Bleak Expectations (16 page)

‘The storm took us many miles from our path,’ said Aunt Lily, ‘but then fortunately we stumbled into a field of Gloucestershire racing sheep,
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the fastest creatures on six legs.’ She pointed to a patch of nearby grass where the woolly beasts now grazed at high speed, their sextuple legs a blur of ovine greed.

‘Plus they trampled a highwayman on the way and I got this off him.’ She pulled out a flintlock pistol, which looked handy indeed. ‘Now, we need a plan.’

‘Ooh, I’ve got an idea!’ exclaimed Harry, instantly. My heart sank like a cement-filled coffin in thin water, familiar as I was with the awfulness of his plans. ‘How about we chop down some trees, use the timber to form a rudimentary trebuchet and then hurl heavy objects at the church until Mr Benevolent surrenders and we can all have cake?’

We all just stared at him. He stared back, a delighted grin on his face. I thought I might punch him again, but fortunately Aunt Lily intervened: ‘Yes, great plan, Harry. Why don’t you stay here and work on that while the rest of us just go in and stop the wedding?’

‘Ooh, nice, two-pronged attack. I shall commence the trebuchet construction!’ Harry marched purposefully off to work, and I heard him say to himself, ‘Now, what exactly is a trebuchet?’

We left Harry to his ill-informed device building and headed towards the side door of the church, sneaking quickly and quietly inside. We slipped into a concealing pew, but not before glimpsing Mr Benevolent at the altar where he was talking to the vicar.

‘Is everything ready, Reverend?’

‘It is, Mr Benevolent.’

‘Excellent. My plan is nearly complete. Nothing can stop me now. Probably.’ He then let fly with one of his lacerating laughs. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’

But something could stop him: us. For our small Pip, Pippa, Poppy and Aunt Lily-shaped army was now creeping forwards between the pews.

‘What do you think about marrying me, Agnes?’ My malicious guardian addressed my mother, who stood meekly but madly nearby.

‘I think if you’re going to put a hot dish on me you’ll need a trivet or I’ll scorch and won’t do for best any more!’ she madly replied.

‘Oh, bless the linen-based insanity of the woman. Now to wed, perchance to scheme.’

We were nearly close enough to make our move but, alas, at that moment I knocked into a pile of prayer-books, which had been stacked into the ecclesiastically mandated shape of Canterbury Cathedral. They fell with a series of booky thuds, in turn disturbing a nest of church mice within, which instantly scurried off squeaking loudly – I’m pretty sure I heard them saying, ‘We’re so poor.’ They startled me so much that I immediately sat down upon the keyboard of the church organ and, though my buttocks had by chance settled in such a manner as to play the pleasant first chords of the hymn ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’, it was nonetheless what I believe is known as ‘a bit of a giveaway’.

Mr Benevolent turned instantly. ‘Is somebody there?’

Curse his acute hearing!

I made an instant decision, stood and walked boldly towards him: if I gave myself up, perhaps it might distract him and allow the others to have more success on the thwarting front.

‘Pip Bin? Good grief, boy, can’t you take a hint and die?’

‘No, Mr Benevolent. For I am your ward and I am here to tell you that I think you are not conducting your duties as guardian with the propriety you ought.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Aunt Lily creeping forward, gesturing to me to keep going. ‘You’re a bad guardian! I don’t think you care at all what happens to me or to my sisters!’

‘Oh, in that you’re wrong, young Pip. I care very much what happens to you.’ This surprised me: his behaviour thus far had seemed to indicate the exact opposite. ‘Because I want to ensure that only very, very bad things happen to you.’ Yes, that made more sense. ‘But don’t worry, those very, very bad things won’t last long. Because, with a bit of luck, they’ll kill you. Now, have you met my eponymous henchman, Mr Henchman?’ From the shadows stepped the mutely muscled carriage-driver. ‘He is a very strong, very obedient man.’

Mr Benevolent had not told false, for he now said, ‘Seize him,’ and burly arms strongly and obediently enveloped me like a meaty vice.

But it did not matter. For I had provided distraction enough, and Aunt Lily sprang up, pistol in hand. ‘Step away from the bride-to-be, Benevolent!’ She held the pistol in front of her, and snicked its action back ready to fire.

‘Ooh, a pistol, scary.’ Mr Benevolent merely smiled at this firearm threat.

‘Oh, no ordinary pistol. This is the forty-four flintlock, the most powerful handgun in the world, and at this range it could blow your head clean off. I know what you’re thinking: did I fire one shot, or was it only none? In all this excitement I lost count, so you’ve got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?’

