Marple by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

A Deadly Wedding Day

Dreda Say Mitchell

One

Even murder wasn’t enough to make Miss Marple interrupt a tender moment between a bride and groom, as she arrived—vexingly but unavoidably—late for the strangest wedding reception she had ever attended. Slipping quietly into the room where the wedding breakfast was to be held, she couldn’t immediately put her finger on why it was so strange. There was nothing wrong with the venue, of course. A banqueting hall in a stately home was clearly a suitable place to celebrate the wedding of a baronet’s son. The walls were lined with paintings of the groom’s ancestors, and the furniture, fittings and dinner service had the heaviness of centuries’ use. Everything brass and gilt sparkled. All was well with that.

Nor was there anything jarring about the guests, who were all respectable and well dressed. And the doting groom and his bride were playing their part as the happy couple on their wedding day too. Peter Apfel-Strand wore the traditional morning suit, while Marie Baptiste, his bride, looked a picture in a white chiffon gown. Though her dress was perhaps a touch too modish for Miss Marple’s taste.

No, it was the collection of individuals seated at the top table that was baffling, resembling as they did a scene from one of those modern New Wave films that critics seemed to enjoy so much but which left their audiences thoroughly confused. The bride’s end of the table was deserted, apart from Miss Marple’s close friend, Miss Bella, the bride’s aunt. Marie’s family were from St. Honoré, a beautiful island in the Caribbean where Jane Marple had recently been on holiday. Maybe the distance between St. Honoré and England was the reason more of Marie’s nearest and dearest couldn’t attend? When Miss Marple had enquired after Miss Bella’s niece’s other relations, mildly surprised to merit an invitation, the answer had been the politely evasive “Families can be very complicated.”

Indeed they can.

If the bride’s side was almost empty, the groom’s was crowded. There was Peter’s father, Sir Herbert Apfel-Strand, his mother, Lady Margaret, and his maternal uncle, Bishop Ambrose, who had officiated at the ceremony. Other family members seemed to proliferate wherever one looked, and the groom’s parents were wearing rictus grins as they greeted everyone, clearly determined to keep up appearances; like a family of vultures that had descended on a victim only to discover that the hyenas had got there first.

There was an unavoidable and unpleasant explanation for their obvious discomfort: while one might hope that, in the England of the 1960s, racial prejudice would be a thing of the past, sadly that was not the case. Was the fact that their son and heir was marrying a black woman from St. Honoré perhaps the reason for the Apfel-Strands’ gloom? Miss Marple’s lips compressed with disapproval.

“Jane! I’m so glad you could come.” Miss Bella greeted Miss Marple with a warm hug, having temporarily excused herself from her place along from the happy couple.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Miss Marple had missed the wedding ceremony.

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