Francesca and the Mermaid

by Beryl Kingston

  Francesca worked on her bird’s-eye picture of the parade for the next three weekends even though the declining light gave her less and less time for it. But by the end of November she’d done enough to know that it was going to be good.

  ‘It’ll soon be Christmas,’ Henry said as they lay in bed one Sunday evening.

  ‘I suppose it will,’ Francesca said. How the time had rushed them along.

  ‘Four week’s time,’ Henry said ‘Let’s have a party on Boxing Day. What do you think?’

  But the fact that Christmas was only four weeks away was making Francesca think of something else. She hadn’t had a period for ages. She couldn’t be pregnant, could she? She’d have to find her pocket diary and check the date of the last one. She was warm and comfortable for the moment, cuddled up in their great bed, and she didn’t want to go on a diary hunt but she would find it in the morning.

  She discovered it after breakfast, hidden away in one of her summer handbags and did the maths when she was sitting at her station and preparing to start work on yet another mermaid. It was nearly seven weeks. Then I must be, she thought. How great is that? She was tremulous with excitement at the mere thought. Our baby, she thought, remembering the way he’d spoken about it. Our baby. I’ll drive into Lewes after work and get a testing kit. What a good job I’ve got my car. Henry had meetings that went on long after work on Mondays so they’d got into the habit of using both cars on that day. I shall get the kit and do the test and if it’s what I think I’ll make something special for our dinner and tell him while we’re eating it.

  But once she’d used the kit, she was too excited to wait as much as a minute and rushed at him as soon as she heard his key in the door.

  ‘Guess what!’ she said.

  ‘What?’ he said, laughing at her.

  ‘You know we said we’d let nature take its course. Well it has. I’ve got pheasant for dinner and a charlotte rousse. I thought you might like to celebrate.’

  He was so delighted he knew he was grinning like an idiot. ‘My dear, dear darling,’ he said. ‘When will it be?’

  She’d done that maths too. ‘June.’

  He was full of practical concern. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ he asked, hugging her.

  ‘I haven’t got a doctor.’

  ‘Then you must see mine. She’s excellent. And when that’s settled I suppose I’d better make an honest women of you.’

  ‘There’s no rush,’ she told him. ‘We’ve got months yet. And weddings take a bit of arranging.’

  ‘I’m an expert at arranging things,’ he said. ‘You can leave it all to me. It’ll be a doddle.’

  ‘Let’s dish the pheasant up first,’ she said laughing at him.

  After they’d eaten their charlotte rousse, they made the first of their plans. They would hold a very special Boxing Day party and invite all their friends to the wedding by putting invitation cards on their plates at supper. Henry was bubbling with the delight of it. ‘We won’t say what it’s for,’ he said. ‘We’ll just ask them to keep the date free and tease them a bit.’

  So the party was planned and they set about choosing the date and the place. Neither of them wanted a church wedding and, once they gathered a selection of brochures, Francesca said of all the possible places they could be married in she would much prefer the castle. By the time the cards were printed, the arrangements had been made. When they walked in to supper, their friends found a Boxing Day card beside their plates asking them to mark Easter Saturday in next year’s calendar and to keep it free for a special party in the Castle.

  One or two were mystified and looked across at their hosts for an explanation but Agnes and Babs were onto it at once.

  ‘You’re getting married!’ Babs squealed. ‘You absolute darlings!’ And rushed round the table to kiss them both.

  And Agnes followed her, saying, ‘Me dears. Best news I’ve had in a long time. Every happiness and all that.’ And then had to blow her nose quite fiercely because her eyes were full of happy tears.

  ‘Ah well!’ Henry said pretending to be disappointed that they’d worked it out, ‘then I suppose I’d better tell you the rest of our news. We’re expecting our first baby in June.’

  And at that they weren’t just kissed but cheered. And Henry had his back slapped until it was sore and it took quite a long time before they could all settle to supper and champagne.

  It was, as he and Francesca told one another when they finally got to bed in the early hours, one of the best parties ever.

  CHAPTER 22

  It was Easter Saturday and the wedding guests were gathering in the castle keep, the spring sun warm on their carefully arranged hair, their feathery fascinators and their extravagant hats. The bridegroom was waiting quietly in the first chair to the right of the carpeted aisle, his hands on his knees and his face serious. From time to time he turned his head to smile at his old friend Agnes Potts, who was sitting on the other side of the aisle, resplendent in a huge straw hat smothered in bright and impossible flowers. The musicians sat, tuned and waiting, under their white canopy, the registrar stood, smiling and waiting, centre stage and elegant in a long dress the colour of bluebells. There was a chirrup of greetings and happy talk, a flutter of multi-coloured movement as the last of the guests scampered to their seats across the gentle green of the lawn. It would soon be time for the service to begin.

