In Distant Fields (24 page)

‘You are absurd, Pug,' Almeric replied sternly. ‘You are a dashed good-looking sort of cove if only you let yourself be. Instead of hiding behind that ridiculous eye-glass that you do not
need
– and letting that hair of yours flop all over your eyes, you should drop all that, let people
see
what a good-looking chap you are, Pug. You know what my advice to you on your wedding day is? Give Elizabeth the best present she could have; stop hiding yourself away behind all these silly pretences.'

‘Almeric—' Pug began, feeling more than a little hurt.

‘Just try it, Pug,' Almeric urged, taking Pug by the shoulders now and standing him up straight. ‘Brush your hair like this …'

Almeric took a hairbrush and swiftly reformed Pug's hairstyle, with the help of some of Mr Trumper's best dressing, before returning him to stand in front of the glass once more.

‘Better already, old chap. See?'

Pug frowned at the stranger he saw staring back at him.

‘I can't have that, Al,' he protested. ‘I don't have the sort of looks that – no, I really can't have that.'

‘Yes, you can – and to prove you can, finish dressing – without your old man's monocle – and if you're still in doubt we'll call Partita in – and Kitty – and get their opinions.'

‘No, Al,' Pug continued to protest, as if being asked to perform the most embarrassing of tasks. ‘Chaps will just laugh.'

‘They will not, Pug, I promise. And if they do – tell you what? I'll foot the bill for the honeymoon.'

As Almeric prepared his friend for the altar he wished with all his heart that he was getting married in his stead, although not to Elizabeth, of course, to his beloved Kitty. He sighed inwardly, remembering his recent conversation with his father, held inevitably in the library at Bauders. It seemed that, like it or not, Kitty had been proved right. His father had reservations about his elder son marrying a Rolfe.

‘I understand your point of view,' Almeric had found himself saying. He did not understand at all, but he did appreciate what his father was saying about Evelyn Rolfe, and Kitty's mother, both of whom were never now going to be received by what was known as ‘polite society'. ‘However, I have to tell you, Papa, no matter what her parents' marriage might be, my feelings for Kitty are not going to go away.'

‘I am not asking for them to go away, I am simply asking for you to take a pull, have a year to think about it, only fair to both of you.'

‘If I have to wait a whole year for Kitty, Papa, then I shall merely love her three hundred and sixty-five times as much!'

‘I'm sure you will, my boy,' his father had assured him. ‘It's not what's in your heart that concerns me, it is what is in the bloodlines of the Rolfes. We must all have time to consider, to adjust. A year is a very long time, and who knows how you may both feel at the end of it?'

‘I shall feel more, not less, Papa. You will see, but I shall wait, because I would not want to upset you or Mamma.'

So Almeric, for the love of his parents, and perhaps too because Kitty had warned him that this was how it would be, had agreed to wait to be married. Had he not, he would doubtless be standing where Pug was standing, feeling as nervous and apprehensive as he.

‘Come and see yourself, Pug,' Almeric beckoned to his reformed friend. ‘Because if you are
not the very picture of a dashing devil, I don't know what or who is, I don't really.' He turned Pug to a full-length dressing mirror and waited for his final opinion.

‘I wouldn't have recognised myself,' Pug said, without affectation. ‘I simply would not have given such a thing credit.'

‘You look bang up, Pug,' Almeric assured him once again.

‘I hope I can carry all this off.'

‘There is nothing to carry off, Pug. What you are looking at is the real you.'

Pug nodded and, taking a deep breath, walked to the window, which enjoyed a magnificent view of the parkland. Very soon he would be walking across to the church, and waiting at the top of the aisle for Elizabeth to appear on the Duke's arm. Supposing she changed her mind? Supposing because she had changed her mind, she didn't turn up? Or worse – suppose she did turn up, then seeing what or who she was about to marry, turned and fled? Whatever would he do then? He might shoot himself. Or if his courage failed him in that direction, he would most certainly enlist in the army.

‘I don't think I can do it, Al, old friend,' Pug announced, reaching for his monocle. ‘Too much of a risk, old bean. She's used to seeing me like this, truly she is.'

