by Penny Jordan
‘Mmm…well, there’s no shortage of excellent dress shops in York,’ she said now, ignoring the way Jenneth’s body tightened as though she was mentally preparing for flight. From what? Eleanor wondered curiously, studying her friend while appearing not to do so. ‘I could come with you, if you like,’ she offered. ‘Rachel’s coming in this afternoon—I was going to spend a couple of hours doing the books…’
Jenneth knew when she was being backed into a corner. And, realistically, she could hardly not go to the wedding. Louise would be hurt, and since Luke was not going to be there… Not for the first time, Jenneth wished that fate had seen fit to bestow upon her a nature that was less vulnerable.
* * *
‘Petrol tank’s full, tyres and oil are checked… Your suitcase is in the back…’
Jenneth raised her eyes heavenwards as Nick calmly ticked these items off on his fingers. Anyone listening would have thought that she was the twins’ junior and not the other way around. She wasn’t travelling south in the outfit Eleanor had bullied her into buying for the wedding. Instead she had allowed herself sufficient time to go to the Feathers beforehand and get changed.
It was barely seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, the sky a soft blue, hazed over with a mist that promised heat for later in the day. A perfect late June day…
In Little Compton, Louise, who had decided to spend several days at home before the wedding, would probably just be waking up. She had confessed to Jenneth over the telephone that she had succumbed to persuasion and temptation and had bought herself a wedding dress that bid to outshine anything that Scarlett O’Hara might ever have worn…
‘Cream and not white,’ Louise had told her, with her rich, unabashed chuckle.
George was far from being the first man in her friend’s life; Louise wasn’t promiscuous, but there had been several men with whom she had fallen in love, several lovers in her life from whom she had always managed to part on good terms, and it was obvious from what she had said to Jenneth that neither she nor George regretted those previous relationships.
It was going to be a long drive south, and Jenneth had decided to ignore the motorways because of the number of roadworks causing major delays.
By the twins’ reckoning she would reach Little Compton by twelve o’clock at the latest. Louise was getting married at three, and she had promised to be at the house to help her friend get ready beforehand and then afterwards to help her get changed before she and George left for their honeymoon.
‘A kind of unofficial bridesmaid,’ Louise had told her, and Jenneth had winced, remembering how once she had eagerly made Louise promise to perform that office for her.
The drive south was without incident, the roads, although busy, not oppressively so.
She reached the familiar countryside east of Bath just before eleven o’clock. Outwardly very little had changed in the seven years since she had left, although the large number of German marque cars bore witness to the fact that the new motorway was making this part of the country more accessible to those who earned their living in London.
Little Compton itself was just far away enough from the motorway to be unaffected by these changes. As she crested one of the gentle hills that surrounded it, Jenneth slowed down to look down on the untidy straggle of cottages that marked its one main road, the Feathers at one end of it, and the church at the other.
She suppressed the memories that threatened to come storming back…long, lazy summer afternoons spent with Luke, the young Jenneth bemused and thrilled by the almost magical way he had suddenly realised that she was no longer just a friend of his cousin’s but a person in her own right. Down there where the river meandered its lazy course, a glistening, fluid ribbon shadowed by willows, Luke had kissed her for the first time. Without wanting to, Jenneth remembered how her whole body had responded to that kiss, almost vibrating with shocked pleasure like a highly tuned instrument. He had laughed tenderly against her mouth and asked her if she knew what it did to him to feel that kind of response. It had been in that same spot only three months later that he had proposed to her, saying tersely that he knew he was rushing her, but that he was leaving to work in California at the end of the summer and that he wanted to take with him her promise to wait for him.
Later, when she had given him her breathless, almost incredulous answer, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her with a fierce passion that had set her heart pounding and made her totally unable to resist when he had laid her down on the soft grass beneath the trees and, between kisses that turned her bones to liquid, gently unfastened the shirt she was wearing to bare her breasts first to his eyes, then to his hands and, finally, shockingly and blissfully, to his mouth.
If he had pressed her then, they would have been lovers, but he hadn’t and, once the announcement of their engagement had been made, their time alone together had seemed to diminish, mainly because Luke’s mother’s health had started to deteriorate, and Jenneth had fully understood and backed his need to put his mother first.
Shaking her head to dispel the unwanted images shimmering just below the surface of her mind, she put her foot on the accelerator and turned firmly away, driving towards the village.
The landlady of the Feathers welcomed her warmly, and showed her immediately to her room, a comfortably furnished attic with a dormer window, and its own private bathroom… The Feathers had once, long ago in the days of coach travel, been a posting house, and Jenneth’s bedroom overlooked the enclosed courtyard to the rear of the village street.
‘Louise said you’d prefer to be in here,’ the landlady told her cheerfully, and as Jenneth agreed with her calm, slightly remote smile she reflected that it was typical of Louise that she should be known to everyone in the village by her Christian name, even though her visits home were these days limited to flying half-day stays at Christmas and other anniversaries.
