Bride By Choice

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE ravishing dress gleamed as Helen twisted and turned before the bedroom mirror, trying to see herself from all angles.

‘You look gorgeous,’ Heather said, gently lifting the veil. Helen bent her head while her two matrons of honour set it in place and fixed it with the tiara.

‘Is it secure?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Completely safe,’ Angie assured her.

‘Do you think I should have chosen a different dress? Perhaps it’s bad luck to wear the same one as last time-’

‘Stop getting paranoid,’ Heather told her firmly. ‘This is the dress for your wedding to Lorenzo. It’s been a bit delayed, but it’s the same wedding, and everything about it should be the same.’

‘Well, not quite everything,’ Angie said quickly. The three of them laughed a little nervously.

‘But all the other details are the same,’ Heather said. ‘Poor little Vanzini has been rehearsing the Jubilate until everyone’s going crazy. He’s determined that nothing’s going to stop him this time.’

There was a knock on the door and Helen’s father looked in. ‘The cars are here,’ he said.

Angie and Heather, who were going in the first car, kissed Helen and departed in a flutter of blue silk.

Nicolo came to stand in front of his daughter. ‘No doubts this time?’ he asked kindly.

‘No doubts, Poppa. I was never more certain of anything in my life.’

‘Then shall we go?’

‘Yes-no-where’s your flower?’

Aghast, he stared at his buttonhole. ‘I’m sure your mother gave me one. It must still be in my room.’

‘Hurry.’

He sped away. While she waited for him Helen strolled out onto the wide terrace and looked out over the countryside. Everywhere she saw the green of spring, glowing under the early sun. It was the perfect time to start a new life with the man she loved. As she’d told Poppa, this time she was quite certain.

She was so entranced at the view that she came to herself with a start, realising that some time had passed. Nicolo dashed in, looking flustered, but with a flower in his buttonhole.

‘It’s your Mamma’s fault,’ he declared in answer to her look. ‘She’d hidden it.’

‘Poppa! Of course she hadn’t hidden it.’

‘Well, I couldn’t find it.’

‘We’d better hurry.’

He escorted her out to where the car was standing, its door held open by Guido, the new chauffeur, very young and proud to bursting of his uniform and responsibilities. He explained that the other car had left several minutes previously.

‘Step on it,’ Nicolo commanded the driver as they settled in the back.

In a moment they’d swung out of the courtyard, through the tiny village that nestled at the foot of the incline, and out into the open country. Helen looked worriedly out of the window.

‘We’ve got plenty of time,’ Nicolo said. ‘Every bride is a little late.’

‘Not this bride,’ Helen said fervently. ‘After last time I can’t afford to be late by so much as a second. Think of what it would put him through.’

A glance at her watch showed that they had made up a little time. She began to relax. She was thinking ahead to Lorenzo in the cathedral, waiting for her, flanked by his brothers. Memories of last time would make him nervous. He would worry in case she wasn’t coming at all. Then he would dismiss his fears as superstition, but he would worry nonetheless, staring down the long aisle to catch the first glimpse of her.

She pictured his face as she appeared. She would smile to reassure him that all was well. And then their life together would begin.

Suddenly she was thrown sideways.

‘What’s happened?’ she gasped.

The car had reached the crest of a hill and skidded slightly. The driver fought to regain control but it was useless. The great vehicle drifted, almost elegantly, to the side of the road, and deposited itself nose down in a ditch.

‘Oh no!’ Helen wailed. ‘This can’t be happening.’

She scrambled out and looked up and down the road, but they were out in the country and there was nobody to be seen. From this height she could just see the other car vanishing into the distance. She waved and shouted, but she knew they wouldn’t hear her.

Lorenzo was waiting for her. Soon he would be wondering why she was late, thinking himself abandoned again.

‘The phone,’ she said urgently. ‘We can call his mobile.’

Guido lunged for the car phone, but Lorenzo’s mobile was switched off. So was Bernardo’s.

‘Try Renato,’ Helen said tensely. ‘He never turns his mobile off.’

But the dawning look of dismay on Guido’s face as he dialled and listened told her that she was unlucky again.

‘Now I remember Signor Renato has changed his number,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I don’t have the new number.’

Nicolo prepared to lash himself into a temper. ‘It’s your job to keep up with these things,’ he roared.

‘That’s enough, Poppa,’ Helen said quickly. ‘It’s not his fault, he’s new at the job.’

‘But I insist-’

‘Poppa, let it go.’ Helen spoke too absently to notice the astonishment on her father’s face. ‘We have more important things to think of. I’ve got to get to Palermo.’

‘How? Fly?’

‘No, there’s some transport coming now.’

He followed her pointing finger to where a vehicle had appeared over the hill.

‘That’s a pig cart,’ Nicolo said in outrage. ‘And it’s being drawn by a mule.’

‘It’s got wheels,’ Helen said firmly. ‘It can get me there.’

She placed herself firmly in the middle of the road and hailed the cart. The old man driving it halted his aged mule and looked down at her, his oaken face betraying no surprise at being stopped by a bride in the middle of nowhere.

‘I have to get to Palermo cathedral,’ Helen said urgently. ‘You see-’

‘Yes, I see,’ said the man, taking in the ditched car in a glance. ‘I would help you but I have no room.’ He jerked his head over his shoulder at where the four pigs took up all the space. ‘I’m taking them to market.’

‘I’ll buy them,’ Helen said quickly. ‘Here and now. How much?’

