Edyth walked out of the back door of the substantial villa that her father had built on the outskirts of Pontypridd, opened the door to the outside pantry and shivered in the draught of freezing air that blasted out to meet her. At ten o’clock in the morning, the temperature was already high, but the stone-walled pantry had been sunk below ground level. Summer or winter it remained ice-cold, which was just as well for the numerous shrouded bowls and plates ranged on the marble slabs that lined the walls. For days their housekeeper, Mari, had been marshalling all the assistance she could commandeer from family and friends to prepare salads, cold fish and meat dishes, cheeses and desserts.
‘A veritable feast,’ Edyth’s youngest brother Glyn had declared when he’d been allowed to ‘lick out’ the bowls used to mix the cakes and desserts. Although he was only six, he loved using long words, even when he didn’t have a clue what they meant.
Edyth switched on the electric light her father had insisted the builder install, even in the outbuildings, walked down the steps and picked up one of the trays of rosebud buttonholes that she had helped her mother, sisters, aunts and cousins make the night before. To her relief, all the flowers still looked fresh, as did the bridesmaids’ posies and bride’s bouquet, which stood in buckets of water on the floor.
‘God Bless Mari,’ she murmured. The housekeeper’s idea of wrapping the stems in damp cotton wool had worked, despite her sister’s Bella’s prediction that the flowers would wither in the heat and the only bridal bouquet she’d have was the faded blue and white wax one that their neighbour, old Mrs Hopkins, kept under a glass dome in her hall.
Edyth balanced the buttonhole trays on one arm, backed out and shut the pantry door before the warm air could reach the food. The plaintive notes of a lone saxophone playing the first few bars of ‘The Wedding March’ drifted from the front lawn. She stopped to listen. Two hot, clammy hands closed around her waist from behind. She jumped, almost dropping the trays.
‘The band’s arrived.’
‘Let me go, Charlie Moore,’ she commanded irritably.
‘Didn’t you hear me? I said the band’s arrived.’
‘I have ears.’ She set the trays on the kitchen window sill and turned to confront him. Charlie Moore was twenty-one and good looking, in a well-heeled, smooth kind of way. He was wealthy too, courtesy of his family’s Cardiff shipping business. But – and she had found this to be an insurmountable ‘but’, despite his family’s friendship with Bella’s fiancée, Toby, he was also arrogant and convinced that he was every woman’s dream lover.
Instead of releasing her as she’d demanded, he locked his hands even tighter. ‘You weren’t very nice to me at the reception to unveil Toby’s paintings in my grandfather’s shipping office.’
‘You weren’t very nice to me,’ she retorted.
‘All I did was kiss you. My cheek still hurts from the slap you gave me.’
‘You deserved a bruise after jumping out at me like that when I was leaving the cloakroom. You scared me half to death.’
‘Be nice to me and I’ll show you a good time,’ he wheedled. ‘My father gave me a sports car last week as a belated graduation present.’
‘Bully for you.’
‘We could go places. Cardiff, Swansea, Barry Island, Porthcawl…’
‘I’ve been to all of them.’ She dug her nails into the back of his hands, but failed to dislodge his grip.
‘Not with me.’
‘I’m particular who I go out with.’
‘Come on, Edie, I know you want to kiss me.’ He turned her around. ‘I can see your lips puckering right now.’
‘If they are it’s because you’ve squeezed me so tight I’m going to be sick.’ She opened her mouth as if she was about to retch. He stepped back in alarm. She laughed and opened the kitchen door.
‘Always joking, aren’t you?’ he griped.
‘Only with clowns.’
‘Seriously, Edyth, you will save me some dances at the reception, won’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, stop teasing. You know you’re burning to be my girl.’
‘When I say something I mean it, Charlie Moore, and contrary to your belief I am not “burning to be your girl”. Now, go away, I’m busy.’ She picked up the trays again.
‘I could carry those for you,’ he offered.
‘No, thank you,’ she refused tartly. ‘What are you doing here anyway? All the groomsmen should be next door at Toby’s, helping him prepare for his big day.’
‘He sent me over.’
‘A likely story,’ she scoffed.
‘It’s true,’ he protested.
