A Groom With a View (2 page)

There was a split rail fence running along the right side of the road with heavy woods behind it. The turn into the drive was unmarked and almost invisible. The long drive twisted and turned through the woods and emerged at the erstwhile monastery. It was an old unadorned clapboard building, suiting the simplicity of the religious order by whom it had been originally constructed. It had a vaguely barn-like look due to the scarce and small windows on the first floor, but the second floor, while obviously old as well,was clearly an addition. It had a steep roof with scattered dormers. There was a long wing to the left of the two-story section. It, too, looked like the ground floor was original and the upper story was an addition. The structure had a number of outbuildings and additions as well.

“It's not where I'd pick to get married," Shelley said. "What would you call this style? Midwestern wooden Gothic?"

“It looks vaguely Russian to me," Jane said. "All it's lacking is the onion dome.

As she spoke, an old man came shuffling around the corner of the house, stopped abruptly, and eyed them with suspicion. Jane hopped out of the car and approached him. "You must be Joe," she said, feeling the honorific "Uncle" was inappropriate and having no idea what his surname might be.

“That's right, missy," he growled. "And who might you be?"

“I'm Jane Jeffry. The wedding planner. I wrote you that my friend and I would be here today.”

He scratched his head. "Yeah, I reckon you did. I got everything ready for the big day. Had the plumbing looked over and took all the covers off the furniture like Livvy told me to.”

Like many old men, he'd lost any sense of pattern he might have ever possessed. His trousers were a faded, but formerly colorful polyester checked pattern, his flannel shirt was brown plaid, and his jacket was a dark striped item that reminded Jane of old-fashioned prison garb. This was topped off by a thatch of wild white hair, a grizzly two-day growth of beard, and a fierce scowl.

“Could you show us around?" Jane asked, be- fore introducing Shelley, who had joined them.

He gave a curt nod. "This here's the house proper. Reckon that's all you need to see." He opened the heavy front door and shuffled inside, leaving them to follow. The door caught Shelley on the elbow on the back swing and she uttered a very rude remark. There was a dark entry hall with a lot of doors opening to heaven knew what rooms.

Uncle Joe opened one and said, "Here's the main room where I reckon they'll have the wedding.”

It was vast and dark. A huge chandelier that appeared to be made of antlers and fitted out with 25-watt light bulbs cast a faint glow. There were two fireplaces, one at each side of the room, and a good deal of substantial old furniture grouped around each. At the far end, there was an impressive staircase with a large landing at the top.

“Good grief!" Shelley said quietly, goggling at the furniture. "Do you know what this stuff goes for in the antique market? A fortune!"

“Shelley, brace yourself," Jane whispered back. "Look at the walls.”

Shelley glanced around, inhaling with a gasp. There was a virtual herd of mounted dead animal heads. Mostly deer, but a few elk, a matched set of moose heads, and one enormous buffalo taking pride of place above one of the fireplaces. She gaped for a moment, then said, "Well… you didsay it was a hunting lodge, but I never imagined…”

Uncle Joe had disappeared into the gloom. They heard the faint sound of a door opening somewhere.

Jane said, "I guess we're on our own to explore further. It looks fairly clean in here, don't you think?"

“It's so dark it's impossible to tell. What are you doing about seating for the ceremony?”

Jane peered toward the far end of the room. "That's a nice wide staircase down there, isn't it? Livvy can come down that way — it would really show off her dress and we can shove the furniture that's here back against the walls farther. I have a company bringing in and setting up very nice folding chairs the morning of the wedding."

“Is this room, huge as it is, going to hold everybody?" Shelley asked.

Jane sat down on a big leather sofa that enveloped her like a grandmother's hug, and said, "That's the odd thing, Shelley. There aren't that many guests. I only sent out seventy-five invitations and a great many of them were out-of-town-ers who sent gifts but aren't coming. Business associates, I assume. There are only about forty people coming — plus the staff that will be staying here. You, me, the seamstress, caterer, and florist. And the immediate family members, of course."

“Don't forget Uncle Joe," Shelley said. "Doesn't it seem a bit odd to go to such trouble and expense for such a small wedding?"

