She stroked his scratchy cheek lovingly. "I couldn't have asked for a nicer father-in-law than you, Ron. Thank you so much for understanding and consenting."
Twenty-four
In the end they decided not to tell Dawnie anything about the wedding until after the deed was done, but the day after Mary and Ron agreed on it she told Archie Johnson.
"Sweet suffering rock oysters, you're joking!"
It took some time to convince him that she was serious. And after the initial shock wore off he rallied and congratulated her sincerely.
"Mary love, I couldn't be more pleased for you. It's the oddest match since Chopin and Georges Sand, but if anyone on this old ball of mud knows what they're doing, it's you. I'm not going to make your life a misery by raising all sorts of objections because I'm bloody sure you've already thought of them for yourself. The only thing I'm sorry about is that after all these years of thinking I was safe I'm going to lose you. On that head I could cry."
"Why on earth should you lose me?"
"Well, won't you have your work cut out looking after your Tim?"
"Heavens, no! I do need to take three months off almost immediately, no notice or anything, for which I'm very sorry, but I'm not going to give up work, nor is Tim. I think we'll both be better off getting out into the world among ordinary people. If we stopped working and saw no one save ourselves we'd both deteriorate."
"I'd like to come to your wedding, Mary. I'm very fond of you, and though I've never met Tim I'm very fond of him, too, because he made such a difference to your life."
"I'd like you and Tricia to come to my wedding."
"When is it?"
"Next Friday afternoon at the Registrar General's offices."
"Then why don't you begin your leave right this moment? If I have to put up with Celeste Murphy for three months I may as well face the music as soon as possible."
"Bless you, but no thanks. I'll take Celeste under my wing until next Wednesday. That will be soon enough."
Emily Parker heard the news gleefully. Mary invited her over after dinner that night, and told her.
"Lord love a duck, dearie, it's just what youse both needs. I'm tickled pink, love, I really am. Here's your very good health, and may youse live happily ever after."
"Will you come to my wedding?"
"Ta, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Good luck to youse, Miss Horton, I'm real proud of youse!"
Mary also went and saw Harry Markham that night, after she managed to push Emily Parker back to the other side of the camphor laurels.
Harry stared at his visitor curiously, sure he had seen her somewhere before, but unable to place her.
"Do you remember renovating Mrs. Emily Parker's house in Artarmon over two years ago, Mr. Markham?"
"Yair, sure."
"I'm Mary Horton, Mrs. Parker's next door neighbor."
His face cleared. "Oh, right, right! I thought I knew youse from somewhere."
"I'm not here on business, Mr. Markham, I'm here to talk about Tim Melville."
"Tim Melville?"
"That's right, Tim Melville. It may come as something of a shock to you, Mr. Markham, but next Friday I'm marrying Tim."
Poor Harry gurgled and gulped for a full minute before he found voice enough to squeak, "You're marrying Dim Tim?"
"That's correct, next Friday. Under normal circumstances, having heard from Mrs. Parker what sort of pranks you like to play on him, I'd be tempted to persuade him to find another employer, but he likes working with you and your men, so I'm happy to see him remain with you."
Harry's eyes strayed past her to the huge Bent-ley parked at his curbside. He remembered now that she was accounted the wealthiest woman in Artarmon, and decided she was worth placating. "Well, youse could knock me down with a bull-rout, Miss Horton! This is quite a little bit of news, ain't it?"
"I'm sure it is, Mr. Markham. However, I haven't much time and I'd like to be as brief as possible. There are a couple of things we must decide on right now. Firstly, do you wish to keep Tim in your employ if he takes three months' leave starting next Wednesday? Secondly, if you do wish to keep him in your employ, are you willing to keep your men in order on the subject of Tim's marriage?"
Still floundering, Harry shook his head to clear it. "Crikey, Miss Horton, I don't know what to say!"
"Then I suggest you make up your mind, Mr. Markham. I can't stay here all night."
