Love Among the Lions: A Matrimonial Experience

I was still speculating, when a kind of small procession entered the arena. First came Mr Sawkins, with the Reverend Ninian, looking rather like a cheap Cranmer; next was a smart-looking person in a well-cut frock-coat and lavender trousers that I seemed to have seen before. It was my wedding suit; the wearer had gummed on a moustache and short side-whiskers which gave him a spurious resemblance to myself, but if nobody else knew him, I did – it was Onion, the Lion King!

And the next moment, I received a still greater shock, as Professor Polkinghorne followed with the lofty bearing of a Virginius, and on his arm was a slender shrinking figure, which, in spite of the veil she wore, I knew too well could be no other than Lurana.

"There's the bridegroom, d'ye see!" explained my hoarse neighbour; "he's a deal better lookin' than the pictures they've drawed of him in the papers. But he's as pale as plaster, he'll back out of it at the last moment – you just see if he don't!"

But I knew Niono better. I remembered his open admiration of Lurana, his envy at my good fortune, I felt convinced that his pallor was merely due to the absence of rouge and the fear that he would not succeed in his daring imposture. For I saw now that he had been planning to supplant me from the first; hence his attempts to shake my nerve, and, when they failed, hence his treacherous loan of a blunt razor. He was staking everything on the chance that the bride's natural agitation, and the thickness of her veil would prevent her from suspecting that he was a fraudulent bridegroom until the ceremony was over, while the audience, not expecting to see a Lion King in a tall hat, would be equally deceived.

"Pore young things!" said a stout female in front, with a nodding feather in her bonnet; "it's to be 'oped there won't be any unpleasantness, I'm sure. I'm 'alf sorry I came."

There was time even yet; I had but to rise, denounce the usurper, and take my rightful place at Lurana's side. I felt strongly impelled to do so; I actually stood up and tried to speak. But I realised that it was hopeless to attempt to make my feeble voice heard above the thunders of applause, even if excitement and emotion had not rendered me speechless. Besides, what satisfactory explanation of my present position could I offer? I sat down again with a sense of spellbound helplessness.

I looked on as the great arc-lamps were lowered, hissing and buzzing, to the level of the cage, and the Reverend Mr Skipworth prepared to ascend the inverted white tub that was to serve him as a reading-desk, and the unscrupulous Onion took the bride by the hand and conducted her to the steps which led to the door of the lion-cage.

"They're never goin' in among all them lions without nobody with them!" cried the stout lady. "It's downright temptin' of Providence, that it is!"

"Don't you be afraid," said the cynical man. "They ain't goin' in. Just look at that now!"

As he spoke two persons in plain clothes, who had apparently been waiting for this moment, stepped over the barrier from the shilling stalls into the ring, and, from their gestures, seemed to be insisting that the wedding should not take place inside the cage at all events.

There was an animated dispute in the ring; Niono blustered, Lurana pleaded, Sawkins expostulated, and the professor and Archibald Chuck (who had contrived to push himself into the party) argued, while Miss Rakestraw filled page after page of her reporter's note-book, and the Rev. Ninian sat upon his tub with meekly folded hands, looking more than ever like a martyr who knew himself to be incombustible.

The audience booed, and hissed, and yelled with natural rage and disappointment; the lions remained unmoved, blinking behind their bars, with crossed forepaws, and an air of serene indifference.

"I told yer there wasn't going to be no blooming wedding!" said my husky friend. "It's a reg'lar put-up job, that's what it is!"

It was possible; but whether the interrupters of the proceedings were hired supers or genuine officials, it was equally clear that there would be no wedding inside the cage.

How bitterly I regretted that by yielding to an irresistible impulse I had forfeited the right to stand by Lurana's side at this supreme moment! I could have done so with absolute impunity; I should have won a lifelong reputation for courage; Lurana herself would have owned that I had done all that was possible to gratify her whim, and would have consented to marry me in the orthodox fashion.

Whereas, here I was, separated from her by impassable barriers, in the ignominious seclusion of a back seat! However, this official prohibition had at least solved one of my difficulties; it had rendered it unnecessary for me to interfere personally.

The storm of indignation rose to a hurricane when the entire wedding party filed out of the arena with the officials, doubtless to discuss the matter in greater privacy.

The stout lady with the feather was particularly annoyed. "Why shouldn't the two young parties be allowed to please themselves?" she wanted to know. "It was their wedding, not the Government's. But it was always the way whenever she came out for a little amusement. Somethink was bound to go wrong."