‘Do you need help out here, Miss Edyth?’ Spatula in hand, Mari came to the door. She looked from Edyth to Charlie.
‘Mr Moore appears to have lost his way. But I’ve just reminded him that he should be next door.’ Edyth lifted the tray so the housekeeper could inspect it. ‘The flowers are perfect, thanks to your idea of keeping the stems wrapped in damp cotton wool.’
‘Toby sent me over here to get buttonholes for the groomsmen but Edyth won’t give me any,’ Charlie complained to Mari.
‘You didn’t ask for buttonholes,’ Edyth snapped.
‘You told me to go back next door before I had a chance.’
‘Here’s one for Toby and one for you.’ Edyth picked up two from the tray and held them out to him.
Charlie took them from her. ‘What about the rest of the groom’s bridal party and the ushers?’
‘The best man and one usher are here, but I suppose we can spare half a dozen for anyone who calls in at Toby’s before going to the church. If you need any more you’ll have to come back to get them. From me.’ Mari took six roses from the tray and slipped them into an enamel bowl.
‘I’ll take these into the hall so everyone can help themselves.’ Edyth balanced both trays on one arm so she could open the interior door.
‘I’ll take them for you, if you like,’ Charlie stepped in.
‘No, thank you. I can manage, Mr Moore.’
‘Your wrapper’s slipping, Miss Edyth.’ Mari retied the bow on the overall Edyth was wearing over her frock. ‘You don’t want to get your bridesmaid’s finery dirty. You still here, Mr Moore?’ The housekeeper pushed the bowl into his hands and closed the back door in his face. ‘You want to watch that one, Miss Edyth,’ she warned.
‘Don’t worry, I already am, Mari. And he’s not my type.’
‘Heartbreaker,’ Mari teased.
‘That’s me.’
‘Someone will catch you one day,’ Mari called after her.
‘I’m keeping myself for the Prince of Wales.’
Mari laughed. Unlike Bella, Edyth had never had a serious boyfriend. From babyhood she had been the tomboy in the family, always more interested in climbing trees, riding bikes and horses, and playing football, than dolls and tea parties.
The porch and front doors were open, and Edyth saw that the saxophonist had been joined by the rest of the band in the gazebo on the lawn. They’d switched from ‘The Wedding March’ to ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’. A young, brown-skinned girl with a mature and hauntingly husky voice was belting out toe-tapping notes that drifted in through the windows, which were flung wide in hope of catching a non-existent breeze.
The whole country was basking in a heat wave. The broiling sun and cloudless sky was more appropriate to equatorial climes than Wales in July. Edyth set the trays on the hall stand and checked her reflection in the mirror. Bella was the acknowledged beauty in the family, having inherited their Spanish grandmother’s black hair and beguiling dark eyes. But she wasn’t too displeased with her own light brown hair and tawny eyes. Both held just enough of a hint of russet gold to lift her looks above the category of mousy.
Mindful of Mari’s warning about her overall, she slipped it off and studied her gold satin, floor-length bridesmaid’s gown. Fortunately, there were no smudges or signs of creasing around the waist. But she was furious with Charlie Moore for daring to put his hands on her. Damned man – when she was angry she had no compunction about using the swear words she’d picked up from her male cousins – how dare he untie her overall and take liberties with her?
The frock, cut to the same pattern as Bella’s wedding gown, clung to her figure, which she considered rounded in the right places; but was it too rounded? She stood sideways so she could see her profile. Were her hips too large and her bust too small?
A door slammed on the landing and her elder brother, Harry, left the bedroom that had been his before he’d married, and ran down the stairs, whistling an accompaniment to the band.
‘Aren’t I handsome in a morning suit, and isn’t that the perfect piece of music to set the tone for the day?’ He swept her up and quickstepped her down the hall.
‘If anyone is driving anyone crazy it’s you men,’ she countered, thinking of Charlie Moore. ‘None of you should be allowed near a wedding.’
‘Difficult to have one without us,’ he observed philosophically.
‘I’ll make an exception for the bridegroom and father of the bride, no one else.’
