How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams

by Dorothy Cannell

  Set out? Where did the silly twit plan on going at five o’clock in the morning? Despite myself, I hurried through brushing my teeth. Curiosity nearly killed the cat when I tripped on Tobias outside the bathroom door and almost sent him flying over the banister rail. But five minutes later I entered the kitchen to find Vanessa looking as if she were doing a TV advert for a cappuccino machine. My birthday present cappuccino machine.

  “What a cross face, darling!” Vanessa presented a perfect: profile as she filled two itsy-bitsy cups with the steaming brew, floated a dollop of foam on both, and set a coffee spoon tinkling in each saucer. “Anyone would think I climbed in the marriage bed with you and poor Ben, and here I was trying to be housewifely and helpful!”

  It would have been inexcusably childish of me to have stood there stamping my feet while I pointed out that she had played with my machine before I had a chance to take it apart and try to figure out how the wretched thing worked. It would have been excessive to tell Vanessa that I felt violated, that she had taken away a piece of myself that I could never get back. So I lied and told her that if I looked cross, it was because I was dying for a cup of frothy coffee.

  “Cheers!” I clinked cups with her and took a sip which drained my china thimble and left me with a foam moustache.

  “Delicious, if I do say so myself.” My cousin perched on the table, golden legs swinging gracefully below her gauzy olive-green skirt, her head tilted so that her hair tumbled away from the creamy column of her throat in a mass of rippling waves that managed to trap every bit of light in the room and turn it from copper to bronze and back again.

  “You said something about setting out for somewhere.” I licked off my cappuccino moustache under cover of my saucer and felt better. It’s amazing how a half teaspoon of foam can help bridge the before-breakfast gap.

  “Yes, darling, but don’t let’s rush.” Vanessa clasped her demitasse to her incomparable bosom and radiated soulfulness. “My life until recently has been such a rat race. Metaphorically speaking, one might say I have spent my existence in relentless pursuit of the perfect cup of cappuccino!”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “I’ve been shallow, Ellie, more interested in froth than in substance.” She dipped a fingertip into the puffy cloud on top of her cup and drew out a wisp of white which she wiggled in front of me before touching it to her coral lips. “But I promise you, darling, I’m a new woman since George Malloy came into my life.”

  “Congratulations.” I set my Thumbelina cup and saucer down in the sink.

  “Yes.” Her eyes sparkled like Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry in a crystal glass. “Now I shall have it all—beauty, taste, and fibre.”

  “You could market yourself as a new brand of cereal,” I told her fondly.

  “How can I convince you that I have changed to the point that my own mother—may her fox furs rot on their hangers—would not recognize me? Would it do the trick”—with silken ease Vanessa slid off the table—“if I told you that I am about to drag you off to church?”

  “To St. Anselm’s?”

  “It’s where I plan to be married.” She brushed past me on her way to the garden door. “Sure, I would prefer that the family kirk was Westminster Abbey and the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles were squabbling over which of them should have the privilege of giving me away, but I’ve become a realist, Ellie.”

  “But why on earth do we have to go at this hour?”

  “Because I’ve been lying awake half the night picturing the ceremony through a dreamy haze of white lace and I can’t wait another minute to practice my grand entrance.”

  “And you want me along so I can hum ‘Here Comes the Bride’?”

  “I was hoping you could play the organ. You have to have some talents I don’t know about.”

  “The church will be locked at this hour.”

  “Then we’ll wake up the vicar. If her boss is on call at all hours, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be,” Vanessa tossed a raincoat at me, and by the time I had grabbed it up off the floor and stopped the door from slamming into me, she was already halfway across the courtyard.

  It wasn’t raining, but it was certainly chilly enough for a coat. A sharp wind was coming in off the sea as we passed through the iron gates onto Cliff Road into the dawn. Vanessa’s tawny hair was the only splash of colour in what would otherwise have been a black-and-white movie scene. And as I plodded after her, still trying to get my arms into the raincoat sleeves, my imagination produced Karisma waiting for her inside the lichgate of the church. His seventeenth-century pirate’s shirt was as white and billowing as the sails of the ship that waited for him in Smuggler’s Cove. His expression was as bleak and impenetrable as St. Anselm’s tower until he turned and in the flicker of a blackbird’s wings she was in his arms, their flowing locks entangled, their lips entwined, and they were one breath, one heartbeat, one soul.