He thought for a moment. "Well, I'll be honest with you, Miss Horton. I like Tim and me crew likes Tim. It's as good a time as any to do without him for three months because it's coming on summer and I can always find the odd university student or two as casual laborers, though it'll take a few of them to fill Tim's shoes, useless lot of snotty bastards they are. Tim's been with me twelve years and he's a bloody good worker. I'd have to look a lot longer than three months to find another laborer as cheerful and willing and reliable as Tim, so if it's all right with youse, I'd like to keep the little bloke."
"Fine. As to my second point, I'm hoping you have the sense to understand that it would be very bad for Tim to be teased about his marriage. By all means go on with your practical jokes and the sort of ribbing Tim seems to accept as a matter of course. He doesn't really mind it. But the subject of his marriage is absolutely taboo, and I give you my word that if I ever discover you've embarrassed or humiliated him because he married a rich old maid, I'll break you and the members of your staff into little pieces morally and financially. I can't stop you discussing it among yourselves and as a matter of fact I wouldn't dream of doing so, since I'm sure it's a very interesting and intriguing morsel of gossip. But when Tim'is around it's never to be mentioned, except to offer him the normal congratulations. Is that understood?"
Mary Horton was more than a match for Harry Markham; he gave in without a struggle. "Yes, certainly, Miss Horton, anything you say, Miss Horton."
Mary held out her hand. "Thank you very much, Mr. Markham, I appreciate your cooperation. Goodbye."
Next on Mary's list was the gynecologist. Having made up her mind what to do, Mary tackled the obstacles one by one in sequence, and enjoyed herself more than she had expected. This was her metier, doing things; she had no attacks of self-doubt, no second thoughts now that her mind was made up.
In the gynecologist's office she explained the situation to him calmly.
"I can't possibly run the risk of a pregnancy, sir, I'm sure you see why. I presume you'll have to hospitalize me to tie off my tubes, so I thought while I'm in there and you're fiddling around with me, you might do something about the fact that I'm an intact virgin. I can't possibly endanger this relationship by evincing the slightest sign of pain, and I understand it's very painful for a woman to commence sexual activity at my age."
The gynecologist put up a hand to his face hastily to hide his involuntary smile; more than most men he was acquainted with Mary Horton's breed, for there were plenty of them working in Australian hospitals. Bloody dedicated old maids, he thought, they're all the same. Brisk, practical, disconcertingly level-headed, and yet for all that women underneath, full of pride, sensitivity, and a curious softness. His amusement under control again, he tapped his pen against the desk and hummed and hawed.
"I think I agree with you, Miss Horton. Now would you please step behind the screen there and remove all your clothes? Nurse will be in to give you a robe in a moment."
By Saturday morning Tim was the only one left to tell. She had asked Ron not to mention the subject, but refused to take Tim to the cottage On his own.
"Of course you'll come with us, Ron," she said firmly. "Why should this make any difference? We're not married yet, you know. I can easily manage to get Tim off on his own and tell him."
The opportunity came in the afternoon; Ron went to lie down for a while, winking broadly at Mary as he took himself off to his bedroom.
"Tim, why don't we go down to the beach and sit in the sun?"
He jumped up at once, beaming, "Oh, that sounds nice
, Mary. Is it warm enough to swim?"
"I don't think so, but it doesn't matter anyway. I want to talk to you for a while, not swim."
"I like talking to you, Mary," he confided. "It's such a long time since we talked."
She laughed. "Flatterer! We talk all the time."
"Not the way we do when you say, 'Tim, I want to talk to you.' They're the best sort of talks, it means you've got something really good to say."
Her eyes opened wide. "Aren't you shrewd? Come on, then, mate, no dilly-dallying!"
It was hard to rid herself of the intensely practical, energetic mood of the past few days, and for a while she sat on the sand in silence, trying to come down from her plateau of busy briskness. To adopt this attitude had been essential for her mental well-being; without it she could never have managed to say and do all that was required, for any sign of vulnerability in herself would have resulted in disaster. Now the hardiness was not needed, and must be discarded.
