Moonspender Read online

  "Fixer's been helping to arrange it," I explained to Lize, as always trying to be nice. "But I've had all the worry."

  Lize was still thin-lipped in the back seat. "You could have told me weeks ago, Lovejoy. Ten minutes' notice!"

  She was really pretty in her best suit, gloves, a hat, all peach, with matching shoes and handbag. I'd never seen her dressed nice before. Usually she strives for the roadmender look, and achieves it. I tried, "You don't look too bad." She shot me one of her specials so I gave up. Sigh.

  As we hit the village road I reflected on Mrs. Ryan. Not comparing her and Lize, honestly, but just wondering as Manor Farm's outermost acres crept into view. How does a husband condone his wife's nefarious activities? I mean, does he say casually over breakfast, "Oh, darling. A spot of spying for you today. Just give Lovejoy the old how's-your-father, a rape or two. Find out what the blighter's doing. Give him the estate manager's job, if it'll help." And what about the bird herself? Is sex loyalty negotiable? There are some beautiful examples to prove it's so. The exquisite Louise de Querouaille's my favorite. Louis XIV of France sent her to spy on his cousin Charles II after our Restoration. Mind you, the odds were on her side, her being gorgeous. She was so successful that she conceived one of Charles Two's illegitimate offspring in a lull between horseraces at Newbury. She became Duchess of Portsmouth ". . . starting at the bottom," her commentators say with brilliant malice—

  "God," I muttered.

  The old church is at the end of a lane. A couple of cart tracks, a pond, the squire's hall, and fields. That's it, normally. Today though the place was heaving. Cars were everywhere. People milled about. The women were really pretty, colors and flowers. I grinned, delighted. Everybody had showed.

  Suited blokes were flagging us along. Two charabancs were already there, their drivers having a smoke. Bells were ringing— bells! Our church's bells were stolen in 1408. Yet there in the grassy churchyard was an entire set of cage bells, four stalwart ringers. I'd thought only East Bergholt had a genuine set. ... I swallowed and hoisted a firm grin. What the eye doesn't see you can't get nicked for.

  We went clattering among people like royalty, the mob parting and giving us gladness. We had difficulty nearing the lych-gate, but Tinker's cry of "Best man 'ere, y'idle sods," got us through. A couple of dealers mouthed questions. I gave them a meaningful wink, mostly because their guess was as good as mine.

  Fixer Pete was there, more like Errol Flynn than ever, when I gallantly handed Lize down into the throng. She was smiling herself now, infected by the general gaiety and slyly checking the other birds to make sure her clobber wasn't being bettered—or, worse, copied—by some enemy. Fixer really comes into his own on these occasions. He wore a morning suit, pinstriped trousers, gray topper, and self-delight.

  "Good day to you, Lovejoy. Miss."

  "How do. Fixer."

  "No changes from now, Lovejoy," Fixer pleaded in an undertone. "Incidentally, the vicar's Reverend Larkin—genuine," he said hurriedly as I gave him a sharp glance. "Honest to God."

  "Our church big enough for this lot?" All round people were walking with what they considered becoming gravity up the grass path to the church porch. A couple of girls trailed two cameramen on wires among the gravestones.

  "No," Fixer said happily. "It's sixty too small. The service will be

  relayed—"

  "Great." I took Lize's arm firmly to walk us on. Once Fixer starts on plans you're stuck for the generation. He passed me a little box. "I can't do valuations today, Fixer—"

  "It's the ring, Lovejoy," he whispered, annoyed.

  "Are they exchanging rings?" Lize was getting into it now, earlier fights forgotten.

  "Not likely." Big Frank's fifth wife had had a segmental platinum-gold ring specially crafted for him. He'd instantly traded it to a London dealer, part-exchange for a Queen Anne locket, thus sowing the seeds for wife number six et seq.

  Fixer said, more tactfully, "No, miss. Big Frank's a traditionalist in affairs of the heart."

  We walked through the porch, one of Fixer's lads pinning us to carnations and introducing me to Reverend Larkin, a jubilant spherical cleric hugging himself by the door. The church was already half full, some young stranger giving out Purcell on the pump-organ. Lize signaled me to the front right pew. She and Tinker sat behind. I felt daft on my own, but Hepsibah Smith, our choir mistress, was in so I wasn't stuck for something to gawp at. The choir wore black cassocks. They used to wear red locally until the Queen blitzed some archbishop with the terse reminder that red cassocks were by royal permission only. The flowers were in great decorative sprays—Sandy's hand here. The hassocks were silk and white wool: Mel.

