"Grantville Gazette.Volume XVI" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

Wedding Daze
Virginia DeMarce

Grantville, August 1634

Velma Hardesty took a good look at herself in the mirror.

Jacques-Pierre Dumais came to the trailer and talked to her for an hour or two at least three or four times a week and gave her ideas on which she was to Meditate. She smiled at her reflection, a little sourly. She bet there wasn't a single soul in Grantville who would believe that he only offered her Spiritual Comfort. She scarcely believed it herself.

She used to read a lot about Spiritual Enlightenment. After all, the astrology magazines at the grocery stores, up-time, before the Ring of Fire, were really into it. She hadn't really believed that it worked, though. But three months of receiving regular Spiritual Comfort from Jacques-Pierre had done wonders. She had to admit it. Having someone who listened to her-really listened-had made so much difference.

Although she didn't like to admit it, even to herself, his stern admonitions that slurping down your wine like it was water did not give you an opportunity to appreciate the bouquet properly had done wonders, too. Jacques-Pierre's father owned a vineyard in Languedoc. He absolutely forbade her to drink anything stronger than wine. It interfered with Spiritual Enlightenment, he said, not to mention having a destructive impact on the palate. So she sipped rather than slurped (well, most of the time).

And tried to Meditate, just as he said. For each of the Themes he gave her, she was to walk around town every day until she had spoken to at least four people with whom she could share Words of Enlightened Wisdom. She was supposed to share each Theme with four different people. She didn't bother with that, though. Whenever she had a new one, she shared it with the receptionist at the Probate Court and the receptionist in Judge Maurice Tito's office, since she would be talking to them about money and custody of Susan anyway, dropping off papers and things like that.

She sort of wished that Jacques-Pierre would get on the stick about helping her with Susan and the money. She'd have to remind him. Though, to be honest, now that she wasn't thinking as woozily as she had been last month, there might not be much that he could do. Garbage collector just wasn't the most influential job in town. It was nice of him to have offered, though.

But she had to do extra walking to find enough people to share the rest of the Themes. By now, she knew almost every place in town where she could be sure of finding a captive audience. Checkout line at the grocery store. Circulation desk at the public library. She figured that even if she just said it to the person behind the counter, she had shared it with everyone in line. That saved a lot of walking, but even so, she'd lost eight pounds.

She looked back at the mirror. None of it from the boobs, she noted with satisfaction. Those had been a worthwhile investment.

A couple of weeks later, their Spiritual Comfort session was accompanied by a good-sized glass of the best French wine, newly delivered from a friend of Jacques-Pierre's, a guy named Laurent Mauger. Jacques-Pierre told her that the man went as a Dutch merchant from Haarlem, which he was. But his grandparents had been Huguenots from Dieppe.

Jacques-Pierre told her that Mauger's wife had died three years before, and that his family-the sons, the unmarried older sisters and half-sisters, the widowed sister and half-sister, the nephews and half-nephews-had taken advantage of his grief to get him to sign a pledge that he would not remarry and beget another family. The marriage had not been a great romance, no. But it had endured for two decades and they had reared children together. Mauger had mourned his wife when she died. Such a thing was a quite legally binding document in private law-signed, notarized, and duly filed with the family's attorney, beyond a doubt. Mauger was too strict a Calvinist to go whoring. And, though fat, he was quite healthy, as evidenced by the energy with which he pursued the business affairs that took him around Europe on these frequent trips.

The guy had to be lonely, Velma thought.

The next evening, Mauger joined them for their glasses of wine. He sat there, fat and fiftyish, saying little, toying with his goblet and contemplating Velma's cleavage. But that was all. A couple of days later, he left again. Jacques-Pierre promised to let her know just as soon as he got back in town.

October 1634

Velma started looking through her closet. Jacques-Pierre never would be interested her, personally speaking, except for providing Spiritual Comfort. Mauger was fat, but… she'd been really short on other forms of comfort lately. He wasn't that fat. Jacques-Pierre said that sleeping around interfered with her Spiritual Enlightenment. Mauger was one of Jacques-Pierre's friends. Maybe he'd make an exception for a friend.

Or maybe she'd just interfere with her Spiritual Enlightenment and get back on track after Mauger left on his next business trip.

She pulled out a lovely dress of mauve faux leather with slits in interesting spots. It had matching boots. Sighed. Not yet. Five more pounds, at least, if she didn't want to strip the teeth out of the zipper. Closer to ten. Back to the closet. She didn't think that Mauger was the type to go for a fire-engine red jumpsuit. Anyway, not with the henna on her hair. That suit had been for a blond. She dug deeper. Ah.

She'd been right. There was nothing quite like a halter top with sequins to focus a man's attention where she wanted it. Laurent Mauger had returned precisely when he had promised. He focused. He practically panted. But he rose courteously when she announced that it was time for her to go home. He didn't offer to accompany her. Damn.

She would have found it less damnable if she could have heard his subsequent conversation with Jacques-Pierre, who was putting the most favorable spin on things. Truth, if Jacques-Pierre didn't manage to get this woman out of his way, he thought that he would go quite insane. Madame Haggerty was one thing. A useful source of data. Not especially time consuming. Madame Hardesty, on the other hand… if only her son was not Frank Jackson's liaison to Don Francisco Nasi. The things that a man had to endure for the sake of his country.

