Light a Penny Candle

by Maeve Binchy

  But of course, Joannie Murray wouldn’t have a dog’s chance of upstaging this bride, even if it had been in her mind. Aisling was going to knock them sideways when she came in.

  Elizabeth had actually gasped when she saw Aisling in the dress. It did everything that a wedding dress could do, and you got the feeling that Aisling never wore any other kind of clothes. Elizabeth knew that Aunt Eileen said that the wedding dress could cost whatever Aisling wanted to pay for it. When Aunt Eileen got married it had been a drab and poor affair, in a dress borrowed from a cousin. Aunt Eileen’s own family, with notions of being genteel, had no money and they were disappointed that she was marrying Uncle Sean, who not only had no money but hadn’t even notions of being genteel. The wedding ceremony had not been colourful. Then, although nobody admitted it aloud, the wedding of Maureen and Brendan had been so masterminded by the Dalys and what they would like and what they wouldn’t, that the O’Connors seemed to do nothing but pay for it. This time Aunt Eileen dug her heels in, and she knew she had an ally. Aisling was not afraid of the Murrays, Aisling would do it right.

  Together they had gone to Dublin on the bus, they had spent a morning looking at materials and an afternoon looking at patterns. Then, armed with ideas they went in to the dress designer in Grafton Street who made dresses for the best. She knew she was not dealing with country hicks here … they were informed, this mother and daughter. They were also happy to pay a deposit in advance. The dress designer became enthusiastic about the tall, auburn-haired girl with the bright face. It had been a labour of love. Nobody but Elizabeth knew how much it had cost. Maureen had been told one sum, Uncle Sean had been told another. Mrs Murray had not been told anything, despite her discreet probing about where it was made and what it was like. Only when Elizabeth saw it on Aisling did she realise that it was worth every penny just for the sheer impression that Aisling would make on all their minds. The dress was satin. Heavy white satin, and not sateen which was all they had seen in Kilgarret for many a wedding. It had a full skirt which seemed to billow out and make her waist tiny. The long tight sleeves came down in little points, vees below her wrists and onto her hands making her arms more slender than they could possibly have ever been. The neckline, another vee, had little seed pearls to pick it out.

  The satin looked so rich and cold it could have been marble. On any other girl the dress might have been deadening, it would have made another face seem wishy-washy, Elizabeth thought, a thinner paler girl would have looked like a doll in the dress. Aisling looked like a star.

  Mrs Moriarty’s sister played the organ, and somebody must have nodded to her because the organ stopped its rambling, gentle notes and gave a burst that startled everyone in the church; but they were standing up in a trice and Tony, his face red from the marks of his hands, stood more quickly than any of them. He looked over at the bride’s side: both Aunt Eileen and Elizabeth smiled at him encouragingly. He gave a scowl which turned into a sort of smile. It was endearing in a funny way. Eamonn and Donal had slipped back into the O’Connor pew and they all shuffled a little to leave room for Uncle Sean when he had given Aisling away.

  He looked sweet, Uncle Sean, Elizabeth thought, staring ahead of him with a rigid glance as if he were going to be executed, watching each foot as it went in front of him in case one of them might escape. Both his elbows were squeezed into his sides as if he were carrying precious documents that might fall. Aisling’s arm might well have been squashed flat but there wasn’t a sign of it on her face.

  Far from the nervous, demure bride, shy because all eyes were on her, she was utterly in control; she smiled left and right seeing the admiration and even the shock of how well she looked. The church in Kilgarret hadn’t seen a bride like this in a while. Her hair was the best decoration she could ever have planned; it escaped deliberately in bronze curls and ringlets, a flash of rich colour in the middle of all the white. The walk up the church took forever, Elizabeth thought, and then they were at the altar. Uncle Sean handed her to Tony, and loosening his collar stepped in beside Aunt Eileen. The bride and groom moved inside the altar rail and up the steps. The dress was so perfect that you could see Aisling’s figure to the best advantage without it looking at all revealing. That was the cunning of the thing, that’s why the woman in Grafton Street hadn’t charged too much.

  Aunt Eileen leaned over in front of Elizabeth and caught Maureen’s hand. ‘Here we go again,’ she said. ‘Just like your wedding all over again isn’t it?’

