Bride in Flight (2 page)

Gilbert snorted uneasily, not so sure of himself. “But what good would it do you? It’s no reason no real impediment.”

“It would give me great satisfaction ... that means something. Can’t you just imagine it! No, of course I haven’t got any real impediment to show, but no minister will ignore it and proceed. He dare not. He’ll take the wedding party into the vestry and start making inquiries. I shall play the part of the deceived innocent very well, believe me. By the time I’ve finished Christine won’t want to go on with the wedding. Even a ‘Little Orphant Annie’ is going to have doubts about her intended after the scene I’ll put on. If you don’t want to expose yourself to a scene like that ... with its inevitable sequel, my lad, you’d better make up your mind to walk out on
her.
Leave her waiting at the altar—or better still, ring her now, with me listening in!”

“I won’t. What’s more you’re going to get out of here. Right now. This very instant. And I never want to see you again!”

Kirsten moved quickly, silently. She was out of the hall and across the porch and had dived into the shrubbery like a shadow. They must not find her here. She had to think—and think fast.

She slipped from bush to bush till she reached the gates and, white and shaken, ran round the corner and kept running till she reached the sanctuary of home.

She went in the back door, collapsed into a kitchen chair, put her hands on the table and her head in her hands.

The doorbell rang. Kirsty felt sick, but she forced herself to go to it. The florist’s car stood on the gravel. He came up bearing the two boxes for the bridesmaids’ posies and went back for the bride’s.

He grinned cheerfully. “What a perfect day for you! Happy is the bride the sun shines upon ... and there’s not a cloud in the sky. A good forecast too.”

A good forecast for what? The future?

She smiled automatically, thanking him for his good wishes, took the flowers in, laid them on the hall seat. She looked down on them through a blur of tears. The little Victorian posies of tiny pink sweetheart roses and blue cornflowers ... her own trail of the dazzling purity of frangipani flowers ... For a moment the whole house tipped and swung. She clutched the arm of the hall seat, steadied herself. She would
not
faint. She wouldn’t. But she must do something. What?

Her eye fell on the telephone. Of course. Ring Gil. Find out if Dallas was still there, what was going to happen. With shaking hands she dialled the number. He would pour it all out, of course. It would be exactly as he had said ... a sudden infatuation, and just as suddenly, when he saw her again, his bride, the realization that here was his life partner. But they must discuss it.

Gil’s voice, back to normal, imperturbable, dear, came to her. It was so ordinary that for one crazy moment she thought she must have dreamed the whole thing up, had a nightmare.

“Oh, Christine darling, how sweet of you to ring. I’ve been trying not to ring you. In fact I had to restrain myself from rushing round to see you this morning ... told myself it simply wasn’t done, that your matrons-of-honor would think I was plumb crazy. I’m not supposed to see you today till you stand beside me in your bridal gown, am I? Not suffering from pre-wedding nerves, are you? No, I thought not ... they’re for other people, not us. Only, sweet, don’t keep me waiting. Be on time. I
could
be nervous then.

“Oh, the ring! Good lord! That shows what a wedding does for you ... I clean forgot it. Listen, pet, have it in your hand and give it to the minister when he comes to the front of the church to escort you down the aisle, and he can slip it to the best man. Are the bouquets exactly what you wanted? Good ... well, not long now. I won’t keep you, dear, and I’ll see you at twelve noon. Bye-bye till then, Christine.”

In a daze Kirsty hung up the phone, unwilling admiration for the way he had rallied sweeping her with tenderness. Yet what was the matter with her? She’d not asked one pertinent question. She’d gone stiff and practically wordless when she heard his voice. In it had been all the eagerness she thought she had missed in his caresses this week. Did it just mean he’d indulged in a mild flirtation and got caught up with a scheming girl? She suddenly remembered some of the things that had been said, and was forced to think mild was hardly the word. But what chance had a chap against such women? Poor Gilbert, what he must be suffering. She ought to have told him. She ought to have said: “Darling, I came to the house with the ring, overheard you telling Dallas what you did. But never mind. She can’t stop us marrying each other. I still trust you. If she comes forward ... though I think she was bluffing ... I’ll say I know all about it and it doesn’t matter.”

