Dom and Sandro Ch. 02

I expected that I would have to take care of most of the arrangements, but to my amazement, my mother showed a great determination to get involved, even though I was not marrying a woman! Of course with three sons, she was never going to have the role of mother of the bride, so I suppose that she had decided to make the best of a bad job, and employ her excellent organizational skills on her sons. She negotiated with my grandfather and Mrs Harrison. She persuaded Mrs Harrison that at least half of the wedding meal should be supplied by a catering firm, because no way could enough skilled temporary staff be found to do all the cooking. Similarly too, serving staff needed to be supplied by the caterers. The number of guests was not small. Sandro had two families, his own and that of his birth brother Luca, which involved Tom, Cathy, Tommy and David's brother Jeroen and his wife and two children. My parents and brothers made up four more. Then of course there was Jon and David, and all our grandparents (plus Robert), so there was going to be more than twenty persons on the Sunday if we included three priests and their wives. They however were not expected to attend the Register Office ceremony, as none of them was a personal friend of either of us.

The Saturday occasion would enable us to entertain less close friends, and again the list was long, but mother left me in sole charge of those arrangements. Overnight accommodation had also to be organized, at least for the family. The Hall could only accommodate ten persons, so I was glad that I was not involved in deciding who were to be house guests and who were to stay in hotels. We had to make all these arrangements months before, because of the numbers of persons involved and making arrangements with the Registrar, hotels and catering firms. We fixed the date for September. In the July we were to take our higher degrees. I would be getting my M.A. and M.CSt. degrees, Sandro his M.A. and Ph.D.

Chapter XXIX Sandro: Degree day and afterwards

I will not go into details of the degree day ceremony. The Camford M.A. degree is a bit of a fraud, as it only requires a graduate to turn up twenty-one terms after matriculation and collect it (after payment of a fee, of course). Of course, we were both receiving 'proper' higher degrees in addition, so we had to make two exits and re-entrances. My parents did not come: they had seen me get my bachelor's degree, and they would be coming to our civil partnership ceremony within three months, so it was just Dom's parents and David and Jon that watched the ceremony. Dom said how sweet I looked in my violet and red doctor's gown, and I threatened to beat him up for making me seem a little boy! I was, after all, now twenty-six. The M.A. ceremony is slightly different from other degrees, but it makes the holder a senior member of the university, and we could dine on high table in college at any time (not for free, of course). We naturally assumed this right the same day and dined in our brand-new M.A. gowns with our uncles. We only needed to be introduced to the college fellows in other disciplines: most of the science and engineering dons knew us both already.

Dom's parents dined at their hotel and we took them to the Venezia the following night, along with David, Jon and Tommy. The following day they came back with us to Swindon for a couple of nights before returning to Paradise Court. "Welcome to Swindon! I said, "According to Jasper Fforde, the third capital of England."

Dom's father was impressed by our little rented terrace-house. "If you're happy here, Dom," he said, "I can understand why you don't want to be master of Getheringthwaite. Nor do I want that responsibility, so it's good for both of us that Michael wants it." We spent Saturday showing Lord and Lady Batley the sights of Swindon. We visited the railway museum and the Neanderthal village, which since it was first made famous in the pages of fiction by Jasper Fforde had become a major tourist attraction.

Their visit enabled us to update ourselves about the forthcoming arrangements for what we thought of as our wedding. Most of the people who had been invited had accepted. Even Philip and Jim had accepted invitations. In sending out invitations for the Registry Office ceremony, Dom had found that it had come as rather a shock to a number of relatives on his mother's side of the family to find that he was gay, and one or two of Lady Batley's brothers had said that they were not going to come to a ten-minute register office affair. He told them that we live in an era of change, and two men who love one another and want society's recognition of their relationship no longer have to hide in the closet. Some relatives asked what his grandfather thought as head of the family and were stunned to hear that Lord Wakefield was delighted that the second-in-line to the title was going to be united with the man he loved, and that arrangements had been made for the estate to pass to his brother!

