Nancy Atherton (19 page)

teeth brushed, your hands washed, and your hair combed before

we go to church.”

The twins’ faces registered surprise, as did their father’s.

“Are we going to church?” Bill inquired.

“Of course we are,” I said. “We don’t want the vicar to think

we’ve forgotten him, do we? And it seems to me that a certain pair

of young men will benefit greatly from a period of quiet reflection.”

Bill took the hint and nodded to the boys. “Off you go, guys.

Teeth, hands, and hair.”

I let Bill finish his omelet in peace, but resumed my interrogation while he and I loaded the dishwasher.

“When do the rest of the vendors set up?” I asked.

“Most of them come wandering in around half past nine,” he

replied.

“Do the vendors live in the encampment?” I asked.

“Most do,” said Bill. “Some live at home during the week and

spend weekends at the fair. They’re called weekenders.”

“Fascinating.” I closed the dishwasher, then asked another question out of sheer curiosity. “What do the nonweekenders do during

the week?”

122 Nancy Atherton

“I imagine the knights practice jousting. As for the others . . .”

Bill shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”

As Bill and I went upstairs to tend to our own teeth, hands, and

hair, I analyzed the timetable he had constructed for me. If my calculations were correct, the arena would have been virtually deserted for a full thirty minutes after the rehearsal had ended. Once

the squires had taken the horses to the stabling area and the knights

had departed for Gate house Square, the saboteur would have had

more than enough time to damage the quintain’s rope, unobserved

by any members of the jousting crew.

The food vendors, on the other hand, could have seen him.

They’d gone to work an hour before the fair had opened, and their

stalls were so close to the arena that Bill had been able to identify the

savory aroma wafting from their ovens. I made a mental note to visit

Pudding Lane as soon as I reached the fair. As an afterthought, I decided that my first stop would be the honey cake stall. I saw nothing

wrong with mixing business with pleasure.

The early service at St. George’s Church was the only one my menfolk would consider attending, because it was the only one that

would allow them to arrive at the fair before ten

o’clock. My

last-minute decision to bring them with me meant that we got a

late start, but when we left the cottage we still had a modest chance

of reaching a pew before the vicar offered up the first prayer.

Thankfully, we left early enough to avoid the stream of vehicles

I’d encountered the previous morning. I savored the sensation of

having our lane to ourselves, though I was distressed to see the glint

of beer bottles in a ditch and a few discarded chewing gum wrappers clinging to the hedgerows. Under normal circumstances, we

would have stopped immediately to pick up the trash, but since we

were running late, I decided to wait until after church to begin our

cleanup campaign.

While I ruminated darkly on litter and litterbugs, Bill, Will, and

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123

Rob performed the raucous family rituals that made a trip to Finch

complete. They cheered for the ponies when we passed Anscombe

Manor’s curving drive, and even though the Pym sisters were away at

the seaside, the boys saluted their redbrick house when we passed it.

All three hooted like hyenas when we reached the top of the humpbacked bridge. Bill encouraged me to join in the hooting, but we were

all shocked into silence by the sight that met our eyes when we came

down the bridge and saw the village stretched out before us.

It was as if a tornado had swept through Finch, leaving a trail

of destruction in its wake. Candy wrappers, potato chip bags, grocery sacks, empty beer bottles, and odd bits of clothing carpeted

the village green. Crumpled soda cans lay in drifts along the pavement and an abandoned fashion magazine fluttered forlornly on

the bench near the war memorial. The pub’s sign hung at a crazy

angle, a leg was missing from one of the bins in front of the greengrocer’s shop, and a splintered web of cracks covered the Emporium’s big display window. It looked as though someone had been

sick on the tearoom’s doorstep.

Bill and I were too stunned to speak, but the twins didn’t hesitate to share their take on the situation.

“Pirates,” Will said decisively.

“Marauding pirates,” agreed Rob.

