by Sara Seale
“Oh! How long—”
“—would it take? I’ve already done it, while you women were wrangling in the other room.”
If he had not held her with sudden firmness she would have slipped away from his hands.
“You—you were so sure that I couldn’t resist such a prize that you—oh, you’re quite impossible!” she cried, but her struggling ceased as his finger traced another tear along her lashes.
“I’m not such a prize, dear Lou,” he said with humility. “Don’t think that because I’m rich and what the scandal sheets have termed a catch, I don’t know my own shortcomings. I really haven’t asked for half the wild surmises that have been flying around, you know.”
“No, I don’t suppose you have,” she said, wondering if he had talked to Melissa like this. But Melissa would not have cared. Melissa only wanted a share in the publicity, no matter how untrue it was, and even she, in the end, had settled for her heart’s dictates.
“Well?” he said.
“Well what?”
“You know very well. Look, Lou, I admit I was riled, possibly beyond reason, at this rather salutary slap in the face, and I admit that I had every intention of making your dear Cousin Blanche pay, not only for getting every cent out of me she could, but for her treatment of my father. Do you think that unreasonable?”
“I don’t know. Does one bear grudges so far back?”
He looked suddenly weary with the old look of disillusionment.
‘It was hardly a grudge in quite that sense,” he said. “I suppose what one loses suddenly as a child can color one’s life. I thought Blanche was wonderful, you see. I had never known my own mother, and Blanche—well, she naturally made much of me, I suppose, since she was going to marry my father.”
There was a little silence. The shadows had deepened even as they talked, and outside the rain still beat relentlessly down. Cousin Blanche, thought Lou inconsequentially, must have known that Piers was waiting to plead his own cause.
“Yes ... I see ...” Lou said, moved despite herself, but hardly aware of what it was she saw.
“You’re very tired, aren’t you?” Piers said, feeling the sudden slackness in her limbs. “Don’t worry about these things any more. I would like you to know, though, that my ultimatum to your cousin wasn’t entirely the piece of blackmail you all took it for.”
“Then you won’t—?”
His face hardened at once. “Oh, yes, I will, but that has nothing to do with you now.”
“But it has. Cousin Blanche—well, I can’t let her be ruined for the sake of—for the sake of—”
“For the sake of what? Your cousin might be more than temporarily embarrassed, as they say, but she wouldn’t be ruined in the long run. Someone would come to the rescue, someone always has.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,” Lou said.
“I’m trying to tell you that I want to marry you, my dear—that I think, if you are not averse to me, that you are, perhaps, what I need—or am I being high-and-mighty again? One never knows.”
Lou had little fight left in her, and the tenderness was back in his face, the tenderness that matched the warmth of his voice which had first charmed her.
“No, you’re not being high-and-mighty, Piers—what can I do?”
“Marry me. Oh, it won’t be all beer and skittles in spite of my wealth, and I’m possibly too old for you, still—”
“Still—” echoed Lou, too tired, for further argument, and Piers bent his head to kiss her. His lips, warm and unexpectedly tender on hers, were a benediction, and her eyes flew open.
“That wasn’t fair,” she said.
“Not fair? But you are going to marry me—aren’t you?”
“Yes...” she said on a note of surprise, and a little sigh of relief escaped her that the long struggle was over, that this stranger to whom she was suddenly pledged might have, after all, a strange, unexpected solace to give.
“Thank you,” he said, releasing her. “Now I can leave. Till tomorrow, then, Lou, and—be of good heart. God bless!”
Tomorrow ... Tomorrow had inevitably come, of course, but not before Lou was worn out with the many arrangements which immediately engulfed her. She must wear Melissa’s wedding dress, Cousin Blanche ordained; there was not time to arrange anything else, and the two girls were much the same size. The fitters were recalled and Lou stood clad in the miraculous fairy-tale creation which had first captured her imagination, while the fitters pinned and snipped, deftly reducing and shortening, for although reasonably of the same build, Lou was noticeably more slender and Melissa the taller of the two.
