My Darling Love

Chapter 40 – Something Old Something New

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens.

But often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

-Helen Keller

George and Mary spent their summer vacation in the countryside of England, near the ocean in a tiny cottage. As George had suggested, they told everyone they met that they were newlyweds. On the train to the small town where they would be spending the week, they both daydreamed about the honeymoon they'd never had, and envisioned what lay ahead for them, once they settled in and began their holiday. For Mary, it was the unbridled passion and experimentation, like their first married night together, only now multiplied by seven glorious days. George fancied the same thing, but only after their first night there, they discovered something that, in this stage of their life, had become more important than relentless lovemaking.

The simple pleasure of the other's company -- no matter what they did -- brought them more joy than rolling around under the covers. Aside from Paris, neither one had traveled anywhere outside of the world of London. Only a few miles away from home, there was more to do and see together than they ever imagined. They ate all their meals out, and danced the nights away. During the day, they took long walks through the grassy hillsides and went swimming in the sea. "I didn't know you could swim, George," Mary called out as they strolled back onto the shore and rested on the sand.

"I didn't know either, Mary," he replied

Endless conversations of all things insignificant kept them up all night long, and left them sleeping in each other's arms well into the morning. They had tea on the patio, sitting on wickers chairs, basking in the sun, cooled by the light breeze. "This is where I want to die, Mary," the only melancholy comment made. And that sentiment had both the newlywed Mr. and Mrs. George Darling, thinking of their own mortality and their vows they'd spoken that still rang true. "One day death will part us," Mary sighed, and George, doing his very best, lightened the mood.

"Best you die first, Mary, that way I can remarry and have another honeymoon as lovely as this."

Instead of a grin from his wife, he received a glare, so he added, "No, Mary, being here with you is what makes it so lovely."

His flippant remark did make Mary reflect for a moment and respond, "You know, George, if I were to die before you, I would want you to remarry." George slowly turned his head toward his wife with a peculiar expression, but before he could answer, she continued, "If you never remarried it would be insulting to me, almost as if you didn't enjoy being my husband. I think that if I died and you immediately remarried another, you would pay me a compliment, that you liked being married so much that you would not be able to survive without a wife."

George sat for a moment, considering her words, "Would it not bother you -- the idea that I lived on without you?"

"Why no, George, I would expect nothing less than you to go on without me. I would want you to be happy and love and be loved. After all our years together, the last thing you deserve is to be alone. If I were not there, and we were parted in death, then I trust in your good judgment to find another just as good if not better then myself to take my place," Mary replied with a smile. "But certainly, not until then," she added coyly.

George didn't know what to say to those words from his devoted wife, so he said nothing.

They did make love, every morning in their bed, or on the floor in the kitchen, or in the bath. In the afternoon, it was on the grassy slopes that ran down the coast for miles. At sunset, it was on the beach, in the sand, and this is where Mary wanted to die, holding tightly to George as the sun drifted off into the horizon.

As they lay side-by-side, out of breath, but quite content, Mary giggled, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could retire? All our days could be like this."

George thought it was a good idea, and he also thought of the expense. He had a retirement fund set aside, as well as accounts for the house expenses and ready cash for "rainy days." The cost of living kept increasing, as did his deposits, so as he had for his entire life thus far, he scoffed at the fantasy of taking the leisure time necessary to calculate his ledgers and replied, and "I won't be able to retire for at least another ten years, Mary. Think of the children."

Through their entire marriage Mary never thought of anything other than the children and George, not even herself. Now she did, and she answered, "The children are grown, George, and they don't think of us. Wendy travels the world and does not even think of us enough to write, John is at university and will marry, I'm sure, when he graduates, and Michael enlisted in the army and is overseas without our consent. The only person home is Grandpa Joe, and he spends most of his time with your brother Harry. At least look at your books when we go home. Ten years is awfully long time to wait, and who knows where we will be then?"

