Husband By Necessity

by Lucy Gordon

  How bright the sun was, she thought, when only a moment before it had been dark. In the silence it was as though the whole world was waiting for her answer, but suddenly she couldn’t speak. She could only touch his face very softly, smiling through her tears. He didn’t wait for any more, but swept her into his arms. It went against the grain with this deeply private man to show his feelings in public, but he kissed her again and again in the middle of the street, while the crowd cheered and threw hats and flowers in the air.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Heather said practically. ‘We’ve got to get you properly dressed.’

  ‘I haven’t anything suitable,’ Angie protested.

  ‘Of course not. That’s why I brought you something.’ Heather took one of Angie’s arms, Baptista the other, and together they steered her back into the house, followed, it seemed by every woman in the village. Stella appeared, bringing Ginetta, and behind them Mother Francesca and Sister Ignatia, all beaming and full of delight at the result of their benign conspiracy.

  Heather had visited a bridal hire shop in Palermo, giving them her friend’s measurements, and bringing away three bridal gowns for Angie to chose from. Everyone had a say, but it was Mother Francesca, whose eye for clothes was unrivalled, who chose the soft cream silk with the tiny veil adorned with yellow roses.

  As soon as this choice was made a whisper went around the women and out into the street, and a waiting child was despatched to the florist, returning a few minutes later with a bouquet of yellow roses for the bride, and ten tiny matching bouquets for the bridesmaids.

  ‘Ten bridesmaids?’ Angie echoed.

  ‘Nobody wanted to be left out,’ Sister Ignatia confided, ‘but we got the number down to ten at last.’

  And there were ten little girls in their Sunday best, eagerly receiving their bouquets.

  ‘I think we have another one,’ Angie said, indicating a child standing apart from the others.

  It was Ella, the little girl with the deformity that she’d visited on the day Bernardo returned. Her mother moved swiftly to shield her but for once Ella struggled free of the protective arm and came to stand before Angie, touching the beautiful dress with a yearning look.

  ‘It seems we have eleven bridesmaids,’ Angie said, breaking off one of her roses and holding it out to the child. Her father, who had slipped in at that moment, stood watching the little girl.

  ‘Are we ready to leave?’ he asked, and she took his arm.

  Outside the painted cart was waiting for her. When Angie and her father were aboard, with Ella wedged between them, Benito took up the reins and they began to rumble slowly over the cobbles, followed by the second cart with Baptista and Heather, and the procession falling in behind.

  The first stop was the Town Hall, where it seemed they were expected. Angie was realising that the whole town was in on the plan, and her heart swelled that her friends wanted her as well as the man she loved.

  She recognised people who must have come in from a distance. There was Antonio Servante, and his mother Cecilia, back on her feet now thanks to a hefty course of vitamin injections. There too was Salvatore Vitello, the one-time drunk, now a reformed character, looking sheepish and evidently having ‘forgiven’ her for destroying his sole claim to fame. Even Nico Sartone was present, putting a good face on it.

  In the civil ceremony Mayor Donati was in his element. While the formalities were gone through he stood stiffly to attention, glaring out of the corner of his eye in case Father Marco should put himself forward. But the priest was too wise to do what would undoubtedly have caused a riot.

  Then it was over. Legally they were husband and wife, but the church service was still to come. Now Father Marco came into his own, watching the bride and groom with eagle eyes as Bernardo drew her close for a kiss.

  ‘No hanky panky,’ he cried. ‘Not until you’ve been to church!’

  ‘But she’s already-’ someone started to say without thinking, and a roar of kindly laughter went up as the anonymous caller stopped in confusion.

  Angie felt Bernardo tense beside her and immediately joined in the laughter. ‘Well, it’s got its funny side,’ she told him. ‘And it’s nice that our friends can share the joke.’

  And she had the satisfaction of seeing him relax, then smile.

