Murder With Peacocks(23)

"And here's Meg," the rector said, as I strolled up. "Your mother and Samantha have been telling me about all the things you're doing to get ready for their weddings." Telling him in mind-numbing detail, I suspected, from the desperate note in his voice. I'd long ago stopped wondering why all three brides showed such a distressing inability to understand how anyone they came in contact with could fail to be fascinated with the minutiae of their weddings.

"I'm sorry I'll have to miss them all," he continued, somewhat disingenuously, I suspect. "The day after tomorrow I'm taking the wife and kids on that trip to the Holy Land. Finally going after all these years!"

"Do you mean you're not going to be here in July?" Samantha demanded. "Then who's going to do my wedding? I've booked the church." The rector and I exchanged worried glances.

"Yes, well, if you'd talked to me I'd have told you I was going to be gone this summer," he stammered. "When you didn't, I assumed you were making your own arrangements with my substitute."

"And who is that?" Samantha asked.

"Why, me, of course," Reverend Pugh answered, beaming. Fortunately his eyesight was very bad--not unusual at ninety-seven--and he failed to notice the expression of outrage that crossed Samantha's face. I could see she was horrified at the mere thought of his decrepit and highly unaesthetic self officiating at her wedding.

"Don't worry, Samantha dear," he said, reaching to pat her hand and getting Jake's by mistake. "I've got it down in my calendar already. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

I'd often heard of people having conniption fits, but I'd never actually seen a genuine, unmistakable example before. I was briefly tempted simply to let things run their course, but reason prevailed, and I knew I had to defuse the situation. Nothing brilliant came to mind, so in desperation I made a conspiratorial gesture to Samantha and whispered the first thing that came to mind: "Just humor him! I'll fill you in later."

And spent most of the rest of the party avoiding Samantha while racking my brain for some explanation that would satisfy her. By the time she finally cornered me, much later in the evening, we'd both had rather a lot of champagne, and I managed to spin a convincing yarn about Reverend Pugh's mysterious illness, and how Dad had said a positive mental attitude was important and of course it would keep his spirits up to look forward to the wedding, but that we'd round up a substitute and have Dad order bed rest at the last minute. It sounded highly convincing to me, though it could have been the champagne. Either she bought it or she allowed me to believe she had, after issuing the stern warning that I had better find the substitute ASAP.

I had changed my mind; it was going to be an interminable summer.





Tuesday, May 31



Although I hadn't exactly made a wild night of it, I had stayed up rather late at the picnic, plotting pranks against Mrs. Grover, averting disasters, and drinking a few glasses of wine and champagne. All right, more than a few. I was not at all happy when one of the bridesmaids showed up at the house shortly after dawn. The caterer was acting up and Samantha wanted my help.

"I'm sure Meg will be able to take care of it," Mother said soothingly as she adjusted her hat in the hall mirror. "Jake and I are following your orders today, dear. We're going down to get him a new suit for the wedding, and then we're going to run a whole lot of little errands."

"What sort of little errands?" I asked. Perhaps it was paranoid of me, but I couldn't help suspecting that, as usual, some of Mother's errands would later turn out to involve major amounts of work on my part.

"Oh, this and that," Mother said, vaguely. "Some things for the house. I don't have a list yet. We're going to make a list over a nice breakfast, and then see how much we can get done by lunch."

"Wonderful," I said, insincerely. Mother turned loose on the unsuspecting county. I much preferred her indolent.

"There's Jake now, dear," she said, and floated out toward the front door just as Dad came in the back.

"Meg," he said. "Have you seen Mrs. Grover this morning? She was supposed to meet me here at six A.m. to go bird-watching. She's half an hour late."

"She probably decided to be sensible and sleep in. That certainly was what I had in mind this morning," I said, looking pointedly at the bridesmaid.

"Probably so. Well, if she shows up, or if anyone needs me, I'll be in the side yard." I nodded; my mouth was filled with one of Pam's blueberry muffins.

"Okay," I told the bridesmaid, as I finished filling my traveling coffee mug. "Let's go get Samantha and bring the caterer to heel."