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CHAPTER FIVE

It was about six months they enjoyed their courtship. The day and night was quiet safe for a cold wind which blew from the eastern wilderness. Students engaged in domestic works and most of them in industrial works to get money to help them in preparation for the next academic session that was fast approaching. Vivian was having a pretty-good time, she increasingly absorbed in frolic gaiety. She could not engage herself in any holiday’s work. She was all the daylong busy domestically. She needed no financial help from any person, even her parents or any industrialist who would employ her in any form of work, since she had received the sum of five million dollars from Charles. She had everything she wanted for her career.

Most times, she woke earlier than any living being and spent many hours thinking about Charles. The thought about him was eating her like caterpillar eating a tree to a stump. Charles’ request to marry her coloured every memory she had of him. She had given herself, heart and soul to Charles. If he abandoned or failed to marry her or married some other girl at last, she might take her own life. She was jealous of him – too jealous indeed. She did not want another girl to snatch him away from her. She hated, and if possible, could stab to death with her mental dagger and visual sword any girl who came to look for him. She had dreamt like a moron many nights and wondered what Charles would feel like when he receive the letter she wrote him, which its contents declared her parents’ wishes about their engagement and her vows to him.

On the tenth of June, nature obeyed necessities; Charles received a letter from the town’s snail-mail runner. He looked at it in the light from the living room. It was a recent letter, his name and address, in purple ink, was on a label pasted on the envelope. When he tore the letter from one end, he brought out a white foolscap, typewritten in black ink. He read it, and its content brought a sudden joy and satisfaction to him. He felt the unmistakable tingles of excitement that always came when he knew he was on the brink of discovering something important. It bore the expected information he had so long awaited from Vivian’s parents that was to give consent to his marriage proposal to Vivian.

Though before the time he received the letter, Charles said that it should not be wise for Vivian’s parents to reject his offer; yet the acknowledgement they gave influenced his zeal. Right now, he is going to forget about all the troubles he was worrying about her parents’ response and focus on this high-handed plan to marry her. He assured himself that his own side would not constitute a problem in the arrangement, since the formal enquiries toward her native character and genuine trend had been conspicuously investigated.

Though Charles had been making personal enquiries about Vivian, since the day he made up his mind in finding favour from her; he had not for all these days notified his parents about his present pursuit. The very day he came across Vivian’s letter, he had been intending to let his parents know about it. Since her parents had accepted his offer, he was envisaged, and later made up his mind to tell his parents about his intention to marry a girl he found in the university that suited his interest. For a time, he pondered what would be his parents’ reactions to his urgent desire to marry without graduating from his relevant course. He had come to realize that his father had constantly mentioned to him such thing like looking for a kind and moral wife for him in their community, who would fit in to their family principles.

To this regards, he had been thinking about the kind of wife his father desired to get for him to marry; though one thing he could not assure himself was whether his parents would accept an undergraduate in the case that his parents, especially his father had been seriously against men who married graduates. His father used to say that “graduates are not trustworthy.” He said that, “that they are too open to amorous acts and are prone to disappointment.” According to him, “they always marry and divorce their husbands, and they do not stay at home to nurture their children.” They always go to seminars and symposia and would spend many weeks without coming home. His father had wished that Charles would marry a seventh grade student, simple and humble, well dressed, and not the kind that puts on men’s wears and wonder along the streets. At the moment of Charles’ decision to espouse, he had conclusively decided to marry an undergraduate or a graduate, either; who would meet-up his demands, not to marry a seventh grade student but someone who would read her letters by herself. Someone who was not new to life; who would consider every word she said in the very sense that it would suit him and who would measure him very rightly by her manner of dealing with him, and who could not be heady. All his thoughts to remain faithful to his parents’ wishes fled before his absolute need for Vivian.

Charles had thought many things about his marriage that night, till the next morning that was blessed by the glorious sunrise from the eastern cloud. The sun rays pierced through the parapet of the bedroom windows, he rose from his bed and went to the piazza. When he arrived at the piazza, his father Rogers, and his mother Regina were setting side-by-side though few inches apart from each other, discussing few problems of the day. Charles was very happy to have seen them at the piazza. He wondered why his father had not gone out earlier to his office as usual. He realized that government workers do not work on Saturdays. Seeing his parents, he greeted them and they replied him cross-curtly like school pupils in procession before class.

