Wedding Tiers (31 page)

By the end of the first week we were getting the hang of things a bit, and there had been no major incidents since the bouncing cake, other than Lily having to be called in urgently, in her Stitch in Time sewing repairs persona, to hastily reattach the ripped bodice of a wedding dress when the groom had clumsily stood on the hem while dancing.

Harry and I celebrated my first day off by having our annual asparagus feast, when we greedily devoured the first tiny, tenderly nurtured shoots with melted butter, and since Noah had again, entirely unasked, resumed his wood-chopping duties, I invited him too, as a thank you.

I don’t know why Harry liked Noah so much, yet was always warning me against Rob Rafferty! It seemed to me they were much the same…but anyway, it was unfortunate that Rob turned up just as we were finishing off our lunch with plum ice cream and coffee.

He swept me off my feet and planted one of his smacking kisses full on my lips before he actually noticed Harry and Noah sitting at the table in the kitchen.

‘Oh, sorry, didn’t know you had company,’ he said easily, putting me back down again, slightly rumpled.

Harry grabbed his stick and levered himself to his feet, jamming his hat back over his eyes. ‘If you mean me, I’m off,’ he said tersely. Mac uncurled himself from under the table and followed him out, but Noah didn’t look like he was about to move any time soon. ‘Hi, Rob,’ he said. ‘If you came for the asparagus, you’re too late.’

‘Asparagus?’ Rob echoed. ‘No, actually, I came to see if Josie wanted to come to a birthday party tonight for one of the
Cotton Common
cast: Viola Stewart—you met her when I took you to the wine bar. It’ll be fun.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, acutely aware of Noah’s sharpened gaze on me, ‘only I’m really tired! Libby’s wedding receptions began this week and this is the first day off we’ve had. I’ve loads to catch up on.’

‘All the more reason for an evening off, then?’

‘No, really, like I said, I’m way too tired—sorry!’

Rob gave me his full-wattage smile. ‘Oh, I’m
sure
I could persuade you!’ he drawled throatily.

Noah drained his coffee cup and got up, his chair scraping back along the quarry tiles. ‘Thanks for lunch, Josie, but I’d better get back to work again. See you later—unless you’ve gone out, of course,’ he added. ‘See you, Rob.’

Rob watched him leave by the French doors into the garden and walk off down the path towards the studio with a puzzled expression. Then he turned to me, one eyebrow raised, for an explanation.

‘Noah’s using the studio at the moment. There wasn’t enough room at the gatehouse to spread his pictures out or do any developing.’

‘Wasn’t there? Well, I’m sure he’s doing a lot of developing now,’ Rob said, slowly and thoughtfully.

Then he said he couldn’t stay, he’d only popped in with the invitation, but he could see I was too tired. Even the offer of a slice of rich fruitcake wouldn’t tempt him.

We spent all of the following Sunday afternoon transforming the barn for the Elizabethan-themed reception. Libby, of course, had it all planned out in her notebook, like a military campaign.

First we arranged the tables into one big ‘T shape—and everyone not on the top bit of the ‘T was going to be
literally
below the salt, because Dorrie fetched a pair of shell-shaped silver and deep blue glass salt bowls from her cottage. ‘And make sure you don’t let anybody make off with them,’ she instructed. ‘They’re an heirloom.’

Since the use of herbs had been widespread for decoration as well as flavour at that time, she made up simple bunches for the tables of rosemary, thyme, lavender and parsley, together with a few flowers, which she called tussie-mussies. They looked very pleasing in simple (if totally anachronistic) glass vases—but then, the bride seemed to be happier with an updated version of the Elizabethan theme, an adult excuse to revisit the dressing-up box.

‘Rosemary for remembrance and fidelity,’ Dorrie said, watching Tim up on the stepladder attaching a kissing knot of gilded rosemary, ribbon and leaves so that it was suspended above where the bride and groom would sit at the wedding feast. More bunches of the gilded rosemary twigs, tied with ribbons and called Bride’s Laces, would be offered to guests as they arrived, and also surrounded the elegant glass cake stand that stood on a cloth embroidered with love knots, awaiting the arrival of my Pomander cake.

A pair of large brass candelabra with twisty electric candle bulbs were placed one on either side of the stage. Then, when
we had finished setting out large platters that looked like wood, but were not, archaic-looking cutlery and goblets, all on loan from the re-enactment society, our job was done. As we switched off the lights and left the barn in darkness, it smelled, not unpleasantly, of herbs.

