Interrupted Journey

Chapter 4 - Wedding

One week later, Susan and I were married.

It was a happy occasion, as these things tend to be. It was a beautiful late spring day with warm sunshine and just enough breeze to take the edge off the heat. We had planned to hold the ceremony - such as it was - in the barn but decided, at the last minute, to move it outside.

We gathered in the little grassy area at the back of the house so, in a way, Tom could be a witness too.

Everyone had made at least some effort, though in some cases it was just putting a borrowed tie on over their cleanest shirt. I was close enough in size to borrow a jacket from Mr Drummond so I felt smarter than I had since before 'the day'.

We had asked Mam to officiate and she had taken the whole thing very seriously - including an excruciatingly embarrassing pre wedding interview to confirm we were going into this in the right frame of mind.

She gathered the rest of us together and then invited Susan to join us and she appeared looking stunning. She was close enough in size to Angela to borrow her wedding dress and they had even managed to find some flowery spring dresses for the girls to wear.

The ceremony went without a hitch until Susan saw the ring that James had been holding for me. "But I can't wear that!" she protested to him. "It was your mother's."

"She'd have wanted you to have it," he reassured her. "She knows Dad needs someone to keep him in line!"

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Mam concluded, "So 'What God has brought together, let no man put asunder'." I had the distinct impression from her tone that anyone doing any asunder putting would get to answer to Mam first and God only slightly later.

After the ceremony, we walked into the barn and I was surprised to see a table full of wine glasses. "Nice glasses, I commented. "Shame we've nothing to put in them."

"That's where you're wrong!" Jimbo responded with a grin as he produced a box that I recognised as having 'fallen off the back of the lorry' a couple of weeks before.

But we hadn't even thought about getting married back then.

"You were always going to be the last to know," he answered with a smile.

After the champagne had been enjoyed, but before people started to drift off, Mam had an announcement of her own to make. "I'll be moving down t'road to tek care o' Ned. His Marge told me as how he'd need someone to look after 'im."

She looked at me significantly for a second before I guessed what she wanted.

"After the grief you gave me about 'no funny business before we were married'!" I said with a smile.

"I will be staying there as a housekeeper," she answered. Her tone was slightly offended but the lack of ice showed me that I had guessed her intentions correctly.

"What was that about?" Susan asked when the attention had drifted away from us.

"Quite simple," I explained with a smile. "The neighbours need to know how they should treat the relationship... but she can't just come out and say it because that would be accepting that their might be something that could be considered improper."

"So you gave her the chance to explain what's going on?"

"Not quite 'what's going on'. Nobody cares about 'what's going on'. It's how it is to be treated that people need to know."

"This stuff really matters round here, doesn't it?"

"Oh yes, bitter feuds that last for decades," I agreed with a smile. "They say that the Eskimos have about fifty words for snow. Round here they have fifty different grades of saying 'good morning'... and as to where the Christmas cards are hung up..."

"You know what it really means though, don't you?"

"It means we have a room to ourselves."

Within an hour, the contents of Mam's bedroom had been moved down the road into Ned's spare room and a nest constructed for the girls. Things like this tend to happen quickly when you have ten people helping, particularly when one of the ten is Samson. At her mother's suggestion, Ashley had joined Elizabeth, Emily and Annie in there - nominally to keep an eye on the little girls but a certain glint in Margret's eye suggested that it wasn't only Susan and I who were going to be enjoying some privacy that night.

As to the rest of the evening, all I will say is there may have been some 'funny business'. Certainly there was a lot of giggling.