The Widow's Club by Dorothy Cannell Read Free Book Online Page B

necessary due to the number of members wishing to attend the Haskell/Simons wedding. As always, the Gardening Committee fully supports the club’s position that occurrences of a matrimonialnature are highly therapeutic for members. A motion was made by Maude Garway to picket the event. This was seconded by Alice Reardon, but outvoted by the membership.
    The annual holly-gathering Sunday was rained out and has yet to be rescheduled.

… “I would have killed Cousin Frederick.” Hyacinth’s black eyes sparked.…
    “On your marks, get set, smile!” Crouched behind a camera worthy of Lord Snowdon, Dorcas dropped her left arm, signalling action. Alas, one of the tripod legs buckled. The crowd closed in to proffer advice.
    As the bridal party—Ben and I, flanked by Jonas and Sid—stood on the church steps, bombarded by pealing bells, and stung by the wind, I refused to meet my husband’s eyes. I felt no great need to kill Freddy. My cousin Frederick Flatts was born with his brain trickling out of his ears and had attained the age of twenty-nine still believing the world hungered for his sublime wit. On Rowland’s advising him to go confess his sacrilegious prank to the congregation and inform them he would be returning the infant to its parents forthwith, he had replied gloomily, “If they’ll take the little monster back.”
    Ben was the one I longed to murder. I could still see him sagging against the vestry wall, weak with laughter, while that sticky baby tugged at my veil and yanked tufts out of my bouquet.
    “I love you, Ellie.” His breath brushed my face like a kiss. Too little, too late.
    His hand moved up my arm. “I’m sorry, darling, but I was so unsettled by your arriving late that Freddy’s stunt sent me over the edge.”
    I should have tossed my train over my shoulder and stormed from the church.
    In years to come my children would say, “Mummy, why do you have that wicked look on your face in your wedding pictures?” And I would have to explain to those innocent mites what it feels like to have the words “I do” drowned out by the babbling of the guests. They were still at it now as they stood grouped at the base of the steps.
    “Hold that pose, lovebirds! Best profile forward, Ben. Love the Mona Lisa smile, Ellie.” Dorcas pegged her jockey cap on the head of a marble statue of the great local hero, Smuggler Jim Biggins, and jamming her red hair behind her ears, squared her shoulders and got down to the serious business of twiddling dials.
    Click. Click .
    “Looks like we have to wait for these clouds to move, so go on, make a break for it, old son.” Ben’s eyes were on me as he spoke. I closed mine to keep my righteous anger intact.
    “Do I get to kiss the bride?” asked lachrymose Sid, and I felt my hand lifted and pressed to a pair of lips—his, presumably.
    “Sidney, how gallant!” I tapped him playfully with my bouquet, entirely for Ben’s benefit.
    “Tall women bring out that side of me,” he mourned. “I refuse to stand on tiptoe to kiss even the best of them. I suffer enough indignity having people use my ass as a door scraper.” And with that he hunched off down the steps. Jonas stumped after him.
    “Hold fast, Mr. and Mrs. H.” Dorcas was grimacing at the clouds now rolling like dense smoke across the sky. “Should brighten any minute, if it doesn’t pour first. Want some nice snaps to send Ma and Pa, don’t we, Ben? Must show the stay-at-homes what they missed.”
    “Absolutely,” he replied.
    I straightened the seed pearl tiara, fanned my veil over my shoulders, and smiled for the crowd. I could see my ex-neighbor and Freddy’s amour, Jill—the mystic, built like a toothbrush and with the same sort of bristly hairdo, wedged between Uncle Maurice and a woman in a busby. And there, next to Smuggler Jim’s statue, stood Mrs. Swabucher, all pink tulle and gusts of ermine. Rowland was wending up and down along the edge of the gravel path,the black book clasped