Page 8 of Mad About You

Harriet frowned. She looked up. Not only did no one else have Weird Plate With Tiny Velvet Box, they were all riveted upon her in a way that suggested they weren’t similarly confused.

‘What’s this?’ she said.

‘Open it!’Jon said, practically vibrating with gleeful anticipation, and Harriet felt woozily nauseous. It was impossible that Jon could be this reckless, this tactless, this INSANE? Please no, please God no: what was happening?

She picked up the box and pushed; it snapped open heavily. A diamond ring sat on a white silk lining – one square gem flanked by two smaller ones, set on a platinum band.

There was a beat of silence, which felt to Harriet like a yawning void she could tumble right into.

‘It’s a ring?’ she said, because she had no other words, and the held-breath of the room erupted in hysterical laughter.

‘Not much gets past Harriet!’ Martin Junior whooped.

‘It’s a ring,’ Jon agreed, his eyes scanning her face for reassurance in her response. ‘Let’s do this properly.’

He took the box from her damp, lifeless hand, and pulled his chair away from the table to create the necessary space to go down on one knee.

‘Oh JJ!’ bleated Jackie in the background as he steadied himself on the carpet, overjoyed to see her youngest play Mr Darcy.

Looking at Jon’s earnest expression, Harriet honestly wanted to be sick. Imagine that. Imagine responding to a proposal by vomiting on someone. Eat your heart out, runaway groom.

Her head was spinning and her heart was pounding, and not in the good way.

‘Harriet Hatley, you already make me the happiest man in the world. Will you make me this happy for the rest of my life, and agree to marry me?’

The two silent seconds that followed this question felt like a whole cultural era had passed. Harriet desperately calculated what to do for the best, what sheshoulddo, with no time to do so.

‘Yes,’ she squeaked, eventually, in a minuscule and defeated voice. ‘Yes of course.’

The moments that followed were a blur, the small thunder of the room’s applause, of Jon landing a clumsy kiss, half on her lips and half on her cheek, of Martin Junior bellowing:well, this calls for champagne!and picking up a brass bell and jangling it – a sound which resonated inside Harriet like an alarm – to summon minions, so he could demonstrate his largesse by sticking bottles of Moët on Jon’s tab.

Jon grabbed Harriet’s left hand and slid the ring onto her finger, gabbling: ‘Do you like it? It was my grandmother’s. Maternal grandmother’s. Mum found it by chance in the attic two months ago, and got it restored. It’s Mum you have to thank for giving me the idea I could use it, in fact!’

Oh, I bet.

‘Overcome your aversion to weddings now, eh!’ gloated her father-in-law-to-be, pointing at the ring, and before Harriet could reply, Jon said: ‘It’s different when it’s your own. Right, Hats?’

Was Harriet a voiceless chattel from a bygone age?

Harriet glanced over at her mother-in-law-to-be, who was smiling at her like a large pedigree cat who’d eaten a crow.

‘Yes, it’s beautiful. Thank you, Jacqueline.’

‘Welcome to the family, Harriet.’

5

Over the next hour, Harriet clung to the phrase:There’s so much to think about!like a life raft. Like a barrel going over Niagara Falls.

‘Where will you look for a dress?’ Jacqueline demanded.No idea, so much to think about!

‘Would you prefer a reception venue in the city, or out in the countryside?’ Jon’s dad asked.Ooh, I don’t know, so much to think about!

There really was, so much to think about. Like, what if she’d said no? She internally remonstrated with herself for her cowardice – but even if she’d been prepared to make that scene and deal with the fallout, she now knew for sure that it was only half the size of the conversation she and Jon needed to have anyway.

She had no choice but to perjure herself for the next hour and a half, repeatedly and fulsomely. To agree she was now a fortunate woman with a sky’s-the-limit budget to plan her society nuptials, and wasn’t Jonathan’s gesture tonight wonderful.

‘I’d guessed he was going to pop the question,’ Martin Junior offered. ‘Well, you’rethirty-four, aren’t you? Thirty-five,it’s a watershed.’ He tapped his nose, glancing at her stomach, and Harriet truly wanted to throw her champagne in his face.

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