Slowly, it sank in. This was why the Glassons were so philosophical about Ismay’s false step, over which they might otherwise be raising the roof. The price of Ismay was—one million Canadian dollars, with accrued interest, because Francis had not been drawing heavily on his income. Of course, they knew all about it; the Cornishes of Cheewidden would have gossiped and probably exaggerated. One million Canadian dollars was rather more than two hundred thousand pounds, which to people like the Glassons was wealth illimitable.

That was where the price began. The larger part would be his thraldom to life in a dower house, under the shadow of St. Columb’s and the shadow of Chegwidden, free to paint and dream about myth if he were fool enough to want to do that. He was to be the money-bags, that was plain. More kids, undoubtedly. But such a fate could be avoided; the Glassons could not trap him there. No; after thinking about it painfully and honestly, Francis recognized that it was the money that really meant most, and he was brought to the shameful conclusion that he wanted Ismay, but he didn’t like her price.

Still, as Grandfather McRory always said, nobody has your money so long as it’s still in your own pocket. Roderick Glasson seemed to think that money would be made over to him in lumps. Francis made it clear that the uttermost he could manage, so far ahead as he could see, was four thousand pounds paid quarterly for the first year. This was not true, for not only had he his grandfather’s handsome bequest, but he also received enough from the trust that included his aunts and his mother to make up a good income in itself. But as Francis sat in his bedroom and did reckonings, he was astonished to find how fond of money he was, and how reluctant to let any of it out of his grasp. When he stated his terms to his uncle, Roderick’s face fell, but as he had no way of knowing what Francis really possessed, he had to make the best of it. After all, Francis pointed out, he would have to support Ismay and probably Aunt Prudence somewhere on the Continent for the greater part of a year, and that would be another call on his income. Capital, he explained, was not a thing one ever diminished. Roderick nodded sagely at this, knowing very well that he had himself diminished his capital almost to invisibility, and that this was what had brought him to his present position. But he was optimistic; after the first year things might look very different.

Ismay and Aunt Prudence on the Continent, said Roderick, as it sank in. But where would Francis be? At Oxford, said Francis. He was determined not to sacrifice his degree and he had another year to go. But what did he need with a degree? It would be useless if he were living the life of a country gentleman. Roderick had no degree; he had come out of the Navy to assume the splendours and miseries of St. Columb’s when he inherited it, and had never felt the want of a university training. It was at this point that Ismay joined in the genteel wrangling; she too wanted to complete her studies and receive some sort of university stamp. Francis had thought about that, too. She certainly could not return to Oxford; the colleges did not encourage married undergraduates—indeed objected to them, and understandably so. But she could go to the continent, and pursue her modern-language studies very effectively at Lausanne, and live near by at Montreux; continental universities did not give as much individual concern to their students as did Oxford. Such a stay abroad would dissemble the early arrival of the child, which was also a consideration. He would pay—within reason.

“You’ve got it all planned, haven’t you?” said Ismay to him when her parents were not near. “You’ve got them completely outgeneralled.” She spoke with admiration.

“It’s a short plan,” said he; “but it gives us a year to think about what we intend to do. I don’t want to settle here and become ‘Francis Cornish, whose sensitive landscapes follow in the path of B. W. Leader’.” He was really thinking about the profession, of which he had said nothing to Ismay, and which he was determined not to mention unless it became inescapable. Ismay as the Desired One was being replaced in his heart and mind by Ismay the Promised One, not to say the Inescapable One, and there were some things she must not know. She was worse than a blabber; she was a hinter. It gave her pleasure to rouse curiosity and speculation about dangerous things.

These family deliberations took place in the evenings, after Aunt Prudence and in a lesser degree Uncle Roderick had spent a toilsome day planning the wedding. So much to do! And all to be done on a shoestring—for the Glassons insisted that it would be indefensible, and even perhaps unchancy, to let Francis pay for any part of that. They greatly enjoyed the excitement, protesting that they did not know how they could get through another day like the one just completed.

Two nights before the wedding day Francis and Ismay escaped from the general hubbub, and were walking in a lane at dusk. Overhead the sky was deepening from a colour which reminded Francis of the cloak that Time and Truth deploy so effectively in the Bronzino Allegory.

“You feel trapped, don’t you?” said Ismay.

“Do you?”

“Yes, but my trap is a physical one. The kid. That has to be dealt with before I can do anything else. But you’re not trapped in that way.”

“No, but I have an obligation. Surely you see that? Apart from loving you, and wanting to marry you, of course.”

“Oh Frank, don’t be so stuffy! I hate to think what your upbringing must have been. You’ve still got a chance.”

“How?”

“Scarper, of course.”

“Desert you? Now?”

“It’s been done.”

“Not by me. I’d feel the most terrible shit.”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“Maybe not. But I’d think so.”

“All right, my dear-O-dear. It’s your neck.”

“I’m really surprised you think I might.”

“Don’t ever say I didn’t give you a chance.”

“You’re a tough little nut, Ismay.”

“Not the Celtic princess of your dreams? Maybe I’m more like a Celtic princess of reality than you suppose. From all I’ve heard they could be very tough nuts, too.”

When the wedding day came neighbours arrived from far and wide: county families, the professional bourgeoisie, tenants of St. Columb’s (who had been badgered by the agent into presenting the couple with a mantel clock, engraved in suitably modified feudal terms), such old women as attended all weddings and funerals without distinction of class, and the Bishop of Truro, who did not read the Marriage Service, but gave the blessing afterward. Ismay, tidy for once, and robed in virgin white, looked so lovely that Francis’s heart ached toward her. The Service was read by the local parson, who was from the very lowest shelf of the Low Church cupboard. He stressed the admonition that marriage was not to be taken in hand wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding, but for the propagation of children. All of this he spat out with such distaste that he alarmed Ismay’s two sisters, Isabel and Amabel, present in white dresses to signify virginity in its rawest and meatiest guise, and caused the Glassons and Francis to wonder if the good man smelt a rat. But it was soon over; “The Voice That Breathed o’er Eden” was sung, the Bishop said his say, and Francis and Ismay had been licensed to go to bed in future without shame.

The wedding had not bothered Francis unduly, but the wedding breakfast was a different matter. At this affair, which was held on the lawn at St. Columb’s because it was a fineish day, Roderick Glasson the Younger took charge, and conducted the affair in the manner of a Best Man who was aimed at Whitehall, and wanted everything to be done with precision, and with only such enthusiasm as was compatible with his ideal of elegance—which kept enthusiasm well in check.