Bridesmaids Revisited (14 page)

“Sir Clifford could have provided her with all sorts of compelling details to make it seem that she had a psychic connection with the house and Sophia,” I persisted, not quite sure why I was doing so. I had felt an instant rapport with Hope. And I wasn’t one to dismiss the idea that there are those who can see beyond the veil into other realms of existence. Could it be that I was beginning to like the bridesmaids, despite my scare on the upper landing, and objected to the idea of them being hoodwinked? Or was I afraid of some other more formless danger with myself at its dark core?

“We must also bear in mind,” Rosemary was saying, “that Ms. Chambers is undoubtedly correct in asserting that Sir Clifford, with all the pieces in place, has the power to force me to sell him this house. Making it foolish for him to take additional steps that could give the impression he is not one-hundred-percent confident he has me by the tail.”

“Perhaps he’s allowing his thirst for revenge to deflect his business judgment,” I argued. “From what you’ve told me he’s a man who allowed his emotions to lead him into behaving stupidly in the past. He returned to Knells after his stint at reform school supposedly intent on gaining Sophia’s parents’ approval. And what did he do? He squandered his time sowing his wild oats, until it’s a wonder half the fathers within miles weren’t out after him with their shotguns.”

“But he’s not a hot-blooded, foolhardy youth anymore,” Jane pointed out.

“I suppose not, given the fact that he is now over seventy. Instead of nibbling on young girls’ necks he may prefer these days to go straight for the jugular.” It was an unfortunate thing for me to say. I had forgotten Ted and how he had stabbed himself in the throat with the pruning shears. But I saw Rosemary turn white and grab hold of the mantelpiece to stop herself from tripping over the hearthrug. And Thora hurried over to wrap a sturdy arm around her shoulders.

“Steady on, old friend,” she crooned. “Such an eventful afternoon. I’m afraid we’ve all shuffled Ted into the background. Ellie, of course, doesn’t know him and I didn’t see him out there in the garden, looking, I’m sure, horrible and bloody. You and Jane had the worst of it, going outside to help Edna as best you could until the ambulance arrived.”

“He wasn’t a pretty sight.” Rosemary squared her shoulders and straightened her back, but allowed Thora to help her as she returned to her seat.

“Ghastly. Eyes rolled back in his head and that dark trickle coming out of his mouth.” Jane bustled over to a cabinet from which she withdrew a bottle. “Sadly, he was never a particularly appealing specimen of manhood at the best of times. My husbands—the two that died, looked heroic and noble right till the end. But there would be no way to make Ted look either even if you tied him to a flagpole and flew him over Buckingham Palace. But we mustn’t think the worst. He may bounce right back from this accident. Here, dear”—she handed Rosemary a minute glass filled with a reddish-purple liquid—“sip this down. It’s the last of the elderberry wine from last year’s crop, and I’m sure just what the doctor would order.”

“Ellie will think me an alcoholic!” Rosemary accepted the glass and held it gingerly under her nose before pursing her lips and taking a dubious swallow. “A person of backbone should not have to resort to artificial stimulants in order to deal with the ups and downs of everyday life. Tom from up the lane was a tower of strength. Very kind about it, too. And if I didn’t crack up on seeing Ted in extremis I don’t know why you and Thora think I’m about to do so now.”

The two other women exchanged a look and one or both of them said something about delayed shock, coming on top of Amelia Chambers’s visit ... I wasn’t able to catch everything being said. Dog had started barking at the top of his lungs and came skidding into the sitting room with a couple of very unladylike cats in pursuit just as the doorbell pealed.

“I expect that’s Edna now,” said Jane.

“Let’s hope it’s good news.” Thora was pouring Rosemary another glass of wine.

“Would you like me to get the door so you can catch your breaths?” I asked.

“That would be kind,” one of them said from where they stood in a close-knit triangle, and I went out into the hall, bracing myself to say the right things to Edna, who had known my mother even if she and I were complete strangers.

But it wasn’t Edna at the door. A middle-sized man, with black hair slicked back off his forehead into waves guaranteed to cause seasickness in the most seasoned sailor, greeted me. But what put me off most was his flashy imitation-silk tie.

“Yes?” I attempted a smile as falsely bright as the one he shone on me.

“Sorry to intrude.” A bold-faced lie if ever there was one.