Next day, when the bridal car (a bizarre choice of a white stretch limo) drew up outside the Old Barn and the bride and groom emerged, a very regal Hebe Winter, dressed up convincingly as Queen Elizabeth I, offered them the loving cup as they crossed the threshold.

Gentle lute music was playing as the rest of the guests filed into the dimly lit interior, where Shakespeare shyly proffered a quill pen with a gel nib and invited them to sign a large, parchment book.

The groom looked morose in a fur-trimmed robe over doublet and hose, but his bride was radiant in a jewelled and billowing gown, decorated with love knots of ribbon. I suppose half the guests were dressed in variations of the same style, the women in heavily brocaded and ornamented overgowns closed at the top, corset-fashion, while the skirts were left open to reveal the underskirts below. Few of the men had followed the groom’s example, but a doublet and hose, it has to be said, did not suit everyone.

The Pomander cake was admired and cut, and several buxom wenches from the Sticklepond re-enactment society carried round the platters of food and filled the goblets. Then, once the speeches were done and the noise level was rising as the champagne sank, the Virgin Queen led a few of her courtiers in a stately dance to the music of lutes, a viola and fiddles.

It was, in a strange way, quite magical, and Noah and his Leica were
everywhere.

* * *

The last week of March had merged seamlessly into the beginning of April in a blur of wedding receptions, gardening and cake-making, but when I did have time to think, I felt a growing sense of unease. I saw a film once where the main character kept catching glimpses of someone out of the corner of his eye, and you were never quite sure if what he was seeing was real or if he was being haunted. It was terribly atmospheric and eerie and…well, that seemed to be happening to me with Ben, because unless I was imagining it, he was almost
stalking
me. He must have come to stay with Mark and Stella from time to time, because he wasn’t always around, thank goodness.

But maybe I was imagining things, because Harry hadn’t mentioned seeing him in the Griffin, and I was sure he would have, if he had. Unless, of course, my very own Spirit of Relationships Past was avoiding all his old haunts?

We had hardly had a chance to recover from the Elizabethan reception when it was time to get ready for the Goth extravaganza, which was, of course, to be the first wedding ceremony in Blessings.

Still, at least that meant the Great Chamber could be prepared for the ceremony a day in advance, with a suitable table for the registrar covered with a dark velvet throw and set with the brass candelabra. Tim had cut lots of dark ivy for Dorrie to arrange, together with dozens of darkest red roses from the Sticklepond florist. Once the crewel-work curtains were closed and the central light switched off, the effect should be just what a Goth couple dreamed of—dark, velvety and lush.

Unfortunately, there was a reception in the Old Barn the day before the Goth reception that wasn’t cleared away until after five in the afternoon, so that we were only just starting to transform it when a by-now-familiar hearse pulled up in the courtyard and out poured several pallid and raven-haired young men, who had brought the red wine goblets and a large, vellum-style book with a quill pen,
both remarkably like the ones Shakespeare had been offering to guests only a few days before.

They stayed to help move the tables, and then at Dorrie’s bidding, carry the table decorations of more dark ivy and roses in black glass vases, before finally flitting silently off into the night.

I took the cake over first thing and set it on the Graces’ tablecloth, embroidered with bats, cats, dragons and fairies as well as a smattering of dark roses and Celtic knots. The black crochet cobweb edging was amazingly fine. Pansy had surpassed herself.

Come to that, my cake wasn’t half bad either. I considered the dragon a masterpiece.

The room was dark, lit only by the wall sconces plus a small light where the hook-nosed DJ was setting himself up on the stage in a nest of ivy, like a strange bird.

Movable Feasts, as a concession to the event, had removed the white pinafores over their black tops and trousers and blended into the darkness behind the buffet table, where they had started filling dark red goblets and putting them on trays as the guests arrived.

The groom came first in his hearse, with the best man, and they went straight to the Great Chamber, both wearing dark suits, black top hats and gloves.

But there was a small crisis as the bride arrived in her white, black-embroidered dress and cute wings—one of which had been caught in the car door and was drooping. I had to phone for Lily to come over urgently, but it was soon fixed in the cloakroom; there was just a ripped stitch or two where the wings attached to a stiffened part of the dress.