“It's what Livvy wanted," Jane said. "Who am I to argue with a bride?"

“Where are the rest of the guests staying?"

“There's a smallish motel quite close. I've reserved the whole place. And most of the family will stay here. Let's look at the bedrooms. If we can find them.”

They groped their way through the big main room, and found a passageway opening off the left side. Along it were twelve tiny rooms on each side of a long hallway. "These must have been the monks' rooms," Shelley said, opening the closest door with considerable trepidation.

It was a very small room with a single bed, a nightstand with a kerosene lamp, a wardrobe closet, and a chair and small rickety table by the window, which was square, but hardly larger than a porthole. The furniture was old, solid, and plain. The bed had a rather flat pillow and a noticeably dusty quilt on it. Its colors were drab; it was the sort of quilt people used to make out of old dress suits. A second door led to a bathroom the same size as the bedroom, which had ugly, but clean, workable fixtures that looked as though they'd been installed in the 1950s. It had slightly peeling wallpaper with faded roses and a pink linoleum floor. The opposite door in the bath led to another identical bedroom.

Shelley stepped out into the hall and opened a few other doors and came back. "They're all exactly the same," she said. "I'll bet these were themonks' rooms and one out of every three was turned into a bathroom."

“They're certainly…" Jane sought the right word."… serviceable."

“It was meant for hunters, Jane, and whatever few misguided wives who might occasionally come along. It's a 'guy' place. They'd go out killing things all day, come back, and eat and drink all evening and tell fabulous stories of the woolly mammoth that got away, then fall into bed half-soused. A great-uncle of mine had a place like this when I was a kid. Not as big as this, but pretty much the same. My dad took me on one of the hunting trips when I was about seven. I had to sit around with my dad and uncles in a cold, wet duck blind all day. Worst trip of my life, but the men seemed to love it."

“I want to make a quick sketch of the rooms and assign them to the people who are staying here instead of the motel. Then let's go see what's upstairs," Jane said.

“Ghosts of monks, I'll bet," Shelley said cheerfully.

Jane glared at her. "If you try to tell me a ghost story in this spooky old place, I'll go home and stick you with the job of putting on this wedding!”

when they explored the upstairs, they discovered that the area over the main room on the ground floor had been divided into three good-sized bedrooms. Two were merely larger versions of the monks' cells. But one of them, presumably that of the original Thatcher, was more furnished — not better furnished, just more. There were hunting prints and more animal heads on the walls and a large, molting bearskin rug on the floor next to the double bed. There were also two leather easy chairs and a desk that sat before a large window with a wonderful view out over the woods.

“I guess I'll put Livvy in here since the bride should have the best room," Jane said, "and move Dwayne in after the wedding. I'll put Mrs. Crossthwait in the middle one so she has plenty of room for her sewing and fittings. She's deaf enough that she won't be offended by sleeping next door to newlyweds. And I'll put Livvy's father at the far end, since he's the Big Cheese who's paying for everything. The other relatives and the bridal party can stay in the broom-closetsized rooms."

“I wonder where that dear Uncle Joe lives?" Shelley said.

“Probably in a cave somewhere," Jane said. "I was hoping he'd be enthusiastic, maybe even have the urge to be helpful. He is, after all, employed by the father of the bride and apparently has nothing to do most of the time."

“Then you'll have to just insist that he make himself useful," Shelley said. "What's over the monks' rooms?”

They crossed the landing at the top of the stairs and found a room that was a gigantic attic. It had a long row of dormers along the front side, so it could have been made into more sleeping quarters, but apparently there had been no need and it had become the catchall. There was a whole floor down, but nothing but the studs on the walls.

There were old hunting rifles, heavy wool jackets, a box full of warm hats, some traps, hardware, cleaning utensils — all of this visible from the doorway. Jane could only guess what else was stashed here. At least most of the stuff was along the walls and there was an aisle through the middle. Someone had once put down a pretty rag rug near the doorway, but the colors were dulled by a long accumulation of dust.

