The annual holly-gathering Sunday was rained out and has yet to be rescheduled.
4
… “I would have killed Cousin Frederick.” Hyacinth’s black eyes sparked…
“On your marks, get set, smile!” Crouched behind a camera worthy of Lord Snowdon, Dorcas dropped her left arm, signalling action. Alas, one of the tripod legs buckled. The crowd closed in to proffer advice.
As the bridal party-Ben and I, flanked by Jonas and Sid-stood on the church steps, bombarded by pealing bells, and stung by the wind, I refused to meet my husband’s eyes. I felt no great need to kill Freddy. My cousin Frederick Flatts was born with his brain trickling out of his ears and had attained the age of twenty-nine still believing the world hungered for his sublime wit. On Rowland’s advising him to go confess his sacrilegious prank to the congregation and inform them he would be returning the infant to its parents forthwith, he had replied gloomily, “If they’ll take the little monster back.”
Ben was the one I longed to murder. I could still see him sagging against the vestry wall, weak with laughter, while that sticky baby tugged at my veil and yanked tufts out of my bouquet.
“I love you, Ellie.” His breath brushed my face like a kiss. Too little, too late.
His hand moved up my arm. “I’m sorry, darling, but I was so unsettled by your arriving late that Freddy’s stunt sent me over the edge.”
I should have tossed my train over my shoulder and stormed from the church.
In years to come my children would say, “Mummy, why do you have that wicked look on your face in your wedding pictures?” And I would have to explain to those innocent mites what it feels like to have the words “I do” drowned out by the babbling of the guests. They were still at it now as they stood grouped at the base of the steps.
“Hold that pose, lovebirds! Best profile forward, Ben. Love the Mona Lisa smile, Ellie.” Dorcas pegged her jockey cap on the head of a marble statue of the great local hero, Smuggler Jim Biggins, and jamming her red hair behind her ears, squared her shoulders and got down to the serious business of twiddling dials.
Click. Click.
“Looks like we have to wait for these clouds to move, so go on, make a break for it, old son.” Ben’s eyes were on me as he spoke. I closed mine to keep my righteous anger intact.
“Do I get to kiss the bride?” asked lachrymose Sid, and I felt my hand lifted and pressed to a pair of lips-his, presumably.
“Sidney, how gallant!” I tapped him playfully with my bouquet, entirely for Ben’s benefit.
“Tall women bring out that side of me,” he mourned. “I refuse to stand on tiptoe to kiss even the best of them. I suffer enough indignity having people use my ass as a door scraper.” And with that he hunched off down the steps. Jonas stumped after him.
“Hold fast, Mr. and Mrs. H.” Dorcas was grimacing at the clouds now rolling like dense smoke across the sky. “Should brighten any minute, if it doesn’t pour first. Want some nice snaps to send Ma and Pa, don’t we, Ben? Must show the stay-at-homes what they missed.”
“Absolutely,” he replied.
I straightened the seed pearl tiara, fanned my veil over my shoulders, and smiled for the crowd. I could see my ex-neighbor and Freddy’s amour, Jill-the mystic, built like a toothbrush and with the same sort of bristly hairdo, wedged between Uncle Maurice and a woman in a busby. And there, next to Smuggler Jim’s statue, stood Mrs. Swabucher, all pink tulle and gusts of ermine. Rowland was wending up and down along the edge of the gravel path, the black book clasped in his hand. A sweep of overhanging branches cast shadows in his wake. He seemed to be looking over to the lich-gate.
“I wish my parents had been here.” Ben drew me close.
I addressed the buttons on his shirt. “Your mother would have thought her novenas answered when Freddy called a halt to the proceedings.”
“I wanted them to see that they made a success of me-I’m happy.”
And I was hungry. Would I always have that deplorable tendency when emotional?
“Here.” Ben’s fingers closed over mine. When he let go, he was holding my tattered bouquet and I was holding a chocolate rose.
He wasn’t looking at me; he was smoothing out live petals.
“Take a bite and tell me how you like it.”
“Rather rude surely, with all these people watching.”
“We’ll pass some around when we get home. I made two hundred and ninety-one. One for every day since we met.”
“Say honeymoons!” cried Dorcas.
I must have been faint with hunger because the world went all fuzzy round the edges. The wind had dropped and the bells ceased, leaving a vibrating silence.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to save this one and press it in a book?” My voice came up from a mine shaft. I nibbled a leaf off the rose and, eyes on Ben’s chin, handed him the rest.
“A fraction too much vanilla, do you think?” he asked.
I could have destroyed his day, his week, his year simply by saying yes.
My ring flashed between us. We were married. Really and truly married. (Did it matter that I could remember nothing of the words spoken at the altar?) A shiver of wind touched my neck. I smiled for Dorcas, then looked up as I felt a spatter of rain. Somehow Ben’s face got in the way.
All the laughter had vanished from his eyes, leaving them darker, even more brilliant, and so ardent my breath caught in my throat. I traced a finger through his hair. I loved him. Why shouldn’t he laugh at Freddy’s little prank? I wanted a husband with a sense of humour, didn’t I? And he had been under tremendous emotional strain over his parents, which wasn’t to say they weren’t perfectly lovely people in their narrow-minded, bigotted ways. Ben’s dark head bent over mine. The church clock chimed the quarter hour.
“Two hundred and ninety-one days, one hour and thirty-seven minutes,” I whispered against the delicious warmth of his mouth.
“Good shot!” bawled Dorcas. “Should get it enlarged. Nice one for Ma and Pa to put out on the piano.”
“Happy, Ellie?” asked my husband.
“Blissful!” Our marriage was stronger for having come through the fire. I curved my arms up around Ben’s neck. Jonas came stumping up the steps.
“Are you two going to stand gawking at each other all afternoon, or are you going to be sociable and drop in on the reception?”
“Certainly we are.” Reaching out a hand, I helped Jonas up the last step.
“Good,” he snorted. “Because left alone with the family, I might forget me place and poison one of them.”
Jonas went to assist Dorcas in packing up her equipment. I took my bouquet from Ben and waved it at Rowland, trying to attract his attention. But at that moment Aunt Astrid, resplendent in a pale mink and a black hat with spotted veiling, accosted him. Poor Rowland, no wonder his shoulders looked so tense. Aunty was directing a gloved paw toward darling daughter Vanessa, artistically posed against a backdrop of tombstones. I snuggled my arm through Ben’s and indulged in momentary smugness. Would mother and daughter never learn that a woman needs more than a stunning figure and flawless face to attract a man of true worth?
The crowd was beginning to disperse, heading toward the line of cars parked against the railing. Coming through the lich-gate were five or six laughing teenagers, members of St. Anselm’s youth group, I supposed. I had heard they met on Friday afternoons. They must be the reason Rowland kept glancing-
“Ellie, Bentley-my precious children!” Mrs. Swabucher swept up to us in a flourish of gauzy pink and swirls of ermine.