  Maureen’s face brightened up a lot. ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she whispered eagerly. ‘Of course, I couldn’t have known, being up there in the altar myself.’

  ‘It was just like this,’ Eileen hissed back firmly.

  Elizabeth saw Maureen’s face relax into a pleased smile as the congregation sat down and watched Anthony James Finbarr Murray take this woman, Mary Aisling as his wedded wife.

  ‘In all the years I never knew Aisling was called Mary,’ Elizabeth gasped to Maureen.

  ‘It’s a saint’s name, you eejit,’ Maureen whispered. ‘She couldn’t have been baptised Aisling, it’s not the name of a saint.’

  ‘I never new that,’ Elizabeth said, settling down for the rest of the ceremony.

  At the hotel, a room had been reserved for the bride’s family. This had been regarded as the most ludicrous of a series of ludicrous expenses. The bride’s family, after all, lived a thirty-second walk across the square from the hotel. They had all the rooms they wanted there. But no, the management said that it was included in the whole price and he begged them to avail of it. There was no refund if they didn’t. And anyway they would find it a great assistance. Maureen was complaining that the light in the shop where she bought the taffeta dress had been faulty. Eileen said that she looked like a very elegant, smartly-dressed young woman and she was to stop whinging and whining. Aisling had taken off her white stockings and had one foot in a handbasin.

  ‘The bloody shoes are too tight, Mam, I knew it.’

  ‘Are you doing the right thing, Mrs Murray, bathing them? You might make it harder to get the shoes back on.’

  ‘Janey, Aisling’s Mrs Murray,’ said Niamh, who was examining what she deeply suspected was a spot on her chin. ‘Imagine, my sisters, Mrs Daly and Mrs Murray. …’

  For some reason this cheered Maureen up. ‘You’ll be Mrs Somebody too, Niamh, you mustn’t worry,’ she said kindly.

  ‘Of course I’m not worrying, Maureen you old eejit, I’m only fifteen. I’m not even old enough to get married if they were all after me.’

  ‘Will Mrs Murray want to come in here and powder her nose?’ asked Maureen, looking at the door nervously.

  ‘Well if she does she can powder it outside,’ Aisling said, drying her feet. ‘This is for the bride’s family, it says so on Daddy’s estimate. It says no wicked mothers-in-law permitted.’

  ‘She looks very well in that navy, doesn’t she? Ethel has always had great taste.’ Eileen was trying to be just.

  ‘Oh Mam, she looks like the wrath of God, and you know it … her face is like a flour-bag, it’s so white.’

  ‘Don’t blame the woman for her appearance, now Aisling.’

  ‘Listen to me Mam.’ Aisling stood in one stocking, hopped over to her mother and put her hands firmly on Eileen’s shoulders. ‘Now hear this, Mam, you’re not talking to bold, difficult Aisling O’Connor any more, since half an hour ago you’re talking to young Mrs Tony Murray … and by God if I want to call old Mrs Ethel Murray a hideous old bag, which is what she is, I’ll call her that all day long.’

  ‘Well you’re going to have a fine easy life ahead of you if you go on like that, young Mrs Murray,’ said Eileen. ‘Here hold on to me and put on your stocking, we should be downstairs already. …’

  ‘It’s all going awfully well, isn’t it?’ Elizabeth said. ‘Aren’t you pleased with it all?’

  ‘I hope so. There’s three things I wish were over … this reception, all this awful losing virginity thing and bleeding an
d screaming … and I want to have got myself in the position where old bag Mrs Murray is afraid of me rather than the other way round. …’

  ‘There won’t be bleeding and screaming, you always exaggerate. …’

  ‘No, I’m sure there won’t. I think the battle over Ma-in-law is going to be worse than sexual intercourse … come on, let’s hit the reception. Where’s Niamh? She’s meant to be standing beside me like an acolyte catering for my every whim, but she’s picking her spots in front of every mirror she finds.’

  Tony was waiting at the bottom of the stairs; Shay Ferguson was there with a large whisky in each hand.

  ‘Give her a belt, Tony, let her know that your Missus can’t keep you waiting.’

