Bella by Jilly Cooper Page A

colder. A sharp east wind was flattening the leaves of the plane trees in the square outside. All her coats were too short to wear over her new dress. In the end she slung Basil, her red fox fur, round her neck.
    ‘I need a few allies to face that mob,’ she thought.
    A large crowd had gathered outside the church to watch people arrive. Bella, hopelessly late, rolled up at the same time as the bridal car and fell up the steps in her haste to get in first.
    ‘Drunk already,’ said a wag in the crowd.
    Lazlo helped her to her feet. With a flash of irritation she realized that he looked very good and that the austere black and white formality of morning dress suited his sallow skin and irregular features extremely well.
    He looked at her hair and said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ and then at her bare arms, and added in amusement, ‘You’re going to be bloody cold in church.’
    She wanted to slip unnoticed into a pew at the back, but, grabbing her arm like a vice, Lazlo led her right up to the second row from the front.
    ‘You’re a member of the family now,’ he said.
    Rupert, looking glamorous, and almost as pale as the white carnation in his button hole, tried to sit next to her, but Lazlo stopped him.
    ‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to sit in the front and look after Constance,’ and sat down very firmly on the edge of the row, next to Bella. Bella moved quickly away from him, slap into a very lecherous-looking old man with long grey sideboards, on her other side.
    ‘You haven’t met Uncle Willy yet, have you Bella?’ said Lazlo.
    Beyond Rupert sat a scruffy, but nice-looking boy with a pudding basin hair cut. That must be Rupert’s brother, Jonathan, let off from school.
    Across the aisle sat Teddy and his best man. Teddy’s pink and white cheeks were stained with colour as he alternately tugged at his collar and smoothed his newly cut hair.
    ‘I comforted my mother,’ said Rupert, ‘that she wasn’t losing a daughter, just gaining a cretin.’
    Bella giggled. People were turning round and talking to each other and saying, ‘Hello, haven’t seen you for years .’
    The organ was playing the same Bach cantata for the third time. Bella, sneaking a surreptitious look round, realized that as usual she was quite wrongly dressed. Everyone was in silk dresses or beautifully cut suits. And the competition was absolutely stupendous. Lazlo was right; it was icy in church. Every goose pimple was standing out on her bare arms. Uncle Willy next door was gazing openly at her breasts. Irritably, to obscure his view, Bella shoved the fox’s mask down the front of her dress.
    ‘Gone to earth,’ said Lazlo.
    Bella gazed stonily ahead at the huge Constance Spry flower arrangement. Suddenly she realized that her wrap-over dress, which looked so respectable when she was standing up, had fallen open, revealing a large expanse of thigh and the pants with ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’ printed on them, which Rosie had given her for her birthday. Hastily she covered herself up, but not before both Lazlo and Uncle Willy had had a good look.
    I’ll kill him, fumed Bella, I’ll kill him, and afterwards I’ll kick his teeth in.
    Another old relation, sleeping peacefully behind them, suddenly woke up and said, ‘Come on, buck up. Let’s get cracking,’ in a loud voice. There was a rustle of interest as Constance swept up the aisle looking like a double-decker bus in a dust sheet, waving graciously to friends and relations.
    ‘She claims she’s just discovered the tent dress,’ Rupert whispered to Bella. ‘But she needs a couple of marquees to cover her.’
    Finally, when Bella was about to turn into a pillar of ice, the organ launched into ‘Here Comes the Bride’ and everyone rose to their feet.
    Here was Charles, a fatuous smile on his face, wafting brandy fumes as he went. On his arm hung Gay, looking pale but well in control, and carrying a huge bouquet to conceal any evidence of pregnancy. Her