‘The bridegroom needs a best man and I have the ring all safe.’ Harry released her and patted the breast pocket of his morning suit.
‘Until you lose it.’
‘It isn’t like you to spit razor blades so early in the morning, sis. Who’s annoyed you? Tell big brother all, and I’ll flatten him for you.’
‘How do you know it’s a him?’
‘Because you’re only angry with men.’ Harry picked up one of the rosebuds and tucked it into his buttonhole. It fell forward at an angle.
‘You really would flatten him for me if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?’ Edyth smiled at Harry’s offer and realised that if she wasn’t careful she would allow one trivial incident with Charlie Moore to ruin the day, not only for her but for the family.
‘Hand me the wooden sword from our old toy box and I will sally forth.’
She took the flower from him. ‘Like all men, you’re as helpless as a baby without the redeeming cuteness.’ She winced as a crowd of boys, ranging in age from twelve to four, raced noisily past the front door, whooping and shouting.
‘Is that Pirate, or a Red Indian language?’ Harry asked.
‘How would I know?’
‘You see them more often than I do.’
The boys disappeared, scattering the chippings on the path in their wake. ‘See what I mean about the male sex? They’re so excited some of them are bound to be sick. I only hope they ruin their own clothes and no one else’s.’
‘Better they misbehave now than later, in church.’
‘It’s difficult to know which are worse: Uncle Victor’s boys, Uncle’s Joey’s, or your brothers-in-law. I’ve had to help Glyn change his shirt twice this morning because “someone” he wouldn’t snitch on stole a plate of chocolate éclairs from the pantry and passed them around. Thank goodness Mam insisted he dress in ordinary clothes when he woke this morning. His pageboy outfit would have been filthy by now.’ Edyth opened a drawer, took a pin from the cushion their mother kept there and secured the flower firmly to Harry’s lapel.
‘I’m on Glyn’s side. Weddings can be boring. Especially this waiting around while you girls preen and dress up in your glad rags.’ Harry could always be counted on to defend his only brother, who was nineteen years younger than him.
‘Glyn is involved, he’s a pageboy.’
Given what Harry had overhead Glyn and his youngest brother-in-law, Luke, say about their gold satin knickerbocker suits, he decided a change of subject might be tactful. ‘I saw Uncle Victor’s twins and Uncle Joey’s Eddie sneak into the laundry room earlier.’
‘Why would they go in there?’
‘They had bottles of beer up their sleeves and cigars sticking out of their top pockets.’
‘Honestly, they’re sixteen going on six!’ She took a small bottle from the drawer, unscrewed the gold top, pulled out the rubber stopper and dabbed perfume on to her fingertip.
Harry sniffed. ‘Nice scent, sis.’ He couldn’t resist adding, ‘It’s better than your usual eau de tennis and stables.’
‘You have my permission to shout at him, Edyth.’ Harry’s wife, Mary, led their toddler daughter, Ruth, out of the drawing room.
‘Charming, my wife and my sister ganging up on me!’ Harry looked down at his daughter. ‘Oh, my giddy aunt, Ruthie darling, you look pretty.’
Ruth held up the ballerina-length skirt of her gold satin flower-girl frock and did a twirl. ‘And a basket,’ she lisped, waving a gold-painted wicker basket in the air.
‘Which we’re going to fill with roses, aren’t we, poppet?’ Edyth slipped her overall back on to protect her dress, before picking Ruth up and kissing her.
‘My beautiful girl, or is it girls?’ Harry kissed Mary’s cheek and patted her six-month ‘bump’.
‘Please have another girl, Mary,’ Edyth pleaded, as the boys ran screaming past the front door again.
‘Girls are more trouble, especially when they try to keep up with the boys. How many bones have you broken, sis?’
Edyth ignored Harry’s question. ‘Why don’t you do something useful and take all the boys next door so they can annoy Toby? But leave Dad here. He’ll be needed to escort the bride.’
‘Edyth!’ Maggie, the next sister down in age from Edyth, called from the top of the stairs. ‘Bella’s asking where you put her bouquet and the bridesmaids’ posies.’
‘In the outside pantry. I saw them when I picked up the buttonholes. They’re perfect. Mari promised to take them out and dry the stems. Do you want me to check to see if she’s remembered?’
