The church was small and very cold, and smelled of damp stone and wax and the lilies somebody had crammed into a pair of brass vases on either side of the altar rail. There were perhaps thirty people in the pews. At the front, before the rail, stood a clergyman in a surplice — an elderly man, round-shouldered, holding his prayer book very close to his spectacles — and before him, with their backs to the door, the wedding party.
The groom was tall and well made, with thick fair hair going a little silver at the temples. He wore a blue coat that had cost a great deal of money and fitted him beautifully. He stood easily, with his weight on one hip, like a man who had stood before many altars and found them all much alike.
The bride was smaller than Jasper had expected — though he could not have said what he had expected. She wore a pelisse of dove-grey silk over a white muslin gown, and a straw bonnet with a short veil of white lace that fell to her chin. Beside her, a heavy, red-faced man in his fifties held her elbow as though he was afraid she might get away.
"— and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly—"
Jasper walked down the aisle.
He heard heads turning in the pews, a ripple of whispers like wind in barley, and somebody's sharp intake of breath. He was aware, distantly, of how he must look — unshaven since Tuesday, his greatcoat spattered to the shoulders with red Somerset mud, his hat in his hand and his hair wild from the wind. He was aware of Thrale's quick footsteps behind him. He did not stop until he was ten feet from the rail.
The clergyman had faltered and looked up. The groom had turned his head. Only the bride had not moved at all.
"— into the which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined," the clergyman said, uncertainly, staring at Jasper over his spectacles. He seemed to decide that the safest thing was to go on. "Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace."
The silence that followed was the longest Jasper had ever heard.
"I can," he said.
The congregation made a single sound, half gasp and half groan. The red-faced man holding the bride's elbow swung round, his jaw working. The clergyman lowered his prayer book.
"Sir," he said, "I — you must — who are you, sir?"
"My name is Kelmscott."