A Rather Charming Invitation (14 page)

“It must be done immediately,” she said emphatically. “We cannot have that buffoon in all the wedding pictures, because you’ll have them forever, long after he’s been purged from Sheila’s life.”

Oddly enough, Jeremy didn’t protest. He only said, “Well, Mum is surely aware of your feelings on the subject, but I will convey your thoughts to her.” He rose, as if to put an end to it.

“Another thing,” Margery said in a resentful tone at his attempt to flee, “I have your railroad all packed up for you to take with you. So please see to it now. It’s upstairs.”

This totally mystified me. At first, I wondered if they were talking about railroad stocks and bonds. But Jeremy rose, muttered to me, “I’ll be right back,” and disappeared. Into the attic, I guess, judging by how long it took him to return with a big cardboard box, which he carried straight outside to the car, without a word. Then he came back, methodical as a moving- man, and went right back upstairs, and did the same thing. Over and over. The look on his face was so sober that I felt a strange urge to giggle. But Margery had further business to conduct—with me.

“Sit down, dear,” she commanded, gesturing toward the other end of her sofa. There was a low table before us. She picked up a pair of gold-framed reading glasses and perched them on her thin nose.

“Now, Penny,” Margery said briskly, uncapping a slender gold pen, and reaching for a white leather planning book from the table before her, “as to the wedding.”

I glanced up sharply, watching her open the leather book. “I want you to know,” she said as if she were doing me a tremendous favor, “that I’ve had a long talk with the vicar, and he has managed to juggle his schedule to allow us to have the wedding at our church in the Cotswolds. Jeremy tells me you’re thinking of September.”

“Yes,” was all I could manage.

“Well, of course, that’s out of the question. But if we move quickly, we can still book an early November, with a brunch reception at a local inn. I know the owner and he owes me a favor. So, a late-morning wedding would fit the schedule nicely . . .”

I gulped. Aunt Sheila was such a great future mother-in-law, not the least because she couldn’t be bothered with conventions and had a full life of her own. So, foolishly, I’d imagined I was home free. I hadn’t factored one imperious grandmother into the bargain.

“Um, that’s very kind of you, but—” I began, but she didn’t even give me a chance to tell her that we might have the wedding in France. In September, damn it.

“Not-tat-tall,” Margery said dismissively. “But to get a firm booking, you really must finalize the guest list this week,” she said crisply. Clearly, there was to be no shilly-shallying, and she flipped to the back of her book where, tucked in a folder, were several printed pages stapled together. These she handed to me, with no more ceremony than if I were her private secretary.

“Here are the guests from
our
side of the family,” she said. “Jeremy may have a few others to add, but these are the important people. The invitations must go out to them in a week, or I can’t vouchsafe that they’ll come. I’ll take a look at a sample of your stationery and then we’ll move ahead.” She returned to the tablet in her leather book, with her gold pen poised above it. “Now then, where is your bridal registry?”

“Oh, well, actually, Jeremy and I feel very strongly against such wedding gifts,” I said, suddenly feeling myself on terra firma here. “We would like our guests to make contributions to any of our favorite charities. I can send you the list tomorrow—”

Margery gave me that distant smile again. “Yes, that’s all very trendy, but you may not get very far with it. People like things to be a bit more personal.” The idea was so absurd to her that she didn’t even bother to get upset about it. She just said, “Amelia can send you a list of the best shops. She has the e-mail capacity,” as if it were a vacuum cleaner or other necessary but lowly household appliance that Margery herself would never touch.

Well, it was time for me to abandon Jeremy’s advice about not revealing my own thoughts.

“Margery,” I said, as respectfully but firmly as possible, “I will have to get back to you on all of this, so I’m afraid we can’t quite ‘firm’ anything just yet. There are other family members to consider. So, you’ll really have to leave all this planning to me.”

She peered at me in amusement over the tops of her gold-rimmed spectacles. “Why, of course, dear,” she said, having managed, anyway, to get her list into my hands. “I’m counting on you to do this correctly, and I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

Jeremy was still inexplicably walking back and forth with his boxes. I glanced up at him imploringly, thinking,
May Day, May Day
. He saw the expression on my face, and hurriedly went outside, then returned as if the job was done, kissed his grandmother, and swept me out of there, but not before Margery said meaningfully, “I’ll expect to hear from you tomorrow, Penny.”