“Yes,” began Charles. “My main purpose of coming to you is to inform you that I want to get married to a girl that I love. I have reached the age of accountability and I want a good mate at this time. Time waits for nobody. Procrastination is a thief of time. Please I want to know your motives about this.”

His father at hearing him roved his old sunken eyes that were critically fenced with shattered white eye brows. It was as if everything inside him softened and relaxed. It was as if the tension he had previously for his marriage was calmed. He scratched his unkempt moustache, cleared his throat and responded courteously.

“There isn’t bad intention for making a choice when one is about to marry. I know you are planning to own your own family and someday have kids. It is quite better to marry than to burn. If a man marries or makes his personal choice, he must look before he leaps, lest he jumps into a great ditch that would affect his life throughout. I would not obstruct your good ambition; the growth of manhood requires an obedient mate. It is good to get married than going about with all these stripteases that walk the street lanes. I would not encourage you to engage with someone who makes you unhappy in life, through underrating of the principles of the laws of the society. You need someone with good character and morally brought up; apart from these modern eye-winkers with blue and black stuff under their eyes, who could not guide your children from juvenile delinquencies. I want to remind you that we have fought tooth and nail to see that you graduate from a government recognized university. It’s your turn to help your upcoming younger brothers and sisters to be educated as you. I know that you have determined to marry, we would not get in the way of your instincts, but if you go after a prostitute or a Hollywood class, we might be in serious trouble here.

“Oh! I will live to become a grandmother.” Regina burst forth into hilarity that was exchanged with great joy and admiration for Charles’ proposal. She was glad to be able to be alive and see him get married. She rolled and wallowed in a stream of bliss when he told them that he had decided to take a wife. Few years ago, the thought of Charles marrying had consumed nearly her entire life with worrying about him because he was the only son of the family. She had compelled him to marry few years ago so that he may open the door for his upcoming younger brothers and save the family from danger of extinction and shame. Anticipation filled her as she heard Charles mentioned that he was about to get married. On the one hand, she felt excited that Charles would populate the family with males, because she bore mostly girls to her hubby besides Charles. She knew she had done everything she could to persuade Charles to marry after his secondary school but Charles had rejected her aim of early wedlock.

“Charles,” Regina began. “I thank you for deciding to end our shame at last. I can now have a rest of mind. You have come to show us true and everlasting love. I can now sleep. But we wish you commence and conclude your proposed marriage today! The candle light of our patience had died many years ago. It is wonderful that you want to marry, so wonderful that you want me to see your progeny and not die a bachelor. You should examine well before you marry o! Don’t engage yourself with any inexperienced girl, rascal, disobedient type, a go about, or painted face flapper, the untrained one, a mongrel, not one with flashing eyes, with blue paint under her eyes like the eyes of a lizard. You should rather weigh your choice of mate on the scale of patience, long-suffering, virtuousness; someone who swims in the sea of humility, sober and not full of acrimony and nagging traits. Since you’ve made a choice, I would be captivated with the motive of your choice, and would be in favour of any plans you would make, and would not hesitate to give my consent to your prerogatives and would involve in dealing with the problems that might try to upset or obstruct your plans.”

“Mum, I have examined the character of my mate. She pleased me. I cannot do without her. There are many good women in the world. If there is a bogus dollar, there must have been a genuine one: where there is a wrong woman there must be a virtuous type. I have made investigations about her, and came out with a satisfied result. I thought of her as a soul filled with light. She is kind and generous, and very practical too. Apparently, I am interested in what I felt about her. She is the type that would bring up a family that would take after me, and who would bear children made of noble race.” Charles explicitly explained.

“If her family is good, her manners on the long run might change like the changing weather or chameleon sly. When you marry some girls, at first they would hide their dubious characters and when they go home with you, they go with seven demonic characters that manifest each year in turn. Such girls might be somewhat beautiful in the face, but physical beauty is not always the basis. Your happiness would entail the kind of heart she possesses. Do not base your choice on a hopeless woman nor take a woman you see as beautiful on the face. We will admire a monkey-face woman if she stays at home to look after home and her children because most women today do not stay at home. We thought that you would return home to marry. You must take a wife from this land or any other rural place where we still have some young ladies who know that they are women and who are of good character. I tell you, don’t marry in a town where you have only loosed, crazy and morally bankrupt women,” Rogers asserted with strong baritone.

