Bridesmaids Revisited, page 25
“And what else do you have on your little mind?”
“You said yesterday that you didn’t know where Sophia got the paper to write to Hawthorn, when you had to have known it was taken from her diary. The printed dates alone would have told you that.”
“Oh, aren’t we smart, Miss Ellie! Tuck any other clues up your sleeve?”
“Your engagement photo that’s on Gwen’s piano. You looked so in love. And so you were ... with the man who took the photograph. Hawthorn Lane.”
She finally looked at him. “You’re an old man,” she said. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. If I couldn’t have you with me through the years, then I wanted you to stay as you were in my mind and in those drawings of Sophia’s. Mina wasn’t going to have them. I’d already had enough taken away from me.”
“That wasn’t why you killed Sophia’s and my daughter.” Sir Clifford’s eyes glittered with grief and rage. “You were afraid that not only would she bring those drawings to me, she would tell me what Rosemary had confessed and the past would be torn open. I haven’t forgotten your screaming rage when I refused to take up with you after Sophia’s marriage. And I’ve often wondered why you agreed to carry those notes back and forth when she was kept in her room. If Mina had come to me, I would finally have seen the light—that you had schemed to win my gratitude so that when you had accomplished your diabolical scheme, and I was left heartbroken, you’d be the woman to console me.”
“And so I should have been. I was prettier than your darling Sophia. I was prettier than the whole lot of them!” Edna flashed the knife at the bridesmaids. “I just didn’t get to wear the expensive frocks and had a mother that was a drunk.”
“Merciful heavens! I do feel my emanations failed me where Edna was concerned,” said Jane plaintively to the rest of us.
“Cod’s wallop!” Thora put an arm around her, and another around Rosemary. “Anyone could have been deceived.”
“We all get duped once in a while,” responded Richard sadly.
“Shut up! Everyone into that corner!” Edna began backing out into the hall the instant her order was obeyed. And it is impossible to know what would have happened next, if the cellar door hadn’t opened and Leonard Skinner hadn’t spoken from behind her.
“The game’s up!” His voice radiated triumph. “I know my little Roxie’s here! I saw her arrive in a taxi. Knew if I kept watching the place I’d get lucky.”
“Who is this idiot?” inquired Sir Clifford.
“Don’t everyone look at me,” Mrs. Malloy bridled, “I married him, it’s true, but I didn’t give birth to him.”
“Now, then, Roxie, me darling!” Leonard wagged a remonstrative finger. “It’s not all been fun and games. I had to slash that Mrs. Haskell’s tires,” he added piteously, “so she’d have to go on foot or by bus and I’d have a better chance of keeping up with her. But I lost her yesterday when that chap in the fish van gave her a lift.”
“And you all think I’m mad!” complained Edna.
“Leonard, you’re embarrassing me in front of me new chums. I don’t like that new way you’ve done your hair.” Mrs. M. glowered at him from under neon-coated lids.
“So this is the thanks I get.” He was beginning to look the least bit offended by the lack of welcome on all sides. He had yet to be offered a cup of tea. “Sleeping in the garden shed isn’t yours truly’s idea of posh, but it did prove useful when I spotted you, dearie”—he placed an arm around Edna’s shoulders—“coming and going through that cellar door and found you’d kindly left it unlocked. That way I didn’t have to worry about not being allowed in the front. But now I’m here, is anyone going to ask me to join the party? It’s not like I’ve come empty-handed. I’d have been here sooner if I hadn’t gone off—after I saw Roxie—to get that pound and a half of stewing steak that seems to be all that’s standing in the way of our beautiful reunion.”
“You think that’s all it’ll take to get me back!” Undaunted by the possibility of having her bosom deflated by a plunge of Edna’s knife, Mrs. Malloy lunged out of the conservatory at him. “Me, a woman that’s forged a career for herself with the granddaughter of a peer of the realm!”
Edna came back to life—I suppose even murderers become discombobulated at times. She pulled away from Leonard, seemingly uncertain whether to stab him or Mrs. Malloy first. Leonard toppled forward in a faint and knocked Edna off balance. Mrs. M. grabbed up the package of stewing steak and hit her over the head with it. There followed a stampede of footsteps mingled with a lot of shouting, which was suddenly reduced to a murmur when the conservatory door, which apparently no one had thought to lock, burst open. And the neighbors—Tom, Irene, and Frank, led by the inappropriately named, massively built Susan—burst in upon the scene. It turned out later that they had seen Sir Clifford’s car draw up and had been waiting outside at the front listening for sounds of trouble, before they thought to go around the back.
After that, things calmed down considerably. The police were phoned and after a brief interrogation Edna was taken away. Rosemary, Thora, Jane, and Richard agreed to go down to the station and give statements. Leonard departed, saying the fall had brought back his amnesia, and Mrs. Malloy, after tossing the package of stewing steak out the door after him, said that she thought she would go upstairs and read a nice scary book. I recommended Secrets of the Crypt.
In a moment I would join my grandfather and grandmother and my mother’s twin sister in the sitting room. But I thought they needed just a little time of its being just the three of them. And I needed time to absorb these new additions to my family.
So I went into the kitchen and sat at the table. My mother would be so happy for me, I thought. And feeling as though I had finally laid her to rest, I went back into the hall and peeked into the sitting room. Hope sat watching her reunited parents holding hands. The illusion in the conservatory had passed. They were two elderly, if still good-looking, people, but the expressions on their faces were more beautiful than youth. It was, I thought, eternal. And even though, like Hope, I didn’t claim to have any extrasensory gift, I felt my mother’s presence. I could picture her sitting there with them, not outside the circle but at its core. As I was about to go in and join them, the telephone rang and I went to pick it up. When I heard Ben’s voice I felt my world become complete.
“Don’t say anything,” I said, “just let me hear you breathe. The redecorating can wait—for fifty years if it has to. I’m coming to join you and the children tomorrow. I want to talk to you about Memory Lanes.”
To my daughter, Shana, for all the journeys taken together
Acknowledgments
Much love and appreciation to Barbara and Uncle John, who are always there when needed.
And to my cousin Rosaleen, who is like a sister. Thank you for going out in the middle of the night with your father to say that last goodbye to your Auntie Charlotte. She loved you very much.
Copyright © 2000 by Dorothy Cannell
Originally published by Viking (ISBN 978-0670892051)
Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.BelgraveHouse.com
Electronic sales: ebooks@belgravehouse.com
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
Dorothy Cannell, Bridesmaids Revisited
