A Groom wirh a View Read Free

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 the monks’ 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!”

Two

    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