Another long interval, during which the wildest disorder reigned unchecked, the crowd, with the irrationality of an angry mob, actually throwing pieces of orange-peel at the unoffending lions as the only creatures within the range of their displeasure. The hubbub was at its height when Sawkins reappeared and held up his hand for some time in vain before he could obtain a hearing. Then he addressed the audience as follows:

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "certain individuals claiming to represent the Home Office and the London County Council" (here there were groans, and my neighbour remarked disgustedly, that "that was what came of returning those Progressives") "have protested against a wedding in the cage as involving danger to the principal parties concerned." (Loud cries of "Shame!" and general uproar.) "I have the honour and pleasure to announce that we have succeeded in convincing these gentlemen that the proposed ceremony is no more open to objection than the ordinary performance, and that they have no legal power to prohibit it. Consequently the marriage will now be celebrated in the cage of forest-bred African lions, as advertised."

The revulsion of feeling after this most unexpected announcement was instant and tremendous; all hearts seemed touched with generous compunction for their uncharitable suspicions, and the hall rang with tumultuous cheers.

For myself, I could not share the general exhilaration. This preposterous wedding was permitted after all, and, unless Lurana's heart failed her at the critical instant, she would inevitably be lost to me for ever! I might still interpose; indeed I should have done so at all costs, but for a timely remembrance that no action I took now would regain her.

She might have been in ignorance before – but in the course of this delay she must have learnt that I had failed her, she must have accepted the lion-tamer as a substitute, and, even if I were to present myself, she would only inform me that my place was already filled. I had too much spirit to risk a public snub of that kind, so I stayed where I was. It cannot have fallen to many men's lot to look on as passive spectators at their own wedding – but what choice had I?

There was a deathlike silence as Niono slipt the bolt and gallantly handed the bride into the cage. She stepped in as collectedly as if it had been an ordinary Registry Office, and the great tawny beasts retreated sullenly to the other end, where they stood huddled in a row, while the Rev. Ninian, mounting his tub, read an abbreviated form of service in a voice which was quite inaudible in the balcony.

I tried to turn my eyes away from the scene that was taking place in that grim cage, and the two figures that were so calmly confronting those formidable brutes – but I felt compelled to look. And it was mortifying to see how trifling after all was the danger they incurred. I am afraid I almost wished that one of the animals would give some trouble – I don't mean of course by any actual attack – but by just enough display of ferocity to make Lurana understand what they might do.

But they never even attempted to cross the pole which had been thrust across the cage as a barrier. I was never told there would be a pole! They looked on, mystified – as well they might be – by proceedings to which they were totally unaccustomed, but still impressed, and sleepily solemn. Even the tiger behaved with irreproachable decorum.

I understood then what Onion had been careful not to mention; their food had been doctored in some way. If I had only known! Anybody could beard a hocussed lion!

And soon the words which made that couple man and wife were pronounced, or rather mumbled – for the Rev. Ninian would have been none the worse for a course of lessons from old Polkinghorne – and the newly-wedded pair came out of the cage without so much as a scratch, to the triumphant blare of the "Wedding March." There was frantic applause as the Professor embraced the bride with an emotion that struck me as overdone, while the Rev. Ninian, Miss Rakestraw, and Chuck, offered their congratulations and Mr Sawkins presented the happy couple with a silver biscuit-box (it may have been electro-plated), and a Tantalus spirit case.

But for that unfortunate slip of the razor, those gifts would have been mine – but I was in no mood to think of that just then, when I had lost what was so infinitely more precious.

I looked on dully till the party left the arena, declining with excellent taste to return in answer to repeated calls and bow their acknowledgments, and then, as the electric lights were hoisted up again and the elephant was led in to remove the lion's cage, I thought it was time to go.

It was all over; there was nothing to stay for now, and most of the people were leaving, so I joined the crowd which streamed down the staircase and along the broad passage to the main exit. Once in the open air, I hurried blindly past the flaring shops in the High Street, neither knowing nor caring where I was going, with only one thought possessing my numbed brain – how different it might all have been if only things had happened otherwise!

Wherever I looked I saw Lurana's lovely scornful face and flashing eyes painted with torturing vividness on the murky air. How flat and stale all existence would be for me henceforth! Life with Lurana might not have been all sunshine; it might have had its storms, even its tempests – but at least it would never have been dull!

