A Rather Charming Invitation (47 page)

“One is Charles. Apparently, he’s redeemed himself—somewhat—by having been so willing to help her do all that Lunaire research. She now admits that he may have ‘potential’.”

“So, who’s the other lawyer?” Jeremy asked, amused.

“Rupert,” I replied.

“Rupert? Why, that little snake in the grass!” Jeremy exclaimed. He mulled this over. “I had no idea an office romance was in the making, did you?”

I smiled wisely. “So,” I said, “when I asked her which guy she favored, she gave me one of those shrugs, and said, ‘Well, of course, I like both Charles and Rupert. It’s
très difficile
. I can’t quite decide’.”

“You sound just like her,” Jeremy said.

And at that moment, Honorine came driving up in Jeremy’s car, for she had gone to the airport to pick up my folks, who’d just arrived from the States. I heard their excited voices as they came in the front door. Minutes later, Honorine appeared at the patio doorway.

“Your parents are here!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Your father went straight into the kitchen, because he has a whole suitcase full of cookbooks and recipes for the wedding!”

“I’d better go see him,” I said, but before I could rise, Honorine put her hand on my arm to detain me a moment. She sat down with us, and took a deep breath, as if bucking up her courage.

“Something on your mind?” Jeremy inquired.

“
Chère
Penny and Jeremy, I hope you will not be offended by what I have to say,” she announced worriedly.

“What?” I asked.

She paused, then took the plunge. “I must say—I quit!” Another pause, and then, very excited now, she blurted out, “Because, you see, I am going to perfume school.”

“Wow!” I said. “Does that mean you passed that fragrance test?” She nodded. “Great!” I said. “Hey, maybe you’ll turn out to be a real Nose.”

“I’m willing to bet on that one,” Jeremy commented.

“Who knows?” Honorine said. “But anyway, I had a long talk with Papa, and I might want to participate in running the family perfume business,” she said, very correct and formally; but then she added, rather slyly, “I could still travel all around the world, looking for new scents! I may even someday start my own line for the company.”

“Ah,” said Jeremy, and we both suppressed a smile, imagining that David would be getting quite a bit more help than he’d ever imagined. Honorine, as if reading our thoughts, giggled.

“I’ve been doing some research of my own, just like you do,” she confided. “I believe the wave of the future is to start a high-end boutique line that specializes in being green,
au naturel
, herbal, organic, and made of local, heirloom ingredients with handmade, traditional methods. Papa is of course delighted, but first I will learn not only about scent, but to make a business plan for my ‘experiment’.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful!” I exclaimed.

“Now, I must ask you some- zing,” she said, her brow puckered with genuine concern. “And please answer me truthfully. Will you and Jeremy be able to manage without me this winter?”

I tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. “Honorine,” I said, “there’s one thing I’ve learned. Never fight with destiny. You must follow your star.”

We all went into the kitchen, where my father was already on the telephone, talking rapidly in French to the chefs at the restaurant of the pretty hotel where our guests would be staying. One of these chefs was a pal from Dad’s cooking days. Dad would supervise all the food preparation, and the cake.

“Darling!” my mother cried as I kissed her cheek, “your father has absolutely exhausted me with this wedding-feast talk, all the way over on the plane. I am in
desperate
need of a nice gin-and-tonic!”

“Right away,” Jeremy promised. My father hung up, beaming, and I hugged him.

“The chefs are sending someone over here with samples of the appetizer,” my father announced. “We must all taste them, so don’t anybody budge from this house!”

Honorine gazed at my parents with frank fascination, and now she grinned at me, as if to say,
Well, this explains you!

My mother wandered out into the drawing room, drink in hand, and stood in front of the tapestry, which had been re-hung there, only just today. I followed her.

“Now I understand all the fuss,” she said enigmatically to me. “It looks just like you.”

“It scared me, at first,” I admitted.

“Why, naturally, darling,” she said. “If it were easy, anyone could do it.”

“Do what?” I asked. “Get married? Everyone
does
do it.”

“Not the way a serious girl like you does,” she said, with that mysterious knowing attitude that mothers have.

“Mom,” I said. “This is it. If you’ve got any advice for your little bride-daughter, do it now.”

