War Brides

by Helen Bryan

  The butcher’s wife nodded in agreement. “Takes you back to your own wedding, doesn’t it?” she whispered back.

  There was a buzz of similar conversation, and ladies’ hats bobbed as they looked round and admired the decorations. The old church looked lovely. Alice, Frances, and Evangeline had arrived at dawn with armloads of flowers and greenery culled from the last vestiges of flowerbeds and from the countryside to decorate the church. Now a handsome pair of tall Limoges vases that had belonged to Lady Marchmont stood on the altar, spilling over with jasmine, roses, and ivy, while crystal pitchers of cow parsley and honeysuckle filled the deep window alcoves, turning the ancient church into a sweet-smelling bower of green and white. Tanni had made strips of a worn-out sheet into white bows for the end of each pew and tucked a bit of baby’s breath and ivy into each.

  To everyone’s surprise Mrs. Osbourne, who had once played the harmonium at weddings conducted by her late husband, had been cajoled and flattered by Nell Hawthorne into resuming her place at the instrument. She was wearing a feathered picture hat that had not seen the light of day for years and watching for the signal from Oliver to begin the wedding march. Meanwhile she was playing “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” her particular favorite, over and over again. They had played it at her own wedding. The dusty feathers on her hat quivered tremulously as she threw herself into the music, trying different keys.

  Margaret Rose Hawthorne, sitting beside her mother, shivered with anticipation. Weddings were so exciting! Someday, her mother had said, it would be her turn. She had begged a white ribbon from Tanni to put round Shirley Temple’s neck and had sulked when Nell nevertheless firmly refused permission for the pig to be tethered to the churchyard gate.

  Standing at the altar in his vestments, Oliver craned his neck to see if Elsie and her bridesmaids had arrived on the porch yet. Bernie was fidgeting nervously in front of him, hoping he hadn’t done something to make Elsie change her mind. He had come back from London after their row two months ago, lonely and miserable without Elsie. He was determined to ask her to marry him properly. He could see now that he had gone about proposing the wrong way—he should never have mentioned criminal proceedings. Elsie was particular about some things, owed it to her mum, she kept saying. Anxious to get it right the second time, he had shamefacedly made inquiries among his colleagues about how you did it. The toffs had explained what men usually said on these occasions and said it was the usual thing to have a ring at the ready for when the girl went all fluttery and said “yes.” Bernie had had no idea you needed a ring as well, but he returned to Crowmarsh Priors equipped with a beautiful antique sapphire and diamond engagement ring and a speech he had practiced over and over: Would Elsie do him the honor of becoming Mrs. Bernard Carpenter?

  He had spoken his piece and held out the ring. Elsie stared at it, then at him open-mouthed. To his horror, she had stamped her foot and said, “Bernie Carpenter, I wouldn’t marry you if you was the last man on earth! Mum would turn in ’er grave, she would!” Then she had stormed off, muttering darkly about lootin’ and safe-crackin’ and prison and Mum being right and, inexplicably, something about ferrets. She never wanted to see him again and good riddance.

  It had been the worst moment of Bernie’s life. Bewildered and frightened, he had run after her and said all right, he could see she didn’t want a ’usband what was always in prison, but he wasn’t a reformed man until she married him so she’d better marry ’im quick. Meanwhile he planned to have just the one engagement ever in his life and the toffs he worked for said to do it proper you needed a ring and—Then it dawned on him that Elsie thought he’d stolen it. Honest, he hadn’t done no lootin’ to get it, no dodgy deals; he’d traded some Polish airmen “a bit of paperwork” for the ring. All legal and aboveboard. It was the same work he did for the War Office, and since the Poles and the War Office were on the same side fighting Germans, that ought to be all right, oughtn’t it? No gangs! Bernie emphasized, no safes, no looting, no burglary involved. ’Specially, he added, no looting of bomb sites, out of respect for how her mum and Jem and Violet had died. Besides, he said, as something else occurred to him, he loved her and he didn’t think he could do without her. So would she marry him? Please?