  In fact I'd quite a lump in my throat. The ancient church looked glamorous, regal, with sun shining through its fourteenth-century stained glass. You could feel the waves of lust from the antique dealers busily pricing the reredos, our ancient font, our alabaster knights sleeping with pious somnolence and absent toes (villagers still pinch holy alabaster to cure sick sheep). Leaving all that aside, the dealers had come to support Big Frank. That counts a lot with me, because friends are friends. Me and Rowena in her cottage came to mind so I changed the subject. The church filled with a rush as Fixer's whippers-in were tipped off that Ro was on her way. And, creaking new shoes, here was Big Frank, eyes on the silver crucifix above the tabernacle. Heartbeat time.

  "Unusual, Canterbury cross, in silver," he whispered. "Don't suppose any parish has the matching ciborium, Lovejoy? I've an American buyer—"

  "Stop that this instant!" Lize leaned whispering between us. "Remember where you are!"

  "It wasn't me," I whispered, narked. Big Frank sighed. We sat like lemons while the church quietened so that Tinker's rasping cough could test its raftered acoustics unhindered. People looked round, shuffled. Tension grew. Somebody dropped something. The organ played on. Old Peter was pumping away round the side, the long ash handles shoving his elbows into view. Tension. More tension. In fact so much that I nodded off and was only fetched conscious by Lize's nudge from behind. Bloody nerve; she was the reason I was knackered in the first place.

  The organ drew breath, and parped into the Bridal March. The congregation rose with thunderous quiet, and there was Reverend Larkin beaming from the altar steps. Rustle rustle of approaching satins, and we were off.

  Ro came alongside, on Harry Bateman's arm. I caught my breath. She was radiant in white silk with lace, though sadly modem, and freesias for her bouquet. She didn't glance my way. I felt really rather peeved, after all my friendliness at 2 Sebastopol Cottages and the way I'd slaved over these arrangements.

  "Dearly beloved," Reverend Larkin intoned, rapturous. "We are gathered here ..."

  I smiled soulfully at Hepsibah Smith. She looked away, coloring. Honor among choristers.

  The service was great, marred only by the choir's late entry during the anthem—I knew they'd never manage it without me—and an entirely forgivable hiatus when Reverend said, "The ring, please," and stood with his hand out. It honestly wasn't my fault that Hepsibah Smith's cassock never does conceal her shape; anyway I didn't know I'd have to produce the ring just Like that.

  Tinker's croak saved me. "In your bleedin' right-hand pocket, Lovejoy." Sweatily I hauled out Fixer's little box and got the lid off after a struggle. I owed Tinker a pint for that—I could feel the animosity vibing from Lize and Margaret and Helen toward the old soak for his language.

  Mr. and Mrs. Big Frank led us in procession after signing the book, the organ belling away, and I was collared by a pretty lass with two tiny bridesmaids as fighter escorts. "I'm Jenny," my new partner whispered, "and I've heard about you."

  Where do you look when you walk down an aisle? I tried the floor, the rafters, the west window's stained glass. I tried saying hello, going red as I caught the grins of the dealers and the fond smiles of the women, until Jenny Knowall squeezed my arm to shut up. I settled for Ro's nape in front of me until we were mercifully out into the sunshin
e and Reverend was handshaking and smiling, "Never mind, Lovejoy. Everybody's hopeless about the ring." A pint to the right bowler next cricket season and I'll have his head knocked off, making cracks like that.

  Fixer Pete was at the waiting cars, grinning like a Cheshire cat and talking into a million-way wrist radio, ten-four and whatnot.

  "Gone well, Lovejoy," he said, pleased. "So far."

  "Wasn't it a lovely ceremony!" Jenny exclaimed.

  "Such a relief," I agreed, smiling. Fixer said hurry into the Limousine. Twenty to four. Dead on time, as the saying goes.

  27

  The limo put us down outside the Minories. Already there was a crowd assembling. I didn't want Sandy turning out to welcome me. In fact I'd rather pretend I didn't even know him. A coach-and-four waited, the horses plumed with white cockades and a coachman in bright green livery.

  "Right," I told Jenny and the two Littles. "Be sharp."

