I shall remember it, when it is long gone … She got up in a sudden rush and began rummaging furiously in her dressing-table drawer, and there it was, tucked away at the back where she had hidden it all those years ago. A skein of material, cobweb-thin and sinuous as silk, so transparent that it appeared to have neither hue nor pattern, until a closer look revealed the elusive traces of a design, and faint gleams of colour like splintered light. As Fern let it unfold the creases of long storage melted away, and it lay over her arms like a drift of pale mist. She was still holding it when she went down to the kitchen in search of coffee. Will frowned: he thought he had seen it before.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Gaynor, touching it admiringly. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. What is it – a scarf?’
‘Something old,’ said Fern. ‘Like it says in the rhyme. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. This is very old.’
‘What will you do for t’rest of them?’ asked Mrs Wicklow.
‘A new dress, a borrowed smile, the three-carat sapphire in my engagement ring. That should cover it.’
Gaynor started at her flippancy; Mrs Wicklow found excuses for it. ‘Poor lass. Happen it’s all been too much for you. It’s always hard on t’bride just before t’big day, specially if she hasn’t a mother to help her. You don’t want to go drinking so much coffee: it’ll wind up your nerves even tighter.’
Fern smiled rather wanly, pushing the empty cup away. ‘I’ll switch to tea,’ she said.
After a breakfast which only Will ate, Mrs Wicklow departed to make up beds and bully Trisha, and Will and Gaynor went out in search of Ragginbone.
‘You won’t find him,’ said Fern. ‘He’s never there when you want him. It’s a habit of his.’
She went to the upstairs room where the dress waited in solitary splendour. It was made of that coarse-textured Thai silk which rustles like tissue paper with every movement, the colour too warm for white but not quite cream. The high neck was open down the front, the corners folded back like wings to show a glimpse of hidden embroidery, similar to the neckline worn by Mary Tudor in so many sombre portraits. The sleeves were tight and long enough to cover the wrist; the waist tapered; the skirt flared. Further decoration was minimal. It had beauty, simplicity, style: everything Fern approved. If I was in love, she thought irrationally, I’d want frills and flounces and lace. I’d want to look like a cloud full of pearls, like a blizzard in chiffon. No woman in love wants understatement. But there was no such thing as love, only marriage. On an impulse she took the dress off the dummy and put it on, wrestling with the inaccessible section of the zip. There was a hair ornament of silver wire, fitting like an Alice band, in order to secure the veil. She arranged it rather awkwardly and surveyed herself in the mirror – Alison’s mirror, which Will had moved from Gaynor’s room. In the spotted glass the sheen of the silk was dulled, making her look pale and severe. Her face appeared shadowed and hard about the mouth. I look like a nun, she decided. The wrong kind of nun. Not a blossoming girl abandoning her novitiate for the lure of romance, but a woman opting out of the world, for whom nunhood was a necessary martyrdom. A passing ray of sunlight came through the window behind her, touching that other veil, the gift of Atlantis, which she had left on the bed, so that for an instant it glowed in the dingy mirror like a rainbow. Fern turned quickly, but the sun vanished, and the colours, and her dress felt stiff and cumbersome, weighing her down; she struggled out of it with difficulty. I must have time to think, she told herself. Maybe if I talk to Gus …
She could hear Mrs Wicklow coming up the stairs and she hurried out, feeling illogically guilty, as if, in trying on the dress before the appointed hour, she had been indulging in a culpable act. Mrs Wicklow’s manner was even more dour than usual: Robin, Abby, and Robin’s only surviving aunt were due later that day, and it transpired that although Dale House was lavishly endowed with bedrooms there was a shortage of available linen. An ancient cache of sheets had proved to be moth-eaten beyond repair. ‘It’s too late to buy new ones,’ Fern said, seizing opportunity. ‘I’ll go down to the vicarage and see if I can borrow some.’
She felt better out of doors, though the sky to the east looked leaden and a hearty little wind had just breezed in off the North Sea. At the vicarage, she explained to Maggie about the bedding and then enquired for Gus.
‘He had to go out,’ Maggie said. ‘Big meeting with the archdeacon about church finances. It’s a funny thing: the smaller the finances, the bigger the meeting. Did you want him for anything special?’
Maybe she would be better off talking to Maggie, woman to woman, Fern thought, tempted by the hazy concept of universal sisterhood. Haltingly, she began to stammer out her doubts about the forthcoming marriage. She felt like a novice curate admitting to the lure of religious schism. Maggie’s face melted into instant sympathy. Her normal Weltanschauung combined genuine kindness and conscientious tolerance with the leftovers of Sixties ideology at its woolliest. In her teens she had embraced Nature, pacifism, and all things bright and beautiful, Freudian and Spockian, liberal and liberationist. She had worn long droopy skirts and long droopy hair, smoked marijuana, played the guitar (rather badly), and even tried free love, though only once or twice before she met Gus. At heart, however, she remained a post-Victorian romantic for whom a wedding day was a high point in every woman’s life. Relegating the loan of sheets to lower on the agenda, she pressed Fern into an armchair and offered coffee.
‘No, thanks, I …’
‘It’s not too much trouble, honestly. The percolator’s already on. What you need is to stop rushing around and sit down and relax for a bit. All brides go through this just before a wedding, believe me. I know I did. It’s all right for the men – they never do any of the work – but the poor bride is inundated with arrangements that keep changing and temperamental caterers and awkward relatives, and there always comes a moment when she stops and asks herself what it’s All For. It’s a big thing, getting married, one of the biggest things you’ll ever do – it’s going to alter your whole life – so it’s only natural you should be nervous. You’ll be fine tomorrow. When you’re standing there in the church, and he’s beside you, and you say “I do” – it all falls into place. I promise you.’ She took Fern’s hand and pressed it, her face shining with the fuzzy inner confidence of those fortunate few for whom marriage really is the key to domestic bliss.
‘But I’m not sure that I –’
‘Hold on: I’ll get the coffee. Keep talking. I can hear you from the kitchen.’
‘I had this picture of my future with Marcus,’ Fern said, addressing the empty chair opposite. ‘I’d got it all planned – I’ve always planned things – and I knew exactly how it would be. I thought that was what I wanted, only now I – I’m not sure any more. Something happened last night – it doesn’t matter what – which changed my perspective. I’ve always assumed I liked my life in London, but now I wonder if that was because I wouldn’t let myself think about it. I was afraid to widen my view. It isn’t that I dislike it: I just want more. And I don’t believe marrying Marcus will offer me more – just more of the same.’
‘Sorry,’ said Maggie, emerging with two mugs in which the liquid slopped dangerously. ‘I didn’t catch all that. The percolator was making too much noise. You were saying you weren’t sure –?’
‘I’m not sure I want to get married,’ Fern reiterated with growing desperation.
‘Of course you’re not.’ Maggie set down the mugs and glowed at her again. ‘No one is ever one hundred per cent sure about anything. Gus says that’s one of the miraculous things about human nature, that we’re able to leave room for doubt. People
