"I.…" Trixie stuttered, feeling her pulse race nervously as she opened her eyes wide, wondering if she had just heard right. "I… Does everyone think like that? The Sisters? Anyone else?"
Shelagh looked anxiously across at Chummy again, wondering what they had uncovered with what had been an inadvertent comment. "Trixie…" she began, carefully thinking through her words as she sat forward slightly. "We didn't mean to upset you; you must know that but…." Shelagh stuttered for a moment and looked across for help again.
"You are very chatty to the chaps old girl and you can be really quite... forward" Chummy continued for her, trying to temper what she was saying. "We assumed…." She glanced quickly at Shelagh who had her hands clasped tightly together on her knee. "When I first came to Nonnatus there was never a Friday night when you didn't have a chap to go out with and well, apart from that fellow Alan, one doesn't really remember any of them lasting very long until Tom. There almost someone new every week and when we used to go to dance, your card would be filled as soon as we stepped through the door….one really started to wonder how you did it… all these chaps queuing up" Chummy concluded with a self-conscious laugh. In truth, she had been quite envious until Peter came along.
"We just thought that you were, well, perhaps the most experienced of all of us", Shelagh stated, trying to find a polite way of putting it but Chummy was right – she'd noticed it too. Shelagh could include herself in the 'us' now but even when she was wearing the veil she was not so blind as to see what was going on around her.
"Do people really think that?" Trixie asked again and the other two could see the panic in her eyes.
"We cannot speak for anyone else Trixie" Chummy responded, sitting up straight to make her point. "But you can't deny you did have rather a few different dates over the years and that does lend itself to …"
"You are wrong! Different dates doesn't mean it was anything more than a trip to the cinema or a dance or two" Trixie protested, feeling utterly embarrassed; perhaps not so much that her friends had spoken so frankly but out of shame that someone, anyone, stranger or friend alike could be thinking something like that and it had touched a nerve. "I have never….No, never!"
Shelagh glanced briefly up. She'd often seen Peter – long before Chummy came into his life or even to Nonnatus – or one of his colleagues standing stock still in the middle of the kitchen, staring at their boots as Trixie floated around them. "You did bat your eyelashes an awful lot at Peter's friend…what was his name?" Shelagh asked, her memory failing her. "The one that left to go over to Ireland to get married few weeks ago?"
"Norm…Norman" Chummy replied filling in the gap for her.
"Yes that was him. Constable Simpson", Shelagh replied.
"Did I?" Trixie asked, really starting to feel the alarm now now. If her friends thought she was free with her favours at least they were being honest in telling her; but what about the Nuns or her patients? Did Tom think that way too? Had he heard things? She looked down at her hands where her antique engagement ring now sat. "I don't think I realise half the time. None of them. Never. Not even close" she added quietly.
She wasn't going to mention that vile actor fellow. She knew Jenny knew and had no reason to believe her friend had breached her confidence. Reflecting now, had she led any of them on? Did she deserve his hand crawling up her leg touching her so intimately and without her consent? Was she just lucky that someone hadn't got the wrong idea already? What messages had she been giving him by what she saw of Trixie being Trixie? She thought she had reconciled that incident but now she was not so sure if the people closest to her thought she was no longer a virgin. Just some attention; that's all it was. A nice smile and some attention hoping this next one might be the love of her life that she so desperately wanted and indeed, needed to make it all go away.
"Then we believe you" Chummy concluded, taking a sip from her second cup of tea. "And as long as you know, and Tom knows, the rest of the world can swing".
Trixie sat for a second, her mind racing. "I know I can be flirty. I know I can be forward, but perhaps I don't realise that people can misconstrue that. That people think that I'm cheap".
"Now we never said that" Shelagh replied. All it takes is once after all; something that the two now married women understood.
"But you implied it" Trixie responded as realisation washed over her from head to foot and just how unsuitable some people could see she was for Tom. "I'm about to be a vicar's wife…."
"But that doesn't mean you have to change your personality. Perhaps…temper it. For Tom's sake" Shelagh said, trying to sound sympathetic. She was a quiet person and not one for speaking up unless so very comfortable and this evening had taken a turn in the wrong direction even though long ago she wished she had had the courage to ask the kind of questions that Trixie was now vocalising. "Pick and choose your moments perhaps".
