‘Amen,’ I answered along with the rest. The moment was come. Clearing my throat, I took a firm grip on Caro’s left hand. ‘I, Jacob, do take thee, Caroline, to my wife, from this day forth, and do call on these here present to witness.’ I then took the wedding band (the boy near bursting with importance all this while) and worked it over her finger. ‘In token of which, I do give thee this ring.’
Her flesh was cold and damp: I pressed it between my warmer, drier palms to infuse her with strength. The music had ceased, and as I thus soothed her I heard jackdaws bickering somewhere on the house roof. Caro now turned to me and said in a high breathless voice, ‘I, Caroline, do take thee, Jacob, to my husband, from this day forth, and do call on these here present to witness.’
I smiled at her. She immediately coughed, was seized by a spasm, and beat her hand against her lace with a frightened movement. A kindly laugh rose from the company, at which her cough cleared. She touched her finger, turning on me a joyous smile: ‘In token of which I do accept this ring.’
And with those few words and that paltry circlet of metal Caro and I were made one flesh. We stood facing the company as if about to perform a dance: I was tempted to bow, and wondered if they would applaud. At last I was bidden kiss her, and a very sweet kiss it was. The Master and Mistress now stepped up to kiss her also, followed by Godfrey, my brothers and Peter’s sisters, and then the folk nearest to us rose up to follow suit, so that she was mobbed on all sides as every person there present sought to give and receive good fortune. They scrambled for the favours on her gown, and on those of Mistress Mary and Mistress Anne. I felt hands pluck at my own coat and saw the ribbons snatched from my brothers also. Young men waved the favours triumphantly in the air and pinned them to their hats.
When the kissing and the snatching of favours were done, the guests made for their seats, but not until grains of wheat had been cast over my wife’s head, for fruitfulness. As we walked to our seats, a young girl cried, ‘Jacob!’ and something struck me on the face before falling to the path. I saw she had thrown me a candied almond. Laughing, protesting, we held up our hands as more sweetmeats, mostly raisins, pelted onto us. Some landed in Caro’s hair and bosom; one or two managed to slip down my tight collar. Caro brushed off comfits as we seated ourselves at the board with our employers and attendants.
The Master and Mistress wished us a long and happy life together, at least the Mistress did, for none could be quite sure what Sir John was trying to say. The company was in high good spirits. We were brought two great silver mazers, full of sops in wine, which we drank down to the cheers of the company. They were filled to the brim again, and we were made to interlink our arms before drinking them, which was easy enough; but then they set us to hold the cups to one another’s mouths. I was afraid I might spoil her dress, but then I saw the Mistress signing to me that it mattered not a jot, so I went ahead with a will and spilt only a few drops and those from my own mouth. It seemed a good game, but one best played in private. It came to me that I had not yet eaten a morsel to mop up so much drink.
‘Let’s to bed directly,’ I whispered to her.
Caro laughed at me, a laugh full of love, and I stored up that laugh for when we were old, when I might say to her, Thus do I remember you on the day we were betrothed.
In the usual way of things I would have waited on my guests, but this was neither my house nor Caro’s, and simple hospitality would not fit the Mistress’s notions. Little boys dressed as cupids handed the dishes round to those who could not reach them, and were much kissed and fondled by the women; I disliked this heathen play-acting, but gathering that the idea had been My Lady’s and was generally considered a most happy one, I complimented her on her delicate fancy. Sir John, seated opposite us, proposed a toast to our health and happiness, in a kingdom going on in the good old way, every man true to his King. My mother fluttered and said I was foolish at times but not a bad lad; I smiled at Sir John and when the toast was over, silently drank off my own, to Black Tom Fairfax. They called the sweet wine white, but it was rather a pale gold, frilled with bubbles at the glass’s edge. I had not finished the toast before another was proposed, and I was handed more wine, this time red.
Caro caught me viewing her through the glass of red wine, and again she laughed.
Sir John was in his element – the liquid one – and those around him only too willing to keep pace. This time the company was invited to wish us fine children for, said the Master, at twenty-five I was of an age when I should have issue, and he hoped he might live to see my son a loyal servant to his own, a speech that made Caro dig her nails in my hand under the table. She need not have feared. I smirked my thanks and stood to toast those who had done us so much good (the red again), after which someone toasted the House of Roche for its unfailing affability and true noblesse (another white). A cupid, his wings bedraggled, ran about with bottles and casks. Then by common consent we turned back to the food, and a quiet hum arose, punctuated by the occasional clink. There was cheesecake and spicecake, along with a most extraordinary dish, exactly like collops of bacon only sweet to the taste, cut from red and white marchpane, and at a separate table, a great heap of bridecakes. I wondered who would cleanse the foul dishes.
Caro looked hot. Having watched her eat a collop of marchpane, nibbling inwards from the edge and turning the thing about in her hand to make a circular scrap which she at last took on her tongue, I offered her another for the sake of such a pretty sight.
Joan came up and spoke quietly into Izzy’s ear. Izzy’s eyes widened, and as she moved away from our table he turned to me and whispered, ‘It seems Mervyn is sick, and accuses Mounseer of poisoning him.’
I thought of the syllabub. ‘And how would Joan know?’
‘She took cream up to the house for cheesecakes, and while she was there—’
Godfrey was at my side again. Izzy waved his hand to say I should hear the rest when he could give it me. I glanced at the Mistress, who had not the look of a woman whose cook has poisoned her son, and concluded that she, like me, fancied the poison was rather come in a winecup.
‘Jacob, the bridecakes,’ Godfrey said.
Folk began banging on the tables, calling, ‘Bridecakes, bridecakes!’ and Caro, no longer shy, dragged me up from my seat. Godfrey led us to the table with the bridecakes upon it, Caro on one side and myself on the other, bidding us kiss over it. The pile was just low enough for Caro to lift her lips above the highest one. I bent forward and kissed her to the sound of cheers and shouts; there was clapping of hands. Then there was a gasp, the clapping broke off, and I looked down to see that the hem of my coat had swept a cake off the table to the ground. The cheers resumed, but they were not so loud as they had been, and my wife’s smile when we sat down again was shot through with worry.
‘That is nothing, pure superstition,’ I told her. ‘Do but think, my love! Is it likely a cake, a piece of dough and spice that we make ourselves, should govern our lives?’
‘No,’ she answered; but her voice was uncertain.
‘Jacob is right,’ put in Izzy, who had overheard this. ‘Besides, he is big enough to protect you, is he not! And you have now two brothers to boot.’
Caro kissed his lean cheek. ‘You have always stood brother to me, Izzy.’
I wondered how he liked her saying that.
The music grew louder. Some of the young folks were for dancing, and a set was made up. They continued to dance for the sun shone bright but mild, and were ready next for snap-dragon and other nonsense. During the ceremony I had felt almost nothing, but now sat brimming with happiness. All I could see was my wife, with her trusting eyes, her cheeks made rosy by wine and the O of her lips as she watched the game. A raisin clung to the skin of her neck. Bending forward, I took it between my lips. The men near me cried, ‘Hey-hey!’
‘Jacob is