  ‘It’s a rural witticism,’ Aisling said over her shoulder to Elizabeth.

  ‘You look gorgeous, gorgeous,’ Tony said.

  ‘You look lovely yourself,’ Aisling said to him.

  Elizabeth relaxed. She took Niamh by the arm. ‘Since they’re paying compliments … you look lovely too … and there are probably more people looking at you than at Aisling. She’s out of the race now, you’re still available … the only glamorous girl in the competition. …’

  ‘What about you, Elizabeth … you’re not married yet?’

  ‘Ah no, but I’m in love,’ Elizabeth said in an uncharacteristic burst of information. ‘I have the look of a promised woman about me.’

  Elizabeth remembered something. She hadn’t thought about Johnny for two days. She had thought she would have him in the front of her mind all during the wedding, that every moment she would wish it was the two of them going through the ceremony, with family and friends and all the promising to love and honour and obey and everything. But she had never even thought of him. What did it mean?

  The hotel sitting room was transformed. All the chairs and sofas had been pushed back against the wall and four waitresses stood with trays of sherry glasses. There were minerals on the trays too for those who didn’t partake. Elizabeth looked with interest at the scene … she hadn’t been able to stare properly in the church in case she was being disrespectful, but here it was perfectly acceptable. Some of the older women she recognised immediately. Mr and Mrs Moriarty from the chemist … how tall she had grown, how elegant she looked … any hope of seeing her take the plunge? … how well the Moriartys looked, how little they had changed … how much Donal liked working in the shop. …

  Mrs Lynch, Berna’s mother … oh yes, she remembered Elizabeth well, how pretty she was, ah well, that’s what came of a nice life with no cares over there in England, as for herself, nobody knew the troubles she had seen … and her poor husband, the doctor, the Lord have mercy on him, did Elizabeth remember him? Well the poor man had gone to his reward five years now this June. Yes, wasn’t it dreadful, the best husband and father a family ever had, his poor liver had been weak, a dreadful death he died. No, Berna wasn’t married yet, but she worked in Limerick and had a boyfriend. …

  She was trapped then by Joannie. ‘How much did your suit cost?’ Joannie said. No word of greeting, no amazement at not having met for nine years, no expression of pleasure at the wedding or of admiration at the bride.

  ‘They seem awfully happy,’ Elizabeth said on a slightly rising note, to see what Joannie would answer.

  She looked over at Aisling and Tony ruminatively for a few moments. ‘Well, I don’t know what took them so long … they’ve been walking out together for as long as I can remember. I suppose they’ll be all right but I don’t know what they want to live in this one-horse town for.’

  ‘I don’t know, but of course Aisling likes Kilgarret, she likes being near her family.

  ‘She must be off her head,’ said Joannie.

  ‘They’re a very nice family. Of course, I was utterly devoted to them when I lived here. I still am.’ Elizabeth’s voice was slightly sharp but not nearly as sharp as she felt. How dare Joannie Murray dismiss the whole O’Connor clan with one ignorant remark?

  Joannie noticed the sharpness. ‘Oh no, I’m not saying a word against them. I’m just saying I couldn’t live here … I don’t know what I’d do with myself all the time … and you know there was murder altogether because Aisling wanted to go on working in the shop … did you know that?’

  ‘In whose shop?’

  ‘In her own, in the O’Connors’ store. Imagine, a married woman working there with all the farm implements?’

  ‘Aunt Eileen has worked there for thirty years, she’s a married woman.’

  ‘It’s different for Mrs O’Connor, she’s the family.’

  ‘And Aisling’s the family, isn’t she?’ Elizabeth was bewildered.

  ‘Not any more … she’s a Murray now … she can’t do what she likes any more. The Ma will see to that.’

  ‘That sounds very depressing I must say.’

  Joannie shrugged. ‘What did I tell you, this is a depressing, hick town.’

  Uncle Sean was looking at his glass of sherry as if it were a glass of poison.

  ‘I don’t know how people drink this stuff, Molly,’ he said to the waitress, whom he had known since she was a baby.

  ‘Sure, wasn’t it what you ordered yourself, Sean … two kinds of sherry.’