  At the church Dr Wendham offered his daughter his arm for the journey down the aisle, followed by ten little bridesmaids and Ella, who insisted on walking with the bride, clutching her skirt, and resisting all attempts to remove her, until Angie said, ‘She’s fine as she is.’

  At the altar she forgot everyone else except Bernardo, who was pale and nervous, and held onto her hand tightly as though she was all he could be sure of in a shifting world. She was in a daze. They had travelled such a rocky road and so nearly missed their destination, but here they were, each other’s forever, as they were always meant to be.

  The reception was held in the central piazza of Montedoro. A dozen long tables had been set up, covered with snowy white cloths that dazzled in the bright sun. Everywhere Angie looked there were flowers, some natural, some plucked from the hothouses of Federico Marcello, who sat beside Baptista, holding her hand under the table.

  The speeches took a long time because everyone wanted a say, but at last it was time to cut the cake. Then the band struck up for dancing, and the bride and groom took the floor, to loud applause.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t fit in here,’ Bernardo murmured to his new wife. ‘But I was so wrong. They did all this for you, to make certain that they didn’t lose you.’

  ‘Not just for me,’ Angie said. ‘These are your friends, your family. They did it for you. Oh, darling, don’t you see? They’ve reached out to you. Hasn’t the time come for you to reach out to them?’

  He didn’t answer, and she didn’t press the point. It was enough that he was thinking about it.

  ‘Did I do the right thing today?’ Bernardo asked her anxiously.

  She laughed and touched his face. ‘Isn’t it a little late to be asking me that?’

  ‘I was desperate. No matter how I asked, you said no, but I couldn’t bear to be without you. So I-forced you, I suppose.’

  ‘I could have refused.’

  ‘Not with the town’s population standing there determined to make us tie the knot. I used to think I was a brave man, until I had to get the whole of Montedoro to do my courting for me.’

  ‘And us,’ Lorenzo put in behind him, from where he’d been shamelessly eavesdropping.

  ‘Where would you be without your brothers?’ Renato demanded as he glided by with his wife in his arms.

  ‘And not just your brothers,’ Angie said. ‘I’m only guessing, but-’

  ‘Yes, I asked Baptista’s help and she gave it as freely as if I were one of her own sons.’

  ‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’ she asked as they returned to their table.

  ‘I suppose it does,’ he said thoughtfully. Sitting down, he noticed her father talking to Ella with great attention, his eyes fixed on her damaged face, until her mother gave him a shy smile and took the little girl away.

  Dr Wendham leaned over towards his daughter. ‘I think I can do something for that child,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes, Dad-I’d hoped you’d be able to. I was going to ask you in my next letter,’ Angie replied in a low voice.

  ‘I’ll rely on you to set it up, then. Get the X-rays done in Palermo and send them to me. It’s probably best if I come over here to operate. Then I can visit you as well.’

  ‘And you send the bill to me,’ Bernardo said quickly.

  Dr Wendham regarded him kindly. ‘My dear boy, one of the advantages of being a rich man is that you don’t have to charge people when you don’t want to. Now, who shall I dance with now?’

  He was gone, and a moment later they saw him leaping about on the dance floor with the mayor’s wife.

  Bernardo turned to Angie. ‘He will really do it for nothing?’

  ‘He does it all the ti
me.’

  His heart was in his eyes. ‘I was wrong about so many things.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, amor mio. We have time to put everything right. Time, and friends, and family who love us, and that’s the best thing of all.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘It’s your decision, but I think you should tell Baptista everything.’

  ‘Is this the moment to take such a risk-?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find it a risk.’

  ‘Come with me. I can’t do it without you.’

  Baptista was watching them as the new husband and wife rose together, and came over to her. His body stiff with tension, Bernardo sat beside her and took Baptista’s hand in his.

  ‘How can I thank you for what you have done for me, today?’ he asked gravely. ‘There are no words-’

  ‘But there is one word,’ she said. ‘All these years I have longed for you to accept a mother’s love from me-not forgetting your true mother, but loving me also. It was a happy day when you turned to me for help. I have always loved you as my son. If only you could simply believe that.’

