The Jane Austen Marriage Manual (38 page)

“Where are you?” he said grimly, staring off into the dark woods.

“I’m in my room,” I answered and gazed down at him. He made for a lonely figure, stranded on the stone slabs, whispering into the night air. “I’m so sorry. I wish I had a better explanation, but the champagne, the crowd, my dress, I just had a meltdown.” He stood breathing into the phone, completely unaware he was being watched and paced back and forth as if contemplating jumping off the terrace, which was ridiculous since the stone steps were probably less than two feet high. I waited, wanting him to get angry, waiting for the wrath I deserved. But instead, he was calm.

“Are you all right now?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Can you forgive me?” I responded warily, feeling the tears that had vanished for months return all too easily tonight. “I still want to marry you.” I thought my voice sounded unconvincing and again, I watched for his reaction.

“Okay then,” he said. “Do you want me to come see you now?”

Relief swept over me and I forced a smile; even though he couldn’t see it, I wanted him to sense it. “No, that can’t happen. It’s after midnight and it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”

“Kate, don’t be superstitious,” he said.

I flinched a little. I needed to take advantage of superstitions, no matter how I hated them.

“I’m not superstitious, I just want tomorrow to be perfect,” I pleaded and traced his silhouette on the glass with my finger. Before he answered, a shadow crept across the terrace and he turned and extended his hand toward it. Like a panther on the hunt, Tatiana strolled sinuously across the stone. She took his hand and in one stride she was in his arms and stroking his face as though he were a wounded child. I couldn’t pry my eyes away, yet as I watched I only felt numb where jealous rage should be.

“I’ll see you at the altar,” I said coolly.

He hung up without another word. I stared down at them as they strolled away like lovers and returned into the belly of the house. If I listened carefully I would probably hear their footsteps coming to his room. I went to the door and pressed my ear on the keyhole like a vaudevillian actor in a detective skit. And there they were, faint footsteps marching toward my door. I braced myself, expecting the thump of Scott’s size-thirteen brogues, followed by the patter of Tatiana’s paws, I mean platforms, to pass swiftly by, when there was a bang on my door. I leapt upright.

“Kate? Are you there?”

It was Marianne. I took a deep breath and opened the door a crack. Marianne, Fawn, Emma, and the others were gathered outside my room.

“Are you okay? We were worried sick,” Fawn said breathlessly.

Seeing their alarmed faces, I softened my lips into a smile. “Look, I had my freakout. I’m fine now. But what I really need is my beauty sleep.”

“Have you seen Scott?” Fawn asked, I thought with a hint of suspicion. “Is he here with you?”

“He’s in his room,” I said dismissively, half expecting him and Tatiana to hoof it by us any moment. “We made up. The wedding is still on but I’m going to bed. Good night and I’m sorry you were all so worried.”

I shut the door on their anxious faces and raced over to the window in case Scott had returned, but the terrace was as empty as a vacant parking lot. I hoped none of my friends would find them together.
A few moments later I heard another set of footsteps and ran to the keyhole in time to see Scott walking alone to his room, turn his key, and close the door behind him. He must have put Tatiana into a cab. With bewildered relief, I flopped on my bed and stared up at the ceiling in the dark. It was going to be a long night.

T
he first time I encountered heartbreak was the night my father left. I was four and have only the slightest memory of Iris’s hysteric wails in the darkness as my grandmother tried to soothe me to sleep. The second, I remember more vividly. It was after Ann’s first boyfriend broke up with her. It was late and far beyond the bedtime of a twelve-year-old like me, but as I soon discovered there is nothing quiet or still about a teenage girl’s broken heart. When Ann came home, sobbing, stomping, and slamming about, she woke us all. Bleary-eyed, I wandered into the living room and sat on the floor as Nana and Iris consoled Ann and railed against the injustice of her being dumped.

“Peter is a fool to listen to his parents,” Nana said critically. “You’re every bit as good as they are.”

As Ann cried, the story flowed with the tears; Peter had been told to break up with her because his family didn’t approve of the relationship. His father was a very successful real estate developer who owned shopping malls and condo towers and preferred his son to date girls from the local private school.

