Parker and Mary drifted around the half-lit and almost empty halls of the museum as if in a dream. In years to come, neither of them could ever look at an Egyptian artefact without a pleasant rush of emotion, although they were barely conscious of the historical marvels laid out before them at the time. The round reading room was not in fact quite deserted on this occasion. Parker, who would have been horrified at any display of ardour in a public place from a man of his age and position under any other circumstances, but who entertained no hope of being able to better control himself if circumstances were propitious again, began to feel that this was just as well. It was quiet enough, at any rate, for them to sit close together under the splendid domed ceiling and to speak in the hushed tones both natural to lovers and acceptable to the few serious scholars who were spending the last afternoon of 1930 in the company of the great works and rare manuscripts assembled there. It was in this way that Parker haltingly explained the chequered course of his suit over the past years, and the impact that the words which passed between them in the library at Duke's Denver had had on his resolution to ask for her hand two years ago.
"But Charles, I explained about that when I came to see you last spring!" Mary's tone was exasperated, but her leg was pressing against his thigh and her hand was soft and warm in his.
"Oh yes, I understand why you couldn't see me in Peter's absence, of course. I'm not talking about that. I mean the way you responded when I - I presumed to offer you my service in any matter in which you would previously have called upon Peter. It seemed so clear from what you said that - that - well, that you considered it an outrageous insult for me to suggest that I should have any such place in your life. You said that you certainly had no need for another brother, and particularly not someone like me. Or at least," he concluded with his habitual zeal for accuracy, "words that I understood to that effect."
There was a silence and Mary looked down at her lap. Not being able to look into her eyes felt like a physical struggle, like a scarcity of oxygen, but Parker was nothing if not patient. At last Mary said, quietly, "But you still wrote to me, and then accepted my friendship again, thinking that of me."
"Of course. I love you." Parker spoke as though it were the simplest thing in the world - and of course, it was. "I couldn't blame you for how you felt. But then Peter spoke to me yesterday in a way which suggested - which allowed me to dare to hope - that I had wrongly interpreted what you had said, or perhaps that you'd changed your mind."
Mary shook her head, laughing softly with disbelief. "Changed my mind, indeed. My mind has been quite made up for many years now, and you'll find it a mind that isn't easy to unmake. Consider that a fair warning, Mr Parker," she added. She at last raised her eyes to his, and they were sparkling with merriment.
"I was furious with you that day for suggesting that you might stand to me as a brother when my feelings towards you were so very different from those of a sibling. I was furious all around, really - with Peter for the whole stupid situation, and furious with myself for not having somehow contrived to be married to you long before any of it had happened. Oh, but most of all with you, for so wilfully refusing to see how desperately I wanted you!"
They both laughed now, relieved, slightly incredulous laughter like that of people realising how narrowly they escaped some unsuspected mortal peril.
"Oh God, if I'd known how to interpret what you said," Parker groaned. To think that if he hadn't hesitated in the spring, she could have been his wife by now! But both were too exquisitely happy to long contemplate anything other than the seemingly miraculous, world-changing fact of their being together now at last.
They left the Museum just before it closed, and with their hands brushing lightly against each other, more or less sleep-walked through the winter blackness into a tea-shop. There Charles, recovering from the shock of desire he'd endured when courteously helping Mary off with her coat, and too enraptured by the endless delights of every detail of Mary's face now that he could contemplate her unguarded to look at the menu, absent-mindedly ordered a random and bizarre selection of things to eat. Mary smiled gently and said to the waitress, "No, no. We'll just have tea and crumpets, please." The waitress bobbed an old-fashioned half-curtesy of the kind that Mary's looks and manner often still inspired, and bustled off. Charles gazed at Mary adoringly.
"We must do everything exactly as you like, Mary," he said earnestly, taking her hand over the table. It was unbearable not to be touching her in some way at all times. "As to the wedding, and what sort of place you want to live, I mean."
Mary blushed a little and replied "I expect that some degree of pomp and circumstance will be required, unless Gerald and Helen disown me absolutely and refuse to have anything to do with it. That would be rather useful, in some ways. We could be married by special licence so quickly, if there were nobody else to think of", she added, wistfully.
"In view of how much I - I mean, of my regrettable lack of self-control when - I imagine it's obvious that as far as I'm concerned, every moment that I haven't made you my wife is a wasted one," Charles said, rather sheepishly. "But I've waited all these years; I can certainly wait however long it takes to organise things to your satisfaction."
"We shall be married from Duke's Denver, but quite simply," Mary said, decisively, "and as soon as ever we can." She laced her slender fingers through Charles's strong ones, and smiled at him over the merrily steaming blue teapot which had just been deposited on the table. "Early spring at the latest."
Charles's heart swelled within him.
—————
They had agreed that they would tell Peter before anyone else, although in fact both were unable to keep to this simple resolution. In Mary's case this was because when she eventually arrived at the Attenburys' London house for the New Year's Party, so dazed and absent looking that Abcock took his wife aside and whispered, "I say, d'you think Mary's on some sort of dope?", there was no dissimulating from Lady Sylvia that something momentous had happened. Lady Sylvia had affectionately responded to her husband's query by calling him a fearful old ass, but she was not to be easily put off herself. She sent Mary upstairs to dress in the room set aside for her stay, and then followed her up, and sat down expectantly on the stool in front of the dressing table. "I've simply heaps to do before the other guests arrive, but I'm not leaving until you tell me what's behind that look on your face, Mary, so hurry up and spill the beans."
Mary, who had thought she was hiding her private feelings rather well, looked momentarily abashed, and then smiled beatifically.
"Oh Sylly," she said, forgetfully lapsing into the endearments of childhood. "Why didn't you - why didn't anyone - tell me that love could be so marvellous? I feel like all the characters from Shakespeare and Ovid and all those chaps all rolled into one."
