The Colonel and His Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

inspect the flowers.
    “I’ve got a terrible migraine,” she confided. “I’ve had it since Julia’s hen party.”
    “Aw, poor thing,” Trudy said and held her breath as Sandra peered closely at one of the pew ends and buried her nose in a lily.
    “They look and smell very real,” she said suspiciously. She twitched her nose, but no sneeze was forthcoming.
    “Don’t they,” Trudy said proudly. “They can do such clever things these days with silk and cotton. And the fragrance seems so authentic, but there’s nothing natural in the scent. It’s all chemically reproduced.”
    She crossed her fingers behind her back. Lies, lies and more lies and now she was doing it in church too.
    Suddenly, Sandra began to bark loudly.
    “Asthma,” she bellowed with lungs that sounded capable of powering a hot air balloon. “Asthma, asthma.”
    “Yes, dear,” Trudy said. “Must be the dust.”
    She had never heard such a fake cough in all her life. It sounded like the kind of cough a nine-year-old might produce to convince his parents he was too ill to go to school.
    Trudy walked away and suddenly there was a groan. She turned round to see Sandra sinking into a pew with an agonised expression on her face
    “Arthritis,” she said. “Arthritis.”
    Now she’d started on her imagined diseases there’d be no stopping her. She’d ruin Julia’s wedding. She’d be bound to cough loudly during a quiet part of the service and when they all sat down after singing, she’d fall with a clatter into the pew.
    She wouldn’t mind, but the woman was as fit as a proverbial fiddle. At the reception, she’d make a huge fuss about the food aggravating her ulcer or irritating her bowel, then she’d proceed to get drunk and hurl herself at every man in sight.
    Trudy knew this because that’s exactly what Sandra did at the last funeral Trudy arranged two months ago.
    “What can be done for me, Trudy?” she wailed. “I’m in constant agony and not one of my husbands or anyone else’s come to that, has ever understood me.”
    “Come with me,” Trudy said. “I have an idea.”
    Sandra, forgetting herself for a moment, leapt to her feet, then halfway down the aisle remembered her arthritis and began to limp.
    Trudy’s blood boiled. Under normal circumstances, she would just feel irritated by Sandra, but with everything else she had to worry about . . .
    She drew back a large tapestry to reveal a door.
    “Through here, dear,” Trudy said kindly. “Into this little room here. You see it’s a secret room. People have hidden in here over the centuries safe in the knowledge that no one outside the room could hear them.”
    She smiled sweetly as Sandra looked round, puzzled.
    “Why are you showing me?” she snorted.
    “Because this is where you will spend the day. There’s a comfortable chair and a tap for drinking water. You’ll be very snug in here and you won’t be able to spoil Julia’s wedding. You see?”
    She stepped outside the room and closed the door, turning the key with a loud clunk. It was only as she dropped the key in her pocket that she remembered the crates of communion wine stored in the room.

 
    CHAPTER THREE

    “What have you done, Trudy?” Reverend Blinking gasped.
    Trudy spun round guiltily. How could he know? Had he seen her lock Sandra in the secret room?
    She collapsed into the nearest pew and took a deep breath, ready to make her confession and let the vicar deal with her how he thought best.
    “The game’s up I’m afraid,” he said.
    “What’s she been up to now?” Another voice chimed in. Trudy glanced up and saw Bill striding towards her.
    “What do you think, Bill?” Blinking asked. “Is she guilty as charged?”
    “I’d say so,” Bill grinned. “You are a little devil on the side, Trudy. What are we to do with you? And what will the Colonel say when he finds out?”
    “The flowers look splendid. The best you’ve ever done. And so realistic . . .” Blinking said, spreading