I expected one of her vague, airy responses that she gives whenever things get too personal for her. But she turned to me, her eyes suspiciously bright, and said, “Oh, sweetheart, I always knew you’d be just fine. But, remember that
how
you speak to a man is as important as what you actually say. Take some breaks during the day so that you’re not overtired and cranky when you see each other. And always let him know, with your voice, that you love him. And darling, if ever something happens that seems too much to bear, to either one of you, then see that you come home to us and take some shelter. Both of you. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your father told me to tell you this.”

I had tears welling up in my eyes that now spilled over, down my cheeks. My mother handed me her handkerchief. “Well,” she said briskly, resuming her usual aplomb, “I’d better go and unpack, before I fall asleep standing up.”

 

 

When Honorine found me later, I was still sniffling a bit. She looked slightly alarmed.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

“It better be,” she said. “Otherwise
Maman
will tell me it’s all my fault.”

At my puzzled look she said, “Oh, yes, you know, when the tapestry disappeared and everyone was yelling at you, and it nearly ruined your wedding, she said to me, ‘This is what comes of you showing up on her doorstep and making trouble for her.’ So, you see, I
had
to make sure you made it to the altar.”

“Well, you
were
kind of like a little rabbit who led us down the rabbit hole,” I teased her.

Honorine smiled, then showed me why she had been looking for me. “Tante Venetia sent this, so you would have ‘something blue’,” she whispered, handing me a satin-covered box. “She regrets that she cannot travel these days.”

Inside the box was a blue silk garter, studded with pink satin hearts that had little pink and blue gems twinkling in them. “They’re sapphires,” Honorine told me. “They are quite good, but honestly, you don’t have to wear it, if you don’t want to.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “Pass up a magic charm for my wedding day? Not a chance.”

A
fter weeks of stifling hot weather, Nature saw fit to send us a storm of near hurricane force. The power blew out for a couple of hours, but, mercifully, the generators kicked in. We were on a countdown of mere days before the wedding, and everyone was running about in a state of high- strung nervous excitement. Celeste arrived each morning, glaring at the sky, announcing that the weather had come from some other, ill- bred country—Spain or Russia, for instance. Each day she did her chores and then, in the afternoon, when ready to depart, she cast another baleful look at the sky, as if to warn it against further disruptions. Day after day, however, we faced more wind and rain; and one day, the airport at Nice was closed, with traffic redirected to Paris.

“Trust in Nature, eh?” I wailed to Honorine. “You and your Rousseau!”

“Never mind,” my father assured me. “It can’t last, and when it’s done, the air will be more pure and clean that you ever saw. It will help you keep your head when you take your vows.”

I thought he was just trying to keep me from throwing a full-scale bridal fit, but as it turned out, Dad was right. The day before the wedding, the sky and sea were suddenly becalmed, and the air was fresh and invigorating. The sun had not yet peeped out, but I saw patches of blue breaking up the layer of cloud cover. Here’s what a newspaper reported about that day:

I put the clipping in my wedding scrapbook. By all accounts, this dispatch from the bridal train was fairly accurate, for many of our guests later confided to Jeremy and me that the party atmosphere on the gussied-up train was elegant and irresistible, and that even the haughty Margery joined in the singing and dancing. I kept a pair of dinner plates from the event. They say,
Nichols-Laidley Express
on them, with the letters shaped to resemble a cute little train, roaring down the track along the coastline.

T
he morning dawned sunny and crystal clear, as if someone had taken a chamois cloth and polished the sea and sky, specially for us. I woke early, with the soft sunlight streaming into the room, gently nudging me to rise; yet Jeremy, apparently, had awakened even ahead of me. He was not in the room when I first stirred, but soon there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, he entered with a formal attitude, carrying a breakfast tray.

“Hi,” Jeremy whispered, setting the tray on the bed. “Nobody else is up yet. Just us. I made breakfast,” he said, lifting a cover off a plate. “Now, your father told me that you love scrambled eggs. He also says that ‘Anybody can cook gourmet, but only a real chef can scramble an egg’. We shall see.”

Jeremy scooped up a little on a fork, and carried it to my lips. I tasted it, as he waited.

“Mmmm . . .
Parfait
,” I said softly. He opened a bottle of chilled champagne he’d stolen from the cellar. Then he poured it into two little glasses, and sat beside me, and we drank a toast to the day.

For a while, we just sat there, leaning against the pillows, gazing out the open window, watching the sun rising, listening to the birds singing about the day.

Then he turned to me and said softly, “So. Feel like getting married today?”