Chapter 40
Forty
The French doors stood open. Beyond them, the garden had been hastily rearranged into something that could, from a forgiving distance, pass for intentional.
An arch had been wedged beside the doorway, leaning ever so slightly to the left.
Chairs sat in loose rows across the lawn, slowly filling with guests who were muttering things like, ‘Round two,’ to polite laughter.
From where Eva stood, the whole arrangement looked like a bodge job. Hawthorne Manor had seen many garden weddings, but not this early in spring, and certainly not thrown together at speed. They weren’t ready for this.
And in the middle of it all was Maddy, standing very still in the doorway, trying to get married for a second time, her now rather grubby veil back down.
Adam was saying something to the officiant, smiling in that agreeable way of his. He looked like a man determined to be the right kind of groom under unusual circumstances. It was almost admirable.
But Eva couldn’t bear to look at him for long. She had done something terrible to him, something she couldn’t undo. And beneath that guilt, she envied what he had, and still further below that, she had an unshakable belief that he didn’t deserve Maddy.
But did Maddy? Eva didn’t think so. She thought this was as good as she deserved, a cheesy bastard who didn’t see her.
A breeze moved across the lawn, lifting the edges of dresses, stirring hair. Someone near Eva laughed lightly. ‘Well, at least it’s not raining.’
That’s right, aim low, she thought.
The officiant began, voice carrying just enough to reach the seated guests.
‘Thank you all for your patience.’
Maddy’s dress lifted slightly in the breeze, then settled again.
The officiant glanced down at her papers, steadying them with one hand. ‘We’re gathered here today…’
The left French door creaked loudly, shifting a bit on its hinge in the breeze.
Eva watched Maddy. She was looking straight ahead, but not at Adam. It was that slightly unfocused look Eva had come to recognise, like she was standing just a fraction outside her own body.
The breeze came again, stronger this time. The dress lifted higher. Maddy reached down automatically, holding it down, her beautiful face flushing with light embarrassment.
The officiant cleared her throat, raising her voice a touch. ‘Marriage is a commitment—’
The gust hit.
It came without warning, a sudden, forceful rush that seemed to gather itself from the garden and hurl straight through the open doors.
The bottom half of Maddy’s dress lifted and ballooned up, exposing her just shy of indecency. She pushed it down quickly again, fighting the wind and not entirely winning. The bouquet in her hands shuddered, petals tearing loose and scattering across the threshold and out into the garden.
The officiant’s papers lifted, flapped wildly, and then tore free completely.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, reaching after them but was too late.
White sheets spiralled out into the garden, skimming over heads, dipping between chairs. A woman in the second row let out a startled cry as one wrapped around her face before sailing on.
But that was all shits and giggles compared to what happened next.
The arch gave a visible shudder. Then the doors joined in.
The left one slammed inward with a sharp crack, making Maddy—still battling with her dress—flinch.
The right door swung wildly on its hinge, banging once, twice, three times against the frame.
Each impact briefly hid and then revealed Maddy and Adam, like a silent-era stop-motion movie about a wedding gone wrong.
Ralph appeared from within. ‘Sorry, just need to…’ he muttered, bracing his legs against the left door and leaning forward to hold the right with his top half, behind the couple, becoming wedding furniture.
Another gust followed, not quite as strong but enough to keep everything unsettled. The door strained in Ralph’s grip.
‘We might need to shift out a bit,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘No, we can’t,’ the officiant said automatically, still half-turned, watching her paperwork disappear across the lawn.
‘They won’t stay open,’ Ralph shot back, as the door jerked again in his hands.
As if to prove the point, the right door wrenched free of his grip for a split second and slammed into Adam’s bottom. He howled at the slap. Maddy’s hand flew to her mouth.
But while everyone watched the doors misbehave, the real villain of the piece revealed itself. The arch. One of its supports shifted in the soft ground, tilting the whole structure at a worrying angle.
‘Careful,’ someone murmured.
Two more staff rushed forward, grabbing at it, trying to steady it before it went completely.
Now people were muttering, concern in their tones.
‘Is this safe?’
‘Should we…?’
Another gust pushed through, catching the fabric of the arch and lifting it as a very young woman in a wait-staff uniform appeared and ran forward, grabbing hold of the rebellious structure.
Adam stepped forward.
‘Alright,’ he said, louder now, pitching his voice toward reassurance. ‘Bit of wind. We can just give it a second…’
The officiant made a small, helpless gesture at the place where her pages had been.
‘I… I don’t actually have…’
The young caterer swore under her breath, shifting her grip. ‘We can’t hold this,’ she said. ‘It’s not stable.’
It quickly became a fight between woman and arch, and the arch, which had the size advantage, started to win, lifting the young woman up, a gap of air between her feet and the ground.
Eva ran forward and grabbed the woman by the arm.
She saw Maddy reach forward to help. And then her wedding dress blew straight up, and she was totally blinded, and, less importantly but still notable, her knickers were on display.
The officiant looked between them, then out at the scattering remains of their ceremony. ‘I’m so sorry, but we can’t continue like this.’
Eva threw her a sharp look while she tried to keep the girl from flying away to Oz with one hand and drag poor Maddy’s dress back down with the other. ‘I think that’s pretty obvious!’
The catering girl finally seemed to realise she couldn’t win the fight and that the best thing to do was to let go, which she did.
The archway took flight at last, the young caterer landing with a thump on her bum.
Eva managed to get Maddy’s dress down just in time for them both to watch as the arch travelled up, up, and away.
A brief silence followed.
Then, somewhere in the back rows, someone said, ‘Well… third time’s the charm?’