After lunch on the Sunday, I talked to my future 'mother-in-law'. I said to her, "I have never thanked you for giving me your son. He is the most precious thing in the world to me, so I hope you will think in terms of gaining an extra son, rather than losing one!"

She smiled and kissed me. "You are sweet, Sandro!" She said. "You will be a special extra son. I remember, before we knew how you felt about one another that you told me that you would keep an eye on Dom in his second year as an undergraduate. Little did I realize how close an eye that would be!"

"I should warn you," I said, "that both Luke and Tom and David and Jonathan are very pious. They are regular churchgoers and Luke and Tom are choristers. That's why three priests will be involved in the blessing service, which has no legal status and is a private act of worship. We would not want to get involved in a 'gay wedding'."

"What name are you going to take when you and Dom become partners?" asked Lady Batley.

"I need to ask Lord Batley if I can be an Overton," I replied. "At first I thought of just the name Overton, but that would be seriously disloyal to my father, who has brought me up as his own son. So I want to be called Sandro Overton-Mascagnoli. I don't think that Dom as a future Marquess should lose or change his family name. My brother Luke and his partner Tom have different surnames."

I went to Lord Batley and said to him in my curious mixture of formality and informality, "Sir, I want you to give me permission to take the surname Ovenden-Mascagnoli when Dom and I get hitched! I have no doubt that your father will be happy with my choice, but you are Dom's father and I need your blessing to take your name."

"That will be perfectly OK with me," said Dom's father, "and after you become partners, we must get your name change registered with the College of Arms, and a grant of arms for you, which you can impale with the Ovenden family arms. I don't know what procedures the Heralds have developed for civil partnerships, but we can always make our own arrangements. If you do adopt children, even though they cannot inherit the title, they will be entitled to a differenced version of the Ovenden arms, quartered with your own. Do you know what the family motto of the Ovendens is? Virtus est pulchritudo virilis 'Virtue is manly beauty.' I think it was chosen in the eighteenth century to distract attention from the goings-on of the Perverted Lord."

Dom spent some time discussing with his father the possibility of learning Italian. His father said that he should try an online Italian course that his department had recently developed. Lord Batley could speak four languages fluently, and it seemed unlikely that Dom would have missed out on some linguistic talent. I promised that once he had a vocabulary of a thousand words, and knew the basic tenses and irregular verbs, he and I would try to speak it all the time at home. We could use the flash-card technique to enlarge his vocabulary. That had been very successfully used by Jon when I was learning English.

Chapter XXX Sandro: The big two days I

Eventually the day of our partnership ceremony arrived. It was a warm and sunny day in early autumn. In accordance with Ovenden family tradition, the Ovendens were all wearing formal morning dress, but my father, (who with Lord Batley was to be the other chief witness), wore a new Giorgio Armani suit with a grey silk tie. As an Ovenden-to-be, I had hired the necessary tailcoat and stripy trousers and top hat. I felt a bit foolish, but Dom told me that I looked splendid, and so did his mother. Dom and I wore pink carnation buttonholes. After the fifteen-minute event (one could scarcely call it a ceremony), and the photo session that followed, the whole party processed on foot from Shedley Register Office along the street to the Crown and Coronet Hotel, where we were welcomed in a private room with glasses of Prosecco.

The Yorkshire firm of caterers had done us proud, the food and drink were plentiful and excellent, served as a buffet. The newly united couple sat down for twenty minutes to eat, before circulating to greet all our friends.

We did not need to thank them for their presents. The invitation had asked that in lieu of presents, donations should be made to Saint Boniface's student hardship fund or the Edmund Heptinstall Scholarship Fund.

The first to greet us were my brother Luca and his partner Tom. Out of deference to the large number of people present, we did not kiss, just embraced briefly. Luke told us that his new productions, Verdi's Falstaff and Boïto's Mefistofele were both doing well and that Pauline van Houtenstok had got herself engaged. Tom told us that his work was going well, and that he was regarded by Sescantanto as sufficiently experienced to make his own grant applications. One application that was in the pipeline would, if successful, involve collaboration with a group in his old department in Camford.

