“Auntie Iva," Eden said, bending down to hug the maroon one.
“Darling Eden," the old lady cooed. "You get taller every time I see you.”
The white-wigged one was scrabbling at Eden's sleeve for her share of attention.
“Auntie Marguerite, you look divine," Eden said, and quickly added, "You both do.”
Eden introduced them to Jane. "Miss Iva Thatcher, Mrs. Marguerite Rowe," she said quite formally, "this is Jane Jeffry, the lady who has put together Livvy's wedding.”
The bright smiles with which they'd greeted Eden faded to scowls. "Yes, Mrs. Jeffry" Iva said coldly. "Livvy told us you were doing all the arrangements. We offered to plan the wedding ourselves. We are, after all, her aunts. Her only female relatives. The substitutes for her own dear, departed mother. But she preferred to have a complete stranger arrange the most important day of her life.”
Before Jane could compose any reply, Eden jumped in. "But my dears, Livvy told me she wanted you two to be the guests of honor. You can't ask a guest of honor to do all the drudgery. Livvy wanted you to just sail in and thoroughly enjoy yourselves without having to fret over whether the flowers had arrived or the dresses fitted.”
Eden turned and winked at Jane, but Jane didn't need the wink to know that Eden was lying through her spectacular teeth.
“Well, there is that aspect," Aunt Marguerite said. "It's so like Livvy to want to spare us trouble. Such a dear girl. And she's marrying such a handsome man."
“Get your mind out the gutter," Iva snapped.
Marguerite glowered. "Just because I'm not a dried-up spinster like some I could name—"
“I could have had as good a husband as you did, dear," Iva came back, "if I'd been foolish enough to believe that fake English accent and—"
“Now, my dears, let's don't have any tiffs," Eden said. Jane was surprised to learn that Eden could speak quite loudly when the occasion demanded it.
“Let me show you to your rooms," Jane said. "Oh, we know where they are. Just up the stairs," Iva said.
“No, actually, those rooms are taken," Jane said, resisting the urge to wring her hands in despair.
“But we always stay in the big center room," Marguerite said.
“I had to put the seamstress in there so there would be room for her sewing," Jane explained.
“The seamstress is still sewing? Here?" Iva screeched. "Well, I can tell you if I'd been in charge, those dresses would have been done weeks ago. Still, we'll take one of the rooms next to it.”
Jane sighed. She wasn't a confrontational person, but she was going to have to make clear just who
was
in charge or these ladies were going to run over her. They'd obviously spent decades practicing the art on each other.
“That's quite impossible," Jane said, looking Iva straight in the eye. "Livvy's father will be in one of the rooms. He is, after all, the owner of the house and the man who's paying for the wedding, and the bride gets the other one. I'll show you where you're staying.”
They trailed along behind her, snipping at her and each other the whole way. When Jane returned to the main room, she found Shelley puttering around with a dust cloth. "I sent Eden up to the dressmaker. What a glamorous number she is," Shelley said. "You look frazzled."
“Wait until you meet the aunts," Jane said. "They're here already?"
“Apparently they got in a dispute about starting early enough tomorrow and the one with acar insisted they come today instead. They're terrors. Shelley, we're surrounded by a bleating flock of cranky old ladies."
“You'll cope. And if you can't, I'll read them the riot act."
“I already coped. I was very firm with them. I'm turning into you."
“Then why don't you look more cheerful?" Shelley flicked the dust cloth over an old Victrola.
“I had an interesting chat with Eden," Jane said. "This family, it seems, is much stranger than I thought. And Eden doesn't seem to think Livvy's in love with Dwayne. Shelley, I'm horrified that I might have done all this work and the bride's going to bolt at the last minute."
“Do you really think so?" Shelley asked.
Jane repeated the gist of the conversation she'd had with Eden. "So she's just marrying to please her father with a mob of grandsons."
“According to Eden," Shelley reminded her. "But she may not be right. Livvy might be madly, passionately in love and is just too boring and repressed to show it. And even if she's not wild about him, she's getting a good-looking husband, a father for potential kids, and he's marrying into a lot of money. Marriages have been made for worse reasons and thrived.”
