“Oh, yes. Livvy is just the stopgap between him and the next generation of male Thatchers.”
“Livvy's his only child, right?"
“Now she is. There was a son. A year or two older than Livvy. The light of Jack's life, my dad said. But he died when Livvy was just a baby. Of mumps, of all things. And Jack, who hadn't had mumps as a child, got it too. My dad said Jack nearly went crazy when the little boy died and Jack realized he'd never be able to father a replacement."
“And Livvy's mother? What about her?" Jane asked.
“She was a nice woman, meek and pretty like Livvy. But she died of breast cancer when Livvy was about five. Poor Livvy. If she had to have a husband, I don't know why she couldn't have made a better choice."
“We don't always fall in love with the best choice," Jane said, thinking about her own ill-fated marriage.
“Love? I don't think it's love. It's necessity. As I say, the clock is ticking. Oh, dear, is that the aunties' shrill voices I hear?”
The voices in the front hall sounded a bit like outraged chickens squabbling over a choice piece of corn.
“Probably. They weren't supposed to come until tomorrow, but insisted on coming today." Jane and Eden got up and went to meet the newcomers.
The two tiny elderly ladies were virtually indistinguishable except for their hair. One had a snowy white do that towered over her like an impossibly fluffy cloud. The other had the identical style, but in a maroon red verging on purple that never grew from a human head. Jane wondered if they got a discount on the two dreadful wigs. They looked like something from a Disney cartoon.
“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."