“We’re too far from the sea for pirates,” said Bill, finding his voice.

“We’re not too far from the fair,” I said tersely.

“No one from the fair would do this,” said Bill. “They may be free

spirits, but they’re not fools. It’s in their interest to get along with

locals.”

“Who, then?” I demanded.

“Tourists,” Bill answered succinctly. “I think we can lay the blame

for this mess on marauding
tourists
.”

I was almost too angry to speak. “If they’ve touched St. George’s,

I’ll hunt them down and—”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Bill interrupted, to keep me from spoiling the Sabbath day with strong speech. Peering somberly through the

124 Nancy Atherton

windshield, he put his foot on the accelerator and drove forward

slowly, almost at a snail’s pace, as if we were inspecting the site of a

natural disaster.

Someone had smeared mustard on the schoolhouse doors and

trampled the flowers Emma had planted around the war memorial,

but the rest of the village had escaped obvious damage. Wysteria

Lodge, where Bill had his office, appeared to be unharmed, as did

Crabtree Cottage, Briar Cottage, the old schoolmaster’s house, the

vicarage, and Mr. Barlow’s house.

The church seemed to be fine as well. The lych-gate hung solidly

from its hinges and none of the headstones in the cemetery had been

knocked over or defaced. Relieved, we parked on the verge, released

the boys from their booster seats, and hurried inside. Our slow progress through the village had delayed our arrival considerably.

It was impossible to enter the church quietly. The weighty oak

door creaked when Bill opened it and boomed when it swung shut

behind us, and we could do nothing to keep our footsteps from

echoing hollowly as we made our way across the flagstone fl oor.

A pale-faced congregation turned to watch us as we shuffl

ed

contritely into a back pew, and the vicar, who looked shattered,

waited courteously until we were settled to continue the service.

When he mounted the pulpit, I expected him to read the first lesson, but he’d apparently been inspired by recent events to give a

sermon instead.

“Matthew 24:6.” Theodore Bunting’s pleasantly sonorous voice

was cracked with fatigue and his long, dolorous face was haggard.

“ ‘Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.’ ”

“Is he talking about the end of the world?” I whispered to Bill.

“Must have been a rough night,” Bill whispered back.

Thirteen

T he vicar’s doom-laden sermon was mercifully short, and

he brought the service to a close as swiftly as decency

would allow. Afterward, he didn’t stand at the church

door to exchange pleasantries with his departing flock, but staggered off to the vicarage, as if he needed to conserve his strength in

order to make it through the next service.

The rest of the villagers milled around the churchyard, twittering

excitedly as they exchanged views on the catastrophe that had befallen

Finch. A surprisingly large number of my neighbors had shown up for

the early service. I wondered how many of them had come in order to

get a jump start on the fair and how many had needed spiritual aid to

sustain them after seeing the village green.

While the twins ran off to play hide-and-seek among the headstones, Bill and I gravitated toward a circle that included Emma

and Derek Harris, Lilian Bunting, Mr. Barlow, Grant Tavistock,

Charles Bellingham, Christine Peacock, and Sally Pyne. Sally was

venting her spleen when we joined the group.

“What is the world coming to when full-grown adults behave

like rampaging water buffalo?” she demanded “What kind of example are they setting for their children? They should be ashamed

of themselves, every last one of them. If I’d been here, I would have

given them a few choice words
and
the back of my hand.”

“If I’d been here, I’d’ve broken a few heads,” growled Mr. Barlow.

“George Wetherhead won’t come out of his house,” said Christine Peacock. “He’s a nervous wreck.”

“Teddy’s terribly shaken, too,” Lilian said, looking anxiously at

the vicarage. “He thought he’d left hooliganism behind when we

left London.”

126 Nancy Atherton

“What happened?” I asked. “Who’s responsible for the mess?”

“Yahoos,” said Mr. Barlow.

“Savages,” said Sally Pyne.

“Barbarians,” said Grant Tavistock.

