For A White Wedding

Don Pericle was determined to bring a splash of colour to this dreary winter garden . . .

THE rain lashed at the 17th-century windows of Villa Lingualarga. Don Pericle looked hard at the couple sitting on the other side of the desk in his study.

By the second meeting, usually he had formed a good idea about the bride and groom who hoped to get married in his villa.

He took care to find out why they wanted to be married, and if they should.

With Claudio and Mariella, he had a feeling that something was wrong, even if he couldn’t put his finger on it.

They seemed very much in love, but there was an aura of resignation around them that didn’t sit well with an engaged couple.

It was as if the wedding wasn’t entirely welcome.

Asking indirect questions hadn’t brought him closer to finding out what was wrong.

If, by the time their meeting was over, he hadn’t reassured himself that all was well, he’d have to ask them openly whether they were sure about getting married or not.

Hopefully they’d give him a sincere answer, because he wouldn’t let them marry at Villa Lingualarga if he wasn’t convinced that they should.

“About the wines, these are my suggestions,” he said, offering them a list he had scribbled with names of the best local wines.

The bride pushed it gently towards the groom.

“You’d better choose, as I’m not having any,” she said, stroking her tummy.

The bride was pregnant! Everything made sense now in Pericle’s mind, and alarm bells clanged furiously.

If either of them had been pressured into marriage because there was a baby on the way, he must stop the wedding!

First, he had to have a heart to heart with the bride and groom, each one on their own.

Pericle offered the couple drinks and took them on a long and unnecessary tour of the villa to prolong their stay until one of them needed the bathroom.

“You wouldn’t be doing Mariella any favours if you married her out of duty,” Pericle told the groom as soon as the bride had gone to the ladies’.

“Both you and Mariella deserve a love marriage, even if it’s not with each other,” Pericle continued seriously.

Claudio chuckled. “Don Pericle, you really think that we’re getting married only because Mariella is expecting a baby?”

“Well . . . the situation lends itself to the question.”

A cloud came over Claudio’s face.

“That’s exactly what I feared: getting married so quickly, everyone will think that we’re doing it because of the baby.

“I told my parents and Mariella’s parents, but they won’t have it.

“I don’t care so much about what other people think, but if our child grew up feeling responsible for our marriage, I would hate it.“mariella and I will surely have arguments in the future – it’s normal – and I don’t want our child to feel responsible about us.

“I love Mariella and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want us to be husband and wife.

“I just don’t want anyone to think that the baby is the reason we’re getting married.”

Pericle sighed with relief. The situation wasn’t as bad as he had imagined.

Now it was time to speak to the bride.

It was almost lunchtime when Pericle eventually managed to be alone with the bride.

It had taken a tour of the villa, a perfunctory inspection of the crockery and cutlery

and an impromptu visit to the cellar with wine sampling to get Claudio to go the bathroom.

Pericle sent him to the furthest one, deep in his private wing, so that he could be alone with the bride for long enough to ask the important question.

“Are you marrying Claudio only because of the baby?”

Mariella shook her head decidedly.

“Not at all. I love Claudio and I would have married him anyway. Just . . .” Oh, no, there was a but. “Just not quite yet,” she continued.

“Babies are born out of wedlock all the time,” Pericle said. “If you don’t feel ready for it, or are not sure, you shouldn’t get married.”

She chuckled.

“I feel totally ready. I just don’t like winter weddings. I’ve always dreamed of a spring wedding with birdsong, flowers and butterflies.

“But our parents would like us to get married before the bump becomes obvious.

“We want to make them happy. A wedding is still a wedding, and my dream of a spring wedding is just a whim.

“I shouldn’t feel sad about missing out on it.”

Mariella wanted spring, birdsong and flowers, and Pericle wished he could provide them, but he couldn’t. Not now.

“I’m sorry you aren’t having the wedding of your dreams. I can’t hasten spring, but I will do my best to make your wedding beautiful.

“A winter wedding doesn’t have to be grey,” Pericle said, and they both looked out the window at the garden hammered by the rain.

****

Claudio and Mariella had left hours ago, but the rain was still with Don Pericle.

The evergreens were battered and droopy; bare trees and shrubs looked like sorry skeletons.

What could he do to make the garden more cheerful on the day of the wedding?

When the rain finally eased, Pericle set off on a walk. It always helped him come up with ideas.