You can expect whatever you want
, I thought to myself. “Thank you. Goodbye,” I answered.

“Jehoshaphat!” I said indignantly to Jeremy as we got into the car. “How could you leave me alone with her? She’s practically got us booked into some church in the Cotswolds. Between your grandmother and Tante Leonora,” I said dramatically, “I’d say our families are assembling on the battle lines, with the English on one side, and the French on the other.”

“We will surely end up re-igniting the Hundred Years’ War,” Jeremy agreed. “But don’t mind Margery. Guess who that call was from on my mobile tonight? It was a public relations man for a guy called Parker Drake. You should have seen the look on Giles’ face when I told him. I couldn’t resist.”

This gave me pause. Even I had heard of the world-renowned adventurist, philanthropist and multibillionaire banking mogul. Jeremy’s old law firm, among many others, had been vying for his business for years without a nibble. Now, apparently, Drake’s righthand man, impressed with what he’d been hearing in the news about our new operation, had asked to arrange a series of “exploratory” meetings to see if Drake might wish to become a client.

“A connection like this,” Jeremy said, “could really put our little enterprise on the map.”

He looked so happy, and frankly, it was a relief to talk shop after this night among those rarefied orchids in Margery’s little hothouse; but I kept twisting around to look at the boxes piled up on the back seat of the car. I knew there had to be more of them in the trunk, too.

“What on earth is inside all these boxes?” I asked incredulously. Jeremy sighed.

“Model trains,” he said. “Very old set. Probably valuable as a collector’s item; you can assess it. Grandfather never really gave it to me outright,” Jeremy explained. “He and Margery used it to jerk me around as a kid. I couldn’t play with it unless they invited me here. Grandfather made his millions in railroads, and I think the old duffer just wanted an excuse to set it up in the attic and play with it himself. There was no question of my ever taking it home; they said that Mum’s little apartment ‘wasn’t suitable’ for such a treasure. Margery still thinks Chelsea is riddled with beatniks and drug addicts.”

I imagined how a little boy would feel, to be told that his own home wasn’t safe enough or posh enough for valuable items. “So, how come she’s giving it to you now?” I asked.

“She is ‘disposing’ of the entire set,” he corrected. “Therefore I am rescuing it from being thrown out with the trash, which would be stupid. It’s vintage. They don’t make these models anymore.” I saw that the collection was worth a great deal, emotionally at least, yet Margery had been serious about being ready to dump it in the garbage.

“What are those papers I saw her handing you?” Jeremy asked. I pulled them out of my purse.

“Wow,” I said, squinting in the light of the street lamps we passed. “There must be at least a hundred people on this guest list. Are these all your friends?”

I read off a few names, but Jeremy stopped me. “Look,” he said, “they’re mainly
her
friends and people in society who, you know, matter. But I have no desire to get married in that stodgy old parish with a flock of people who don’t really know or care about us, yet will expect to get expensively drunk, and probably use the occasion to shag one another’s wives . . .”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“Elope,” Jeremy said uselessly. I made a face at him.

“Well, what do
you
want to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know. My relatives want us to get married in France. Yours want us in England. My parents say either country is fine with them. America’s too far away, and most of my friends in the States are looking forward to having an excuse to come to Europe; and the ones who can’t come told me they’re okay with just having a party with us the next time we’re in New York.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” Jeremy said. “Therefore there’s no reason to have the wedding across the pond. So we might as well just piss off only half the family in Europe instead of all of them. The question is, which one?”

I refolded Margery’s list. “Speaking of guests, why didn’t you stick up for your mother and her new boyfriend Guy? Why shouldn’t she bring him to the wedding?”

Jeremy shook his head. “When it comes to Margery, it’s best to just pretend to go along with her and hope she forgets about it,” he said. But I suspected darker motives.

“You actually agree with Margery about your mom’s beau, don’t you?” I said.