George worked on the same schedule at the bank for many years before sitting down and balancing his retirement books, including books he made deposits into but never thought of. He always worried about cutting costs, so the Darlings never had a maid or butler, chef or launderer or nanny to pay, but still George paid imaginary people into a specific account each week, just to get into the habit if the opportunity to have one ever arose. The Darling family, in all their years, only went on one vacation, to America, but just the same, George saved for trips away that never happened. Learning a valuable lesson when Mary was ill, George always had several accounts at ready hand to dip into if anyone ever got sick and required hospitalization. Mary was the only one ever sick, and only stayed in the hospital one other time. Therefore there was quite a lot of money hidden there as well.

Mr. Darling had many "what if?" accounts, as he called them, collecting interest, just sitting there in the bank. What if Mary does have another baby? What if she birthed twins or triplets? What if the house burns down? What if the bank burns down? What if a long lost relative arrives and begs for a loan? What if one of the children is kidnapped and there is a ransom demanded? What if all the children get kidnapped and multiple ransoms are demanded? What if Grandpa Joe decides he wants to move out into his own home and needs the cash to purchase one? What if I get killed in a freak accident? What if Mary ran away with younger, handsomer, wealthier gentleman and I am left with three children to raise by myself, my father-in-law and family pet, to which Mary gasped, "GEORGE!" while slapping the back of his head.

"Sorry Mary, I had to think of everything..." George lovingly reminded as his wife pulled out ledger after ledger of The Darling Family savings accounts from her husband's desk the week they arrived home from their honeymoon. "Please George, for me. Just to have an idea as to if and when retirement would be possible." A few days later, Friday evening to be exact, George conceded and began his bookkeeping of their believed meager savings and modest low-risk investments.

George finished going over accounts late on Sunday afternoon, removing his spectacles and abruptly standing and chasing up the stairs to his bedroom. Mary, knitting a winter sweater and Grandpa Joe, puffing his pipe, watched him, and shrugged their shoulders. He came back down, and put on his spare pair of glasses on his nose, the pair with the cracked frame, and looked over the numbers again.

"Mary," he turned to his wife dumbfounded, "according to my records, I should have retired ten years ago."

Mary rose from her chair and leaned over him to see his arithmetic. "Oh George, that is plenty of money to retire on!"

George pulled another immense stack journals out, "Don't be silly, Mary, that's just the savings for my accounting services, these are the savings for all the foreseeable expenses of retirement." He showed Mary the totals in each already balanced.

"Why, George, would those make us rich?"

George raised his brow to his lovely wide-eyed wife. "No, Mary we are not rich..." He stood up and reaffixed the correct spectacles to his face and grabbed his wife by the shoulders, "WE ARE FILTHY STINKING RICH!"

"Really?" Mary asked utterly amazed.

George laughed, "Yes!" and, still holding his wife, began jumping up and down and then danced her around the living room. "And Mary," George stopped and held her shoulders pulling her in eye to eye, "I am to receive a pension from the bank as well." They hugged the other and continued dancing about. Seeing Grandpa Joe watching their exchange, they both hoisted him up and dragged him willingly into their celebration.

They all fell to the floor laughing and carrying on when Grandpa Joe gave his own toast to the occasion, "Remember that money you gave me for the house, George?" George nodded, remembering, while wrapping his arm around his wife, "It's yours, all of it! It's still in the account you opened for me at the bank, and it's been there for at least twenty years, collecting interest. I never touched a cent of it. Mary, go upstairs in my bedside table, the book is there."

Overcome with the excitement of the afternoon, Mary ran up the stairs and returned only seconds later, handing the little blue book to her husband. George examined the amount balanced and began flipping through page after page after of deposits made, "Your savings in here, too, I'll sort it out for you, Sir." Grandpa Joe grabbed his son-in-law by the hand with a stern face, "Oh no, George, that is all for you. I never gave you both a wedding present." Mary kissed her father on the cheek, and when they stood up and dusted themselves off, George kissed Grandpa Joe on the cheek as well.