‘Please.’ Maggie returned to Bella’s bedroom.
‘I agree with Edyth; you and the boys would be better out of the way next door at Toby’s until it’s time to go to the church,’ Mary suggested diplomatically to Harry.
‘As I said, ganging up on me. But I suppose it’s time I started on my best man duties.’
Mary’s brother, David, emerged from the drawing room. Edyth handed him a buttonhole.
‘What do you want me to do with this?’ he asked blankly.
‘As I just said, boys have absolutely no idea.’ Edyth took another pin from the cushion and fastened the rose to David’s jacket. ‘Now, what do you say to the guests when they enter the church?’
‘Bride or groom’s side,’ he repeated parrot-fashion.
‘And which is which?’
‘Groom to the right of the altar?’ he asked hopefully.
‘As you are looking down towards it,’ she lectured.
‘My father and uncles still “tasting” the wine bought for the reception?’ Harry lifted his eyebrows.
‘They are.’ David’s broad smile suggested that the older generation weren’t the only ones who’d been sampling the alcohol.
‘Round up all the poor superfluous males inside and outside the house, and tell them they’ve been ordered next door, Davy.’ Harry glanced back at Edyth, and realised she had really made an effort. His tomboy kid sister had grown up. ‘Didn’t know you could clean up so well, sis.’
‘Charming!’ She stuck her tongue out at him.
‘You are to ignore that display of naughtiness from your Auntie Edie, Ruth.’ Harry took his daughter from Edyth and set her on the floor. ‘Beautiful as you temporarily are, sis, you know what they say: three times a bridesmaid -’
‘This is only the second,’ Edyth interrupted.
Harry ticked off his fingers. ‘Uncle Joey’s and Auntie Rhian’s wedding, mine and Mary’s, and now Bella and Toby’s. You need to practise your sums.’
‘Belle and I were only flower-girls at Auntie Rhea and Uncle Joey’s wedding, so that doesn’t count.’
‘If you’re right, as you’re only eighteen months younger than Bella, I suppose you’ll soon be following her up the aisle, then,’ Harry baited.
He had graduated from Oxford, and all five of his sisters and his brother had been educated with the expectation that they would also attend college. Their father, Lloyd, an ex-miner who had risen through trade union ranks to become an MP, was determined to push every one of his children, girls as well as boys, to the absolute limit of their ability. And although he and their mother Sali had finally given in to Bella and Toby’s pleadings that they be allowed to marry shortly after Bella’s twentieth birthday, Harry knew his parents saw Bella’s early marriage as a betrayal of that ideal.
‘I have absolutely no intention of getting married. No disrespect, Mary,’ Edyth apologised to her sister-in-law, ‘but you won’t catch me playing unpaid cook, bottle-washer, laundress, nurse, nanny, and housemaid to any man.’ She shuddered when she thought of Charlie Moore’s clammy hands.
‘So that’s what wives are supposed to do?’ Harry winked at his wife. ‘How come I drew the short straw, my angel?’
‘Davy, at least get the boys to sit down somewhere quiet before one of them breaks a leg or an arm,’ Edyth commanded as the noise from outside escalated.
David obediently went to the door. He was the same age as Edyth and had fallen in love with her the first time they’d met. Harry frequently joked that his brother-in-law would cut off his right arm, and cheerfully, if Edyth asked him to.
‘Edyth, bring up a couple of pins from the hall table, will you?’ Maggie shouted down.
‘I’ll see to it.’ Mary took a dozen pins from the cushion and pushed Ruth gently up the stairs ahead of her. ‘Go on, darling; let’s see if we can help.’
Edyth frowned. ‘I came downstairs to take the buttonholes from the pantry and to do something else …’
‘Shout at the men?’ Harry suggested.
Edyth hesitated, then, as the jazz band Toby had hired for the reception swung into a rousing rendition of ‘Walking My Baby Back Home,’ she remembered. ‘I wanted to ask the band if they’d play “Falling in Love With You” when Bella and Toby return here from the church.’
‘“Ain’t He Sweet” would be better.’ Harry’s blue eyes glittered with mischief.
