“Then why do they—”
“I imagine they just assumed.”
“You didn’t correct them,” she points out.
“Neither did you.”
She frowns. “I… just… I was taken off-guard. You should have corrected them.”
“Scared to be my wife for the day?”
Her expression becomes guarded. “You already have a wife, remember?”
Before I can respond, she quickens her pace and catches up with Margaret and Thomas. Margaret, ever perceptive, starts talking right away to cover over the awkward vibes, pointing out at a patch of emerald green in the distance. I follow behind and listen, brooding.
“… You know that Tom and I were married on that very field? The one just over the hill. Can you see that ash tree over there? We had our first kiss as man and wife right underneath it.”
“Oh, wow,” Jessa gasps. “That is amazing. Like, storybook perfect. How long ago was that?”
“Going on forty-five years now,” she says. “I was nineteen.”
“Nineteen,” Jessa whispers. “That’s really young.”
“When you know, you know,” she says with a little shrug. “The first moment I laid eyes on Thomas, I knew I would marry him.”
“Was it the same for you, Thomas?” Jessa asks, throwing a glance over her shoulder.
“Oh yes,” he says fondly. “She was the prettiest girl in the neighborhood. She was also the loudest. I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. Mostly because she never gave me a choice. But if I’d have known I’d be toiling in manure all day long, I might’ve gone searching elsewhere…”
“Oh, hush,” Margaret laughs, smacking him playfully on the shoulder. “Ignore him. This land has been in my family for five generations. It was actually supposed to go to my older brother, Marius. But he decided to forsake all worldly possessions and become a priest. So the land came to me instead.”
“Lucky you,” Jessa sighs dreamily.
“I always wanted to do something special with it. Build something that was mine. Ours. We got married here. And then five years later, we moved from the city with our children to give this life a proper go.”
“Did they enjoy it here?”
“It took some adjustment from city life,” Margaret admits. “But the children loved it. And eventually, Thomas and I fell in love with country living, too. Neither one of us could ever move back to the city now.”
“You know, I always dreamed of doing something similar myself,” Jessa says with the air of someone confiding a foolish secret. “Not as big as yours—I don’t have the chops for that like you do—just a little garden big enough that I could cook from it. Taste the earth in the stuff I make.”
“You’ll need a nice big house with a nice big yard, then,” Thomas says. “I’m sure your husband will be able to take care of that for you.”
“Oh,” Jessa says, looking suddenly flustered. “I wouldn’t expect him to…”
“Nonsense,” Margaret says, cutting her off. “You must always expect everything from your partner. That’s what marriage is all about.”
Jessa can’t keep her eyes from mine any longer. She glances at me and then quickly away, her face flushing. Fortunately for her, we round a hedge just then and the manor comes into sight.
“Wow,” she breathes. “This place is amazing. I know I sound like a broken record, but it really is.”
“We’ve had quite a few renovations done throughout the years,” Margaret admits. “We added two wings to accommodate more guests. And the kitchen was expanded, too.”
“It takes a lot of work and money to maintain a stodgy old building like this,” Thomas adds grumpily, though all of us can tell that he’s obviously in love with the work. “There were moments when we wondered if it was worth it.”
“Oh, it was worth it,” Jessa says immediately.
I’m inclined to agree with that as well. Looming before us is a sprawling, gray-bricked home with moss and ivy growing over the facade. Peaked roofs glisten in the sunlight and stained glass windows look out from the upstairs guest rooms. It’s magnificent.