Jeremy admitted, “The guy’s a fool, nobody likes him except you.”

“Your mother likes him,” I pointed out. “Why isn’t that enough for Margery?”

“All she ever cares about are her social rules and a spotless reputation. Forget Margery,” Jeremy advised. “Just figure out what you want, and do it.”

“What I want,” I said, “is to set up your railroad. To play with any old time we feel like it.”

“Trying to make up for my misbegotten childhood?” Jeremy asked.

I kissed him. “Absolutely,” I said.

“Then, what’s mine is yours,” he replied, with a warm, contented note in his voice.

 

 

When we returned to the townhouse, Honorine was sitting in the kitchen, watching TV and having a cup of tea, looking a little more animated than usual.

“A strange man was hanging around the front door earlier,” she announced. “Naturally, I thought it was Jeremy.”

“Naturally,” Jeremy replied.

“But the minute he saw me look out the window at him, he ran away scared,” Honorine said with some pride. I thought in amusement that we’d found our watchdog, after all.

“We do get some kooks now and then,” I said rather apologetically. “They’re usually harmless.”

Honorine, possessing French tact as well as sensitivity, asked, “How was your party?”

“Fine,” we both said in short unison.

She smiled knowingly and said, “People are funny about weddings, are they not?”

“Yes,” I replied. “They sure are.”

I told myself I really had only one task regarding our wedding: to find a genuine way to make it meaningful to us, not mere style over substance. It wasn’t an exercise in “event planning” to me, and I didn’t give a hoot about impressing people with my showy “creativity”. It would be the start of our marriage. I once knew a dancer who told me that the way you begin a movement already determines the way you will end it. Therefore, the wedding was a foundation, which, however imperfect, must at least begin with the love we had, not only for each other and family and friends, but for the sweet joy of life itself. Yes, this was a challenge I absolutely intended to meet.

J
eremy’s favorite “railroad” now occupied a small room just beyond his office, and it immediately fascinated all his male visitors, especially Rupert, the younger associate from his old law firm, who occasionally stopped by for advice on dealing with some of Jeremy’s previous clients that he’d gradually been handing over to Rupert. When I entered the “train room” at the end of one particular day, I discovered that Jeremy was allowing Rupert to operate the switches for the inaugural run that sent the trains chugging.

I couldn’t believe the elaborate network of tracks now snaking around the room on numerous tables, raised platforms and the floor itself. I loved the wonderful vintage replicas of old-fashioned railroad cars, including Pullmans, Wagon-Lits, other Orient Express trains—all choo-chooing and whoo-whooing with mournful and wistful whistles.

And some cars even had little wooden figures of passengers who were sitting up eating their dinner in the dining car, or lying down in pajamas in sleeping cars. There were uniformed porters in luggage cars with tiny suitcases, and a chef in a big white hat and apron in the cooking car, which blew off real steam. And adorable miniature chairs, tables and lamps.

This was too irresistible to me, and to Honorine, who had followed me into the room after hearing the little whistles. We stood there gazing at all the complicated signals and switches, with flashing green and yellow and red lights, that enabled the “engineer” to make a train switch tracks at the very last minute, just in time to narrowly avoid collision with another train chugging straight at it.

“Great viaduct,” Rupert said, admiring the little train- bridge that spanned a model gorge with tiny pine trees around it.

Honorine informed us that she’d set up a coffee tray in Jeremy’s office, so we all trooped in there, and she began to pass the cups round. When she handed Rupert his cup, he rose to accept it, but paused to gaze at her in wonder, and then none too subtly spilled his coffee on himself in the process.

“Oh!” was all he could say in embarrassment, blinking. Jeremy just handed him a bunch of paper napkins, and Honorine pretended not to notice, leaving the tray behind as she slipped out of the room.

After Rupert left, I told Jeremy, “Leonora apparently called Honorine today to ask if we plan to use the tapestry for the ceremony. To tell you the truth, I think I should learn a little more about it before deciding if it will be a part of our wedding. So I’m thinking of doing some research on the tapestry, which Leonora wanted me to do, anyway.”