"Tim, have you any idea what marriage is?"
"I think so. It's what Mum and Pop are, and what my Dawnie did."
"Can you tell me anything more than that about it?"
"Golly, I dunno!" He ran his hand through his thick gold hair, grimacing. "It means you go and live with someone you didn't always live with, doesn't it?"
"Partly." She turned to face him. "When you're all grown up and you're not a little kid any more, you end up meeting someone you like so much that you think about going to live with them instead of living with your Mum and Pop. And if the person you like so well likes you just as much, then you go to a priest or a minister or a judge and you get married. You both sign a piece of paper, and signing that little piece of paper means you're married, you can live together for the rest of your lives without offending God."
"It really does mean you can live together for the rest of your life?"
"Yes."
"Then why can't I marry you, Mary? I'd like to marry you, I'd like to see you all dressed up like a fairy princess in a long white dress the way Dawnie was and the way Mum was in her wedding photo on the dressing table in her bedroom."
"Lots of girls do wear long white dresses when they get married, Tim, but it isn't the long white dress that makes you married, it's the little bit of paper."
"But Mum and Dawnie wore long white dresses!" he maintained stubbornly, enamored of the idea.
"Would you really like to marry me, Tim?" Mary asked, steering him away from the long white dress.
He nodded vigorously, smiling at her. "Oh, yes, I'd really like to marry you, Mary. I could live with you then all the time, I wouldn't have to go home on Sunday night."
The river ran on its way down to the sea, lapping and gurgling contentedly; Mary brushed a persistent fly away from her face. "Would you want to live with me more than you want to live with your Pop?"
"Yes. Pop belongs to Mum, he's only waiting until he can go and sleep with her under the ground, isn't he? I belong to you, Mary."
"Well, your Pop and I were talking about you the other night after I brought you home from Mr. Martinson's, and we decided it would be a good thing if you and I did get married. We worry a lot over what will happen to you, Tim, and there's no one in all the whole world we like more than you."
The blue eyes sparkled with light reflected off the river. "Oh, Mary, do you mean it? Do you really mean it? You will marry me?"
"Yes, Tim, I'm going to marry you."
"And then I can live with you, I can really belong to you?"
"Yes."
"Can we get married today?"
She blinked at the river, suddenly sad. "Not today, my dear, but very soon. Next Friday."
"Does Pop know when it is?"
"Yes, he knows it's next Friday. It's all arranged."
"And you'll wear a long white dress like Mum and my Dawnie?" She shook her head. "No, Tim, I can't. I'd like to wear a long white dress for you, but it takes a long time to make one and your Pop and I don't want to wait that long."
Disappointed dimmed his smile for a moment, but then it bloomed again. "And I don't have to go home after that?"
"For a little while you will, because I have to go into the hospital."
"Oh, Mary, no! You can't go into hospital! Please, please don't go into hospital!" Tears welled up in his eyes. "You'll die, Mary, you'll go away from me to sleep under the ground and I won't see you ever again!"
She reached out and took his hands in a strong, reassuring clasp. "Now, now, Tim! Going into the hospital doesn't mean I'm going to die! Just because your Mum died when she went to the hospital doesn't mean I'm going to die, too, you know. Lots and lots and lots of people go into hospital and come out again without dying. Hospital is a place where you go when you're sick and you want to get better. It's just that sometimes we're so sick we can't get better, but I'm not sick like your Mum, am I? I'm not all weak and in pain, am I? But I went to see the doctor and he wants to make a little bit of me that's all wrong go all right again, and he wants to do it before you come to live with me so that I'm all better for you."
It was hard making him believe her, but after a while he calmed down and seemed to accept the fact that she was not going to the hospital to die.
"You're sure you're not going to die, now?"
"Yes, Tim, I'm sure I'm not going to die. I can't die yet. I won't let myself die yet."
"And we will get married before you go to the hospital?"
"Yes, it's all arranged for next Friday."
