The Rebel Angels

"Don't worry, there'll be none of that. But Yerko is taking himself very seriously as a substitute for my Father; as my Mother's brother he's far more important, really, in Gypsy life. Yerko has demanded, and received, a purchase-price from Arthur, in gold. And Yerko has ceremonially accepted Arthur as a "phral" – you know, a gadjo who has married a Gypsy, and who is regarded as a brother, though of course not as a Gypsy. And Mamusia has given us the bread and salt; she breaks a nice crusty roll and salts it and gives us each half and we eat it while she says that we shall be faithful until we tire of bread and salt."

"Well, you seem to be going the whole Romany hog. Are you certain you need a marriage ceremony after all that?"

"Simon, how can you ask such a thing! Yes, we want our marriage to be blessed. We're serious people. I am much more serious, much more real, for having accepted my Gypsy root."

"I see. What about Arthur's root?"

"Very extensive, apparently. He says he has a cellar full of dried roots."

When Arthur came he didn't want to talk about his root; he seemed more inclined to lecture me about orthodoxy, of which he had an unexpectedly high opinion. The reason so many modern marriages break down, he informed me, was because people did not dare to set themselves a high enough standard; they went into marriage with one eye on all the escape-hatches, instead of accepting it as an advance from which there was no retreat.

I think he expected me to agree enthusiastically, but I didn't. Nor did I contradict him; I have had too much experience of life to attempt to tell a really rich person anything. They are as bad as the young; they know it all. Arthur and Maria had agreed that they wanted no revised service as it appears in modern Prayer Books, and he brought along a handsome old volume dated 1706 with a portrait of Queen Anne, of all people, as a frontispiece, which was obviously from the possessions of the late Francis Cornish. I knew the form, of course, but felt I should take them through it, to make sure they knew what they were letting themselves in for, and sure enough they insisted on the inclusion of the passage in the Preamble which debars those who marry "to satisfie mens carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts, that have no understanding". They wanted to be enjoined publicly "to avoid fornication" and Maria wanted to vow to "obey, serve, love, honour and keep" her husband; indeed in the order of service they wanted she would use the word "obey" – so hateful to the liberal young – twice, and when I questioned it she said that it seemed to her to be like the oath of loyalty to the monarch – which is another vow that most people are too modern to take seriously.

I would have resisted all this antiquarianism if they had not both been so touching in their delight that marriage "was ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other". This was plainly what they were looking for, and Arthur was eloquent about it. "People don't talk to one another nearly enough," he said. "The sex-hobbyists go on tediously about their preoccupation without ever admitting that it is bound to diminish as time passes. There are people who say that the altar of marriage is not the bed, but the kitchen stove, thereby turning it into a celebration of gluttony. But who ever talks about a lifelong, intimate friendship expressing itself in the broadest possible range of conversation? If people are really alive and alert it ought to go on and on, prolonging life because there is always something more to be said."

"I used to think it was horrible to see couples in restaurants, simply eating and never saying a word to one another," said Maria, "but I am beginning to know better. Maybe they don't have to talk all the time to be in communication. Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence. But Arthur and I have never stopped talking since we decided to marry."

"I'm beginning to wonder if we haven't got the legend of Eden all wrong," said Arthur. "God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden because they gained knowledge at the price of their innocence, and I think God was jealous. "The Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it" – you recognize that, Simon?"

"One of the Gnostic Gospels," said I, a little nettled at being instructed in my own business by this young man.