As I listened, half-asleep, to the drama unfold, it never occurred to me that Ann would probably have her heart broken many more times in the course of her life. All the fuss convinced me that this was a once in a lifetime event.

But that night stood out for another reason. Ignoring me as I
slumped on the floor, my head on a sofa cushion, my grandmother told Ann about a man named Mitchell.

They had met during the Great Depression at a neighborhood café. My grandmother worked across the street in a dress shop and once a week, as a treat, she’d sit at the counter and order coffee and a sandwich. Mitchell was from some industrial city like Pittsburgh. He was in New York visiting a cousin and he asked Nana out the first time he saw her. He took her to a movie, even picked her up in a convertible that belonged to a relative. My grandmother still lived at home with her mother and stepfather, who were very strict, and she lied to them about where she was going and who she was going with. “Mitch was a sweet boy,” she told us. “We went out together for weeks. He’d pick me up after work and we’d walk in the park, or go to the movies, even went out dancing once or twice. But then he was to go back home.” She got a sad look on her face and her lip trembled, only slightly, and she continued. “Our last night together he asked me to marry him.” At this, I sat up and rubbed my eyes hard to stay awake.

“Our plan was simple. He would return in two weeks and meet me at the train station, we’d get married at city hall, and I’d go home to Pittsburgh with him.”

I blinked some more; the thought that I might have been born in Pittsburgh scared me. It sounded so far away.

Nana rocked gently on the edge of the sofa and wrapped her bathrobe tightly around her waist. “My stepfather found the one letter Mitch had written me, giving the date and time of the train. My mother was livid. Mitch worked in a factory, see, and that wouldn’t do. Pittsburgh was full of steel factories and no daughter of hers would marry a laborer. She spent her life on the sales floor at Bloomingdale’s and wanted me to have what she didn’t. Only a lawyer or doctor for me.”

My grandmother stopped her rocking and her eyes turned brazen, as though it were still within her power to defy her mother. “They tore up the letter and wouldn’t let me contact him or meet him. Of course I’d memorized the date, so I knew when he was supposed to be on that platform. But so did my mother. She made me stay in that house all day and all night. And Mitch …” her voice trailed off into memory.

“He just waited there,” Ann finished her sentence. “He probably thought you’d changed your mind.”

“I still picture him waiting, endlessly checking his watch, heartbroken that I never came. Then again maybe he didn’t show up, either. I never knew because I never had the courage to contact him afterward,” Nana said. “I certainly didn’t have the courage to stand up to my mother. Mitch was good enough for me. You’re good enough for Peter. Parents shouldn’t meddle. He’ll regret listening to his mother, mark my words.”

We all sat in silence, contemplating the future regret of Peter, a boy I’d only seen half a dozen times and I thought had greasy hair, when out of the quiet came my mother’s voice.

“The good news is that your grandmother met Grandpa,” Iris said. “If she had run off with Mitch then I wouldn’t have been born and none of you would be here.”

My grandmother nodded and smiled, putting her hand on Iris’s knee. I thought about this for a moment and shook my head. “We would,” I disagreed. “We’d just be living in Pittsburgh.”

Dawn arrived and it was my wedding day. The skies opened up and sheets of rain and hail pelted the stone terrace where the ceremony was to take place, a bad sign if ever there was one. I had sat up most of the night watching the storm gather, feeling trapped in my room like my grandmother on the day she was to meet Mitch at the train station. What if he had been her one great love and she’d let him go, only to make a life with a man she didn’t love who gave her artificial roses instead of real passion. I was desperate for my grandmother’s advice; she would know what to do. But she was dead and I was alone. For the first time since I’d arrived at Penwick I wanted to call home. I wanted my family, what was left of us, to pull me away from here and ground me. I supposed I was reacting from last night’s outburst. But it was too early to call Iris and Ann. Besides, how could they help? My intuition would have to do and do quickly for I was running out
of time. But Lady Kate was still battling against plain old Kate’s gut instinct.

At noon I could be a rich man’s spoiled bride. I could be financially secure. I could have a home, or several. Yet what stood out above all was that Scott never said he loved me, or I him. I tried to remember any instance where we’d spoken the words but it was as though I thought I remembered it rather than it actually happening.

