Intolerable Civility

Chapter Two: A Fine Name

By the time that was done, Miss Skinner was disappearing into the church vestibule. Cate had to trot after her, holding her skirts up out of the mud, and arrived a little breathless through the church doors. She had not been here since Luke's christening in February. She had not felt welcome, despite the vicar's insistence on Christian charity. Or perhaps because of. Cate did not feel as though she needed charity. Not the moral kind, anyway. And certainly Luke did not. He had not chosen his father to be a liar or his mother to be a fool.

In the front pew sat two figures, recognizable even from behind. Her mother, round and wide, wore a broad-brimmed bonnet dripping with paper flowers, while her father, equally wide but taller and all corners, loomed next to her in black. Cate shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill of the church. Beyond them stood Demery, talking quietly with the vicar. They spoke of the weather, Cate decided: both Demery and the vicar were the kind of man who would.

There was no one else in the church. Cate had hoped her brothers or sisters might come — but then, Sir William thought she was a dangerous influence upon Madalene and Sophia. He would have forbidden them from coming, perhaps not even told them she was getting married. He might have let her older brother Luke come though. She had always been closer to him than her sisters, who were many years younger. When the baby was born, she had not had to think twice to know who to name him after — the only man who had ever truly been her friend.

Cate caught up to Miss Skinner at the end of the aisle and hovered there, uncertain of what to say. Everybody was looking at her. Then Luke started crying, and the silence was broken. Lady Balley — she never had been Mother, let alone Mama, to Cate — looked at the bundle of cloth that swathed him.

"I suppose I might look at my first grandchild," she said.

Sir William cleared his throat. "Let us not call him that. No bastard has a father, let alone grandparents."

Nevertheless, Lady Balley propelled herself to her feet and waddled imperiously to peer at the bundle in Miss Skinner's arms. She sniffed. "He looks healthy enough. Mark those eyes will be brown before long though. They're already muddy. Stop him crying, will you?"

Miss Skinner shushed Luke ineffectively. His wails echoed around the vaults of the church.

"Let me hold him," Cate said. "I can hold him while I am wed, can't I?" She looked at the vicar. "That's not forbidden, is it?"

"There is no reason you cannot," the vicar said. "It is all the same to God, I believe."

Cate took Luke into her arms. He settled a little, grizzling against her chest. Perhaps he was hungry, but that would have to wait. She felt better, holding him. It made the weight of Demery's impassive gaze more bearable somehow. Today, in respect to the occasion, he wore an embroidered ivory waistcoat and an Esterhazy-grey morning coat. She was not used to him wearing anything but black. He looked somehow even more sombre in pale clothes. He had not spoken since she had come within earshot.

"Let's get on with it then," Sir William barked. "We're late enough already."

The vicar fumbled for his pocket watch and peered longsightedly at it. "We are to time, Sir William."

"We are a year behind! Or do you take the babe to be a premonition?"

The vicar coloured and pushed his spectacles higher on his long nose. "Yes, yes, of course." He coughed to clear his throat. "If you will take your positions, ladies and gentlemen, standing, please. To my right, Miss Balley, next to your bridegroom." The vicar cleared his throat again. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."

The suddenness of the ceremony's beginning startled Cate. She stumbled her way through the vows and, when the time came for the ring, shifted her hold on Luke just enough that Demery could slide it over her finger. It was a thin, rather dingy gold band, with the speck of a jewel glinting within it. Cate felt ashamed immediately for caring how meagre it was; it was more than she deserved to receive a ring at all.