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"But Marion will have her own way about it, anyhow. Seen this new powdered fertiliser?" I went in to talk to Mrs. Ramboat. "She'll want time to get her things," said Mrs. Ramboat.... I and Marion sat down together on a little seat under some trees at the top of Putney Hill, and I came to my point abruptly. "Look here, Marion," I said, "are you going to marry me or are you not?" She smiled at me.
I went for a walk with Marion towards Putney Bridge, and then there was more singing and a supper of cold bacon and pie, after which Mr. Ramboat and I smoked. During that walk, I remember, she told me the import of her sketchings and copyings in the museum.
And two middle-aged spinsters, cousins of Marion's and dressmakers at Barking, stand out. They wore marvellously bright and gay blouses and dim old skirts, and had an immense respect for Mr. Ramboat. They threw rice; they brought a whole bag with them and gave handfuls away to unknown little boys at the church door and so created a Lilliputian riot; and one had meant to throw a slipper.
As I waited for Marion before we started off upon our honeymoon flight, Mr. Ramboat, I remember, came and stood beside me and stared out of the window. "There was a funeral over there yesterday," he said, by way of making conversation, and moved his head at the house opposite. "Quite a smart affair it was with a glass 'earse...."
They got very muddy and dull; Mr. Ramboat killed a cow by improper feeding, and that disheartened them all. A twelvemonth saw the enterprise in difficulties. I had to help her out of this, and then they returned to London and she went into partnership with Smithie at Streatham, and ran a business that was intimated on the firm's stationery as "Robes."
She had taken a line of her own I gathered, draped the mirror, got the second-hand piano, and broken her parents in. Her mother must once have been a pretty woman; she had regular features and Marion's hair without its lustre, but she was thin and careworn. The aunt, Miss Ramboat, was a large, abnormally shy person very like her brother, and I don't recall anything she said on this occasion.
You don't want to go to one of those there registry offices?" "That's exactly what I'd like to do. Marriage is too private a thing " "I shouldn't feel married," said Mrs. Ramboat. "Look here, Marion," I said; "we are going to be married at a registry office. I don't believe in all these fripperies and superstitions, and I won't submit to them. I've agreed to all sorts of things to please you."
Ramboat reflected; "but I sometimes wonder a bit what good it is?" I was young enough to be led into what he called "a bit of a discussion," which Marion truncated before our voices became unduly raised. "I dare say," she said, "there's much to be said on both sides." I remember Marion's mother asked me what church I attended, and that I replied evasively.
Ramboat and the spaniel. Mrs. Ramboat was too well trained in her position to remark upon our somber preoccupation. She kept a thin trickle of talk going, and told us, I remember, that Mr. Ramboat was "troubled" about his cannas. "They don't come up and they won't come up. He's been round and had an explanation with the man who sold him the bulbs and he's very heated and upset."
The table had a great display of chrysanthemums, and there was orange blossom in the significant place and a wonderful cake. We also circulated upwards of a score of wedges of that accompanied by silver-printed cards in which Marion's name of Ramboat was stricken out by an arrow in favour of Ponderevo.
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