Misleading Engagement

She looked up at him and said mildly, ‘I propose to stay until the end of the ceremony. Why do you ask?’

She saw the angry light in his dark eyes. ‘Well, you can’t leave that thing here,’ he said, with a contemptuous gesture towards her white Metro which, although lovingly polished and regularly serviced, was beginning to show its age.

She began to feel very annoyed. ‘I certainly have no intention of moving. it,’ she said coldly.

He passed a glance over her, standing very straight in her off-the-peg grey suit, and took a deep breath. ‘Now, look here, my girl,’ he said, and his tone was more insulting than impatient, ‘if you’ve come early to get a good spot to gawp at a wedding it doesn’t concern me, but you must certainly remove your car to another place—much further away.’

Anne locked the door of the Metro very slowly and deliberately. She turned back to him. ‘And what will you do if I refuse? Send for the police with lifting gear? I doubt if you’ll find any in this village.’ The dark blue eyes that could so easily sparkle with laughter were as cold as ice.

He made a furious noise in his throat. ‘This is ridiculous. I shall see the vicar and have your car removed.’

‘You do that,’ she said. ‘Tell him Miss Anne Grey has parked her car in a place you don’t approve of. I’m sure he’ll help you. He is most courteous,’ she added pointedly.

She picked up her holdall and stalked away from him towards the church gates. She held her head high, but as she hurried up the side-aisle she was annoyed to find that her knees were shaking and she glanced over her shoulder in case he was behind her.

As she reached the place between the pillar of the chancel arch and the back row of the choir stalls and put down her holdall, she told herself that she mustn’t let that abominable man get under her skin. She should be proud of herself. He had been extremely rude and she had stood up to him ... but there had been something in that hard dark face which had sent a tremor of fear to the pit of her stomach.

She peeped round the pillar and saw that he had come into the church and was talking to the vicar beside the vestry door. She could hear the rumble of the deep voice and the vicar’s soft-spoken replies but couldn’t make out a word. After a time the best man nodded and seemed to be thanking the vicar before he turned and walked out of the church.

Anne breathed more easily. That was that and she must put the rather horrid little episode right out of her mind. She would need all her concentration when the wedding began.

She spared a few moments to look round the church again with deep pleasure, enjoying the scent of the flowers which filled every corner and the way the sun cast coloured patches on the rows of pews as it shone through the big south window. A heavenly place for a wedding, she thought as she started on her work.

The next half-hour was spent in setting up the tripod and camera and checking that she would get the best shots of the bride and groom from here as they took their vows. Yes, she decided at last, it would be perfect. She needed particularly to focus on the bride’s face when she made her responses. Next there was the off-camera mike to be installed where it would pick up the words of the service, as close as possible to the spot where the vicar would stand but without being obtrusive. This was always a headache, but at last it was done and the wires taped to the floor carefully.

The church bells had been chiming for some time, and she glanced at her watch. The guests would be arriving soon. Unhitching the camera from its tripod, she carried it out to the front of the church where a crowd was already collecting on both sides of the path to the entrance. Of course everyone in the neighbourhood would be there to see the squire’s daughter arriving for her wedding.

There was also a TV team from the local station. She knew the cameraman, Bob Riley, from her college days, and exchanged a few words with him. He was decent enough to make sure she had a good place beside him to film the guests arriving and the bride with her father.

‘How’s business, Anne?’ enquired Bob. ‘I’m going freelance shortly. I’m tired of the local stuff—I want to branch out a bit. Roger French is coming in with me as producer-director, and we’ll probably pick up a few more of the guys and gals’ He chuckled. ‘Wish me luck. Oh, here’s the first contingent. Off we go, Anne.’

He lifted his camera to his eye and Anne, after removing her glasses and sticking them into her pocket, followed suit. She couldn’t cope with the glasses while she had her eye glued to the camera.

Twenty minutes later Anne’s arms were aching, but the arrival of the elegant guests had duly been recorded. The bride’s mother arrived next, with an older woman, and a minute or two later the six little bridesmaids, pink-cheeked and cherubic in frilly voile dresses of hyacinth-blue, were decanted from three cars and shepherded by mothers and aunts into the porch, to a chorus of, ‘Ah! Aren’t they sweet?’ from the crowd.

