As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann Page A

man.
    'Wait till you see her wedding clothes. Beautiful as the day,' said Godfrey, craning his head backwards to speak to me. I could not help but grin like a fool, though the fresh collar chafed my neck. I put my finger down it and pulled to loosen the stuff as we stepped between the rosemary hedges.
    / am to be espoused. I am to be espoused. Bound to a woman who wondered, in her innocence, if I suspected another man of killing Walshe. The thought was enough to rob me of breath. We rounded the last corner and passed through a high dense arch. There I turned, and waited. Everyone watched me wait.
    First came my brothers, pacing with branches of rosemary before them, Izzy's slight lurch a foil to Zeb's long supple stride. The sun glanced off their thick black hair, so exactly like my own, all three of us showing like gypsies among our fair-complexioned friends. Both bridesmaids turned towards Zeb as he approached, as daisies open themselves to the dawn.
    Caro entered the maze in profile to us, so that I saw first her long neck and the sapphire drop depending from her right ear. Her hair hung down her back. It had been brushed and polished with silk so that it shone beneath the chaplet of wheat and roses. When she turned to face me I took the full force of her beauty, which seemed almost that of a lady, her gown cut low, her neck and shoulders of cream. This
    was Caro transformed indeed, wondrous tight-laced, in silk the colour of June sky — I could never have procured her such. Her brown eyes rested on me with a delight equal to my own. Drawing near, we bowed and curtseyed each to the other and a general aah of pleasure ran through the company. The bridal finery showed more of her breasts than I had ever seen before: I tried not to gape like a lumpkin at the delicately gleaming skin thus revealed.
    'Son.' My mother's voice cut through this delectable contemplation. I went at once to where she was standing in the little gateway cut in the left-hand hedge. We embraced and she wept, saying her Elias stood before her in the flesh. That did please me. Though others had remarked on it, Mother had never yet given me so much in the way of praise as to say I was the print of my father.
    'Do you not think her beautiful, Jacob?' She indicated Caro. 'The earrings show very brave against her neck, do they not?' By which I understood that the two of them had made up their quarrel.
    'She is an angel,'I said, as all bridegrooms do. I scented pomade on Caro's hair and wanted to touch it, but feared to spoil the hairdresser's work. Tears stood in my eyes, I could hardly have said why.
    'Pray come this way — this way, friends—' That was Peter, whose job it was to shepherd the guests to their rightful places. I turned to see him leading them to some trestle tables disposed about the knot garden. There was one table longer than the rest and he waved laughingly to me, to show that was where we should sit when the thing was done. Half stunned, I listened to the shuffling and rustling, the chatter and laughs as Godfrey helped folk arrange themselves. The field workers were put in a separate group near the hedge. I remembered the day when Caro and I had sat on the knot garden bench and quarrelled over Zeb's secret.
    Holding hands, we stood in the midst of those assembled as if summoned before the officers. Before us on the cloths were light and creamy things, suitable for bride tables: chicken cullis, Devonshire whitepot, quaking pudding and (I thought of Mervyn) a row of syllabubs, each in a separate vessel with a cunning spout for drinking off the liquor. Music drifted from the far end of the knot garden, where a small group of hired players kept a respectful distance. The guests
    spread themselves and fluffed out their garments, the better to enjoy the warmth of the day.
    'Time we married, Izzy, if this be how it is,' proclaimed Zeb from the end of the long table, and I wondered if, despite his fears, he still missed Patience.
    'Do you know