Chapter 16: Jennifer Chooses

Martha was being her usual obnoxious self to David, and even more so to Jennifer and David as a couple whenever she encountered them together. Some six weeks after Jennifer and David had first slept together matters came to a head when Martha tried to order Jennifer to leave the table David was at during coffee after the church service and to sit with her and some of the older ladies of the congregation.

“Leave me alone,” Jennifer said, “I want to sit here.”

“Well I want you to sit over here,” was a repeat of the order.

“Just go away, Vicar, and leave her alone,” David interposed.

“And you can shut up. It’s between me and her, and none of your business,” Martha spluttered.

Turning away from Martha and dropping to his knees beside his chair, David said, “Jennifer, I know you are attached to Martha more than as a lodger, and I understand that is important to you. But this cannot go on. You have to choose between us. Will you marry me, please?“

A pin dropping would have resounded round the hall like thunder, so quiet everyone had gone as he posed this question. Most were holding their breaths.

“No,” screamed Martha.

“I didn’t ask you, and I don’t want to marry you,” he snarled, then moderating his tone he asked Jennifer again, “Please?”

For long moments Jennifer just stared at him, then at Martha, then back at David and finally said, “Yes. Yes please, David.”

He solemnly put a diamond ring he just ‘happened to have with him’ on her finger and all the ladies of the congregation in the coffee morning crowded round Jennifer to offer their congratulations, though they were a little muted in the case of Anne and Julia.

Most of the husbands offered theirs to David, though they were a little muted in the case of fathers with nubile unmarried daughters who had not thought that this millionaire would choose anyone so young as his second spouse.

The Vicar stood alone watching these congratulations for a few moments and then fled the scene in tears.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of arrangements, the Bishop was invited to the wedding and he offered to officiate, 5^th January was chosen as the date a little over three weeks away which allowed time for the banns to be called. David had to ring to make the arrangements for the honeymoon which he had provisionally decided on, but he refused to give Jennifer any details beyond the climate being rather like the south coast of England, but a little nicer.

Jennifer had a rather fraught conversation with her mother and father about the suddenness of the event.

Her mother was split between being pleased that Jennifer’s ‘unnatural phase‘, as she thought of it, was over, and worry about the age difference between the couple, as she thought twenty-three years is too much. As she pointed out to her daughter, “Why, he’s three years older than I am.”

Her father’s opening question was exactly as Jennifer expected, “What does he do for a living?”

Jennifer teased him, “Do? He doesn’t do anything, dad.”

“He expects you to keep him?”

Sensing impeding apoplexy, she said, “Of course not dad. He’s rich. He sold his business last year for I don’t know how many millions. You can look them up, Stapleford Secure Systems and his name is David Ransome.”

“I’ll check while you speak to your mother again.”

After a vain attempt to persuade her daughter to delay the wedding until the summer, her mother asked, “What about all the arrangements? Who’s making those?”

“I gather David’s former secretary, Patience, is going to sort all that. She’s very experienced at organising things,” Jennifer offered, “She’ll want my list of guests as soon as we can provide it.”

“Hmmph. It is our responsibility to arrange, and pay for your wedding. We have money set aside for that,” her mother started to say, when there was a kafuffle at the other end of the line as her father intervened.

Then her mother said in a rather strained voice, “Your father says to leave the arrangements until we see you tomorrow. I expect we’ll travel by train as it’s a bit too far to want to drive.”

“Are you coming here tomorrow then? Good idea, mother,” said Jennifer, “I’ll arrange for Patience to come over to discuss things in the afternoon.”

“It’s not her wedding. Why is she interested? Did she have an affair with this David when she was his secretary?”

Jennifer’s laughter was genuine, “She’s at least twenty years older than him; old enough to be his or your mother, and I think she’s just bored since the takeover meant she was asked to retire.”

In the end David arranged for her parents to stay in his guest room, ruefully remarking to Jennifer, “Well, a modicum of abstinence will make the honeymoon more exciting, I hope.”