  We scampered in. A nice thrombus of buses and charabancs was forming up. Several motors waited, engines running; these were the latecomer dealers who'd sensed something was in the wind.

  Beryl had help today, her sisters and a team of women whose job was rushing about with mouthfuls of pins while Sandy screamed abuse at them. He was resplendent—I think that's the word for a Richard III scarlet velvet doublet with yellow-diamond sequined hose and enormous bishop sleeves. His Faust slippers, in orange lame, blinded me. His worst feature was a giant striped hat.

  "Yoohoo, Lovejoy!" he trilled. "Like my accessory?"

  "Er, great." I was thinking we've got fifteen minutes and here is this goon wanting me to praise his handbag. "Where's Ro, and Big Frank?"

  "Upstairs being welded into that dress." He twirled admiringly before a mirror. "It's nearly as old as she is. Lovejoy, my special effects!"

  He flipped open the pink shoulder bag, tasseled velvet. It blared out

  "Light Cavalry." He tittered, rounded on Jenny. "You. Upstairs, side gallery." Jenny and her pair scuttled off with half-a-dozen matrons, as he called sweetly after, "Jenny dear. In our next incarnation shall we give shape a try, all rightee?"

  Jenny's laughter floated back. It narks me. Birds like Sandy, despite his cruel invective. I was directed to the Georgian nursery gallery ("On the positively clear understanding you don't play with the dollies, Lovejoy," from Sandy, setting the entire place laughing). They changed me into an austere frock-coated doctor, cape and all. I felt a twerp.

  Reverend Larkin arrived in all this caper, three minutes late from traffic. The daft nerk looked full of enjoyment. Gloomily I sat in the hallway listening to the females hurtling about. This masquerade was all very well, but the lovely brass-faced clock by Joseph Knibb was chiming four o'clock, nearly time for a magnificent wedding reception and sundry jollity. For me it was one step nearer night, when I would meet the murderous Ryan in Pittsbury Wood and risk getting myself executed. I honestly felt abused. Why always me? Then I thought of Ben and George, poor sods. Of course it hasn't always been me.

  Ro descended the stairs. I caught my breath. She was exquisite in those Honiton lace flounces, sleeve frills, and that lace bertha. Sandy spoiled it all by coming ahead of her shedding tears of self-love, holding a freesia spray, handbag playing "Sentimental Journey" enough to pop your eardrums. Jenny and the titchies were pretty in bridal cottons, white satin slippers. Beryl followed, her team flutteringly seeing the veils didn't tangle. We had an ugly delay when little Millicent, one of our tiny bridesmaids, suddenly wanted the loo, and a further one when Babs, her deputy assistant, wanted a turn.

  We were a full ten minutes late when finally Beryl stood by the outside door and anxiously asked Sandy if we could go.

  We looked a sight, but the women thought it beautiful. Sandy was really moved: "Think of the lacework if dear Jane'd worked for me!" Dear Jane was little Miss Bidney, lace-maker of Devonshire, who, suddenly summoned to London for a royal commission—Victoria's wedding dress no less—promptly fainted.

  There must have been over two hundred people thronging the pavement when Ro and Big Frank stepped out to applause and excitement at our historic pageant. All traffic was stuck. People were standing out of cars to see. A TV crew darted and swooped, poles held aloft. Why do half of them walk backward?

  While me and Jenny waited as the bridal couple departed, Beryl came up behind and whispered a thanks to me for putting her museum on the map. "And for inviting us to the reception, Lovejoy. So sweet."

  "Fair exchange, love. I insisted that you got invited." I'd have to pat Fixer on the head for thinking of that.

  We were twenty minutes late getting away. Mel still blames me.

  The High Street, full of Saturday shoppers, became a crowd-lined thoroughfare with folk oohing and aahing at Ro's queenly progress. We overtook it as it clattered past the George, and arrived at Dogpits first. And I almost lost my nerve. Dogpits Farm seemed suddenly the center of the known world.

  Suzanne's restaurant was gone. In its place stood a lovely Gothic facade in Accrington brick, only vaguely familiar as the former exterior of the rehabilitation unit. The ornamental shaping, the reticulated windows, were all there, with the great sculpted arches. It was terrific. I was dying to see the hall's interior but Veronica Gold advanced, talking into a black drumstick. More backward-walking blokes in jeans.