Trixie frowned. "Is that what I'll have to do? Stop being me because I'm his wife?"
"No" Chummy replied shaking her head. "Not one bit, but you have to take him into account. My guardian used to tell me that if I got married that I had to see myself as a reflection of my husband. When Peter did his Sergeant's examinations he was interviewed and they asked him all kinds of questions about me, Nonnatus and Freddie. Asked what his plans were for his future and for his family and if they felt that he had his family's support". He daren't tell his commanding officer they planned to go back to Sierra Leone in a few years and he was going to join to Colonial Police permanently so for now it was building their family and the streets of Poplar.
Trixie nodded carefully. "Tom did say that someone from the Church Committee was dumbstruck when they learned he was marrying me. When he told them he was marrying one of the midwives from Nonnatus they thought he was marrying Cynthia or Jenny. Someone quiet; someone more suited to the responsibility being married into the clergy carries".
"He told you that?" Shelagh asked, really quite surprised, hands tight around her tea cup now, shocked to say the least.
"Yes" Trixie responded, before hesitating; all her magazines forgotten. "Well he didn't tell me. It was when we were arguing about it all the first time. It just came out. You pair are more fitting to be a Vicar's wife".
"One doesn't think I am old girl!" Chummy exclaimed. "If Mater had had her way I'd never have married Peter or anyone associated with Poplar. Never even have been in Poplar for that".
"Do you know I never really understood what changed" Trixie began; glad for the slight diversion onto another topic and for the glare to fade from her. "One minute you were so close and the next minute we didn't see him for weeks on end and then suddenly you were barely leaving his side again".
"It was simple" Chummy replied. "I realised I loved him and needed him and I had to do it to save myself. Make sure she couldn't interfere again. That Mater would have no choice but to let me have what I wanted". They were Jenny's words and they were spot on.
"That's cryptic" Trixie noted, not really realising that Shelagh had gone very quiet on the opposite side of the table.
"I.." Chummy began, noting to herself that she had walked right into a brick wall and the conversation had taken yet another awkward turn with this time the light be reflected on her. "Well let's just say I made a choice for myself and Peter and by the time that choice had come to fruition, it was too late for her to say otherwise and for her reputation she would have had to agree to me marrying him". She hoped desperately that was all she would be called on to say, but she could see that Trixie had cottoned on.
"I knew it!" Trixie exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth, bells ringing and lights flashing. "You actually did! All this talk of me and white wedding dresses! You sly old fox!" Trixie smiled, sitting back with her arms folded across her chest. "I think there was a very good reason why our Chummy here wore grey and blue to her wedding, don't you Shelagh?"
Shelagh narrowed her eyes. "I hate to say it Trixie, but that was a conclusion that Sister Evangelina and I came to over three years ago".
Chummy's head shot around feeling her cheeks burn and she almost couldn't ask the question. "You and Sister Evangelina?!"
Shelagh nodded. "But it's not a subject you talk about publicly and to be frank, if I remember Sister Evangelina's words correctly – 'Good for her! Doing something for herself instead of her mother!'" Her actual words, describing Lady Browne were slightly more terse and in fact almost insulting but she wouldn't be repeating them here for her friend's sake. The words 'frigid' and 'without a maternal bone in her body' were used and the then Sister had simply nodded and not said a word more.
"Yes well" Chummy began, taking a deep breath as she felt her stomach churn at her secret being out. "I had to show him how much he meant to me and how sorry I was and that was the only way one could think of doing so". A thousand carefully chosen words would not do this time. It had to be action.
"But you must have wanted to too, surely?" Shelagh asked tentatively yet feeling guilty that she had made it known that her assumption had been correct and there had been gossip. Not that a Nun would call it gossip; but the same principle applied.
"Yes, yes one did", Chummy replied, still very much at peace with the decision that she had made. "But there was a better purpose than me".
"Well good for you" Shelagh responded, pressing her tea cup to her lips. "That was not for me I'd have to admit; too many promises I thought were broken already, but there is nothing wrong in doing what you want to do as long as you are sure". She had in truth put the conversation she had with Sister Evangelina to the back of her mind long ago as if there had been inappropriate behaviour it was not her place to interfere even though it would now seem that the Nurse and the Officer had been the souls of discretion.