“Fairgoers,” said Lilian. “A flood of them swept through the village on their way to and from the fair. They stormed the shops,

wrought havoc on the village green, and vanished, like a plague of

locusts.”

“Locusts are a force of nature,” Emma pointed out. “Our disaster was definitely man-made.”

“Did it go on all night?” I asked, surveying their wan faces.

“No,” said Lilian, “but most of us were too worn out after our

day at the fair to deal with the situation when we returned home.”

“I was up till all hours finishing Peggy’s new bodice,” Sally put

in. “I’m going to make her pay dearly for robbing me of a good

night’s sleep.”

“Why did you have to make it overnight?” Emma asked.

Sally’s eyes twinkled. “She heard about the wenches and the belly

dancers. I have a feeling that Jasper will be left in charge of the Emporium from now on, while Peggy takes over the stall at the fair.”

“If she goes at all,” Lilian added portentously. “I’m afraid that

yesterday’s events have revived her antipathy toward the fair.”

“I’m not too keen on it myself, at the moment,” said Derek.

“People threw rubbish out of their car windows as they drove through

Finch. We’re lucky no one was hurt.”

“Very lucky,” said Grant. “A beer bottle came within inches of

striking Charles on the head.”

We all turned to Charles, to express our sympathy and to make

sure that he was all right.

“No harm done,” he said airily. “I must say that when Grant and

I purchased Crabtree Cottage, we didn’t expect to find ourselves in

the middle of a war zone. We were afraid to stand on our own doorstep yesterday.”

“Finch isn’t normally a war zone,” Lilian assured him.

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127

“It’s normally the most peaceful little village in the world,” I

added earnestly.

“It wasn’t yesterday,” said Christine Peacock. “Dick had to use

the soda siphon on some idiot who was swinging on the pub sign.

After that, he put two of the Sciaparelli boys on the door, to keep

drunks away from the pub. Half of the people who drove through

the village were squiffy before they got here.”

“The sober ones were just as bad,” said Sally Pyne. “I left my

niece in charge of the tearoom while I was at the fair. A riot nearly

broke out when she ran out of scones. When she ran out of fairy

cakes, she was so terrified that she locked the front door and hid in

the kitchen until I got back.”

“Teddy attempted to remonstrate with the invaders,” said Lilian, “but he was outnumbered and ignored. Peggy Taxman was so

busy minding the till at the Emporium that she didn’t have time to

assert her authority, and everyone else who might have helped Teddy

was at the fair.” She bowed her head remorsefully. “I can’t tell you

how guilty I feel. While I was off watching magicians and knights,

my poor husband was under siege.”

“If you’re guilty, we’re all guilty,” said Bill, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We underestimated the destructive

power of irresponsible day-trippers.”

As he withdrew his hand, I saw him glance at his watch, then

look toward the boys, who were using willow wands to conduct an

action-packed sword fight among the headstones.

“Go,” I told him. “You can leave the Rover here with me. Emma

and Derek can take you and the boys to the fair.”

“Shouldn’t we stay here to help with the cleanup?” he asked.

“No, you shouldn’t,” I said. “We’ll have plenty of opportunities

to teach our sons civic responsibility. Right now they have a responsibility to their friends. If they stay here, they’ll let Alison and

Billy down.”

“What do you think, Emma?” Bill asked.

“I think Lori has a point,” Emma replied. “The show must go on.”

128 Nancy Atherton

“I agree,” Lilian said firmly. “Rob and Will have earned their

moment in the sun. We mustn’t allow the inconsiderate actions of

a few bad apples to rob them of it.”

“Hear, hear,” I said.

“Emma can drop me off at home on the way to the fair,” said Derek.

“I’ll round up a crew of riding students and stable hands and bring

them back with me in the van. We’ll manage the cleanup without

you, Bill.”

“Well,” Bill said reluctantly, “if you’re sure. . . .”