She Shoots to Conquer

Spendlow, after an amused-looking pause, continued to his conclusion.

Fortunately, after the final hymn and brief benediction, the congregation surged to its feet, making it possible to be borne outside on a tidal wave of humanity without revealing more than the tops of our heads. When I was able to see beyond a few inches around me, it was to note that Livonia wasn’t with us.

“Gone to make eyes at Dr. Rowley.” Mrs. Malloy is never at her best when still groggy with sleep. “A right shame, I call it, her continuing to lead Lord Belfrey on when it’s clear as daylight she’s fallen hook, line, and sinker for another.”

“The less of her, the merrier for you,” I was pointing out, when suddenly finding Mr. Spendlow at our elbows. That hat of Mrs. Malloy’s had to have been the giveaway.

“Thank you for not throwing rotten tomatoes at me.” He twinkled boyishly at her. The ponytail and suggestion of a beard reminded me of my cousin Freddy, and following Mrs. M.’s suitable abashed murmurings I congratulated him warmly on his sermon, adding my regrets that we wouldn’t be in Grimkirk next Sunday.

“A pleasure to have had you with us today. I’m sorry your visit to the area” (discreetly put) “has been shadowed by the car accident.”

“Terrible,” I said.

“I dreamed about it all night long.” Mrs. Malloy stood looking tragic in black, only the rhinestone buttons striking too bright a tone. “That’s why I dozed off just now, instead of storing up every word you said, Vicar, as is my usual way when at church. Much prefer it to the pictures. Always have, isn’t that right, Mrs. H?”

“What?” It had suddenly struck me as surprising that Mr. Spendlow hadn’t referred to the accident during the service, requesting prayers for the deceased.

“I understand she-Suzanne Varney-was a friend of your wife?”

“That’s right. Ingar was shattered when she heard. Ah, here she is now.” The assembly of congregants had thinned, heading toward their cars or proceeding on their way on foot. Turning, I beheld a tall, Nordic-looking blonde, with the long-legged walk and vigorously healthy aura one imagines gained from camping next to fiords or skimming over frozen lakes on ice skates. There followed a few minutes of politely generalized conversation before Mr. Spendlow was corraled by the gentleman with the miraculously black hair, port wine complexion, and flapping hands.

“Dear Stanley,” Mrs. Spendlow’s eyes followed affectionately, “he’s the head verger and utterly convinced St. Mary’s would crumble to rubble without him. And he’s absolutely right. My husband counts on him for so much. Oh, no! He’s dropped his pocket handkerchief. Excuse me while I…”

“I’ll take it to him. That’s the trouble with men, need constant looking after. A woman’s willing lot!” Mrs. Malloy teetered off in her high heels. Martyrdom on route to canonization after the rocky start to her day.

Seizing the moment, I brought up Suzanne Varney. “We’d heard she’d decided to come in a day ahead to spend time with a friend. And Celia Belfrey, whom I met when looking for the owners of a lost dog,” it was still incredibly hard to mention Thumper, “told me you were that person. I’m so sorry.” How to ask what they had talked about without appearing ghoulishly curious?

“Trust that woman to be in the know! For someone who rarely leaves the house, especially now she has that downtrodden-looking assistant, she’s next to omniscient.”

“Apparently Ms. Varney stopped at Witch Haven to ask directions to the vicarage.”

“That was it, was it!” Ingar Spendlow brushed back a long lock of straight silk hair. “Sorry to sound spiteful, but Celia Belfrey is a horror! She’s spread it around I’m an atheist because it’s the last thing a clergyman’s wife is supposed to be, although I can’t see why not. She plays into assumptions that because I was born in Sweden-that hedonistic haven-and because my thing isn’t organizing the annual bazaar, I have to be godless and my husband should be dispatched with a boot to the rear.” She looked around and, seeing nobody close, continued: “Celia Belfrey is one dangerous woman. If I were Lord Belfrey, I’d be on the alert for her sticking a spoke in his reality bridal search. It’s not in her to tolerate her father’s heir-or anyone else, for that matter-living happily ever after at Mucklesfeld.”

“I’m not one of the contestants,” I explained.