I watched the actual ceremony on the screen in the Old Barn, though since the chamber was so dimly lit, it made for mysteriously shadowed viewing. Only a few brightly clad people stood out, like the bride’s mother in pastel floral and big hat, and of
course all those very white faces—plus the regular flicker of camera flashes, as Noah and the bridegroom’s friend recorded the moment.

After that, the reception was pretty much like a darker version of the Elizabethan affair, and although I didn’t expect there to be a lot of hopeful joy about a Goth wedding party, it was a surprisingly cheery and happy occasion.

It was hard to keep track of where Noah and his camera were among the shadows, though, what with his dark hair and suit, and at one point I’m sure I heard him whisper: ‘Wings would suit you too, angel!’ though when I turned around, there was no sign of him.

Afterwards, the happy couple changed into something even more outlandish and drove away in the hearse, a collection of rubber bats, black shoes and cans trailing in their wake.

Libby and I both agreed that the couple were so well-matched that the chances of this marriage lasting the course were a lot higher than most of the previous ones, and there was no point in taking a bet on the outcome.

Easter week was slightly easier from the reception point of view. I suppose the churches have so many special events and services that they simply can’t fit in lots of weddings too.

But we did have one reception the day before Good Friday, and in a mad moment I had rashly accepted a commission to make the happy couple an Easter Bunny wedding cake.

The bride was one of those soppy, Madeline Bassett types, who should have stayed safely incarcerated in a P. G. Wodehouse novel telling people that the stars were God’s daisy chain. She showed a distressing tendency to refer to her husband-to-be as Peter Rabbit and in return, he called her Bunnykins. Urgh!

I did manage
not
to throw up while discussing the design, but it was a near-run thing. Still, the cake was easy, since I’d done rabbits before (appearing out of a magician’s hat, that time), so creating a vegetable garden with a picket fence around it and Peter and Bunnykins in the carrot patch together, sugar sweet, was not a problem. Violet moulded lots of tiny carrot tops that I planted in neat rows to look as if they were sticking up out of
the ground, and I made a wheelbarrow full of bunches of them with green leafy tops. Around the sides I lettered ‘Peter and Bunnykins lived happily ever after’. It was a huge success—most of their family and friends appeared to be as wet as they were.

On Easter Sunday Noah presented me with a huge, organic milk chocolate egg tied up in Cellophane. Inside, when I’d nibbled my way in, there was a fluffy, speckled hen that clucked when pressed. I had come to the conclusion that he was quietly, handsomely and elegantly stark, staring bonkers.

I’d half expected
something
, though, so in return handed him a large, marzipan rabbit—here’s one I prepared earlier.

As usual, Pansy and I made lots of little chocolate eggs and chicks, using my set of Easter moulds, then concealed them all over the parish hall for her Brownie troop to discover.

Mary rang for another pregnancy bulletin that I didn’t want to hear, and then she said, ‘I did
tell
Ben the very idea that you were having a thing going with Noah Sephton, of all people, was insane, you know. I mean, it would be like suddenly discovering you were shacked up with David Bailey, practically. And Noah Sephton’s gorgeous!’ She cackled like a hyena.

‘Yes, you’re right. What on earth would he see in
me
? I have got to know him a bit, because he’s Libby’s friend, but he’s just kind, that’s all.’

I wasn’t going to say
how
kind he’d been after Libby’s wedding…

‘When Ben said he
knew
it was true, because you didn’t deny it when he accused you of it, I told him, “You’re mad! Josie must have been so gobsmacked by your insane suggestion that she was speechless!”’

Mary laughed again and I joined in, rather hollowly.

‘His latest idea is that you’re having a passionate affair with Rob Rafferty too! He’s mad, quite mad.’

* * *

Claire and the film unit descended on me again for two hellish days, when they were underfoot at every turn. I take back what I said about getting used to this, though Aggie seemed to bask in the limelight, and even Harry was turning into a bit of an old ham…

Even though Old Barn Receptions became hugely popular almost instantly, we did have some time free. Never having given much thought to the matter before, I hadn’t realised that some days are more popular for weddings than others.

Saturday was
the
day. Every single one of them was now booked until the end of the season (and some of next season). I expected Sunday would be too, except that a lot of churches hadn’t got time to fit weddings in on that day. The next most favourite were Friday afternoons and Mondays, but on other days there were only occasional weddings, which was just as well, because it meant we could catch up a bit. This suited Noah, too, because he was often in London in midweek, coming back for long weekends.

