“We are gathered here today,” began Dan.
“You’re not marrying us, Dan,” interrupted Jed, “just do something brief and to the point.”
“That’s just what I’m trying to do if you’ll shut up and give me a chance.”
Dan adjusted his posture and began again.
“It were many years ago when I acquired this land, and when I did so I had in mind to marry and raise a family. But sad for me, it never turned out that way. I let my opportunities slip by and then it were too late. So it gives me real pleasure to pass this land on to Jed and Alice. ‘Cos unlike me, Jed has done what a young man should do and ask a beautiful lass to marry him and she’s had the sense to say yes. And I reckon they’ll be raising a lot of little ones here too. So raise your cups and drink to Jed and Alice and their new home.”
A chorus of congratulations rang out and Jed seized the shovel, plunging it deep into the rich black loam. The small audience clapped and downed the remnants of their cider before making their way home.
Jed and Alice were left alone on the plot as the setting sun met the horizon, bathing the site in a warm pink glow. Jed slipped his arm around Alice’s waist and they watched in silence as the sun dropped out of sight. A sudden chill in the air caused them to cling to each other more tightly.
“You know, Jed,” said Alice softly, “we need a name – a name for our house. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t given it any thought.”
“Well, it seems to me, Jed, that this place is full of hope – hope for our future, hope for your work and hope for us being together. So why don’t we just call our home ‘Hope Cottage’?”
“Hope Cottage. I like the sound of it. It’s everything we hoped for isn’t it? Our own place, being a couple, being accepted.”
“That’s it then, Hope Cottage,” repeated Alice, sinking contentedly into Jed’s arms.
“You don’t think we’re tempting fate, do you?” asked Jed, looking suddenly concerned.
“I don’t believe in fate, I told you that. Whatever you want, you got to make it happen. That’s what we’re going to do, Jed, me and you together.”
Jack coughed and spluttered as the doctor moved the stethoscope across his back
“It’s no better, Jack. There’s still fluid on your lungs and I see you’re bringing up blood. That means something’s ruptured. You should really go into hospital and undergo observation and tests.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve given my word to this American company that I’d work for them for a year.”
“How much longer have you got?”
“Six months. Come the end of July I’ll be a rich man and I’m off.”
“You may be a rich dead man the way you’re overdoing things.”
“You said I had between three and five years.”
“I’m downgrading that to between two and four years. You’re not looking after yourself. What’s the point in being rich if you’re dead?”
“I’ve given my word now. How would you spend twenty five thousand pounds in two years, Doctor, if you knew you were going to die at the end of it?”
“It’s not my problem, Jack. I’m going to live a lot longer than that,” replied the doctor as he washed his hands. “But if you do really have that money to spend, I’d advise you to go and do something entirely different. Get away – meet new people – spend the money. Don’t keep it all to yourself. It’ll only bring misery.”
Jack lay on the sofa in the darkened living room. Across the road he could see a Christmas tree lit with candles framed in a downstairs window. In the distance, he could make out the sound of carols floating across the frozen evening air.
It was Christmas Eve. Perhaps he would only live to see two more before his lungs finally gave way. He felt a deep melancholy taking him over. He tried to fight it. Think of good times, happy times – when he was a boy. The table at Christmas; a goose in the middle; his father wielding a carving knife with the precision of a surgeon; he and his brother eagerly anticipating juicy goose meat and sniffing the aroma of thick gravy on the stove.
His was the generation that went to war – most of them slain on battlefields in France – boys like him who, just a few years earlier, had been sitting round tables feasting on goose and plum pudding. What terrible force had picked them up from the comfort of those homes and deposited them within just a few years into stinking water logged trenches?
He tried to think of Yvette but his mind delivered him cruelly to the wrong memory. He is being carried out of the interrogation room by the snatch squad. Three of his comrades are already dead. He sees Yvette, bloodied and chained to a pipe. But he doesn’t see Simone. Did they get her?
“Take her – the woman. Take her too.” He uses all his strength to gasp the words out.
“Only the Brits, mate.”
He knows the Germans will torture her again.
“Finish them off in there with grenades.”
A deafening explosion and they’re racing through the undergrowth to the airstrip. He lapses back into unconsciousness.
Could he have done more to prevent her death? Was he responsible for her last terrible moments? Or did somebody else betray them?
He forces himself to think of their last time together, her body arched over his, bearing down on him with uninhibited fervour. Then in his mind he watches her rising naked from the bed, her body silhouetted by the window. And there it is again, something that’s troubled him. A brief memory – a recollection of a face by the window. He’s seen that face in his mind before but never dwelt on it. Now he forces himself to think. Could it have been ... ? Panic wells up inside him.
