‘Land’s sakes,’ Rosalind Nettlesham’s pale blue eyes nearly popped out of her head. ‘Is that lace English lace? Is it Honiton lace?’
Kitty eyed Rosalind Nettlesham with interest, ‘It certainly is. How come you recognised it so easily?’
There was a moment’s hesitation and then, deciding there was no further point in pretending to be what she wasn’t, Rosalind Nettlesham said, ‘I’m a dressmaker. A very high-class dressmaker.’
‘Are you, indeed?’ Kitty said, noting the exquisite tailoring of Rosalind Nettlesham’s skirt and jacket, ‘Then I think it’s about time we had a long conversation together.’
Fifteen minutes later Lilli was looking at three of her friends in absolute disbelief. Susan looked scarcely recognisable. Her cream silk dress was ruched high at the neck, the sleeves peaked at the shoulders and narrow at the wrist, the bell-shaped skirt flouncing into a deep frill around her ankles. A small cream pancake hat sported pale feathers and was tipped at an almost rakish angle. Her gloves were pale kid, fastened at the wrist by pearl buttons. She looked exquisitely elegant; breathtakingly happy.
Kate’s dress was a glorious confection of lemon tulle and chiffon. The high-necked bodice was decorated by a shoulderwide, bosom-deep frill, a yellow satin rose nestling in its centre. Satin ribbons held the sleeves tight at the elbows and then the sleeves fell full and gauzily, emphasising the delicate slenderness of her wrists and hands. With the cascading skirt falling into a demi-train she already looked every inch a member of the British aristocracy.
It was Edie, though, who had been truly transformed. The white satin and lace ball gown made a perfect bridal gown. She no longer looked dumpy. She no longer looked simple. Kitty had brushed her hair until it shone, restraining its heavy thickness in a delicately worked snood.
‘There, sweetie,’ she said, teasing a few ringletting tendrils to frame Edie’s face, tucking tiny sprays of white bud roses to rest gently against her temples, ‘You look like a princess.’
‘You surely do, Edie,’ Marietta said, awed by the difference Kitty had effected. ‘Saskatchewan Stan is one very lucky man.’
There was a sharp rap at the door and the bar man who had brought the dress box to the room said peremptorily, ‘Everyone’s ready and waitin. If you ain’t primped by now, you’ll have to do as you are.’
‘I’m primped,’ Edie said, her cheeks rosy with daring, ‘I’m primped more than I’ve ever been primped in my life!’
Their descent down the stairs to the dance-floor was in stark contrast to their previous descent. This time they were no longer deathly pale and half senseless with apprehension. This time they were giggling and chattering, glowing-eyed and radiant-faced.
‘The Reverend and his lady are going to be hitched first,’ Josh Nelson said, striding to meet them, a cigar still clamped in his hand, ‘the minister who so kindly officiates for us here at the Phoenix ain’t a Methodist like the Reverend, or at least he don’t think he is, but he’s a Protestant of some sort and now he’s part ways sobered up he’ll do a fine job. Seeing as how the rest of you are partial to being married by the Reverend, the Reverend will conduct the other ceremonies. Now then, where’s the lady who’s put such a sparkle into the Reverend’s eye?’
‘I’m here,’ Susan said, her cream-gloved hands clasping a white leather prayer book,
Josh Nelson stared at her and blinked. The ungainly, horsey, ravaged faced woman he had offered for auction such a little while ago was unrecognisable. She looked downright pretty now. Pretty and very, very elegant.
‘Well now, Ma’am,’ he said recovering from his surprise, ‘As your Pa ain’t here to give you away, I’m going to act as a stand-in. See that bower of flowers over there? You’re goin’to be married beneath it. Up to a hundred Peabody brides have been married beneath that bower and darn me, if I was to marry, I’d git married beneath it!’
Susan turned round to Lottie. ‘Are you ready, Lottie?’ she asked as Lottie positioned herself behind her, her braids decorated with gold ribbon; a gold ribbon sash around her waist.
As Kitty began to play a wedding march on the organ Lottie nodded, her eyes shining. She was going to be a bridesmaid. She was going to be a bridesmaid five times! And she was going to be a bridesmaid for Lilli and Ringan. Ringan would be her and Leo’s brother-in-law. And he would be the best brother-in-law in the whole wide world. He would teach them about birds and animals and lots and lots of other wonderful things. He would teach them to fish and they would teach him to ride. They would be as happy together as a family as they had been when their pa had been alive. Their pa would have liked Ringan. Their pa would have thought she looked a cracker in her gold hair ribbons and sash.