“Yes, my son,” Regina began. “You must make thorough investigations before you take up the decision of marrying any girl. Most of them are devils in badger skins; and any kind of girl that was picked from the street has always been a sneer in the family. Please, look for a good girl! Meanwhile your father and I will talk to friends in her community about finding a way to trace her biography and the background of her family. I could now remember how John’s son, who passed out from high school studies and returned from America and decided to espouse a girl he met on the street one night. When his parents admonished him to desist from his plan, Jonah insisted that he must marry her. When Jonah disobeyed and married this beautiful girl named Angel, they lived a period of fortnight; one night the girl changed into a big snake and quickly ran into a nearby river and vanished till date.”

“Mum, do you really mean that she changed from a human being to a reptile? I believe this is not one of your fairy tales,” Charles retorted.

“Yes Charles, I want to be honest. It was a real and mysterious story; not a fiction but what happened in the neighbourhood few years ago. What you heard your father said was a reality. It is as real as the rhythms of the water moving down the river. In a question of choosing a girl to marry, beauty is not a paramount consideration. In this case, many things must be put into account in the order of their pressing importance. As a matter of fact, beauty is not the first thing. It is not even the second. I tell you, it is among the last. Indeed, the first thing to be considered is the character of the lady, her family health history, moral background, and social status. If the woman is of good character and the family does not have history of dirty, shameful health problem like madness, imbecility and epilepsy, not have as some of its members armed robbers, terrorists, and other social miscreants, the girl is good for marriage. We are advising you to marry a good nurtured woman whether she is beautiful or not.” Regina declared emphatically.

“Yes,” began Rogers. “The story you have just heard is not a hear-say. It is not a fable. It happened as you see the unchangeable sun emerges from the blue cloud; you are still young. Your motive to join with a girl of your choice had no ruinous consequences, only if you make a wrong choice of mate. Though a kind of a woman you choose to be a saint possibly could be a devil or serpent in your bed. What determines the eternal destiny of a man depends on the kind of wife he espoused. If she is a vulgar type, she reflects the man’s ambition and the kind of home he anticipates in the future. Be careful of the kind of woman you want to marry and the place from which you want to marry her. Those two things are very vital. Let me warn you! Don’t let the beauty of a woman to lead you into a hell of marriage. No matter how beautiful a woman may be, if she is of bad character, she will taste sour and bitter and her beauty will shrink and wither from the eyes of her husband to the extent that when he looks at her he sees only a vulture and a deadly snake and scorpion”.

“Papa, you are not a novice to the frigid fierceness and extreme disordered characters that rose so awfully among the modern women. They have many characteristics, of course, but there is no way to know which apply to them. All of them look alike; it is only through fortune that one can get a good mate. Vivian has developed true and unconditional love for me. Her love for me went beyond wealth and fame. She loves me dearly. She liked my character too. As a matter of fact, all these made me to determine to be her better-half and my life partner.” Charles asserted.

“What is the name of your girl? How do you see her person?”Regina enquired.

“Mum, her name is Vivian Harry. She hails from Novo State. She is an undergraduate in English department. We met in the university and we decided to get married. She is about few years younger than I and with one of those ordinary beautiful faces you meet everywhere. I found her very nice and helpful. She is exceptional,” Charles explained.

“Look Charles, it is such a shame that beauty can be such a curse, you know? You need a love and married life. I haven’t in any time supported you to marry an undergraduate or a graduate. They live spoilt lives in schools and are always in the demonic spirit of marriage and divorces. You could espouse her, few years later, she would find a man who is more handsome or more educated, and richer financially than you, and then she would divorce you and that first love she had for you, and pick on this richer man. I thought that we should have come together and put heads together to find a good girl for you, because if you don’t find a good mate it would create all kinds of difficulties. How would you make us believe she wasn’t just some kind of crank? We do not want abusive relationship. Nobody needs that kind of pain in the ass,” Charles father began tremulously.

