Time for a new installment...
‘Do you Rupert Arthur Oswald Everard Ellsworth-Symthe take thee Jocasta Cecilia Felicia Tanitia Alopecia Beaverington to be your lawful wedded wife?’
‘I do’.
‘And do you Jocasta Cecilia Felicia Tanitia Alopecia Beaverington take thee Rupert Arthur Oswald Everard Ellsworth-Symthe to be your lawful wedded husband?’
‘I do’.
‘Then by the power invested in me, I know pronounce you…’
‘STOP THE WEDDING!’
As gasps rang around the rafters of the church, Father O’Mara rolled his eyes. ‘Oh what is it now?’ he snapped. ‘Someone nicked your buttonhole?’
‘I wouldn’t be sarcastic with me Father’, smiled Antonio, the sawn-off in his hand announcing his intentions. ‘It ill becomes a man of the cloth’.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Rupert. ‘What do you want?’
‘It’s not what’, replied Antonio, ‘It’s who. Miss Beaverington, would you be so good as to come with me?’
Jocasta’s deep brown eyes blazed with a mixture of fear and anger. ‘I’m not going anywhere’, she insisted, her voice shaky, but her resolve never faltering. ‘This is my wedding day.’
‘Don Miglione thinks differently. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll know you have know choice’.
Rupert stared at his wife to be, wondering if the woman who returned his gaze was who he had always imagined her to be. ‘Jocasta? Jocasta, who’s Don Miglione?’
‘Oh Rupert. Rupert, I…’
‘We’re wasting time’, interrupted Antonio. ‘Don Miglione is not a man who likes to be kept waiting. Now I…’
Antonio was never to finish his sentence. His knees buckled as the air was gradually forced from his throat. Collapsing to the aisle, the gun was knocked from his hands as Regina gave one final pull on her pure silk scarf, landing at the feet of cousin Hubert, who quickly slipped it into his gentleman’s handbag.
‘Aunt Regina!’ gasped Jocasta. ‘You’ve saved us! How can we ever thank you?’
Regina smiled beatifically. ‘There’s no need to thank me Jocasta dear’, she replied. ‘And there’s certainly no need to thank your Uncle Cuthbert’. Regina turned to her husband. ‘ ‘Don’t bother with the matching scarf Regina’, you said. ‘No one will even notice Regina’, you said. ‘It’s a waste of money Regina’, you said. ‘Wear that necklace I got you last Christmas Regina!’, you said. Where would jewelled seashells have got us today, I ask you?’
‘Alright Regina, you’ve had your moment, don’t milk it’, sighed Cuthbert. ‘I wasn’t to know you’d have to strangle a mafia gunman’.
‘Ha! Just like a man’, Regina replied. ‘Never prepared for anything. I haven’t forgotten that summer in Sorrento when we had that cold snap. Not a single sweater in your suitcase! And as for that burst pipe last Christmas, don’t get me started…’
