Algie glanced around him with mild embarrassment to ascertain whom he had troubled with this trifling disturbance. He caught sight of Benjamin Sampson and Aurelia behind him, a few pews distant. Benjamin was looking straight ahead, an expression of bored indifference on his face, while Aurelia flashed a smile from under her fashionable toque. A lump came to Algie’s throat.
It seemed no time before the congregation was outside, fanning out in the elevated churchyard which overlooked Stourbridge and Audnam. This animated group of well-dressed guests nodded their smiling faces to one another in the late summer sunshine. Wisps of white cloud drifted unhurriedly overhead and a light breeze stirred the trees. The appointed photographer adjusted his huge wooden plate camera on its tripod and tried to muster the wedding group into a formal pose on the church steps. He ducked under a black shroud, his arm outstretched so he could operate the shutter on the lens and, in a muffled cry, called ‘Watch the birdie!’
The six bridesmaids were Harriet’s sisters, all as yet slender, unlike their mother who was endowed with the girth of a small gasometer. They wore gold dresses that perfectly matched the chrysanthemums adorning the inside of the church. Their girlish chatter was interspersed with giggles as they shuffled about self-consciously to find a place that would be to their individual advantage when the photographs eventually appeared for posterity. When the best man, a good-looking fellow, was asked to join the group, those bridesmaids in their later teen years vied vigorously for position next to him.
The breeze pressed Harriet’s white wedding dress in billows about her figure, and she resembled some Pre-Raphaelite heroine. She was clearly happy and excited, smiling contentedly, counting her blessings that she had been able to captivate this handsome young man at her side whose hand she was holding. She was well aware of the shortcomings in her looks, and that Clarence could have had his pick of much prettier girls in this town and beyond. But he had chosen her and she was beside herself with joy, for she could still hardly believe it. She felt like a queen. Destiny had been kind; her life was settled, her future mapped out. Graciously, she accepted the good wishes of everybody who called their congratulations. Later, at the wedding reception in the assembly rooms at the Bell Hotel across the street, she would have the opportunity to thank them all.
‘Harriet looks lovely, Algie,’ Marigold whispered as she held his hand and watched the proceedings. ‘Don’t you think so?’
Algie agreed.
‘Just think, it could have been you standing at her side if you’d decided to marry her.’ She was mindful that early on in their courtship she had deemed Harriet a dangerous rival.
He laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. I would never have married Harriet. She would never have had me anyway.’
‘Well, you never asked her.’
‘Course I didn’t ask her, you nit.’ He smiled affectionately. ‘Once I’d met you, she never had a chance.’
‘I reckon she’d have made you a good wife all the same. She’ll make Clarence a good wife.’
‘I expect she will. She’s got the makings.’
‘I bet Clarence is glad he never married your Kate, the way she turned out.’
Algie rolled his eyes. ‘It was on the cards, but the Lord help him if he had.’
Marigold, in her new outfit, looked as exquisite as a young princess. Algie had anticipated that at this event some handsome women would be flaunting themselves, bedecked in a dazzling array of finery, and he dearly wished for Marigold not to be outdazzled. Her pastel blue dress was a perfect fit, accentuating her small waist and her shapely young bosom. The girlish set of her head was enhanced by an elegant toque that sat stylishly on the mound of lush dark hair piled-up as if nonchalantly, with a deliberately wayward wisp caressing her slender neck.
As the photographer coaxed the newlyweds’ immediate families into another formal pose, Algie was conscious of somebody close behind them. He turned to look.
‘Hello, you two.’
‘Aurelia!’
His heartbeat quickened. It was always the same where she was concerned. Warily, self-consciously, he glanced at Benjamin, wondering if he had noticed his floundering reaction to her. Benjamin’s eyes were scrutinising Marigold, however, as he casually pulled out a silver cigarette case from an inside pocket of his jacket and lit up.
It is a strange but undeniably true saying that the grass on the other side of the fence always seems greener than the grass on one’s own side. So the wife of Algie Stokes seemed eminently more appealing to Benjamin than his own. Conversely, from Algie’s viewpoint, Aurelia had always seemed the most beautiful, the most exotic creature on God’s earth. Always, he was moved at sight of her. He was also acutely aware that Benjamin did not love his own beautiful young wife, and he could not understand the man’s idiocy, for she was divine. To a detached onlooker, however, there was little to choose between Aurelia and Marigold. They looked like sisters, visibly akin.
‘I love Harriet’s wedding dress,’ Aurelia admitted generously.
‘I just said as much to Algie,’ Marigold said, adding proudly, ‘and she uses the same dressmaker as us.’
Marigold glanced at Algie for his nod of approval, but his eyes were transfixed on Aurelia’s captivating face.
‘Your dress too, Marigold – it’s beautiful. Didn’t I tell you it would be some spectacle?’
Marigold smiled and touched Aurelia’s arm with sisterly affection. ‘Thank you. But so does yours.’ Marigold turned to Aurelia’s husband. ‘Don’t you think your wife looks lovely, Benjamin?’ she asked mischievously, keen to eke out of him a positive answer on Aurelia’s behalf.
Benjamin drew on his cigarette. ‘I suppose she does,’ he answered almost grudgingly, exhaling a cloud of smoke. ‘But I reckon a less expensive dressmaker could have done just as good a job.’
Both Marigold and Algie looked at Aurelia, awaiting her reply, but it was Algie who spoke.
‘Do you begrudge your wife the cost of a decent dressmaker?’ He asked the question in a conversational tone, but it was goading all the same, and deliberately so. Algie was glad of the opportunity to nark Benjamin.
Benjamin turned to Aurelia. ‘Am I right in thinking the wedding reception’s at the Bell?’
Aurelia nodded.
‘Then I’ll see you over there,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ll be in the saloon bar.’
‘As you wish, Benjamin,’ Aurelia replied, annoyed, but more than a little relieved at his exit.
Over the next quarter of an hour the wedding party drifted over in small, animated groups to the Bell Hotel. The new Mr and Mrs Froggatt welcomed their guests heartily and thanked them all for their generous gifts. When it was Benjamin Sampson and Aurelia’s turn to congratulate the happy couple, Benjamin eyed the bridegroom suspiciously, wondering if the young man might have cuckolded him, as Maude earnestly believed. If Clarence had been guilty, he returned Benjamin’s private surveillance giving nothing away. Thus, Benjamin was not at all sure. He must study them together to see how they reacted to one another before he made a rational judgement.
The guests mingled, and Marigold found herself in conversation with two of Harriet’s sisters, namely Priss, the eldest, and Emily, the third in line. Meanwhile, Benjamin talked with the bride’s father. Aurelia, clutching a glass of sherry and happy to escape the company of her husband, presented herself in front of Algie who was standing alone, an onlooker content to study the human diversity before him.
‘I thought your mother and Rose were invited to the wedding,’ Aurelia remarked.
‘Oh, they were.’ He smiled self-consciously. ‘But Rose is a bit too young. And Mother grasped that excuse to stay at home and look after her. She hates being out of the house, especially after dark.’ He shrugged, indicating