  ‘I didn’t expect to be having to drink it,’ he laughed.

  ‘Yerra, why don’t you take a glass of the orange instead, it would be more refreshing?’

  Elizabeth laughed at him.

  ‘Go on, Uncle Sean, all the best people are drinking orange … look, the bridegroom is even drinking it.’

  Uncle Sean looked over at Tony. ‘Well, by God, that’s a turn-up for the books. Your man normally has a fierce thirst on him. I’d say he has a drop of something in it … he’s looking far too cheerful.’

  ‘Oh Uncle Sean, don’t be so unromantic. It’s his wedding day! No wonder he’s looking cheerful.’

  ‘No, he’s unnaturally high-spirited. I’ll bet you ten shillings he’s got something in it.’

  ‘Well I won’t take you on, it would be a highly disruptive thing to go round sniffing people’s orange juice. Isn’t it all super, Uncle Sean … aren’t you delighted with it all?’

  ‘I am, child, I am. And if you’ll come over here and marry an Irishman I’ll give you a wedding like this too … but we’ll have none of this sherry.’

  ‘That’s lovely of you. I bet you would give me a wedding, but rest assured I won’t call on you. Save up for

  Niamh’s instead.’

  ‘Sure who’d have Niamh? She’s a desperate terror.’

  ‘You used to wonder who’d have Aisling, and now look at her.’

  ‘Men are terrible fools, Elizabeth. I often thank the good Lord that He guided me to make such a sensible choice myself when I was a young lad. I was a lucky man to get so fine a wife as your aunt.’

  She walked with him towards Aunt Eileen who had been making faces at them.

  ‘I think it’s time to move them in to the dining room. Sean, will we get them going? Ethel Murray’s looked at her watch three times.’

  With a surprising vehemence Elizabeth said, ‘Don’t dare to do anything to please Ethel Murray, Aunt Eileen, you’re worth twenty of her, a hundred and twenty of her. You move them into the dining room when you’re ready, not before!’

  The place names had been checked, and double-checked, by Mrs Murray that morning. The seating plan had taken a lot of working out. Who exactly were the Halleys, she had asked Aisling? Were they the kind of people you could place near Father Riordan? But now it had all been finalised. Uncle Sean’s pleas that he couldn’t talk to Mrs Murray all through the meal had been ignored, as had Joannie’s request that she sit at the end of a table where she didn’t have to talk to anyone. All the grapefruits were already in place in their little glass dishes, each with a cherry-half on top. There were two glasses beside every plate. The Murray family had contributed a dozen bottles of champagne, and this would be used for the toast. There were teacups at each place too and jugs of mil
k and bowls of sugar on the table. The wedding cake was on a side table. There had been a lot of discussion about this, too. Mrs Murray said she believed it should be on the main table, Aisling said that if it were on the table the bride and groom wouldn’t be able to see anyone. Maureen said that of course a wedding cake must be on the table, it was the tradition, and Aunt Eileen said that if Aisling would like the wedding cake kept in the back yard that was fine. Miss Donnelly in the hotel had said that the side table was a good idea and the whole table could be carried over for the cutting ceremony so that there would be no danger of the cake breaking.

  In little hesitant trickles they moved into the dining room. Some of them exclaimed at how nice it all looked, others raked the table for their own place names before saying anything at all. Immediately people discovered their own name they snatched up the name on either side of them. ‘There seem to be two women sitting together here,’ called Mrs Halley disapprovingly, finding herself beside Brendan Daly’s aunt.

  ‘There are more ladies amongst the guests than gentlemen,’ hissed Miss Donnelly, annoyed to hear the complaints beginning before people sat down. The buzz of conversation had died down as people came in to the dining room, a silence almost like the respectful hush of a church came over them. Elizabeth was hoping that she might be between Donal and Eamonn. She knew that neither of them wanted to make conversation with uncles or priests and she herself felt a bit at a loss. But the endless negotiations had put her beside Shay Ferguson on one side and Father Riordan on the other. Half the people had settled into their seats, and some of them, like the Halleys, had already begun to eat the bread and butter when there was a loud cough.

  Father Mahony, the elderly parish priest who had married Tony and Aisling, was clearing his throat.