Page 37 of The Secret Word
And then suddenly the wait was over and Clem was walking toward him. Somewhere, music was playing. Presumably, Wright was escorting her. Chris saw only Clem. How lovely she was! What fools those men were who had called her plain.
His heart seemed to fill his chest, pressing his lungs so that his breath came short and caught in a suddenly dry throat. He loved Clementine Wright, and in a few minutes, she would behis wife, promised to him for a lifetime. Wright and the minister exchanged a few words, and Wright extended Clem’s right hand to the minister who gave it to Chris.
Chris smiled into Clem’s eyes, and she smiled back. That smile and her touch anchored him through the rest of the ceremony, when his joy made him feel so light that he thought he might float away. If Wright reacted to the presence of so many people on the groom’s side of the church, Chris didn’t see it.
He said his responses when prompted, trying to infuse his love, his certainty into his voice. He thrilled to hear the love in her voice and to see the happiness in her eyes when she spoke.
At last, it was time to encircle her finger with the ring he had designed and had made for her. For a moment, it caught on her knuckle, but he pushed firmly and it slid into place.
The minister prayed, asking for God’s blessing on the marriage. He then took their right hands and indicated they should join hands.
“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”
He then spoke to the congregation. But before he could finish explaining that the bride and groom had proclaimed their consent, made their vows and given and received a ring, there was a commotion—someone shouting from the back of the church. Grandfather, the swine.
“Stop the wedding. Stop this travesty. The boy is promised elsewhere!”
Harry touched Chris’s arm. “I’ll handle it. Carry on, Minister.”
Clem started to turn, but Chris refused to give Grandfather even a look. “It is our wedding, Clem,” he said. “Ignore him.” And to the minister, he said, “My grandfather disapproves of my choice of bride, sir, as you can hear. But I am of age, and I have the permission of Clem’s father and the blessings of my cousinand my uncle, both earls, who are respectively the heads of the Satterthwaite and the Thurgood families. Carry on with the wedding, please.”
Reassured, the minister raised his voice to be heard over several voices shouting. “I pronounce that they are man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Next came a blessing, and during it, the altercation at the back of the church faded away. Grandfather was, presumably, being dragged off. And a good thing, too.
The minister carried on. A psalm, some further prayers, a short homily about the duties of marriage. Chris held Clem’s hand. His heart was soaring, and only the occasional word made it through his triumphant joy. “Love your wife,” the minister said. “Honor her.” And Chris did and would. As long as they both should live. And may it be long indeed.
*
Mr. Satterthwaite senior’sinterruption of the wedding had had a beneficial effect, Clem discovered after they had made their way down the aisle to stand in the foyer of the church receiving the congratulations of those who had witnessed the wedding.
Father had joined the Earl of Halton in ejecting the noisy intruder, and the two of them had adopted the camaraderie of a successful sortie party. And so, since Father had already accepted Lady Fernvale, and now Lord Halton, he did not make a fuss about Lord Crosby.
Though he did tug on Chris’s arm and say, “Did you invite all this lot? When did you get to know them?”
“I’m as surprised as you are,” Chris told him. “The last time I saw the two earls was the evening they cut me in front of everybody.”
Wright harrumphed and then invited all present back to his townhouse.
Clem cast a worried glance at Aunt Fern, who had worked with Mrs. Bellowes to organize the wedding feast. But that fine lady merely smiled and nodded.
“I imagine she has invited them all already, and planned for them,” Chris murmured to her, with that uncanny ability he had to read her mind.
“Your carriage is ready, Mr. and Mrs. Satterthwaite,” said Michael Thurgood, and the minister was growing anxious as the guests began to arrive for the next wedding, so Clem let Chris escort her away.
Perhaps at the wedding breakfast she would find out what happened to Mr. Satterthwaite senior! He was gone, and there was no sign he had ever been there.
They rode to Father’s townhouse in an open carriage, escorted by the younger men of the congregation on horseback, who introduced themselves to Chris and Clem, and to one another, as they rode.
There were half a dozen Satterthwaites, several Thurgoods, some other cousins with different surnames, and a smattering of wealthy merchants’ sons, all of them relaxed and cheerful in one another’s company.
Did men find it easier to ignore the bounds of class? Or was it the wedding that had them so egalitarian?
When they arrived at Father’s townhouse, Clem met the senior members of the various families, and their wives and daughters. She was a little disappointed that Ramping Billy and his people did not arrive at the wedding breakfast, but perhaps they were correct to stay away.
She watched in awe as Aunt Fern encouraged the two groups to blend, recommending a young aristocrat to a blushing merchant’s daughter as a dance partner, encouraging twograndmothers who would normally never have encountered one another to compare stories of their cherished grandchildren, and setting off a rousing debate on the corn laws among the older gentlemen.
But the debt collector-come-gambling den and brothel owner and his minions might have been beyond even Aunt Fern’s powers to spread social harmony.