  Mollified, Elsie quickly reconsidered. Whatever he promised now, something told her that Bernie and the law would never be friends. For once she wished she knew what Mum would have advised. On the one hand she had no intention of leading Mum’s life, or worse. But Mum was dead. If she married Bernie it would be up to Elsie to keep him on the straight and narrow. For a moment she wondered whether she was up to the job for the rest of her life. But as she gazed into Bernie’s anxious face, she decided perhaps she had learned a thing or two from her mother about keeping men in line, so perhaps she was. Finally she gave him a smile, said, “All right then, Bernie, I don’t mind if I do,” kissed him, slipped on the ring, and sighed. “Fancy! Me engaged!”

  Elsie seized every opportunity thereafter to call Bernie “me fiansay” and Bernie felt proud, though he didn’t know what the word meant, exactly.

  Now, fiansay or not, Bernie wondered if someone could stop the old woman playing the same tune over and over and over. Hot and self-conscious, he ran a finger round the inside of his collar, which felt too tight. He wasn’t sure what you were supposed to do standin’ up front like this with everybody starin’ at you. Probably laughin’ behind their ’ands too. He didn’t know why they had to make you so nervous. It was all very well having Constable Barrows as his best man—something else the toffs said you needed—but he wished Uncle was there.

  Bernie hadn’t known much about getting married and vaguely assumed you just ran off to Gretna Green and did it. But, oh, no!

  Constable Barrows said you were supposed to go speak to the girl’s father first and ask permission to marry her. Then you had to speak to the vicar and get a license and there were the banns…Bernie scratched his head and said the first was a mite difficult, as no one knew where Elsie’s dad was. He hadn’t been seen for years and was probably dead in the bombing or died of the drink. Constable Barrows had considered and said, “In that case better speak to the vicar,” so he and Elsie had done that. And that part had gone pretty well, considering. Next thing he knew Elsie didn’t have any spare time for him, the women were busy chasing a dress for her to be married in and Tanni was sewing like blazes. Something called a trousseau.

  He nudged Constable Barrows. “’Ere! A bit awkward, innit, standin’ in front of everybody, waitin’. Shouldn’t Elsie be walkin’ down the aisle by now?” he muttered. What if she changed her mind at the last minute?

  “They all do this, lad,” said Constable Barrows with calm authority. His wife, Edith, had assured him men had no idea, no idea at all, of the last-minute crises with hairpins and veils and garters and bouquets on the most important day of a girl’s life. He smiled at Edith in her best hat, holding the baby, looking sweet and plump and unconcerned in the front row on the groom’s side of the church. She was chatting happily to Nell Hawthorne and the butcher’s wife.

  “Feels like we’ve been standin’ here ages. What if she isn’t comin’?”

  “She’ll be here, lad, don’t you worry.”

  “That tune is gettin’ on me nerves,” said Bernie as Mrs. Osbourne added more riffs and began to hum quaveringly along. “Must ’ave played it a thousand times already.”

  Oliver looked down at his vestments and tried not to smile. Bernie and Elsie had turned up on the vicarage doorstep and abruptly demanded he marry them. Bernie had been so nervous he blundered into his joke that if Elsie married him she couldn’t testify against him in court. Elsie had flashed him a stern warning look, and to Oliver’s surprise cocky Bernie went quiet as a lamb. Oliver had asked about baptism and confirmation and things they had never heard of, until their eager eyes glazed over. Finally Bernie leaned forward, desperate to get the upper hand of this wedding thing in Elsie’s eyes, and said, “That’s all very well, but oughtn’t
vicars to stop immorality in the parish? Unless you marry me and Elsie there’ll be immorality every chance we get.”

  Elsie blushed but nodded defiantly.

  Trying to keep a straight face Oliver thought, oh why not. Elsie was the only thing likely to keep the boy from a criminal career, and if he didn’t marry them there was bound to be another illegitimate birth in the parish before long. The old saw “Strike while the iron is hot” crossed his mind. He bent church rules in every way these days, so he would bend a few more to marry them. When the bishop eventually heard of it there would be trouble, but the bishop had his hands full of more urgent matters at the moment, and Oliver was beginning to think too many church rules got in the way of Christianity.

