First Place
Seeing Jim again should have been awkward. Seeing him again like this, for the first time since John and Nancy's wedding where she had so carefully and unkindly avoided him, should have been even more awkward. It wasn't. Susan wondered if five years of peace would have made the same difference. She thought not. Peggy would probably have enjoyed the fun and fuss of a peace-time wedding, but no-one who saw her face could doubt her happiness as she walked up the aisle with Nancy to give her away and Susan following as her only bridesmaid. Peggy looked lovely. The wedding dress made for Nancy and so carefully kept at Beckfoot for the past five years fitted Peggy perfectly. Nancy's uniform seemed a little tight.
Mrs Blackett (or more likely Nancy) had organised a meal for the eight of them at a hotel. Jim's uncle and aunt seemed pleasant and, more importantly to Susan, seemed fond of Peggy. Peggy had firmly vetoed any suggestion of speeches.
"Ridiculous with only eight people there." she had said grinning at her sister, "Besides, trusting a Amazon pirate with a speech is bound to be a mistake."
After the meal, Jim lit his pipe. Nancy almost immediately paled and left the table. After a few minutes, Susan followed her to the ladies lavatories.
Nancy was washing her hands and had splashed her face with water.
"You don't normally mind." Susan said. Nancy grinned at her.
"Well spotted. John's letter hasn't reached you, yet? He said he wanted to write to you himself."
"It may be waiting for me when I get back."
"Probably, I had a letter this morning." The grin softened into a smile.
" Have you told your mother and Peggy?"
"I didn't need to tell Mother. I won't say she just took one look, but she worked it out very quickly."
"When's the baby due?"
"In March."
"Nancy? You know that conversation when I had the broken arm? At Beckfoot?"
"Yes?" Nancy's expression became more guarded.
"You didn't tell anyone about it?"
"Not even John. And," Nancy continued, "You didn't actually tell me anything, you know. We did work it out of course. We did that anyway."
"Don't tell anyone else." said Susan vehemently. "Not ever."
Nancy nodded, holding Susan's gaze in hers. Susan found herself explaining.
"Peggy deserves to be first sometimes. Not always being compared. Not being a second choice."
Nancy grinned and clapped Susan on the shoulder.
"She is my only sister, so to me Peggy never has been second anything." Nancy said in a voice so quiet it seemed at odds with the hearty gesture. "And she's got a first-rate best friend. But I do know what you mean."
When they returned to the table, Jim, his uncle and his best man were outside smoking in the pleasant September sunshine. Peggy was talking to Jim's aunt. Nancy sat down next to her mother and started to talk about returning to Beckfoot later in the autumn.
Susan drifted outside and stood a little way apart from the men, absently admiring a convenient rose bush. Jim left the others and came over to stand next to Susan.
"I have to thank-you." he said, "for having more sense than I did, six years ago. If you had said yes and then I had met Peggy and got to know her, it would have been unbearable. And I probably embarrassed you horribly at the time. I was an idiot to be so wrapped up in my feelings, or rather what I thought my feelings were, that I never properly thought about yours."
"We were both very young. I probably hurt your pride."
"Too young to realise how young we were."
There was the pause that seemed to happen in conversations now. People remembered the things they wanted to forget; except that forgetting would somehow be a betrayal.
"I never told her about asking you." he continued.
"Don't. Not ever. Peggy's my best friend. She deserves to be first in someone's life."
"She always will be in mine."
Satisfied, Susan nodded.