  He’s nervous, Agnes thought, watching Henry as the wait went on. It seemed out of character in a man so sure of himself but rather touching. Come along Francesca, she thought. Don’t keep the poor man waiting. The car must have collected you by now.

  It had arrived at the house at exactly the set time, its white ribbons a-flutter, the chauffeur smart in his grey uniform. And the bride had been ready for it and had smiled as the chauffeur held her bouquet while she took her seat. It had all gone according to plan. And now she was on her own, the way she’d wanted to be, climbing the winding path that she’d painted in that long ago summer, remembering and savouring, enjoying the sight of the white and gold ribbons that decorated the guide ropes and thinking how well they matched her white and gold bouquet, the sun warm on her head, her sea-green gown soft against her skin and draped prettily over her bump, the baby kicking its feet as steadily as a heartbeat. She climbed in a happy dream, each careful step taking her away from her old, timid life, up and up towards another and better one. Even now when she was minutes away from making her vows, it was still hard to believe that she’d come so far and changed so much, even though the facts were singing in her head like birds. The mermaid was still selling well and so were the chaffinches. She was an established portrait painter. She had more money than she could ever have dreamed possible. She had friends. She was loved.

  Somewhere above her an orchestra began to play and she listened to it happily. It was several seconds before she realized that they were playing the Wedding March and that it was being played for her and then she was in the Keep and all her new friends were turning in their seats to smile at her and Henry was standing at the end of the aisle waiting for her. Oh such a joy to walk towards him and to stand beside him with her hand in his. Dear, dear Henry.

  ‘Good morning ladies and gentlemen,’ the registrar greeted them in her quiet clear voice. ‘Good morning and welcome to you all. We are gathered here this morning to witness the marriage of Henry Arthur Prendergast and Francesca Jones. . . .’ Their new lives were beginning.

  The ceremony passed in a happy haze, they signed the register in a dizziness of triumph and delight and then they were walking together down the long carpet as their friends threw confetti and kisses at them. And Francesca looked ahead and saw, with a sudden shock of surprise that there was a photographer waiting for them at the end of their walk. She was instantly alert and anxious, wondering if he’d been invited and who had done it and how Henry would cope with seeing him there. Would it be possible to warn him before he. . . ?

  ‘Bride and groom, Mr Prendergast,’ the photograph
er called, ‘with all your friends around you. How would that be for a first shot?’

  And Henry was actually smiling at him and saying ‘Why not?’ as if he didn’t mind at all.

  Francesca was so surprised she didn’t know what to say. ‘Are we. . . ? Are you. . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘We are. Don’t look so worried. It’s all right. We’re going to begin as we mean to go on. This is a red letter day and I want a record of it.’

  The guests were grouping themselves on either side of them, the photographer was giving instructions, the musicians were still playing, the sun was warm as summer. ‘Dear, dear Henry,’ she said.

  From then on cameras seemed to be clicking at them from every side and on every occasion, as they got into Henry’s Merc, as they drove away, as they toasted one another in champagne when they arrived back at the house, as they greeted their guests, as they cut the cake.

  And what a cake it was, carried in shoulder high by two of their green-clad caterers and set before them with a flourish and to prolonged applause. Somehow or other the chef had reproduced their mermaid in full colour just as she’d been painted, swimming in her blue-green sea across the snow white icing, like a creature from a fairy tale, her bronze hair flowing and her golden eyes smiling and intelligent.

  Francesca was so surprised she put up a hand to cover her mouth and Henry beamed at her. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ she said. ‘How on earth did they do it?’

  ‘Trade secret,’ he said, smiling at her.

  ‘It’s beautiful. Much too good to eat.’

  One of the caterers presented them with the ceremonial silver knife which was the grandest she’d ever seen and Henry took it, laughing with delight at the success of his long-planned surprise, and positioned it on the cake ready for the first cut.

  ‘Don’t worry, my darling,’ he said to Francesca. ‘Our mermaid is eternal, like all works of art. Even if we eat every scrap of her image on this cake she’ll still be in our lives. She’ll be in our lives for ever.’

  Francesca was so moved and so overwhelmingly happy she hardly knew how to answer him. ‘Oh Henry,’ she said. ‘I do love you.’ And she put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him tenderly, as their guests cheered and cameras whirred and clicked. It was a perfect moment in a perfect day.

  By the same author

  Off the Rails

  Girl on the Orlop Deck

  © Beryl Kingston

  First published in Great Britain 2015

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1778 6 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1779 3 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1780 9 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 1 910208 07 6 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Beryl Kingston to be identified as

  author of this work has been asserted by her

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

  Patents Act 1988