  The girls had pitched in to help Elsie. Wedding dresses couldn’t be had on clothes coupons. “Even the War Office hasn’t suggested a Utility Wedding Dress, darling!” said Frances. Alice, so active in clothing drives, recollected a lady welfare officer named Barbara Cartland had collected a supply of wedding dresses from her society friends that could be borrowed by service brides. Alice tracked them and sent off Elsie’s measurements. The frosty reply came that the dresses were available only to girls in the military service, not the Land Army. Furious, Frances made a phone call to her father and threatened to ring every half hour of the day and night and tie up his line unless he did something. The admiral muttered he would see what he could do.

  The day before the wedding a large cardboard box that had obviously been posted many times before arrived by special post. Tanni spread a sheet on the floor and she and Evangeline carefully cut the string, saving it for use later. They gasped as they unpacked an elegant white peau de soie dress and veil, done up in layers of tissue paper. “Worth,” whispered Frances reverently, reading the label.

  Wondering about the bride who had first worn it, Tanni made Elsie try it on at once. “It’s a perfect fit except you’re so short this hem must come up,” she said. “Hold still while I pin it.” She had already done the same with the negligee and peignoir set Frances had given her, which she, in turn, lent to Evangeline when Richard was on leave. The negligee and peignoir were now pressed and folded with a sprig of lavender in a smart overnight case lent by Frances, waiting for the weekend’s honeymoon in Eastbourne.

  On the afternoon of the wedding Albert Hawthorne, who was to give Elsie away, was waiting for the girls in the shade of the laurels at Glebe House. “You can do with the practice,” Nell had said briskly. “Someday Margaret Rose will be wanting you to do the same for her.” She brushed his best black suit and polished his shoes until they shone like patent leather. Albert took out the gold pocket watch his grandfather had received for seventy years’ service as stationmaster in Crowmarsh Priors and, with a sense of ceremony, draped the chain across his waistcoat. Might as well do the thing properly.

  He arrived well on time and waited and waited, then began to shift from foot to foot. What the blazes could the girls be doing? If the trains ran late as weddings the whole country would grind to a halt.

  Inside, Tanni and Alice and Frances, who had afternoon leave from the farm, fussed around Elsie, removing pin curls from her hair and draping a towel round her shoulders while they powdered her face. Elsie was almost shivering with excitement and her eyes sparkled. Evangeline, looking lovely in a drop-waisted 1920s frock she had found in the attic, chased the four older children to give their hair a final brush. At five months pregnant and already large in her maternity smocks, Tanni had tried to beg off being one of the bridesmaids, but Elsie wasn’t having it: she insisted she needed all her best friends to stand up with her, so Tanni wore an everyday pink cotton smock, freshly laundered and with a lace collar made from an antimacassar tacked on. She said she would probably have to hold Anna so she wouldn’t scream, and Elsie responded, “The more bridesmaids the merrier,” so Tanni had dressed Anna like a miniature bridesmaid in a pink smocked frock with her little bit of dark hair brushed up and tied in a large pink bow on top of her head. Barely able to sit up without wobbling, she was resplendent in Richard’s old pram, decorated with a spray of honeysuckle and white ribbon. She nibbled her bare toes, watching the proceedings solemnly.

  “Stand up and let us slip the dress over your head, slowly does it.” There was a rustle of material and a swishing sound as folds were patted into place. “Hold still…there! That’s the buttons done! Now the veil. No, pin it here. And here.” They fussed and turned Elsie this way and that.

  “You can look now,” said Alice finally, leading Elsie to the full-length mirror in the hall.

  Elsie caught her breath. Agnes and the twins would have been gob smacked, and as for Mum—whatever would she have said! Born on North Street, behind the glue factory—now look at her! Grand as grand could be—all silk and lace, a train that dragged behind like she was a queen, four bridesmaids, and even Johnny dressed up as a little pageboy to hold the ring on a pillow until it was time for Bernie to put it on Elsie’s finger. The pageboy had been Alice’s idea. And all this grandeur went hand in hand with being a lawfully wedded wife! And she was about to be properly married in a proper church! Given away! She didn’t even understand what was going to happen, even though the others had explained it all, as if they went to weddings every day of the week. Her stomach fluttered nervously. Like Bernie, Elsie had never actually been to a wedding, just seen the pictures in the papers. But one thing was certain—it was respectable.