The Feathers had changed hands since Jenneth’s day, and the landlady was more interested in talking about the wedding and the amazement it had caused in the village than displaying curiosity about Jenneth herself. Her indifference released some of Jenneth’s tension, and as the landlady left, promising to send someone up with a light salad lunch and a pot of coffee, Jenneth reflected ruefully that she had probably blown people’s reaction to her appearance at the wedding totally out of proportion. This realisation helped to steady her nerves, and when a shy waitress came upstairs with the promised lunch Jenneth felt relaxed enough to pick up the telephone and dial the familiar number of Louise’s family home.
Louise’s mother answered the telephone, recognising Jenneth’s voice immediately and responding warmly to her hesitant enquiries as to the state of the bride-to-be.
By the time Louise herself picked up the receiver, she was ready to dismiss all her fears as simply the working of her own self-indulgent imagination, and agreed readily to go straight round to the house immediately she had changed.
She chose not to drive her car to Louise’s parents’ home, but to walk there instead, not down the main street of the village, but along the path that ran behind the cottages and then skirted the churchyard.
Jenneth had always found it slightly surprising that her outspoken, very modern-minded friend should be the daughter of a vicar, and she knew that, to David Simmonds’ credit, he had never tried to impose his own religious beliefs on his daughter.
He greeted Jenneth warmly as, through habit, she walked round to the back door of the vicarage and he opened it to her knock. Louise’s mother bustled into the kitchen and kissed Jenneth affectionately. A tall, dark-haired woman, she betrayed her physical relationship to Luke’s father and to Luke himself, having the same strong bone-structure and thick, dark hair. Louise, she had always insisted, was a throwback, and certainly her friend’s vivid red hair and pale, creamy skin bore no resemblance to either of her parents’ colouring.
Jenneth was told to go straight upstairs, and found her friend sitting in front of her bedroom mirror, clad in an almost in
decently feminine chemise of cream satin and lace while she peered myopically into the mirror and tried to apply mascara to her lashes.
‘Damn!’ she exploded as Jenneth walked in.
‘Let me do it for you,’ suggested Jenneth calmly, taking charge and deftly applying the necessary coats of dark grey colour to the long but sandy lashes, asking humorously, ‘What happened to the contact lenses?’
‘I daren’t risk them,’ Louise replied gloomily. ‘I’m bound to start howling and wash the damn things out…’
‘There’s always your glasses,’ Jenneth told her mischievously.
As a schoolgirl Louise had been obliged to wear the regulation National Health corrective glasses, and now she scowled horribly into Jenneth’s laughing eyes and threatened, ‘You dare mention those…’
The scowl disappeared as they both burst out laughing and, ignoring her perfection of her delicately made-up face and the artfully arranged tumble of red curls that brushed her naked shoulders, Louise stood up and hugged Jenneth affectionately, saying emotionally, ‘Oh, Jen, I’m so glad you’re here…’
Listening to her, Jenneth felt guilty and ashamed of her craven impulse to renege on her promise, and hugged her back in a silent exchange of emotion that held memories of the years and times they had shared.
‘Isn’t this ridiculous?’ Louise sniffed as Jenneth released her. ‘I feel as weepy and emotional as a Jane Austen heroine…’
‘You certainly aren’t dressed like one,’ Jenneth told her forthrightly, eyeing the extremely provocative creation of satin and lace that purported to have the utilitarian purpose of sleeking her friend’s soft curves and supporting the delicate cream stockings she was wearing.
Louise grinned at her, totally unabashed.
‘Like it? George chose it,’ she told Jenneth wickedly, and then drew her attention to the tiny row of satin-covered buttons that fastened down the front.
‘He said that thinking about me wearing this is the only thing that’s going to keep him going through the whole ordeal of the ceremony,’ she added with another grin, and Jenneth was forced to mentally review her opinion of her friend’s husband-to-be. Despite his name, he was obviously far from being the stalwart, sober, almost dull character she had envisaged.
From downstairs, they both heard Louise’s mother call up warningly, ‘You’ve only got half an hour left, Louise…’ and, remembering her supposed role, Jenneth picked up the billowing silk and net underskirt from the bed and presented it to her friend, helping her to fasten the tapes that tied at the back, and then helping her into the frothing creation of raw silk and lace that had swung gently in the breeze from the window.
Stupidly, once the last small button had been fastened, and she was able to walk in front of her friend and survey the finished effect, Jenneth discovered that her eyes were misty with tears and her voice choked with emotion.
‘You look…wonderful…’ was all she could manage, but it seemed to be enough, because Louise hugged her tightly and then swore huskily.
‘Damn! I daren’t start wailing now or my blessed mascara is bound to run…’ And then, more soberly, she said, ‘Jen, this should be you and not me. You’re made for marriage… children…’ A frown touched her face and, sensing instinctively that she was about to mention Luke, Jenneth trembled with relief when the door suddenly opened and Louise’s parents came in with a bottle of champagne and four glasses.
By the time they had toasted the bride and allowed her one glass of champagne to bolster her failing courage, it was time to leave for the church.
Louise had elected to walk there, proudly escorted by her father, and it seemed to Jenneth, watching her from the sidelines, that the whole village had turned out to wish her well.
