Pure Juliet (22 page)

‘Why on earth should they? We aren't anybody.'

‘Oh – local rich man choosing to live in converted cowshed. That kind of thing.'

‘That would be' – a pause – ‘the last straw.' There were a good many straws on Clemence's back. The conversion of the carpentry shed into a house for Juliet had devolved upon her, with its interviews with painters and builders, and with the writing of letters to local councils. And, although she had her grandmother's assistance in shopping for the few contemporary gadgets Frank would consent to their possessing, this was not as enjoyable as it might have been. Mrs Massey suggested purchasing every toy of civilization that was on offer, while Clemence had to state, over and over again, ‘Frank doesn't want us to have that.'

No washing-up machine (up flew two small black-gloved hands in dismay); no deep-freezer.
He says, what do we want with a deep-freezer
?
We're only fifteen miles from adequate shops, and I have a car, and he has a bicycle
. No electric polisher.
We both have all our arms and legs, my love.
No electric blanket.
We have each other.
No devices for grating, crushing or peeling vegetables; none for mixing cakes.

‘Doesn't he realize that you'll be worn out, my poor child, besides never having a moment for social life?'

‘He doesn't want any social life.'

‘I dare say not. But you do, don't you?'

‘Oh, Grandmamma . . . I don't know. I just live from day to day.'

Mrs Massey gave a disapproving sniff, and the choosing, the arguing and rejecting went remorselessly on. I-can-always-buy-one-when-the-children-come became Clemence's secret vow as gadget after gadget had to be refused.

No carpets.

But here she struck.

‘Frank, that place isn't going to be warm enough even with thick matting – for babies. The air will still be too cold, and I shan't feel like staggering out into the snow to buy carpets.'

‘Well, all right, but don't let's put the beastly germ-infested things down until the baby's actually here. Buy 'em now and put 'em in store.'

‘Yes, dear.' Adding in a gloating, creamy voice that slightly alarmed him, ‘Nursing mothers mustn't be worried.'

A fleeting shadow, a hazy half-glimpsed vision, passed over his mind: himself gasping for life under a swarm of very small children. But he dismissed it. Clem was so sensible. Surely. Surely . . . ?

Purposeful and organized activity on the sensible one's part got affairs moving; and three days before his wedding Frank stood with Juliet in the long rays of a July evening, contemplating her completed house.

She was pale from what must be described as ‘concentrated dreaming', and her eyes were still full of its light. With hands in the pockets of her jeans she stood peering in through the half-open door, and he knew better than to ask, ‘Do you like it?'

After a long stare, she went slowly up to the door, and the shade of the mighty oak fell over her small figure as she entered her house.

She looked slowly around: the floor of the long, low-ceilinged place was covered by thick, pale-yellow Japanese matting in a design of whorls and bars; the brick walls were whitewashed; a cane screen shut off one-third and hid a bed; and the oil heater was of the newest design. A sturdy table and chair and rows of bookshelves completed the furnishings. Her stare went
straight to the table and she nodded suddenly; then it went to the walls, where there was one picture.

‘Oh – there's . . .' Her voice died off.

‘Yes – the Möbius ring from Hightower. I thought you'd like to have it.'

Juliet's feelings carried her so far as a low-voiced: ‘Not half.' Then, still staring, she added: ‘Could I have another window at that end,' pointing, ‘so's I can see that tree?'

‘Of course, I'll get that done,' he promised, feeling the strongest satisfaction.

Juliet had not yet learned to say ‘Thank you.' But she had learned to admit that she wanted to see a tree. He had taught her that much.

Late that evening, as he wheeled his bicycle to stop outside his own door, he glanced across at her house and saw a light in her window, shining out into the blue dusk.

She had moved in.

The days rushed on. Thirty invitations had been sent out. It would be a company just large enough to appear cheerful. Two little distant cousins of Clemence's, still too young to be touched by liberating influences, were delighted by being appointed bridesmaids. A cake, made from strictly wholesome ingredients on Frank's instructions, was mixed and baked by one of Mrs Massey's few domesticated friends, and St Mary's was adorned, on the evening before The Day, by the ladies who always ‘did' the flowers for the church – with weeds.