‘How about “Ever’thing Made for Love”?’ David chipped in from the porch where he was having no success in calming down the boys. Since Harry had installed a radio in the kitchen of the farmhouse he lived in with his wife and her orphaned brothers and sister, David listened to as many music programmes as he could fit into his working day.
‘If you don’t go to Toby’s now, the best man and bridegroom are going to arrive late at the church, Harry,’ Mary cautioned from the landing.
‘You see to the flowers, I’ll talk to the band, Edyth.’ Harry joined David at the door.
‘Can I trust you?’
‘Wait and see,’ Harry answered maddeningly.
Edyth spent a few minutes checking the buttonholes again for sign of wilting. When she was as sure as she could be that all of them would last the day, she went to the door. Harry and David had finally succeeded in collecting the boys but they had gathered in front of the gazebo where the jazz band was playing. Charlie Moore was with them and, to her annoyance, Bella’s fiancée, Toby.
‘The idiot,’ she muttered crossly. ‘Doesn’t he know it’s unlucky for the bridegroom to see the bride before the wedding? All the curtains are open on that side of the house.’
‘Talking to yourself is the first sign, Edyth.’ Maggie ran down the stairs behind her.
‘It’s the only way to get a sensible conversation in this house. Do me a favour, Mags - remind Mari to take out the posies and bouquets from their buckets in the outside pantry.’ Edyth turned on her heel and charged back up the stairs.
‘Harry Evans, brother of the bride and my best man.’ Toby introduced Harry to the musicians. ‘The King brothers – Tony, Jed and Ron.’ He glanced at the crowd of young men and boys standing around them. ‘I would introduce everyone to everyone, but as no one would remember all the names, there isn’t much point.’
‘Pleased to meet you. That was some music you were belting out there.’ Harry shook the hands of the three tall Negroes.
‘Abdul Akbar on trumpet,’ Toby continued, ‘Steve Chan on drums, and the Bute Street Blues Band’s talented and beautiful singer, soon to be discovered and swept off to the West End, Judy Hamilton.’
‘What Toby means is that I’m auditioning on Monday for a tiny part in the chorus of a tour of The Vagabond King. Not that I have a hope of getting it,’ Judy explained.
‘And when Ziegfeld sees you –’
‘The show’s touring Aberdare and the Rhondda, Toby, not opening in New York.’
‘If you won’t dream for yourself, Judy, then I’ll dream for you,’ Toby said blithely. ‘And last but not least, on saxophone, Micah Holsten.’
Harry shook the hand of the only white member of the band. He was very tall and thin, with startlingly white-blond hair. A pair of wire-framed spectacles was perched in front of his deep-blue eyes but even without them he had a keen, intellectual look. Harry found it difficult to gauge his age. At first glance he’d assumed the white hair was a sign of age; close up he recognised it as an indication of Scandinavian ancestry. Micah Holsten could be anywhere between a careworn twenty or a youngish thirty.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Evans.’ Micah had the slightest of accents; his English was clear and almost too perfect, as if he’d practised the pronunciation of every single word.
‘Please, call me Harry. There’s a buffet laid out in the kitchen for the waitresses and kitchen staff. My parents asked me to invite you all to help yourselves while we’re in the church.’
‘As long as you’re back out here to play for us when we return,’ Toby reminded.
‘Thank you. Not many people think of the musicians.’ Micah turned when a casement slammed noisily against the wall of the house. Edyth, in her long bridesmaids’ frock and high-heeled slippers, stood balanced precariously on the sill of the open high window set alongside the staircase. She was reaching above her head to the curtain pole.
‘Idiot! You’ll fall and break your neck, if not your skull again,’ Harry yelled.
‘Toby’s the idiot, coming here before the wedding. Everyone knows it’s unlucky for the bridegroom to see the bride before the ceremony.’ She tugged the curtains across the open window, closing them. Seconds later, two loud bangs and a scream echoed from the house.
Harry started running. Aware of someone following him, he turned and saw Toby charging in his wake. ‘Edyth won’t be the only one screaming if Bella sees you,’ he yelled, then darted inside. Edyth was standing on the top step of the long, curving staircase, holding a crossbar gold satin slipper in each hand.
