A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

No one on her side would be there so in a way it did come as a relief that it would be a simple wedding. Most were these days; hasty marriages, little to celebrate, young men dragged off to fight almost immediately upon being conscripted; the food shortage dictating meagre wedding breakfasts coupled with a natural reluctance to indulge in anything too showy while perhaps in almost every street more than one woman was grieving the loss of a husband to an enemy bullet or shell. So it was only right that her wedding should be a quiet one.

No bridal gown for her. She’d be wearing a simple, two-piece tailor-made tweed costume with a white blouse of hand-embroidered voile, together costing all of six pounds eighteen shillings and sixpence, expensive but which he’d insisted paying for, together with a lovely double row of pearls. All she’d taken with her on leaving home for that place for unmarried mothers had been just a couple of pieces of jewellery, left to forever regret the other fine pieces left behind. Now there was no longer need to fret. James was here now. Provided she wasn’t greedy he’d buy whatever jewellery took her fancy.

What she didn’t fancy were the few days they were to spend at a small hotel at Buxton in Derbyshire after the wedding and the intimate part of it as his wife. She’d grown fond of him of course but their relationship had been purely platonic, he seeming to prefer it that way somewhat to her relief. Now faced with her prospective duty as a wife she was becoming increasingly concerned at the thought, even to wondering what she thought she was doing, getting wed to an older man like James.

Another uneasiness had been her parents’ refusal to see her married, something one would have thought they’d be only too relieved to see happen. She’d hoped, maybe foolishly, to at least have had some reply to the letter she’d sent her mother months ago telling her of James’s proposal, but there had been nothing. She found herself making excuses for her, aware that all post going through her father’s butler who, being answerable to him, would have shown him the letter only to have it taken and torn up.

Now, ten days to the wedding, she had finally made up her mind to turn her back on them and concentrate on the lifestyle she now enjoyed, a nice little apartment, James spending out on her while still as gentlemanly as ever. The one thing that worried her was that he continually sidestepped any mention about her desire to trace the child taken from her.

‘So much to think about just now,’ he’d say. ‘For the time being we should concentrate on the wedding, my dear.’

Said so gently that she could hardly badger him further, especially as just lately the stress of the coming wedding was beginning to show on his face worrying her that by the time the day arrived he might even fall ill, the whole thing then having to be cancelled. At times she even dreamt that he had collapsed and died, all her hopes dashed. It wasn’t wise to push him until after the wedding.

The day was here. It had been arranged for James’s younger brother Henry and his wife Lydia to be witnesses. Having arrived from Northampton, they were now here with her in her apartment waiting for the car to take all three to the registry office not far away.

Having met them only once before it was like having strangers about her. Her mother should have been here, fussing and fiddling. These two virtual strangers served only to heighten that absence. The thought made her eyes grow moist.

Only a bride would know how emotional this day could be, tears of overwhelming joy, but for her they were tears of longing for her mother and it was all she could do to hold them back.

Lydia was looking at her in mild consternation. ‘I know, dear, it must be a little overwhelming for you but try not to spoil your face. It’ll soon be over. Then you’ll be as happy as any. James has been so lost since losing his first wife and you’ll be a good companion to him. It is what he needs.’

That unfortunate little speech did nothing to help her but at least she managed to dry her eyes enough to smile at the woman as she suppressed the longing to have her mother here beside her.

The limousine had arrived. The chauffeur helped her into the vehicle together with a close friend of James in black morning suit as if going to a funeral who sat down stiffly beside her. It should have been her father giving her away, not this man, this stranger. Hastily she pushed that thought aside as well, relieved when they drew up outside the registry office.

It was then she saw her. The small, thin woman in a long skirted grey suit and a high beaver toque trimmed with tulle that practically hid her face. But Madeleine recognized her immediately.

‘Mummy! Oh, Mummy!’ Hardly believing what she was seeing, Madeleine ran to her, leaving the other two standing. ‘You came!’

She stopped in her tracks as her mother recoiled. Madeleine stood where she had paused, having to speak across the small distance between them. ‘I never dreamt you would come. Where’s my father?’

‘He isn’t coming.’

Madeleine smothered the pang that swept through her. She should have known. ‘You travelled here alone?’ It was hardly believable. Her mother never travelled anywhere without him.

Lydia and Henry were hovering, uncertain whether to go on inside or not. She ignored them. ‘Does he know? Surely he didn’t let you come all on your own?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say anything other than ‘he’.

‘Your father is in the City. Miles drove me to Beaconsfield Station and helped me buy my rail ticket and I had a taxicab bring me here.’

‘How did