"I want to walk down the aisle in white. It will be the truth and one in the eye for anyone that might question Tom's decision" Trixie responded. Perhaps that was her first step towards recognising that she had to work with him these days and stand by his side, showing the world how united they were rather than run off with her own ideas. Show everyone how wrong they could be about her perhaps? There was a difficult pause for a moment until Trixie swallowed. "I am most terribly frightened of it all though. I don't know what to think about it all. About the thing".
"Oh" Shelagh replied. "That thing". She looked over at Chummy. She knew her friend could sometimes be like a bull in a china shop and hopefully she had caught Trixie's meaning too and might answer.
"Trixie…" Chummy began deciding to answer in the best way she could as she saw Shelagh sit back, almost absenting herself from the conversation. "One knows there's the old joke about putting your shopping list together or thinking about tomorrow's chores but…well, one tends to get too distracted to wonder about disinfecting the lino or scrubbing the oven".
"So it's not a chore on its own?" Trixie asked nervously. Too many things had run through her mind about all moments in her potential marriage, let alone these and when they piled up side by side, it was really quite overwhelming. She should expect to be apprehensive; that must be normal and she had far too many questions that remained unanswered.
"He treats me like one might snap in half with a breath of wind so even if one is not particularly on the same page as him…..one sometimes has no will to refuse", Chummy replied. That was a fair summation of the truth as far as it went, or rather as far as she would say.
"So are you happy you.…" Trixie asked, embarrassment reigning at the word, "….before you got married?"
"Yes. Entirely", Chummy responded confidently. She was after all. "One knows it's not the thing to do. One of the gels at school had a book that described it all as 'revolting' and all men had obnoxious habits. One really had no idea what to think...but one is rather glad it was wrong".
"Shelagh?" the bride to be questioned, wanting the other woman's opinion and thoughts too.
"Petrified I think you could call it, but he's been married before so I knew I was in safe hands, so to speak. Don't be afraid to take your time but if you want to before, well, neither of us are in any position at all to criticise you. We both took some momentous decisions that were symbolic in their own way before we married. It's your choice and if he thinks anything of you he will respect whatever that choice is. It is us women that have to bear the burden of it after all". Notwithstanding her maternal state, she was speaking the truth and she could see Chummy nodding quietly to one side in agreement.
Trixie thought for a moment, wondering if her reputation was already in tatters that waiting or not, conclusions would be drawn about her and she could see the sideways looks already.
"Have you spoken to him about it?" Chummy asked, seeing Trixie shake her head to bring herself back to the present, thinking she might cut the cake in an effort to calm herself and change the subject; even if she was the one that brought it up.
"I think he just assumes that we wait". Trixie frowned for a moment, not knowing where to start if she was going to ask or even if it was her place to ask or even bring the subject up. "Did you talk to Peter about it?"
"Only after the event" Chummy replied sheepishly. "And it was him that pushed me about it. Probably should have at least warned him before as one thinks he just assumed we'd wait too but he knew this was about me trying to do what I wanted for a change. He just went along with it. Happily one might add!" 'To your relief old girl' her subconscious mind added quietly but then again what you were offering dear girl, what would you have done if he'd said no? "Once that ring is in your finger you have to learn at the speed of light as whatever he wants on that side of the sheets goes. If you are after lessons Trixie; that is one".
Shelagh nodded. "That's true. Your duty and his right. That's what a woman in the Sanatorium told me. Please him and keep him happy I seem to remember too".
"You hear some people say it doesn't matter what the wife thinks or feels. If he wanted to force me he could" Trixie surmised. "He hasn't!" she added quickly seeing the two other women's apprehensive faces. "But it's the truth isn't it?"
"One does suppose. I can't speak of it personally" Chummy replied.
"Me neither" Shelagh added. "Patrick is a straightforward, honest man. It's strikes me that Tom and Peter are too".
"He is" Trixie replied, twisting the engagement ring around and around. "Truly he is. That's why I'm not good enough for him..."