The Windsor Knot (8 page)

The doctor’s companion in exile was Valerian, an imposing Maine Coon Cat, whose shaggy and shedding dark coat had thrown him into disfavor with the current regime. After having been driven from the sofa, the armchair, and even the carpeted staircase by cleaning fanatics, the feline emperor had demanded asylum by scratching on the door of the doctor’s study and meowing piteous complaints about his ill-treatment. All eighteen pounds of him were now comatose and sprawled across the book galleys as he recuperated from the fatigue of an interrupted nap. His fellow refugee napped in the chesterfield chair by the window.

When someone tapped softly at the door of the study, Dr. Chandler awoke with a start—and with just enough presence of mind to thrust his paperback between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair. Valerian did not twitch so much as an eyelid.

“Come in!” called Dr. Chandler, scrambling to get to his desk. Unfortunately, his manuscript was
buried under an avalanche of cat, so he endeavored to look busy with a yellow legal pad.

“Robert, I thought you might like some coffee,” said his wife, appearing in the doorway with two cups and a plate of cookies on a newly polished silver tray. The tray and the fact that the cups were from a set of antique Bavarian china, usually kept in the bow-fronted display cabinet, were other signs of the rampant formality occasioned by the wedding. “I see you plan to join me, dear,” said Dr. Chandler, eyeing the second coffee cup. “How thoughtful.”

The invasion having been accomplished with the utmost civility, Amanda set the tray on the glass-topped table and settled into the chesterfield chair with the air of one who is about to preside at a meeting. “How is your chapter coming?” she asked, handing him the plate of cookies.

“Oh, tolerably,” he replied, glancing nervously at the cat. “It’s painstaking work, you know.”

“No. I cannot
think
why anyone would want to write a book. It pays very little and people only seem to read them in order to express unkind opinions about them.” She shrugged. “Really, why bother? But you go right ahead with your little hobby. I just wanted to tell you how things were progressing with the wedding.”

“Elizabeth isn’t even here yet,” he grumbled, thinking it only fair that the blushing bride should share in the general inconvenience.

“No, but that hardly matters, does it? Brides are a nuisance, anyway. They always come up with the most unsuitable ideas and often one has to be quite firm with them.”

“Why shouldn’t she have some say-so, Amanda? It’s her wedding!”

Amanda laughed. “Really, Robert, you might as
well ask the cow how it wants the roast cooked. Elizabeth will be wise to leave everything to me, as I have a great deal of experience in social matters. She did phone to ask about locating one of her old school friends from high school. Wants her for a bridesmaid.”

“And were you able to assist her?”

“Oh, yes. She certainly isn’t hard to find.” Amanda paused for effect. “It’s Jenny Ramsay.”

Dr. Chandler thought hard. “That name sounds familiar. Have we met her?”

“Every day for four years, Robert. She’s the weather girl on Channel Four.”

“Oh!
Jenny
. The perky little blonde who does the parades and things.”

“Exactly. Elizabeth hasn’t seen her since high school, but apparently they’d made some sort of teenage promise to be bridesmaids at each other’s wedding. I told you brides were dangerous.”

“She’ll look quite nice as a bridesmaid.”

“Certainly she will.” Amanda looked as if she wanted to add something, but apparently she thought better of it. “Oh, well!” she said with a little laugh. “Where was I? Oh, yes. I have made an appointment with Country Garden in Chandler Grove so that we can talk about the flowers-Elizabeth will be able to contribute to that discussion. And I have spoken to Mr. Compton at the community college about handling the photography. Now the caterers pose a bit of a problem. Lucy Bedford is on vacation this month and I had counted on using her. However, Charles recommended a new group in town. He has spoken to them and they are coming out tomorrow, so perhaps it will be all right.” Pushing her reading glasses back on the top of her head, she took an appraising look at her husband. “I’ll need to take a look at you in your black
suit, dear. I did think that morning coats might be nice, but we can’t be sure of what the groom is planning to wear. Possibly a kilt.”

“He’s on his own, then.”

“He will have to be telephoned. I will delegate that to Elizabeth. Now, is there anything else I’ve forgotten?”

“Are you
sure
this is all right with Doug and Margaret? She’s their only daughter, you know.”

Amanda looked thoughtful. “I imagine it’s a great relief, really. You know that Margaret’s idea of formal entertaining is two tables of bridge. Besides, I think they may see it as a kindness.”

“How’s that?”

“Because we lost our little girl just before her wedding.” To her husband’s surprise, the brisk efficiency dissolved into the faltering voice of one trying very hard to overcome great obstacles.

Dr. Chandler kissed his wife’s cheek. “If there’s anything I can do, Amanda, just let me know.”

She patted his hand. “Thank you, Robert. I am managing well enough right now. You go back to your cowboy book.” With that she picked up the tray and was gone.

E
LIZABETH LOOKED AT
the collection of mismatched and battered luggage heaped on the pavement beside her car. Each suitcase and totebag bore an identifying label
(Cosmetics; Shoes; Stationery)
so that she could find the items she had flung inside in the little time she’d had to pack.

“If I were organized, I would be taking only half this much,” she mused. As it was, she had thrown
everything
into the baggage, just to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything that would later turn out to be vital. She would have a difficult time fitting the untidy mound into her little car.

Elizabeth’s one point of satisfaction in seeing the mismatched heap was its striking resemblance to a pile of luggage pictured in one of her ubiquitous books on the royal family (they were now stashed in a black canvas suitcase labeled
Books on Royal Family)
. Someone had photographed the Queen’s baggage at dockside, waiting to be loaded onto the royal yacht
Britannia;
there was a jumble of leather suitcases, cardboard boxes, green canvas bags, British Airways totebags, and black trunks, all bearing the yellow tag indicating that the items belong to Her Majesty.