“Poor Suzanne!” Another glance to assess the all clear. “No, I’m not suggesting that accident was rigged, that would be going too far, although I remember her as an excellent driver. We were never extremely close, but I always liked her. She was the one who wasn’t religious-the idea of people praying for her soul would have offended her, which is why my husband did not refer to her or the accident during the service. But interestingly, I believe she wanted to talk to me because of my perspective as the wife of a clergyman. Aren’t people contradictory? Lovably so.”

“Did she want to discuss the wisdom of being a contestant on Here Comes the Bride? Any ethical concerns, for instance, that she might have about doing so?” Should I come straight out with my knowledge-gained from his lordship-that he and Suzanne had a prior acquaintance? I suspected that Ingar Spendlow’s loathing for Celia Belfrey had goaded her into saying far more than she normally would with a complete stranger. But how far could I push without appearing too nosy? Or was that question now moot? Mr. Spendlow was heading back to us, still in the company of Stanley-purple silk handkerchief restored jauntily to his breast pocket. “Suzanne wanted to talk about her anger, how vengeful it made her feel. The hate eating away at her, made more explosive by having been kept bottled up. I asked about friends, but she said she didn’t have any- only acquaintances, except for me, and we hadn’t seen or corresponded with each other in years. She said if she believed in anything, it was fate bringing us together. But that was as far as she got. I received an urgnt phone call from a parishioner who needed to see me immediately…”

There was no time for more. Mr. Spendlow placed an arm around his wife’s shoulders, clearly eager to talk about Stanley’s suggestion of chair placement in the church hall for the youth concert that night. Mrs. Malloy, Livonia, and Dr. Tommy waited a short distance away, and how long could they be expected to stand admiring the parking area? I said my goodbyes to the accompaniment of a particularly coy handshake from Stanley-his parting words resounding in my ears as I rejoined my little group. Had anyone commented on my resemblance to the last Lady Belfrey? Such a charming looking young lady she was. A sad loss for the parish and (obvious afterthought) her husband. He had not added and her stepdaughter.

“Oh, there you are, Ellie.” Livonia beamed at me with surprised delight, rather as though I had stepped out of a lifeboat after being feared lost on the Titanic. “Imagine, Dr. Rowley,” looking shyly up into his equally radiant face, “being at the very same service! He could have been at the eleven o’clock, or he could have been at this one and we…”

“How are you today, Mrs. Haskell?” He executed more of a bend than a bow over his round tum. A gentlemanly formality that thrilled one of us to the core, warmed my heart, and produced a glower from Mrs. Malloy.

“I should try fainting next time I go somewhere and get to be an invalid for the rest of me life. ’Course, not everywhere’s as conducive to a good old-fashioned attack of the vapors as is Mucklesfeld. Did my fellow contestant here tell you, Dr. Rowley, about the white rat jumping on the ghost’s wig?”

“No! My dear,” reaching for Livonia’s blatantly willing hands, “what a ghastly experience for the tender female!” Was this the first time it had occurred to me that Grimkirk’s local GP might share with some amongst us a predilection for the swoonier romance novel? I pictured him sitting up in bed at night, wearing striped pajamas, a tear trickling down a plump cheek as he hoped against hope that Wisteria Whitworth and Carson Grant would defy the odds against their walking down the aisle to soaring strains of “Oh Perfect Love.”

“The truly gruesome thing,” Livonia looked deep into his eyes, “was that for a moment she didn’t seem aware that anything-let alone a rat-was on her head. She had this fixed, quite dreadful grin on her face!”

“Ghosts are above worldly disturbances,” Mrs. Malloy retorted loftily.

“But she wasn’t one, just someone pretending to be Lady Annabel Belfrey with her head stuck back on after being guillotined.” Livonia clung ever more tightly to Dr. Tommy. “Even Molly Duggan realized that, or she would have fled Mucklesfeld along with Wanda Smiley. Poor Molly! She is even more timid than I am… or was before embarking on this mission of self-discovery.” She explained who she was talking about to the entranced but also suddenly anxious-looking Tommy.

“So you’re now one contestant down.” It should have been clear as glass to Livonia why this worried him, but it had to be remembered her relationship with Harold had given her no reason to believe herself the sort of woman to arouse jealousy in the heart of a man. Sweet, guileless Livonia! Or was she singing exactly the right song for a