‘Poppycock,' Almeric said, taking his monocle away and putting it in his own pocket. ‘And don't you
old bean
me. You look absolutely splendid and
you are absolutely splendid. Now come on, or I shall leave you to flounder all by yourself.'

As they made their way out of the house and started on the short walk to the church, Pug's thoughts now turned nervously to his honeymoon, which was to be spent in a house he and Elizabeth had been kindly loaned on the neighbouring estate, owned by a friend of the Edens. Thankfully he was a little less nervous about the honeymoon than he was about the actual marriage ceremony itself, believing that if Elizabeth did show up at the church the worst part would be over, since one of his more enlightened godfathers had sent his two older sons and Pug to stay with a friend of his in Paris.

‘Must further your education, boys,' he had insisted. ‘Get to know how the French enjoy themselves, all part of maturing and so forth, go and visit their beautiful poodles in their parlours.'

They had indeed furthered their education, and in so many ways, and at the hands of such beautiful French ladies, that Pug and his friends had returned home not just mature, but enlightened.

‘Do you agree with your father, Al?' Pug suddenly wondered as they neared the church.

‘On what particular issue, Pug?'

‘The situation in Europe.'

‘Not now, Pug,' Almeric groaned.

‘Your papa says—'

‘I can't actually remember a time when Papa
didn't think some war or other was coming – or some new form of taxation to bring about his instant ruination. That's Papa. That's older men.'

‘I think your father is right, Al,' Pug insisted. ‘And if so – in the event of anything happening to me, would you look after Bethy for me?'

‘Pug?' Almeric stood in front of his oldest friend and took him by one arm. ‘This is just wedding-day nerves, old chap, really. Apparently some chaps become totally addle-pated on their wedding days, but once the deed is done, they're just fine. In fact, they return to normality just like that – so much so that they at once start sticking their fingers in their waistcoats, tapping their fobs if someone is a second late, and so on and so forth. So enough of gloomy thoughts. This is meant to be the day you will remember for the rest of your life, so don't go filling your head with such gloomy stuff, do you hear? Mine neither.'

Pug nodded. Almeric was probably right, and he probably was just suffering from wedding-morning nerves. Even so, once the wedding was over and they were back from honeymoon, he would bring the subject up again with his best friend and best man and get a proper answer out of him. He had to make sure his beloved Bethy would be cared for.

Once she had been given her cue that it was time to leave Bauders for the church, Elizabeth followed her flower maidens and pages down the great oak staircase, watched by every servant
in the castle, as was the custom on wedding mornings at the great house, where every member of the household staff was invited to share first look at the bride and her attendants. As soon as they saw Miss Elizabeth, all the maids gasped or sighed in wonder at the beautiful sight, while the men all smiled, nodding their heads appreciatively as Elizabeth walked by them. One or two of the younger maids began to clap, only to be hushed back to respectful silence.

‘I don't think I ever saw a bride more beautiful,' Tinker said, her eyes filling with tears, which they always did whenever she saw a bride.

‘Is it true her poor mother has been forbidden to attend the ceremony?' Bridie whispered. ‘It doesn't seem possible, does it?'

‘From what I hear, Lady Maude fully intends to be there,' Tinker whispered back, dabbing her eyes. ‘Though as Tommy told me, having had it from one of their footmen, Mr Milborne has washed his hands of both of them, all of them, and no doubt of it at all.'

‘God help us indeed,' Bridie sighed. ‘Imagine missing your own child's wedding day. What sort of person would do that, I wonder.'

The Duchess had lent Browne, her personal maid, to Elizabeth for the day. She now hovered in the background as Elizabeth and her entourage prepared to leave the house, her small brown eyes darting over every inch of the dress and the veil that she had so carefully arranged.

As far as she could see, her charge was looking
perfect. The silk gown flowed from Elizabeth's slender form, and the veil – a Knowle family veil lent by the Duchess, who had worn it on her own wedding day – billowed out in front of her face and was held in place on Elizabeth's dark hair by the ducal family ‘fender' – or ‘tirahara' as Bridie insisted on calling it. Behind the veil Elizabeth's face was as pale, white and cool as the alabaster figures in the church.