It would have set Gilbert’s mind at rest. But she hadn’t, something had paralysed her brain, her vocal chords. She’d only made mechanical responses, meaningless nothings.

But somehow the wedding was back in her mind in reality. She must have been mad to have considered even for one wild moment ringing him up and telling him it was all off. When you loved a person you trusted them, you waited
believingly
, then, when it would not spoil a perfect moment, your loved one would tell you all about it. And if he had been ... weak ... wasn’t there forgiveness? “Love,” Shakespeare had said, “is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”

She must pull herself together, think of Gilbert. Ring him again, get a firm hold of what she must say, say it without delay, tell him she had heard, but it was still all right between them. Then perhaps Gilbert might be able to contact this Dallas and tell her Christine knew and was still prepared to marry him. That was it. Then they could both face the noon ceremony without dread of a scene.

It was reduced to simple terms now. Common sense. All problems could be resolved if you didn’t run away from them. She felt the color flooding back into her cheeks.

The door burst open and Patty and Nicola burst in, cases in their hands.

Afterwards she wondered just what had kept her from pouring out the whole story. It would have simplified things. Was it pride? Or loyalty? Or bewilderment? Or was it shock, numbing her reasoning powers?

They were as full of high spirits as any bridal attendants, laughing, chattering, sweet, determined to make her feel surrounded by love and well-wishers, if not of family, of friends.

“A cup of tea first,” said Nicola, “then down to the serious business of robing the bride and ourselves.” Robing the bride ... it was as near as that. No time to think. Kirsty clung to one decision. When the girls left her to dress themselves, she must ring Gilbert again. Before he could speak she would get out the whole thing. It would give him the chance to tell Dallas. Kirsty shivered with dread. Might Dallas still come, even so?

She answered some teasing remark of Patty’s with a detachment she was almost proud of, clutched again at what she was trying to think out. It could mean a lot to Gilbert in the agony of mind he must be in, to know she trusted him ... that was the life-line in the thoughts and doubts that threatened to engulf her.

Kirsty sprang up. “Girls, we must get going. I had a bath when I got up, but it’s so stickily hot already, I’ll take a quick shower. When I’m dressed you can get ready yourselves. Don’t take the posies out of the Cellophane till the last moment, or they’ll wilt.”

They weren’t terribly rushed for time. Patty and Nicola set about their task lovingly. Nicola brushed the long fair hair till it shone, allowed her to twist it up herself, set a comb sparkling with brilliants in the French roll, to gleam mistily through the billowing tulle that would soon veil her head.

“Satin was the only material for you, Christine,” said Patty, smoothing the skirt from the waist over the hips. “You’re so sculptured ... just like a figurehead. No bouffant styles, just heavy drapes, stately and elegant.”

Kirsty wrinkled up her nose, spoiling the statuesque effect. “Really Patty! ‘Stately and elegant!’ Me ... Little Orphant Annie!”

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes widened. Little Orphant Annie ... that was what Dallas had called her. She closed her eyes in the instinctive gesture for a moment of privacy and regained her control. It was too late to think about those things now.

“There! Oh, Christine darling, you look wonderful. Now, whatever you do, don’t sit down. You can pace up and down, practising how to walk with a train, if you like, till we get dressed. Nicky, now we’ve got Christine dressed except for her veil, how about a quick shower? I’m like Christine ... my morning bath seems aeons distant.”

The scampered, both going into the shower-room at once. The sound of the water swishing coincided with the ring of the telephone. Kirsty carefully picked up her train, disposed of it over her arm with due regard to not creasing it. She just hoped that whoever it was would wait. She almost ran down the stairs. She knew a feathering of apprehension as she put her hand on the receiver. What if it were Gilbert to tell her ... she picked it up, put it to her ear.

Good heavens, there was a long-distance call coming ... from Brisbane? Who on earth—oh, it could be a greeting, she supposed. Gilbert had friends there.