“I’m just staying here for a few days,” I told him, “but if you let me know what it’s about, I’ll tell the ladies who live here.”

“No need to bother them.” He stood jiggling the loose change in the trouser pockets of his cheaply smart suit and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Don’t tell me, because I’ve already guessed—you’re Ellie Haskell. And if I may say so, you’re every bit the looker I was led to expect. But I won’t keep you hanging about on the step. Just give a whistle inside will you and let my one and only know I’m here to take her back into my loving arms. Playing hard to get, the little minx!” His grin widened so that his resemblance to a stoat should have put him on the cover of
National Geographic.
“Thought she’d do a bunk and make me come chasing after her. So here I am! Always try and give the little woman what she wants, is my way of thinking.”

What I was thinking at that moment wasn’t fit for print. I came out onto the doorstep, which put me nose to nose with the man. Perhaps noting the menacing glint in my eyes, he shifted to my left. Very sensible, although it wasn’t him I was itching to kick.

“I assume it’s Mrs. Malloy you’re looking for,” I said coldly.

“That’s her. My own darling Roxie!” He exuded delight and the pong of hair tonic. “Where is the little rascal hiding herself? Don’t tell me she didn’t recognize my footsteps coming down the street!” Seeing that he was ready to piffle on, I cut him short.

“So you’re Leonard Skinner.”

“The one and only.” He was back to jiggling coins, otherwise I was sure he would have thumped his chest.

“Really? I should have thought there were dozens in the phone directory.”

“Not like yours truly.”

“You’re probably right,” I conceded. “I don’t suppose the others all had the gall to walk out on their wives, then show up twenty-some years later expecting all to be forgiven.”

He assumed a crestfallen expression that wouldn’t have fooled a two-year-old. “I wrote and explained all that to Roxie. About how I’d had amnesia and ...”

“You probably caught it staying out too late at night.” I smiled at him in what I hoped passed for a kindly fashion. “And I’m sure you still need to take extra-special care of yourself, so I won’t keep you hanging about on a nasty cold doorstep, Leonard.” I turned to go inside. “Besides, Mrs. Malloy isn’t here.”

His good humor was gone, as if sucked down a drain. He looked ready to throw a punch, but vented his feelings by sucking in his lips and glowering at me in a pop-eyed fashion. “What do you mean, she’s not here? Her neighbor—a Mrs. Mills—said Roxie was taking off with you for a few days of living it up. Fat chance, I’d say, in this mausoleum of a house.” He swept out a hand and let out a very satisfactory ouch when he scraped his knuckles on the stonework.

How typical of Mrs. Malloy! I could picture her soulful expression when she passed along the information as to where she was going and with whom. Not a word of which must be breathed to the husband who had forsaken her but was now desperate for a glimpse, however fleeting, of her winsome face—thigh—big toe or whatever. I had no doubt that Mrs. M. had left her neighbor happily convinced that she was a conspirator in one the great romances of all time and that it was her bounden duty to facilitate a happy ending.

“Poor Mrs. Mills,” I said, “she’s going to hate herself in the morning. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going back inside. Your Roxie is truly staying somewhere else. You will only be wasting your time and that of the local police department if you continue to hang around.”

“Come on, lovey.” He had put the smile back on so that it almost hid his anger. “Tell me where she is. The woman loves me, she always did, she always will. You can’t say she been happy these last years, now can you?”

“You’ve got a point there,” I said.

“You see! She’s been pining, isn’t that right?”

“Absolutely. For the pound and a half of stewing steak that you were supposed to bring back when you went out to do the shopping and forgot to come back. There’s no way I’m going to tell you where she is, except to say that it is miles away from here. Sorry! Mrs. Mills didn’t know as much as she thought she did. The old blabbermouth!”

Pushing the door open, I went inside, closing it behind me with a decisive click. Bother Mrs. Malloy, I fumed. Leonard was a complication I did not need, with Ted Wilks at death’s door and a meeting still to be arranged with my grandmother Sophia. But there was no time to wallow in aggravation. The bridesmaids must be wondering what had been keeping me. Not sure how much to tell them about Leonard, I crossed the strip of hall and went through the wide archway into the sitting room, only to find it empty. The tray with the coffeepot along with the cups and saucers had been removed. A couple of cushions had been plumped up and the clock on the mantelpiece ticked away in the self-conscious manner of someone left talking to himself. Before leaving the room, I crossed to the window, whose curtains were open to the front garden and the lane beyond.

