She lay back again, feeling curiously awed and humble.
‘I’ll be good to you, Julian,’ she thought very tenderly. ‘You haven’t found people very kind, but I’ll try never to hurt you as the others have.’
She didn’t name Rosalie even in her own thoughts, because she had an idea that she didn’t want to have any feelings of bitterness and resentment just now. But; in some indefinable way, she felt that it was for her to bridge the gap that had been torn in Julian’s happiness and affections.
It was that thought which kept her very quiet and serious while she was dressing-all the time Prentiss was brushing her shining hair and fastening her into the wedding-dress.
Her aunt came in just as the yards of rosy tulle veil were being adjusted.
‘Yes, very nice,’ she said, inspecting Alison critically. ‘No, no, Prentiss-a little further forward on her head. That’s better. Now don’t forget to hold your head up, Alison, when you are coming out, You can look down and be as shy as you like when you come in. It isn’t important then. But raise your head when you are coming out of the church. Otherwise it doesn’t give the Press photographers a chance, and you’ll look as though you have a double chin.’
‘Very well, Aunt Lydia,’ Alison promised meekly. It amused her a little that, when it came to the point, her aunt had been quite unable to keep up her apparent lack of interest in anything which appealed to her so strongly as a social show.
‘I wish she’d go,’ Alison thought. ‘She makes it all seem so cheap and-and worldly.’
Then she suddenly remembered about the cablegram from Buenos Aires.
‘Oh, Aunt Lydia -’
‘I can’t wait now,’ her aunt said. ‘It’s time I went. If the first arrivals are late it means the whole thing is disorganised. Good-bye, child. Try to make yourself heard, though that isn’t so very important, really. And don’t forget about looking up.’
Aunt Lydia went out, closing the door behind her. Oh, well, it couldn’t be helped. Explanations would have to come after the ceremony.
Alison stood where she was, facing her own reflection in the glass. But she scarcely took in what she saw there. She was listening to the sounds of departure downstairs.
And then a servant knocked on the door.
Mr. Leadburn wanted to know if Miss Alison was ready. It was time they were going.
Alison picked up her great sheaf of deep pink roses, and glanced round her unpretentious little bedroom.
Next time she saw it she would be Alison Tyndrum- Julian’s wife.
Uncle Theodore was waiting in the hall, and he smiled as she came slowly down the stairs.
‘Dear me,’ he observed approvingly, ‘Julian certainly has a very pretty bride.’
‘Thank you, Uncle.’ Alison smiled in return and took his arm affectionately. She was glad it was her uncle with whom she had to go, for his kindly but matter-of-fact air steadied her.
She glanced shyly and a little incredulously at the group of sight-seers as she went out to the car. It was first and last time in her life that she was likely to attract a crowd, she thought with faint amusement.
And then she was driving through the streets beside Uncle Theodore, with the strange, dreamlike knowledge that, somewhere at the end of this journey, Julian was waiting to make her his wife.
‘Feeling nervous?’ Her uncle patted her hand.
‘No, not very,’ Alison said, and it was true. She was not trembling any more, and her heart was beating calmly and regularly again. Only her breathing was shallow and rapid. But that was really more excitement than nervousness.
‘Well, I expect you will have a pretty full programme from now on until you leave.’
That reminded her.
‘Oh, Uncle Theodore, we aren’t going to Buenos Aires after all. There was a cable for Julian last night, postponing our flight indefinitely.’
‘Really?’ Alison wondered if she imagined that her usually immovable uncle looked disturbed. ‘Do you mean you’ll be living here in London?’
‘I suppose so.’
He was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, personally, I’m glad you’re not going to the other side of the world. How do you feel about it yourselves?’
‘I’m afraid Julian is very disappointed,’ she said carefully.
‘And you?’
‘Oh, I-she drew a quick breath-’I don’t really care where I am, so long as Julian is there too.’
‘Ah!’ Her uncle gave a satisfied laugh.
She thought he was going to say something too, but just then the car drew up outside the church, and there was no opportunity.
Organ music was coming from just beyond that doorway, and the indescribable rustle of people moving and whispering.
She took her uncle’s arm and moved slowly forward. Nobody seemed specially distinct-just a vague blur of faces on either side-people who had meant nothing at all in her life, and would mean nothing again. They were just there for her wedding-she didn’t quite know why, except that Aunt Lydia had somehow conjured them there.
Why, there was Jennifer, smiling slightly and looking a miracle of style and smartness. Simon would be with Julian, but she wouldn’t look there yet.
There was Aunt Lydia, right in front, turning her head as far as decorum permitted, to see that her stage-managing had not failed in any particular, while Theo gazed openly- but mostly at Audrey.
And then they all faded away into absolute nothingness, because Rosalie’s blue eyes were staring at her across the width of the aisle-cold, unfriendly, frighteningly bleak in her lovely young face.
Alison gasped faintly, as though someone had struck her, and her eyes dropped before the dislike in Rosalie’s.
Uncle Theodore had stopped. She couldn’t imagine why for a moment, and then, glancing up, she saw. Julian was standing the other side of her, smiling reassuringly down at her.
‘Oh, Julian,’ she said very quietly, and she forgot all about Rosalie.
She used to wonder afterwards whether every girl was just as vague about her own wedding.
It didn’t seem like her own voice saying, ‘I, Alison, take thee, Julian-’
She wondered if he felt equally strange, saying, ‘I, Julian, take thee, Alison-’
Perhaps he felt even stranger because, of course, he didn’t want to take her at all.
But she wouldn’t think of that now. Nor of Rosalie, standing somewhere there behind her, wishing her ill.
It was over at last, and she was with him in the vestry, signing ‘Alison Earlston’ for the last time. And then she was going along the aisle once more, past those rows of indistinguishable people.
But this time it was on Julian’s arm that her hand rested.
Rosalie had not come into the vestry, and Alison didn’t look in her direction now. She didn’t want anything to spoil this wonderful moment. She had forgotten her aunt’s warning, but in any case, she had no need of it to make her raise her head.
The most extraordinary pride and happiness flooded warmly over her. She was Julian’s wife. And for one little, little moment, that was enough.
In the car, Julian turned to her with a laugh.
‘Well, I’m glad that’s over.’
Alison smiled.
‘Were you nervous too?’
‘Petrified,’ Julian assured her, looking exceptionally calm. And at that they laughed together.
‘You look marvellously pretty, Alison.’
His admiration was undoubted, but there was not a single touch of sentiment about it. Nor did he sound in the least possessive. He might have been paying a compliment to any young friend or relation.
She wondered if he had noticed how lovely Rosalie looked, and, if so, how it had affected him. He couldn’t have seen her since that terrible evening when she had thrown him over-until he saw her in church to-day. It must have hurt, however much he had braced himself to meet the moment.
‘Do you like your ring?’ He took her hand and looked at the slender ring with its curiously cut facets.