“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 retrousse 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 fiancee 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.
“Madge, we should be getting into church.” Its owner prodded the new widow gently. With a feeling of escape, I hurried back to Ben. Several of the mourners stared.
“Are you all right, Ellie?” Ben asked.
“Yes.” I was watching the widow mount the steps.
“We’re going to miss the reception.”
We made for the lich-gate and had just reached it when the wind swooped up my veil and swirled it around my face. Laughing, Ben spun me around to unwind it.
The mourners had entered the church and the pallbearers were coming around the side of the building. Slowly they made their way up the steps. A flash of sun broke through the clouds. The girl with sandy plaits stepped forward and gently placed my bouquet on the coffin lid.
It began to rain again.
5
… “The widow’s handkerchief”-Hyacinth’s lips curved into a smile and her eyes became hooded-“was it wringing wet with tears? Ah! I thought so-dry as a bone.”…
The sky darkened and the rain changed from a drizzle to a downpour. I was doomed to enter the drawing room at Merlin’s Court looking like a corpse fished from the briny deep. Ben and I would wile away our honeymoon sipping cough syrup instead of champagne. Never would I recline in my foamy pearl-pink nightgown upon the four-poster at the Royal Derbyshire Hotel, idly turning those last few pages of
“Nothing for it, Ellie, we have to take cover.”
My bridegroom opened a random car door, and I made a token protest as we settled ourselves on the front seat.
Ben rolled his window one-third of the way down and the wind burst in upon us. It yanked at my veil and