‘Weeds, my dear, out of the hedges, and bits and pieces from that little wood where the picnickers go.'

‘They won't
stay up
,' wailed the exhausted flower-arrangers, as they supervised their completed efforts at about seven that evening, ‘they just
droop
. And you need
hundreds
of them to look
anything
, it's simply impossible to make a
group
or a
pattern
. We had
armfuls
brought in by the Sunday School children – had to pay them ten pence a
bunch
, if you please. When I was young children picked flowers for
pleasure
. And all day it was “Is this here all right, Miss?” in case it was poisonous. And of
course
Wayne Palmer had to eat a berry and say it was deadly nightshade – he
would
. And Mrs Duff Potter had to rush him over to casualty at St Alberics General, but fortunately someone knew the stuff doesn't fruit until October, and anyway Wayne remembered afterwards that he spat it out. And after all the fuss, that collection
still
doesn't look anything. Oh, I can tell you it's been murder. Absolute
murder
.'

Whether it ‘looked anything' depended upon the eyes that looked. The dim hue of the foxgloves was repeated in the stained glass of the little windows in the ancient church, huddled in its yew-shaded churchyard, where birds darted in search of the crimson berries. The pale, watery light in the church touched to a deeper green the foliage of buttercup and ragged robin. From the dark beams of the roof a carved face peered out here and there, ambiguously smiling as if undecided whether to follow God or the Devil, and the air smelled of former censings (for the Reverend Aiden Blount was High) and the ghosts of myriad flowers.

Massed below the blue and water-green windows were tiny pink and white and greenish-white blossoms of which none of the ladies, many of whom were ‘keen gardeners', knew the
names; and the altar glowed with the cool emerald of leaves and grasses, and the snow of meadowsweet.

Mrs Massey, with tart mirth, had assured a crony that she had no intention of appearing in cheesecloth or denim; she would wear lilac nylon over two purple petticoats and sport the smartest cap that Harrods could offer.

Her suggestion that Juliet should appear as chief bridesmaid, in order to show her gratitude for all that was being done for her, had been firmly rebuffed by Frank.

Clemence in the midst of distracted activity, explained: ‘Juliet isn't the sort who has to show gratitude, Grandmamma.'

‘Oh indeed. Why not, pray?'

‘Because she – is – she has – oh I don't know. Unique. Look here, I really must dash.'

‘
You've
caught her habit of flying off, now,' disconsolately.

‘Oh Grandmamma, please don't, I'm so happy,' Clemence said absently, as she stood ticking off an item on a list.

Yes, she was – she supposed. She was sitting in the car with Dr Masters, on her way to be married to Frank, breathing the scent of her bouquet of white pinks imported from France, and beneath her attempts to remember the order of the marriage service and what she had to do, there was indeed a surprised, still, happiness.

Fifteen minutes later she saw him, tall and elegant in brown velvet, grave and familiar and kind, her best friend. She had so trained herself during the past crowded weeks to repel negative thoughts that the question crying at the door of her mind,
Is he as happy as I am?
, was heard only as a faint whisper. And the hour swept inexorably on.

Juliet was standing, poker-straight, between Mrs Massey and her own mother, the former having taken Rose under her wing and waived convention, and led her to a place among the bride's relations.

Juliet was dressed in natural shantung, with embroidery at collar and cuffs so chaste as to be hardly visible; her hat, an unbecoming girlish droop of fine straw and matching grosgrain ribbon, was of the same natural tint that she had gradually come to prefer. She had steadily resisted the efforts of Mrs Massey, who had taken her shopping, to select brighter colours. (‘Then do have something
softer
, child, and more becoming. You'll look like a Rich Tea biscuit.')

The faint rustling made by thirty people in the dim, sunny light ceased; the priest stood very still, and the service started.

Juliet began by listening and looking; then her thoughts drifted away. She was aroused by a sharp poke in her ribs and ‘Juliet!' from Mrs Massey, followed by a murmur from her mother on the other side: ‘Julie – people are tryin' to get out.'

