The Widows Club

doctor”-Primrose lowered her voice-“about hormone tablets.”

My tea cake buckled when I stuck a knife in it. “Do I know this Venus?”

“According to our records, you do.” Hyacinth waved the cognac bottle over my cup.

I nodded assent. “Who could this inflamer of male desire be?”

Primrose looked smug. “I fear it would be a breach of professional confidentiality for us to reveal her name. We prefer to wait and let her speak for herself.”

I held up my hands. “That’s quite all right. If you were to divulge it now, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on what it is you want from me.” The brandy tasted good now that it was no longer diluted by tea, but it wasn’t responsible for the small hopeful flame that lit within me. If what the Tramwells said were true, then maybe in helping them I could make some small reparation to Ben.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Before we proceed, I must make a phone call.” Going out into the foyer, I found Butler dusting the chocolates in the dish on the library table. I asked him to fetch fresh tea, and as he headed for the kitchen, I picked up the telephone and quickly dialed my own number. My father-in-law answered at the third ring. After a brief conversation, I returned to the coffee parlour and closed the door behind me.

I sat down. “Ready.”

Primrose pressed a scented handkerchief into my limp fingers. “We wish you to give us a history of the events leading up to the tragic event which occurred on these premises one week ago tonight.”

“How much do you need to know?” The steadiness of my voice startled me.

“Everything.” Hyacinth uncapped a fountain pen.

“All right,” I began. “On the day of Abigail’s premiere, I woke at a little after six o’clock feeling totally exhausted because all that night I had dreamt I was preparing food for the party. Ben, you see-”

“No, no! Mrs. Haskell. That is not what we want at all.” Hyacinth dabbed at a splutter of ink.

“Dear me, indeed not!” piped up Primrose. “We wish you to go back to the beginning. Start, if you will be so good, with the day you and Bentley came to Merlin’s Court. Your views and impressions since coming to this area are as important to us as the climax.”

“Why don’t I begin with my wedding? Ben and I hadn’t done much socialising with the locals before then; but that day the church and later the house teemed with people. I remember hearing one of the guests say that everyone was there except Chitterton Fells’s three most famous: Edwin Digby, the mystery writer; Felicity Friend, the advice columnist; and the wicked Dr. Simon Bordeaux.”

“You had sent out a great many invitations?” Hyacinth was making notes.

“None.”

The pen stopped moving.

“Ben and I had a very short engagement and wanted a quiet wedding. But, then again, we didn’t want to offend the people we didn’t invite. So we phoned the people we really wanted there and put a small squib in the Coming Events section of The Daily Spokesman. It appeared right at the bottom of the page and was headed ‘All Welcome’, giving time, date, and place. The response was horrifying. The phone buzzed day and night with acceptances to our gracious invitation.”

“I am sure it was a lovely wedding.” Primrose pulled out her handkerchief again.

I hesitated. “The day-it was the first of December last year-was marred by some unfortunate circumstances. The best man, Sidney Fowler, found weddings depressing. He had only agreed to do the honours in hopes of combatting his phobia. The weather was less than perfect and we were about to get the dreadful news about Ben’s mother…”

Part Two

***

3

… “My dear Ellie, I am sure you were a breathtaking bride!” Primrose sighed sentimentally…

Organ music wafted through the open church doors as I stumbled through the lich-gate and down the mossy pathway flanked by ancient tombstones. I clutched the skirt of my white satin gown and my bouquet of yellow tea roses in one hand and Jonas’s arm with the other. Late again. I am always late-for dental appointments, theatre performances, jury duty-but I had planned to make an exception for my wedding.

“Hurry, Jonas!”

The sea breeze lifted my veil, snarling it about my face. My seed pearl tiara slipped over one eye, giving me the look of a demented fairy.

“I am hurrying.”

Jonas was over seventy. What if he dropped dead at my feet? I would spend the rest of my life consumed by remorse. Some people might think it odd that I had chosen to be given away in marriage by my gardener. But he and Dorcas had been my mainstays during my struggle along the byways to Ben’s affection.

If Jonas were taken ill, the wedding would have to be postponed, and that would be the end of me. Women have come a long way from the days when growing up to be an old maid like great-aunt Clarissa was considered a fate worse than death. Today’s woman knows that the word spinster is not synonymous with pebble glasses, a long beaky nose, and button boots. The glamourous, sophisticated single woman has risen-a triumphant phoenix-from the ashes of a dying breed. But the world still harbors pockets of spineless, jelly-kneed females who believe the quality of their lives will be immeasurably improved by the acquisition of a husband. I am such a woman. Do I deserve to be stoned?

When I was six years old and was asked what I wanted for Christmas, I replied, “Something simple in gold for the fourth finger of my left hand.” Nothing, nothing must spoil this day. Or better said: no further blight must be cast upon it. My mother was dead, my father was a nomad last seen hitching a camel ride across the Sahara, but I had naively hoped Ben’s parents would wish to share our joy. Wrong. His Roman Catholic mother had sent love and best wishes but declined attending because the service was to be Church of England. His Jewish father spurned the invitation because three years previously he had taken a vow (on his mother’s photograph) never again to speak to his only son. Ben had been stoic and I had been snarly about their childishness. And that morning had brought fresh tribulation. I had awakened to find my veil lying in a tattered heap upon my bedroom floor.

Jane Eyre revisited, except that in my case the vandal was not a madwoman, but my cat Tobias. A desperate hunt through the attic had procured a replacement. An antique lace tablecloth. Really, it looked fine and would be a conversation piece at many a future dinner party. I had then waited placidly for the arrival of my white-ribboned taxi. And waited. Jonas and I had met its driver, puffed and purple-faced, outside the churchyard only a moment before. The ancient vehicle had stalled halfway up Cliff Road; there would be no charge.

So we walked. We were but a stone’s throw from the church doors when Jonas’s top hat blew off. The organ music petered out as I sidestepped a freshly dug grave and pelted after that wretched hat.

“Let it go,” bellowed Jonas. “Like as not there’ll be a beret or two in the lost-and-found box.”

A beret! A fine figure I would cut being escorted down the aisle by a man holding a beret in his white-gloved hand. I scooped up the top hat as it skimmed over a ground monument lined with that green bath-salts stuff and hobbled back to Jonas.

His heavy walrus moustache twitched in irritation. “Ellie girl, why are you pegging along at the tilt?”

“Twisted my ankle.” Setting the hat back on his head, I cast a saddened glance at the stains now rimming the