One of the six was taller than the rest. She was, no doubt, the chief bridesmaid. It would be the best man’s job to look after her, and Anne hoped for the little girl’s sake that he could smile as well as scowl.

There was a lull in the proceedings now as they waited for the bride and her father. Anne balanced her camera on her shoulder and shook her tired arms one by one. Then, only about five minutes late, a beribboned Rolls-Royce glided up to the gate and the bride was helped out carefully by her father. More murmurs of admiration came from the crowd, and a ripple of applause.

Anne, concentrating on getting the best angles, could see only that Elizabeth Brent was a dream in cream satin and lace as she walked slowly up the path on her father’s arm.

With a hasty goodbye to Bob, who wouldn’t be working inside the church, Anne hurried round to the south door and back to her station beside the pillar, avoiding the porch where the procession would be forming.

Fixing the camera back on its tripod and checking that the monitor screen was properly connected to the camera, she was able to draw a deep breath and prepare herself for the next stage of the service. The bells had ceased and the organist was playing a Bach prelude. The bridegroom had taken his place at the chancel steps, the best man standing beside him, and Anne focused on them to check her position.

The profile of the best man came into view and she couldn’t resist zooming in on it for a moment. In the zoom lens his profile looked serious but no longer grim. She gave him full marks for that. If he hadn’t made the effort to look cheerful to back up his friend on this nervy occasion he wouldn’t have been human.

Suddenly, to her horror, he turned his head. She saw him full-face now, and it was as if they were staring into each other’s eyes from only inches apart. She felt again that odd jolt in her stomach. It wasn’t really like that, of course; he couldn’t see her face, several yards away and hidden behind the camera. He had probably heard a sound from somewhere behind her and had moved his head to see where it had come from.

It was only a couple of seconds before she turned the camera away, retracting the zoom lens, but in those seconds she had registered every single detail of the hard, handsome face—the dark hair, curling slightly at the temples, the furrows in the wide brow, the long, curving lashes over night-dark eyes, the small lines round the long, sensitive mouth, even the pores of his skin where he had shaved earlier. She saw something else in that momentary Cash—he was not angry or bad-tempered. He was deeply unhappy.

The realisation was a shock. Anne’s hands were trembling as they gripped the handle of the tripod. Pull yourself together, you idiot, she told herself. You’re supposed to be a professional, and professionals don’t allow their minds to wander.

The bride’s mother came alone up the aisle and quietly slipped into the second pew, then the choir of boys and girls filed in, followed by the vicar, who, after a short pause before the altar, took his place beneath the chancel arch. The bridegroom and best man were standing before him to one side. The organ music faded away into silence and a hush of expectation fell over the congregation.

The solemnity of the moment got through to Anne, and her hands were damp as they adjusted the camera. Then the first notes of the ‘Bridal March’ sounded and the bridal procession appeared from the porch and began the slow walk up the aisle, the bride on her father’s arm, followed by her bridesmaids. From then on it was total concentration for Anne. Not a moment of the service must be lost.

She worked with confidence, missing nothing, through the singing of the hymns, the prayers, the address by the vicar, the exchanging of rings, and the move to the vestry to catch the signing of the register. She dashed back again to change the cassette before she made her way down the church to be in place when the couple came down the aisle together. Hastily she slipped the cassette out of the camera, dropping it into her holdall, and put a new one in.

She’d better be on the safe side and change the battery too, although she didn’t think that the old one was exhausted. It was dark in her comer of the church, and she had to fiddle with inserting the new battery. She was feeling quite unbearably hot. She just couldn’t go out into the sunshine again without removing her jacket. She pulled it off hastily and tossed it down just as the organ began triumphantly to fill the church with the strains of the well-loved Mendelssohn ‘Wedding March’.

Gripping her camera, she hurried down the side-aisle to a spot from where she could record the progress of the bride and bridegroom, smiling happily, down the nave, with the bridesmaids following behind.

