Happy Birthday, Mr Darcy

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Oh,’ Dan said.

  She motioned towards a stable. Dan looked surprised for a moment.

  ‘It’s about my riding lessons,’ Carmel said, smoothing her hands down her electric blue dress.

  ‘Right,’ Dan said, as if it all made perfect sense and he followed her into the stable without thinking that there was anything unusual in that.

  ‘I tried to ring you last night but you weren’t answering your phone.’

  ‘We had guests,’ Dan explained.

  ‘And you didn’t call me back?’ she asked, a sulky, teenage-like expression on her face.

  ‘No, sorry. We’ve got a wedding here today and I’m the best man.’

  ‘I bet you are,’ Carmel said, her silky voice slow and provocative and, before Dan knew what was happening, her arms had fastened around his neck and she was leaning up to kiss him.

  ‘Mrs Hud-’ his voice was suffocated by another kiss. Dan was, of course, strong enough to fend her off but he was also sensible enough to realise the delicacy of the situation and didn’t want to anger her. However, he most certainly did not kiss her back.

  ‘Mrs Hudson – really – ’

  ‘I do so like a man in costume,’ she said.

  ‘Please – stop this!’

  ‘Oh, you are such a naughty boy,’ she said, slapping him playfully on the bottom when she finally came up from air. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times to call me Carmel.’

  Dan ran a hand through his hair. ‘Look,’ he said, his voice low but serious, ‘I’m married. I’ve got a daughter. I was happy to consider you and your daughter for riding lessons but I think we’d better cancel that now, don’t you?’

  ‘You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Dan,’ she said, inching forward again, her hands now flat on his chest.

  ‘Mrs Hudson, I think you’d better leave.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic!’ she said and then she smiled her cat-like, taunting smile. ‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’

  ‘Dan?’ Robyn’s voice called from outside the stable.

  Dan pushed Carmel Hudson out of the way. ‘Robyn?’

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ Robyn said. Unlike Dan, she wasn’t yet wearing her wedding outfit but a loosely-fitting blouse and a long skirt, but her hair had been swept back and Dan saw white ribbon threaded through it.

  ‘Robyn, I-’ but he didn’t have time to explain because Carmel Hudson calmly walked out of the stable in her brilliant blue dress as if she was walking into a Hollywood premiere.

  ‘Oh, is this your little wife, then?’ she said, narrowing her eyes as she took in Robyn. ‘I see what you mean now, Dan darling.’

  Robyn’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Mrs Hudson, I think you’d better leave.’

  She sighed dramatically. ‘Well, if you insist. You know I’ll do anything you want me to.’

  Dan and Robyn watched in horrified silence as Carmel Hudson left the stable yard.

  ‘What is going on?’ Robyn cried as soon as she was out of sight.

  ‘Nothing!’ Dan said. ‘It was nothing!’

  ‘Then why have you got red lipstick all over your mouth?’ Robyn asked, her eyes wide and full of hurt. ‘And what did she mean when she said “I see what you mean now, Dan darling.”’

  Dan wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘She meant to stir up trouble – that’s all. She’s been bugging me for days about wanting riding lessons.’

  ‘Was that her on the phone last night?’ Robyn asked.

  Dan nodded.

  ‘I think she might have rung the cottage too. Someone rang twice today and hung up when I answered.’

  ‘Oh, Robyn. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So, what was going on in the stable before I arrived?’

  ‘Nothing. She was doing her best to-’ Dan paused.

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To compromise me,’ Dan said.

  Robyn’s eyes were filled with tears now. ‘What happened? Did you kiss her?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’ he said, running a hand through his hair. ‘But it was rather hard to avoid her. She just sort of lunged at me.’

  ‘Oh, Dan!’ Robyn cried.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, his hands reaching out to hold her shoulders, but it was then that Robyn’s phone vibrated somewhere in her voluminous skirt.

  ‘Hello?’ she said a moment later. ‘No, I’m not far away. It’s okay. All right.’ She hung up and looked at Dan. ‘It's Katherine. I’ve got to get back.’

