Anne Doughty - Second Chance at the Belfast Guesthouse

‘I hope ye slept well in my bed,’ Jessie continued. ‘I left ye my teddy-bear to tide you over till tonight,’ she went on, looking around the room that still had her watercolours and photographs covering all the available wall space.

‘Oh, I slept all right,’ replied Clare, as she dusted powder over foundation with a large brush. ‘By the time June and I had got all the food organized and the tables laid I could have slept on the floor. But your bed was much nicer. Thank you for the loan of it.’

‘Or the lend of it as we always said at school and got told off for.’

Clare smiled, relieved and delighted that Jessie seemed to have fully recovered her old self after the hard time she’d had with her second child.

‘How’s Fiona?’ she asked, as she turned back to the mirror.

‘Oh, driving us mad,’ she said calmly. ‘I sent Harry to walk her up and down and tire her out a bit before Ma tries to get the dress on. She can talk about nothin’ but Auntie Clare and Uncle Andrew. Does it not make you feel old?’

‘No. Old is not what I feel today,’ she said lightly. ‘Blessed, I think is the word, as long as you don’t think I’ve gone pious,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s not just Andrew. It’s being home and having family. It’s you and Harry and wee Fiona and your mother and all the people who’ll come to the church. Even the ones that come to stand at the gate, because they go to all the weddings, or because they remember Granda Scott.’

‘Aye, there’ll be a brave few nosey ones around,’ Jessie added promptly. ‘Ma says she heard your dress was made by yer man Dior himself.’

Clare laughed, stood up and reached out for the hem of the gleaming, silk gown hanging from the picture rail.

‘Look Jessie, I only found it this morning.’

Jessie leaned over and looked closely at the inside hem. ‘Good luck, Bonne chance, Buenos . . . something or other . . . and there are names as well. Ach, isn’t that lovely? All the way round. Who did that?’ she demanded, her voice hoarse, her eyes sparkling with tears.

‘The girls in the work room. I knew them all, because I had to have so many suits and dresses, but when I had the last fitting there was nothing there. I’m sure I’d have noticed.’

‘So you’ll have luck all round ye and in whatever language takes your fancy . . .

Clare nodded, her own eyes moistening at the thought of all the little seamstresses taking it in turns to embroider their name and their message. She paused as she slipped the dress from its hanger and took a deep breath. The last thing she must do was shed a tear. Whatever it said on the packaging she had never found a mascara that didn’t run if provoked by tears. Tears of joy would be just as much of a disaster as any other kind.

The crowd of women and children gathered round the churchyard gates were not expecting very much. They knew it was to be a small affair with only close family. In fact, there were those who thought there couldn’t even be much in the way of close family if June Wiley, the housekeeper, her husband John and their girls were to be among the guests, even if June had once been Andrew Richardson’s nurse. They certainly did not expect any ‘great style’ from anyone except the bride. Even that was a matter of some doubt as rumour had it she’d bought her dress on the way home from Paris and arrived with it at the Rowentrees in a cardboard box.

The first guests to arrive did little to disperse their expectations. Jack Hamilton drove up in a well-polished, but elderly Hillman Minx. He was accompanied by his father, Sam, now in his eighties, who got out of the car with some difficulty, but once on his feet, smiled warmly at the waiting crowd, pushed back his once powerful shoulders and tramped steadily enough up to the church door.

Charlie Running, old friend of Robert Scott, walked briskly up the hill from his cousin’s house and said, ‘How are ye?’ to the gathered spectators, for Charlie knew everyone in the whole townland. Before going inside he tramped round the side of the church to pay his respects to Robert.

Next to arrive were the Wileys. June, John and all three girls, as expected. No style there. Not even a new hat or dress among them. Just their Sunday best. Charles Creaney, Andrew’s colleague and best man, parked his almost new A40 under the churchyard wall somewhat out of sight of the twin clusters of onlookers by the gates. Andrew and the two ushers got out and the four of them strode off, two by two, heading for the church door without a glance at the women in aprons or the children fidgeting at their sides.

Moments later, a small handful of husbands and wives, some of them clearly from ‘across the water’, arrived by taxi. But there was no one among them to excite more than a brief speculation as to who they might be. Only the need to view the bride and to have the relevant news to pass on in the week ahead kept some of the women from going back to their abandoned Saturday morning chores.

Then, to their surprise and amazement, one of Loudan’s smaller limousines, polished so you could see yourself in its black bodywork, and bedecked with satin ribbons, drove up and slid gently to a halt. The driver opened the passenger door, touched his cap, offered his hand and a woman stepped out into the morning sunshine, a pleasant smile on her face. In the total silence that followed her arrival, she walked slowly towards the church door.

Salters Grange had its own version of ‘great style’, but they had never seen anything to equal the poise and presentation of Marie-Claude St Clair. Her couturier would have been charmed.

‘I think she’s a film star,’ said the first woman to find her voice. ‘She’s like somethin’ ye’d see on the front of Vogue.’

‘I’m sure I’ve seen her on our new telly.’

‘Young Helen Wiley said there was a French woman and her daughter staying at the Charlemont in Armagh. Would that be her?’

‘Where’s the daughter then?’

It was then that Loudan’s largest limousine appeared, driven by none other than Loudan himself. It drew to a halt in front of the gates. From the front passenger seat, a small man in immaculate morning dress stepped out, drew himself to his full height and waited attentively until first one lovely young woman and then another was assisted by the bowler-hatted Loudan to alight from the back seat.

Robert Lafarge bowed to them both and then offered his arm to the older one. So it was that, Cinderella no more, Clare Hamilton entered Grange Church on the arm of an eminent French banker, attended by a smiling young woman, whom she had cared for in her student days as an au pair on the sands at Deauville.

As the quips and comments flew back and forth across the gravel driveway it was clear the wait had not been in vain.

‘Did ye ever see the like of it? Was that necklace emeralds?’

‘How would I know? But I can tell you somethin’. That dress was such a fit you’d not buy that in some shop. An’ her that slim. Shure it must have been made for her, and those wee pearl beads round the skirt with the green and gold threadwork in-between to match the necklace.’

‘Was it silk or brocade? It was white all right, but there was green in it somewhere when she moved.’

‘Who was the wee man giving her away?’

‘They say that’s Robert Scott’s younger brother, the one that went to America an’ niver came back.’

‘Well, he doesn’t look like a Scott to me, that’s for sure. Sure he’s only knee high to a daisy. Robert was a fair-sized man in his day . . .’

While the women of Church Hill speculated on the past and future of Clare Hamilton, granddaughter of their former blacksmith, and of Andrew Richardson, sole surviving member of the once wealthy family who had lived in the parish since the seventeenth century and served in the Government since it was first set up 1921, the two individuals themselves stood together on the newly-replaced red carpet of the chancel and exchanged rings.