All Else Confusion by Betty Neels

Author:Betty Neels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1982-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

GOING DOWN the aisle, her hand tucked in Jake’s, Annis had the sensation that she was in a dream. The church was packed, for not only had the invited guests come, but the village had turned out, man, woman and child. Even old Mrs Crocker in her wheelchair had been parked by the font so that she could get a good view. She smiled and nodded, touched that they had all come to wish them happy. Mrs Phipps from the village pub had got a new hat—a large felt, wide-brimmed, quite unsuitable for anything but a wedding, but then there were still five of the Rector’s children…and Phipps himself, with whom she had had many a wordy tussle about sending the children to Sunday School, was beaming at her with all the goodwill in the world. And Mrs Wells wearing one of Mrs Fothergill’s old hats, sent to the jumble sale, last year… Annis passed them all and then paused with Jake in the porch while the photographer took a picture, to the great delight of the Sunday School class, posed to throw confetti.

‘Who said it was to be a quiet wedding?’ asked Jake as they drove the short distance to the Rectory.

‘Well, I’ve lived here all my life,’ Annis pointed out almost apologetically. ‘Besides, it makes a bit of excitement…’

She was relieved to hear his laugh.

The reception was, from the villagers’ point of view, a resounding success. The some seventy-odd guests Jake and Annis had finally agreed on inviting were swelled, not altogether legitimately, by those living in the village who had the nous to walk through the open Rectory door and join everyone else. Nobody minded, and if the Rector had qualms about the way the champagne was being got through by those who shouldn’t be there, he was too good a man to say anything. The sandwiches and vol-au-vents and tiny sausage rolls Annis and her mother had slaved over were gobbled up as fast as they appeared, and it was only because Mrs Fothergill slipped away with some of the wedding cake, to hide it in a tin in the kitchen, that there was any of that saved, either.

What with the speeches and telegrams and everyone wanting to say a few words to the bride and groom, it was a good deal later than they had planned by the time Annis and Jake got into the car, to drive off in another hail of confetti and shouts of, ‘Good luck!’ from the mass of people on the Rectory lawn, swelled to vast proportions now by the rest of the village who had just popped up to have a quick look.

Out of the village, Jake pulled up, got out and removed the old boot, the coloured balloons and the chalked messages scrawled on the back of the car.

‘I suspect the hand of brother James,’ he observed as he got back in. ‘Be sure to remind me to do the same on his wedding day.’

Which remark gave Annis a pleasant little glow because it sounded so permanent.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.