  ‘Robyn!’ Dan shouted after her as she quickly walked away. ‘We haven’t sorted out what we’re going to do about Katherine and Warwick!’

  Chapter 13

  Dan watched helplessly as Robyn walked away from him. What was he going to do? He was meant to be safely ushering Warwick up the aisle but now his own marriage seemed to be in jeopardy. Team that with a bride who seemed to be having second thoughts and a groom who hadn’t even got dressed yet and the whole day seemed to be falling apart.

  There was only one thing for it, he thought, as he wiped his hand across his mouth once more just to make sure there was no trace left of Carmel Hudson’s lipstick. He had to talk to Pammy.

  Dame Pamela was sitting in a chair in her bedroom whilst half a can of hairspray was being applied to a very elegant chignon when Dan entered.

  ‘Darling!’ she cried. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘Everything,’ he said, flopping down on the end of her bed.

  Dame Pamela whispered something to the hairdresser who then swiftly left the room.

  ‘Tell me what’s going on,’ she said, turning her full attention to her little brother, and Dan took a deep breath and began. By the time he finished, his sister’s face was creased into a dozen lines of anxiety.

  ‘So,’ Dame Pamela said, ‘let me see if I’ve got this right. Katherine’s having second thoughts about getting married, Warwick’s in some kind of writing trance and seems to have forgotten it’s his wedding day and your wife thinks you’re having an affair with Carmel Hudson?’

  ‘That’s about the measure of things,’ Dan said.

  ‘And you want me to do what exactly?’

  Dan’s hands flew up in the air. ‘Anything, Pammy!’ he said in desperation. ‘I don’t know what to do! I’m totally lost in all this!’

  Dame Pamela reached out and cupped his face in her hands and then she gazed out of the window with a sigh, a thoughtful look on her face.

  Dan watched intently. Would she be able to fix the multitudinous problems or was the whole day going to end in disaster? He looked at the little carriage clock on the dressing table. It was half past three. Katherine’s carriage was arriving at Horseshoe Cottage in half an hour and the ceremony was meant to be taking place half an hour after that.

  ‘Pammy?’ he prompted but she was still gazing out of the window. Finally, she nodded and turned back to him.

  ‘Right,’ she began, ‘don’t worry about Robyn. She’s the sweetest girl I’ve ever met and she’ll understand what happened. We all know what Carmel Hudson is like, don’t we? I hear she cornered the poor Fedex guy last month. He only asked her to sign for a package.’

  Dan sighed.

  ‘Nobody’s going to blame you for becoming her next victim - least of all Robyn.’

  ‘You didn’t see the way she looked at me, Pammy.’

  Dame Pamela twisted one of her diamond rings. ‘Well, she’s probably a bit bruised right now. Most wives are if they see their husband in the clutches of another woman.’

  ‘But it wasn’t my fault!’ Dan stressed.

  ‘I know but it still happened and you have to make sure that you make Robyn feel secure that she’s the only woman in your life.’

  ‘Well, of course she is!’ Dan said. ‘I’d do anything for her.’

  ‘Then you might have to prove that to her.’

  Dan nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her. I’ll show her. I’ll do anything. Now, will you talk to Katherine?’

  ‘Well,
I’m wondering if I’m really the best person to do that.’

  ‘Of course you are!’ Dan said, desperation fuelling his voice.

  Dame Pamela didn’t look convinced. ‘You want me to reassure Katherine about the institution of marriage? Do you know how many husbands I’ve had?’

  ‘No, I’ve lost count,’ Dan said honestly.

  ‘Yes, and I have too,’ Dame Pamela said.

  ‘Just talk to her,’ he pleaded. ‘Katherine and Warwick are meant to be together. Just like Elizabeth and Darcy.’

  Dame Pamela nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘And then will you help me with Warwick?’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you!’ Dan said, leaping to his feet. ‘Now, let’s see if I can at least prise Warwick away from his latest novel.’

  Robyn had managed to persuade Katherine to get dressed and the two of them were sitting in her bedroom in their gowns. It should have been a moment of great happiness: their hair had been decorated with tiny white rose buds and ribbons and their dresses had turned them into Regency heroines but Katherine had been babbling for the last ten minutes and Robyn was seriously worried.

