Wedding treasure, p.1
Wedding Treasure, page 1
Title
David Williams
WEDDING
TREASURE
Contents
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Dedication
This one for Mike and Mary Loxton
Wedding Treasure
‘Let us pray,’ uttered Noah Plimpton loudly, with a grin at the Vicar. Everybody shut up.
The Bedwell sisters exchanged surprised expressions, making ‘ooing’ shapes with their lips.
‘Bride and father back into the porch, please,’ ordered Sinn briskly. ‘Groom and best man take up positions in the first pew there. Will everybody else kindly sit down. Oh, yes’ – four limpid Bedwell eyes were fixed upon him – ‘you two belong with the bride, of course. Organist ready?’
‘Greville, you said you wouldn’t need . . . Penelope’s disembodied voice came from the vestry. She and Amanda had gone there to count the service sheets.
‘Well, just play a few bars of . . .’
A man’s angry voice roared from the porch. This was followed by a muffled protest, also male. Then came the noise of scuffling. A girl screamed. Everyone at the front looked around in time to see Jarvas stagger backwards into the church and crash on to the tiled floor.
Chapter One
‘Of course, we’re only assuming Fleur is pregnant,’ said Molly Treasure, keeping her eyes on the road.
‘Because having a baby’s not a good reason for getting married? Not any more?’ Her husband, Mark, pouted over the questions.
‘Pressing rather than good.’
‘Pressing certainly. Whether good or bad, debatable,’ the merchant banker responded pedantically. ‘We could be wrong about Fleur. You think she’s a virgin unsullied?’
‘Not that, I’m afraid.’ Molly frowned. ‘I do wish this dreary man in front would go away, in his tired little hatchback. He obviously wants to turn off. For Wales or somewhere.’
‘That’d mean turning left. Too much river down there to make it possible.’ Now he made a puffing noise with his lips. ‘Unless his hatchback’s amphibious.’ He paused again. ‘He’s turning right. To Gloucester. On the other hand, he may just feel safer in the middle of the road.’
‘Well it’s very inconsiderate when it’s so narrow. And he’s so slow.’
‘Mmm. Expect we’ll lose him before Monmouth. It was your idea to take the scenic route. Like me to drive again?’
Molly Treasure shook her head and reduced the speed of the Rolls-Royce a little. She drove the big car in the way she rode her ancient bicycle around Chelsea — chin up, back straight, arms well stretched, both hands firmly devoted to steering, and, in the case of the car, set like a racing driver’s at ten to two.
The actress’s patrician profile, which her husband caught with his glance of approval, was a very well-known one throughout the English-speaking world. Her expression was characteristic – natural off stage and frequently applied on stage – showing a too conscious but determined effort in tolerance. It also emphasised her resolve not to allow minor irritants to spoil a largely dutiful if still promisingly agreeable country weekend.
The river was the Wye — famous for salmon and for reaches of breathtaking beauty. On the right was a high, wooded bank.
‘They should widen this road,’ said Molly, in summary judgment.
‘Probably not allowed. Historical conservation. That bank is a bit of Offa’s Dyke. Eighth-century earthwork. Erected by the English . . .
‘To keep out the revolting Welsh.’
‘The English being quite as repulsive,’ responded Treasure with acerbity: he was partly Welsh.
It being mid-October, the cascading early autumn foliage on the bank was beginning to look its picturesque best. Glimpses of unbroken blue sky struck through the trees that overhung the road. Sunlight shimmered against the surface of the rippling, fast-flowing water. Altogether it was a day where nature was beating art on every turn.
The Treasures’ ultimate destination was the Orchard Hotel in the village of Much Marton, some miles south-west of the city of Hereford. Coming from London, they had left the M4 motorway at Chepstow, where it thrusts west into Wales. The A466 road they were on heads north, but not always with determination since it follows the vagaries of the river, first on its west bank, then on its east. They had just crossed the water after the village of Llandogo and touched the outskirts of Lower Meend on the other bank the language contrast impressing that they were coursing the natural boundary in ancient border country; Offa’s Dyke, always to the east, notwithstanding.
As Treasure implied, they might have moved faster over a less pretty route, but there was no hurry. The wedding they were attending was not until the following day. The demands of their separate careers had kept them largely apart for more than a month: he had been travelling in West Africa and the USA: she had been appearing in a short repertory season at the Haymarket Theatre, and filming in the daytime. In all, they considered they deserved a relaxed weekend together.
It was now early on Friday afternoon. They planned to arrive at Much Marton for tea, after stopping to see an ancient church in Monmouth. That evening they were to dine with Jack Figgle and Amanda, his second wife, at Marton Manor. Amanda was the bride’s mother.
The Treasures were not sleeping at the manor. They had accepted the room Jack Figgie had tactfully offered as an alternative at the small but many starred hotel close by.
The manor was middle Georgian and architecturally a delight the furnishings special, and the plumbing surprisingly adequate. The food was usually excellent, because it was just as usually sent in from the Orchard, which Jack and Amanda Figgle considered their local ‘take-away’. At ordinary times the visitors would have settled for the manor despite the competing attractions of the hotel a late Victorian country house converted with taste ten years before and equipped with, amongst other benefits, a cook of international fame, an indoor swimming pool and a well-maintained nine-hole golf course.