On the other hand Griff did tell me how he felt. His assertion that we were in love and that I wasn’t the type of girl to marry for money played over and over in my mind, like an annoying jingle you can’t get out of your head.

There was a knock at the door. It was Griff, I was sure of it. I raced to the vanity and, confirming that my hair and makeup was perfect, I flounced to the door.

“If you’re here to change my mind,” I snapped as I opened it to the puzzled faces of Marianne and Emma.

“Should we?” Marianne asked and marched past me. They were dressed in their bridesmaid gowns, which I had left up to them to choose. Each wore pink but Marianne’s was a sleeveless, floor-length gown with a high neck, while Emma’s was a miniskirt with long sleeves and an empire waist in case she suddenly started to show.

“I thought you were someone else,” I said with a light laugh.

“Evidently,” Marianne answered. “The ceremony’s been moved to the ballroom as you wanted.”

“Change your mind about what?” Emma asked.

“My hair,” I said, thinking quickly. “Up or down?”

“Definitely up,” Emma said.

“I like it down,” disagreed Marianne.

“Well, if you two can’t agree, how can you expect me to decide?” I said, laughing, and more than a little bit relieved to have so easily diverted attention from my earlier slip. “I wish I knew what Griff preferred.”

“Griff?” Emma said, intrigued. “Why do you care how Griff likes your hair?”

“I didn’t say ‘Griff,’ ” I answered, and felt my face flush.

“Yes you did,” Marianne shot back. “You clearly said Griff.”

“Well, I meant Scott, obviously.” I laughed artificially and rolled my eyes, as though the error had been theirs, but they continued to eye me suspiciously.

“Well, now that you’ve mentioned him, what happened last night?” Marianne asked pointedly.

I shook my head but I was suddenly very warm. Then there was another knock on my door and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“I have to get that,” I said urgently.

“Maybe it’s Griff come to tell you how to do your hair,” Marianne said sarcastically. “You know I did wonder if he was gay …”

“He’s not!” I shouted.

But when I opened the door it was Fawn, dressed in a long yellow gown, her hair teased as big as a daytime soap opera star.

“Is this where the party is?” she joked and sashayed past me, but she immediately picked up on the tension in the room. “What gives?” she asked. “You all look positively guilty.”

“What do you say, Kate?” Marianne started again. “Should you feel guilty?”

I didn’t know how to answer when I noticed Emma staring at her nails as if she had plenty to say.

“Emma, have you spoken to Griff?” I said accusingly. She looked up and smiled awkwardly.

“Clive did,” she said nervously.

“So, what happened?” demanded Marianne, turning her attention to poor Emma, who was feeling the pressure.

“Nothing!” I snapped at Marianne.

“What did Clive say happened?” my best friend pushed.

“Nothing,” Emma agreed sheepishly.

“See!” I said and marched to my closet and grabbed my wedding gown. “It’s time to get dressed.”

“This is intriguing.” Fawn sat down beside Emma, putting her hand on her knee for encouragement. “What is that phrase the preacher says at weddings? ‘If anyone has any just cause why these two people should not be married’? If you know a reason, Emma, be a good girl and tell us.”

I was livid. “Fawn, you of all people! Emma, you don’t have to say anything; there’s nothing to say,” I steamed, ready to boot the whole lot of them from my room as I began to slip into my dress.

“Tell the truth, Emma,” Marianne pleaded. As a fashion editor she knew how to drag gossip from anyone. All she had to do was ask and Emma was ready to cave.

“Griff doesn’t want you to marry Scott,” she blurted. “And neither do I.”

By this point my dress was half on, but hearing Emma’s words I panicked and somehow managed to become stuck. Trapped inside the sheath of oyster silk I couldn’t breathe or see and my earlier flush of embarrassment was now an inferno.

“Get this off of me!” I shouted and twirled around blindly until the others yanked the dress off, nearly sending me backward into the closet. I stood there panting in my underwear, my hair in a state, perspiration breaking out on my forehead. “Really? What else did the Earl of Penwick say about me?”