“Ah, mademoiselle, the gown is ravishing,” the head fitter said, and Lou wondered what she was thinking at this extraordinary turn of events, but to Lou now, and possibly to the tired woman working stoically overtime, it no longer much mattered what anyone thought.
“You must take such of the trousseau as you may need, for you’ve nothing suitable yourself,” Cousin Blanche said magnanimously, and Lou had looked at Melissa’s exquisite wardrobe and acquiesced in anything that was suggested. Mink hung from the padded hangers, sleekly elegant coats, stoles and jackets, and the chinchilla bolero which only a few days ago Melissa had exchanged so recklessly.
“Not that,” said Lou, remembering that it had been treble the cost of the stole and a rather mean extravagance in view of her subsequent behaviour.
“Why not? It’s charming,” Blanche had said, but she was pleased. Chinchilla was too old a fur for the very young; it would flatter highly her own good looks and be something salvaged for herself.
“Now listen carefully, Lou...” Cousin Blanche said, it seemed for the hundredth time. So many instructions, so many admonitions; so much to remember, so much to forget, such little time left to remain oneself. Already she seemed to have taken on another personality, wearing Melissa’s wedding dress, going away with Melissa’s trousseau, and Melissa herself—where was she? Had she found happiness with the man she loved? Had she no regrets for the brilliant future she had thrown away? No one, thought Lou in the last numbed stages of exhaustion, had given a thought to Melissa. From her mother’s point of view she, had acted out of character and ruined a flawless scheme, and what happened to her now could scarcely concern anyone but herself.
“Poor Melissa...” Lou murmured as at long last she crept thankfully into her bed, already half asleep. “I hope she’s happy ... I hope she’ll never know what she’s missed.” But she was not thinking of the ease and luxury of the future as she fell asleep mourning a little for her cousin, but of that autocratic stranger with whom, had she wanted, Melissa could have found so much ...
III
At last it was over. Lou, treated for the first time in her life to the attention and consideration shown to someone of first importance, submitted docilely to all that was planned for her, and felt very little. It was not she, she thought, when she thought at all, who had suddenly become the hub of a fashionable occasion, but a dream self-moving obediently through a day of make-believe. She had been stand-in for a bridesmaid, now she was stand-in for the bride, and none of it was real. She was aware of the crowds waiting at the church and the excited murmurs of astonishment and speculation as she began the long walk up the aisle. She had rehearsed this walk so often, following in the wake of her cousin, that she had the timing to the minute. She hardly knew the man who was to give her away, an uncle or cousin hoping, no doubt, for a share in the family’s good fortune, but she could feel the nervous tension in the arm her fingers rested on, and knew with mild astonishment that he, and probably Cousin Blanche too, would be on tenterhooks until the ceremony was safely over.
The voices of the choir rose and fell in some unfamiliar anthem, the blur of faces on either side were unfamiliar, too, as was the subtle drag and pull of Melissa’s miraculous wedding dress trailing behind her, and suddenly Lou was grateful for her shoes. Melissa’s hand-made models of perfection had not fitted, and Lou had been obliged
to wear her own well-worn and rather tarnished slippers. They were, she thought, a salutary reminder that underneath all the borrowed glory she was still little Lou Parsons, a girl who just for a day was deputising for another, and who would in the end, like the Cinderella of story, hear the chimes of midnight strike, turning the pomp and glitter back into pumpkins and white mice.
What absurd things one thinks of, she reflected, aware with surprise that the long procession up the aisle was nearly over, that the choir had stopped singing, and the dark stranger waiting at that altar rails had turned to meet her. For a moment reality pierced through the dream and she stopped dead. What, she wondered wildly, was she doing here?
How had she allowed herself to become persuaded into such a farce? Then Piers smiled, that slightly twisted smile with its redeeming touch of tenderness, and she moved forward to stand beside him, aware as she did so of the audible gasp of relief uttered by the man who was to give her away.