Libby now kept a good supply of Hebe Winter’s natural petal confetti and Dorrie was able to create table decorations and fill vases at the drop of a beret. Even the Graces were trying to lay in a stock of tablecloths, ready to personalise to taste, but unfortunately this wasn’t something I could do with my cakes, since I rarely knew what was next.

Pia was spending part of her time in Liverpool, where she’d enrolled on an NVQ in catering! She was living there with Jasper, but she came back most weekends to help out, unless they were off somewhere. When she was here, Jasper often was too, helping Dorrie in the garden. Dorrie said if any of the guests spoke to him (which they did, because he was such a good-looking young man) he told them he was the under-gardener. But he didn’t ever get tipped, unlike Tim, who seemed to be raking in the money whenever he got the Bentley out.

With Pia there and Tim to boss about, Libby didn’t
really
need me, except at the start of the receptions until the cake had been officially cut, because it’s amazing what little accidents—and big accidents—can happen to a fragile, icing sugar confection, especially when it’s sitting on a table in a room containing several drunken and not altogether steady guests.

There was the occasion, for instance, when mischievous twin pageboys ate all the icing off the back of the lower tier of a cake (luckily not one of mine), and then sicked it up on the groom’s shoes while he was telling them off…

But it was not always the guests that caused the accidents. At one reception Caesar, the stupider and more amorous of the two peacocks, took such a fancy to the bride as she got out of the car that he ran after her into the barn and chased her round the tables, rattling his tail feathers impressively. Of course the bride managed to bash into the table holding the cake during the pursuit, but by the time she had been coaxed out of her fit of hysteria (she had a bird phobia) and Tim had put out the peacock, I had it looking fairly respectable again.

And, despite my disenchantment with the whole idea of love, if it was a local wedding I couldn’t resist running over with the Graces to stand outside St Cuthbert’s as the happy couple emerged. The pealing of the bells drew me across the Green like invisible wires.

I was still sometimes getting the feeling of being watched, and one morning (a non-wedding reception day) when I came home from taking Mac for an extra-long walk, I just
knew
someone had been in the cottage. Someone other than Harry, that is. He had a key, of course, and could come and go if he pleased, though he seldom did if I was not there.

It was hard to put my finger on what first alerted me, it was just that some things didn’t seem to be exactly where I’d left them, and there was a lingering scent on the air that reminded
me of the aftershave Ben had suddenly taken to wearing while he was having the affair…Was I imagining this too? Or
had
Ben been in the house—and if so, what was he looking for?

The idea that he could come and go as he pleased was very unsettling, so next day I decided to have all the locks changed, including the one on the studio door. I really should have done it before.

Noah was in London and it’s amazing how quickly I’d got used to him being in the studio, so that it felt odd when he wasn’t there. I think Harry missed having him around to talk to, as well.

When he did come back, and I heard the squeak of the side gate, I went out to give him the new studio key.

‘I’ve had all my locks changed. I just thought I’d like better security now I’m living alone,’ I said, following him into the studio.

‘Oh?’ He cast a swift look around the room and then said, acutely, ‘Or maybe you thought Ben might let himself in?’

‘How did you guess that?’ I demanded.

‘Because I’m pretty sure he—or someone—has been in here while I’ve been away, and I don’t suppose it was you?’

I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t come in when you weren’t here. You’re right, only I thought I might have been imagining it. I do think he’s been in the cottage.’

‘I knew I hadn’t left that pile of photographs out of the folder, and I did close the door to the darkroom. But I don’t think anything’s been damaged.’

‘Oh, no, he would respect your work too much to do that!’ I said, shocked. ‘He must just have been curious.’

‘And maybe jealous?’ Noah suggested.

‘No, I don’t think so. My friend Mary thinks she’s now convinced him that the very idea you and I were having an affair was totally ludicrous—and he’d heard the even sillier rumour that I was having a fling with Rob Rafferty too, so she put him
straight about that, as well. Of course, she thinks the whole idea is so ridiculous that she can hardly help laughing when talking about it.’

‘And
is
it so ridiculous?’ Noah asked gravely. ‘Rob seemed very sure of his welcome that time he called by when I was there.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said shortly.