So it was, that over the next month, George did what he did best and balanced every single one of his meticulously kept books, but not alone, now he had Mary by his side. They sat every evening with his ledgers out and figured the costs of everything. Together they decided that, instead of going on buying sprees with the extra cash, they would invest it for their children and grandchildren and those who were to come after that. "I like the way we live now, I don't want someone else coming in and cleaning up after us," Mary replied to the question whether or not they should hire a maid.

"Not to give you extra work, but I really don't enjoy anyone else's cooking but yours, Mary," George mumbled, concerned that Mary would want to hire a cook.

"No George, I enjoy cooking for my family."

George and Mary liked the comfort and familiarity of their old things, and as they walked around their home, deciding which pieces of furniture should stay and which should go to make room for newer and better sofas, chairs and end tables. They both concurred that their home was fine the way it was. "Well, we should buy something new. We've always lived like we're poor," George said as he sat in his favorite spot, disappointed that even now that they were filthy rich; they were still trapped in the lifestyle of those who worried about their money.

"I never looked at it that way. If we needed something, we bought it. If I wanted a new dress or something nice for the house, you gave me the funds. I don't think we lived like we're poor. Maybe we just not meant to live like the royals. Think of my Aunt Millicent, she needed to brag about how wealthy she was, and had you not paid for her funeral, she would have been buried in Potter's Field. She always used to tell me, 'if you die with money in the bank, then you did not invest well enough'," doing her best Aunt Millicent impression. "What's wrong with having money in the bank for our children and grandchildren to inherit? Is that not what they call 'old money'?" Mary was sitting beside him in her rocker and gave another look around her humble home.

"Then we should just give the money to our children?" he asked. "No, that way they will never appreciate it. They should be made to earn their living, as we did. Oh, course we will help them along their ways, but they will not be spoiled in adulthood by an excess of available cash, after spending so much time in their youth learning money's value." George agreed to that, and then agreed they should purchase an automobile.

George retired, and so did Mary. When all was said and done, they hired a charwoman anyway who took only an hour or so in the morning to straighten and keep Mary's spotless house tidy. The only room Mary insisted on cleaning herself was the bedroom she shared with her husband. Mary still cooked all their meals, and with the extra time, freed from scrubbing floors and dusting, she tried out exotic cuisines from the cookbooks she purchased while shopping for her own fine china. George now developed his own hobbies. Grandpa Joe taught him card games, which they played with his brother Harry on Thursday nights in the tavern. His also took up an interest in gardening, not flower gardening, but vegetable gardening, paying a contractor to turn his shed in the backyard into a greenhouse.

The days past quickly, and the months came and went. Soon it was three years since he'd retired, and John graduated university, and Michael returned from his service, honorably discharged. Both sons moved back in with their parents, but only for a short time. Michael wished to re-enlist under his own name, and John preferred to live in a flat near his new job as a teller at the prestigious Bank of London.

"Well done," George congratulated him, and gave him the funds for his first month's rent and security.

Michael left with a handshake from his father, and kiss from his mother. "Don't be afraid, Mother, if I can survive underage, I can survive as a grown up as well."

The only child still habitually absent was Wendy. She had written weekly in the beginning, and then only monthly. As of late, she only wrote home on holidays and birthdays. The letters were clearly addressed to her parents, with no return address, and a little stranger, no postmark stamping the starting point in the mail. They started out being written on her lovely stationary, but now where written on an odd parchment Wendy explained away with "Research for my novel..." The correspondence was always delivered late in the night, and never mixed in with usual bills and notes handed to them by the postman himself. In the morning, Mary would find her letter sitting alone on the floor by the front door. "Postman must have found it after his regular route was done," Grandpa Joe explained for the hundredth time, while Mary peeked out the front window to the street outside.