From then on she was back again in the dream. She listened to Piers making his responses firmly and clearly, and her own were no less clear; only when the ring was put on her finger did she falter, for it was too big and had plainly been meant for Melissa. Piers’ smile was wryly amused as he slipped it on, and she wondered if already he was regretting that outrageous gesture to save his own pride. Only then did she fully realize what she had done; for better or worse, she was married to a man she scarcely knew, a man who had said so arrogantly: “I refuse to be made the subject of ridicule ... so find me another bride.” She, the unlikely puppet of his choosing, had allowed herself to be persuaded into madness, but not on account of her cousins’s pleadings, but because he himself, waiting so unexpectedly for her answer, had with that strange flash of tenderness swept away her defences.
They were in the vestry now to sign the register, and for the last time Lou wrote her name, Louise Mary Parsons, and said goodbye to that other self. Cousin Blanche kissed her as did several strangers; the bridegroom had not appeared to think it necessary, an omission which had already been avidly noted by some of the ladies present; then she was walking down the aisle on Piers’ arm, conscious now of the craning necks and muted buzz of talk on either side. They came out into the daylight to a battery of cameras and reporters excitedly demanding a story, and Lou stood listening to the peal of bells, aware that yesterday’s rain had begun again, that strange faces gazed at her form under a sea of umbrellas and wet gleamed on the cape of a mounted policeman clearing a way for them through the crowd. She had seen it all so many times on television newsreels, the wedding of the week, the wedding of the year, wondering what it felt like to be the bride, and now she played that role herself and felt nothing. Careful hands were lifting the yards of velvet after her into the car, and she saw with a sense of guilt that the hem was already splashed with mud; she clasped her hands nervously in her lap, the cuffs of white mink soft against her wrists, and as the car moved slowly away, Piers’ hand closed over hers with sudden warmth.
“You came through that very nicely—very nicely indeed,” he said. “Were you nervous?”
“No,” she replied in all honesty. “You see I didn’t believe in any of it. It was just make-believe.”
One eyebrow shot up, giving his face a momentary look of distortion.
“Then you’ll have to come down to earth, won’t you? I can assure you I have no plans for a make-believe marriage,” he said, and whether it was intended as a threat or a warning, the remark embarrassed her.
“I didn’t mean...” she began tentatively. “I—I realize that ... I mean, I’m trying to say ...”
“Well, what are you trying to say?”
“You don’t make it very easy.”
“You’ll find, I’m afraid, my dear Lou, that I won’t often make things easy for you. I’m not an easy person, so I’m told.”
“I think you probably rather pride yourself on that,” she replied unexpectedly. “When a person’s spoilt and run after it doesn’t become necessary to consider other people.”
“Good grief, who’d have expected a set-down only a quarter of an hour after marriage!” he exclaimed with humor. “Do you think I’m spoilt?”
“I don’t know you,” she said, and as the car braked suddenly and skidded a little on the wet road, she found herself flung against his shoulder. He put an arm round her to steady her, at the same time brushing his lips against her cheek.
“You’ve sidetracked the original subject quite neatly, haven’t you? I thought you were endeavouring to make it plain that you were fully prepared to accept the—er—more intimate responsibilities of marriage,” he said, and when she did not immediately answer he gave a wry little smile. “You hadn’t thought of that side, had you?” he added quite gently.
No, she hadn’t thought. There had been no time since yesterday to reflect on more sober things in a world which had suddenly gone crazy.
“I don’t suppose you’ll find me up to your usual standards, but I can learn,” she said, trying to sound both obliging and dignified, but fearing, when he laughed, that she had only succeeded in appearing absurd.
“And what do you suppose are my usual standards, as you so delicately put it?” he asked.
“Well, you like your women sophisticated—experienced—so they say.”
“Do I? Then you’ll make a wholesome change, won’t you; Lou? Ah, here we are. Better brace yourself for this reception, my poor child; there are going to be a lot of awkward questions asked.”