Jed plunged the spade into the damp soil and tossed the contents out of the trench. He swung the spade back down into the void and, with a squelch of muddy water, ejected another shovel full of black earth.
He paused and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, leaving streaks of black mud across his face. Sweat dripped down his naked torso and soaked into the waistband of his trousers. It was late March and this was the second week that he’d been working in the evenings on the construction of Hope Cottage. Already the shape of the house was visible with the foundations tracing out the lines of the ground floor rooms.
As he worked, often alone, he couldn’t help wondering about the course his life was taking. It seemed to him sometimes that getting married was part of a bigger package that he’d been unwittingly drawn into, including taking over Dan’s business and building a new house. Any one of these was a big step in its own right but doing all three together was like jumping off a cliff into the unknown.
By the end of April the walls were up to the top of the ground floor. Spaces for windows and doors were visible and it was possible to walk around the inside and imagine what the finished rooms would look like. As the weather improved, Alice joined Jed more frequently to discuss plans for the forthcoming wedding.
“I want it to be in the church, Jed, people will expect it. Not that I want lots of people, just a small affair, you know.”
“I was thinking September would be a good time to get married, Alice, when all this building work is finished.”
“No, why wait that long? I think June. Let’s make it June.”
“I’m going to have to work doubly hard to get it ready for then.”
“You’ll do it, Jed, I know you will.”
She leant forward to kiss him, her body pressing against his. Jed felt desire growing inside him and he reached out to take hold of her body but she pulled away.
“Later, there’s work to be done now.”
Early May saw the final slate hammered into place on the roof and work begin on the interior fittings. Alice busied herself making arrangements for the wedding day which was set to take place on Saturday, 11th June in St. Martin’s Church. Alice was keen to have Flora as her bridesmaid as she was the only real friend she had in Frampton. Dan undertook
the delicate task of negotiating with Flora’s parents and after much discussion it was agreed that she could attend the wedding but not the reception.
Saturday, 11th June 1921 dawned bright and sunny. Outside the church, a small band of people gathered. There were three assistants from the baker’s shop where Alice worked and a small number of junior staff from Frampton Hall where she sometimes helped out at formal functions.
Standing back from the younger people was Jed’s father, looking from the bulges in his grey suit as if he had been sewn into the outfit. A white collar held in place with a stud was clasped tightly round his neck and his bright red face gave the appearance of being about to burst. Tom, by comparison, had the appearance of a coat hanger draped with oversized garments as his clothes hung limply on his slight frame.
There was a ripple of applause from the group as Jed and Dan joined them. Dan bore a passing resemblance to Charles Dickens’ character, Samuel Pickwick, with a grey suit bulging around his mid rift and pince–nez perched precariously on his nose.
Jed looked smart though not quite co–ordinated. He wore a mustard yellow jacket over brown checked trousers and sported a large white rose in his lapel.
The double doors of the church giving access to the chancel were pulled open revealing the Reverend Charles Bowman. The minister had been in residence in Frampton for as long as most people in the town could remember, making him somewhere in his mid seventies. He was unmarried and was attended to by a group of well meaning church ladies who cooked and cleaned for him. On this occasion they had not paid too much attention to cleaning his vestments as his white cassock displayed vivid evidence of recent meals.
“Welcome, everyone, please enter the Lord’s House.” With this he turned and led the small procession into the church and up the aisle to the altar. The guests hardly filled the first two rows of the knave and a deep quiet settled on the group as they waited for Alice’s arrival.
Suddenly, the organ burst into life and a thinly disguised version of the Trumpet Voluntary spluttered from ageing pipes. The congregation turned to see Alice walk up the empty aisle. She wore a simple white ankle length dress that she had made herself and a white veil covered her face. In her hands was a bunch of white roses.
By her side, and looking most uncomfortable, was Alice’s father. His gait was unsteady and he stumbled twice as he progressed up the aisle. He wore the expression of a man who had been transported out of his own dimension and had entered some parallel universe where nothing made sense.
Behind Alice came Flora in a pink dress and clutching a single red rose. She had lost weight and her clothes hung limply on her. Her eyes were cast down and she wore a nervous expression on her face.
“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony,” began the Reverend Bowman.
Jed kept his eyes on Alice, her veil now lifted to reveal her face. To the side of Alice he was aware of her father casting hostile glances in his direction.
“Holy Matrimony is an honourable estate instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church.”
Jed wondered about his own ‘mystical union with Alice’. Were they really bound together by love or was it more likely a common desire to escape their oppressive pasts?
“First, it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord.”
Alice felt a shiver run through her body. She had tried to put the idea of children out of her mind. The truth was that she didn’t feel a strong attraction to Jed physically. She loved him as a person and she admired his honesty, his hard work and his loyalty but she couldn’t get excited about going to bed with him. She hoped that Jed had not realised and that over time her passion would grow.
“Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication ...”
But if that passion didn’t come, didn’t grow – could she maintain the lie in the face of Jed’s persistence?
“Thirdly, it was ordained for mutual society, help and comfort that one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.”
Jed knew well enough that Alice wanted to be prosperous, craved status and success. But how would it be if it all went wrong? Would she stand by him if times were hard? He had his doubts.
“No one should enter into it lightly or selfishly but reverently and responsibly in the sight of almighty God.”
Alice heard the wheeze of her father’s breathing behind her. She caught sight of Flora to one side, hunched and frightened, and she looked again at Jed, confident and solid. She had to make this work. However much effort or pretence it took, this was the only way forward.
“Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they shall not be lawfully joined together, let him speak now or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”
There was a tense silence in the church. Alice heard her father’s breathing stop short as if caught by surprise. Jed’s father looked nervously at Tom, and Flora raised her head to stare briefly at Jed.
“I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.”
Alice’s heart began to pound. If God really knew the secrets held within her heart, she was already doomed.
“Jed, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
Jed turned to Alice. She looked very desirable and he wanted her as a wife and lover. But how could he promise it would be forever? He looked into her eyes, searching for answers.
“I will.”
Alice felt Jed’s eyes penetrating her own. His face looked anxious.
“And will you, Alice, take this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour and keep him in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
She had been so sure. A way out of poverty. Status as a married woman in the community. Her own house to live in. It had all been so clear. But now? She heard a nervous cough from Reverend Bowman and realised that the whole church was waiting in expectant silence.
“I will.”
The small congregation watched in silence as Alice and Jed made their vows, committing each other to a future which was steeped in uncertainty in both their minds.
“For as much as Alice and Jed have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring and by joining of hands, I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
After the service Alice, Jed and the small group of well wishers made their way back through the centre of Frampton to Dan’s premises. Alice and Flora had prepared a buffet of sandwiches and cold meat. The girls from the bakery had produced a single tier wedding cake with bells etched in white icing on the top whilst Dan provided flagons of beer and cider which the men quickly consumed.
The conversation was polite and muted as they began eating. Alice’s father tore hungrily at pieces of meat as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Jed’s father and Tom held back from the main crowd, rolling their food slowly round their mouths, observing the others present with suspicion.
Alice and Jed stood close by each other, hardly believing that they were now married – Mr. and Mrs. Jed Carter. Jed felt for Alice’s hand and held it gently. A
lice relaxed and leaned closer to Jed.
Dan rose to his feet and banged on his glass with a knife.
“Ehem. Excuse me. I just wanted to say a few words. As you all knows, this Jed is a very special person to me. He’s helped me build this business and he says he’s going to stay to help me run it, maybe even take over from me. So this young man deserves the best and he’s got the best. Since I got to know young Alice here, I see that she’s got her head screwed on right. She don’t let the grass grow under her feet and she’s got big ideas, so I reckon the two of them together are going to go a long way. But it ain’t just about the money you make or the things you buy, is it? We all know it’s about a bit more than that. Now I can’t give you advice about marriage, Jed and Alice, ‘cos you all knows I ain’t been married and that’s a sadness for me – but that’s another story. But I have done a bit of travelling in the course of fighting for this country of ours and I seen a few funny things. I seen men who have more than one wife, sometimes many wives. I seen men marry women they’ve never even met ‘cos their families make an arrangement. I seen old men engaged to girls no more than five years old and I seen men who prefer the company of other men to their own wives.
So why am I tellin’ you all this? Well, I think that the way we do it, one man and one woman making a lifelong commitment to each other, is probably the most difficult of the lot. It takes a lot of hard work and patience and love to make it work. But when it does work it seems to me there ain’t anything better. So, Jed and young Alice, keep working at it and all of us here wishes you lots of happiness. Ladies and Gentleman, Alice and Jed.”
They raised their glasses to Alice and Jed, then soon after began to leave. Alice’s father was first to go. He held Alice by the arms and seemed to be searching for words that never came. Then he grunted and departed quickly.
The Guest Who Stayed Page 9