  ‘What about the assertion that “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance”,’ Katherine asked her maid of honour.

  ‘Katherine, you mustn’t take quotes out of context,’ Robyn told her.

  ‘But it’s absolutely in context,’ Katherine said.

  ‘I don’t think you can read meaning into every single Jane Austen line,’ Robyn said. Of course, she did that herself almost every day but she wasn’t going to admit that to Katherine in her current mood. ‘It’s fiction, after all. We don’t really know what Jane Austen thought about marriage – not really.’

  ‘But she never married,’ Katherine said. ‘She dedicated herself to her work. Doesn’t that tell us all we need to know?’

  ‘But she never met the right man like you did,’ Robyn said with an encouraging smile.

  ‘But what if she did and we just don’t know about it? What if there was something in one of the letters that Cassandra destroyed? What if she chose her work over a man and I’m making a huge mistake? What if I should be like her and forsake marriage for my work?’

  Robyn frowned. She wasn’t used to such discussions and it was all becoming too much for her. Katherine seemed so adamant in her opinion and what she’d said was probably the best argument against marriage that a Janeite could come up with.

  She looked at Katherine sitting on the edge of the bed in her wedding dress and her heart ached for her because she sincerely believed that there wasn’t going to be a wedding today. Jane Austen might have brought Katherine and Warwick together but it seemed as if Katherine was trying to use her favourite author to tear them apart.

  Chapter 14

  Dame Pamela parked her Rolls Royce outside Horseshoe Cottage and walked up the garden path before knocking on the door. It was opened by Robyn a moment later.

  ‘Oh, look at you! You look absolutely breathtaking!’ Dame Pamela said.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ Robyn said.

  ‘Where’s Katherine?’

  ‘Upstairs in our bedroom. I don’t know what to do. I think she’s talked herself out of marrying Warwick. She keeps quoting Jane Austen and saying work’s more important than marriage.'

  Dame Pamela shook her head. ‘Some people are just too clever for their own good.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say to her.’

  Dame Pamela took Robyn’s hands in hers. ‘Make a nice cup of Earl Grey and I’ll go and talk to her.’

  Robyn disappeared into the kitchen and Dame Pamela climbed the stairs, holding the long blossom-pink material of her dress in her hands so as not to trip herself up.

  ‘Katherine?’ she called.

  ‘Dame Pamela?’

  ‘My dear,’ she said as she entered the room. ‘Everybody’s so worried about you.’

  Katherine’s dark eyes widened in her pale face. ‘Are they?’

  Dame Pamela sat down beside her on the bed. ‘Now, what’s going on?’

  Dan rapped loudly on Warwick’s door three times before turning the handle and letting himself inside.

  ‘Warwick?’ he called, swallowing hard when he realised that there was no sign of the groom. So, this was it, Dan thought. Warwick had run out on his own wedding and it would fall to Dan to inform the bride.

  He was just about to flop onto the bed and bury his head in his hands when he heard whistling coming from the bathroom. Dan frowned as he tried to make out the tune and smiled as he realised what it was.

  ‘Here comes the bride!’ he said to himself and then he laughed.

  ‘Dan!’ Warwick said, emerging from the bathroom fully dressed. ‘I was just beginning to worry you weren’t going to show up!’

  ‘You were worried about me not showing up?’ Dan said as he stood up, shaking his head. ‘I thought you’d done a runner!’

  ‘What?’ Warwick cried.

  Dan looked completely bamboozled for a moment and just stood there shaking his head for a moment, his hand waving around in the air as he tried to explain himself.

  ‘You were in another world with your writing and you weren’t listening to me. I got worried. I guess I panicked. I thought you were having second thoughts.’

  ‘Second thoughts?’ Warwick’s face fell at the mere idea.

  ‘I was so worried.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ he cried. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you. I just got a bit hyper with the writing. It’s this deadline and I guess it’s the adrenalin from all this wedding business. I picked up my pen this morning and couldn’t stop.’