The sawdust-covered floor was even more crowded than it had been earlier, for dance-hall girls and barmaids had piled into the Phoenix to witness the weddings. Amid loud cheering and clapping the crowd parted to allow Josh Nelson, with Susan on his arm, to lead a way through.
The bower was of artificial roses heavily laced with satin ribbons and a lavish sprinkling of small gold nuggets. Mr Jenkinson, looking agonisingly self-conscious, was standing one side of it. A white-whiskered, not very cleanly dressed clergyman was swaying unsteadily on the other side of it. Lord Lister, Will Bennett and Saskatchewan Stan were standing nearby. Lord Lister was wearing a cream linen suit with a cream silk gold-embroidered vest and looked even more out of place than Mr Jenkinson. Will Bennett’s auburn hair had been slicked down until it gleamed. Saskatchewan Stan sported a wild briar rose in his button-hole. Only Ringan was absent.
‘Dearly beloved …’ the Phoenix’s tame preacher began, ‘we are gathered together here …’
Where was he? Panic suffused her. He wouldn’t have let her down, as Lucky Jack would have done, because he had become embroiled in a card game. Was he not here because Lucky Jack had detained him? Was Lucky Jack insisting that he be her bridegroom and was he trying to persuade Ringan to accept twenty-five thousand dollars as reimbursement?
‘Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife …’ the minister was saying, still swaying alarmingly.
And what would she do if that was the case? How did she know that Ringan had ever truly wanted to marry her? How did she know that he hadn’t acted as he had simply out of compassion for her?
‘I take thee, Susan Alison Victoria Mary, to my wedded wife …’ Mr Jenkinson was saying, his voice unsteady with the passion of his feelings, ‘to have and to hold …’
She turned her head, looking away from the bridal couple to the sea of faces behind her. There was no sign of Ringan. No sign of Lucky Jack and Leo.
‘I now pronounce you …’ the minister broke off to hiccup. ‘I now pronounce you man and wife.’
The congregation of gold prospectors, gamblers, dance-hall girls and bar staff gave vent to their feelings with piercing whistles and shouts of good wishes.
‘And now,’ Josh Nelson announced, flapping his hands to signal a respective silence was again called for, ‘The Reverend Mr Jenkinson will marry Miss Letitia Walker and Mr William Bennett.’
Lilli turned once more to face the rose-encrusted bower. She was learning new things about her friends with every minute; that Susan’s other names were Alison Victoria Mary; that Lettie’s surname was Walker.
With quiet dignity Mr Jenkinson was asking Lettie and Will if they would promise to love and honour each other, in sickness and in health. Will Bennett produced a spanking new wedding ring from his pocket and, at the due moment, slipped it onto the fourth finger of Lettie’s left hand.
Once again Lilli turned around. Once again Ringan was conspicuous only by his absence.
When Kate and Lord Lister took Lettie and Will’s place, Lilli couldn’t help reflecting on what the groom’s family would make of the marriage when they were told of it, and of the circumstances under which it had taken place. She wondered where Kate and Lord Lister would have married if they had married in London. Perhaps the wedding would have taken place at St Margaret’s, Westmi
nster, or perhaps St George’s, Hanover Square.
‘With this ring I thee wed,’ Lord Lister was saying in his clipped, cut-glass accent, ‘with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’
A dance-hall girl wearing a low-cut pink and black satin dress and a belt made up of twenty-dollar gold-pieces, was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Another dance-hall girl, sporting a diamond fastened between her two front teeth, was sniffing noisily in unashamedly sentimental enjoyment.
As Lord Lister kissed his bride Lilli wondered where on earth Ringan was; what it was that was delaying him.
‘He’ll be here,’ Lottie said confidently in the slight pause between Kate’s wedding and Edie’s. ‘Ringan will never let you down. Not ever.’
‘And now if the bridesmaid will again take her place,’ Josh Nelson requested as Kitty began to play a suitably decorous piece of music on the organ.