George and Mary took many day trips away from London in their automobile to no place special; just to get out and away from home on their own adventures. One Saturday evening in particular, after a leisurely morning and afternoon of running errands and shopping, they returned home to a house that was supposed to be empty. They unloaded the car of parcels and carried them inside, setting them down at the front door. They were too busy chatting with each other to notice John and Grandpa Joe sitting in the parlor waiting for them. It was the last week in August, and very late in the day, and all Mr. and Mrs. Darling wanted to do was sink into the sofa and relax, as was their normal habit. John stood and welcomed his mother home with a peck on the cheek, and a hug. For his father, he offered their traditional handshake. Grandpa Joe said nothing and proceeded to continue his rocking in Mary's chair reading the paper.

"Mother and Father, I have news. Please sit down." Mary and George didn't even have a moment to remove their traveling coats, for John was smiling broadly, very pleased with whatever news he was to deliver, but before he did he called into the kitchen, "Margaret, my parents are home."

An equally happy Margaret scurried and in and stood next to John and pushed out her left hand. "Look!" she exclaimed, and George and Mary bent over her hand and did just that. Being a man, George was oblivious to such things and he whispered to his wife, "What are we looking at?" Mary had an odd expression, and rose to her feet without George who was still staring at Margaret's hand.

"Oh my God!" Mary exclaimed, her jaw dropping. "George! Get up and shake your son's hand."

George got up on command and shook his eldest son's hand while Mary hugged Margaret and danced about. Grandpa Joe smirked as John joined his soon-to-be wife and his mother in their celebration. "Why are we happy?" George asked watching the merriment before him.

"George, John and Margaret are to be married." She held her husband hands in hers and saw his unhappy face. He let go of Mary's hands and stepped back. Looking puzzled, he moved further away out of the room to the stairs. He took each step slowly and without another word went to his bedroom.

John and Margaret both ceased their celebration, and stood behind Mary, watching George as he ascended the stairs. "He's not happy for us mother? Why?" John queried. "I can't get married without my father's blessing!" he pleaded to Mary, who embraced her son to comfort him.

"I'll go talk to him."

As Mary followed George, Margaret turned to John, "I told you he'll never approve of me."

Mary knocked before entering her own room, and found her husband sitting on the bed staring out the window. "Before you say anything Mary, please remember that you and I were a completely different match." He held his head as if it ached. "She's been with so many different men, her own father had at her before he whored her out on the streets. I can't allow my son to lie down with a woman like that, and take her as his wife. She is not good enough for him, and frankly, Mary, I don't trust her. Martine is my brother's daughter, how do we know that she still does not keep in contact with him? This could be another scheme of Peter's. Had I known that they were courting, I would have never allowed it. John ought to have better than that. He should marry a proper young lady. Am I wrong to feel that way?"

Mary stood in the doorway; the speech she had prepared to make George accept his son's choice was erased with Peter's name. She had forgotten her victorious checkmate and the vicious revenge Satan's twin was surely plotting when he fled the country. If Peter wanted a rematch, he would not get it through her favorite son. "You are right, George, but for our son's sake, we need to talk to him about how this engagement came to be. I'll agree ours was a different match, but if the feeling of love between them is the same, then we must honor their wish to marry. We can't treat them like our parents treated us."

George nodded, "The very second you said they were to be married, I got a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, like something is looming just outside the door. If that child was anyone else's but Peter's, I think I could give my blessing, if their love was true, and they would be willing to wait a little while. But I'm afraid that for his paternity of the child alone, it can never be."

George and Mary sat down with their older son and his fiancée, and said the same exact thing. John was furious and informed his father, "With or without your blessing, we will be married!"

Margaret was apologetic, and left with John, who stormed out after telling his father, "I don't want anything from you, not a home, not your money, not your love." He further shouted that he had already been given two promotions for his wise investing and record of service, and, just for spite, declared, "By the time I'm twenty-five, I will have accomplished more than you did in your entire career as a banker!"