“We ought to take those quilts downstairs out- side to shake and air," Shelley said. "Maybe we could persuade Joe to string up a clothesline somewhere.”

Jane went out to the landing and bellowed, "Joe! Joe! Where are you? We need some help here.”

There was no reply, so she kept shouting periodically as she and Shelley made their way back to the small guest rooms. When they took the first quilt off the bed, they realized there was no other bedding. No sheets or pillowcases. Jane stared at the naked mattress. "Oh, no! Now what do we do? There must be linens somewhere.”

Shelley went to the door and shouted for Joe, and jumped when he appeared in the doorway of the next room. "I ain't deaf, lady.”

Shelley considered asking him what he was doing eavesdropping on them from the next room in that case, but instead said mildly, "Where are the linens for the beds?"

“I sent 'em all out to the laundry last week. Ought to be back today.”

Jane nearly collapsed in relief. She'd had visions of ransacking the countryside for an ungodly number of sets of sheets and pillowcases. "I'd like for you to rig up a clothesline and put these quilts out to air, please," she said. The "please" was only a nicety. She'd hoped the request sounded more like an order.

“Gonna rain," he said.

“If and when it does, you can bring them back in." Jane was starting to get a little testy. Livvy had led her to believe that Uncle Joe, while a bitcrusty, was something of a workhorse around the place, which obviously wasn't true. "There's a car pulling up outside. I hope it's Mrs. Crossthwait.”

And so it turned out to be. She drove, somewhat surprisingly, a very sporty Jeep which was full of sewing paraphernalia. Her sewing machine, an ironing board, various ironing objects that Jane believed were called "hams," boxes of thread and fabric, pins and bias tape, envelopes full of tissue pattern pieces, and a lot of assorted items Jane couldn't begin to identify. There was also the enormous box containing the wedding dress and three smaller boxes housing the partially completed bridesmaids' apparel. "I'm so glad you're here, Mrs. Crossthwait!" Jane said.

“What's that, dear?”

Jane repeated herself, shouting a bit. "We'll help you get this all to your room. I'll have the handyman take your sewing machine when he finishes another job.”

Mrs. Crossthwait was one of those people with round, plump faces that didn't quite match her tiny little body. Her hands were big-knuckled but still agile and she appeared to be bustling even when standing perfectly still. She flung up the back door of the vehicle and started loading Jane and Shelley down with boxes and small cases of tools and materials.

“I don't like the looks of this place," Mrs. Crossthwait said.

“I'm sorry about that," Jane said. "But we've given you an excellent room to work in. Lots of light and space and a good sturdy sewing table right by a window.”

They started toward the house. "It's not that," Mrs. Crossthwait said. "It's a bad place. A bad aura. Wicked things have happened here and will happen again.”

Shelley's intolerance of auras amounted to near obsession.

“Well, it better happen pretty soon because the house is being torn down in a couple months," she said briskly. "Come along, Mrs. Crossthwait. I'm so eager to see the dresses."

“Nice enough girls they are, the bridesmaids," Mrs. Crossthwait mumbled, puffing as she tried to keep up with the younger women. "Hope nothing happens to them.”

Jane turned to roll her eyes at Shelley, missed her footing on the surprisingly slick steps, and nearly dropped a whole case of bobbins.

They got Mrs. Crossthwait settled in the upstairs room, which turned out to be something of a mistake because she climbed the stairs so slowly and awkwardly. Jane and Shelley made three trips with sewing materials in the time it took Mrs. Crossthwait to ascend the stairs. Then they went looking for Uncle Joe. He'd strung a grungy old rope between a couple trees and was just trying to make his escape when they caught up with him. "We need you to take the seamstress's sewing machine to her. It's in the Jeep in front and she's in the middle bedroom upstairs," Jane said."Sorry, miss. Bad back."

“Then you can use that dolly I saw in the attic," Jane insisted.

He muttered something that might have been an obscenity and shuffled off.

Jane and Shelley started hauling quilts outside. The laundry truck arrived just as they brought out the first four quilts. The driver of the white van hopped down and started setting white butcher-paper-wrapped parcels on the steps. "This is the Thatcher place, right?" he asked.