!' said Hale solemnly.
'What rot it is! Here am I doing nothing, and I might be of some use or encouragement to her. Let's get a cab!'
'Wo, laddie, wo then, boy! Keep him in hand, Hale! Get to his head.'
Frank flung himself down into an armchair, and muttered about absurd conventions.
'It can't be helped, my boy. It is correct.'
'Buck up, Crosse, buck up! We'll make the thing go with a buzz when we do begin. Two of our Johnnies are coming, regular fizzers, and full of blood both of them. We'll paint the Langham a fine bright solferino, when the church parade is over.'
Frank sat rather sulkily watching the slow minute-hand, and listening to the light-hearted chatter of the boy-lieutenant, and the more deliberate answers of his best man. At last he jumped up and seized his hat and gloves.
'Half-past,' said he. 'Come on. I can't wait any longer. I must do SOMETHING. It is time we went to the church.'
'Fall in for the church!' cried Jack. 'Wait a bit! I know this game, for I was best man myself last month. Inspect his kit, Hale. See that he's according to regulations. Ring? All right. Parson's money? Right oh! Small change? Good! By the right, quick march!'
Frank soon recovered his spirits now that he had something to do. Even that drive through the streaming streets, with the rain pattering upon the top of their four-wheeler, could not depress him any longer. He rose to the level of Jack Selby, and they chattered gaily together.
'Ain't we bringing him up fighting fit?' cried Jack exultingly. 'Shows that all the care we have taken of him in the last twenty-four hours has not been wasted. That's the sort I like--game as a pebble! You can't buy 'em, you have to breed 'em. A regular fizzer HE is, and full of blood. And here we are on the ground.'
It was a low, old-fashioned, grey church, with a Gothic entrance and two niches on either side, which spoke of pre-Lutheran days. Cheap modern shops, which banked it in, showed up the quaint dignity of the ancient front. The side-door was open, and they passed into its dim- lit interior, with high carved pews, and rich, old, stained glass. Huge black oak beams curved over their heads, and dim inscriptions of mediaeval Latin curled and writhed upon the walls. A single step seemed to have taken them from the atmosphere of the nineteenth to that of the fifteenth century.
'What a ripping old church!' Jack whispered.
'You can't buy 'em. But it's as festive as an ice-house. There's a friendly native coming down the aisle. He's your man, Hale, if you want the news.'
The verger was not in the best of tempers. 'It's at a quarter to four,' said he, as Hale met him.