But this was no ordinary time.
‘I think we were right to take the hotel,’ said Molly. ‘Good. I thought you were having doubts this morning.’
She smiled. ‘Well, it might have been fun to be at the . . . the vortex of the wedding, as it were.’
‘Romantic delusion. It’d be hell. Place’ll be crammed with aged relatives and impecunious hangers-on. After all, it’s not that large. Not as manor houses go. And there are bound to be crises.’
‘Why?’
Treasure shrugged. ‘Because there always are at weddings. Besides, they don’t keep enough staff to cope with a full house. Amanda’s charmingly casual at the best of times. Comes of being brought up in San Francisco.’
‘Nonsense,’ countered Molly who didn’t subscribe to the concept that California was entirely populated by drop-outs, cranks and zealots.
‘Well, I’ll bet breakfast won’t materialise till mid-morning tomorrow, if at all.’
‘That’s quite possible.’
‘Much better to be remotely in touch.’
‘You can hardly be that since you’re making the most important speech at the reception.’
‘A speech at the reception,’ Treasure responded modestly, looking down at the notes he had been making since Molly had taken over the driving.
‘The longest one, then, judging by the time you’ve taken preparing it.’
‘Unlikely, I’d say.’ He stretched his neck slowly. ‘I’m aiming at four minutes, not allowing for polite laughter. Anyway, a minute of riveting oration . . .’
‘Rates an hour of fastidious preparation. I know,’ Molly interrupted. ‘I was joking. Can’t wait to hear what you’re going to say.’
‘Neither can I.’
‘Of course, the Orchard’s going to be full too. They’ve only twelve rooms.’
‘But all with private bathrooms.’
‘That being the deciding factor.’
‘Well, I couldn’t see you queuing for a bathroom at the manor on the wedding morn.’
‘We’d probably have got the main guest suite.’ ‘Couldn’t be certain, and one could hardly have asked.’
‘And can’t you just hear Amanda at the last minute begging if we’d terribly mind letting the bridesmaids use our shower?’ She caught the look of mild speculation on her husband’s face. ‘Or the best man perhaps?’
‘Quite.’ The speculation had changed to a disapproving frown. There was silence for a few moments. ‘I still find this rush to the altar inexplicable,’ said Treasure. ‘If Fleur’s not having a baby, the fact her future husband’s got a job in Hong Kong doesn’t really justify anything.’
‘A wedding at such short notice, you mean?’
‘That certainly. The sacrifice of the money looms large r though. It’s so unnecessary.’
‘If Fleur marries before she’s twenty-one she doesn’t inherit from her grandfather’s trust? Not until she’s thirty? That’s if one or both parents disapprove the match?
‘And her father, Kitson Jarvas, disapproves strongly. She also loses the income from the capital she’s been getting.’
‘But it’s Jarvas family money?’
‘What’s left of it. They were merchant tycoons in previous generations. Shippers and traders in the East Indies. Don’t amount to anything now except complicated trust funds. Well, not complicated really, just a bit eccentric.’
‘Fleur’s nineteen?’ ‘Nearly twenty.’
‘And she’s been getting income from the trust up to now?’ ‘Limited income. Ten thousand a year since she was seven.
Intended broadly to cover her education.’
‘Well, one assumes she’s managed to muddle through on that. Remember she’s had a wealthy step-father since Amanda remarried.’
‘Jack isn’t that wealthy, not any more. Even so, I know he hasn’t allowed Fleur’s income to be used in the eleven years of the marriage. Had it invested for her. Paid for her upbringing himself.’
‘So she has a nest-egg in any case?’
‘Could be something approaching a quarter of a million, I suppose. Depends how the money’s been invested. Probably a good deal more than Jack himself could lay his hands on right now. The recession hit him hard. Did I tell you he’s looking for buyers for the company? Pretty modest asking price.’ He paused. ‘Must admit, I’d rather lost track of his affairs until this sudden engagement cropped up.’
‘But you’ve lunched with the lovely Amanda?’ There was a touch of archness in the enquiry.
‘That was about Fleur’s financial situation. At Jack’s request.’ Treasure liked Figgle, who was a more or less lapsed corporate customer of Grenwood, Phipps — the merchant bank where Treasure, still in his early forties, was Chief Executive. Figgle, a widower before he married Amanda, was owner of a family automotive component business in the West Midlands. Ten years before there had been the prospect of the firm being floated as a public company. It was why Figgle had become involved with the bank. The hopes of a floatation had died following a general recession. Figgle and Treasure continued to see each other socially from time to time, when the older man came to London. Often he brought his attractive wife with him. This was how Molly Treasure had come to know the Figgles.
The friendship between the two couples was not an especially close one. The Treasures had stayed at Much Marton only twice before, once at the manor, and once at the hotel. Both visits had been brief, and some years earlier. In the previous spring, Fleur had spent a night with the banker and his wife at their house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, when she had been in London for a party. It had been at her mother’s request.