As the congregation awaited Elizabeth's arrival, the rhythmic waving of the ladies' feather and silk fans caused the Reverend Mr Bletchworth to imagine that he might be not in a church so much as out in the park watching a flock of swans about to arrive on the lake. Meanwhile the church bells in the tower rang out insistently, calling everyone on the estate to witness by their happy sounds the solemn occasion they were all about to celebrate.

It was a line sunny July morning outside, and the church was packed with wellwishers, most of whom had risen early to procure good places in the little church and so were already thinking hungrily ahead to the sumptuous wedding breakfast that awaited them all. Among the packed congregation, Peregrine smiled happily to himself, and not just for the pleasure of knowing that Pug and Elizabeth were about to become man and wife, but because he was delighted with the present he had chosen for them from Aspreys. It was a little silver galleon whose main mast had been topped, at his insistence, with a small flag engraved with a skull and crossbones.

‘For a pirate and his bride,' the note on the gift box read.

Not that Pug and Elizabeth, now they were turning towards each other at the head of the altar, looked at all piratical. In fact they looked every inch the perfect couple, and so obviously in love that it caught at Peregrine's heart just to see the way they looked at each other. He dropped his eyes. One day perhaps he would feel the same about someone, or, perhaps more importantly, one day someone he loved might feel the same about him.

Happily there was no sermon, no endless singing, and not too many readings, so that once the couple had said their vows and signed the registry and all the rest, they were down the aisle in no time at all, and out into the sunshine, swiftly followed by their all too hungry friends.

Elizabeth had no exact idea what a wedding night might entail, other than the fact that greater intimacy would take place than anything she had previously experienced, which had necessarily been very limited indeed. So all she could do as she prepared for bed was to pray very hard that whatever did happen would go well. Even so, once the baggage had been removed from their carriage and they had been ushered into the pretty drawing room, any fears she might have been secretly nursing were soon dispelled. Their honeymoon destination was a small and delightfully cosy Regency house, filled
with charm, and so tastefully decorated that it seemed to Elizabeth to be holding out its arms to her, the way Pug was holding out his arms to her now.

‘Not now, Pug.' Elizabeth nodded towards the drawing-room door that was now opening slowly to admit a footman and a blushing maid, both carrying trays heaped with all kinds of delicacies.

Eventually they withdrew so that the bridal pair were able to relax, drink champagne, and taste their first real kisses, before enjoying a similarly carefree dinner, so that by the time they were climbing the stairs to their marriage bed they were full of excitement and anticipation as to what the night might hold in store.

As he shaved the following morning, Pug regarded his new look in the glass but this time with a very different attitude. He might not be as tall nor as handsome as Almeric or Peregrine, nor as delightful and appealing as Gus, but thanks to his far-sighted godfather, of one thing he was
quite
sure – he knew how to please a woman. He knew that because he had just spent a great part of his wedding night doing just that, just as he knew from the look of delight and bliss on his beloved Bethy's face as she lay still fast asleep on her pillows that he had indeed succeeded beyond even his dreams.

Had he the energy or indeed the inclination he might well have taken to horse and galloped off to Yorkshire to wring his godfather's hand and
thank him personally, but having finished shaving he found he had something infinitely more enjoyable to do for the rest of the morning.

Partita and Kitty, on the other hand, were feeling quite listless and dispirited, as is so often the case after attending the wedding of a friend.

‘I think we might all go to town for a few days,' the Duchess finally decided. Noting how dejected the girls seemed to be, she went on in encouraging tones, ‘We could go to the music hall and maybe even the circus too. We can send ahead for my London maid, for dear old Weigel to tell Monty to get Knowle House ready for us, perhaps next week. Does that appeal to either of you?'

Partita turned to look at her mother, but since the expression on her face was still so dejected, the Duchess quickly continued, ‘We could go shopping for some new and pretty things. I do so need some new gloves, and we could maybe even go to Worth and order some few dresses for autumn. It can do us nothing but good, I imagine. Now that the excitement has died down, we need to have a little innocent distraction.'