Means Of Evil And Other Stories (21 page)

   His wife, sitting beside him on the bridegroom's side of the church, whispered, "What did you say?"

   He repeated it. She steadied the large floral hat which her husband had called becoming but not exactly conducive to
sotto voce
intimacies. "What on earth makes you say that?"

   "Thomas Hardy. He said it first. But look in your Prayer Book."

   The bridegroom waited, hang-dog, with his best man. Michael Burden was very much in love, was entering this second marriage with someone admirably suited to him, had agreed with his fiancée that nothing but a religious ceremony would do for them, yet at forty-four was a little superannuated for what Wexford called "all this white wedding gubbins." There were two hundred people in the church. Burden, his best man and his ushers were in morning dress. Madonna lilies and stephanotis and syringa decorated the pews, the pulpit and the chancel steps. It was the kind of thing that is properly designed for someone twenty years younger. Burden had been through it before when he
was
twenty years younger. Wexford chuckled silently, looking at the anxious face above the high white collar. And then as Dora, leafing through the marriage service, said, "Oh, I
see
," the organist went from voluntaries into the opening bars of the Lohengrin march and Jenny Ireland appeared at the church door on her father's arm.

   A beautiful bride, of course. Seven years younger than Burden, blonde, gentle, low-voiced, and given to radiant smiles. Jenny's father gave her hand into Burden's and the Rector of St. Peter's began:

   "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together . . ."

   While bride and groom were being informed that marriage was not for the satisfaction of their carnal lusts, and that they must bring up their children in a Christian manner, Wexford studied the congregation. In front of himself and Dora sat Burden's sister-in-law, Grace, whom everyone had thought he would marry after the death of his first wife. But Burden had found consolation with a red-headed woman, wild and sweet and strange, gone now God knew where, and Grace had married someone else. Two little boys now sat between Grace and that someone else, giving their parents a full-time job keeping them quiet.

   Burden's mother and father were both dead. Wexford thought he recognised, from one meeting a dozen years before, an aged aunt. Beside her sat Dr. Crocker and his wife, beyond them and behind were a crowd whose individual members he knew either only by sight or not at all. Sylvia, his elder daughter, was sitting on his other side, his grandsons between her and their father, and at the central aisle end of the pew, Sheila Wexford of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Wexford's actress daughter, who on her entry had commanded nudges, whispers, every gaze, sat looking with unaccustomed wistfulness at Jenny Ireland in her clouds of white and wreath of pearls.

   "I, Michael George, take thee, Janina, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward . . ."

   Janina.
Janina?
Wexford had supposed her name was Jennifer. What sort of parents called a daughter Janina? Turks? Fans of Dumas? He leaned forward to get a good look at these philonomatous progenitors. They looked ordinary enough, Mr. Ireland apparently exhausted by the effort of giving the bride away, Jenny's mother making use of the lace handkerchief provided for the specific purpose of crying into it those tears of joy and loss. What romantic streak had led them to dismiss Elizabeth and Susan and Anne in favour of——Janina?

   "Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Forasmuch as Michael George and Janina have consented together in holy wedlock . . ."

   Had they been as adventurous in the naming of their son? All Wexford could see of him was a broad back, a bit of profile, and now a hand. The hand was passing a large white handkerchief to his mother. Wexford found himself being suddenly yanked to his feet to sing a hymn.

"O Perfect Love, all human thought transcending,

Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne . . ."

These words had the effect of evoking from Mrs. Ireland audible sobs. Her son——hadn't Burden said he was in publishing?——looked embarrassed, turning his head. A young woman, strangely dressed in black with an orange hat, edged past the publisher to put a consoling arm round his mother.

   "O Lord, save Thy servant and Thy handmaid."

   "Who put their trust in Thee," said Dora and most of the rest of the congregation.

   "O Lord, send them help from Thy holy place."

   Wexford, to show team spirit, said, "Amen," and when everyone else said, "And evermore defend them," decided to keep quiet in future.

   Mrs. Ireland had stopped crying. Wexford's gaze drifted to his own daughters, Sheila singing lustily, Sylvia, the Women's Liberationist, with less assurance as if she doubted the ethics of lending her support to so archaic and sexist a ceremony. His grandsons were beginning to fidget.

   "Almighty God, who at the beginning did create our first parents, Adam and Eve . . ."

   Dear Mike, thought Wexford with a flash of sentimentality that came to him perhaps once every ten years, you'll be OK now. No more carnal lusts conflicting with a puritan conscience, no more loneliness, no more worrying about those selfish kids of yours, no more temptation-of-St.-Anthony stuff. For is it not ordained as a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication, that such persons as have not the gift of continency may marry and keep themselves undefiled?

   "For after this manner in the old time the holy women who trusted in God . . ."

   He was quite surprised that they were using the ancient form. Still, the bride had promised to obey. He couldn't resist glancing at Sylvia.

   ". . . being in subjection to their own husbands . . ."

   Her face was a study in incredulous dismay as she mouthed at her sister "Unbelievable" and "antique."

   ". . . Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."

At the Olive and Dove hotel there was a reception line to greet guests, Mrs. Ireland smiling, re-rouged and restored, Burden looking like someone who has had an operation and been told the prognosis is excellent, Jenny serene as a bride should be.