We moved on then to talk to Cathy, Luke's sister, who said that she had finally got engaged, and introduced us to her new fiancé. He was a banker, without a lot of personality, or at least not sufficiently self-confident to be able to talk easily at what to him might have seemed a bizarre occasion!

We then met my uncle Jeroen and aunt Liesbet and their two children Andrew and Maria. Andrew was just about to start studying at the Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften in Zürich.

When we reached my parents, we discarded formality and each kissed both of them before embracing my sister Bianca, who told us that she had succeeded in getting into university in Paris. By now both her French and English were fluent and she spent most of the time deep in conversation with her cousin Maria.

We then went on to Lord and Lady Batley, with whom we exchanged kisses and handshakes. They asked us about our honeymoon plans, and I told them that we were not going away immediately, but hoped for a week in Madeira early in January. Neither of us had been employed for long enough to qualify for the full holiday entitlement.

My grandparents were sitting with my great uncle Kees and his wife, both now quite elderly, with whom David had spent many summers in his schooldays. I was introduced to them and they made the usual wry comment about the high incidence of gays among Benedict and Helena's descendants!

We then went and talked to Philip and Jim. Philip confessed that he had been very apprehensive about attending, but Jim had persuaded him, and he said how relieved he was to see that all the people there were 'normal human beings' as he put it. Jim grinned at us and said that Philip had a lot to learn about being gay.

Jennifer was there with her boyfriend Charlie, and she kissed us both and wished us the best.

The day ended with a few speeches, which were repeated the following day, and Dom will tell you about them.

Chapter XXXI Dom: The big two days II

The following day was quite different. Mrs Harrison and my mother were in their element, and the kitchen at Getheringthwaite Hall was a buzz of activity from early morning. Sandro and I rose and breakfasted about 9 am, and then spent an hour shaving, showering, applying Storing pour Homme and so on, before donning the outfits that we had worn the previous day, except that our grey ties were replaced by pink silk ties presented to us by David and Jon, the same ties they had worn many years before. The congregation were all wearing morning dress and glad rags, with ribbons, medals etc. The Marquess looked particularly distinguished in his outfit of a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and Robert, immaculately clad as a retired soldier, smiled beside him. My father sported his M.B.E. insignia, Jon his C.B.E. insignia, and my mother wore a beautiful outfit.

We assembled in the chapel at noon, and the Vicar of Getheringthwaite led a procession of Professor Bairstow and the Rev Dr Francis Eglantine, followed closely by myself and Sandro, flanked by Luke and Tom, as best men. We took our seats next to our fathers at the eastern end of the front row of stalls, Massimo and Sandro on the the north side, and my father with me on the south (the stalls were arranged like a college chapel, facing north and south). We used the same form of service that Tom and Luke and Luke's fathers had used, with the same three hymns, accompanied by recorded organ music on a CD.

We made our vows "for better, for worse..." Then our rings, which we had removed at the beginning of the service, were blessed by Edward Bairstow, and we placed them successively on thumb, second, third and fourth digits of each other's left hands (having previously worn them on our right hands) with no words except an invocation of the Holy Trinity.

A celebration of the eucharist followed, presided over by Francis Eglantine, with readings by Tom, Luke and the Vicar and a brief address by Edward. All our family and closest friends were present and many of the congregation, men as well as women, were in tears for parts of the service. Most people present received communion. We left the chapel in procession to the sound of Jeremiah Clarke's Trumpet Tune and Air on a CD. The chapel had a perfectly good organ, but no-one in the family could play, and we had no wish for anyone outside the family to be present! Quite a lot of photographs were taken in the chapel and outside afterwards before we all went inside. The formal luncheon that followed was very enjoyable. The combination of Mrs Harrison's cooking and the dishes selected by my mother from the caterers' menu worked splendidly, the Prosecco flowed freely and the meal lingered on for an hour before Sandro and I were called on to make speeches, along with Sandro's brother Luke.

Luke and Sandro made two speeches each, in English and Italian. Mine was in English alone. Luke began by saying, "My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, I address you in formal terms for two reasons. Firstly, this is my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make such a formal speech and secondly, I know that it will greatly embarrass my new brother-in-law and his father!

