Mother of the Bride

by Caroline Anderson

  She tilted her head, searching his eyes. ‘A problem?’ she echoed, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘My mother wants to buy it for her.’

  She felt herself recoil. ‘No! I’m sorry, Rob. You can do everything else your way, but this is for me to do. She’s my daughter. I’m buying her wedding dress. Tell your mother to give her something else.’

  He sighed. ‘She won’t like it.’

  ‘Tough. Sorry, Rob. I’m not backing down on this one, it means a lot to me,’ she said implacably, meeting his eyes without flinching.

  He studied her face for a moment, then nodded. ‘All right. I’ll tell her.’

  And no doubt it would cause another rift—as if it would show, with something on the lines of the Grand Canyon already yawning between her and the woman who had been her mother-in-law.

  ‘So—we’re going to Glasgow tomorrow, is that right?’

  ‘I believe that’s the plan. You can park at the station at Fort William—’

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  He smiled at her and shook his head slowly, his eyes laughing. ‘Now, Maisie, surely you can work that one out. A girly day in town choosing wedding dresses and mother-of-the-bride outfits? Does that really sound like me?’

  Oh, lord. She felt a moment of panic. ‘I don’t— Rob, talk to me about this wedding. I don’t know anything about it, who’s coming, how formal it will be, how dressy—anything. And I don’t want to let Jenni down or look ridiculously over-dressed, but I have no idea what’s expected.’

  ‘Just be there for your daughter, wearing whatever makes you feel good, so long as it doesn’t clash with the bridesmaids or the kilts.’

  ‘You’re wearing a kilt?’

  He smiled patiently. ‘Of course I am, Maisie. I’m the Laird. All the men will be in kilts, particularly the groom’s party. I’ll be in the Mackenzie dress tartan, which is mostly green and blue with broad checks of white and a fine red line, and the Cooper tartan’s green and blue but with a mauve line, so I think Jenni’s working that in for the bridesmaids and Alec’s cravat. The jackets will all be black. As for the day— well, that’s a bit more complicated. There will be people who have to be invited, people who will expect to come as well as family and friends. And the villagers will expect it to be done right. My daughter’s getting married. It’s not often there’s a wedding in the castle, so there’ll be one hell of a party, make no mistake.’

  ‘And you, I take it, will be footing the bill for this party?’

  He chuckled wryly. ‘Of course. We’ll host a ceilidh for everyone in the evening. The marquee will be outside, and we’ll just have to hope it doesn’t rain, but if it does, these folk are Scottish, they’re used to a bit of mist.’

  She laughed at that. ‘I seem to remember rather more than mist.’

  His mouth tipped in a smile, but then the smile faded and he searched her eyes. ‘You never did like the rain, did you? Or much else, come to that. Jenni asked me to be kind to you—she said you hated it here, that you’d be nervous about coming back.’

  Oh, Jenni was right, she had certainly hated it here, especially at the end, but nervous?

  ‘No. I’m not nervous. Concerned, perhaps. It wasn’t a happy time for me.’

  His jaw worked briefly. ‘No. She said you’d be unsure of your welcome, but I hope you’re not. You are welcome here, you do know that, don’t you? Mrs McCrae’s talked about nothing else since Jenni told her you were coming.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  She waited, holding her breath in the heartbeat of silence that followed, then he sighed and turned his head to stare out over the sea.

  ‘She’s not sure of her place. She’s been mistress of the house for thirty-odd years, ever since my uncle died, and she’s been unhappy here for most of that time. It’s only since Jenni’s been coming here regularly that she’s seemed more settled, but now, with Jenni marrying Alec and moving out of the house, she’s back to that strange limbo.’

  ‘Because you’re not married?’ she asked shrewdly, and he nodded, his mouth twisting into a wry smile.

  ‘Exactly so. She’s mistress, and yet she’s not. If I were to marry again, she’d be ousted from her place, and I think she’s always wondered if that would happen.’