“Dad,” began Charles, “I am sure that I love Vivian to the crack of death and have determined to offer her all the weight of my heart in marriage. If she refrains from her present love after espousement, it would be the justice to condemn her rude actions and heavens would frown at her violations of the laws of love, which bind us together as beloved pair.”

“You may give her all your heart and vastness of love which covered the universe, but when the road doesn’t go easy, she would give you no credit toward your love for her. You may wonder how my words become true; hence she might look sincere in every word she spoke to you in the beginning. One thing you should understand and grasp as fact is that a woman’s love could go on when there is prosperity, but her previous love turns when things become hard. If you want to marry, you would only put your eyes on cool class of women, not the greedy type or these vulgar girls whose fathers are millionaires, such group are quite inconsiderate and are prone to change men like one changes clothes whenever they wish.” Rogers admonished.

“Daddy, your advice and mother’s too, lack nothing as regards to arrangement to this marriage. I vowed to her that I love her. We have decided to get married and move to township, where it is not hard to get a good job. If misfortune comes in the future, I shall take it to be the work of fate. Who would be able to count the fierce, unnumbered catastrophe that emanate from a bond of marriage. Though the improbability in the character of the opposite mate would not always be what we should most essentially mistrust. And as I and her are at the top of our desires and as I had surrendered all my future happiness to her care, I think of nothing beyond the exquisite desire of taking her as my wife. On the other hand, I cannot dismiss the promise that I made to her for a long time,” Charles butted in.

“My son, some women are like angels in the streets, saints in the churches and devils in the kitchen. It would be impossible to change all women in the world, so the best you can do is to look unto providence. Perhaps, we always pray to God for you to find a good sensible mate. I cannot choose a wife for you least in the time of trouble and disappointment any of you should heap blames on me. You should understand that marriage is like a game of chance which when staked precipitates futile and unfruitful results, but the only thing so needed among any pair is to live together in congenial temperament, endurance and accepting with satisfaction any resultant condition that crops up during the period of living together. Do not marry a woman who would order her husband to stop helping his kith and kin and other people financially and otherwise. We don’t want the type that quarrels and fights the husband, neither the woman that also quarrel and engage people in physical combat,” Rogers instructed.

“Yes, my son,” Regina began primly. “Your Daddy has been raising carefully some important points, which happened in most married homes, but the point you should grasp would depend on the kind of girl you have chosen as a wife, and besides other developments which would sometimes result to marital divorce. Apparently we do not want a promiscuous lady in our house, who brings strange men home with her in the absence of her husband. Now that you are looking for a life partner, I want you to look beyond friendship. Think of winning her as your wife. You have the golden opportunity of winning her from your description of your love for her, she is already condescended and stooped to wrap you up in her heart of love. Please, muff not this singular chance.”

“Mum, nobody knows whether he would dream a good dream when one goes to bed. You can’t know what you don’t know, but only what I know is that I have made my choice from a yeoman’s daughter who works in Agricultural Company. I believe my choice could only be affirmed by nature. Your encouragement and Dad’s instruction are in my heart. I do not take your warnings as an act of cowardice, but I have examined my mate who require no more brushing. If she changes after our marriage, it shows her mold by nature, if she is virtuous, it is as well a blessing. And her conduct would reflect the society that she comes from,” Charles narrated.

“My son,” Charles’ father began, “You have made your bed. There is an adage that says that as a man makes his bed so he shall lie on it. We are not here to deprive you from the choice you have made. We only instruct you on the flaws that accompany the example of wrong choice of mate. We are trying to find out what is her constitution, because we don’t want you to marry a society woman who went slumming for sexual thrills. I have been acquainted with men who drank poison and died because their mates whom they put their entire hope, love and trust divorced them, and married other men greater than them. I know a man who committed suicide because his so-much loved wife deserted him and married a fine neighbour of his who is richer than him. This act of marriage and divorce has been the manner of the modern women. If you espouse a girl who has a filthy character, she would expose her evil characters in the public. If you marry a virtuous girl, she would reflect your façade of nobility. What I would encourage you is that you should marry a woman of your choice and live in peace with her.”

