Free The Wedding Group by Elizabeth Taylor

cobbled yard at the back of the shop, where they kept pieces of statuary and urns and wrought-iron garden furniture.
    Although she was sorry for the girl, she wondered if she was going to be a nuisance. She had had a happy girlhood herself and, spurred on by Mrs Brindle, had over-imagined the miseries of Cressy’s. All the same, what she and Toby wanted and hoped for was to live their lives together, and in peace.
    That evening seemed one of the worst of all to Midge. She could not nudge away thoughts of the future – those thoughts that so often spoiled the present. She wondered about old age, when her life might be like this all the time, with no hope, as now, of David’s returning – his last postcard was from the Crabbe country – either tomorrow, the next day, or any other day.
    The silence frightened her. This evening, nothing moved, except for an occasional leaf floating down through the heavy air. The garden, with its mauve and yellow autumn flowers, was perfectly still, growing dark.
    She had been working there until dusk and, as she came across the lawn to go indoors, the windows faced her, black and blind.
    The house, a Georgian cottage, had been added to, years ago, by Archie. He had built on the big room, and other rooms above it, in white clapboard, with a slate roof. It had been skilfully done: it was a success, and she loved it. Only herself in it alone dismayed her. She remembered the house when it hadbeen quite full, and noisy and untidy. She was remembering it now, going towards it. At this hour, she would have been bringing in off the lawn all the things the boys would have left there at their bedtime – rugs and cushions, cricket-bats and dirty beakers. Then, when she had gathered everything up and dumped it in the hall, she would cook some scratch meal for Archie, feeling tired and irritated, but surely happier than now, and certainly not frightened.
    Inside, she washed her hands, still thinking of the old days, looking at her set face in the glass above the basin. She locked the door, switched on a great many lights, poured out a drink. Then she went back to make sure that she had locked the door, began her usual pacing about, and kept glancing at the clock.
    If David married, she would have to leave it all – sell up and perhaps go to live in a flat in London, for company and protection. And then what would she do all day? And where could all her lovely things go in a flat – the old furniture and the modern pictures – the pleasing blend of Archie’s family things and what she herself had collected?
    Or she could stay on here and take in a paying-guest, whose purpose would be to lessen her sense of isolation. She had thought it out so many times – one solution after another; but none was a true solution. ‘I don’t
want
a lodger,’ she murmured aloud. Her heart added, I simply want David here – David and his friends, all the young people. But the young people seemed to be ageing faster than herself. The present could not last for ever.
    The telephone ringing so unexpectedly in the quiet house startled her. She almost ran into the hall to answer it, then, finding that it was a wrong number, she came back slowly. She took up her glass and sipped, her heart still beating fast, and her mouth drooping as if she might cry. Cruel, she thought. How awfully cruel. But cruel of whom she did not know.
    That had certainly made the silence worse – the silence when she stopped going about the room, clicking her heels on the parquet floor. She could bear it no longer, she thought, and decided to drive somewhere, anywhere, simply not to be here. It was so far off bedtime, and going to bed, in any case, she dreaded.
    She unlocked the garage, backed down the drive and went out into the dark lane. There were no lights, no houses, until she reached the village – only her headlights combing through the trunks of trees on either side.
    The last bus stood empty by the Green, brightly lit, reflected in