‘You threw them on the stairs and screamed to frighten me?’ Harry grabbed the newel post to steady himself while he caught his breath.
‘I did.’ Her eyes glittered triumphantly.
Micah Holsten drew alongside Harry. ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ he gasped. ‘I would never have entered the house uninvited if Toby hadn’t thought you’d need help.’
‘My sister, Edyth. Micah Holsten, saxophonist and member of the Bute Street Blues Band. And Toby was right, Micah. Given my sister’s history of breaking her bones, I do need help to cope with her idea of a joke.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Holsten.’ Assuming from the intense way he was staring at her that he thought her a fool for playing such a childish trick, Edyth stepped back into the shadows. ‘Be a good best man and keep Toby away from the house, Harry.’
‘I’ll try. See you in church, sis.’ Harry turned to Micah. ‘As you’re here, I may as well show you to the kitchen.’
The women and girls who had crowded into Bella’s bedroom fell silent when Sali draped the veil over her eldest daughter’s head. Sali stepped back and Bella stood for a moment, gazing at her image in the cheval mirror through a mist of Bruges lace. She finally turned and faced her sisters, aunts and cousins.
‘Well?’ she questioned nervously. ‘Someone say something, even if it’s only, “you look as though you’ve been dipped in icing sugar, Bella.”’
A lump rose in Edyth’s throat. Her sister had chosen a plain, white satin, bias-cut frock that clung flatteringly to her bust and slim waist before flaring out below the hips. But her veil and the silver tiara that held it in place were family heirlooms. Lloyd’s Spanish mother had worn them when she’d married his father over half a century before, and although the pattern on the lace was ornate, its simple outline complemented the gown perfectly.
‘Someone? Anyone?’ Bella pleaded.
‘You make the most beautiful bride, darling. Toby is a very lucky man.’ Sali reached for her handkerchief.
‘Auntie Megan? Auntie Rhian?’
‘I agree with your mother, the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.’ Rhian struggled to keep her voice steady. Her wartime wedding to Lloyd’s youngest brother Joey had been a small registry office affair, and for the first time in her life she found herself regretting the sensible ‘walking out’ suit she’d worn. She’d consoled herself at the time with the thought that it was the marriage not the clothes that mattered. Although she didn’t doubt for one moment that Bella would be happy. Toby’s besotted devotion to her niece had been a constant source of amusement to the entire extended family for the last four years.
‘I can’t wait until I’m old enough to get married,’ Susie, the youngest of Sali and Lloyd’s daughters sighed theatrically.
‘And me,’ fifteen-year-old Beth and seventeen-year-old Maggie cried in unison.
‘One at a time, girls.’ Sali attempted to conceal her emotion beneath a veneer of brisk efficiency as she tidied Bella’s dressing table, but she deceived no one. ‘It’s taken four years for your father to get used to the idea of Harry being a husband and father.’ She gave Mary, who was sitting on the bed with Ruth on her lap, one of her ‘special’ smiles. ‘It will take him another four to accept that Bella’s grown up enough to be a wife.’
‘Don’t worry, Mam, you’ll always have one spinster daughter.’ Edyth picked up the gold basket she’d filled with yellow rosebuds and handed it to Ruth.
‘Hardly forever when you go to college in two months,’ Maggie reminded.
‘Only if I matriculate.’ Edyth crossed her fingers superstitiously under cover of her skirt, as she always did when any reference was made to the future that was planned for her. ‘And, if I’m lucky enough to pass all my exams, it will only be for three years. I’ll come back here to teach and look after Mam and Dad in their old age.’
‘That’s a comforting thought for you and Lloyd, Sali,’ laughed Megan, the wife of Lloyd’s other brother, Victor.
‘We’re not quite in our dotage yet, no matter what you girls think.’ Sali tweaked the hem of Bella’s dress.
Mari knocked at the door, bustled in with an armful of posies and Bella’s bouquet, took one look at the bride and stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh, Miss Bella, you look like an angel that’s just stepped out of heaven.’
‘Doesn’t she just, Mari?’ Sali agreed proudly.
