"Did you know about that?" It might have been the happiest day of Celia's life, but she wasn't about to let that distract her from a chance of sticking her oar in and stirring up someone else's misery.
Caroline didn't need to follow the direction of Celia's glare to know what - or rather who - it was that had raised her mother's ire. "Know about what?"
"That! Her!" Celia hissed. "I mean, look at the state of her...did you know?"
"No, of course not, mother. I only see her every day at work."
"Why didn't you say something then?"
Caroline shook her head. She wasn't sure herself. Or rather, she was. It was this scene, this showdown with her mother that she'd wanted to avoid. She'd not wanted her mother to lay into Kate, not then, when her own feelings had been so raw and confused, and not now, when she was filled with a crippling longing for a woman who didn't want her, a woman who so determinedly seemed to be making a life for herself from which Caroline was totally, agonizingly, excluded.
While Caroline mulled this over, her mother ploughed on regardless. "I wouldn't have asked her if I'd've known, and when she stood up, like that, from the piano, well - ! It's the brass neck of the woman that surprises me. I wouldn't have thought it of her, I really did think she was a nice girl. A bit - well - you know - different. But nice. But it goes to show you never do know. And how far gone is she? That's the thing that gets me. She must've barely finished with you before she shacked up with someone else, given the size of her. You should've said, Caroline. I'd never've asked her if I'd known."
"Well you did, and so there it is. There she is." Caroline fought to keep her face impassive.
"I'm going to say something to her." Celia made a determined move towards the far corner of the dance floor, where Kate was goodnaturedly fending off Ted Buttershaw's flirtations.
"No you're not." Caroline blocked her mother's path. "It's your wedding, it's a lovely evening, and so do not make a scene. Mum, promise me. Leave it."
And reluctantly, after looking over her daughter carefully, and then scowling pointedly in Kate's direction, Celia did. For the moment, at least.