Delicate wisps of fog are just starting to swirl down upon the city, gauzy as gray silk and so very much like the approach of evening on the northern coast of Ireland. The street bustles with end-of-workday activity. A few automobiles sputter and cough as dozens of horse-drawn carriages and delivery wagons skirt them without much notice or fear. A streetcar full of riders rattles past.
“I’ve a carriage for us just here.” Martin leads us to an ebony-hued buggy hitched to an even blacker horse that waits curbside. The driver opens the door for me and I step inside. Martin climbs in to sit across from me.
As the carriage begins to move, he asks if my travel was acceptable.
“Yes, thank you. It was.”
He nods.
“Is Kat waiting for us to return after . . . after our errand?” I ask.
“Yes.”
And then, because I must, I ask Martin if he has changed his mind about anything we’d agreed upon in our previous correspondence.
“I have not,” he replies. “Have you?”
“No.”
“Then we’re settled.”
“Yes.”
And then, since we are apparently all set, Martin casts his gaze out the carriage window.
I had expected nervous conversation in the carriage or a string of questions politely thrown in my direction or perhaps a steady stream of information from him about his daughter or maybe even his dead wife. But Martin doesn’t speak as the carriage makes its way to the courthouse. Perhaps he is shy around women? Or maybe he is choosing to mask any nervousness with silence, just as I am. Some minutes later the carriage comes to a stop.
“You can leave your travel bag,” Martin says as he reaches for the handle. “The driver is going to wait.” Martin steps out and then assists me. The combined courthouse and city hall looms in front of us like an opulent palace, with great columns of carved marble and a sparkling dome that is half-blanketed in light mist and twilight.
Inside, we walk swiftly through the echoing foyer and toward the offices of the justice of the peace, the heels of my shoes clicking on the marble flooring.
We enter a courtroom where another civil ceremony appears to have just concluded. The black-robed judge, graying and portly, is shuffling papers behind his tall desk, and at a table next to him a woman in a dark blue dress is showing the newlywed couple’s witnesses where to sign the certificate of marriage. A photographer is taking a portrait of the bride and groom. The bride is wearing a canary yellow shirtwaist, and her new husband a gray suit the color of thunderclouds. The two of them look like sunshine and rain, but they are beaming—joyful and clearly in love. A trio of lilies rests in the crook of the woman’s arm.
“Next couple, please?” The clerk of the court—a lean, bespectacled man—looks past the freshly married couple to where we stand. “Mr. Hocking and Miss Whelan?”
“Yes, we’re here.” Martin reaches for my hand and leads me forward to stand in front of the justice’s immense oaken desk.
“Stand right here,” the clerk says. “If you have rings, get them ready. The judge will address you in just a moment.”
“Thank you,” Martin replies, without a hint of uneasiness.
“No witnesses of your own?” the clerk asks in a bored tone.
“No. It’s just us.”
The man turns to the woman in the blue dress. “I’ll need you to stay and be a witness for this last one, Mrs. Farriday.”
The woman nods as she gathers back her fountain pens and the document from the previous two witnesses. The happy couple in yellow and gray walk away arm in arm.
The photographer turns to Martin. “I’ll take your photograph, as well, if you’d like, sir. I do nice work. Only a dollar for a nice portrait for your mantel. And I’ll set you up for a set of cabinet photographs for giving away. Only two dollars for a dozen.”
“No, thank you,” Martin replies, not even looking at the man.
But I want a photograph of my wedding day. I want Mam to see this refined gentleman I am marrying, and how content I look on his arm. I want her to believe it will be different for me this time. I want to believe it, too.
I touch Martin’s arm. “Please, may we have him take a photograph?”
Martin swivels to face me.
“I would like one for my mother. And one for us. Shouldn’t we have one for us? And maybe one for your parents back east?”
He considers this for several seconds and then turns to the photographer. “We won’t need a dozen. Just two. One for the mantel and one for her mother.”
Martin hands the photographer the money and gives him an address. He then fishes out of his pants pocket two gold rings. The smaller one is set with a tiny glittering sapphire. He hands the larger one, a plain gold band, to me. It is smooth and warm in my palm.
And then the clerk is in front of us, telling us the judge is ready. The vows are simple and short. In a matter of mere breaths, it seems, the judge is finished and the rings are exchanged. The judge pronounces us married and then he stands and bids us good night.
There is no kiss to seal our vows. Our words did that, and the certificate will bear witness that we indeed said them.
I am led to a long table, handed a fountain pen, and told where to sign my name. Martin signs next, followed by the woman in the blue dress and the clerk. The judge, gone now, has already signed it.
“All right, then,” the photographer says to us. “If you’ll just turn toward me, folks. Sir, if you’ll just slip one hand into your pocket there.”
Martin and I stand as directed and the photographer takes the shot in a burst of bright light from his flash lamp.
The clerk and Mrs. Farriday are leaving by another door, and the photographer is hoisting his camera and flash pole on his shoulder and heading out of the emptying courtroom. I look down at the ring on my finger. Under the amber light of the ceiling lamps, Martin’s little sapphire sparkles like a tiny moonlit ocean.
Night has fallen soft and ghostly when we emerge from the courthouse. Swaths of denser fog now hug the streetlamps and obscure the sky like a never-ending bridal train. We climb back into the waiting carriage.
Martin is again quiet as we ride. The silence doesn’t seem to fit the occasion, even one as unusual as ours. I clear my throat. “Thank you for allowing that photographer to take our portrait.”
Martin turns his gaze from the window to look at me. “You’re welcome.”
“So . . . are you sure you don’t want to send a photograph back home to your parents as well?” I am wondering if he, like me, is hesitant to inform his family of what he’s just done. When he doesn’t answer me, I add, “I understand if you’re anxious about telling your parents. I . . . I actually feel the same way about telling my mam.”