Chapter 12

The months before the wedding passed quicker than I would have expected. Mummy and I spent enormous amounts of time working on guest lists and wedding details. This created a whole set of new difficulties for me. I didn't know most of the people that she wished to invite. I had suffered through months of making contact with Amelia's friends and acquaintances, and had managed to make it with just a few awkward moments. This promised to inundate me with more of the same, as distant relatives and friends came for the wedding. But there was no getting around it, since to not invite them would be a terrible insult.

Anne came down to Hartford a couple of times, from her new home in Boston, to help out when Gerald would go away on business. They were very happy together and he never stayed away a minute longer than was necessary to complete his business.

Jeremy and I corresponded every day, and he came to Hartford every couple of weeks, weather permitting. It is almost a hundred miles by rail, or he would have been there every weekend. On the few weekends that he could not make it because of severe snowstorms, I missed him terribly. He would always send a telegram when the weather forced his absence, and I came to dread seeing the messenger on a Friday evening. Somehow, I managed to survive until the day of our wedding.

My parents and myself had traveled to Westervelt Mansion two days before the ceremony. They were very impressed with the estate, as I knew that they would be. Martha, Elizabeth, and Roberta had arrived earlier, and were there to greet my parents and myself when we arrived. Anne and Gerald arrived just after us. Mr. Westervelt welcomed us warmly into his home. Always the jovial and generous host, he had arranged for a prenuptial banquet that would have put many a royal party to shame.

Martha was to be my maid of honor, with Elizabeth, Roberta, Anne, and Beverly as my bridesmaids. Jeremy had selected Tad Stevens for his best man, with Donald, Charles, Gerald, and Harry Millar serving as ushers. The ceremony was to be held in the beautifully manicured gardens at the rear of the house, and the weather on the day of the wedding could not have been better.

My wedding dress had been made with a beautiful white jacquard silk. The underskirt was fully gathered and pleated, with a very full posterior bustle, and white silk skirt draping. The tight fitting bodice had required that my corset be laced down extra tight. My bridesmaids were dressed in similar dresses, made with pink faille.

The entire ceremony went perfectly, except where the young flower girl tripped and fell on the lawn. Her father, Gerald's cousin, picked her up and, after brushing her off, started her on her path again. My heart was beating like a trip hammer as I walked down the aisle with my father. I smiled and tried to appear calm, but I was quaking on the inside. For the first time in weeks, I thought about the spirit. How long would I have with Jeremy before the spirit took us back to the 20th century? Was I making a mistake by marrying? I didn't want to have Jeremy suffer when this body died, but I wanted so much to be with him for as long as possible. When the minister asked the question, I said, "I do," and in minutes I was Mrs. Jeremy Westervelt. Jeremy lifted my veil, and after staring at my face for a few seconds, he wiped away my tears of happiness, and bent to kiss me.

The reception, like the wedding ceremony, went perfectly. Afterwards, Jeremy and I spent the night in the same suite that Anne and Gerald had used the year before. It was sufficiently isolated so that noises would not carry and disturb other guests. And there were plenty of noises as Jeremy and I consummated our marriage. Although I never forgot that my time here was temporary, I give little thought about my previous male existence. I was a woman now, in body and mind. The following day, we left for a two-week honeymoon at Niagara Falls, the choice of newlyweds everywhere, at that time. Traveling by train in the 19th century was an adventure in discomfort compared to the travel in the late 20th century. We stopped overnight in Albany, New York, the first evening. Exiting the train station on Broadway, we took a carriage to the hotel, which was located on State Street near Pearl. It was only two blocks from the terminal, but we could not possibly have carried all of our luggage. Most of which was mine.

State Street rose quickly uphill, and prominently visible from the lower end where our hotel was located, we could see the very impressive State Capitol Building. After checking into our room, Jeremy wanted me to change for dinner. He smiled when I told him that he would have to help me. This would be the first time that he had assisted me in dressing. As he helped me to remove my clothes his breathing became irregular. I knew that he was becoming excited. We never did make it out for dinner that evening. Instead, he ordered room service a couple of hours later. The following morning, he again started to become aroused when he was helping me dress. But we had to catch a train and I made him concentrate on our getting ready.

As he helped me with my corset, he said, "I can't believe how tight you want it. Can you breathe?"

"Of course silly. This is just the normal amount. It just one of the things that we girls do for you men. When we want to wear something special, then we lace down extra tight."

After I had finished dressing, we packed and left for the train station. An hour later we were westbound once again. The scenery along the way was wonderful. The tracks followed the course of the Erie Canal, and I watched in fascination as we passed huge barges being pulled by horses which walked along the banks. It was late in the evening when we arrived in Niagara Falls, after changing trains only one more time, in Buffalo. We took a carriage to the Niagara Arms Hotel, which was not far from the State Park land which surrounded the American side of the falls.

We spent the next full day in our hotel room. It was not because we were too tired to go out. As husband and wife, we simply exercised our prerogatives to spend the day in bad having wild and passionate sex. I taught Jeremy the proper ways to satisfy a woman, and he proved to be a most willing pupil. I pretended ignorance about the male body and let him show me what excited him. We alternated between intervals of sex and short naps.

We did spend several days touring the area. We visited the very first hydro-electric plant, which had been completed only a couple of years earlier, and visited Goat Island, which was situated in the Niagara River, near the American Shore, and bordered the American Falls. Of course, we spent a lot of time looking at the waterfalls, both the American side and the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. Each day would culminate in hours of lovemaking.

At the end of our wonderful two weeks, we returned to Westervelt Mansion. As Jeremy's mother had passed away, I became the mistress of the household. I planned all meals, coordinated the duties of the staff, and organized all parties and social functions. My light duties permitted me to spend a lot of time reading, a pleasure that I had always made time for before, and shopping, in nearby New Bedford. I corresponded regularly with my friends, in this pre-telephone era. The telephone had been introduced seven years earlier, but use was not widespread yet. It takes time, and money, to erect poles, string wires, and build switchboard networks around the country. So for the time being we each wrote a letter once a week.