  “You came, my entrancing firebrand.” He lifted his magnificent head but did not release her from his imprisoning arms. “No one—not your tyrannical mother nor the King’s men—shall part us. We will be wed before the cock crows.”

  “It’s not a very big church,” Vanessa said, cruelly interrupting my fantasy.

  “It’s big enough for the Chitterton Fells congregation,” I said tartly as I followed her through the lichgate and up the path that wended its mossy way between the churchyard, with its sleepy-eyed regiment of tombstones, and the rag-and-tangle vicarage garden.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s fine for your little Sunday get-togethers.” My cousin tucked her arm into mine. Probably practicing walking down the aisle with George Malloy. “But, Ellie darling, I don’t plan to have a small wedding. I’m not so selfish that I would deny all my friends and relations the pleasure of witnessing the splendour that is moi.” She paused as we rounded the bend in the path to face the church. “Something old, something new, something borrowed … oh, heavens, I’ve just realized something ghastly! I don’t have any women friends—we always seem to clash the way those navy-blue shoes of yours do with that brown raincoat. Would it be a frightful imposition, Ellie, if I asked to borrow some of your friends, just for the day?”

  “All right”—I tried not to sound begrudging—“but you have to promise to return them in mint condition.”

  “I’m not sure I’m frightfully keen on the bell tower.” Vanessa looked heavenward. “It’s hopelessly dated, don’t you think?”

  “It is dated, 1131,” I said, “and no, I don’t think Eudora Spike would agree to take it down and store it in the crypt until after your wedding.” I had climbed the first steps towards the heavy oak doors of St. Anselm’s, when my cousin gave a bloodcurdling screech behind me.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried, causing me to assume that one of the bushes hedging the wall beneath the stained glass windows had burst into flame. And when I turned, it was to discover Vanessa gesticulating towards the shrubbery. “Someone’s there! I saw a hand,” she exclaimed, “a surreptitious, black-gloved hand, creep around that corner over there.”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “I guess so.” Vanessa closed her eyes—carefully, so as not to crease her eyelashes—and followed me up the steps. “But let’s get inside the church before some ghoul from the graveyard tries to put the moves on me.”

  “It is locked, my dears.”

  “What?” In latching on to my cousin’s arm I caused both of us to stumble and slither on our behinds down onto the path. There a woman dressed all in black, from her unwieldy pre–World War I hat with its fluttering veil to her button boots, stood looking at us with a perplexed expression. She was an old lady, eighty if she were a day; but her hazel eyes were as bright as a girl’s and her tissue-paper skin still held a hint of rosy blush.

  “Forgive my impetuosity in accosting you.” She extended a pair of black-gloved hands towards Vanessa, who dragged me to my feet and pushed me to the fore. “It is a sad state of affairs when a church locks its doors at night.”r />
  “There’s the fear of vandalism …” I stammered as is my wont when finding myself face-to-face with a local legend.

  “What misguided thinking.” The ancient Lady in Black smiled as if in wistful memory of a kinder age. “The church that claims to welcome sinners should embrace the hooligan.”

  “Possibly, but I see no harm in drawing the line at people who buy clothes off the rack.” Vanessa shuddered.

  “Lay not up treasure upon earth, is that not what the Bible teaches? One would hope the clergy would apply that little rule to silver chalices and other religious whatnots along with other worldly goods.” Our new acquaintance tossed her bonneted head, providing me with a flash of how Vanessa might look and act as an octogenarian. “But never fret, my dear young ladies.” Here she gave a girlish giggle. “It so happens that I was here one night and saw where the silly old verger hid the spare key. And I have it here.” She reached into her coat pocket and produced said object.

