The Rebel Angels

"Dear friends, this is a happy occasion, and I am particularly honoured at having been asked to propose the health of the bride. I do so with the deepest feeling of tenderness, for I love her as a teacher to whom she has been the most enriching and rewarding of pupils. We teachers, you know, can only rise to our best when we have great students, and Maria has made me surpass myself and surprise myself, and what I have given to her – which I will not pretend with foolish modesty has been little – she has equalled with the encompassing warmth of her response. She is surrounded at this moment by her two families. Her mother and her uncle, who so clearly represent the splendid tradition of the East and of the past, and by Father Darcourt and myself, who are here as devoted servants of that other tradition which she has claimed as her own and to which she has brought great gifts. One mother, the phuri dai, the Mother of the Earth, is splendidly present among us: but the other, the Alma Mater, the bounteous mother of the University and the whole great world of learning and speculative thought of which the University is a part, is all about us. With such a heritage it is almost superfluous to wish her happiness, but I do so from my heart, and wish her and her husband long life and every joy that the union of root and crown can bring. Those of you who know of Maria's enthusiasm for Rabelais will understand why I wish her happiness in words for his: Vogue la galère – tout va bien!"

Polite applause rose from the Mumbles and the Clackety-Clacks, who seemed a little subdued by what Hollier had said; probably they had expected the usual avuncular facetiousness that goes with such toasts. Then Arthur made a speech that did nothing to lighten the atmosphere. To marry, he said, was to take a hand in a dangerous game where the stakes are the highest – a fuller life or a life diminished and confined. It was a game for adult players.

The speeches of bridegrooms are usually awful, but I found this one particularly embarrassing.

When toasts were over, and it was time to go – for as priest I know that I should leave before anybody gets obviously drunk, and family quarrels or fist-fights occur – I went to take my leave of Maria.

"Shall we see you again next term?" I said, because I could think of nothing that was not banal.

"I can't be sure, just yet. I may take a year out to get used to being married. But I'll be back. As Clem said, this is my home and you and he are my family. Thank you, thank you, dear Simon, for marrying me to Arthur, and thank you for the year past. I learned so much from you and Clem."

"Very sweet of you to say so."

But then there came over the face of my Maria a look I had never seen on it before, a look of teasing and mischief. "But I think I learned most from Parlabane," she said.

"What could you have learned from that ruffian?"

" 'Be not another if thou canst be thyself'."

"But you learned that from Paracelsus."

"I read it in Paracelsus. But I learned it from Parlabane. He was a Rebel Angel too, Simon."

Hollier came away with me, and he seemed so desolate that I hesitated to leave him. "Better go home and get some rest," I said.

"I don't want to go home."

I could understand that. The society of Hollier's mother was not precisely what a man needs who has relinquished his love to another man. Time I spoke out.

"Look Clem, there's no use whatever in either of us feeling sorry for ourselves. We've had all of Maria that was coming to us, and we gave her all that our nature and circumstances allowed. Let's not delight ourselves with the bitter-sweet pleasures of Renunciation. No 'It is a far, far better thing I do –' for us. We must be ourselves and know ourselves for what we are: Rebel Angels, we hope, and not a couple of silly middle-aged professors boo-hooing about what could never have been."

"But I was such a fool; I found out too late."

"Clem, don't spit on your luck. You think you have lost Maria; I think you are free of her. Remember your destiny that the phuri dai read for you at Christmas? The last card was Fortune, with her ever-turning wheel? It has turned in your favour, hasn't it? You have the Gryphius Portfolio as soon as you and Maria can get together again. That's your destiny, at your age and with your character. You're not a Lover; you're too much a Wizard. Now look here; go to your rooms and have a good afternoon's rest, and come to dinner at Ploughwright at six o'clock sharp. It's a Guest Night."

"No, no, I'll crowd your table."

"Not a bit of it; a guest has dropped out at the last moment, so there's a place which Fate has obviously cleared for you. Six o'clock for drinks. Sharp, mind. don't keep the Warden waiting."

3