A Very Unusual Wife Read online

  Instead he could only sum her up in one word, ‘unusual’.

  Chapter Four

  Elmina walked slowly down the stairs to where her father, who like the rest of her family seemed considerably agitated, was waiting for her in the hall.

  He drew his gold watch out of his waistcoat pocket as she appeared and called out,

  “Come on, come on! You are late!”

  It was impossible for Elmina to move quickly with the long veil being carried by her mother’s lady’s maid.

  Because she was afraid of tripping, she was holding onto the banisters.

  Her father did not watch her descend, for which she was grateful, for she was already anticipating a somewhat hostile reaction to her wedding gown.

  After they had dined at Falcon, where the dinner party had been different from when the Earl dined at Warne Park because he had invited some of his relatives to join them, she had had no chance to talk to him alone nor had he made any effort to single her out.

  She knew that while his marriage had the approval of his relations they were undoubtedly surprised at his choice.

  Every one of them remarked upon how young she looked and few were able to believe that she was actually eighteen.

  She knew too that they had expected Mirabel to be the daughter chosen by the Marquis and a number of people had therefore to be taken into the secret of her engagement.

  On one thing Elmina was determined, which was that she would look her very best on her wedding day, being aware there would be a great number of the Marquis’s friends coming from London to look with curiosity at the bride and undoubtedly criticise.

  She was fortunate that the Countess was so agitated at the idea of having three weddings in so short a time that she did not concentrate as much on Elmina’s as she might otherwise have done.

  When they went to London, she took her youngest daughter to the shops she always patronised herself, chose a number of gowns that she thought suitable and said that she would like to see sketches and patterns the following day.

  It was an opportunity for Elmina to suggest that since her mother had a number of other things to do in London and a great many invitations from friends, she and Mirabel should go back together to the shops accompanied by a lady’s maid.

  The Countess was relieved and so was Mirabel.

  “You know what Mama is like,” she said to her sister. “She always thinks she knows better than we do and quite frankly I want to please Robert, who has very definite ideas about what I should wear.”

  Elmina did not say anything, but she thought that the same applied to the Marquis and she had no intention of being a rather dull conventional bride in white satin.

  This, of course, was what her mother had chosen and therefore, when she went back to the shop the next day, she countermanded the order and chose instead a soft gauze embroidered all over with silver.

  It was lovely and expensive, but Elmina knew that it would become her and would certainly accentuate the lights in her hair and the clarity of her skin.

  Because she had never been allowed to have any clothes of her own and nobody had troubled until now what she looked like, she had often lain awake at night designing herself fairy clothes.

  She thought that they would change her from being an insignificant youngest sister, small and unwanted, into a Princess who would, of course, capture the vacillating heart of Prince Charming.

  Generally she saw herself in her fantasies wearing a breathtakingly beautiful riding habit and mounted on a black stallion that could out-ride and out-jump every horse in England.

  Alternatively, she appeared at the ball later than any of the other guests and was dressed either in a gown covered with diamonds that glittered like stars or in one that resembled the moonlight.

  The latter had to be her choice as a bride and the gauze, certainly at a distance, gave the impression that she had stepped out of a woodland stream.

  The dressmaker her mother patronised had an artistic soul so she well understood what Elmina wanted besides being impressed by the fact that she was to be the Marchioness of Falcon.

  She therefore agreed to keep her choice a secret from the Countess and to ensure that her gown looked different from that of any other bride who had been married since Queen Victoria came to the throne.

  “You look lovely, my Lady!” she said at the last fitting and there was no doubt that she was speaking sincerely.

  “Thank you,” Elmina replied. “I do hope you are right.”

  Even as she spoke, she knew that what she really was hoping was that the Marquis would admire her.

  At the same time she could not be confident that he would even notice what she was wearing when undoubtedly Lady Carstairs would be in the congregation.

  He had, however, taken the trouble to send to Warne Park a selection of diamond tiaras, saving the Countess’s face by saying that it was traditional for the Falcon brides to wear the family jewels on their wedding day.

  The Countess genuinely believed this, but Elmina suspected that the Marquis was thinking that everything they possessed was very inferior to what he owned.

  Also she was sure that he wanted to organise as much as possible himself because he could trust nobody else to do it so competently.

  After they had arranged the day of the wedding, he had said to her father casually but in a manner that told Elmina he had already thought it out,

  “I think, my Lord, it would be far easier if the Reception could be at Falcon rather than in your house.”

  The Earl had looked surprised and the Marquis had gone on,

  “As you are well aware, I shall have to provide marquees in which my tenants and employees can have the wedding feast they expect and, of course, there will be fireworks in the evening.”

  He paused to go on slowly,

  “It seems somewhat laborious for Elmina and me to have to rush from the Reception here back to Falcon in time for me to make a speech in both marquees and naturally introduce my wife.”

  The way he put it seemed so reasonable that the Earl had agreed without much show of reluctance.