  “I don’t think we should creep into St. Anselm’s while Reverend Spike is tucked unsuspecting in bed,” I objected, picturing myself being drummed out of the Hearthside Guild. “We’ll come back at a more appropriate time and …”

  “Cowardy, cowardy custard, Ellie can’t cut the mustard,” Vanessa chanted rudely. “Go rabbiting home if you wish, but I’m going up those steps with our delightful new friend. If I’m to be married here—”

  “A wedding!” The Lady in Black spoke with a choke in her voice. “I was to have been married here when I was a dreamy-eyed girl of unsurpassed beauty and sparkling wit. My bridal gown was an angelic confection of ivory silk and lace imported from Paris. My bouquet was of apple blossom to match the wreath that was to encircle my raven tresses, but, alas, my handsome groom failed to arrive at the church and I was destined to stand alone at the altar with my hand pressed to my broken heart while the organist played on and … on.…”

  “How sad,” Vanessa said insincerely, standing impatiently at the church door as I blinked away my tears and gave the tiny black-gloved hand a consoling squeeze before following the trailing skirts up the steps.

  “Would you?” The Lady in Black gave me the key. Her forlorn sigh echoed the heavy groan as the door swung inward and the three of us stepped into the musty gloom.

  “Let there be light!” My cousin pressed a hand to the wall and was miraculously rewarded for her irreverence by immediately locating a switch. Forbearing to loiter in the entryway, with its long table stacked with inspirational booklets and several collection boxes posted prominently on the walls, Vanessa entered the nave as though she knew exactly where she was going. And that was another miracle, considering there wasn’t a tour guide at her elbow.

  “Oh, God!” she exclaimed, taking Him to task. “You really need to think about moving. Or at least doing some major redecorating.”

  “I think St. Anselm’s is perfect.” I stood behind her in the aisle, flanked on either side by rows of time-worn pews. “Some of these windows date back to the fourteenth century and even the Victorian stained glass is less garish than most of its kind. And look at the altar rail! The carving is exquisite.”

  “How well I know!” The Lady in Black spoke over my shoulder. “I remember how on that fateful day my eyes remained riveted for what seemed an eternity on a wooden rose with a chip in its heart.”

  “Would anybody mind frightfully,” Vanessa said, “if we try to remain focused on my wedding? I don’t want to be selfish,” she fibbed, “but at any moment horrid hordes of schoolchildren could burst in upon us intent on making brass rubbings for Christmas cards and I won’t be able to think straight. You understand, don’t you?” She smiled sweetly at the Lady in Black.

  “Absolutely, my dear,” came the sighing reply. “I haven’t been able to keep anything straight for sixty years, a sad price to pay for girlish hopes and dreams.”

  Vanessa shot me a glance that dared me to produce a hankie from my raincoat pocket and dab at my eyes. Then she paraded down the aisle as if it were a modeling ramp. The sun paid suitable homage by providing her with a gossamer train of gold upon which the Lady in Black and I trod as gingerly as if it cost eighty pounds a yard.

  My cousin spun around.

  “These pews will have to be moved!”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” I said.

  “The aisle is far too narrow. I won’t be able to take a step without scrunching my dress or snagging my veil when someone sticks his nose out of the pew.” Somehow Vanessa managed to resemble one of the titian-haired angels on the stained glass windows while uttering this snippy remark. “And I don’t much care for those brass vases on the altar. They look like something Aladdin’s mother would have bought for a song from the bazaar.”

  “Perhaps we should also get rid of the baptismal font,” I suggested, “unless you think it might come in handy as a punch bowl. And”—my eyes roved the stone walls—“I’m sure Reverend Spike would go for a Laura Ashley paper with matching curtains at the windows.”

  “There’s no need to be snide, Ellie.” Vanessa shook back her luxuriant hair, swayed gracefully, and reached for the edge of a pew. “I’m feeling a bit off colour. This getting up early is for the birds, and I’d think even they’d get tired of it.”

  Before I could profess sympathy, however, she glided away in the direction of the vestry, where I guessed she would spend a soulful few moments picturing herself signing the registry while George Malloy hovered beside her, giving thanks to God for blessing him with amazing good fortune.