"Ah, Laurent. Yes, twice widowed. Most unfortunate." He saw no need to bring up that until the Ring of Fire, both of her former husbands had been quite alive. They were now legally dead. The courts had ruled on that. "A first cousin of Prime Minister Stearns, I understand." There was the tragic recent death of one of her daughters. Jacques-Pierre racked his brain. There was the fact that the youngest girl did not live with Velma-he could say that it was for the purposes of attending school-and thus would not have to be taken into Laurent's household. And there was, of course, the lovely, casuistic, thought that Laurent had only pledged not to take a second wife who would complicate the inheritance by bearing him more children.

Another idea came to Jacques-Pierre. And, of course, she understood the importance of clothing. Laurent's sisters, fine women, all of them, had not adapted to the new villa and the country estate. They still dressed as if they were of the bourgeoisie, with their respectable black dresses, white collars, and caps. But that was no requirement of the Calvinist faith. Certainement, the Huguenot nobles of France, such as the wife of Duke Henri de Rohan, did not dress so. Nor did the court of Frederik Hendrick of Orange. Such a wife as Madame Hardesty would display to the full the dimensions of Laurent's wealth. And it was that wealth which would enable him to obtain daughters of the lesser nobility as brides for his sons and nephews.

It was a long conversation, but a little jerky on Mauger's part. Jacques-Pierre suspected that his mind kept drifting back to the sequins, which was a good thing.

"My religion?" Velma asked. Why did Laurent Mauger want to know her religion, of all things? "I'm, uh, Presbyterian." Well, she was. Or had been, once upon a time. When she was baptized. Her mother was definitely Presbyterian. Tina's disastrous funeral had been held in the Presbyterian church. Not that the Reverend Enoch Wiley thought very highly of her, but "Presbyterian" would do.

She was wearing a lemon yellow eyelet blouse with ruffles that nicely accented the deep V-neck. It was a tie style, with no buttons, so the ruffles moved nicely when she breathed. She leaned toward him, breathing. It should be apparent, she thought, that no artificial means of support were present. And she didn't think that the seventeenth century knew about boob jobs.

"Presbyterian." Laurent Mauger sighed with satisfaction.

"Don't you believe, Monsieur Mauger," Velma asked, "that some things are just Meant?"

Mentally, Mauger briefly compared the stiff corsets in which his late wife had encased herself throughout most of their marriage to the delightful flexibility of Velma's upper torso. He reached a decision; some things were indeed Meant. Presuming, of course, that Meant signified predestined. Given the religious whirlwind of this town, that this elegant cousin of Prime Minister Stearns was Calvinist had almost been too much to hope for. It must be Meant, indeed. "Madame, would you do me the honor of accepting my hand in marriage?"

Velma blinked. She had not expected that. The most she had really been hoping for was a bit of non-Spiritual comfort and a few nice gifts. But Jacques-Pierre had dropped the information that Mauger had money. Pots and pots of money, apparently. Pots and pots of money were not to be sneezed at. But if she ever let this old goat anywhere near Enoch Wiley before the knot was tied, the reverend would give him a version of her life story that would scare him off for good.

"Only if you're willing to marry at City Hall," she said. "I don't really hold with church weddings."

Mauger's Counter-Remonstrant heart warmed. A true Calvinist, then. None of this creeping, compromising, semi-Papism. As Calvin himself had written, "Of course marriage is a gift of God. That does not mean that it is within the proper province of the church, any more than are agriculture or shoemaking, which are also gifts of God to humankind." He beamed.

He had taken a comfortable room at the new Higgins hotel. He requested that for the remainder of his stay, it should be expanded to a suite.

Velma sold the trailer. With the way that real estate prices in Grantville had skyrocketed, it brought in quite a bit. She packed a lot of the contents to take with them. It came to several wagonloads of freight, but Laurent didn't mind. He had been fascinated by the lava lamps. Luckily, they were the kind that worked with candles in the base and didn't need to be plugged in, so in their new home in Haarlem, they could sit and watch the lava lamps together when they were not doing other things.

Mauger received the news that his wife would be bringing him a dowry with delight. Jacques-Pierre had not advised him of this bonus in advance. He did not discover it until Velma requested, very properly for a wife, that he take care of the business of switching the bank draft to Haarlem. It was not a large dowry by the standards of the merchant families of the Netherlands, but every source of investment funds helped and it would make it a lot easier to explain his decision to his family.

Last of all, Velma packed her clothes and sent nasty-nice notes to all her relatives. She thought a lot about her wedding dress. Penny Reading managed to open the seams on the mauve faux leather just enough that she could get into it. Old Mittie Barger disguised the little needle holes that ran down under her arms with embroidery and sewed bias tape on the inside of the seams to make them stronger. She had found the matching boots. When she showed up for the wedding, she could tell from Laurent's expression that her choice was a smashing success.

Even Jacques-Pierre had a funny look on his face.

Two weeks after the wedding, Laurent asked rather doubtfully, "Uh, what?"

"I'm having my period." Velma frowned. "You should know about that. I thought you'd been married before. I'm only a little past forty, after all." Well, forty-six last July, if you wanted to be picky about it. Minor details.

Laurent swallowed. He had been married before. He did know about it. He had a feeling that Jacques-Pierre had misled him about Madame Hardesty's age. Which did not mean that he intended to forego the joys and blessings of matrimony. He wouldn't even suggest such a thing to a fine woman who had married him in good faith.

Which was just as well. Velma was deriving a great deal of non-Spiritual comfort from her marriage. Laurent was still pretty lively about it all, fat or not. At the end of the week, they resumed matrimonial relations.

They left for Haarlem shortly thereafter. Velma didn't have her period on the trip. She put it down to all the jostling in the carriage and the disruption of her schedule that travel brought.