“Thank you parents,” Charles said happily and left the

pizza.

After having consumed the morning hours in endearments and instructions of his parents over his new companion, he was about to marry, Charles was very happy that his parents who rejected his wish of marrying an undergraduate, were later filled with joy for his choice to marry Vivian. That day, he thought about her shinning, charming beauty. He focused his mental energies on the intoxicating love that existed between them. He recalled all the warm kisses, caresses and smiles they shared in the university. He also remembered all the time he thought and dreamed about Vivian, longing to have her as his wife. He had imagined what married life would look like. What does he mean when he said that he would be ready to marry an undergraduate whom his profound love favoured? A person who will go from one seminar to another, leaving home for weeks, but, as a matter of fact, his irresistible urge and irreversible decision to marry her was his forever destiny. He had made his decision to marry her because his eyes of reasoning had been blinded by the dazzling beauty of Vivian: hence he could not take the warnings of his father not to marry an educated woman.

Charles knew previously that he loved her yet he did not know if Vivian really loved him alike. Vivian had written to him about the kind of love she had for him in letter services sometime, but at the first sight of things, he found out by personal investigations that she had loved nobody in all her life; she remained a virgin ever her birth. That is the impression he got about her. At this moment, he did not particularly care about engaging with another woman. For these considerations, Charles quickly arrived at the conclusion that she loved him and he would marry her.

The best part of marrying her, Charles thought later was that he was now aware that he knew her far better than he had thought of before he discovered she was a good girl. She was an attractive girl. She would be someone with whom he had to share intense emotional intimacy throughout his life. She was a girl with whom he had to build an escape from the luring faces of modern women, and with whom he had come very close to making love in words and in actions.

The problem was that he could get over the huddle of his parents rejecting his marriage with an undergraduate. He did not want to slip into their depraved minds and view things from their perspective. He absolutely could not permit that. Besides, he would be angry with anyone who tries to pervade his ambition. Right now, he was totally down on marriage because his parents could not refute his idea of marriage, and he did not think he was mistaken for choosing to marry an undergraduate, no matter how many criticisms his father leveled on them. Before he saw Vivian, every relationship he ever had with a woman had eventually ended up with him being dissatisfied. Of course, a lot of that had had to do with his philandering acts and the way he could not be relied upon to show up as promised but it was really so different now that he met Vivian.

The only reason he had for not keeping his promises to women was to avoid finding himself hog-tied to a woman in a mutually conceived affair. He simply kept his relationship light and brief. It was the only sensible way to do it to keep away from enticing college students and backed away from intimate relationships. Since he found Vivian, he was not getting increasingly sick of the luring acts of women. He had felt the warmth of women’s love and he always believed that there is nothing in their love worth giving up his freedom and sanity. He had made a vow to himself – and he owed it to Vivian to be completely truthful with her.

Charles had a dream wife when the idea of marriage came into his mind. For any woman to suit his dream, she must possess three distinct qualities. The first quality was beauty. The second was shining beauty. And the third was beauty non-pareil. No doubt, Charles elected to marry a woman with these qualities because he was a man of oceanic wealth due to the millions of dollars his father banked in many foreign banks as a legacy for him. He usually said that no rich man wants to marry an ugly woman even if she was the only holy saint on earth. As a matter of fact, Charles would marry his dream wife

– Vivian even though she was a devil in human flesh. With his almighty money he could convert a demon possessed woman to a saint, he believed.

The next day, Charles started making preparations to wed Vivian after his visit to her family, he paid her dowry. September had gone half when Charles wedded Vivian in the Yale temple. There was enormous train of people that attended her wedding ceremony. It was coloured with cheers and kisses. They dined and wined. The celestial wedding was so wonderful that most people described it as the greatest wedding of the millennium. This was because many people with double head such as the pen, the gun, the cross were there. The ragtag and bobtail, the famished stomachs, the thirsty throats, the harebrained minds, were there. The money-bags and the Angus-eyed-eagles, the gallant lions and the wise men were equally there. In fact, the entire world attended the wedding. After the wedding, the feast continued for four good days. When the wedding train dispersed to their homes, the parents of Charles coaxed Vivian home and gave her an affable welcome.

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