  The Lady in Black tugged at my sleeve. “I haven’t told you my name,” she said. “I am Ione Tunbridge, and you”—she leaned closer as I started to speak—“you are Ellie Haskell. I have my ways of knowing such things. And I’ll tell you a little secret, dear: I was in the churchyard on your wedding day. Even though I am in the main a recluse, I can never resist hovering among the tombstones on such heart-stirring occasions, and I saw the look of abject despair on your face as you came through the lichgate.”

  “I was late,” I said, resisting the urge to take a step back from her clutching hand and the smell of mouldy face powder that was making me feel queasy. “I was thirty minutes late for my wedding,” I continued in a rush reminiscent of the day in question. “The cat ate my veil and the taxi didn’t turn up and I was terrified that Ben would get tired of waiting for me and I’d end up at the altar all alone.…” My voice petered out as I realized I’d been tactless in the extreme.

  But Miss Tunbridge’s expression was all sympathy. “Men!” Her breath came in an almost visible wisp of stale air escaping under a door that hadn’t been opened in half a century. “I felt a bond with you, Ellie Haskell, on your bridal morn. And then the other day, when I looked out of the attic window and saw you being forced to picnic on the wet grass with your dark, forbidding husband, my spirit cried out to yours: Hit the insufferable tyrant over the head with the wine bottle. Spear his heart with the butter knife. Free yourself for a life of unwedded bliss.” Her face was ashen with fierce emotion.

  If I’d been a wife worthy of my wedding ring, I would have protested fiercely that Ben was an angel equal to any of those carved on the altar rail, and that I loved him madly, but true to form, I fastened on the fascinating discovery.

  “You live at Tall Chimneys!” I exclaimed. “The house that was once the residence of Hector Rigglesworth and his seven daughters. Excuse my curiosity, but do you believe the stories that he haunts the Chitterton Fells library? Have you ever sensed his repressive presence prowling around your home?” I might have gone rambling on in this fashion if Vanessa had not returned at that moment from scouting out the vestry to stand inches away from me and lone Tunbridge. Her pensive eyes were on the magnificent crucifix mounted behind the pulpit.

  “That’ll have to go, Ellie! Call me shallow, but it is a bit of a downer!”

  My appalled gasp wasn’t the only reaction to my cousin’s blasphemy. For at that instant the lights went out, indicating God had moved s
wiftly to cast my cousin and those unfortunate enough to be standing in her presence into outer darkness. In the midst of a squeal I backed clumsily into a pew. A hand brushed mine; Ione’s whisper trickled inside my ear: “You must come and see me, Ellie Haskell. You remind me of a dear friend I had when I was a young girl and the world was my meadow.”

  Her icy breath was gone from my ear, and when the lights came back on there was no sign of Ione Tunbridge. Coming down the aisle was Gladstone Spike wearing a hand-knitted cardigan and dusky grey trousers. His silver hair was tousled.

  “Good morning,” he said over steepled fingers, his voice a little higher than I remembered it. “I saw the lights and thought they had been accidentally left on last night, so I came in, switched them off, and then heard movements. Are you ladies waiting to see my wife?” He glanced at his pocket watch and looked momentarily perplexed before returning it to the breast pocket of his cardigan. “Could it be, Ellie, that you misunderstood Eudora, not realizing it was her intention to meet you here at five in the evening?”

  “We didn’t have an appointment.” Vanessa favoured him with a bewitching smile, something she might not have done if she had known Gladstone Spike was soon to become one of the girls. “When I told my cousin Ellie that I couldn’t sleep and was dying to take a look inside the church where I plan to be married, she suggested we walk over here on the chance that the door would be unlocked. Luckily, that proved to be the case.”

  She told this outrageous lie without a blush. Indeed, she looked decidedly pale as she eased down onto the edge of a pew. Bother! Ione Tunbridge was nowhere in sight, and I wasn’t up to denouncing my cousin as a crafty minx who’d always enjoyed watching me squirm. My stomach was rumbling, and all I wanted to do was get home and make some scrambled eggs and toast before Gerta—who, sad to say, had proved to be an even worse cook than Mrs. Malloy had indicated—got busy on a batch of scones that would have done for doorstops.