Misleading Engagement. Marjorie Lewty

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.’

      Anne drank the last drops of her champagne and put the glass down on the empty plate between them. ‘What a lovely idea.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for the sustenance and the kind thought, Mr...’

      ‘Rayne,’ he said. ‘Mark Rayne.’

      As he rose she smiled up at him. He was very tall; if only he would smile he would be really handsome, she thought. She knew he could smile. The photograph in the newspaper had shown him smiling beatifically at his lovely fiancé. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t here with him that he looked so gloomy.

      ‘Well, thank you again, Mr Rayne,’ she said, turning to go.

      ‘It was the least I could do,’ he replied gravely.

      There was a spring in Anne’s step as she hurried back into the marquee. She hated to be on bad terms with anyone, and Mark Rayne had apologised very handsomely even if he couldn’t manage a smile.

      The bridal couple were no longer in the marquee; they must have gone into the house to change before leaving. Anne collected her camera and tripod and made her way round to the front of Sir William Brent’s impressive Neo-Gothic mansion. At the foot of a long flight of steps an open car, a Mercedes, was pulled up. Other expensive-looking cars lined the forecourt and the overflow was parked diagonally down the wide drive. She set up her tripod in a spot beside the long, shiny bonnet of the car and hoped for the best.

      Very soon the guests began to drift out of the marquee and stand around the car and up the steps, but they were all too polite to push in front of her. It seemed a long wait, but at last the chatter died down and bags of confetti were produced as the small party from the house came down the steps. Anne swivelled her camera round and got a marvellous view of the bride, dressed now in a honey-coloured suit that matched her hair, which hung round her pretty face like a golden halo as it caught the sunlight. Her husband, in a lightweight suit, was beside her, and next to him the best man, Mark Rayne, with the parents and close relatives.

      Anne СКАЧАТЬ