Yes, there was Leonard prowling around my car like a prospective buyer. I was about to pound on the glass when I saw him touch the handle of the driver’s-side door. But he turned his head, saw me looking out at him, and with a shrug he moved off. Not, however, without taking a good look at the license plate. Lovely! I seethed. From now on I wouldn’t be able to drive down the lane and back without being afraid he was tailing me. True, he had said he had come here by train, but there was nothing to stop his hiring a car. Certainly not the cost, because if he didn’t have some woman’s credit card in his pocket or know just the right sap to spot him the cash, I was the Queen of Sheba.

I watched until he disappeared around the bend in the lane. I hoped it would rain, causing his cheap suit to shrink until the trousers were up to his knees and the sleeves about the elbows. Somewhat cheered by this ridiculous picture and his resulting embarrassment, for if ever a man existed to cut a dash it was Leonard Skinner, I went in search of Rosemary, Thora, and Jane.

I expected to find them in the conservatory, but only the parrot was there to greet me with a few well-chosen words, which included a couple of profanities and the admonition to stick my head in a bucket.

“The same to you.” I parted the screen of greenery to make a face at him.

“Oh, bugger off!” He puffed out his green-and-yellow chest and, nastiness coming before a fall, toppled off his perch to the bottom of his cage. “You’ll pay for that!” he screeched in the voice that so uncannily mimicked Ted’s, and then he added a word that made me back up in such a hurry that I kicked aside one of the smaller potted plants: “Murderess!”

“Is that you, Ellie?” Thora’s voice came to me from the kitchen and I negotiated my way with all possible speed through the rest of the jungle into the cozier atmosphere of apple-green walls, Devonshire crockery, and the bunches of herbs hung from a rustic rack suspended from the ceiling. All three bridesmaids were seated around the wooden table. With them was Edna, her head bent and a handkerchief pressed to her face.

“She came in through the back door,” explained Rosemary, who was pouring tea while Jane handed around a plate of sandwiches. “She’d been here for about half an hour before the bell rang.”

“Ted is dead,” Thora said, as if she were giving me the time of day.

“Thora!” cried Rosemary.

“It’s okay, Miss Maywood. I know Miss Dobson isn’t one to mince words. He passed away a short while ago.” Edna lowered the handkerchief, to reveal reddened eyes and tearstained cheeks. Her lips quivered and she sucked down a sob. “I’m sorry. I should be glad he never regained consciousness. I don’t think I could have stood watching him suffer. It’s bad enough picturing in my mind what happened with him falling like that off the ladder. I just don’t understand it... those pruning shears all sticky with his blood.”

She drew a deep breath and tucked the hanky in her skirt pocket. She didn’t have on the apron she had been wearing earlier. It had been horribly stained. “Tom said we should take the shears with us to the hospital, so’s the doctors could look at them and try and figure out what happened. And then ... well, if Ted didn’t make it, there’d have to be an inquest and they’d be needed for that.”

“Tom’s wife says he watches too many of those police programs on television.” Rosemary placed a trembling hand over Edna’s clasped ones. “The inquest will be just a formality. There always has to be one in accident cases. And we will all be here to help you get through it. Even Ellie, if she can possibly stay for it, because you were always so kind to her mother when she was growing up here.”

“Such a sweet girl, Mina.” Tears gathered in Edna’s eyes. “The only time she’d ever get cross was when I’d call her Wilhelmina.”

I stared at the bridesmaids.

“You didn’t know that was her full name?” Thora looked back at me from across the table.

“No.”

“She was named for her father, William.”

“Then I understand why she hated it.”

“Would you like to lie down?” Rosemary asked, turning her attention back to Edna.

“That’s more than kind.” Edna summoned up a watery smile. “But I think I’ll ask my cousin Gwen that lives in Upper Thaxstead if I can stay over at her house. She nursed her husband’s first wife through her final illness, so she understands how hard these times can be.”

It was as Edna blew her nose in her hanky that I remembered that she was Gwen’s cousin and it was possible she had heard of Mrs. Malloy and her intended visit. Even if she hadn’t it was likely to come out now because of Ted’s death. However snobby Gwen had become, basking in her big house and her stepchildren’s degrees from Cambridge, she could hardly fail to offer Edna some emotional support at a time like this.