Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

13. CHAPTER XIII (continued)

But the inexorable Theobald was not to be put off with such absurd excuses. He was master now. Had not Christina less than two hours ago promised solemnly to honour and obey him, and was she turning restive over such a trifle as this? The loving smile departed from his face, and was succeeded by a scowl which that old Turk, his father, might have envied. "Stuff and nonsense, my dearest Christina," he exclaimed mildly, and stamped his foot upon the floor of the carriage. "It is a wife's duty to order her husband's dinner; you are my wife, and I shall expect you to order mine." For Theobald was nothing if he was not logical.

The bride began to cry, and said he was unkind; whereon he said nothing, but revolved unutterable things in his heart. Was this, then, the end of his six years of unflagging devotion? Was it for this that when Christina had offered to let him off, he had stuck to his engagement? Was this the outcome of her talks about duty and spiritual mindedness--that now upon the very day of her marriage she should fail to see that the first step in obedience to God lay in obedience to himself? He would drive back to Crampsford; he would complain to Mr and Mrs Allaby; he didn't mean to have married Christina; he hadn't married her; it was all a hideous dream; he would-- But a voice kept ringing in his ears which said: "YOU CAN'T, CAN'T, CAN'T."

"CAN'T I?" screamed the unhappy creature to himself.

"No," said the remorseless voice, "YOU CAN'T. YOU ARE A MARRIED MAN."

He rolled back in his corner of the carriage and for the first time felt how iniquitous were the marriage laws of England. But he would buy Milton's prose works and read his pamphlet on divorce. He might perhaps be able to get them at Newmarket.

So the bride sat crying in one corner of the carriage; and the bridegroom sulked in the other, and he feared her as only a bridegroom can fear.

Presently, however, a feeble voice was heard from the bride's corner saying: