LOVE KNOT by Catherine George
CHAPTER ONE
The crowded room simmered with tension. Eyes met eyes and slid away, and conversation diminished to embarrassed murmurs of conjecture as the wedding guests, far too many of them for comfort in the close confines of the register office, waited for the bride. The registrar's smile grew fixed and finally disappeared as he darted pointed looks at the clock on the wall, his occasional dry cough adding to the susurration of whispers and shuffling feet from those gathered together to witness the joining in marriage of Miss
Delphine Wyndham and Mr. Alexander Paget.
Alone in a sea of unrest, the bridegroom sat like a rock.
And had done for half an hour, thought Sophie Gordon, as the clock on the town hall chimed in confirmation. And Alexander had never fidgeted once.
The sunlit room was stiflingly hot, but every sleek, fair hair on his head lay in place, his white collar pristine above the dark morning-coat, the gardenia in his lapel as fresh as the moment he'd arrived. Alexander, as
Sophie knew better than most, aimed as nearly as possible for perfection in all things, which made it all the more unbelievable that Delphine dared flout his well-known views on punctuality.
_No man, surely, deserved to wait so long--and so publicly--for his bride to put in an appearance. Sophie was startled by a sudden pang of compassion.
Of all the feelings she had harboured for Alexander Paget over the years, compassion was certainly a first, in spite of the links between them. Owing to the friendship between their respective parents he had inevitably been around all her life, sometimes in the background, occasionally to the fore.
Once, briefly, she had even agonised in the throes of puppy-love over him.
That, at least, had died a natural death from sheer under-nourishment, she thought, amused. Alexander had been so insufferably superior in his college days that her teenage adoration had soon veered in other directions.
Alexander played a prominent enough role in her life currently, it was true, because for the past few years she had been his secretary.
A very good one, too, in her own opinion. Only a wife knew a man better than his confidential secretary, and in her own case, reflected Sophie, probably not nearly so well.
Sophie stole a glance up at her father to find him eyeing the bride's mother with professional concern. The lady sat twisting her doeskin gloves into ruin, her face deeply flushed beneath the brim of her hat.
"Hypertensive," murmured Dr Gordon, sotto voce.
"Hardly surprising," answered his daughter in kind, brows raised as she caught the eye of Edward Peregrine Paget, cousin and best man to the bridegroom. Perry kept twisting round in his seat to _look towards the door, as if he hoped the bride might have materialised there when his back was turned. Fat chance, thought Sophie. When Delphine Wyndham makes her entry not a soul will be left in doubt.
When, at long last, the door did open, all heads but one swivelled as if jerked by the same string. But expectancy changed to surprise as, in place of the bride, her father stood in the doorway, beckoning urgently to Perry, who nudged Alexander and went with him from the room, closing the door on the buzz of comment which broke out an all sides. Mrs. Wyndham sagged against the relative seated next to her, and Kate Paget, Alexander's stepmother, turned round to the Gordons, her attractive face worried.
"Something wrong, do you think, David?"
Dr Gordon smiled reassuringly.
"Delphine's' probably held up in the traffic."
Or she's broken a fingernail, or laddered a stocking, thought Sophie without charity. Delphine Wyndham would think nothing of keeping a room full of people waiting while the vital adjustment was made.
While the guests waited speculation very plainly ran riot through the room, some of it anxious, some of the faces agog with an avid curiosity, Sophie noted with disgust. She felt most concerned for Kate Paget, who tensed visibly as Alexander and Perry came back into the room. The bridegroom spoke privately with the registrar, then turned to face the assembled company, his green eyes frozen in his good-looking face.
"I apologise to you all for the long wait," he said with courtesy.
"I regret that there will be no wedding ceremony after all. Delphine, I am told, has changed her mind. "
There was a piercing wail as Mrs. Wyndham collapsed in the arms of her companion, and Dr Gordon sprang up at once to assist, Kate Paget close behind him. It took some time to restore the distraught woman to some semblance of composure, while the deserted bridegroom waited, immobile, his face devoid of emotion. Sophie stayed in her seat, well out of the way, pitying Alexander from the bottom of her heart. All this would be so horribly novel for him.
He was accustomed to a life amazingly free of the trials and tribulations other, lesser beings had to bear. She viewed him dispassionately, trying to see him with the eyes of a stranger. He was a very fit, attractive specimen of his sex, she conceded; tallish, slim, muscular, with thick, sleek hair only a little darker than the flaxen fairness of his youth. Nor were his assets confined to the physical. A successful architect in a respected firm established by his grandfather in the town of Deansbury, Alexander had a name and professional reputation known to everyone. Sophie found it hard to credit that even Delphine could have been so heartless as to leave a man like
Alexander at the altar.
Not, of course, that the table in the register office was anything like an altar, in spite of the flowers someone had arranged so tastefully. But the principle was the same. Wherever a jilted bridegroom was left could only be described as the lurch.