In the circumstances, Treasure had found it a little surprising that he had been invited to propose the toast to the bride and groom — traditionally a job reserved for a very old and close friend of the family. He shook his head as he went on: ‘If the girl had waited a year to get married she could have been independent of everyone. She’d have come into the thick end of a million pounds on her twenty-first birthday.’
‘Why not her eighteenth?’
‘Because people came of age later when the trust was set up.’ ‘She’ll still get the money eventually?’
‘In ten years, yes.’
‘And meantime that ten thousand a year dries up?’
‘Because of an especially spiteful clause in the trust deed. Kit Jarvas and his lawful wife get it. Except he doesn’t have a wife at the moment.’
‘But he still gets the money?’
‘Yes. And knowing a bit about Mr Jarvas’s way of life, my guess is it’ll be his main source of income for the next decade.’
‘But that’s obviously why he’s opposed the marriage.’ ‘Possible, but not proven. One of the reasons why Jack asked me to see Amanda. For advice. Our legal people looked over the trust deeds. The conditions are clear and specific. Grandfather Jarvas obviously didn’t hold with early marriages.’
‘And Fleur absolutely refuses to wait? Or give any reason except that her beloved’s off to Hong Kong at short notice? Sorry, I’ve forgotten his name again.’
‘Jonas Grimandi. Father originally Italian. Naturalised British. Jack says very bright — the boy, I mean. Got some kind of business school degree in the States. Computer whizz kid.’
‘And he’s well off?’
‘Only reasonably, I gather. Still very young. Twenty-six, I think. But Jack says hand-picked by his company for the Hong Kong job.’
‘And Fleur’s afraid she’ll lose him? If he’s allowed to go off on his own?’
‘Amanda says not.’
‘And he doesn’t have to be married? To get the job?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘So there’s nothing to stop them waiting the year? If she’s that desperate she could go out and live with him meantime. I mean, that’s almost the norm today in any case.’ Molly sniffed before adding firmly, ‘No, I still think there’s a baby on the way. And full marks to them for wanting to keep it.’
‘And being old fashioned enough to want it born in wedlock,’ Treasure interrupted. There was a touch of speculation in the tone. ‘That too, of course. But it’s curious she won’t admit it to Jack and Amanda. Strange child. Highly strung and quite impetuous, I’d say. I hardly know her, of course. That time she stayed with us, we chatted for a bit. Woman talk. I don’t believe she finds Amanda altogether sympathetic.’ And neither, as it happened, did Molly.
‘Plain daughter and glamorous mother. Source of mutual resentment?
‘Fleur’s not that plain.’ Molly nearly volunteered that only men found Amanda that glamorous. Instead she added, ‘Amanda was bothered about the boy who was taking Fleur to that party . . .’
‘Which is why she made Fleur spend the night with us.’
‘Yes. You know they have a town flat of their own? Amanda insisted they’d lent it to someone. I think it was a ruse to get Fleur chaperoned. Anyway, Fleur found her mother’s concern absurd. Said the boy couldn’t lure her out of a burning building, let alone get her into bed. I remember her turn of phrase very clearly.’
‘It wasn’t this chap she’s marrying?’
‘No. A young Guards’ officer. I must say I found him rather dashing and nice when he came to collect her. You were out.’ Molly sighed. ‘But then, I may be getting to the stage when all young Guards’ officers look dashing.’ Molly was thirty-eight, a strikingly handsome woman and wearing well.
‘That’s quite untrue,’ her husband replied without elaboration and rather too absently. He was preoccupied with another thought. ‘What you mean about Fleur . . .’
‘Is she’s a pretty liberated young woman. And uninhibited. But I wouldn’t expect her to be stupid or careless,’ Molly snorted. ‘Which is more than can be said for this driver in front.’
It was the same car they were tailing — except Molly had purposely dropped the Rolls back some distance. There had been a good deal of traffic coming towards them but nothing behind. While it would have been dangerous to try passing the small car, the driver was delaying no one save themselves. Now he had slowed perceptibly and was travelling even closer to the centre of the road than before.
‘Give him a blast on the horn,’ said Treasure impatiently.
Molly did as she was told — with immediate and disturbing consequences. The offending vehicle accelerated abruptly, first swerving dangerously on to the other side of the road which fortunately was empty. It then swung around, still at speed, through nearly a hundred and eighty degrees, wobbling perilously on two wheels. For a moment, it seemed to the horrified onlookers that it was about to be driven straight into the river. And then it was.
‘Mamma mia, it’s a disaster. I’m falling asleep, you understand? It’s why I’m in the water. Like you say, in the soup. Uh?’ Only the front of the steeply sloping car was submerged. The head sticking through the window was male, bald, and elderly. The accent and idiom were a mix of Italian and American. ‘You think I’ll be sinking some more?’ The speaker leaned further out of the window the easier to view the river line. This was running a few inches below the top of the front wheel, but was only just lapping the forward lower corner of the door.
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