"The union that we celebrate today is between a man with an ancestry going back six hundred years and my brother whose paternal birth ancestry, like my own, goes back just one generation! Sandro and I were both blessed with wonderful parents and a very happy upbringing, proving the importance of environment over against heredity. I will not elaborate on the sociological significance of any of this, only say that my own experience of loving a man from an entirely different background has been the most joyful and important feature of my life. If Dom and Sandro have one fifth the happiness of Tom and me, they can look forward to a lifetime of love and contentment. Finally, I am grateful to God for all the loving favour He has shown to all of us. I invite you to drink the health of Alessandro and Dominic!"

After everyone had drunk the healths of the newly united pair, Sandro was the first to reply. "I have never made any kind of speech before, so I will be short and simple. I want to thank my parents for all the love and help they have given me, especially my father Massimo. Next I want to thank Lord Wakefield for the support and encouragement he has given to Dom and me. Thirdly I want to thank Lord and Lady Batley for giving me their son. They had difficult decisions to make, as what we are celebrating today is a rare if not uniquely historic event. Just as Dom hates to be called 'My Lord', so I am glad that being male has prevented me becoming 'My Lady!' Finally I want to thank both my uncles for the help they gave me to settle in England, and my brother Luca and Tom his partner for their love and support."

Next it was my turn. I said, "Luke and Alessandro have made most of the acknowledgements that needed to be made. I just want to thank the Mascagnolis for giving me Sandro and my brothers for continuing to love me when I have adopted a new lifestyle. Also I want to thank ALL of you here today for your love, tolerance and support, and for all that you have done for us and been for us. Also I want to thank my new brother-in-law Tommy for being such a source of love and joy to all of us." There was a burst of applause after this speech and Tommy, blushing deeply, tried to hide under the table. He looked sweet in his miniature tailcoat. He was now fourteen, and it had taken prolonged efforts by Sandro and myself to get him to wear a morning suit.

After the meal and the speeches, we all moved to the Portrait Gallery, where coffee and cakes were served and where we were able to talk to family members. Tommy's cousins, Bianca, Andrew and Maria took possession of him and they went off together to explore the house.

Chapter XXXII: Extract from The Times newspaper of 15 September 20—

Civil Partnerships OVENDEN-MASCAGNOLI. The Civil Partnership register was signed at Shedley Register Office, Shedley, Yorkshire on Saturday September 13, 20— by Dominic Francis, Viscount Overton of Getheringthwaite, M.A., M.CSt., eldest son of the Earl and Countess of Batley and Alessandro Mascagnoli, M.A., Ph.D., son of Massimo and Dorotea Mascagnoli of Verona, Italy. Donations in lieu of presents were in aid of the student hardship fund of Saint Boniface's College, Camford and the Edmund Heptinstall Scholarship Fund.

The appearance of this notice resulted in Lord Batley getting a shoal of telephone calls from reporters, a few of whom turned up without notice at Paradise Lodge, where my mother gave them coffee and a few vague uninformative words to the effect that they were proud of their gay son and had welcomed his partner into the family. A couple of media men got as far as Getheringthwaite Hall, where Lord Wakefield told them that his grandson's union had his full blessing and approval and would they kindly bugger off! Lady Junkelthorpe telephoned Lord Batley to ask him to congratulate Dom and Sandro, mentioning that she had met them at the Lombardy Hotel in London and enquiring after Dom's brothers, especially after she had heard that Michael would inherit the Getheringthwaite estate.

The Ovendens were not sufficient celebrities for the press to go to the trouble of tracing Dom to Swindon, nor was there any problems with paparazzi. One gossip columnist did publish a paragraph headed 'Wealthy peer's gay grandson in civil partnership' in which it was stated that it was unlikely that Lord Ovenden's union with an Italian railwayman met with the family's full approval. The item was sufficiently vaguely phrased for Dom not to think it worthwhile to write to the newspaper and complain of breach of privacy. Newspapers thrive on publicity. If they are ignored, they soon shut up. However, Jon advised them that if any further such items appeared, Tim Ingledown should be consulted.