After the weeping Mrs. Wyndham had finally been escorted from the room by her nearest and dearest, Alexander turned once more to the remaining guests.
"Although the wedding itself has been cancelled, a perfectly good meal is waiting to be eaten at the Deansbury Country Club, as arranged." He smiled very slightly, beginning, at last, to show visible signs of strain.
"Forgive me if I make myself scarce. Under the circumstances I could only be the spectre at the feast. Perry here will take over for me, and on behalf of
Mr. Wyndham and his wife I urge you all to take advantage of their hospitality."
"It was quite horrible," Sophie told her grandmother over lunch next day.
"I never dreamed I could feel so sorry for Alexander."
"Why not?" asked Cecily Wainwright with interest.
Sophie thought for a moment.
"Well, you know Alexander, Grail. He never seems in need of sympathy, let alone pity. He forges through life without a hitch. Even I can appreciate what a good catch he is for a girl--clever, successful, plenty of money----'
“Not to mention extremely attractive," added her grandmother.
"Delphine Wyndham's reasons for crying off must have been very powerful."
"Greed, I suppose."
"And incredibly bad taste if she went off with that Foyle person."
"Ah, but Terry Foyle is Delphine's Dr Frankenstein, Grail." Sophie grinned wickedly.
Mrs. Wainwright wagged an admonishing finger, but agreed there was truth in what Sophie said. Without Terry Foyle's consummate skill with a camera,
Delphine Wyndham's rise to top modelling fame would never have been so meteoric, in spite of her looks and amazing waist-length black hair. The dynamic little East-Ender had transformed mere prettiness into every man's dream of erotic beauty, resulting in an offer from an American cosmetics firm to the pair as a package, a contract Terry Foyle had come chasing hotfoot to
Deansbury to wave in front of Delphine's nose at the eleventh hour on the very day of the wedding.
"No contest," said Sophie.
"Alexander and Deansbury had no chance against Terry Foyle and the Dreamgirl
C
orporation of LA."
"So Delphine's flown off to the City of the Angels--most inappropriate." Mrs.
Wainwright looked at Sophie questioningly.
"And how is Alexander?"
"Bearing up with fortitude." Sophie's eyes danced as she told her grandmother how the jilted bridegroom had actually gone off to Greece after all, just as originally planned for his honeymoon. His passion for ancient ruins would be indulged to the full, even if those of the flesh were likely to go unfulfilled.
"Sophie!" Mrs. Wainwright tried hard to look shocked, but was evidently much struck by Alexander's practical outlook.
"But surely not at the honeymoon hotel!"
"Oh, yes. Alexander was quite unshakeable _about it, according to Aunt Kate."
Mrs. Wainwright applauded his common sense, and reiterated her scorn for any woman addle brained enough to desert such a levelheaded bridegroom. Sophie, on the other hand, looked forward to Alexander's eventual return to Deansbury with mixed feelings, certain his mood was bound to be black in the extreme.
"Delphine's so gorgeous," she said with gloom. Alexander's bound to be like a bear with a sore head when he gets back to work. Though why he imagined a girl like that would settle down to connubial bliss in Deansbury I'll never know. "
"Probably he just hoped she would, darling. Men can be very naive in some ways."
"Naive! Alexander?" Sophie hooted.
"He's the shrewdest man I know.
Delphine must be the one miscalculation he's ever made in his life. "
The two women went out into the garden after lunch to enjoy their coffee in the sunshine and catch up on family news. Both of them looked forward to their fortnightly lunches together. Sophie, in particular, relished the peace and quiet of the comfortable house where her mother had grown up, enjoying the contrast to her life at home. Here at Greenacre she could almost revert to carefree childhood again, whereas in Deansbury she ran the
Gordon household and looked after her father and brothers in the time left over from her job with Paget & Son, Chartered Architects.
"When are the twins getting back from France?" asked Mrs. Wainwright.
Wednesday, I think. "
_"Whereupon you, I assume, will be presented with a lovingly hoarded supply of dirty laundry."
Sophie laughed.
"I'd prefer that to endless name tapes. Before they take off for Edinburgh
I've got dozens of the wretched things to sew on."
"I hope the university knows what it has in store," commented Mrs. Wainwright, and cast a keen look in her grandchild's direction.
"And what will you do with yourself then?"
Sophie looked startled.
"Do?"
"Now Tim has gone out to herd sheep in Australia, and Mark and Matthew will soon be setting Edinburgh alight, it seems to me that your presence in your father's house is not as essential as once it was."
The thought was by no means new to Sophie. It had never left her over the past months. But apart from less food and laundry to cope with she foresaw very little change in her life. There was still her father to consider. And as a doctor David Gordon relied on her more than other fathers might have done in their particular circumstances, if only because he needed her in the house to answer the telephone on the two nights a week he was on call. When she said as much Mrs. Wainwright looked disapproving.