  ‘Will it?’ she asked a little rashly before her brain could control her mouth, but he just tipped his head slightly on one side and looked back at her with a curious, searching expression on his face.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So—does that mean there might be someone? Am I going to have to share the top table with another woman at the wedding?’

  He gave a startled laugh and shrugged away from the wall. ‘No, Maisie. There’s no other woman. I’ve only ever got close enough once and, frankly, that was enough in one lifetime.’

  It should have reassured her, but it didn’t. It unsettled her, as if by asking one question she’d prompted him to answer another, and the answer cut her to the quick. Suddenly he was standing too close, so close that she could feel his body radiating heat, reminding her of all she’d lost. She backed away.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I might go and unpack, sort my things out a little before tomorrow, and the dogs look as if they’re expecting you to take them for a walk. What time are we eating tonight?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll see you at dinner. I’m looking forward to meeting Alec’s parents. Actually, good point—do you still dress for it?’

  He laughed and shook his head. ‘No, we don’t dress for dinner. We don’t stand on ceremony much at all now, although Mrs McCrae still insists on serving us in the dining room. Usually we eat lunch in the kitchen, though. You were honoured.’

  Honoured? She felt lost, dislocated from her life, from all the things that kept her sane.

  ‘I’ll see you at seven,’ she said, and turning on her heel she crossed the lawn swiftly and went in through the door into the side passage, then up the back stairs to her room. She closed the door behind her with relief, then crossed to the window and sat on the padded seat where she’d spent so much time with Jenni as a baby, rocking her for comfort— but comfort for who? For the baby, or herself?

  He was right, she thought, looking out of the window. The view was beautiful, and she’d always loved it, loved it for the freedom it brought her, the distance, the ever-changing landscape of the sea music to her soul. Rob was down there now, walking along the shore, heading up towards the ruins of the old castle.

  They’d gone up there, sometimes, to be alone, that first September before she’d realised she was expecting Jenni, before it had all changed. It had been magical, their special place, almost sacred to them, but after they were married, of course, they hadn’t needed to go there to be alone, and she’d missed it. Missed making love with Rob, the sweet scent of grass and the salt tang of the sea and the harsh cries of gulls all around them. They’d been such good times, infinitely precious. Where had they gone?

  She rested her shoulders back against the shutters and let herself feel the warmth of the sun on her face. It was setting now, starting to fade as the evening wore on, and the sky was shot through with purple and gold.

  She’d watched so many sunsets from this window in the days and weeks after Jenni’s birth, counting the days to Rob’s return, marking them off as the setting sun marked the end of each lonely and interminable day without him, and sometimes she’d taken Jenni and gone up to the old castle and stared out to sea, wondering where he was, desperate for him to come home. She’d been so lonely without him, but then, when he’d come back, there had been this strange awkwardness between them, a chasm she hadn’t known how to cross, and she’d been even more lonely then.

  The memory chilled her, and she rubbed her arms briskly and stood up, opening her case and shaking out her clothes. She’d only packed enough for a few days, but Rob seemed to think she’d need to be here for weeks.

  We’ll see, she thought.


  Days were one thing. Weeks, she was beginning to realise, might be quite another…

  ‘Rob tells me you want to pay for the dress.’

  Maisie met Helen’s eyes unflinchingly, not wanting to upset her but determined not to back down. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, I know you offered, but I really feel it’s my place.’

  ‘Are you sure? Wedding dresses can be dreadfully expensive, and I know you only work part time. I wouldn’t want you to feel you had to scrimp.’

  She hung onto her temper with difficulty. ‘Helen, I can afford her dress,’ she said firmly. ‘And mine. Don’t worry, she won’t disgrace you—or, more importantly, herself. She can tell you all about it when we get back.’ And then, because Helen’s eyes were filled with hurt, she went on, her voice softening, ‘If you really want to give her something to wear on the day, offer to pay for her veil. She’d be really pleased at that, and she can hand it on to her own daughter.’

  As Maisie herself would have done, if she’d had the chance, but her wedding to Rob had been hasty, restricted to immediate members of the family, and under the circumstances the very idea of a veil would have been ludicrous.

