Bride in Flight Read Free

and there’s not a cloud in the sky. A good forecast too.”
    A good forecast for what? The future?
    She smiled automatically, thanking him for his good wishes, took the flowers in, laid them on the hall seat. She looked down on them through a blur of tears. The little Victorian posies of tiny pink sweetheart roses and blue cornflowers ... her own trail of the dazzling purity of frangipani flowers ... For a moment the whole house tipped and swung. She clutched the arm of the hall seat, steadied herself. She would not faint. She wouldn’t. But she must do something. What?
    Her eye fell on the telephone. Of course. Ring Gil. Find out if Dallas was still there, what was going to happen. With shaking hands she dialled the number. He would pour it all out, of course. It would be exactly as he had said ... a sudden infatuation, and just as suddenly, when he saw her again, his bride, the realization that here was his life partner. But they must discuss it.
    Gil’s voice, back to normal, imperturbable, dear, came to her. It was so ordinary that for one crazy moment she thought she must have dreamed the whole thing up, had a nightmare.
    “Oh, Christine darling, how sweet of you to ring. I’ve been trying not to ring you. In fact I had to restrain myself from rushing round to see you this morning ... told myself it simply wasn’t done, that your matrons-of-honor would think I was plumb crazy. I’m not supposed to see you today till you stand beside me in your bridal gown, am I? Not suffering from pre-wedding nerves, are you? No, I thought not ... they’re for other people, not us. Only, sweet, don’t keep me waiting. Be on time. I could be nervous then.
    “Oh, the ring! Good lord! That shows what a wedding does for you ... I clean forgot it. Listen, pet, have it in your hand and give it to the minister when he comes to the front of the church to escort you down the aisle, and he can slip it to the best man. Are the bouquets exactly what you wanted? Good ... well, not long now. I won’t keep you, dear, and I’ll see you at twelve noon. Bye-bye till then, Christine.”
    In a daze Kirsty hung up the phone, unwilling admiration for the way he had rallied sweeping her with tenderness. Yet what was the matter with her? She’d not asked one pertinent question. She’d gone stiff and practically wordless when she heard his voice. In it had been all the eagerness she thought she had missed in his caresses this week. Did it just mean he’d indulged in a mild flirtation and got caught up with a scheming girl? She suddenly remembered some of the things that had been said, and was forced to think mild was hardly the word. But what chance had a chap against such women? Poor Gilbert, what he must be suffering. She ought to have told him. She ought to have said: “Darling, I came to the house with the ring, overheard you telling Dallas what you did. But never mind. She can’t stop us marrying each other. I still trust you. If she comes forward ... though I think she was bluffing ... I’ll say I know all about it and it doesn’t matter.”
    It would have set Gilbert’s mind at rest. But she hadn’t, something had paralysed her brain, her vocal chords. She’d only made mechanical responses, meaningless nothings.
    But somehow the wedding was back in her mind in reality. She must have been mad to have considered even for one wild moment ringing him up and telling him it was all off. When you loved a person you trusted them, you waited believingly , then, when it would not spoil a perfect moment, your loved one would tell you all about it. And if he had been ... weak ... wasn’t there forgiveness? “Love,” Shakespeare had said, “is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”
    She must pull herself together, think of Gilbert. Ring him again, get a firm hold of what she must say, say it without delay, tell him she had heard, but it was still all right between them. Then perhaps Gilbert might be able to contact this Dallas and