An announcement of the forthcoming marriage between Emma Grace Barrington and Harold Arthur Clifton was published in The Times ten days later. The first banns were read from the pulpit of St Mary’s by the Reverend Styler on the following Sunday and over three hundred invitations were sent out during the next week. No one was surprised when Harry asked Giles to be his best man, with Captain Tarrant and Deakins as the principal ushers.
But Harry was shocked when he received a letter from Old Jack, declining his kind invitation because he couldn’t leave his post in the current circumstances. Harry wrote back, begging him to reconsider and at least attend the wedding, even if he felt unable to take on the task of being an usher. Old Jack’s reply left Harry even more confused: ‘I feel my presence might turn out to be an embarrassment.’
‘What is he talking about?’ said Harry. ‘Surely he knows that we’d all be honoured if he came.’
‘He’s almost as bad as my father,’ said Emma. ‘He’s refusing to give me away, and says he’s not even sure he’ll come.’
‘But you told me he’d promised to be more supportive in the future.’
‘Yes, but that all changed the moment he heard we were engaged.’
‘I can’t pretend that my mother sounded all that enthusiastic when I told her the news either,’ Harry admitted.
Emma didn’t see Harry again until she returned to Oxford to sit her exams, and even then not until she’d completed the final paper. When she came out of the examination hall, her fiancé was waiting on the top step, a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other.
‘So, how do you think you got on?’ he asked as he filled her glass.
‘I don’t know,’ sighed Emma, as dozens of other girls poured out of the examination hall. ‘I didn’t realize what I was up against until I saw that lot.’
‘Well, at least you’ve got something to distract you while you wait for the results.’
‘Just three weeks to go,’ Emma reminded him. ‘That’s more than enough time for you to change your mind.’
‘If you don’t win a scholarship, I may have to reconsider my position. After all, I can’t be seen associating with a commoner.’
‘And if I do win a scholarship, I may have to reconsider my position and look for another scholar.’
‘Deakins is still available,’ said Harry as he topped up her glass.
‘It will be too late by then,’ said Emma.
‘Why?’
‘Because the results are due to be announced on the morning of our wedding.’
Emma and Harry spent most of the weekend locked away in her little hotel room, endlessly going over the wedding arrangements when they weren’t making love. By Sunday night, Emma had come to one conclusion.
‘Mama has been quite magnificent,’ she said, ‘which is more than I can say for my father.’
‘Do you think he’ll even turn up?’
‘Oh yes. Mama’s talked him into coming, but he’s still refusing to give me away. What’s the latest on Old Jack?’
‘He hasn’t even replied to my last letter,’ said Harry.