But not this time. He had walked into the town and still hadn’t thought of a solution.

By now it was dark and the shop windows glittered like jewels, especially the window of Angela’s gift shop.

Pericle stopped to admire it.

A bright patchwork elephant plush toy, a statuette of a shepherdess on a flowery bluff, a set of coloured candles decorated with pressed flowers, ceramic frogs leaping over each other . . .

Everything on display was a splash of colour and life. An oasis of spring in the middle of winter.

If Angela had managed to achieve it in her shop, maybe she could help him recreate spring in Villa Lingualarga’s garden.

He walked in, greeted her and explained his problem.

“I have got just what you need,” she said, disappearing into the back of the shop.

She returned with a large cardboard box and an excited smile.

“They’ve just arrived and I haven’t had time to put them out yet, so you’re the first customer to see them.”

Angela opened the box and Pericle took a step back.

It was a large swarm of butterflies, but none of them moved.

“They’re paper butterflies,” she explained. “Decorations.”

Pericle chuckled and picked one up. Close up, it was clear it wasn’t real, but from a distance it would look just like the real deal.

“I’ll give you a discount for the whole box. I have flowers and origami birds, too.”

The birds were too angular to seem real, but they’d give a touch of colour to the sombre green of the pines and cypresses. The flowers were perfect. “I’ll take the lot!” “There’s only one problem,” Angela warned him.

“They’re made of paper, so won’t last long if it rains on them.”

“If it rains on the day of the wedding, they’ll be the least of my problems.”

Pericle was sure that Mariella wouldn’t appreciate a thunderstorm on her wedding.

Unfortunately, the weather was something he couldn’t control.

All he could do was buy the spring props and ask friends and family to help him put them in the garden as close to the wedding as possible.

****

Early on that chilly winter morning, Pericle and his helpers got to work scattering the decorations around the garden: birds on trees, flowers in the flower-beds and butterflies everywhere.

Pericle hadn’t told Mariella and Claudio about his plan. It would be a surprise, and he looked forward to seeing their faces.

They’d just finished setting up, and Pericle was feeling very pleased, when the sky clouded over.

As the pale winter sun disappeared behind a dark blanket, Pericle’s happiness also drained away.

“It wasn’t supposed to rain,” he said to Angela, who had come to help.

“A cloud doesn’t mean rain,” she said.

But this wasn’t just a cloud. It was a whole skyful of menacing leaden clouds.

Even if the clouds held back their rain, they would obscure the sun.

Under that drab grey light, all the paper flowers in the world could never make the garden look spring-like and cheerful.

If Mariella and Claudio’s wedding wasn’t a washout, it would be a gloomy day, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He had been foolish to think he could fight nature’s seasons and win.

****

The bride emerged from the car in a cloud of white tulle and faux fur.

She looked happy, but as soon as she gazed up to the ominous sky, the smile faded from her face.

She rubbed her nose, then stared at the back of her hand. Something even whiter than her satin glove had landed on it.

From where he stood, under the archway of the door, Pericle couldn’t see exactly what it was, but it looked like dandelion fluff.

Mariella seemed just as puzzled and looked in Don Pericle’s direction, as if the white substance might be something that he had organised.

He shrugged. More of the white fluff fell from the sky and landed on the bride and the groom, on the shiny car and the guests. “Snow!”

“It’s snowing!” everyone cried.

Mariella’s face broke into a smile.

“Snow for confetti! Don Pericle, how did you do it?” she cried when she reached him.

Pericle smiled.

“I’d love to be able to take the credit for this.”

Even if they had been in Norway instead of Sicily, a fresh snowfall wouldn’t have been guaranteed.

It was cold enough for the snow not to melt and the paper flowers, birds and butterflies remained crisp and new. The white background made them show up even more, and Mariella loved them.

“Don Pericle, a snowy wedding was beyond my wildest dreams! And I bet that no-one has ever had a winter and a spring wedding all at once like this!”

Pericle kissed the bride’s hand.

“I wish you a life full of happy surprises beyond your wildest dreams.”

Just then, he overhead someone talk to the groom.

“I hear that there’s a baby on the way. Is this why you’ve rushed to get married?”

Claudio chuckled. “Not at all. We’ve rushed to catch the snow. Who hasn’t dreamed of a white winter wedding?” ■