Juliet glanced round to see, over a brilliantly printed plump shoulder, a row of indignant faces. ‘The Wedding March' was wavering out on St Mary's ancient and historic organ, and Clemence's white shape was disappearing through the door out into brilliant sunlight.

‘Happy the bride what the sun shines on.' It was a shy mutter from Rose.

‘I beg your pardon – oh yes. Yes, indeed, couldn't have had a better day,' Mrs Massey said graciously, resigning herself to sharing a car bound for Frank's cowshed with this person.

But dismay was almost lost in incredulity. Juliet's mother? Not a trace, not a hint, of the remotest likeness. Perhaps the father? Not here; working probably.

Working, indeed; after a scene in which he had begun by forbidding his wife to attend a ceremony got up by a lot of blasted snobs, and had ended by his giving grudging permission, with Rose in tears.

‘Oh all right, then. You go, if you're so set on it. Sooner you than me.'

‘It isn't that, George, but they been kind to Julie. And all that money – it looks downright ignorant not to. And that Mrs Massey did send an invite.'

‘I
said
: go if you want to.' He paused at the door; it was six o'clock on a June morning, the bird was trilling to the sun, and all the room's colours glowed. ‘S'pose me tea'll be ready?'

‘Get along with you, you know it will.'

Mrs Slater wiped her eyes on her housecoat, and Juliet's father made a vague gesture – intended to convey forgiveness, condescension towards female weakness and farewell and went heavily out.

Rose was left to the labour of looking up a train to St Alberics (
Oh dear, have to get one of them country buses
). The difficulties of organizing a twenty-mile journey were for her almost insuperable. But a quarter of a century with George Slater had slowly drawn out, and strengthened, a largely unconscious power of will, fortified by a patience which could, when she had set her heart on something, successfully work together. She had been like a mediocre tennis player matched for years
against a champion, and gradually she had learnt to hold her own. Sometimes, rarely, she won a game.

And when she alighted at St Alberics station, wearing an outsize raincoat of turquoise blue over a brightly patterned dress, and a hat composed of pink petals, and stood looking about her for that bus, there was a great car all over with white ribbons, and a chap in uniform looking round for someone – who turned out to be her!

She didn't half enjoy that ride to the church. And it was Julie who had thought of the car! (‘
Don't
tell your mother that I suggested it; that would spoil the surprise,' Mrs Massey had said.)

Juliet felt a faint sensation of pleasure at seeing her mother's familiar form among all these strangers; and as they came out of the church she turned to smile at her and made her second remark since they had met:

‘How's Bertie-boy?'

‘Oh, he's cheeky. That's what he is. “You're cheeky,” I tell him.'

Mrs Massey wondered for one incredulous moment if Bertie were some favoured youth. But reflection convinced her that he was more likely to be a dog, or some dreadful cat which ought to have been put down years ago. She rustled herself into the car. Juliet's mother looked no less dreadful than the hypothetical cat but at least possessed some manners (‘Thank you for the invite, ever so kind of you') and also made comments on the weather, which avoided awkward silences.

The hedges burgeoned with bright poppies, and the wheat rippled. Frank and Clemence, hands clasped, speeding through
this miniature landscape deflowered by Man yet still as lovely as a good dream, turned occasionally to smile at one another.

What a funny sort of place
, was Rose's silent comment on Frank's collection of whitewashed sheds, as the company alighted at a gate leading into his meadows and began to file, not without raised eyebrows, along a narrow path through grass heavy with dew.
Looks like a lot of old barns
.

‘Mr Pennecuick is a great believer in
living simply
, and not having more than he needs,' Mrs Massey, picking her way after Rose, explained. ‘As I expect Juliet has told you he is a wealthy man, and there is a large house some five miles away, belonging to his late great-aunt, that could have been used for a big reception. But' – she shrugged – ‘you know what men are.' She did not at all believe that Rose did. How could she, looking like that? But the fat face under that appalling hat, half turned over the thick shoulder, showed a gratifying attention.