  Dan ran a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘But we’re okay now?’

  ‘I’m dressed, aren’t I?’

  Dan nodded. ‘You are,’ he said.

  ‘And Katherine’s all ready, I take it?’

  ‘Ah!’ Dan said, taking a deep breath. ‘We might actually have a problem with the bride.’

  Robyn entered the room with three cups of Earl Gray tea on a red lacquered tray.

  ‘Here,’ she said.

  Dame Pamela and Katherine were sitting on the bed and the scene looked calm, almost convivial, but Katherine’s dark eyes were still full of anxiety.

  ‘I’ve been telling Katherine that there are no guarantees with marriage,’ Dame Pamela said, patting the bed beside her.

  Robyn sat down. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘No guarantees with anything,’ she went on. ‘One can plan and hope and dream but, in the end, you just have to take one day at a time and make the very best decision you can on that day.’

  Katherine nodded. ‘But is getting married really the best decision?’ she asked, turning to Dame Pamela.

  ‘You seemed to think so,’ Dame Pamela said, waving her hand over the fairytale fabric of Katherine’s wedding dress.

  ‘Yes,’ Katherine said, ‘but I’m not so sure now. What if I fail at this? I’m not very good at failing but what if I disappoint Warwick? What if I find I’m terrible as a wife. What–’

  Dame Pamela rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Katherine – you can’t live worrying about what might or might not happen in the future.’

  ‘But that’s how I’ve always lived. I’ve always planned things – my lessons, my books, my career – and I’ve always been in control but I don’t feel in control of this and it scares me.’

  Dame Pamela looked at Robyn who was biting her lip most ferociously. ‘What shall we do?’ she mouthed. Dame Pamela gave a little shrug and sipped her tea.

  Warwick was pacing up and down like a caged beast.

  ‘You’ll wear a hole in Pammy’s Axminster if you keep this up much longer,’ Dan warned him.

  ‘What if she doesn’t show up?’ Warwick said. ‘Is it me? Is she thinking I’m going to mess up again?’

  ‘You’re not going to mess up again,’ Dan said. ‘Why would you?’

  ‘Because it jus
t seems to be what I do around Katherine.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘That’s nonsense.’

  ‘It’s not. I’m a clumsy, babbling idiot compared to her. No wonder she’s having second thoughts.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s not. She’s probably just a bit nervous. All brides get nervous.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Yes!’ Dan said. ‘It’s also their prerogative to run late. That’s probably what’s going on here. There’s been a minor crisis with the dress or the flowers or something.’

  ‘You think?’

  Dan nodded. ‘I’m positive,’ he said, swallowing hard and trying to keep calm. ‘So we’ll just take care of things this end, okay?’

  Warwick stopped pacing and looked at Dan. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on with things our end.’

  ‘Good,’ Dan said.

  ‘I take it you’ve got the rings,’ Warwick said with a grin.

  Dan laughed and patted the neat pocket in his trousers but his face fell as his fingers dug around inside it.

  ‘Dan?’ Warwick said, his voice full of fear.

  Dan looked up in horror. ‘There’s only one,’ he said, cursing under his breath.

  ‘Don’t mess about, Dan!’ Warwick said. ‘I know you’ve got the rings.’

  Dan shook his head, the colour draining from his face. ‘There’s one missing,’ he said, taking the remaining ring from his pocket. It was the larger of the two – the groom’s ring.

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ Warwick said, doing his best to keep calm, ‘the bride might have done a runner and now we’ve lost her ring?’

  Chapter 15

  The guests were gathering in the library. Lily was sitting in the front row looking thoroughly miserable, Mia and Shelley who had befriended Katherine’s good pal Chrissie were two rows behind, Roberta and Rose were sitting in the middle and Doris Norris and Mrs Soames were beside them.Warwick’s agent, Nadia Sparks, was also there, looking anxiously at her watch and wondering when the champagne would be served. All of them but Lily had chosen a costume from Dame Pamela’s collection and looked as pretty as hummingbirds in shades of blue, pink, green and yellow.