Louise’s godfather was giving her away, and Jenneth felt tears spring to her eyes as her father handed her over to his cousin before disappearing inside the church where he would conduct the ceremony.
Most of the guests were already inside, and Jenneth hurried to her own place in a pew to the rear of the small, quiet building, just in time to watch Louise drift beautifully down the aisle.
Although she tried not to let it do so, the familiarity of the comfortable church where she herself had once envisaged being married made her ache inside with a pain she had thought she was long ago past feeling.
Her eyes blurred with tears which she readily recognised were not for the awe and mysticism of the service, but, self-pityingly, for herself. Through the blur of them she was distantly aware of someone entering the pew: a young girl with dark, shiny hair, framing an elfin face, and dressed in a pretty, crisp cotton dress, with a dropped waistline and a neat sailor collar. Behind the girl was a man, but Jenneth didn’t look at him, all her concentration fixed on the bride and groom as she willed herself not to give in to the tears burning the backs of her eyes and making her throat raw with pain.
It was stupidity and self-indulgent folly to remember that once she had believed that she would be married here…that she would walk down the narrow ancient aisle to find Luke waiting for her…to have their marriage blessed and sanctified here in the mellow darkness of the church where members of his family had been married for so many generations.
Some memories, though, could not be suppressed…like the one of Luke bringing her in here when he’d given her her engagement ring, and kissing her finger before sliding on to it the narrow band of gold with its brilliant ring of diamond fire surrounding the central sapphire. He had kissed her once, tenderly, chastely…her mouth twisted over her almost medieval choice of word, and yet there was nothing else that truly described the sanctity of that moment… and her body shook, racked by a tremor of anguish as she fought to suppress the memories threatening to overwhelm her and acknowledged inwardly that this had been what she had feared. Not the speculative looks of others, but her own deep inner vulnerability…her own painful memories…her own still aching need to understand just what had motivated Luke to deceive her so cruelly and surely so unnecessarily. Why get engaged to her in the first place if he had known all along that all he wanted from her was a sexual relationship? Why make promises he had no intention of keeping when he must have known she was so fathoms deep in love with him that she would have given herself to him blindly, with the right kind of persuasion?
The tears she was fighting to suppress overwhelmed her, and ran betrayingly down her face. She bent her head protectively, hoping the soft swing of her hair would conceal her face from the other people in the pew beside her, and bit her bottom lip hard to suppress the vast welling of emotion that threatened her. And then, to her astonishment, she felt something soft touch her hand, and a low but insistent little voice whispered urgently to her.
‘You can use my handkerchief, if you like… I brought two because Daddy said that ladies always need them at weddings…’ This last statement was delivered importantly, as though everything that Daddy said ought to be recorded in the statute books, and Jenneth turned her head automatically, unable to resist the confiding voice and gesture. The handkerchief was crumpled and colourful but, because all her life she had loved and understood children, Jenneth took it, and firmly blew her nose on it while she and her rescuer exchanged conspiratorial feminine glances.
‘I wanted to bring some confetti,’ her new friend confided engagingly, obviously deciding that the loan of the handkerchief and its acceptance constituted a basis for shared confidences. ‘But Mrs. Mack wouldn’t buy any for me. She doesn’t approve of weddings.’
In front of them the bridal pair were making their vows. Louise’s father gave the blessing and above them the organ music swelled triumphantly; as though on cue, the church doors were flung open to admit the brilliance of the June sunshine, and high up in the church tower the great bells which had been cast in the same year that St Paul’s rose from its ashes gave joyful tongue to the happiness of the hour.
Automatically, as the light flooded the church behind them, Jenneth turned her head, and then froze with shoc
k as she found herself looking straight into the familiar features of the one person she would have fled to the ends of the earth to avoid.
‘Luke…’
His name was a strangled sound on her lips, the shocked pallor of her face causing the man watching her to narrow his eyes consideringly as he looked from her blonde head to his daughter’s dark one. It had been a last-minute decision to attend his cousin’s wedding, prompted by his daughter’s very obvious but patiently borne disappointment, rather than any desire to see Louise married.
If the news of his appointment had not meant the cancellation of his lecture tour in America less than a week after it had begun he wouldn’t have been here at all. Angelica had expressed herself delighted to learn that she was going to have her father’s company during the long school holidays after all, and had been even more pleased to learn that they would be moving from London to a city called York, which her father had told her she would like very much.
Since she readily accepted her father’s word as being above and beyond that of any other authority, she was envisaging the impending move with a pleasure and excitement that was only in part tinged with the knowledge that their existing housekeeper, with whom she was not always in accord, would not be moving with them.
Angelica didn’t enjoy being the responsibility of a housekeeper. What she wanted was a real mother like other girls had…but to achieve that her father would have to remarry, and she had judiciously over the last few months been casting her eye about in order to supply the need in their lives that her father seemed neglectful in attending to…
For a moment Jenneth actually thought she was going to faint, but then pride came to her rescue, and she forced herself to regain control of her failing senses, wondering bitterly what premeditated cruelty it was that had motivated Luke to choose this particular pew, and to curse her own susceptibility in believing Louise’s assurances that her cousin was not going to attend the wedding.