I cursed the treachery which had induced her to link herself for life with a lion-tamer. Happy, I knew she could not be, for of one thing I was confident – she loved me; not perhaps with the passionate single-hearted devotion I felt for her, but still with a love she would never feel for any other. Perhaps she was already beginning to repent her desertion of me, and wishing she could undo that rash irrevocable act.

I was pounding up Highgate Hill, with no object beyond escaping by active motion the demons of recollection and regret that haunted me – when suddenly, as I gained the top of the hill, a thought struck me. Was the act irrevocable after all? Was it so absolutely certain that this Onion had the legal right to claim her as his wife?

He had certainly personated me. Had he borrowed, not only my frock coat, and trousers, but also my name for the ceremony? If he had, and if Lurana was, as she could hardly help being, aware of the fact, it did not require much acquaintance with the law to know that there was a chance, at all events, of getting the Court to declare the marriage null and void.

But he might have been married in his own name; I could not tell, owing to the indistinctness of Mr Skipworth's utterance, only Lurana or those in their immediate neighbourhood could say. I must know that first; I must examine the register, if there was one, and then, if – if Lurana wished to be saved, I might be able to save her.

I knew that a sort of wedding high-tea had been prepared at Canonbury Square, where the whole party would be assembled by this time, and I hurried back to Canonbury Square as fast as the tramcar would take me. My blood was roused; she would not be Niono's if I could prevent it. I would snatch her from him, even if I had to do so across the wedding-cake!

But when I reached the well-known door and raised the familiar knocker – a fist clutching a cast-iron wreath – in my trembling fingers, there were no sounds of festivity within; the house was dark and deserted.

I waited in the bitter January air; the street lamp opposite – the identical one under which Lurana had first agreed to marry me – flickered at every gust of the night wind, as though troubled on my account. They must have transferred the feast to the Circus, or to some adjacent restaurant; evidently there was no one there.

I was just turning hopelessly away, when I heard the bolt being withdrawn, and the door was opened by a maid.

"Where is your mistress?" I asked breathlessly. I could not bring myself to ask for Lurana as Mrs Onion.

"In the drawing-room, upstairs," was the unexpected reply, "with the 'istericks."

So long as she was not with Niono, I cared little; I bounded up, and found her alone.

As I entered, she raised her flushed, tear-stained face from the shabby sofa on which she had thrown herself. "Go away!" she cried, "why do you come near me now? You have no right – do you hear? – no right!"

"I know," I said humbly enough, "I deserve this, no doubt; and yet, if you knew all, you would find excuses for me, Lurana!"

"None, Theodore," she said; "if you had really loved me, you would never have deserted me!"

"I could not help myself," I retorted; "and really, Lurana, if it comes to desertion – !"

"Ah, what is the use of wrangling about whose fault it was," she moaned, "now, when we have both wrecked our lives! At least, I know I've wrecked mine! Why was I so insane as to set my heart on our being married in a den of disgusting lions? If you had only been firmer, Theodore, instead of giving way as you did!"

"At least it was not cowardice," I said. "When I show you the state of my chin – "

"Theodore!" she cried, with a little scream, "you are hurt! Tell me; was it the tiger?"

"It was not the tiger," I said. "Never mind that now. I was betrayed by that infernal Onion, Lurana. I never knew till it was too late – you do believe me, don't you?"

"I do; we were both deceived, Theodore. I should never have acted as I did if that horrid Frenchwoman hadn't told me – Oh, what would I not give if all this had never been?"

"If you are truly sincere," I began, "in wishing this unlucky marriage cancelled – "

"If I am! Are you, Theodore? Oh, if only there is a way!"

"There may be, Lurana. It all depends on whether my name was used at the ceremony or not. Try to recollect and tell me."

"But I can't, Theodore. You were there – you must know!"

"Mr Skipworth wouldn't speak up; and I was much farther away than you were."

"Than I was, Theodore! But – but I wasn't there at all!"

"Not present at your own wedding?" I cried, "but I saw you!"

"It was not me!" she said, "it was Mlle. Léonie. Is it possible you didn't know?"

My heart leaped. "For heaven's sake, explain, Lurana; let us have no more concealments."