"As I recall, a large proportion of those characters came to rather a sticky end," Sylvia said, laughing. "But Mary, it's too bad of you! Abcock's invited three perfectly splendid chaps for you this evening, and you're clearly in no state to receive their affections. If they're not flirting, they'll talk about politics - they're all Members, you know - and it'll be so dreadfully tedious. Still, tell me all."
"Well, you mustn't breathe a word until we've told the family," said Mary, "and I'm afraid you'll be dreadfully disapproving."
"Oh, hurrah! Is he a gypsy, or a gigolo, or something terribly scandalous?"
"No," smiled Mary. "He's just a perfectly respectable, decent lower-middle class policeman. He's successful in his own way, but he's not - well, he's not one of us," and Mary waved her hand vaguely to convey the upper echelons of society.
"Aha!" Lady Sylvia bore an expression unmistakabley like that of a cat who has pounced on a mouse. "Mrs Fettering-Macaw said that someone had seen you with a chap from Scotland Yard, that friend of Peter's, in the autumn. Is it the one who took charge of that fracas at my wedding over the diamonds? I remember the look on your face as he set us all in order."
"Yes, it's he. It always has been."
Lady Sylvia smiled. "Well, I don't disapprove, for what it's worth. He was the only sensible person in the whole house that day, and he is terribly tall and manly. And nor will Abcock, not now that he's trying to win over the more left-leaning voters. It'll be jolly handy for him to be seen to have a friend who's a working man. But what will Gerald say?"
"You mean, what will Helen say," Mary replied, smiling wryly. "Heaven knows, but I don't. And I honestly don't much care. Charles -" it was the first time she had referred to him in public by his Christian name, and she felt a thrill of pride and pleasure as she did so. It seemed completely absurd that a day ago she would have been compelled to refer to him primly as Mr Parker. "Charles has enough for us to live very happily on. Of course Gerald has to approve for me to get any of my money - but I'm not sure that Charles wants it, really. It's so very much more than he earns, I think he feels quite startled at the prospect. He wouldn't ask me until he had enough himself for a nice house and a couple of servants, and honestly, Sylvia, I'd live in a hovel and scrub the floors myself if he wanted me to."
"Well, don't tell him that," was the friendly advice of the married woman, who was reflecting that a picture more unlikely than Mary, now standing in her silk and lace petticoat as she prepared to glide into an evening gown which cost several times the annual salary of Sylvia's housemaid, scrubbing a floor was hard to imagine. On the other hand, it was equally hard to imagine a smile more truly ecstatic than that on Mary's face. Sylvia imagined that Peter, in any case, would hardly allow his sister to live in any situation beneath her dignity, so worried no further on that score.
"It's jolly good news, Mary," she said, "and I'm so pleased for you. Why didn't you bring him with you this evening? It would have been such a coup for Abcock to produce a genuine common-man-made-good out of nowhere as a bosom friend!"
Mary was too happy to be offended at her friend's patronising co-opting of Charles's class. "He had to go back to work," she said, a bit sadly. "At least - he should have been working today, you see, but he was with me all afternoon so he's making up for it now. He's terribly dedicated, but he works much too hard. I shall have to see to that."
"I'm sure you shall," Sylvia, giving her friend a sideways embrace and handing her a splendid Venetian masque. "Although - I suppose he will be at work an awful lot. I mean, proper jobs seem to be like that. And you're so used to popping about from place to place and house to house - shall you be bored in London on your own?"
"Oh no", Mary replied. She was in that blissful state in which many hours alone to contemplate the delights of her beloved seemed like the greatest pleasure life could have to offer and in any event, she had always enjoyed her own company. "Perhaps I shall get a cat."
At this Lady Sylvia laughed outright. "As you've already realised that a husband can quite easily be replaced for almost all purposes by an intelligent tabby, I can see you're quite in the right frame of mind to enter into matrimony. Come along, then. I won't breathe a word to a soul until you give me the nod. It's a shame for my three suitable men, though. I've never seen you look more radiant."
—————
Parker's less expressive face and habits of self-restraint meant that concealment of his state of mind came easier, although as he walked down the dark, misty road to Scotland Yard he felt that surely happiness was so vast and pulsing that it must surely be visible to anyone for many miles around. He had lovingly deposited Lady Mary at Sloane Square in a taxi, and then paid the taxi off and walked the rest of the way once he was around the corner, partly from his old frugal habits and partly because his excitement manifested in a boundless effusion of energy. He felt that he could easily have flown miles into the sky, had the occasion to do so arisen, but his face betrayed little of this as he walked into the Yard. He carried out the tasks he had assigned himself in his usual well- disciplined way, and exchanged suitable New Years pleasantries with the few colleagues and subordinates at the Yard that night when midnight struck.
His work completed, he walked home through the inky blackness of the dead of night at three o'clock. The restraint that his work had imposed slipped off him like a cloak and he began to beam idiotically. He felt he'd never seen the wonder of a London night sky before, and delighted like a small child in the soft islands of light below the gas lamps. Passing beneath one of these he stared down at his hands in continued astonishment at the fact that only seven hours before those hands had been on Mary's waist as he kissed her and that before the sun set another time he would do so again. He laughed out loud, and shouted suddenly into the sleeping world "I'm marrying Mary! I'm marrying Mary!" for sheer gladness. He had thought he was communicating only with the rats and the sleeping pigeons never far from a nighttime London street, but a kindly drunk was ambling in a sea of unlit street nearby, and called back "Here's to you, then , and to your lady!"
Charles smiled to himself as he regained his self-possession and continued his walk home. "To me and to my lady", he repeated to himself, "to me and to my lady."