The operator’s voice, ordinary and reassuring somehow, in its routine phrasing, requested her to hang on till the call was connected.

“Coming now...”

A woman’s voice, unmistakably not Australian ... what was it? Yorkshire, she thought. Then all conjecture fled away in the need for trying to grasp the sheer incredibility of what the woman was saying.

“You’re Christine Macpherson? And you’re marrying Gilbert Brownfield this morning?”

“Yes, I—I am—but who—?”

“I’m Miriam Brownfield. You won’t have heard of me. Can’t have ... or there’d be no wedding. I hate to give you a shock like this, my dear, but I’ve just reached Australia trying to trace my husband. My husband, Gilbert Brownfield. Thank heaven I was in time to prevent him committing bigamy. Are you there?”

Kirsty’s voice, even to herself, seemed to come from far away.

“Yes ... yes, I’m here. I’m listening. Go on. Do you mean—?”

“I mean he ran out on me. Disappeared two years ago. Then I heard he’d been seen in Australia. He’d always had a longing for the tropics. So I came. They told me up here—I rang his office in the canefields from Brisbane—that he was getting married today. I didn’t tell them who I was. It’s taken me all this time to locate you. I’ve been working against time. I’ve got his address too, so I have a priority call in for that too. I thought I must ring you first, however, to give you time. I’m most terribly sorry, my dear, believe me. If only I’d got here sooner. If only it hadn’t been your wedding day! He’s always been a weak, roving character, bu.t I never dreamed he’d go as far as this.”

Kirsty summoned up her voice again. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’m going to get in touch with the police. It will take time. I have proof with me, naturally, but they won’t be able to act within a certain time. And I want to speak with Gilbert first. I feel desperately sorry for you. I don’t feel you should be involved more than you need. When it comes out you’ll be pestered to death with reporters. They’ll be round you like wasps round a jam pot. You can leave Gilbert to me. If I were you I’d clear right out of town now, saying nothing to anyone. Without even a note to Gilbert ... the swine. Without even telling your bridesmaids. Just go. Disappear for a few days. Then when it’s all over everyone will say what a lucky escape you’ve had, you’ll be the heroine of the hour—and in time you’ll pick up the threads of your life again. Not like me.
I’m
married to him. Married to a rotter.”

Kirsty said automatically through stiff lips, “All right. I don’t see what else I can do. I’ll go now. I’ll have to be quick before my attendants are out from the bathroom. I’m sorry about this—for your sake too. Good luck and goodbye.”

She replaced the receiver with a careful finality. She let her train slip from the crook of her elbow. It wouldn’t matter now ... crushing or soiling. It had had its day. A day over almost before it had begun.

Then she found herself running madly upstairs; she must get to the refuge of her own bedroom before the girls emerged and saw her face. Shock and horror must be etched upon it.

Later Kirsty was to realize she did everything in a state of deep shock. She moved swiftly with the precision of an automaton. She kicked off the high-heeled white shoes, reached her hands to the tiny satin-covered buttons at the back of the high neck, was gratified to find her hands were not shaking, could do their job properly. Not that she could undo enough to get out of the frock ... Patty had had to fasten them for her from hips to shoulder-blades, but she got enough undone to get a firm grip, and with calm strength, rip. The buttons flew in all directions, falling without noise on the carpet.

She pulled the long filmy slip over her head, reached out for the short one lying next to her going-away outfit. She didn’t fumble. Into the toffee-brown frock with its exquisite pleating, the three-quarter coat to match; a hasty smoothing of her hair, the feather cap pinned securely on. She caught up her make-up kit, thrust it into the brown bag beside that ill-fated wedding ring.

Her going-away outfit.
Well, she was going away, wasn’t she? She stifled the hysterical sob that rose in her throat. This was no time for hysteria. It was time to run.

She paused, holding her breath, as Patsy and Nicola scampered past on their way to the spare room where their gauzy frocks were spread out on the beds. They didn’t try the door. Kirsty let out a sigh of relief.