It Pays to Be Good
Page 19
Mouse gravely regarded the bulge, the twin to Mrs. Hodge’s cottage-loaf effect. She shook her head.
“No. It’s the fashionable slink. Stomachs are worn this year. Now sit down.” She opened her bag and took out a box of rouge, a powder puff, and a tiny pot of cream. Deftly she took the shine out of Fanny’s nose, and put a tinge of colour into her yellow cheeks. She took the hat off the bed, and with the aid of a comb and some hair-pins set it at a becoming angle. “Now look at yourself.”
Fanny went to the mirror, and blushed at her own good looks. She made clicking sounds with her tongue against her teeth. “Oh, I say! You wouldn’t know me, and that’s a fact.” She turned back to the glass and peered at her face anxiously. “Would you think, got up like this, people would know I was Floss’s mum from the likeness? I don’t want to upset her.”
Mouse shook her head, she could have laughed or cried. Like Flossie! Poor, plain, shabby, little woman.
“No,” she said kindly, “you’re quite different types.”
Fanny was like a shy schoolgirl when she went into the shop to show herself to George. She stood awkward and giggling in the doorway. He went to the drawer of the till, and took something out and came to her with it held behind his back. Suddenly he produced a spray of white carnations.
“Here,” he said to Mouse, “you pin ’em on, I’d be afraid I’d make a mark.” He gave Fanny a kiss. “Off you go, enjoy yourself. You look the bride’s mother and no mistake.”
“Oh, sssh,” Fanny stopped him. “Whatever would she say if she could hear you?”
“She couldn’t say you didn’t do ’er credit any’ow. Off you go. Enjoy yourself.”
He leant on his baskets of fruit, and watched Fanny climb, twittering with excitement, into the impressive Rolls, and he watched it drive off with the eyes of all the street peering from behind curtains at its departure. He stayed where he was for a few moments staring at the empty street. Without his knowledge two tears rolled down his cheeks.
“My girl’s weddin’ day. May God bless ’er,” he whispered.
CHAPTER XX
Flossie, on the arm of an aged cousin of Derwent’s, moved slowly up the aisle, while the choir sang exquisitely.
“Love divine, all loves excelling.”
Flossie’s head was decently bowed as became a shy bride. Her white clinging dress was designed to show every line of her. It would have been an insult to the designer of that dress if one curve of Flossie had been a secret. Many of the men in the congregation looked from the bride to their wives. Nice women, members of nice clubs where they played bridge. Nevertheless, looking at them, it was hard to contemplate, without envy, Derwent’s honeymoon. Flossie had dispensed with the usual flowers and her free hand held instead a white ivory prayer book. Her face shrouded in its veil, with the eyes downcast to her book, had the sweetness and purity of a small saint from a church window. Behind her, holding her immense train, toddled six little things in rose-coloured frills, and wearing rose-wreaths. All were Menton connections, and therefore suitably well bred.
The service was read with great beauty by a bishop, cousin of the bridegroom, and though, when it came to the responses, Derwent, blind and dazed with happiness, could only mutter, Flossie spoke up excellently. Her voice rang to the very last seat in the church, into which Mouse had smuggled Mrs. Hodge.
“——to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and to obey, till death do us part——”
“Oh dear! Oh my!” Tears rained down Mrs. Hodge’s nose, she forgot that once she, for Alfie, had said those selfsame words.
Fanny mopped her eyes. She did wish George was here. Such a gorgeous wedding, and the way Floss spoke up, anybody could hear she loved him.
Ossie blew his nose. She spoke so trustfully, he hoped she’d be happy, but she looked such a kid.
Jasmine dug her elbows into Mouse at ‘richer, for poorer.’
“He’d better make it richer,” she whispered.
Later, when the champagne had been drunk, and the cake cut, and healths toasted, Flossie went upstairs to change into the blue creation the dressmakers were waiting to put on her. She stood entranced while first the dressmakers’ assistants, and then the porters who came for the luggage, called her ‘My Lady.’ Mouse had come up to help, but there was nothing for her to do, so she leant out of the window to stare at the eager crowd below and the battalions of cameras. Over everything clanged the church bells. Suddenly it all got on her none too steady nerves.
“Oh, blast those bells.”
The dressmakers stared at her with their mouths open. Flossie’s head shot up.
“That’s not a very pretty way to speak. What can be sweeter than wedding bells?”
“What indeed, my Lady,” said the dressmakers.
Mouse grinned.
“Nothing, unless it’s marriage settlements.”
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Noel Streatfeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild was born in Sussex in 1895. She was one of five children born to the Anglican Bishop of Lewes and found vicarage life very restricting. During World War One, Noel and her siblings volunteered in hospital kitchens and put on plays to support war charities, which is where she discovered her talent on stage. She studied at RADA to pursue a career in the theatre and after ten years as an actress turned her attention to writing adult and children’s fiction. Her experiences in the arts heavily influenced her writing, most notably her famous children’s story Ballet Shoes which won a Carnegie Medal and was awarded an OBE in 1983. Noel Streatfeild died in 1986.
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First published 1936 by William Heinemann
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