  Bernardo’s face was tortured. ‘But how could I accept your love, knowing that I had no right to it? There is something-if you had known the truth all these years-’

  She regarded him tenderly. ‘What truth is that, my son?’

  Bernardo gritted his teeth. ‘That I was responsible for your husband’s death. I ran away that day. I meant to come down here. I wanted to see where he lived, see his wife and his other family. I was jealous because my mother and I had to hide away. I never got here. I turned back. But in the meantime they went out to look for me in the car, and the car crashed, and they died.’

  As he spoke he was forcing himself to look at Baptista’s face, waiting for the revulsion to appear in it. Instead, she only gave a little smile and said, ‘So that was it. Vincente couldn’t imagine why you’d vanished suddenly.’

  ‘You mean he spoke to you about it?’ Bernardo asked, thunderstruck. ‘But how could he? He was killed outright.’

  ‘Yes, but before he went out searching he called me to say that he would be late home because he and your mother had to find you,’ Baptista said.

  ‘You two spoke about me?’ he asked, astounded. ‘You knew?’

  ‘I knew about Vincente’s second family almost from the start. I asked him about it, not blaming him, but letting him know there was no need for lies. We talked frankly, like the friends we were, and after that he was always open with me. I knew when he visited you. Oh, my dear boy, does that shock you? Did you think I had learned only after his death? Vincente and I had no secrets.’

  ‘But you were his wife-’

  ‘The heart has room for many kinds of love. Your mother made him so happy. It was a kind of happiness I couldn’t give him, for he wasn’t in love with me, any more than I was with him.’ She turned fond eyes on Fede, sitting beside her. ‘Another man had been my great love. Vincente knew that.

  ‘My husband was my dearest friend, and as friends we loved each other. Once he made me promise that if anything happened to him, I would care for his other family. I gave him that promise gladly, and was proud to keep it-as far as you would let me keep it.’

  Bernardo was very pale. ‘When you came for me that day-I thought you hated me.’

  ‘My dear, if you could have seen yourself-twelve years old, so certain that you were a man, determined not to cry. When I tried to take you in my arms you held yourself as stiff as a ramrod. I knew then that it was going to be hard, but I never dreamed that you would stay aloof from me all these years, refusing your father’s name, and your rightful portion of your inheritance.

  ‘I thought the time would come when we could talk. Sadly, it never did, but in my heart I have always loved you as a mother.’

  ‘But-I killed him,’ Bernardo persisted, as though unable to believe that any good could be his.

  ‘You were a child. Soon you will be a father. Will you blame your children all their lives for the accidents of childhood?’

  Slowly Bernardo shook his head. ‘No-Mamma.’

  At the longed-for word, Baptista’s smile was beautiful.

  ‘If-you can forgive-’ Bernardo said slowly.

  ‘It is you who must forgive-yourself. When you’ve done that, you’ll be ready to be a full member of this family-both you and your mother.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How can she-?’

  ‘As you know, the Martellis have a little private chapel in the cathedral. I plan to put a plaque up to the memory of Marta Tornese. Then she too will be one of us.’

  Suddenly Bernardo found that he couldn’t speak. Baptista understood. Enfolding him in her arms, she met Angie’s eyes and a silent message passed between them. There were still rocks ahead on his road. Probably there would always be rocks. But he had the protection of two women who loved him, and he would make it.

  ‘Well,’ Baptista said, when she had released him and wiped her eyes, while he did the same, ‘it seems our family is growing bigger all the time. One wedding last year, one today, two children on the way, and-’ she paused dramatically and took Fede’s hand ‘-another wedding.’

  A cheer went up. Baptista was looking at Bernardo for his reaction. She already knew that Renato and Lorenzo were glad for her, but Bernardo was the most puritanical of the three.