‘And you look just as lovely in that grey silk, Mari.’ Edyth was so accustomed to their housekeeper wearing black, it was a revelation to see her in a colour.
‘Hardly “just as lovely”, Miss Edyth.’ Mari gave her a suspicious look. ‘What you after?’
‘Nothing,’ Edyth protested.
‘No baskets of food or “old” clothes or books to take down to the Unemployed Institute?’ Mari fished.
Everyone laughed. Lloyd and Sali were generous when it came to helping those less fortunate than them, but, to her sisters’ annoyance, Edyth was liberal to the extreme. She frequently gave away their precious possessions before they had finished with them.
‘Well, ladies,’ Mari addressed the room in general, ‘there’s an impatient crowd of smartly dressed gentlemen and a fleet of cars downstairs waiting to take the guests to the church. The chauffeur of the bridesmaids and mother of the bride has asked me to give a twenty-minute warning. And, as the bride’s mother’s sons are both involved in the wedding, the twins have offered their services as escort until the father of the bride has given the bride away.’
‘Do the twins do everything together?’ Edyth asked Megan.
‘Sixteen and no sign of them changing their ways.’ She shook her head fondly. ‘Victor is already pitying the poor girl they’ll both start courting.’
Mari saw Sali glance wistfully at Bella. Suspecting there wouldn’t be much time for mother and daughter to have a quiet moment together after the ceremony, she took charge. ‘Right, bridesmaids, pick up your posies, but keep the tea towels wrapped around the stems until the last minute or they’ll leave watermarks on your frocks. Those who haven’t yet picked up their buttonholes from the hall, do so. I’ll carry that downstairs for you so you can hold up your skirt, pet.’ She took Ruth’s basket from her, and was so insistent she soon cleared the room of everyone except Sali, Bella and Edyth, who was drying the stems of Bella’s bouquet in a towel. ‘Perhaps the chief bridesmaid should stay with the bride in case of accident,’ Mari declared as an afterthought.
‘What kind of accident?’ Bella asked from behind her veil.
‘Your knickers could fall down, like when you used to snap the elastic to make a funny noise when you were little.’
‘Mari!’ Bella cried indignantly.
‘And no sentimental remembrances or you two will make your mother cry.’ Mari took a last look at Bella. ‘You do look lovely, Miss Bella, just the way an Evans bride should.’ She closed the door quickly, but not quickly enough. Edyth saw a tear in the elderly woman’s eye.
‘Mari’s right.’ Sali continued to stare, mesmerised, at her eldest daughter. ‘You do look just the way an Evans bride should.’ Her eyes clouded as she remembered the day she’d been dressed as a bride. Only her bridegroom hadn’t made it to the church. Harry’s father had been murdered before he could marry her, but it was a story she and Lloyd had kept from the girls. The tragedy had been hers and Harry’s – and today of all days was not the time to remember it.
‘You heard Mari: no sentiment and no tears, or we’ll spoil our frocks and redden our noses.’ Edyth lifted her sister’s veil and draped it away from her face. ‘I hid a bottle of sherry and some glasses in your wardrobe earlier. Shall I get them?’
‘How on earth did you manage to do that without Mari, me or your father seeing you?’ Sali asked in amazement.
‘Perhaps now’s the time to tell you some of Edyth’s little dodges.’ Bella arranged her dress carefully so as not to crease it before sitting on her dressing-table stool.
‘Not if you want me to keep your secrets, sister dear.’ Edyth produced the bottle and three glasses, and set them on the dressing table.
‘Please be careful, Edyth, Sherry will leave a horrible stain on satin,’ Sali warned when Edyth uncorked the sherry.
‘I haven’t had an accident in months,’ Edyth protested.
‘That’s why I’m worried. Whenever you’ve been quieter for longer than a week, it usually means you’re building up to something big. Like that time you fractured your skull.’
‘I’ve broken enough bones for one lifetime.’ Edyth filled the last glass and handed two to her mother and sister. ‘A toast: to Bella and Toby, and many years of happy married life.’
‘And Edyth,’ Bella added. ‘May she be the first to fulfil Dad’s dream of seeing a daughter go to college.’