George sat there and took it, but Mary would not. Feeling her eldest son was a man, who could make his own decisions, right or wrong, she got up from the table and slammed her hands down to quiet the room. This is the exact moment parents disown their children and throw them out into the street with the same nasty words they have just received from the children spent the greater part of their lives raising. But not Mary, "John, it's very wicked of you to speak to your father like that in his own house, so I ask you politely now to leave. Our door is always open to you, and the only thing we ask is that when you want to return, you request forgiveness from your father for your harsh words and hostile tone."

John left and so did Margaret. Grandpa Joe watched them go as they took to the streets. Margaret pulled on John, trying to drag him back, "Please say you're sorry, you are only making it worse. Your father has every right to think ill of me, John! Please understand." But he was obstinate as of late, and would not listen.

A week later, he returned with Margaret and apologized to his father -- under duress. Margaret had returned John's ring and refused to see him again for disrespecting his parents. "I'm sorry, John," she told him quite sensibly, "but if you are that awful with your own parents who raised you with undying love and devotion, how can I assume you will treat me any better when we are married?"

Instead of a handshake, John got a hug from his father. Margaret had an idea to bring about a resolution. "I know you don't like me, Mr. Darling, and I understand your reasons and accept them. But I love John and he loves me. We both are asking you for your blessing, and that is the only thing we will ever ask from you. Neither one of us will ever ask you to love me, or respect me, or even like me, for that matter. We want to get married very much, but we want your blessing more." With Mary's nudge to her husband, the blessing was given and the wedding was planned.

"I want you to know, I am sitting in silent rebellion to this union," George informed his wife as he rose from the head of the table after John and Margaret left. "If it fails, I will first one to say I told you so."

After George went out for a gentleman's night out to Harry's pub, Mary told her father, "You felt the same way about George and me, and that fact alone troubles my heart."

"No, you and George were different," Grandpa Joe, replied.

Mary was washing up, and turned her attention to her father, "Oh really, how so?"

"It was about money. I was afraid George would never be good enough or wealthy enough. It's a real fear, but far different from what George feels. He is afraid of Peter."

Mary didn't agree and she said so. "This has nothing to do with Peter, Father, it has to do with Margaret. He has to forgive her and let go of the evil feelings he holds within his heart because of her, or they will consume him."

The engagement was not a long one -- only weeks. The night before the blessed event, as George sat in the parlor figuring out a budget for the marriage as well as the expense of being a newlywed, Margaret crept up behind him. She rested her hand on his shoulder, and her touch made him glare at her, giving silent warning that he would have no problem dashing the cost of a wedding that never was.

"Mr. Darling, may I ask you something?" She removed her hand and knelt down before him. He nodded, still watching her with raised brow, unnerved that she had now placed her hands on his knees. She bit her lip and leaned into him, which made him pull back further away. "Can I whisper in your ear?"

First he shook his head, and then he spoke clearly so there was no confusion that her forwardness was unwelcome, "No." He stood and began to back up from her, for she too was now standing.

"Please," she pleaded, and quickly approached him, holding him by the arms. She moved her mouth to his ear and whispered with a voice as troubled as his emotion at the moment, "Would you ... would you honor me and walk down the aisle with me tomorrow and give me away?" She left his ear and stepped back, waiting for his answer. He watched her rocking back and forth, afraid to have asked. "I would be embarrassed to walk alone and when the priest asks 'who gives this woman?' I wouldn't know what to say."

"I would be honored, Margaret," George replied, releasing his breath, finally seeing in Penny's daughter what his wife had told him was there all along, "George, no one ever loved Penny for anything more than what they needed of her, not her parents or her husband. No one loved Margaret in any other way but that either, not her father not your brother, not even Aunt Millicent."

Margaret now stole a kiss, pecking him on the cheek, before running up the stairs to Wendy who was waiting. "He said he would be honored!" She smiled and both young ladies raced into the nursery to get their beauty rest.