As Edie took Josh Nelson’s arm and, followed by Lottie, walked the few steps to where Saskatchewan Stan and Mr Jenkinson were waiting for her, Lilli’s throat tightened. Edie was a young woman transformed. Rosily and trustingly she smiled across at her proud, roly-poly bridegroom. From now on Saskatchewan Stan would love her and protect her. From now on she would never again be hurt or frightened in the ways she had been in the past.
As the wedding service began Lilli’s thoughts returned to Ringan. She hadn’t needed Lottie to assure her that Ringan would never let her down. She knew that already; she knew it in her blood and in her bones. But what if Lucky Jack was delaying him? What if Lucky Jack was convincing him that her happiness would be best served if he, not Ringan, strode into the Phoenix to marry her?
‘Is Edie the name you were christened with?’ Mr Jenkinson was asking Edie gently.
Edie stared at him blankly.
Lettie stepped forward and spoke quietly to Edie. A few seconds later she said to Mr Jenkinson, ‘Edie’s the diminutive of Edith.’
Lottie turned her head, her eyes meeting Lilli’s, a grin splitting her face. Despite the fierceness of her anxieties Lilli grinned back, remembering the moment when, in explaining what a diminutive was, they had first made friends with Lettie.
‘If you would take the bride’s hand in yours,’ Mr Jenkinson was saying to Saskatchewan Stan.
Lilli wondered if Stan was suffering from the ‘jitters’. She wondered where Kitty Dufresne had learned to play Bach so faultlessly.
‘Now say after me, Edith, ‘I take thee Stanley …’
‘I take thee Stanley,’ Edie said uncertainly.
‘To be my lawful wedded husband,’ Mr Jenkinson prompted.
Edie was silent.
‘To be my lawful wedded husband,’ Mr Jenkinson prompted again.
Still Edie remained silent.
Susan’s fingers tightened on her prayer-book.
Marietta took a nervous step forward, ready to reassure the bride if reassurance proved to be necessary.
‘What is it, Edith?’ Mr Jenkinson asked gently.
‘It’s Stanley,’ Edie said bravely, ‘I don’t want to marry a Stanley. I want to marry Mr Saskatchewan Stan.’
In the packed dance-hall a pin could have been heard dropping. Not one of the hardened miners or world-weary gamblers laughed or cracked any jokes at the bride’s expense.
‘Then so you shall,’ Mr Jenkinson said, an odd note in his voice as if his throat, too, was unnaturally tight. ‘I take thee, Mr Saskatchewan Stan …’
Edie repeated the words after him faultlessly.
Miners, gamblers, dance-hall girls and bar staff breathed a hefty sigh of relief.
From the back of the jam-packed hall came the sound of movement, as if someone had just entered and their entry was causing a stir. As Edie and Saskatchewan Stan finished making their vows the stir became a commotion.
Edie and Saskatchewan Stan, Susan, Kate and Lord Lister, Lettie and Will, Marietta and Kitty, Lottie and Rosalind Nettlesham, all turned to see what the commotion was about.
Lilli turned, too. Was it Lucky Jack? Wherever Lucky Jack went he seemed to cause a commotion. Amid cheers and whistles and shouts the crowd massing the dance-hall parted to allow the last of the bridegrooms to stride through and take his place at his bride’s side.
He looked magnificent. He looked more than magnificent. He looked breathtakingly resplendent. His thick red hair shone like burnished metal, sweeping the collar of a fine lawn shirt. The front of his shirt was tucked, the sleeves full, belling into lace-trimmed wrist-frills and at his throat was a lace jabot. Instead of breeches he wore a kilt in a plaid of singing reds with a yellow line, a sporran and knee-high woollen hose. The kilt swirled around his strong calves. A dirk gleamed from the top of one of his socks. Silver buckles gleamed on his black leather shoes.
‘My, oh my,’ Kitty said, her eyes glazing, ‘Now I know why all those Highland girls fell in love with Bonnie Prince Charlie!’
‘Lord a-mighty,’ Marietta said devoutly, ‘how can a man in a skirt look masculine enough to suicide oneself for?’
‘Oh Ringan! I knew you’d come!’ Lottie cried, running towards him and clasping tightly hold of his hand.
In his other hand he incongruously held a posy of flowers. ‘They’re the reason I’m a wee bit late,’ he said apologetically as he came to a halt in front of Lilli. ‘I wanted ye to have a wedding bouquet. I’ve picked them myself.’