  There was even a wedding cake for after. It was a surprise to Elsie to learn you needed a cake on top of a dress and everything else. The girls had pooled their month’s sugar and butter rations and in the larder was a small wedding cake Evangeline had made, decorated with real roses that she had brushed with egg white and sprinkled with sugar. And Bernie had some bottles of champagne that the toffs had given him. So he said. Today, Elsie wasn’t going to ask.

  Elsie’s engagement ring winked encouragingly on her finger.

  “We ought to go before this lot get dirty again,” said Evangeline, marshalling the overexcited children who were chasing each other round the garden and pulling up Johnny’s pageboy socks again. “Don’t want Bernie thinking you’ve changed your mind.”

  The bridesmaids put on straw hats trimmed with fresh flowers and bits of ribbon. They had bare tan legs, but had carefully painted a seam up the back of each other’s calves with a piece of burnt cork. They gave each other a last-minute inspection to make sure their “seams” were straight.

  “Ready.”

  “The bouquets!” exclaimed Frances, running back to the scullery for five small posies of roses and Queen Anne’s lace stuck in jam jars of water. “Here,” said Alice wistfully to Elsie, who looked like an overexcited child, “loop the train over your arm, like this, while you walk to the church.”

  They walked outside, and Albert offered his arm to the bride. Clutching it with the hand holding her flowers and her train in the other, Elsie looked up at him, and her smile suddenly went wobbly and tears brimmed in her eyes. “Thinkin’ about me mum, ain’t I? Wish she could see me,” she sniffed, “she wouldn’t ’alf be proud.”

  Albert blessed Nell for the extra clean handkerchief she’d known he would need. He handed it to Elsie. She dabbed her eyes, blew her nose, and returned it. “Fanks. Don’t want me intended to see me comin’ down the aisle with red eyes, do I? There, I’m ready.”

  Afterward everyone agreed it was a shame there was a ban on ringing the old bell at St. Gabriel’s when the happy couple came out of the church, but it had been a lovely wedding. Bernie said, “I will” several times more than he needed to, and in the wrong places but very earnestly. Oliver preached a wedding sermon about being in the midst of life at this time of rejoicing and, to impress the seriousness of the occasion on the bride and groom, who were whispering endearments, emphasized that the church regarded marriage as an indissoluble union. When he pronounced them man and wife and told Bernie he could kiss the bride, Elsie threw herself into Bernie’s arms.

  They
all trooped across the green to the Gentlemen’s Arms for the wedding breakfast. A grinning, relieved Bernie’s hand was wrung by the men. Constable Barrows slapped him on the back and said, “Well done, lad!” and Harry Smith in his role as publican stood him a couple of brandies. Besides the bottles of champagne there were jugs of beer and shandy, lemon barley water for the children, and plates of sausage rolls, thin cucumber sandwiches with the crusts off, tinned salmon with salad, and a raised pie Evangeline had managed that was mostly vegetables but with enough hard-boiled egg for each slice to have a pretty yellow and white round in the middle. Fairy cakes had been contributed by Nell Hawthorne and Edith Barrows. Everyone cheered as Elsie, flushed with happiness, and Bernie cut the wedding cake and a tiny piece was handed round to each person with a glass of champagne.

  Nell Hawthorne nudged Edith Barrows and looked significantly at Evangeline in her drop-waisted dress. Both women smiled. “You can always tell,” said Nell. “A baby’s the best thing that could have happened. It will take Richard’s mind off things a little when he comes home. She’s so good with all those children that aren’t even hers!”

  When the time came Elsie didn’t want to throw her bouquet, but Nell Hawthorne said firmly now she was married it was only fair to give another girl a turn. “Like Alice Osbourne,” she whispered purposefully. There must be someone for poor Alice. Nell turned Elsie and her train around until Elsie’s back was to the guests. Just in time Nell spotted Margaret Rose preparing to spring forward and catch. Nell shook her head firmly, mouthing “Don’t you dare!”

  “Aww?” wheedled Margaret Rose.

  “No,” said Nell firmly. Margaret Rose sulked away. Making sure her daughter was out of range Nell ordered, “One, two, three, throw!”