  She heard voices behind them, and Jenni clattered down the stairs, long auburn hair flying, eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Oh, this is going to be such fun. Are we all ready—? Oh, Grannie, why are you still in your dressing gown? Aren’t you well?’

  ‘I’m fine, but I’ve decided not to go with you, darling. This is for you and your mother to do. I’ll look forward to hearing all about it when you get back.’

  Had Helen been meant to come? Oh, no, she hadn’t realised that, and for all Helen’s faults, Jenni loved her grandmother. She felt a wash of guilt and turned to her. ‘We can get a later train. Why don’t you come—do what I suggested?’ she said softly, but Helen shook her head.

  ‘No. We’ll get the veil some other time. You go together, you’ll have a lovely day, and I get Jenni all the time now, don’t forget.’

  She hadn’t. It was a constant ache that her darling daughter was so far away from her now, her life almost exclusively up here in the wilds of the West Highlands. And time spent with her was infinitely precious.

  She nodded, touched at Helen’s understanding, wondering if perhaps she had misunderstood her years ago, or if Helen had simply mellowed with age. ‘Thank you. Come on, then, Jenni, let’s go. We’ve got a lot to do.’

  Glasgow was bustling, but the rain which had threatened earlier had cleared by the time they arrived and the sky was a glorious blue. Just as well, since Jenni had orchestrated a tight schedule.

  They started at the top of her list and worked steadily downwards through the bridal shops and departments, and as she flicked through the rails of dresses, shaking her head, pulling a face, making ‘hmm’ noises, it began to dawn on Maisie what this task entailed.

  Jenni tried on umpteen dresses in several shops, standing on a box so that the dresses hung without crumpling on the floor, while the ladies adjusted them with huge clips at the back to pull them in if they were too big. Just so she could get the idea.

  ‘How long would it take to alter them?’ she asked again and again, and rejected several on the grounds that there simply wasn’t time to have them taken in or up or both. Others were rejected because they were encrusted with crystals or smothered in embroidery or just didn’t feel right, and in the end they couldn’t remember what she had tried on. Lots, though.

  They paused for coffee after the second shop, to catch their breath and sober up because in both shops they’d been offered sparkling wine, and then they tackled the third.

  ‘That was awful. I hated everything in there,’ Jenni said as they emerged, and they had a chuckle and found a café for lunch.

  ‘Mummy, what are we going to do if I can’t find anything I like?’ she asked, picking her way through a toasted panini with a thoughtful look on her face.

  ‘I don’t know, darling. Keep looking?’

  ‘I don’t have time. And we’ve still got to get you sorted out.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, I can get my outfit any time.’

  ‘But I want to be with you! And I’ve got my finals coming up, and if it’s all going to be like this, it’ll be impossible.’

  She looked near to tears, and Maisie squeezed her hand. ‘Darling, it’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ll find something. There are thousands of dresses out there.’

  And none of them seemed to suit her, for one reason or another. It wasn’t that she was being unreasonably picky, she just hadn’t yet seen The One.

  ‘Right, two more to go. Let’s get on,’ Jenni said, stuffing her list back into her bag and getting to her feet.

  And then finally, when Maisie was beginning to think it would take at least another day, they went to the last shop on her list. It was down a side street, tucked away where you would scarcely find it even by accident, and they were led upstairs and ushered to a seating area by a kindly but efficient matron called Mrs Munro.

  ‘What are you looking for? Grecian, retro, sixties, traditional, princess, vintage?’

  ‘Something simple but interesting. I don’t know. The feel of the fabric’s really important, and I don’t want a huge dress. Alec says if I look like a pavlova walking down the aisle, he’s leaving.’

  Maisie gave a splutter of shocked laughter. ‘Oh, Jenni! I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘He’ll adore it, whatever you have,’ Mrs Munro said sagely. ‘If the dress is right for you, he’ll only see you, my dear, believe me. Right. White, ivory, cream? Or a colour?’

  ‘Not a colour. Ivory, probably.’

