“Dear, dear Ellie! So beautiful! Although possibly a little too thin! And Bentley, handsome as ever!”
“Hated to take me off the books, didn’t you?” He grinned at her and received another squeeze.
“I cannot tell you how delighted I was to be included in this joyous culmination of that day, Ellie, when you came to Eligibility.”
Everything about her-the grandmotherly perfume, her energetic kindness-brought back the rainy afternoon when I had sat in her powder puff office and begged her to find me Mr. Right.
“We must have a long talk at the reception.”
“I wish, dear, but I’ve a granddaughter expecting a baby any second and have promised to be available to boil water. No choice but to leave at once and…” She paused. “Perhaps it is for the best. Someone is bound to ask me what my connection is to one or both of you and-”
Ben and I started to speak, but she shushed us.
“My dears, I am proud of the services offered by Eligibility Escorts and the work you did for me, Ben, but villages such as this are like the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul’s. And considering today’s practical joke… My advice is don’t let on how you really met. Say a fond aunt introduced you.”
Rain began coming down in splotches. Mrs. Swabucher’s chauffeur appeared with an umbrella.
“You both take care of yourselves,” she said. “We don’t want you catching colds. Speaking of health matters, you don’t patronize that awful Dr. Bordeaux, do you? I didn’t bring you darlings together to have anything happen to either of you. And now, take me away, James.” She tucked an arm through that of her chauffeur and was gone.
What people remained in the churchyard started turning up collars and unfurling umbrellas, fast-trotting to the cars. I heard Uncle Maurice and Aunt Lulu urging Jill to accompany them in their vehicle. Oh, cripes! They must think her relationship with son Freddy was serious, thereby making her good for a loan of at least twenty pounds.
“We can’t have Jonas getting wet,” I said to Ben, but I needn’t have worried. Dorcas, camera case slung around her neck, was buttoning Jonas up at the neck. Rowland was less lucky. In a voice that cut through the wind, Aunt Astrid assured him that she would see him at the reception.
“Won’t we, Vannie?”
“I hope so, Mummy.”
The wind heightened to a hard shrill whistle, echoed by the sea breaking against the cliffs below. The sky went suddenly quite dark.
“Home,” urged Ben, but as we stepped onto the gravel path, three teenagers, lurking behind tombstones, came scampering up, laughing and pelting us with confetti. It was, I thought, rather like being inside a kaleidoscope.
“Better wed than dead!” yelled a burly girl in school uniform.
The dizzying swirl ebbed. A boy with stubble hair grabbed for my hand and, amazingly, kissed it. Rain made some of the brilliant patches stick to our faces. Another multi-coloured shower went up and when the air cleared, the kids went roistering off toward the church hall which abutted the vicarage. All except one. A girl, the smallest of the group, remained on the path. We stared at each other through a shimmer of rain.
“I must look like I’ve got some exotic form of measles,” I said.
“You do realise this sort of thing is against the law.” Ben was shaking out his jacket.
Perhaps she didn’t realise we were joking. She didn’t smile. She had sandy-coloured plaits, a small retroussé nose, a wedge-shaped face, and skin which seemed almost translucent under the sheen of rain. She kept staring at Ben and me. A bit spooky, considering the tombstone surroundings. This girl’s eyes were very green in the wavering half-light, eyes at odds with the two youthful plaits. Those plaits touched me. I found myself remembering myself at fourteen-always the outsider. On an impulse, I tossed my bouquet to her.
“I love you, Ellie,” whispered Ben.
The girl didn’t say thank you. She stood under the quivering branches, my roses pressed against her face like a painted fan, their scent drifting between us. The wind bit through my gown and grazed my veil against my cheek. I drew closer to Ben. What more could I want from life than to be warm and dry and alone with him?
“What’s your name?” I asked the girl.
“Jenny Spender.”
“We’re pleased to have met you,” Ben said.
“Me, too.” She looked at me.
“Well…” Ben squeezed my arm. “Darling, our carriage awaits, unless it has turned into a pumpkin.”
He laughed and I joined in, but only to gain time. Unwelcome memory slid into place. There was no white-ribboned taxi to pick us up in state and deliver us at the portals of Merlin’s Court. I had been so angry with the taxi driver who had failed to get me to the church at all, let alone on time, I had not only told him to get lost, I had informed him I would puncture his tyres the next time I saw his vehicle. I had planned to thumb a ride from one of our guests. And, I brightened, it might still be possible to leap onto a running board if we hurried.
“Ben, I don’t know how to tell you this…” Evading Ben’s frown, I smiled at the solemn girl with plaits, who was now sitting on the bottom church step, fingering the roses.
“Ellie darling”-Ben rubbed the rain from his brow and worked up a smile-“wouldn’t a smallish tip have sufficiently made your point?”
He was right, and with a quiver of repentance, I realised that a certain heedlessness which may be thought appealing in a fiancée is unacceptable in a wife.
“Let’s go, Mrs. Haskell,” he said. At least it had stopped raining. And he’d called me Mrs. Haskell.
We were halfway down the path when Rowland stepped out from between trees into our path. The last of the cars vanished through the gateway.
“A charmingly eventful wedding.” He smiled as we joined him.
“Thank you.” Was that…? Yes it was!
A vehicle approached. Rubbing my chilled arms, I saw Ben’s face relax. A samaritan was coming back for us. A long dark car broke through the gloom, and immediately my optimism evaporated. No hope of this conveyance offering us a lift home. It was a hearse.
“I’m sorry about this unfortunate er… scheduling overlap,” Rowland touched my arm, then moved to walk alongside the hearse with measured steps, silvered head bent, cassock fluttering in the wind. Poor Rowland, this wasn’t his fault.
A procession of vehicles grimly slid through the gates.
“We’d better duck out of the way,” said Ben. “We strike a disharmonious note.”
“Won’t we be more conspicuous fleeing between the graves?”
He looked unconvinced. The cars drew to a standstill. Doors opened and closed. Were we to move a foot, we would be trapped in the surge of mourners and swept back into the church. Out from the lead car stepped a tall woman with silver blue hair, clad in a military-style mulberry coat. A handkerchief was clutched to her eyes. Soldiering up beside her were two tweedy, middle-aged women. The other mourners kept a respectful distance. As the woman in the mulberry coat and her companions neared the church steps, they suddenly halted. I realised why when a white scrap of cloth streamed toward me. The wind had grabbed her hanky. A few mourners futilely snatched at the air. The hanky blew right into my hand.
“I thought you couldn’t catch,” said Ben.
“Sorry.” I hitched up my skirts and hastened across the gravel to the woman.
“Frightfully kind of you. I do hope…” Her voice broke. Pressing the hanky to her eyes, she turned away. “I do hope that this”-she blindly waved a hand toward the coffin being lifted up the steps-“has not cast a blight on your day.”
“Oh, not at all!” I hastened to assure her, then realised I must sound callous. “Please do accept my condolences on the loss of… of…”
“My husband, my dear, wonderful, irreplaceable…” She couldn’t go on. The words I did not remember saying, but must have said, only minutes ago seemed to rise between us. Till Death Us Do Part. I found myself looking away, focusing on the little bar brooch worn by one of her tweedy companions. That brooch had blackbirds enamelled on it. Pretty.