The ceremony being held at St. James Park was hardly a fashionable London wedding, but Thomas found the little chairs clad with white fabric and the makeshift pulpit quaint and original. Being a military couple many of Jeremiah and Mary's guests, both men and women, had chosen to wear their military uniforms. Thomas wasn't sure this was in the best of tastes; it didn't seem right to have to be reminded of the war on a day like this. Although it was a part of who they all were now, he supposed.
The amount of people attending the ceremony whose hands he'd had to shake and whose names he'd had to remember, had reduced Thomas to trying to escape the situation by hiding behind the bridal marquee, smoking a cigarette. The flap of the marquee opened and a white hand clutching a cigarette entered Thomas's line of vision. It removed itself after it had been lit on his cigarette and Thomas turned around to face the bride. It seemed he wasn't the only one who had had the idea of escaping.
Mary's veil was made entirely of lace and was at the moment swept out of the way of her face, which was unusually anxious, yet somehow still as radiant as a bride's should be. Her dress draped down to her feet and Thomas wasn't precisely sure of the type of fabric but it was something shimmery and light looking. The bodice was low and the exposed flesh was barely hidden behind a sheer layer of lace. The sleeves too, were unusually short and Thomas realised for the first time that Mary's arms were rather toned and her shoulders broader than what was usual for ladies. It was quite risqué for a wedding dress, but Thomas felt it spoke of the boldness of Mary's character, which told him she had chosen the right dress.
"You look beautiful," he told her sincerely.
She shrugged him off and took a long drag on the fag hanging out of her mouth, which rather spoiled the picture of the blushing and naïve bride, the action giving her a worldlier feel. "I'm not too sure about this, Thomas," she said in a frank voice. She looked petrified.
"About getting married to Jeremy?" I was shocked. They always seemed perfect for one another.
Mary nodded before looking surreptitiously over her shoulder, "I can't talk to Betty about this," she confided, "He's her brother after all. She'd be horrified if she thought I was having second thoughts"
"Why are you having second thoughts?" I asked bluntly, she didn't seem to mind though. She seemed to consider carefully for a moment before answering me.
"I never thought I'd get married," she confessed. "I'm very…headstrong. I don't think I'll make a good wife and I won't be able to work. So many places don't hire married women; it's not the done thing and with men back from the war looking for work, they won't be forced to. I'll have to sacrifice my independence for him and if it were anyone else, I wouldn't even consider doing it"
I felt a strong sense of sympathy for her. "Well, you could spend your spare time campaigning with the suffragettes," I suggested.
She gave me a wry smile. "Change takes an awfully long time to take effect, Thomas," she told me, "and after the war, I'm quite sure no one cares about groups of women chaining themselves to public buildings. It just doesn't have the same impact anymore".
I didn't know what to say to her, but I felt as though I ought to say something encouraging. "If you didn't marry Jeremiah in order to keep your independence, you'd be miserable," that hadn't come out as gently as I'd intended. I kept talking anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound after all. "You'd be bitter, like those maiden aunts people invariably have. Besides, frankly I think you're making excuses because you're scared".
At this Mary looked truly affronted, but I kept going in spite of myself. "When I met…" I faltered here, fighting off a blush. I was unused to discussing my relationship with John with anyone who wasn't John. "When I met John," I continued, "and I realised how I felt about him, I was terrified. I thought that there was no way we could work. I pushed him away and we lost a lot of time. I wish I'd been able to show him how I felt a lot sooner and I couldn't tell him until long after the war"
Mary was listening attentively by this point and no longer looked offended. I was relieved and my tone softened as I looked at her. "The fact that you're here, proves you're a lot braver than you think you are," I told her. "All you have to do now is walk down the aisle. I think we all learnt during the war that life's too short to do things that you'd regret and I know you'd regret not doing that"
Mary exhaled a long, drawn out breath. The hand holding the cigarette hung loosely by her side and I could tell she had forgotten about it. "I sometimes don't think I'm good enough for him," she told me and I could tell this wasn't an excuse, but a real fear. "They'll say…all the other women, that I'm not pretty enough for him. They won't be able to accept that he chose me"
"They won't say that today," I told her firmly.
"Of course not, it's my wedding. They have some manners," here she gave a distinctly unladylike snort.
"They won't say that today," I repeated, "because you don't deserve it. You look beautiful". Mary waved this comment off with another dismissive hand gesture.
"Mary, I don't generally alter what I say to consider people's feelings," I was getting frustrated. Mary raised an eyebrow at this remark, as if to say Oh, really? "When I say you look beautiful, I mean it. It's not the dress or how you've done your hair either, there's something about your face I've always liked, something strong and kind. Something very you"
Unexpectedly, Mary leaned forward and embraced me in a tight hug. I awkwardly returned the embrace, before we both leapt apart at a prim sounding "ahem". Upon turning around I noticed a young woman with false blonde poodle curls, wearing the red bridesmaids dress I'd seen Betty in earlier that day. Whereas the bold scarlet Mary had chosen for her bridesmaid's dresses suited Betty's dark hair and pale skin, not to mention her personality, down to the ground, the prim, trim blonde woman looked completely washed out. There was something in her face which was vaguely reminiscent of Mary, however her features held none of the strength of character evident in Mary's, although the young woman could be described as the more traditional beauty. I remembered hearing that this woman was Mary's cousin, one of the only relatives she had left and that her name was Cassidy.
It was only from seeing Cassidy's clearly disapproving look that I remembered how deeply inappropriate it was to so intimately embrace a bride before her wedding, when you were not in fact her groom. The thought felt strange, but I realised clearly from her face that Mary's cousin suspected us of having an affair. I almost laughed aloud at the idea. If only she knew...
"Cassidy, will you help me rearrange my veil?" Mary took charge of the situation before Cassidy had a chance to accuse us of anything. "I'm afraid it'll come askew when I'm standing in front of the altar"
Cassidy nodded and the pair made their way back into the marquee, leaving me considerably more amused than I had been before Cassidy's interruption. As I turned around with a wry smile on my face, I saw John striding into view. He was to walk Mary down the aisle, as her own father had died along with her mother very early in her childhood. I saw him frown and followed his gaze down to my hand, which clutched my forgotten cigarette and I grimaced at having been caught. John shook his head at me, but his reaction was moderate. "I understand this is a stressful situation," he told me. "I know you've been trying to quit, so I'll just pretend I didn't see that"
I grinned as I stamped out the offending cigarette beneath my foot. "I'll see you after the ceremony," I said, before surveying my surroundings to see if any wedding guests were near. Seeing no one, I leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, something I would never have done even a month ago. John looked both surprised and pleased, before turning toward the marquee to collect the bride. The wedding was clearly about to start and I hurried over to assembled chairs to await Mary's entrance and to watch an obviously nervous Jeremiah waiting alone at the altar. He had no groomsmen, as he had always intended his younger brothers to stand beside him on his wedding day. I suddenly felt a pang of nervousness for him, yet I felt sure that Mary would not jilt him after our talk. Nevertheless, my anxiety increased as the wedding march began to play.