A few exposures to Rebecca’s incomprehensible extremes of behaviour had kept Cecily at a safe distance from her whenever they occupied the same house for more than a quarter of an hour. And third, she found her intolerably stupid. Rebecca had never boiled an egg, written a cheque, or made a bed. Her answer for every little problem in life was, “Daddy’ll see to it,” just the sort of lazy, parental dependence that Cecily loathed.

Even today Daddy was seeing to it in fi nest form. They’d done their part, obediently waiting for the vicar in the ice-floored, snow-speckled north porch of the church, stomping their feet, with their lips turning blue, while the guests rustled and murmured inside among the holly and the ivy, wondering why the candles weren’t being lit and why the wedding march hadn’t begun. They’d waited for an entire quarter of an hour, the snow making its own lazy bridal veils in the air, before Daddy had stormed across the street and pounded furiously on the vicarage door. He’d returned, his usual ruddy skin gone white with rage, in less than two minutes.

“He’s not even home,” St. John Andrew Townley-Young had snapped. “That mindless cow”—this was his manner of identifying the vicar’s housekeeper, Cecily decided—“said he’d already gone out when she arrived this morning, if you can believe it. That incompetent, foul little…” His hands formed fi sts in their dove-coloured gloves. His top hat trembled. “Get inside the church. All of you. Get out of this weather. I’ll handle the situation.”

“But Brendan’s here, isn’t he?” Rebecca had asked anxiously. “Daddy, Brendan’s not missing as well!”

“We should be so lucky,” her father replied. “The whole family’s here. Like rats who won’t leave a sinking ship.”

“St. John,” his wife murmured.

“Get inside!”

“But people will see me,” Rebecca wailed. “They’ll see the bride.”