When she discovered the picture, Elizabeth had been surprised at how plebeian the royal luggage looked. Surely the Queen—by all accounts the
richest woman in the world—ought to be able to afford better travel receptacles than that! She should have a set of handmade leather luggage. Twenty matching pieces—forty! It made you wonder about expressions like
fit for a queen!
At least Her Majesty never had to carry any of the bags herself. That is where she and I differ, thought Elizabeth, hoisting a quilted garment bag into the back seat.

It was going to be a long drive. In order to reach Chandler Grove, located in the northernmost tip of Georgia, a traveler from southwest Virginia could either take Interstate 77 through the North Carolina piedmont to Charlotte—three hours of mindless driving—or one could follow the Blue Ridge Parkway, a rambling scenic route through the heart of the mountains, which took longer than the Lewis and Clark expedition. Elizabeth decided to take the dull but direct route. There would be enough scenic country roads after Charlotte, where anyone bound for Chandler Grove had to veer to the right and scoot across the South Carolina hills to pick up Highway 441 in Georgia. There, a succession of increasingly smaller country lanes led at last to Long Meadow Farm. The whole trip took about six hours, during which time Elizabeth planned to reflect further on her organization schemes for the wedding.

I expect I’m being very silly
, thought Elizabeth.
Probably some sort of genetic madness left over from the days when it
mattered
whether you got married or not But it’s
my
wedding, so whose business is it how manic I get?

She had spent the past few days devouring volumes on wedding etiquette, wedding folk customs, and royal weddings, soaking up the details as if she were going to be tested on the material. Now she was almost as much of an authority on the subject
as Aunt Amanda. “And probably equally tiresome,” she said aloud. Elizabeth had no illusions about the glamour of romance; for nonroyal brides the fascination with matrimonial trivia did
not
extend beyond the bride’s most immediate circle. (This did not include the groom.) But she thought that perhaps women made a great ceremonial event out of a wedding in hopes that they would have to do it only once in their lives.

The volumes on royal weddings fascinated Elizabeth. She decided that she would not borrow any ideas from the weddings of Princess Margaret or Princess Anne, because their marriages had not worked out. “Of course I’m being superstitious about it!” she told Jake Adair. “If you’re not superstitious, why get married at all?” To which Jake suggested that she go down the hall to cultural anthropology and give herself up as a research specimen.

Elizabeth had begun her wedding research by reading a good deal about the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. She was delighted to learn that her wedding date, July first, was also the birthday of Princess Diana, but she soon found that reading about the wedding was depressing in more ways than one. First of all, nobody’s wedding could bear comparison to that of the Prince of Wales, and in contrast it made even the most ambitious of efforts seem shoddy. What was Aunt Amanda’s oak-paneled drawing room compared to the splendor of St. Paul’s? And who cared whether your invitations were engraved or not, if
theirs
had been issued by the lord chamberlain on behalf of the Queen?

Once Elizabeth had got so caught up in her nuptial fantasies that she remarked aloud to Jake,
“Would I love to get married in St. Paul’s Cathedral!”

Jake looked up from his Tony Hillerman novel and said, “Why? You don’t know anybody in Minnesota, do you?”

But there were drawbacks to the royal wedding that Elizabeth would not have to contend with. She comforted herself with those thoughts. No need of security guards. No government interference, forcing you to slight friends and distant relations in favor of foreign dignitaries. And nobody making the decisions for you about the reception food, the honeymoon, and all the other delightful details of planning the event.
Face it
, she told herself,
Diana had very little say-so in that wedding
.

Which brought her to the other depressing fact she had gleaned from her reading: by American standards the Princess of Wales was not even a high-school graduate.
“That
puts my Ph.D. in perspective,” Elizabeth had remarked. She would gladly give Diana any number of IQ points if she could also transfer to the princess a pound of weight per point.

Why couldn’t I be dumb and thin?
she asked herself. Clearly, Princess Diana did not bear thinking about.

Thank God for Fergie.

The other royal wedding, that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, had been much more to Elizabeth’s liking. Elizabeth couldn’t even daydream herself into the role of a svelte blonde ice princess marrying the heir apparent, but the plump and clever Duchess of York was a bride that she could identify with. She read the hastily published biographies of the newlyweds with considerable interest.

Sarah Ferguson was a full twenty-six when she
married Prince Andrew. She had held a full-time job; she was definitely not a size five; and she’d had two past affairs that nobody troubled to deny. This was a far cry from the virginal teenage Princess of Wales; this was bordering on reality as Elizabeth knew it.

Elizabeth studied the details of the Yorks’ wedding for inspiration. She liked the Duchess’s wedding gown; its low-cut circular bodice was very flattering; just the thing for the full-figured bride. Elizabeth hoped she could find one of a similar design.

From a description of Sarah’s bridal bouquet, Elizabeth learned that a sprig of myrtle was traditionally included for brides.
(Whatever for?)
Consult the folklore book.
Myrtle, the symbol of Venus, goddess of love
. Can you get sprigs of myrtle in June in Georgia? Elizabeth wondered. That should be an exciting task for the florist. What else should she use in her bouquet? Thistles, of course, for Scotland, and maybe dogwood, the state flower of Virginia. Subject, of course, to whatever the florists could manage on such short notice.
It’s a good thing I didn’t have more time
, Elizabeth admitted to herself;
I could have been a florist’s nightmare
.

The one custom about a royal wedding that Elizabeth did not admire and envy was the use of small children as the members of the wedding party. “There is no way,” she said, frowning at the charming photos of princes in sailor suits and winsome four-year-olds in Victorian frocks. “They’d probably start pelting each other with hymnbooks.”