Aunt Lily’s speech sent tingles down my spine, even if during it she had seemed weirdly to sort of turn a bit American.

‘Actually, Lily, I feel incredibly lucky.’

With that, he lunged for the pistol. Aunt Lily immediately pulled the trigger, but there was no bullety response, and her weapon was then easily taken from her as Mr Benevolent had that most modern of disarming tools, a pair of pistol pliers.

‘You lucky sod!’ she said. ‘I could’ve sworn I hadn’t fired it.’

‘Ah, but there was all that rain, wasn’t there? Should have kept your powder dry, shouldn’t you?
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Henchman, kindly seize her as well.’

The burly bully changed his grip so that he held me with just one arm and now seized Aunt Lily with the other.

‘Did you come to try to stop me marrying your sister, Lily? Was it because you were jealous?’

‘I’d never be jealous of you, Benevolent.’

‘Still aggrieved that I never turned up at the altar all those years ago?’

What? Aunt Lily had been due to marry Mr Benevolent? This was news.

‘Not marrying you was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ my aunt said.

‘Really? Are there no tender feelings any more?’ He actually sounded slightly hurt.

‘None.’

Mr Benevolent approached her, trapped in the henchman’s grasp. He leaned towards her, smiling sharkishly. ‘Really really? No feelings at all?’

‘Well . . . perhaps there are some feelings,’ she said.

‘I knew it! Because I am irresistible.’ Now he leaned in closer, as if he was about to kiss her.

‘Yes, Gently, yes . . .’ Aunt Lily said and, seemingly encouraged by her words, Mr Benevolent moved in closer still, lips pursing in osculatory readiness. ‘I have feelings of hate, loathing and then some more hate.’ Then without warning she whipped her head forward, driving it hard into his evil but fragile nose. ‘Oh dear, how unladylike of me.’

‘You’ll pay for that!’ He clutched his now bloodied nose and hopped round the church like an angry frog.

‘At a guinea a go I’d pay to do that all night.’

I had to face it: Aunt Lily was cool.

‘Grrrraaarrrgh!!!’ Mr Benevolent emitted a vituperative roar of rage, kicked out in furious frustration at a nearby pew, promptly hurt his foot and fell into a choleric pile of painful-toed ire. He panted hard for a few seconds, then suddenly leaped up, seemingly in control of his emotions once more. ‘Right, let’s get this wedding done.’

As he stomped towards my mother, I saw something unusual for a wedding. For in front of the altar stood a coffin.

‘Why do you have a coffin at a wedding?’ I enquired.

‘That is your mother’s going-away outfit.’

‘But that means . . .’ The implications of his statement were great and, in so many ways, grave.

‘The reverend here has kindly agreed to conduct two services today: one wedding and one funeral, all for the same price.’

‘Yes,’ added the vicar. ‘It’s what I call a buy-one-get-one-free promotion.’

‘And what an excellent idea it is too,’ Mr Benevolent said.

‘Thank you. In fact, I’m thinking of resigning from the Church and taking it into other areas.’

‘Silence, Reverend Supermarket. We have a wedding to perform. And then a bridal burial.’

‘Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!’ I shouted, for about eight, maybe nine seconds, like a character in some grotesque melodrama.

There was a long pause. Then: ‘Yes.’ This from Mr Benevolent. ‘And you cannot stop it. Now, let us get this bride into her dress. Reverend?’

‘I’ll just fetch it.’ The vicar went into the vestry, but quickly returned, his face pale, his voice shaking, as if his head was a talking blancmange. ‘The dress, it is gone!’

Ha! Henchman-trapped though we were, we had triumphed, and I could not resist crowing, jackdawing and generally corvidae-ing about it.

‘You lose, Mr Benevolent,’ I triumphantalized loudly.

‘Um, how so?’ he asked.

‘No woman may legally marry without a wedding dress!’

There was a brief silence as everyone turned to look at me: Mr Benevolent, the Reverend Supermarket, Aunt Lily – even Pippa and Poppy briefly popped their heads up from the pew where they were hiding.

‘Yes, she can. There is no such law.’

‘Oh. But I thought—’

Now everyone shook their heads sadly at me, and I might as well have had a sign above my head saying ‘Fool’, ‘Dunce’ or ‘Twitiot’.

‘Right. Bother. Then . . . you may have triumphed.’

‘There is no “may” about it. Now, Reverend, matrimonialize us.’