  The Earl was also thinking that it would save him a great deal of expense and he was already counting the cost of Mirabel’s Reception and later Deirdre’s.

  It was therefore agreed that they should be married in the little Church where Elmina had been Christened and where all her ancestors were buried.

  They would go from there straight to Falcon where the Reception would be held in the huge ballroom.

  She learnt that the Marquis had arranged that at the point where they would receive their guests they would have a background of orchids grown in his own greenhouses.

  The whole ballroom was to be decorated by his gardeners in a spectacular fashion that her father could not even have begun to emulate.

  In fact, when Mirabel and Deirdre spent the day before the wedding decorating the little Church just inside the Park, they were quite certain that their lilies and carnations would look very meagre in comparison with the Marquis’s idea of decoration.

  This made Elmina more determined than ever not to look a small insignificant country daisy.

  She was quite certain, anyway, that Lady Carstairs would be an exotic orchid with whom she could not begin to compete.

  Thus she had to concentrate all her imaginings on herself and it was something that she had very seldom done in the past.

  It was a subject on which she could not appeal to Chang and yet she felt that in a way he helped her because he had taught her to look inward for what she wanted and find the answer from within herself.

  When she was alone, she practised breathing deeply in the manner the monks had taught their pupils to do before they could learn Karate.

  Almost at once she saw in her mind a picture and then it was easy to order what she wanted and to know that whatever anybody else might say she would do what she wished to do.

  Her mother had produced with pride the Brussels lace veil that had be
en in the Warne family for two hundred years.

  Elmina knew that on Mirabel it would look beautiful, but it was too heavy for her and since there was a silver pattern on the gauze gown it was a mistake for her to have a patterned veil as well.

  The dressmaker had produced a tulle that was not white but the shade of a morning mist, and had sewn onto it tiny specks of diamanté that glittered in the light and looked like drops of dew.

  Again choosing to defy tradition, Elmina refused to have a train and instead suggested that the sparkling tulle should trail behind her up the aisle.

  The next difficulty was the tiaras.

  The Marquis had sent three of them, each one larger than the next, and all of them overwhelming like himself.

  “They are glorious! Absolutely glorious!” Mirabel cried.

  She put one on her head and said,

  “Promise me, when I am married you will let me borrow this one. It is quite the most impressive crown I shall ever have the chance of wearing.”

  “Of course you can borrow it!” Elmina replied.

  At the same time she knew that it was wrong for her.

  She looked despairingly at the other two tiaras. Then, when she was still wondering what she should do, her father said to her,

  “It seems ridiculous for me to spend a great deal of money I do not have on giving you an expensive wedding present when your future husband is so rich.”

  “You must not be extravagant, Papa,” Elmina replied.

  “At the same time,” the Earl ruminated, “people will think it very strange if I don’t give you a piece of jewellery of some sort.”

  “There is no need – ” she began.

  “What I thought,” the Earl continued as if she had not spoken, “is you can have the wreath of wild flowers that your grandmother wore when she was quite a young girl.”

  Elmina gave a little gasp, knowing that it was a piece of jewellery she had always admired and loved, but which had been kept in the safe and she had never seen it worn.

  The Countess had a much more impressive tiara that she preferred and her father had always said that as the wreath was so old the stones might be loose and he had no wish to risk losing one.

  Now, when he had it cleaned, Elmina knew that it was exactly what she needed as a bride.

  It was a circle of wild flowers skilfully worked by one of the great jewellers of the eighteenth century and there was a portrait of her grandmother wearing it when she was twelve years old.

  “You could not give me anything I would like better, Papa,” Elmina cried, “and thank you very very much!”

  The Earl was rather surprised at her enthusiasm and arranged to send it with all the other presents she had received to Falcon where they would be on show during the Reception.

  Elmina, however, had managed to extract it from its velvet-lined box before it actually left the house.

  She was therefore able to put it on her head over the veil without anybody being aware that she was not going to appear in the Church in one of the Falcon tiaras.

  There had been another struggle over her bouquet.

  Her mother insisted that she should have one of white carnations and lilies, which the gardeners were expected to make for her.

  But while the Marquis was still in London, Elmina had ridden over to Falcon without anybody being aware of where she was going.

  She left her horse in the stables with Hogson, who was delighted to see her.

  “We was thinkin’ as ’ow you’d forgotten us, my Lady!” he said.

  “You will not be saying that when you see me every day!” Elmina smiled. “Then perhaps you will have too much of me!”

  “That’d be impossible, my Lady! And there’s several new ’orses to show you, which I’m sure you’ll think better than anythin’ we’ve ’ad before.”

  “That would be impossible!”

  She went into the stalls as she spoke to meet the newcomers and went over their points with him one by one.

  Then she told him that she had to go to the gardens and went off to find the Head Gardener.

  He too was a man she knew well from past visits and he supposed that she had come to see how the orchids he was intending to decorate the ballroom with were progressing.