‘That’s what Harry said too. He said you had more sense than to take up with a rascal like that.’

‘I don’t know why he hasn’t seen that you are just as much of a rascal, leaving broken-hearted girls behind you in swathes.’

‘Not intentionally,’ he said mildly, ‘and that’s a slight exaggeration.’

‘Anji?’

‘You’ll have to believe me when I say that that affair was on its last legs by the first time I met you, I was just trying to let her down lightly. Then she told all those lies about you and Rob, and had me convinced for a while that you weren’t the girl I took you for—especially when I could see you were on such friendly terms with him.’

‘They’re
just
friendly terms,’ I said coldly, though now I came to think about it, I hadn’t seen him for ages and ages. ‘And strange as this may seem to you, I don’t care what you believe, Noah Sephton!’

‘Don’t you? But to get back to Ben, don’t you think, if he now knows I’m using the studio and around the place a lot, he might be wondering if he was right first time? Perhaps he was looking in the cottage for signs I was living with you?’

‘That’s ridiculous! And anyway, even if he still had a right to be jealous, which he doesn’t, there wasn’t any evidence for him to find,’ I said.

He seemed to be back to his usual self, because he gave a wicked grin and said obligingly, ‘I don’t mind providing some!’

Being used to his teasing by now, which probably came automatically, I ignored that one. Instead, since I hadn’t been in there
for a while, I wandered about looking at the prints that were hanging up, or laid on every surface.

There seemed to be an awful lot of me, not only in the background at the receptions, but caught at various unguarded moments, in that annoying way he had of practically shooting from the hip when I least expected it. There were some of me working in the garden that I had no idea he had taken at all…

‘You seem to have become my muse,’ he said casually, watching me.

‘But I look so serious in all the pictures!’

‘Yes, that’s why you make such a perfect foil for all that hopeful joy,’ he agreed blandly.

Despite my little ups and downs with him, it was lovely that Noah and Harry got on so well. Once Noah showed that he could chop wood and dig a trench with the best of them, Harry thawed rapidly. But I kept warning Harry that Noah was only here temporarily, and not to get too used to having him around, though he didn’t seem quite to have grasped that fact yet.

But I hadn’t realised just how matey they had become until one morning in late April when I’d been out to collect the latest co-op order, keeping a sharp eye out at Mark and Stella’s for the van, in case Ben was there. When I got home I could see the studio door was open, so I knew Noah was about, and I could hear Harry’s voice talking to someone on the other side of the fence.

I was just about to call out when his next words stopped me in my tracks.

‘That first summer she lived here with her granny, after her parents were killed in the car crash, she followed us around the garden like a little dog. She was angry—at fate, with her granny, with me—but she came to like helping out and baking and that. And then, on her first day at the local school she met Libby, who might come from the wrong side of the track, as they say, though
no one takes much notice of that these days, but was like a breath of fresh air and full of ideas!’

‘She’s that, all right,’ Noah’s voice agreed, but slightly muffled. I thought he might be in the henhouse.

‘She had Josie doing all kinds of things. She’d decide she needed to learn to ride a horse, say, and persuade Josie to go and help out at the stables on Saturdays in exchange for lessons. And then tennis—she got them invited to the vicarage tennis parties…Yes, it was always something new with Libby.’

‘And when did Josie meet Ben?’

‘Oh, same day as Libby, at school. He’s a year older, but he was a tall lad even then. They were nigh on inseparable after that, until this last year or two, despite his mother and father trying to put a spoke in the wheel.’

‘Did they? What on earth for?’

‘They thought their son was too good for her, what with her granny being a cleaner and all. But Nell Richards trained as a nurse with Josie’s mum, and they were friends before Nell married this doctor and got all these uppity ideas. But that was after he’d made a play for Josie’s mum and been turned down. Nell got him on the rebound, and it filled her full of spite.’

‘But she could hardly blame Josie for that!’

‘You’d think not, but there was no logic to the woman. And if the Richardses thought Josie was beneath them, you can imagine what they thought of her best friend, Libby…and Ben never seemed too keen on Libby either, that I could see, though she’s a grand lass and it’s not her fault what sort of upbringing she’s had.’

‘No, it certainly isn’t,’ Noah agreed. ‘You know, I still can’t imagine why Ben’s parents wouldn’t have welcomed Josie as a daughter-in-law with open arms.’