Jane thought for a moment. "I never heard her say a warm word about Dwayne at our meetings. Of course, I never heard her express much of an opinion about anything. You're right. And it's not my problem. If she bolts, she bolts. Nobody can blame me. Though I'm sure the aunts will try to.”
Jane let Mr. Willis know that there would be two more for dinner, then she and Shelley went in search of the missing members of the party. They found Larkspur digging around in an area next to an old well. "Finding anything?" Jane called to him.
He spun around so quickly he nearly toppled right in. "What a fright you gave me!" he said guiltily. "Just digging up some scilla bulbs that were planted around the well. I haven't seen them bloom, of course, and they might be utter duds—" He was babbling.
“You don't happen to know where Uncle Joe hides out, do you?" Jane asked, cutting him off as he launched into a description of the various hues of scilla.
“I
do
happen," Larkspur said. "There's a dreadful little house through the woods right there." He pointed toward an overgrown path. "It looks like a duck blind that took on a life of its own. I saw him leaving it and, I blush to admit, took the littlest peek through the window. He's made it quite comfy."
“Let's go roust him out," Shelley said.
They started off, and Jane turned back for a second. "Will you be here for dinner, Larkspur? If so, you need to tell Mr. Willis."
“I may stay," he said. "It looks like rain and I don't want to drive back in the dark in a nastydownpour. Yes, I'll stay over tonight and run back to the shop in the morning."
“He was blushing," Shelley said when they got into the woods. "I wonder why."
“And how did he happen to come prepared to stay overnight?" Jane asked.
Shelley smiled. "He planned to stay, didn't he? I think he believes in this treasure story. Jane, did you see the size of the holes he'd dug around the well? Scillas are little bulbs that are just an inch or two under the surface. Larkspur was digging his way to China.”
Jane laughed. "Just what I was thinking. But why the well?"
“If you were going to bury a treasure, you'd need to put it where you could easily find it again. Near a landmark that's going to be there for a good long time."
“We need to ask Eden about this treasure story," Jane said. "She's a good source of information.”
Uncle Joe's hideout must have been a gamekeeper's cottage in a previous era. It was the lodge in miniature with the same well-weathered wooden clapboards, small windows, and a roof that had seen better days. Jane tapped on the door, waited a moment, then knocked more loudly. There was still no answer.
“Maybe he saw us coming," Shelley said.
“Do you suppose we could slip some sort of homing device on him?" Jane suggested as they started back to the lodge. "Or maybe put one of those invisible dog fences around the house and a collar on him?”
Shelley's reply was blotted out by a sudden, horrifying flash of lightning and a deafening blast of thunder.
They scurried like frightened rabbits and before they got safely inside, they were soaked with rain. By the time they'd changed clothes, there were a few shafts of sunshine and the rain was just a drizzle. Typical spring weather in the Midwest. Jane gazed out the tiny window of her little monk's cell room and could see the next lightning-flickering bank of black clouds coming in.
“It's going to be nasty," she called to Shelley, who was fluffing up her hair in the bathroom they shared.
“Good," Shelley answered. "It'll be fun. A big fire in that monster fireplace, the smell of kerosene lamps, Mr. Willis making cocoa in the kitchen, toasting marshmallows—"
“—singing camp songs?" Jane added. "Get a grip, Shelley. And keep in mind that if we lose power, Mrs. Crossthwait's sewing machine won't work and we'll have to pitch in and hand-sew in the dark.”
Five
··
Mr. Willis prepared
a
superb "country" dinner a thick, rich beef stew with baby carrots, meat so tender it fell apart, and a broth so perfectly spiced it would have been delicious all by itself. There was also cornbread that Jane would swear for the rest of her life was the best she'd ever tasted. After baking it, Mr. Willis had cut squares, sliced them in half, slathered them with an herbed butter, and lightly broiled them. Mr. Willis wasn't afraid of cholesterol, it seemed.
Larkspur appeared for dinner in fresh clothes. Shelley and Jane exchanged knowing looks. He
had
come prepared to stay; the storm just gave him an acceptable excuse.
