Kate Kingsbury - Wedding Rows

Elizabeth briefly closed her eyes. When she opened them again she saw tears rolling down the girl’s cheeks.

“I would never have hurt him,” Tess whispered. “I thought he would have known that. But he grabbed the knife from me and I was afraid he’d…” She gulped and pulled in a deep breath. “I pushed him. He sort of stumbled back and I slammed the door and locked it.”

Elizabeth studied the tear-stained face. “And you left the key in the lock?”

Tess’s brows drew together as if she didn’t understand the question. “I don’t know. I suppose so. I didn’t take it with me.” She started crying in earnest. “He just kept pounding and pounding… I ran away. He must have fallen down the stairs in the dark and… and stabbed himself.” She buried her face in her handkerchief while Elizabeth waited for her to recover some control.

After a while she blew her nose, then laid her hands in her lap and continued. “I went back to the main hall to find Sadie. I saw my father and he asked me why I was upset but I couldn’t tell him. I just left him and ran outside. Sadie must have seen me and followed me out there. She persuaded me to go back in until after Wally and Aunt Prissy left. Then I changed my clothes and we walked down to the Tudor Arms where she’d left her bicycle.” She looked up, tears still rolling down her face. “I never meant to hurt him. Really I didn’t.”

“It’s all right, Tess.” Elizabeth got to her feet. “Try not to worry. I have a feeling this is going to work out all right for you, after all.”

She left the girl alone, hoping that her hunch was right. Everything depended on how soon she could talk to the people involved, and how long the inspector would be delayed before he arrived to question the Winterhalters. She could only hope she had enough time.

“Are you getting up, Polly?” Edna Barnett’s shrill voice echoed up the narrow staircase. “You’ll make us late for church if you don’t hurry.”

Upstairs in her bedroom, Polly pulled a face at her image in the mirror. “I’m coming!” she yelled back, and picked up the silver-backed hairbrush her mother had given her for Christmas. Pulling it through the tangles in her hair, she wished, as she had a thousand times, that she had Marlene’s lovely red curls.

She’d tried putting curlers in her own hair, but she only had to look at the rain and her curls would vanish, leaving her with the same boring flat hair.

She’d thought about getting one of those permanent waves, but the idea of being hooked up by a bunch of wires to a machine terrified her. Besides, if she didn’t like the results, she’d have to wait for it all to grow out again and that could take years and years.

Polly sighed and put down the brush. She wished Marlene would come home. She always felt better when her sister was around. Marlene used to cheer her up when she got the miseries. Now there was no one, except Sadie, and she spent most of her time with Joe lately. She missed her dad, too. Even if he was always telling her off.

Polly glanced at the photo of the smiling man in navy uniform that stood on her dressing table. It had been so long since she’d seen Pa she’d almost forgotten what he looked like.

“Polly? Polly! Get down here this minute. If I have to come up there and get you, my girl, I’ll box your blinking ears.”

“I’m coming! Keep your bloody wig on.” Polly jumped to her feet, grabbed her handbag and her jacket, and stomped from the room. She was wearing her best high-heeled platform sandals and on the way down the stairs she turned her ankle.

Limping into the kitchen, she felt like crying. Nothing was going right anymore. Nothing at all. It didn’t seem worth going to church. God didn’t listen to her prayers anyway. She’d prayed that Sam would come back from America and tell her he’d missed her too much to live without her. She’d prayed that Marlene would be sent back to England. She’d prayed for the war to end and all the soldiers to come back home. None of it had happened. None of it.

“Take that miserable look off your face,” Edna Barnett ordered, as the two of them set off for the long walk to the church. “What has a young girl like you got to be so gloomy about?”

“Everything,” Polly mumbled. If only Sam hadn’t gone and left her. Summer was coming, and she could have looked forward to picnics and rides in the Jeep and walks along the cliffs and cuddling in the car park behind the Tudor Arms. She got a pain in her chest every time she thought about him. When was it going to stop hurting? That’s what she’d pray for today. To stop hurting when she thought about Sam. Or maybe even to stop thinking about Sam.

No, she couldn’t do that. The thought of banishing him from her mind altogether was too terrible to contemplate. Even when she’d been going out with Ray, which turned out to be a bad mistake, she’d still thought about Sam. It was as if she kept him in a small piece of her heart, so that whenever she felt sad and lonely, he’d still be there to keep her company. Even if it did still hurt.

Engrossed in her thoughts, she failed to hear what her mother said, until Edna barked, “Did you hear me?”

Polly jumped. “What?”

“I said, I’ve got something that might cheer you up.”

Without much enthusiasm, Polly muttered, “What is it?” Probably a bag of broken biscuits that Ma had bought off ration. Ma always thought that sweets could cure the worst misery. A cup of tea and a biscuit. That was Ma’s answer to everything.

“There’s a letter came for you yesterday.”

Polly stopped short in the road and stared at her mother’s back. “A letter? Is it from Sam?”

“No, it’s not from America.”

Polly lost some of her enthusiasm. “Who’s it from? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because it came while we were at the wedding, and then you didn’t come home until after I was in bed.” Edna paused to look back at her daughter. “I don’t know what your father would say if he knew you was coming home late like that. Staying down that pub all hours of the night.”

“I wasn’t at the pub. I was riding me bicycle along the cliffs.”

Edna’s face registered shock. “How many times have I told you it’s dangerous to be riding along the cliffs at night without lights? Have you forgotten that a young lady died from falling over them cliffs?”

“She didn’t fall; she was pushed,” Polly said. “Anyhow, who’s the letter from. Marlene?”

Edna shook her head.

“Pa?”

“No, I don’t know who it’s from. I thought it was Marlene at first ’cos it’s got a foreign stamp on it. I think it’s from Italy, but it’s not her writing.”

Polly felt a spasm of fear. “What if something’s happened to her and someone’s writing to tell us about it?”

“They don’t write letters,” Edna said calmly, though her face looked pale in the sunlight. “They send telegrams. Didn’t you send letters to a bunch of soldiers over there?”

Polly blinked, still shaken by the possibility of Marlene being hurt. “Soldiers? Oh, yes! I did! It’s been so long I forgot.”

Edna started walking away. “Come on, if we don’t hurry we’ll be late.”

“Why didn’t you give it to me this morning?” Polly demanded, hurrying as best she could on her high heels to catch up with her mother.

“Because you were taking so long to get ready for church.” Edna quickened her steps as Polly drew level. “I knew if I gave it to you then you’d take even longer.”

Polly didn’t answer. Her mind was buzzing with questions. A few months earlier, she and Sadie had collected letters from villagers and sent them to Marlene who’d promised to give them out to servicemen desperate for news from home. Polly had written a long letter herself, but had never really expected an answer.