   Dry sherry and white wine on trays. No champagne. Wexford remembered that there was a younger Ireland daughter, absent with her husband in some dreadful place——Botswana? Lesotho? No doubt all the champagne funds had been expended on her. It was a buffet lunch, but a good one. Smoked salmon and duck and strawberries. Nobody, he said to himself, has ever really thought of anything better to eat than smoked salmon and duck and strawberries unless it might be caviare and grouse and syllabub. He was weighing the two menus against one another, must without knowing it have been thinking aloud, for a voice said:

   "Asparagus, trout, apple pie."

   "Well, maybe," said Wexford, "but I do like meat. Trout's a bit insipid. You're Jenny's brother, I'm sorry I don't remember your name. How d'you do?"

   "How d'you do? I know who you are. Mike told me. I'm Amyas Ireland."

   So that funny old pair hadn't had a one-off indulgence when they had named Janina. Again Wexford's thoughts seemed revealed to this intuitive person.

   "Oh, I know," said Ireland, "but how about my other sister? She's called Cunegonde. Her husband calls her Queenie. Look, I'd like to talk to you. Could we get together a minute away from all this crush? Mike was going to help me out, but I can't ask him now, not when he's off on his honeymoon. It's about a book we're publishing."

   The girl in black and orange, Burden's nephews, Sheila Wexford, Burden's best man and a gaggle of children, all carrying plates, passed between them at this point. It was at least a minute before Wexford could ask, "Who's we?" and another half-minute before Amyas Ireland understood what he meant.

   "Carlyon Brent," he said, his mouth full of duck. "I'm with Carlyon Brent."

   One of the largest and most distinguished of publishing houses. Wexford was impressed. "You published the Vandrian, didn't you, and the de Coverley books?"

   Ireland nodded. "Mike said you were a great reader. That's good. Can I get you some more duck? No? I'm going to. I won't be a minute." Enviously Wexford watched him shovel fat-rimmed slices of duck breast on to his plate, take a brioche, have second thoughts and take another. The man was as thin as a rail too, positively emaciated.

   "I look after the crime list," he said as he sat down again. "As I said, Mike half-promised . . . This isn't fiction, it's fact. The Winchurch case?"

   "Ah."

   "I know it's a bit of a nerve asking, but would you read a manuscript for me?"

   Wexford took a cup of coffee from a passing tray. "What for?"

   "Well, in the interests of truth. Mike was going to tell me what he thought." Wexford looked at him dubiously. He had the highest respect and the deepest affection for Inspector Burden but he was one of the last people he would have considered as a literary critic. "To tell me what he thought," the publisher said once again. "You see, it's worrying me. The author has discovered some new facts and they more or less prove Mrs. Winchurch's innocence." He hesitated. "Have you ever heard of a writer called Kenneth Gandolph?"

   Wexford was saved from answering by the pounding of a gavel on the top table and the beginning of the speeches. A great many toasts had been drunk, several dozen telegrams read out, and the bride and groom departed to change their clothes before he had an opportunity to reply to Ireland's question. And he was glad of the respite, for what he knew of Gandolph, though based on hearsay, was not prepossessing.

   "Doesn't he write crime novels?" he said when the enquiry was repeated. "And the occasional examination of a real-life crime?"

   Nodding, Ireland said, "It's good, this script of his. We want to do it for next spring's list. It's an eighty-year-old murder, sure, but people are still fascinated by it. I think this new version could cause quite a sensation."

   "Florence Winchurch was hanged," said Wexford, "yet there was always some margin of doubt about her guilt. Where does Gandolph get his fresh facts from?"

   "May I send you a copy of the script? You'll find all that in the introduction."

   Wexford shrugged, then smiled. "I suppose so. You do realise I can't do more than maybe spot mistakes in forensics? I did say maybe, mind." But his interest had already been caught. It made him say, "Florence was married at St. Peter's, you know, and she also had her wedding reception here."

   "And spent part of her honeymoon in Greece."

   "No doubt the parallels end there," said Wexford as Burden and Jenny came back into the room.

   Burden was in a grey lounge suit, she in pale blue sprigged muslin. Wexford felt an absurd impulse of tenderness towards him. It was partly caused by Jenny's hat which she would never wear again, would never have occasion to wear, would remove the minute they got into the car. But Burden was the sort of man who could never be happy with a woman who didn't have a hat as part of her "going-away" costume. His own clothes were eminently unsuitable for flying to Crete in June. They both looked very happy and embarrassed.

   Mrs. Ireland seized her daughter in a crushing embrace.

   "It's not for ever, Mother," said Jenny. "It's only for two weeks."

   "Well, in a way," said Burden. He shook hands gravely with his own son, down from university for the weekend, and planted a kiss on his daughter's forehead. Must have been reading novels, Wexford thought, grinning to himself.

   "Good luck, Mike," he said.

   The bride took his hand, put a soft cool kiss on to the corner of his mouth. Say I'm growing old but add, Jenny kissed me. He didn't say that aloud. He nodded and smiled and took his wife's arm and frowned at Sylvia's naughty boys like the patriarch he was. Burden and Jenny went out to the car which had Just Married written in lipstick on the rear window and a shoe tied on the back bumper.