Said that whatever we decided would be fine with her. So—we went ahead.’
‘Except she changed her mind?’ Rhianna guessed.
‘And how,’ Carrie said fervently. She began to tick off on her fingers. ‘We agreed on the guest lists ages ago, but each time we put the numbers in to the caterers she came up with someone else who simply must be invited. That’s probably why she’s here today—with yet another afterthought. And that’s not all. She thought the charge for the marquee was extortionate and insisted we get another quote from a firm she knew, with the result that someone else hired the one I really wanted. Then, last week, Margaret asked with a sad smile if “Lead Kindly Light” could be one of the hymns, because it was “my poor Clive’s favourite.”‘ She shook her head. ‘It’s beautiful, I know, but hardly celebratory. Besides which, all the Order of Service booklets were printed ages ago.’
She took a deep breath. ‘There—that’s off my chest. Until the next instalment, anyway. And I know there’s going to be one. I feel it.’
‘Oh God.’ Rhianna looked at her with fascinated horror. ‘Couldn’t Simon have a word with her?’
Carrie sighed again. ‘I asked, but Simon’s very defensive about his mother. Says she’s still mourning his father, which I’m sure is true, and that we must make allowances—especially as we’ll be moving so far away.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, as I said, he seems in a world of his own these days.’
‘Oh?’ Rhianna picked up her brush and stroked it carefully through her hair, meeting her own watchful gaze in the mirror. ‘In what way?’
‘Like nearly missing today’s hair appointment, for one thing,’ Carrie said ruefully. ‘And a few times lately I’ve arranged to ring him at his flat, only he hasn’t been there. Says he forgot, and has stuff of his own to do, anyway.’
‘Probably hung over after his stag night and doesn’t want to admit it,’ Rhianna said lightly.
Carrie stared at her. ‘But his stag party was ages ago. He went to Nassau with a bunch of guys from work. They got this special deal and stayed for a couple of extra days. Surely I told you?’
‘Yes,’ Rhianna said. ‘Yes, of course you did. I’m an idiot.’
How could I forget? How could I possibly forget the trip to Nassau, when it was only a couple of days later that I found out about the baby?
She put down the brush, aware that her colour had risen swiftly, guiltily, again.
‘I keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter,’ Carrie went on. ‘That it will all be over soon and Simon and I will be on our own, making a new life for ourselves. That I’ll look back and laugh at all these niggles. Only…’
‘Only just for now you’d like to punch Mrs Rawlins’ lights out,’ Rhianna supplied briskly. ‘Perfectly understandable—even commendable.’
‘Oh, Rhianna.’ Smiling, Carrie slipped an arm through hers. ‘Thank heavens you’re here. Nothing is going to seem as bad from now on.’
Oh, God, Rhianna thought, her stomach churning as they went downstairs. I just hope and pray that’s true.
Her uneasiness increased when the first person she saw in the drawing room was Diaz, lounging in a chair by the open French windows, glancing through a magazine. The new toy, apparently, wasn’t as compelling as she’d hoped.
As they came in he rose politely and smiled, but his eyes, slanting a glance at Rhianna, were as hard a grey as Cornish granite. She made herself walk calmly past him, choosing a deep easy chair where he’d be out of her sightline.
But not, unfortunately, eliminated from her consciousness. She was still as aware of him, of his silent, forbidding presence, as if he’d come to stand beside her, his hand on her shoulder.
She had also placed herself at a deliberately discreet distance from the sofas, where the two mothers were ensconced opposite each other—tacitly acknowledging her position as the outsider in this family gathering, but not so far away that she didn’t notice there was now a large, flat box beside Margaret Rawlins and wonder about it. But not for long.
‘Caroline, dear,’ Mrs Rawlins said, as her future daughter-in-law obediently took a seat beside her mother. ‘I was thinking the other day of that old rhyme, “Something old, something new…” and I remembered the very thing. I wore it at my wedding and kept it ever since—thinking, I suppose, that one day I’d have a daughter. But that wasn’t to be, of course. So I’d like you to carry on the tradition instead.’
She lifted the lid of the box and carefully extracted from the folds of tissue paper inside a mass of white tulle, layer after layer of it, and a headdress shaped like an elaborate coronet, each of its ornamental stems crowned by a large artificial pearl.
It looked, Rhianna thought dispassionately, like something the Wicked Queen might wear in a remake of Disney’s Snow White. Only not as good.
In the terrible silence that followed, she did not dare look at Carrie.
Eventually, Carrie said slowly, ‘Well, it’s a lovely thought, but I wasn’t actually intending to wear a veil, just some fresh flowers in my hair. Didn’t I explain that?’
‘Ah, but a bridal outfit is incomplete without a veil,’ said Mrs Rawlins brightly. ‘And although I’m sure your dress is very fashionable and modern, I know Simon is quite old-fashioned at heart, and he will like to see you in something rather more conventional too.’
She paused. ‘You’ll have to be very careful with the coronet, of course. It’s extremely delicate, and one of the stems is already a little loose.’
Rhianna found herself looking at Margaret Rawlins with fascination and some bewilderment. She recalled Simon’s mother as a perfectly pleasant woman, a good cook and devoted to her family, who had joined in all the local activities with open enjoyment.
So how on earth had she come to turn into the Control Monster?
As for her comments about Simon…
Was it ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘conventional’ for a bridegroom to have been sleeping with someone else for the past three months? Telling that someone else that he loved her? Inventing that special deal in the Bahamas in order to be with her for a few stolen days? And eventually committing the overwhelming error of making her pregnant?
My God, she thought, a tiny bubble of hysteria welling up inside her. What a truly great tradition to uphold.
She glanced at Carrie and saw her looking anguished, while Moira Seymour’s mouth was tight with outrage.
And then the door opened, and Mrs Henderson came in pushing a laden trolley. The tension, perforce, subsided—if only temporarily.
It helped that it was a superb tea, with plates of tiny crustless sandwiches, a platter of scones still warm from the oven, accompanied by a large bowl of clotted cream and a dish of homemade strawberry jam, together with a featherlight Victoria sponge and a large, rich fruitcake.
Mrs Rawlins fussed endlessly about getting the veil back into its protective wrappings before any of it was served—much to Rhianna’s regret. A well-aimed cup of tea would obviously have