‘Of course.’ The vicar picked up his prayer-book and marriage prodder
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and began. ‘Will you Mr Gently Lovely Kissy Kiss Benevolent’ – I only realized at this instant quite how ironic his name was – ‘take this woman—’

‘Yes, I will,’ interjected the evil bridegroom. ‘Blah dee blah dee yes. Get on with it.’

‘Very well. Will you, Agnes Pedal Bin, take this man—’

‘Yup, she will.’ Again Mr Benevolent interrupted.

‘I must hear it from her or the marriage is not valid.’

At this Mr Benevolent sighed so deeply that I could smell his breath even from some yards away; it had a sickly, evil odour of off-milk and celery. The vicar tried again.

‘Will you take this man—’

‘Yes, I will,’ came a sort of half-female voice, fortunately not from my poor deranged mother but from Mr Benevolent trying to pretend to be her, which he did unconvincingly.

‘No, Benevolent, the bride must say it. Will you, Agnes? Will you take him?’

‘Just say no, Mama!’ I yelled.

‘Come on, you mad witch, say it. Say “I will”! Say it!’ Mr Benevolent seized and shook my mother as if he could free the phrase from her, like word-ketchup from a speech-bottle. ‘Say it!’

I could see my mother breathe in, preparatory to exclaiming something. A lump of apprehension grew in my throat as I feared I was about to gain a most unwelcome stepfather. But—

‘I won’t. I really won’t . . . go in the cupboard with the tea towels. They are beneath me. For I am a tablecloth, the gentry of the linen cupboard.’

‘There, she said it! Hooray for me, now let’s kiss the bride then bury her.’

‘No, she did not say it. In fact, she said the opposite. She said, “I won’t.” There is no wedding,’ the vicar declared, to my relief. ‘Besides, this woman is clearly too mad to marry.’

‘Ha,’ laughed Mr Benevolent, weakly. ‘Surely being mad is a precondition for getting married.’

‘You are forgetting the recent Maddus Maddiatus Act passed in Parliament.’
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‘Oh, cursed Parliament! One day I shall destroy that pathetic institution and— Wait! Plan B has just leaped to mind.’ Now Mr Benevolent rubbed his hands together excitedly and, for an evil person, distinctly stereotypically. ‘I could wait until next year when Pippa Bin turns eighteen . . . but Pippa and Poppy between them have a combined age of thirty-three, so I could marry them both simultaneously. Would that be legal, Reverend?’

‘There is no reason why not.’
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‘Alas, un-dear Gently, you shall never find them. For they are hidden safely far from your grasp.’ Aunt Lily smiled a small smile of triumph.

Oh, curse my adolescent desire to impress and correct!

For I could not help but blurt, ‘No they aren’t. They are back there, hidden in that pew.’

‘Oh, great, well done, Pip, good work.’

‘Thanks very . . . Oh, sarcasm. Whoops.’

Now Pippa and Poppy rose from their pewish hiding place. ‘Yeah, great, thanks a lot, Pip.’

‘Henchman!’

The huge man now lugged Aunt Lily and me across to Pippa and Poppy and seized them too, pausing only to put on a pair of arm-extensions so that he could hold all four of us at once.

‘Bring them here and we shall do it now,’ said Mr Benevolent.

This was terrible. This awful man was about to marry both of my sisters, making him not just my guardian but also my brother-in-law squared, for marriages are a geometric mathematical function, not an arithmetical one.

And it was my fault.

All my fault.

Well, not all.

Because, frankly, if other people had—

No, no blame shifting, it was basically my fault.

Henchman the henchman now dragged my sisters to the altar, with Aunt Lily and me still clutched in his other arm, and the vicar began.

‘Will you, Gen—’

‘Yes, I will. Get on with it,’ snapped my evil guardian and would-be sinister relative by marriage.

‘And will you, Pippa and Poppy . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your middle names.’

‘Wheelie,’ said Pippa.

‘Recycling,’ said Poppy.

‘Thank you. Will you, Pippa Wheelie and Poppy Recycling Bin, take this man to be your husband?’

‘Think carefully, my lovelies,’ said Mr Benevolent, producing a wicked-looking knife, which he held at my mother’s throat. ‘Wrong answer and it’s bye-bye, Mama.’

‘Ooh,’ said my mother, eyeing the knife. ‘That’s tarnished. I won’t have it on me, I won’t!’

Who could stop this evil? Who could prevent the double wedding? There was only Harry left uncaptured, and the chances of him doing anything helpful seemed less than good. Pippa and Poppy looked at each other, then at me and Aunt Lily. What could they do? Apart from say ‘yes’. Their mouths opened, and a strange whistling sound seemed to emerge.