moonstrung
His uncle & he take a carriage from one side of the center park to the other, in order to arrive at her house prestigiously. His uncle, also named Benjamin (the man adhered to the idea that the men in his family were all called Benjamin in order to save money to afford things other than new names. Make what one will of that.) was exclaiming things excitedly along to the gentle jostling on the carriage. He could not join in the merriment. When the carriage arrived, the wheezy driver unlatched the door, and Benjamin the Younger and Benjamin the Older both stepped out; one with a lean, graceful, timid countenance; the other with a cough and a cacophonous comment about killing himself accidentally on cobblestones. "Nervous, Ben?" the stout but bright eyed man asked. Nervous was not even the half of it; he felt torn between wanting to melt into the ground and hijacking the carriage. Marriage, as a business and as a whole, was a nerve-wracking prospect. It was not as if he did not want to get married; far from that. He simply would have preferred to have married a woman who was already his wife for five years, and entirely used to him. "Ah, you’ll be fine, my boy. Come now!" His uncle clapped his back, and the two men advanced up the steps. When they got to the top, Benjamin the Older was already panting, but smiling beneath his sheen of sweat. "Go on, ‘en." He said. Benjamin parted his lips quizzically, and drew his posture back, puzzled, to which his uncle scoffed. "Ring the bell, y’ silly lad!" Ah, yes. The bell. Benjamin the Younger braced himself, squared his jaw. He took his time; one, two, three seconds, just to admire the doorbell; to think of all that lay ahead of him, to think of —- "Oh, here now!" His uncle hollered, and shocked the dazed Younger into ringing. There. It was done & it had begun.
{ A nearly overwhelming sense of foreboding settled around Lucy's shoulders the moment the sun woke her. Today was the day. There was something strangely finite about the unconscious stress her mind put on 'the'. It was the only day that mattered, or was supposed to, in her life. She was to be married. Lovely.
Not that she did not want to be. On the contrary, she was rather in love with the idea of being in love. A wonderful emotion, or so she'd been told, that she had never had the chance to understand. Until now.
Now, as in right now. As in 'oh, for God's sake, hurry up, Lucy, or you'll be meeting your husband in your nightgown!' Or at least, that's what her mother nearly shouted at her. In actual fact she barely raised her voice. Her father was in the room, and only his daughter's practised ears could detect the distinct threat behind his wife's words.
Today was the day. There would be no other and if she made a mess of it? She shuddered to think, for she did want to be married, if only to get it over with. Lucy especially would've liked it if she got to choose who as well. But that would never work out well for all parties. Somehow, she didn't think marrying a neutral being who would not interrupt her reading would sit well in any social circle.
Surprisingly, she did not see it as resigning herself to her fate as she sat in the parlour, practising how to serve tea with almost robotic motions. Rather, she found herself anticipating the sound of her future husband's arrival.
He couldn't be any worse than she imagined him to be, after all.
It was a small comfort as her stomach twisted itself into hopeless knots. So full of anxiety was she that when the doorbell rang, she stood straight up and made to answer it herself. Her father's arm on her shoulder stayed her, but was unable to steer her back to where she was supposed to be.
Loitering awkwardly in the hallway, she waited as mother answered the door. }