  Inside, the hubbub was at least that of a football crowd, with sudden laughs and the clink of glasses. Pierre the head waiter and sundry serfs shepherded us through a lounge of subdued wall panels cleverly ht from gas mantles. It was like waiting to go on stage, in a small room with an altar, would you believe, with a series of three stained-glass windows set in the wall above it. Only repro, of St. Botolph's magic Descent from the Cross, but it couldn't be faulted.

  Mel pranced through in a tantrum about the flowers, and Suzanne flowed out to admire the dresses. She was lovely with Little Millicent and Babs, taking them see the altar close to. And she said I didn't look stupid at all, which was news. She gave Jenny the coldest of nods.

  "Why's the altar set up here, love?" I asked her. "Is this where the fihn. . . ?"

  The signal came then, with flunkies sprinting. They took my sherry off" me before I'd had a swig, which was unfair because, when the curtains were peeled back and me and Big Frank stepped down, the place was crammed with tables groaning under brimming glasses. Everybody turned to look, presenting a sea of faces.

  And the altar was where the bandstand had been—so I realized the small anteroom had rotated, church windows and all, complete with Reverend Larkin beaming in his 1830 getup. The cameras were rolling, if that's the phrase, by the alcove windows with one high on a ladder.

  Me and Big Frank made it to our places, the women dealers sniffing and the blokes enviously playing mind games pricing our borrowed raiment. During the pause before Ro and her entourage entered I had a quick scan, and approved. Sandy had somehow got a score of cast-iron chandeliers, which shed a fine light from gentle gas mantles. His adaptation of the windows to the low alcoves was achieved by old sash-raisers—God knows where he'd got those. The brass oil lanterns were reproduction, but in this day and age (customers will nick anything antique) precautions are only natural. The walls were an unbelievable Cumberland slate. The effect was of distances so elastic that you could achieve any impression you wanted by judging the light. The ceiling was a patterned Adam, another winner. That, the oak woodwork, the hint of balustrades, and that original clerk's Davenport desk for Pierre to run things ... I bent my head, moved. It was splendid, as splendid as anything new I'd ever seen. Most of the furnishings were old, and back among people where they belonged. Everybody must have slaved. My vision blurred a bit.

  I'd have been even more moved if I hadn't noticed Councillor and Mrs. Ryan seated nearby. And the major and Candice being showily snob. And of all people Ledger, with a homely lady in pearls, toasting me silently. And Tinker, lost but game.

  An organ sounded, I think one of the old positive-pressure manuals —I couldn't see for
the crowd—and the place rose to greet the bride. I was getting more than a little narked at the proprietorial grin on Big Frank's silly face as he stepped out to stand beside Ro's ephemeral form.

  Sandy wept uncontrollably, this time into a papal flag hankie—his joke—rimmed by tiny cowbells. He sounded like the Swiss Alps throughout, but smiled glitteringly toward the cameras.

  It was a lovely ceremony. This time I remembered the ring, but thought all the time of a small bronze leopard lying alone cold in the ground of New Black field, out in the dwindling day.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Suzanne announced from an arched alcove that mysteriously appeared to one side of the stage. "This evening we take pleasure in welcoming the lovely and famous Veronica Gold, who not only came to film our Victorian wedding, but to broadcast her award-winning show 'Old Is Gold' from here."

  She continued over the cheers, explaining the show would start at nine after the break, and meanwhile for everybody to enjoy themselves. Sandy and Mel were fetched out of phony self-effacement to be presented with bouquets as cameras whirred.

  Sandy started his account of the wedding dress well before time: " Very few of us, dear Queen Vicky excepted, can wear simplicity with grace," he began, spinning Ro on the dais. "The eight-piece bodice emphasizes the terribly low wide neckline. Risky? But of course! Actually, one has to be, well, slim as me to carry it off. Note the point-waist, sitting above the true waistline?" Doubtfully he prodded Ro with a long finger. "It's here somewhere ..."

  Added attractions were the antiques in the assembly room. All guests were invited to inspect. . . . The stampede, thinly disguised as a casual sprint, overwhelmed part of the proceedings, but Sandy already had his audience and was in his element.

  Weddings are a thrash now, between church and the late-night swigging. There's teatime after the reception. Then dance and booze, then the evening disco, and you stagger to your pit at cock shout. For once I was pleased because—chatting to Goldie, praising Suzanne, introducing Beryl, seeing that Lize met the newsworthies—I could keep a weather eye on my major suspect.