‘If I’ve passed my matriculation.’ Edyth crossed her fingers again before sipping the sherry.
Joey Evans liked to boast that he was the least sentimental man in the family, but Edyth saw her uncle reach for his handkerchief when Lloyd escorted Bella up the aisle to the accompaniment of their mother’s favourite Bach concerto. She continued to walk slowly behind her father and sister while keeping a watchful eye on the three small children in front of her. Pageboys Glyn and Luke held Bella’s veil stiffly at arm’s length and Ruth marched proudly between them, more miniature soldier on parade than flower-girl.
Relieved when they reached the altar without any of the small children tripping up, or getting in the way of the bridesmaids, Edyth looked up to see Toby standing smiling, his arm outstretched to Bella.
She had never been jealous of Bella’s dark exotic beauty, but she did find herself envying the look of love and longing etched in Toby’s eyes. Not Toby himself, just the way he looked at her sister. And she found herself wishing that a man would look at her that way.
The Reverend Price faced Bella and Toby and the congregation. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today …’
To Edyth’s annoyance, a mist blurred her vision. She had sat dry-eyed, emotions intact, throughout the rehearsal. Why couldn’t she continue to do so now? When Bella handed over her bouquet she buried her nose in the roses, inhaled their scent and wondered if she were dreaming. Could Bella really be getting married and leaving home?
She hadn’t felt this way when Harry had married Mary. She adored her big brother, but he was six years older than her and had spent so much time away at school, and later university, that she had never been as close to him as she was to her sisters. And, as she and Bella were the eldest, their relationship had been a special one.
She imagined Bella’s bedroom, empty not just for a few hours but, like Harry’s, permanently, apart from the odd holiday, and probably not even then as Toby was having a house built for them around the corner from her parents. She would no longer be able to creep in late at night, sit on her sister’s bed and devour the picnics they’d sneaked from the pantry while discussing life, art, books and the future.
She and Bella had gone almost everywhere together, both before and after they had grown out of short frocks. School, music lessons, ballet classes, parties, concerts, dances and the theatre, and they had traded insults that everyone outside of the immediate family considered vicious. She hadn’t once told Bella that she loved her, or how much she meant to her, or even that she was going to miss her …
‘I do.’ Toby’s response rang, loud and clear, to the church rafters.
Bella’s ‘I do’ was softer, more subdued.
The Reverend Price looked expectantly at Harry, who fumbled in his pockets in search of the ring long enough to alarm the groom and send whispers of amusement rippling through the congregation.
Edyth turned in annoyance at a sharp poke in her back. Maggie pointed to the floor. Glyn, Luke and Ruth were sitting in a circle, legs wide apart, feet touching, rolling the basket of rosebuds to one another. She stooped down to take it from them and found herself staring into a pair of unfamiliar, deep-brown eyes.
She picked up the basket. The owner of the brown eyes gathered the rosebuds and handed them to her. When he straightened, she saw that he was wearing a cassock, surplice and dog collar. He smiled at her before moving discreetly behind the Reverend Price.
Disconcerted, the warning glare she sent in the direction of the errant pageboys and flower-girl wasn’t as stern as she’d intended. She’d heard that the Reverend Price had a new curate. If that was him, he was without a doubt the most attractive man she’d ever seen.
The Reverend Price boomed, ‘Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’
The service ended, the choir began to sing ‘Love Divine’. Bella and Toby laughed from sheer relief. The congregation started to whisper and Edyth caught snatches of conversation.
‘Such a moving ceremony …’
‘A beautiful bride …’
Edyth crouched down, helped the pageboys and Ruth to their feet, brushed their clothes with the back of her hand and turned to follow Bella, Toby and her parents into the vestry. The Reverend Price’s curate stood back to allow the bridal procession to precede him and, to her astonishment, gave her a broad and distinctly non-clerical wink.
Her mouth went dry and her knees weakened. For the first time in her life, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, despite her aversion to all the Charlie Moores she’d encountered, and her assertion that she would remain a spinster, given the right man, just like Bella, she would happily forgo her ambition to attend college in exchange for marriage and – when she looked down at Ruth – children.