George waited until his future daughter-in-law was out of sight before wiping his cheek of her kiss. "You still don't approve, do you, George?" Grandpa Joe asked, for he had watched the whole episode.

"I do approve, but that doesn't ever mean I have to like her, or forgive her." He went back to his desk and resumed his bookwork.

Mary had sent her daughter, Wendy, a letter, letting her know of John's intended marriage and the date. "Please come," Mary added before signing it and addressed it only with Wendy's name. Mary left it by the attic window right before she went to bed, and in the morning, she found the window open and the note addressed to Wendy gone. Two days later, before the wedding of John and Margaret, unannounced and unexpected Wendy returned. "I can only stay for seven days and then I have to leave." Mary asked her daughter why she had to leave so soon, and the only one she reason she gave was, "I'm afraid I'll forget and get lost finding my way back."

The morning of the wedding was upon them, and John dressed with his father, grandfather, uncle and younger brother at Uncle Harry's. Michael had been released from the army for the special occasion, but was to return immediately following the service. John was a very nervous groom, and pulled his father aside right when they were ready to leave for the church. "Father, what will be expected of me on my wedding night?"

George never discussed those intimate matters with John, assuming that, with Margaret as his fiancée, he had probably already taken her to bed, and she was surely teacher enough. "You haven't been with Margaret in that way?"

John shook his head, "No father, she's a proper lady."

"Have you been with any woman in that way?" George asked further, fixing his own bowtie.

"No father, never."

George had mistakenly thought he was to get off easy with his sons. Michael had more experience than George did with sex, being away overseas, an enlisted man. He now moaned in dismay, and wished he had prepared a speech. With his old feelings towards the future Mrs. John Darling, he cynically wanted to tell his son not to worry, that girl would know enough for the both of them. But, wanting to give Margaret a real second chance, the best start for the new couple, and -- more so -- a better father than his own, he suggested they walk to the church instead of driving in the family automobile. "On your wedding night--" he began, unsure of what to say, and stopped to think about it. "Has Margaret ever told you anything of it?"

John looked baffled and replied; "She has told me that I can do whatever I want to her, whenever I want, and she just has to take it."

For George, nothing could be further from the truth, so he corrected her error. "Oh no, John, that might be what she was taught, but it is absolutely wrong. You see son, your wife is your partner. She's another part of you, and it's not fair if you only receive the enjoyment, and she does all the work. Take your mother, for example, I worked a full time job and made all the money. Your mother worked a full time job and did all the cooking a cleaning. It's all give and take. Now, I'm sure you understand the basics of making love, where to put it and all." He watched his son who nodded, eager for his father to continue. "Always remember there are so many things in a woman's life that are duties she is born with. She will have her monthlies and she will be the one to carry your children and bear them. Keeping that in mind, you as a man should also try to make the simple pleasures and comforts you share together aside from work, pleasures for her, too, not another duty she must perform. Love making for your wife should never be a duty, she should want to, and the only 'duty' involved is for you, John, to make that her pleasure. What you do in the privacy of your bedchamber is your business and no one else's."

John stopped his father, and asked him flat out, "Does mother enjoy your love making?"

There were certain thing in his life that made George proud, and he was not ashamed to admit this was one of them. "Oh yes, John, very much so. Now mind you, not the first time, it was unpleasant for her, because we had both never been with another, but after that, once we were comfortable with each other and got used to being together in that way, it was and still is amazing. Well, son, there are no words..."

Wendy had been the first of the Darling children and Michael the second to discover why their parents always made them knock before entering their bedchamber and why that was the only room in the house that they were absolutely forbidden to enter by themselves. John was the third and had to be told, "Because that is the part of our marriage we keep sacred between us, just like you and Margaret should. When you are in your bedroom together and you close that door, you are telling the world, including your children, this the private time that you both will not share with any other."