He leaned back on his hands and sighed happily, then rolled over and over down the sloping sand until he ended in the bay, laughing. "I'm going to marry Mary, I'm going to marry Mary!" he sang, throwing water all over her when she followed him down to the river's edge.
Twenty-five
In honor of the occasion, Mary wore a peach tussore silk suit to her wedding, with a small peach silk hat and a modest corsage of tea roses on her lapel. The wedding party had arranged to meet on the Hyde Park side of Victoria Square, just across from the Registrar General's offices. Mary parked in the underground Domain lot and took the moving sidewalk from her car to the College Street exit, then walked across the park. Archie had wanted to drive her, but she had refused.
"I have to go straight from the wedding to the hospital, so I think I had better drive myself."
"But you ought to let me drive you, dear!" he had protested. "What do you think you're going to do, drive yourself home from the hospital when you're discharged?"
"Of course. It's a private hospital run like a hotel, and I'm staying in much longer than is actually necessary so that I'm absolutely fit and well when I come home. I don't want to disappoint Tim by going home and not letting him come to stay with me very soon afterward."
He glanced at her, puzzled. "Well, I suppose you know what you're doing, because you always do."
She shook his arm affectionately. "Dear old Archie, your faith in me is touching."
So she went to her wedding alone, and was the first to arrive on the park corner. Archie and Tricia came soon after. Mrs. Parker puffed up in their wake wearing a startling confection of cerise and electric blue chiffon, and then Tim and Ron emerged from the subway entrance a few feet away. Tim was wearing the suit he had worn to Dawnie's wedding, Ron the suit he had worn to Esme's funeral. They stood in the clear bright sun chatting self-consciously, then Tim gave her a small box, thrusting it at her quickly when no one was looking. He was clearly nervous and unsure of himself; hiding the box with her hand, Mary led him a few steps away from the others and stood with her back to them while she undid the clumsy wrapping.
"Pop helped me pick it out, because I wanted to give you something and Pop said it was all right for me to give you something. We went to the bank and I took two thousand dollars out and we went to the big jeweler down in Castlereagh Street near the Hotel Australia."
Inside the box lay a small brooch, with a magnificent black opal center and a diamond surrounding, fashioned like a flower.
"I
t reminded me of your garden at the cottage, Mary, all the colors of the flowers and the sun shining on everything."
Off came the tea roses, down they fell to the searing asphalt pavement and lay unnoticed; Mary took the brooch out of its velvet bed and held it out to Tim, smiling at him through a haze of tears. "It isn't my garden any more, Tim, it's our garden now. That's one of the things marrying does, it makes everything each of us owns belong to the other, so my house and my car and my cottage and my garden belong to you just as much as they do to me after we're married. Will you pin it on for me?"
He was always quick and deft with his hands, as if they had escaped his psychic halter; he took the edge of her coat lapel between his fingers and slipped the sharp pin through the fabric easily, did up the safety catch and then the safety chain.
"Do you like it, Mary?" he asked anxiously.
"Oh, Tim, I love it so much! I've never had anything so pretty in all my life, and no one has ever given me a brooch before. I'll treasure it all my life. I have a gift for you, too."
It was a very expensive, heavy gold watch, and he was delighted with it.
"Oh, Mary, I promise I'll try not to lose it, I really will! Now that I can tell the time it's beaut to have my very own watch. And it's so lovely!"
"If you lose it we'll just get you another one. You mustn't worry about losing it, Tim."
"I won't lose it, Mary. Every time I look at it I'll remember that you gave it to me."
"Let's go now, Tim, it's time."
Archie took her elbow to guide her across the street. "Mary, you didn't tell me that Tim was such a spectacular young man."
"I know I didn't. It's embarrassing. I feel like one of those raddled old women you see gallivanting round the tourist resorts in the hope of acquiring an expensive but stunning young man." The arm above his hand was trembling. "This is a terrible ordeal for me, Archie. It's the first time I've exposed myself to the curious gaze of the public. Can you imagine what they'll all think in there when they realize who is marrying whom?
Tim Page 20