He named a price. Nicolo gave an indignant yelp.

‘It’s too much. I buy pigs like that every day for half the price.’

‘Then you take the bride,’ the driver said cunningly.

Helen became businesslike. ‘Poppa, how much is fair?’ He told her and she turned back to the driver. ‘We split the difference.’

He began to argue. She argued back. For the first time in her life Helen was glad she spoke Sicilian, for nothing else would have served her now. She was afraid her father would interrupt, but he was staring at her as though he’d never seen her before.

At last they agreed a price. But there was still a snag. Only Guido was carrying money, and he didn’t have enough. The driver lifted his reins and prepared to drive on.

‘No,’ Helen said fiercely. ‘You’re not moving a step. I’ll double your original price-’

‘Without money? How?’

‘I’ll give you my note of hand.’

‘Hah!’

‘It will be honoured. Do you think you can’t trust a note from Signora Elena Martelli?’

He stared at her. ‘You are a Martelli?’

‘I will be when you’ve moved those pigs and taken me to Palermo.’

The driver tossed the reins to Guido, jumped down and went to the end of the cart.

‘Guido I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here,’ Helen said, looking about her, ‘with the livestock.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll call a garage to rescue the car, then a friend of mine who has a farm.’

‘Fine. Take good care of my pigs. I’m going to give them to my husband as a wedding present.’

At last the back of the cart was empty. Guido went to the car, returning with a note pad and pen, and a blanket. While Helen scribbled her note of hand he spread out the blanket where the pigs had been.

‘Now your dress stays clean,’ he said, assisting her into the back.

‘Thank you, Guido. Poppa, come on.’

Her father was regarding her aghast. ‘Me?’ he roared. ‘You expect me to travel in that?’

‘You’ve got to give me away.’

‘If the family finds out I’ll never live it down.’

‘Well they won’t,’ she said exasperated. ‘I promise not to tell Aunt Lucia in Maryland, so she can’t tell Aunt Zita in Idaho, and she can’t tell Aunt Clarrie in Los Angeles. Now, Poppa, quit arguing and get into the cart.’

He stared. ‘What did you say to your Poppa?’

‘I said get into the cart, and I meant it. I’m going to be there to marry Lorenzo, and you’re going to be there to give me away.’

‘Stop looking nervous,’ Renato advised his brother. ‘She’ll be here at any moment.’

‘She should have been here five minutes ago,’ Lorenzo said worriedly. ‘Bernardo, go and check.’

‘I’ve just got back from checking. Angie and Heather are here and they say Helen was following just behind.’

‘Then where is she?’

‘She’ll be here,’ Renato assured him. ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking, and forget it. Elena is a honest woman. If she was going to stand you up she wouldn’t just vanish. She’d come here and say so.’

Lorenzo turned appalled eyes on him and Bernardo muttered, ‘You might have put that better.’

Lorenzo tried to shut out the sound of their voices, and the consciousness that the congregation was getting restless. He knew what they were thinking and he wanted to shout at them that they were wrong. His Elena loved him, and wouldn’t do this to him. It was different from last time. Now, as well as love, they had trust and understanding.

But as the minutes ticked past with no sign of her his dread grew, and his future appeared before him-a blank of misery, because the woman he loved had abandoned him in the most callous way imaginable.

‘What was that?’ Renato asked suddenly.

Lorenzo forced himself back to reality. ‘What?’

‘I thought I heard cheering.’

‘So did I,’ Bernardo said. ‘And applause. Somewhere outside. I’m going to see.’

He almost ran down the aisle and found his wife hurrying towards him, almost dancing in her excitement. ‘Come quickly,’ she said, grasping his hand.

At the cathedral door Bernardo took one look at the incredible sight before dashing back and roaring down the length of the cathedral, ‘Lorenzo, come and look at this!’

Then, not only Lorenzo, but half the congregation was on the move, hurrying out into the sunshine, adding their cheers to the crowd when they saw what was happening. Even the choir hurried out and began hollering and dancing with glee.

A vehicle was approaching down the length of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and attracting a good deal of attention. Traffic was halting, drivers leaning out and cheering, policeman grinned and waved the vehicle through, while crowds of smiling people lined the road.

‘If I’m not very much mistaken,’ Renato said, ‘that’s Enrico Cacelli’s pig cart.’

‘And in the back…’ Bernardo said.

‘Yes,’ Lorenzo said in a daze. ‘In the back…’

‘Any other woman,’ Renato observed, ‘goes to her wedding in a car.’

A smile was breaking over Lorenzo’s face. ‘But my Elena is like no other woman in the world.’

The bride saw him and waved frantically. As the cart rumbled into the piazza he began to run. Enrico Cacelli drew the mule to a halt so suddenly that Helen almost tumbled out of the back, into Lorenzo’s arms.

‘The car-’ she began, and the rest was cut off by his mouth. When she could speak again she said breathlessly, ‘I was so afraid you’d think I wasn’t coming.’

‘I never doubted you for one moment,’ Lorenzo said emphatically. He lifted her high in strong arms. ‘Now,’ he said firmly, ‘we go to church, and I’m not letting go of you until you’re Signora Martelli.’

‘That’s all I want to be,’ she assured him joyfully.

‘Then let’s go.’

The crowd cheered and applauded, the choir burst into the Jubilate, and the sound followed Lorenzo Martelli and Elena Angolini into the cathedral for the wedding that had waited too long.