  “They’ll be in flower at exactly the right moment, my Lady!” he said proudly.

  “How would they dare do anything else!” Elmina smiled.

  Then she said,

  “I need your advice and it’s very important.”

  Lester, for that was his name, listened attentively as she explained to him that her bridal gown was different from anybody’s else’s and it would completely ruin the effect if she had to carry the traditional bouquet of carnations and lilies.

  Lester was one of the leading gardeners in the country and the Marquis had in fact persuaded him to leave Kew Gardens to come and fill his own greenhouses with exotic flowers.

  He understood exactly what Elmina required and found her what was an orchid, but a very strange one.

  Its petals, although white, had an almost translucent look about them and were faintly speckled with green that might have resembled the sunshine on a clear stream.

  As soon as she saw them, Elmina realised that they were exactly what she had seen in the picture she had looked inwards to see and that the orchids in some way resembled her eyes.

  “We’ve got just enough of them, my Lady, for a small bouquet,” Lester said, “and, if you’re carryin’ them, it’ll be a surprise to his Lordship, because this be the first year they’ve bloomed.”

  Elmina drew in her breath.

  “You must not tell him I am having them,” she said, “in case he prevents me from doing so.”

  The Head Gardener laughed.

  “It’ll be a secret between you and me, my Lady, but I can’t believe he’d be angry. Even if he is, it’ll be too late for him to do anythin’ about it!”

  “That is what I thought!” Elmina said.

  Her bouquet had been delivered to Warne Park just a few minutes before she came downstairs.

  She had made it clear that it had to arrive after her mother had left for the Church and it was there waiting for her now on a settle in the hall beside the white bouquet provided by their own gardeners.

  She moved across to the one she intended to carry and, as she picked it up, she had an idea.

  “Put the white bouquet in the carriage,” she said to one of the footmen.

  As she did so, the Earl was aware of what was happening.

  “What do you want two bouquets for?” he asked suspiciously.

  “I thought it would be nice, Papa, to put the white one on Grandmama’s grave, which is just inside the lych gate.”

  The Earl looked surprised and then he said,

  “What do you want to do that for?”

  “I have been thinking of Grandmama today and how everybody admired her and, as you see I am wearing the wreath of flowers that once belonged to her and which you have now given to me.”

  The Earl looked even more surprised. At the same time he was more concerned with getting Elmina to the Church.

  “All right then, come along!” he said. “We cannot stay here talking and it will doubtless annoy Falcon if we keep him waiting.”

  Elmina’s eyes twinkled.

  “I think it would be a new experience for him.”

  Her father was however not listening.

  Elmina had her own way and, as she walked towards the Church porch, her father handed her the white bouquet and she laid it on her grandmother’s grave.

  As she did so, she said a little prayer.

  ‘You were so successful, Grandmama, that nobody has ever forgotten you,’ she prayed. ‘I think too that Grandpapa loved you until he died. Help me to be like you.’

  Then, as the onlookers from the village wished her good luck and murmured amongst themselves at her appearance, Elmina, holding onto her father’s arm, walked into the crowded Church where the Marquis was w
aiting for her.

  *

  Driving swiftly from the village towards Falcon in a well-sprung carriage drawn by four perfectly matched horses, their harness decorated with flowers, Elmina thought that this was the first time she had been alone with her husband.

  This, however, was not the moment to have an intimate conversation with him.

  Because it was a warm sunny day, the Marquis had the hood of the carriage open and that also was decorated with flowers.

  All the way to Falcon, as they passed through the small villages, first on the Earl’s estate and then on the Marquis’s, the villagers crowded to see them go by.

  Many of the children threw small bunches of flowers into the open carriage or else pelted them with roses and rose petals.

  Elmina and the Marquis were concerned with waving their acknowledgements and he ordered his coachman to go more slowly so that the villagers had a chance to see them.

  Only as they drove in through the impressive gates of Falcon did the Marquis say in what Elmina felt was a bored voice,

  “Now we really have to face the music! The majority of my friends from London did not bother to come to the Church and my secretary anticipates that we shall have to shake nearly a thousand hands before we are finished!”

  “It would be much easier if we were like the Chinese and bowed politely,” Elmina said. “I sympathise most sincerely with their desire not to be touched.”

  She spoke without thinking and she thought that the Marquis gave her a sharp glance before he said,

  “I suppose it is one of the penalties of getting married and we cannot grumble as it only happens once in a lifetime.”

  “That is certainly a consoling thought,” Elmina replied.

  Then she gave a little cry of excitement for, as they progressed down the drive, she could see ahead of them two large marquees erected on the lawn.

  They were decorated with flowers and flags that were waving in the breeze and looked extremely pretty against the huge grey stone house with the Marquis’s standard flying on the roof.

  The tenants and employees of the two estates were, however, not inside the marquees, but were making a large crowd outside the entrance with its long flight of steps where the Marquis and Elmina would alight.