The Secret Wedding

I belong to a writers' group in real life and we were recently asked to write a piece of text in response to a passage from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, so the names of several characters here, as well as the general scene, is taken from that novel
 
The marriage was conducted in secret, as it had to be, in a little church far from civilisation. The carriage that took them to the illegal matrimony arrived outside the church with no fanfare, and if Claire was upset that her wedding should be attended by no pomp or circumstance, not even a few apple-cheeked well-wishers decked out in a rough approximation of Sunday finery, she didn't show it. Mrs Barkis leaned back and said, as the soon-to-be-newlyweds entered the church and their few revellers watched from the carriage, 'my son. Marrying a witch.'
 
She said it with neither pride nor shame, merely a kind of hushed awe, given that the Barkis' were not a family known for interfering with larger society, its present laws and modes. Joining Mrs Barkis in the carriage were the children whom Claire cared for, named Copper and Elmwood in the unusual way of witches. Claire's own true name, acquired when she signed her name in the Daemons' Book on her ascension to the Witch-crafters' Guild, was Burnished, or Niche for short, inspired (she said) by the colour of autumn leaves.
 
Copper turned to Elmwood, nicknamed Ellie, in the carriage and said that one day he'd marry her in a church like the one they now sat outside. 'Hopefully by then you'll be able to actually have a wedding party' Mrs Barkis muttered. Outside, the spring trees swayed in the gentle breeze, their skirts as lushly green as Claire's defiantly pagan bridal dress. 'Maybe we'll even have a motorcar!' said Copper, 'just like granddad told us about. And squares with plays on them.' Granddad was Mr Gummidge and unrelated to Copper, but at a hundred years old everyone in the community referred to him as granddad, sat in his chair by the window of his cottage like time itself, personified. He was the only person anyone living had met who remembered even the end of the Electric Age.
 
Mrs Gummidge, his widowed daughter-in-law and one of the community's elders, clutched a black-leather Bible. 'Motors and televisions...' she said, 'we've all heard about those, Copper. But it's wise to remember that stories are just that, stories. Granddad is a very old man, and when you reach a certain age you, well... you start getting confused.'
 
'I've seen a television!' said Ellie.
 
'Don't tell lies, dear' Mrs Barkis remonstrated gently. Ellie rolled her eyes. 'Not a real one' she continued. 'It was in a dream.'
 
'I've seen one too, in a dream,' said Copper. 'Niche says it might be a vision.' Mrs Barkis and Gummidge exchanged a look. Mrs Gummidge's right hand went instinctively to the brass cross that hung from her neck. 'I'll have to have a word with the new Mrs Barkis' she said, 'before we all end up on the witch pyres.' Copper sighed and looked out the window at the church. Somewhere an owl hooted, and another replied. Above the church door was a statue of the Virgin, eyes downcast and with hands outspread. Even at nine years old he understood a little of the immensity of what was happening here, today, in this nondescript house of worship. What their community was risking, for the sake of a man and a woman who'd decided that they wanted to spend their lives together.
 
Copper remembered his mother. He hadn't told anyone that he still remembered her, that he was there when she was taken to the pyre, in a courtyard of the city's royal palace. He'd lost his trust in magic. If magic was so powerful, he sometimes thought, how come his mother couldn't use it to escape the stake?
 
Mr and Mrs Barkis emerged from the church, accompanied by the vicar and his wife, the only ones to witness the actual ceremony. The newlyweds seemed as happy as if their marriage was legal and celebrated by a large congregation. As opposed to a secretive elopement in the woods.