She took the posy from him with trembling fingers.
‘They’re forget-me-nots,’ he added as his fingers touched hers. ‘To match your eyes.’
In that moment, as their flesh touched, Lilli knew she loved him with all her heart. That she would love him always and forever. Without a shadow of a doubt she knew that the love she had thought she felt for Lucky Jack had been nothing but a pale imitation of the real thing. This, the unutterably magnificent, strong and certain emotion now burning through her like liquid gold, was the real thing.
‘Are ye ready?’ he asked gently, his face carefully expressionless.
She nodded, quite unable to speak.
Lottie stationed herself behind them and together they faced Mr Jenkinson.
‘Will you please take the bride’s hand in yours, Mr Cameron,’ Susan’s husband was saying.
He reached for her hand and she saw that beneath the frill of his cuff his wrist was lightly haired with copper. As her fingers disappeared into his substantial grasp she found herself wondering what he looked like naked; if, before the night was over, she would see him naked.
‘Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife …’
As he made the responses her fingers tightened on his. He was marrying her but she still didn’t know his reason for doing so. She could only hope and pray as to his reason.
‘Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health …’
When it came time for her to make her responses she felt herself tremble. Instantly his fingers tightened reassuringly on hers.
‘I, Elizabeth, take thee Ringan, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward …’
And now, Mr Jenkinson was saying, ‘the ring …’
Ringan released her hand long enough to twist a signet ring from his finger. He slid it over the knuckle of her fourth finger.
‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship …’
The ring was so large it hung loose on her finger and would have slid off had Ringan not folded her fingers around it and enclosed her fist once more in his own.
At last it was over. Dizzily she heard Mr Jenkinson say, ‘You may now kiss the bride.’
Even more dizzily she turned to face the man who was now her husband.
His eyes held hers and then, as she made no demur, his arm slid around her waist as he lowered his head to hers.
Chapter Fifteen
His lips were soft and warm on hers. Vaguely she was conscious of noises, whoops of enthusiasm and encouragement from the spectators, but all she was really
aware of was the sweetness of his kiss and the sense of security and sanctuary his enfolding arms gave.
‘Right folks!’ Kitty was saying to all and sundry, ‘The wedding breakfast is to be at The Eldorado! Champagne’s compulsory, so I hope you’ve all got thirsts!’
Reluctantly Ringan released Lilli. With troubled eyes he said, ‘We’re going to have to go along with things a little longer. Ye dinna mind, do ye?’
‘No.’ The breath was tight in her chest, her disappointment so crushing she thought she might faint. So they were only ‘going along with things’were they? He wasn’t considering their marriage a real marriage. They wouldn’t be living together, loving and laughing and having children.
‘Champagne!’ Edie was saying in childlike excitement, her arm tucked through Saskatchewan Stan’s, ‘I’ve never drunk champagne before!’
‘Nathaniel and I are going to return to Whitehorse so that the Methodist minister there can marry us again,’ Susan was saying to her friends as they all began to stream out into Front Street and the pale light of a Dawson midnight. ‘Nathaniel isn‘t at all sure that Mr Nelson’s minister is properly licensed.’
‘Will and me are leaving on a boat for Nome first thing in the morning,’ Lettie was saying to Lilli. ‘But I’ll write. I’ll write care of Miss Dufresne.’
Even though it was the middle of the night, Dawson’s main street was as crowded as it had been at mid-day. Dogs still dashed madly up and down, saloon doors swung open and shut continually, male laughter merged with the tinkling of a score of pianos. On the side of a frame building an enormous magic lantern projected advertising messages. Newsboys ran spryly along the duckboards selling the Nugget. On an open-air stand a girl was selling dances at a dollar a dance.
‘Welcome to The Eldorado,’ Kitty announced, leading the way into a hotel which was at first sight as magnificently opulent as any in San Francisco.
Still clutching her posy of forget-me-nots, Lilli stood stockstill in the dust-beaten street, staring up at the giant lettering. The Eldorado. Hadn’t Lucky Jack told her that Eldorado was the name of his home? He had said it was big, more than thirty rooms. Had he not been referring to a house after all, but to a hotel? And if so, why hadn’t he said so?
Forget-Me-Not Bride Page 26