The aunties, Iva and Marguerite, had donned comfy jogging outfits that someone had ornamented with bits of lace. Iva's was a maroon that clashed horribly with her wig. Marguerite's was a powder blue that set off her pale eyes. Iva expressed a few lingering doubts about Jane having the privilege of planning the wedding, which Eden thoroughly squashed again. As Jane introduced Shelley to the aunts, she caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of her eye. Uncle Joe had turned up. The smell of dinner must have drawn him out of his lair.
He greeted Eden with rough affection. "It's that damned girl again! Can't stay away from here, can you?"
“Hello, you darling old geezer," Eden said, giving him a hug. She took charge of introducing him to the other bridesmaids, Kitty and Layla. He hardly glanced at Kitty, who looked especially clunky in baggy jeans and an oversized t-shirt, but he gazed as if mesmerized at Layla.
“Quit staring," Eden told him bluntly. "And say hello to Iva and Marguerite.”
He nodded curtly. They barely looked up from their cornbread and stew to acknowledge his presence. Their disapproval of him couldn't be more obvious.
Mrs. Crossthwait was the last to arrive. She carefully avoided meeting Jane's questioning gaze.
“Are you making progress, Mrs. Crossthwait?" Jane asked.
“No, I've been taking a nap all afternoon," she snapped sarcastically. The "aura" of the place — or more likely Jane's nagging — was getting on her nerves. "Of
course I'm
making progress. You don't think I want these girls to wear dresses that aren't the best I can do, do you?" She smiled at Iva and Marguerite, her contemporaries, for approval. The aunts merely looked confused.
Jane sighed and let it go. She'd check after dinner on just how far along the seamstress was when the cranky old dear didn't have an audience for her complaints. The last thing she needed was
three
little old ladies talking her to bits.
Mrs. Crossthwait didn't approve of dinner. "It's too salty and I can tell you've used real butter," she accused.
“But of course I have," Mr. Willis said, drawing himself up to his full five feet four.
“Shouldn't a young man like you be more concerned with the health of the people he's feeding?"
“I wasn't aware I was going to be feeding
you,"
Mr. Willis replied with an out-and-out sneer. Larkspur applauded the caterer's performance and the aunts glared at Jane as if this distasteful brouhaha were all her fault. The spotty skivvy cowered in the corner of the room like somebody from a Dickens novel.
It was all Jane could do to keep herself from banging her head on the table.
“Let's all play nice, darlings," Eden said.
Their dinner was interrupted several times by the lights flickering as the storm gathered force again. Mrs. Crossthwait screeched with alarm every time there was a clap of thunder. A gust of strong wind blew the front door open and Uncle Joe voluntarily went to close it, which was a sur- prise to Jane. It must have been to the aunts as well, as they whispered together when he'd left. After Mr. Willis had served strawberry shortcake with real whipped cream, which they all ate in spite of protestations about being too full to swallow another bite, the group started drifting away.
The three bridesmaids and Larkspur settled around a big table in the main room with a jigsaw puzzle and a very staticky radio to see if they could get a weather forecast. The aunts sat by the fireplace, whispering ferociously to each other.
“They're up to something, Jane," Shelley said.
“It sure looks like it. But what? They wouldn't sabotage Livvy's wedding just to spite me, would they?”
Uncle Joe, apparently feeling confident that Jane wasn't going to think of anything for him to do, stuck around for a while. He drifted toward the aunts, but didn't sit down with them. Instead, he sank into a chair nearby and made a big production of reading a newspaper. Lots of flapping of pages and intense scrutiny of newsprint to cover the fact that he, too, obviously wanted to know what kind of plot the aunts were hatching.
Jane let Mrs. Crossthwait off the hook for a bit. She could hardly rush her straight from dinner to work. She checked her watch and made a mental note to give the woman half an hour of leisure. Mrs. Crossthwait hovered around the jigsaw puzzle group. "Mrs. Jeffry probably won't agree, but there are good reasons for not finishing thedresses too far ahead," she said loudly enough to make sure Jane could hear her.
“Oh?" Eden said mildly, as she took a piece of the puzzle away from Larkspur and fitted it in place.
“How utterly clever you are," Larkspur said.
“Yes, people change," Mrs. Crossthwait said, not willing to let a general lack of interest from her audience keep her from explaining. "Kitty's gained weight since I did the cutting and Layla's lost a bit."