  ‘Do you mean,’ he asked her, ‘that this is-?’

  ‘My great love, the man I told you of. We are to be married at last.’

  ‘As you should always have been,’ Bernardo said.

  ‘Yes,’ Fede said, making one of his rare interjections, ‘as we should always have been.’

  ‘I am glad for you,’ Bernardo said, shaking his hand. ‘And for you, Mamma.’ He kissed her. ‘Recently, you’ve planned so many weddings for your children, it’s right that you should also plan one for yourself.’

  ‘I enjoy planning weddings,’ Baptista said irrepressibly. ‘And I’m certainly not finished yet.’

  A silence fell. Suddenly Lorenzo became uncomfortably aware that all eyes were on him. He looked around in mounting alarm.

  ‘Who, me?’ he exclaimed. ‘No way!’

  ‘Be brave, brother,’ Renato told him, his arm about Heather. ‘It’s not so bad when you get used to it. Ouch!’ His wife had dug him in the ribs.

  ‘Forget it,’ Lorenzo said firmly. ‘I’ll think about it in ten years. In the meantime, no way! Do you hear me?’ Alarmed, he looked at the sea of smiling faces. ‘Do you hear me?’

  Baptista smiled. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

  Midnight. The guests had gone, the streets were almost empty. In the full moon a couple strolled hand in hand. They said little. They no longer needed words.

  ‘I know nothing about people,’ he said at last. ‘And nothing about love, except that I feel it-for you, and for our child. I get everything wrong. You’ll have to show me what to do-’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I know nothing about love either. I thought I did, but that was just romance. When love came it was completely different. I found that it could be hard and cruel and made me cry with the pain of it.’

  ‘Do you have any regrets?’

  ‘No. It’s just that I got a lot wrong, too.’

  Then one of them-later, they could never remember which-said, ‘We’ll have to find the way together.’

  EPILOGUE

  B ERNARDO and Angie’s baby daughter was born in October, and baptised the following January, in the Martelli chapel in Palermo Cathedral. The choice was a significant one, as it marked another stage in Bernardo’s reconciliation with his family. He had resumed his father’s name and accepted some of his father’s property, and now his choice of Palermo Cathedral over the village church in Montedoro filled Baptista with pleasure.

  Not that Montedoro would miss out. Another celebration was planned there, with much gaiety, that Lorenzo was personally planning to direct.

  The little chapel
was crowded, as it had been for the marriage of Fede and Baptista, and the baptism of little Vincente, Renato and Heather’s son.

  As Angie’s pregnancy advanced it became clear that she would need an assistant in the practice, but finding one was a problem. She was adamant in refusing to employ Carlo Bondini. The answer came in an unexpected way when her elder brother Steven came to visit, his face full of tragedy, seeking a refuge. He returned a week later, taking over her old house, and soon made himself so popular with the patients that they began scheming to ‘imprison’ him too.

  It took some time to find a date for the ceremony, because Angie’s father and Jack, her remaining brother, were determined to be there.

  At last they were all gathered around the font in the chapel, almost directly under the recently installed plaque that proclaimed Marta Tornese one of the family. Angie held her child in her arms, sometimes looking fondly down into the little girl’s face, sometimes glancing up at her husband, now almost a different man. The joy of his marriage had brought him tranquillity, and now his eyes were fixed on his wife and child like a miser with treasure.

  Yet he was a little troubled too. Right up to yesterday evening there had been some discussion about the names. Now he wasn’t sure what had been decided, for Angie and Baptista were being secretive.

  It was the moment for the godparents. As chief godmother Baptista stepped forward. The priest asked her to name the child.

  ‘Marta,’ she said, smiling at the man who was her son and not her son. ‘Marta Martelli.’

  Lucy Gordon

  ***

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: fbd-4d700a-6157-1e46-aabf-b207-d299-1fd18a

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 20.06.2012

  Created using: Fiction Book Designer software

  Document authors :

  Source URLs :