Outside in the churchyard the photographer had arrived, and was soon busily organising people into groups. After taking a few casual shots, Anne left him to it and hurried back up the side-aisle to reclaim her holdall.

She packed her camera and tripod away and then picked up her jacket—or rather she tried to pick it up. It seemed to have got stuck somehow in the end choir stall. Her glasses were in the pocket and without them it was difficult to see what had happened. Anne pulled at it and swished it from side to side, trying to unhook it. Finally, with a tearing sound as the lining was released, the jacket was free. She clicked her tongue as she saw a long rip. up the lining, but that could wait to be examined when she got home. She pushed on her glasses, zipped up her holdall and left the church by the south door.

Her car was, of course, where she had parked it. For just a second she wondered if the best man might have had it moved after all. That would have been victory for the male sex. But not this time, she thought with a wry grin as she unlocked it, threw in the holdall and jacket and set out to drive to the Brent residence, a few miles away, where the reception was to be held.

She did not turn into the drive, but found a place to leave her car further along the lane beside the high wall which surrounded the grounds, and walked back to where a large marquee had been put up on the lawn of the impressive mansion of Sir William Brent.

It was hot inside, with an overpowering smell of flowers and cut grass. Two long trestle-tables indicated that the meal was to be a buffet, and maids from a catering firm were bustling about with plates and glasses. The food would no doubt be brought from the house at the last minute.

Anne enquired of an older woman who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings where the wedding cake would be placed, so that she could position herself out of the way but at the best angle to record the cutting of the cake and the speeches. She found a corner to place the microphone and waited for the next stage of the proceedings. She was beginning to feel tired and very hot. She would be thankful when it was all over.

The parents were the first to arrive, followed by the bride and groom, and a line was formed to welcome the guests. Last lap! Anne told herself.

Soon the marquee was full of people, and the smell of expensive perfume mingled with that of flowers and the delectable goodies on trays which the maids were carrying in and laying out on the tables. Champagne followed in buckets of ice, and lastly the cake, a glorious pyramid of dazzling whiteness. The sound of talk and laughter rose and fell and finally rose in a crescendo as the bride pretended that she had to be helped by her husband to cut the cake.

Anne was working mechanically when it came to the speeches, and as soon as they were over she parked her camera and tripod with her holdall and jacket in a comer of the marquee and found her way out into the cool air. There was a garden seat under a clump of trees quite close and she sank down onto it, closed her eyes and lifted her face to the refreshing breeze.

She wasn’t aware of a tall figure approaching across the grass. ‘Hello, Miss Grey.’

Anne’s eyes flew open to see the best man standing before her, a plate in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. He held the glass out to her. ‘A peace offering,’ he said.

Her earlier resentment had faded, the memory of it erased by the moment when his eyes had looked into hers so closely—so intimately, it had seemed—through the lens of her camera.

‘Oh! Oh, thank you,’ she murmured weakly. She felt absurdly shy and lowered her face over the glass as she took a long drink of the blessedly cold champagne. ‘That’s lovely.’

He sat down beside her. ‘I thought you looked as if you needed it. I’d no idea that recording a wedding involved such hard work.’ He still wasn’t smiling but his tone was friendly now. ‘And I did my best to make things more difficult for you,’ he added wryly. ‘Please have some cake as an indication of your forgiveness.’ He put the plate on the seat between them.

Anne tried to think of something concise and witty to say in reply, but the words didn’t come. Instead she smiled at him through her large glasses and took a bite of the delicious wedding cake.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now all debts are settled.’ He leaned back in the wooden seat. ‘Have you finished your labours yet?’

This was easier. She chased a crumb of cake round the plate and said, ‘Not quite. I still have to wait for the bridal couple to leave for their honeymoon. Then I can pack up and go home. But there will be at least twelve more hours to spend on editing the tapes. I’ll wait for tomorrow to tackle that.’

He nodded. ‘You’d better keep an eye on the goings-on inside. I don’t suppose Andrew and Liz will hang about long; they’ve got to drive to Dorset. Andrew has a cottage and a boat there. They plan to spend their honeymoon cruising round the Greek Islands and I think they want to make a start today.’