There was, indeed, a great deal of polite and not so polite curiosity in the air, but as Lou knew scarcely any of the guests it was not too difficult to evade the more blatant remarks. Cousin Blanche, who herself was very skilled at dealing with impertinences, had obviously cooked up some sort of explanation to quell, if not silence, the gossipers, but the bridesmaids, as Piers had pointed out yesterday, could not be muzzled for ever, and would doubtless dine out on the true story for weeks to come.
The cake was cut, toasts were drunk, and somebody made a speech which, possibly by reason of the last-minute switch-over of brides, was not in the happiest vein. Piers replied with something of a bite and, very soon, Cousin Blanche was bustling Lou upstairs to change. It was high time, Blanche thought, to bring these proceedings to an end, before more embarrassing questions were put; only just now someone had asked where the honeymoon was to be spent, and that dazed-looking child had replied that she didn’t know.
“Really, Lou!” Cousin Blanche said, as she shepherded the bride up the stairs. “You knew Melissa’s plans perfectly well. Paris, Rome, Vienna, a short luxury tour of the great capitals of Europe. I’m beginning to think, though, it will all be wasted on you.”
Lou thought so, too. Melissa she could well picture in the honeymoon suites of expensive hotels, dancing the night long, spending money, never allowing boredom to ruffle the seasoned dictates of her exacting bridegroom, and as she submitted to the experienced hands which stripped her of her wedding finery and dressed her again in one of the elegant suits from Melissa’s trousseau, Lou experienced a moment’s terror at the prospect of her immediate future. How would she, who had never been out of England, know how to comport herself in foreign countries? How, above all, know in what way to meet the demands and expectations of a man who had already travelled the world over and could find nothing new?
She stood passively before a long mirror while the final touches were made, a tweak to the smart little hat, a spray of scent, Melissa’s fabulous mink coat slung carelessly about her shoulders, gloves and handbag put into her unresisting hands. Only her shoes were her own, and again she took comfort in the fact that there was still something left of herself, grateful at the same time that the shoes were reasonably new and did not disgrace the rest of her.
Somebody gave her the wedding bouquet and she looked at it blankly. “What am I to do with it?” she asked.
“Throw it, of course,” the head fitter smiled, amused.
“Throw it?”
‘To the b
ridesmaids. Whoever catches it will be the next—surely you know?”
“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten.” Lou surprised a brief flash of compassion, or it might only have been suppressed curiosity, in the woman’s worldly eyes, and remembered how she had seemed to side with Lou when fitting the bridesmaids’ dresses, and indeed, in respectful but firm fashion, put Cousin Blanche in her place.
“Thank you for all your help, and all your patience,” Lou said shyly. “You must think—”
“I’m not paid to think, mademoiselle—or rather, I should say now, madame,” the fitter replied repressively, then she suddenly smiled. “Go now, for they are waiting, and—good luck.”
Good luck ... good luck ... thought Lou as she walked to the head of the stairs. She would need all the luck in the world to meet the new life waiting for her, to make a success of a marriage so haphazardly thrust upon her, to learn to love a bridegroom who had chosen her with such ill-considered impetuosity.
She dutifully flung her bouquet to the group of bridesmaids, but did not notice who caught it, then was aware of Piers at her elbow, pushing a way through the chattering throng. His long black sports convertible stood at the kerb, its hood up since it was still raining, and, a little bemused by the banter and embraces from perfect strangers pleasantly mellowed by champagne, she clambered into the car rather awkwardly and felt her stocking run as she did so.
They were away with the noisy burst of acceleration that such a car and such a driver demanded, and Lou remembered that Piers’ driving had alarmed her.
“Well?” he said, manoeuvring skilfully through the traffic.
“I’ve laddered my stocking,” she replied with childish inconsequence, and after that they drove in silence, leaving the busy thoroughfares behind for the wet mazes of the suburbs, and the suburbs in turn for the first beginnings of country. Lou had no idea whether they were heading north, south, east or west; they seemed enclosed in a nameless small world unrelated to anything familiar, and the windscreen wipers began to have a hypnotic effect on her.