If John was nervous, Margaret was terrified. Mary had helped her pick a dress from a catalog and sewed it herself, complete with simple train and pretty beadwork that adorned the sleeves and bodice of the gown. It wasn't white, rather a creamy antique color, and Wendy, looking at Margaret with shining eyes, asked if she could be married in it also. "You can't get married in this dress, Wendy, it's one for a woman that most consider stained," Margaret answered, as Wendy went about fixing the hem and straightening out the veil.

Mary took Margaret's hand, "This is your wedding day Margaret Penolope, and I will not have anyone say a foul word against the bride, including herself."

As Mary turned her back and walked away Wendy whispered, "Don't worry, Margaret, I can't wear white on my wedding day either."

They took a horse drawn carriage to the church and gathered in the narthex, waiting for the mass to begin. Michael escorted his mother to her seat, while George remained with his daughter and future daughter-in-law standing behind the doors that opened into the vestibule. Michael was best man and the only groomsman; Wendy was maid of honor and the only bridesmaid. She kissed her father on the cheek and walked up the aisle, all smiles in the prettiest pale blue dress with pink sash chosen special for the occasion. As she made her way down, she glanced about oddly, looking for someone who was not there by the expression on her face once she stood in the front; her happy smile now a disappointed grin. Or maybe they were, for once the wedding march began, her eyes looked upwards to the organist in the high balcony, and her delight then returned.

John's face shone, catching sight of his lovely bride as the wedding march began, while George offered his arm to Margaret, who uneasily accepted it. Mary instructed him to compliment her, as she was the bride, so he did as he was told, "Your dress is very pretty." She smiled at his straight face, not expecting any compliments from him, and as plainly stated as it was, she still appreciated his words.

At the front altar, the priest asked who was giving Margaret to John and George replied, "Mrs. Darling and myself." He lifted her veil and tried his best to smile, and awkwardly succeeded, patting her on the shoulder instead of kissing her face, then quickly walked back to his seat next to Mary. The service was perfect, and the guests gathered and threw rice when the groom carried the bride down the front steps out into the church courtyard and then off into a waiting car taking them on their honeymoon. George didn't leave his seat once he took it, he did not thank friends for coming, nor stand by the door and see his eldest son, his mirror image, ride off with his new bride. Instead he knelt and said a few prayers of his own.

Mary came back into the church holding Margaret's bouquet, and took her place next to her husband. He looked curiously at the flowers, "She forgot to throw them," Mary offered in response to his raised eyebrow, and placed them down between them.

"Roses, how nice," George offered as he sat back in the pew.

"She's family now, George, you have to make peace with your feelings about her."

George turned his head to Mary and questioned his son's fate, "What will happen if this is exactly what I fear it is, a part of plot thought up by my older brother?"

Mary did not hesitate with her answer, "I'll tell you the same thing I told Margaret last night before she retired to bed. If she is untrustworthy of our faith in her and betrays our son, I'll kill her. And I mean it George, I will kill her."

Mary pulled her husband up by his arm and insisted, "There are many guests waiting for us." They'd invited everyone who came to an elegant restaurant to celebrate their son's marriage.

As they made there way out of the church, they met Wendy descending the stairs from the organist's booth. There were two voices, their daughter's and an unidentified male's chatting back and forth quickly as Wendy peeked out and saw her parents watching for her. "Whom are you talking to?" Mary asked as she leaned her head around into the shadowed staircase leading up to the balcony. Wendy moved casually to block her mother's view and responded in an obvious lie, "Myself."

George pushed past both Wendy and Mary to meet the gentleman who had spoken only a moment before, "I can't stay another moment, Gwendolyn, and I must go back, although you are splendid in pale blue with a pretty pink sash," but found not a soul lingering in the darkness.

"What is that, Wendy?" Mary queried about the old-fashioned cameo pin she carried with her.

"Oh, it belongs to a friend of mine. I let Margaret borrow it for the wedding. You know the saying mother, something old, something new..."