Bridesmaids Revisited by Dorothy Cannell Read Free Book Online

a very great pleasure to have you here, my dear. As you may imagine I have wanted to meet you for years. Gwen is forever talking about the best friend she ever had. And now we have this reunion of two delightfully grown-up little girls. Ah, and here is my darling now!” He turned at the clickety-click sound of footsteps, and hastened to remove a heavily laden tray from his wife’s hands and lower it onto the marble coffee table. “Good girl,” he said, patting her shoulder benevolently. “I see you used the silver teapot. Have to make this an occasion, don’t we? I’ll be mother and pour, darling, while you sit next to Mrs. Haskell on the sofa.”
    Thus freeing himself to take the chair next to Mrs. Malloy’s when he was done passing the cups and saucers and little plates of ginger biscuits. There was no doubt that he kept glancing in her direction. The perfect host intent on making sure that her every need was anticipated.
    “I didn’t hear you come in, Fiddler, but I’m sure you remembered to wipe your feet before crossing the hall. You’re as fond of that antique rug as I am.” Gwen was all black angles and platinum-blond hair as she sat down. “And it looks as though you’ve already started getting to know Roxie and have met kind Mrs. Haskell.”
    “Yes, darling.” His voice was soothing. “She told me she’s going on to Knells to stay with friends.”
    “Three women who were friends of her grandmother’s,” Mrs. Malloy informed him as she picked up her teacup and elevated her pinky. “Mrs. H. hasn’t seen them in years. Rather strange birds, if you ask me.”
    I wanted to say I hadn’t, but settled for disclosing that they lived at the Old Rectory.
    “What a coincidence!” Having finished being mother, Barney Fiddler sat down on one of the monastery chairs and looked from me to his wife, then back again. “Or perhaps it isn’t really. Knells is a very small village. Just the pub and a church or two, a small row of shops, and a few streets of houses. But even so ...” He paused to bite into a ginger biscuit. “Gwen must have mentioned her cousin Edna to you.” He was now addressing Mrs. Malloy, who pursed her lips and furrowed her brow.
    “I can’t say as I remember.”
    “There’s no reason I’d put Edna in letters. And anyway Roxie and I haven’t been in touch for quite a while.” Gwen sounded a bit snappish.
    “But, darling,” responded her husband, “Edna was the reason you came to Upper Thaxstead. It was her that sent you the clipping of my newspaper advertisement for a nanny. Surely you spoke of her to Roxie at the time, darling? I thought you two girls shared everything.”
    “I think it’s coming back to me, Gwen.” Mrs. Malloy looked eager to cooperate. “You said your parents wouldn’t have agreed to your leaving home before your fortieth birthday if you hadn’t been going to live near a cousin. A nice sensible older woman, that didn’t believe in going to the pictures on Sundays or wearing gobs of makeup.”
    “Not a very accurate description of Edna.” Barney chuckled as he again handed round the plate of biscuits. “From what I’ve heard she was a bit of a lass in her day. One good-for-nothing bloke after another before she married. But that’s how these things go, isn’t it? She wouldn’t be the first or the last to take a turn or two around the paddock before getting on the straight and narrow.”
    He had now fixed me with an intent blue stare. “You’re going to the Old Rectory, you said. Lots of stories told about that house over the years. There was the vicar who dropped dead over his Sunday lunch. And his curate that went out with his new bride to work as a missionary in the Belgian Congo and came back a widower with a child. We’ve heard a good number of the stories from Edna, haven’t we, Gwen?”
    “I’ve never encouraged her to gossip. And, anyway, she’s not the sort. She’s a decent hardworking woman, past or no past.”
    “I’m