  ‘And the wedding’s quite soon, you say, so it has to be something in stock—so, will you be needing to allow a little extra room?’ she asked with a twinkle, voicing the question that Maisie had been afraid to ask, but Jenni coloured and shook her head hastily.

  ‘No, nothing like that. My fiancé works on a sporting estate. We have to fit round the seasons, and we didn’t want a winter wedding and we didn’t want to wait till next year.’

  She nodded, made Jenni stand up and turn round, and then disappeared.

  ‘Gosh, she’s a bit scary, I can’t believe she thought I was pregnant,’ Jenni whispered, and Maisie suppressed a little flutter of panic.

  ‘Let’s just hope she knows what she’s doing,’ she whispered back, reining in her thoughts. ‘I wonder what she’ll come up with?’

  Trumps. That was what she came up with. She emerged from a cluster of rails with a single dress and hung it on the rail by the door.

  ‘Oh, look, Mum, it’s gorgeous,’ Jenni breathed. ‘Look at the fabric!’

  ‘None of them look anything on the hanger. That’s why I don’t encourage people to look at them like that, but I’ve never seen this one on, so let’s try it and see.’

  So Jenni disappeared into the fitting room, and Maisie sat and sipped spring water—not sparkling wine, because, as the scary matron said, one needed a clear head for these things and there’d be plenty of time for that later!

  And then Jenni came out in a dress like nothing else she’d tried. It was exquisite, a beautiful off-white crinkled silk, with a strap over one shoulder and soft asymmetric pleats across the body, hugging her figure to mid-thigh and then flaring out in a flamenco-style skirt that swept the floor.

  She looked—heavens, she looked like a bride, Maisie thought, filling up, and put her glass down hurriedly and pressed her fingers to her mouth.

  ‘Oh, darling, you look…’

  She couldn’t finish, her eyes welling up and flooding over, and Jenni burst into tears and went into her arms.

  ‘Oh, Mummy, I love it!’

  ‘So do I. You look so beautiful—stand back, let me see you again. Turn round—oh, Jenni, it’s fabulous.’ She met the matron’s eye and found an unexpected sheen in them.

  Mrs Munro cleared her throat. ‘That’s the dress,’ she said firmly. ‘I can always tell when I s
ee it on. I wasn’t going to show it to you, because I’ve only just had it in today and it could do with a wee steam, but I thought the moment I saw you it might be the one for you, and it is. Oh, it most definitely is.’ And with a little sniff, she dished out tissues all round, gave Jenni a brisk hug and moved on.

  ‘So the wedding’s in mid-June, you say? We need to make sure this dress is ready for then. Now, I promise you I’ve only just had it in, and you’re the first person to try it, so it really is a new dress, so you needn’t worry about buying a sample that lots of people have tried on. And I must say, I don’t think it needs any alteration at all. What height heel are you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing huge. I haven’t looked yet, but Alec’s only three inches taller than me, so I don’t want to tower over him.’

  ‘Very wise. What size are you?’

  She found a pair of shoes with the right sort of heel height that went beautifully with the dress, and when Jenni put them on the length was perfect.

  ‘Oh, they’re lovely. Are they for sale?’

  ‘Indeed they are. So, all you need to do now is take your dress home, hang it up in a dark room with a cotton cover over it, and you’ll be ready to go. It might need a wee steam just before the day, but we can see to that, if you like, and you can pick it up nearer the time. It’s up to you. We just need to choose the veil, if you’re having one, and then you’re finished. So, where’s the wedding? Somewhere windy?’

  ‘Ardnashiel.’

  The matron stopped and looked at her. ‘Ah, you’re that Jennifer Mackenzie,’ she said, nodding in delight. ‘I saw the announcement in the paper yesterday. Well, it could certainly be windy up there on the coast, but you couldn’t want a more beautiful setting. A long veil can be a bit of a handful and it’ll need anchoring firmly, but they can look wonderful in the photographs on a windy day. Have a look and see if there are any that take your eye.’

  The veils were all beautiful, and caused more tears. ‘I don’t know what Grannie’ll think if I choose it without her. She should be here—she’s buying it for me,’ she explained.