"Don't you ever long for a life of your own, Sophie? I can't help feeling
Louise would be up in arms if she could see the trend your life has taken lately."
Louise Gordon had gone off by coach on a Christmas shopping trip to London shortly after Sophie's sixteenth birthday. The coach had crashed _in fog in a pile-up on the motorway, and David Gordon and his four children had been left without the mainstay of their lives. Louise's father had suffered a stroke at the news and Cecily Wainwright had been torn apart by her loyalties to both her stricken husband and her grandchildren, forced to stand by while
Sophie, the eldest, changed overnight from a carefree schoolgirl into housekeeper and surrogate mother to her brothers, studying for her A-level examinations and subsequent secretarial course at the same time as learning to manage the household. Dr Gordon had employed a woman to help clean the house in the beginning, but when the lady eventually retired Sophie elected to manage alone, since by that time Tim was away in Cirencester at
Agricultural College, and Mark and Matthew old enough to help a little. And, if sometimes she longed passionately for solitude and privacy, only Cecily
Wainwright ever really knew how much.
"I think it's high time you left the nest yourself," the latter said trenchantly.
"Oh, so do I," Sophie agreed, 'but I can't just take off and leave Dad.
Besides, where would I go? "
Before Cecily Wainwright could make any suggestions the telephone rang, and she went off to answer it, leaving Sophie to her daydream of a place of her own. Somewhere, anywhere, just so long as it had no importunate men demanding food and clean shirts when all she longed for was time to herself after her daily stint at Paget & Son.
She loved her father and her brothers; felt closer to _them than most girls perhaps, due to their particular situation. But secretly she hankered after space and time to herself. And the latter was slipping by. Almost twenty-four years of her life had been spent within the confines of Deansbury and the family circle. Even her job had been tailor- made for her, decided for her by others. The moment her secretarial course was completed Alexander had been conveniently in need of a secretary and that had been that. She was handed over to him like a parcel, and everyone had told her repeatedly how very fortunate she was.
"Not Dad, was it?" she asked, as her grandmother returned.
"No. David, I assume, is being spoilt to death by Kate Paget, as is usual in your absence." Mrs. Wainwright smiled rather smugly.
"In fact it was young Sam Jefford, and I've asked him round to tea."
"Then I'd better be off." Sophie scrambled hastily to her feet.
"Nonsense. Do something to your face and comb your hair while I wash these cups. Or are you going out with Julian this evening?"
Sophie had to admit she was not, and carried the tray into the house, learning that Sam Jefford was an estate agent in Arlesbury. Mrs. Wainwright's manner was so elaborately casual, her granddaughter eyed her with suspicion.
"And how come you're pally with an estate agent. Grail?"
"I'll tell you when you come down."
Sophie knew better than to argue, and ran upstairs to make the necessary repairs, brushing _her brown, shoulder-length bob to smoothness and adding a touch of lipstick to the curves of her wide mouth. She eyed her rounded face dispiritedly, contrasting it with Delphine's high cheekbones and slanting gold eyes, remembering with gloom the narrowness of the other girl's hips, her enviable lack of bosom. Sophie had no illusions about her own dimensions, which Mrs. Wainwright alluded to firmly as rounded, but Mark and
Matthew in rather less complimentary terms.
When Sophie rejoined her grandmother in the garden, that lady wore the look of someone harbouring a guilty secret.
"Is there something you're keeping from me, Grail? Not ill or anything, are you?"
Mrs. Wainwright shook her well-groomed head. "No, dear, I am not ill.
I intend selling Greenacre, that's all. "
Sophie stared at her dumbfounded.
"You're giving up this house? Oh Grail why? “It’s getting too-lnuch for me.
The garden in particular, now that help is so hard to find these days, and too expensive if one does.
I'm not getting any younger, you know. "
Cecily Wainwright was seventy-five, but even in the bright afternoon sunlight looked much less than that, and Sophie told her so, with an emphasis designed to hide her own dismay.
"I've rattled around in this place like a small pea in an oversized pod ever since your grandfather died," went on Mrs. Wainwright, 'and I'm tired of
it. "
"Are you buying something smaller?"
"No, darling." Cecily Wainwright turned a smile of pure mischief on her granddaughter.
"I'm moving into Broad Oaks."
Sophie's jaw dropped.
"Broad Oaks! But that's a home for the elderly. I know. I visit my old friend Anne Morton there regularly, and I've had both the time and the opportunity to decide I'll do very well there myself. I can take some of my own furniture if I wish, I'll have a room and bathroom to myself, pleasant communal sitting-rooms if I want company, Anne just along the hall and I'll take the car, of course. I can go off on trips and have you to lunch just as before, I promise you. But at Broad Oaks I shall have the added bonus of being waited on hand and foot. "
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