"When I arrived," she said, "Mademoiselle explained about the tiger, and how sorry she was it was too late to remove it, since she understood I had an antipathy to tigers; and I said, not at all, I adored tigers, so she took me to see the cage, and I – I only tried to tickle the tiger, but he was so dreadfully cross about it – I nearly fainted. And she said it was simply madness for me to go in, and that you were every bit as frightened as I was."

"She had no right to say that," I said; "it's absolutely untrue!"

"I know, Theodore," she replied; "you have proved that you, at least, are no coward – but I believed her then. And I wrote you a line to say that I had altered my mind, and did not think it right to expose you or myself to such danger, and that I would wait for you by the Myddelton Statue. She promised to give you the letter at once!"

"I never got it," I said.

"No, she took care you should not. And I waited for you – how long I don't know —hours, it seemed – but you never came! Then I saw the people beginning to come out, and – and I went across and asked someone whether there had been any marriage or not, and he said, 'Yes, it had gone off without any accident, the bridegroom looked pale but was plucky enough, and so was the bride, though he couldn't tell how she looked, because of her veil.' And then of course, I knew that the deceitful cat had taken my place and managed to make you marry her! And at first I wanted to go back and stab her with my hat pin, but I hadn't one sharp enough, so I came home instead. And oh, Theodore, I do feel so ashamed! After boasting so much of my Spanish blood, and taunting you with being afraid as I did, to think that you should have shown the truer courage after all!"

I could not triumph over her then; I was too happy. "Courage, my darling, is a merely relative quality," I said. "Heaven forbid that we should be held accountable for the state of our nerves – even the bravest of us."

"But this marriage, Theodore," she said, "what can you do to have it set aside?"

"Do! Nothing," I replied; "after what you have told me, I no longer care to try."

"You despise me, then, because I broke down at the critical moment?"

"Not at all. I can never be grateful enough to you!"

"Grateful! Then do you mean to say you prefer that coarse, middle-aged, lion-taming person to me, Theodore?"

"Lurana," I said, "prepare yourself for a great surprise – a pleasant surprise. If anybody is now that lady's lawful husband it is Niono – not I; and a very suitable match too," I added (I saw now why the authorities had been compelled to waive their objections to it). "The fact is, I never went into the cage at all."

"You didn't go into the cage, Theodore! but how, why?"

"Do you imagine," I asked, "can you really suppose I should be capable of entering that cage with anybody but yourself, Lurana? How little you know me! Of course I declined!"

"But you didn't know I had run away then, Theodore! Why, you thought only a few minutes ago I was the person Mr Niono married! Perhaps you will kindly explain?"

For the moment I was in a fix, but I saw that the moment had arrived for perfect candour, and accordingly I told her the facts pretty much as they have been set down here.

She could hardly blame me for having behaved precisely as she herself had done, or refuse to admit that by taking any other course I should have imperilled our joint happiness, and yet I thought I could see that, with feminine unreason, she was just a little disappointed with me.

The true explanation of that marriage, if it was a marriage, in the den of lions, I have never been able to discover, nor for that matter have I been particularly curious to inquire whether Onion attempted to get rid of me in order to secure Lurana; whether Mdlle. Léonie played upon Lurana's fears with the hope of becoming my bride, or his; or whether the Lion King and his fellow artist gallantly sacrificed themselves to get the management out of a difficulty, I don't know, and, as I say, I haven't cared to ask.

But however it was, they were ably seconded by old Polkinghorne, who was naturally unwilling to be called upon to refund the money he had got for his free tickets, and by Miss Rakestraw and Archibald Chuck, whose reputations were also more or less concerned.

Nevertheless, although every effort was made to keep the public off the scent, and the circus people behaved, I am bound to say, with commendable discretion, sundry garbled versions of the facts did get about, and altogether Lurana and I have found the task of denying or correcting them such a constant nuisance that I have felt compelled, as I said at starting, to furnish, once for all, a statement of what actually occurred.

Now that it is written I have no more to add, except to append a cutting from an announcement which appeared not long ago in the principal papers. The arrangements for its publication were entrusted to Archibald Chuck, who I think must have added the last two words on his own responsibility.

Blenkinsop — De Castro. – On the 15th inst., at the Parish Church of St Mary, Islington, by the Rev. Merton Sandford, D.D., Vicar, Theodore Pidgley Blenkinsop, of Highbury, to Lurana Carmen de Castro, only daughter of the late Manuel Guzman de Castro, formerly Deputy Sub-Assistant Inspector of Spanish Liquorice to the Government Manufactory at Madrid. No lions.