“And here’s Midnight, our family pet,” Bunny finally said as she motioned for Midnight to come forth and greet Prince Charming. Tempted to unleash a venomous hiss, Midnight refrained, Bunny having implored Clara to be sure Midnight was on his best behavior, her shameful musophobia always lurking in the background. Clara had — not happily either — followed instructions, and Midnight had finally gotten the drift.
So he came up to Tony, favored him with a curt meow, turned and left the room, determined to vent his disgust on a wayward mouse.
“Midnight doesn’t seem to like me,” said Tony, grinning boyishly.
“Oh no, darling,” Bunny said quickly. “He’s shy. Once he gets to know you, he’ll be quite friendly.”
Preliminaries out of the way, time flying (it was June eleventh, less than three months from the fateful deadline), operating from the best motel in town, buoyed by the evidence of big money — the mansion with its luxurious furnishings, the three servants, the expensive foreign car in the driveway — Tony wooed the enchanted Bunny with a ton of well-honed charm, dozens of roses, candlelight dinners at The Lookout, the hotel-restaurant in the mountains east of town.
It worked. Less than two weeks after he turned his roguish smile on Bunny on the flight to Pittsburgh, she capitulated, joyously accepting his offer of marriage.
Clara hadn’t capitulated. Her feet solidly back on the ground after her one mad surge of unbridled passion, Clara was becoming more worried daily. And it wasn’t entirely concern for her own welfare. She genuinely loved Bunny, and she was willing to bet that Tony Gregory was “a love ’em and leave ’em gigolo, out for nothing but money,” who had broken many a woman’s heart. Clara was terribly afraid that another heart would soon be broken.
It was a quiet wedding, performed by a justice of the peace in Grant County, the county to the east of Ashford County. With his wife as a witness, a scratchy 78 rpm record playing a wedding march, the justice pronounced them man and wife as Tony slipped the wedding ring on Bunny’s quivering finger. He had bought the ring two days before at a going-out-of-business jewelry store in the mall, paid a hundred fifty dollars for it. (“It’s marked down from four hundred,” said the elderly jeweler, tears in his eyes.) And after handing the astonished justice of the peace a hundred dollar bill (twenty-five was the usual stipend; now and then someone paid fifty), high-flyer Tony was down to exactly seven hundred fifty dollars and the jeweled watch. He hadn’t been that poor in twenty years.
The justice’s wife was the Grant County correspondent for the Hillsdale Morning Clarion. She interviewed the newlyweds, Bunny happily answering every question with such enthusiasm that Tony had to interrupt frequently.
“Now, Bunny,” he kept saying, “Let’s not go overboard.”
“You see,” she said, squeezing his arm, “He’s so modest, not like many of today’s brazen international entrepreneurs.”
Of course Bunny would have preferred an elaborate wedding at St. Mark’s in Hillsdale, but Tony — he was getting far too much publicity — thought it might be inappropriate in view of his great-aunt’s recent death. Dear Bunny, adrift in paradise, bought that ludicrous story without a moment’s hesitation.
“I understand, darling,” she had said. “But how many men would be so considerate of an aged distant relative? Oh, darling, I’m finding more and more admirable qualities about you every day.”
At which Tony, beginning to feel like a heel (this latest conquest was getting to him) mumbled that a fellow had to do what a fellow had to do. He had reason to feel like a heel; his great-aunt, alias Pittsburgh Will, had died, been cremated the day Tony met Bunny on the plane.
A slight delay in the honeymoon (“Would Spain be all right, Bunny?”... “Oh... oh... yes... yes... anywhere, darling.”), the Singapore negotiations reaching the crucial stage. Would Bunny mind waiting a few weeks?
Mind? Of course she wouldn’t mind, whatever darling Tony wished was wonderful with her. Hmm, thought Tony, this is gonna be easier than I thought. I’ll give it ten days — no longer — before I hit her for the money. Come to think of it, I’ll need an extra twenty grand. That shouldn’t bother her. She’s loaded.
The newlyweds arrived back at the mansion around five that afternoon, Tony bringing his clothes in two expensive looking but somewhat battered pieces of luggage. Clara, a nervous wreck (“I’m tellin’ you, Midnight, she’s gone gaga over that fortune hunter”), opened the door, fearing the worst. It came.
“Congratulate me, Clara,” Bunny squealed, waving her hand. “See, a wedding ring. I’m a bride. Tony and I were married this afternoon in Grant County. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Then she grabbed Clara, hugged her tightly, exclaiming, “Oh, I’m so happy, Clara. Tony’s made me the happiest person on earth.”
While that was going on, Tony made a valiant effort not to look like the cat that had swallowed the canary, but he failed. He awaited the housekeeper’s reaction, pretty sure what it would be, for though he had charmed the two maids he was well aware that the housekeeper and the cat had him figured out.
Clara responded as anticipated. She managed to squirm free from Bunny’s embrace, skewer Tony with a look of part outrage, part pure hate. So what, he thought, I’m in the driver’s seat. I’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks at the most.
Home now, Bunny began having qualms over sharing the bed that she and Harold had shared for so many years. Sly old Tony, sensing her uneasiness, suggested they spend the first night of the honeymoon at The Lookout.
“Oh, darling,” said Bunny eagerly, “that’s a splendid suggestion. It’s so lovely in the mountains. Oh, darling, you’re so, so thoughtful.”
Wow, thought Tony, whatever I say is great with her. I may not wait two weeks, even ten days. I’ve been through hell these nine months.
Midnight had a tough night. Stretched full-length in his clean wicker basket on the floor beside Clara’s bed, he was forced to respond to her unrelenting jeremiad against that “no good, two-bit, fortune hunting Casanova,” a recurring theme being Tony’s lack of evidence that he was what Bunny claimed him to be.
“If he’s such a big-shot international entrenooper,” she demanded, “how come he’s only got two measly suitcases? Wouldn’t an entrenooper at least have a couple of trunks, Midnight?”
“Meow” (you’d think so), responded Midnight sleepily.
“And he’s in for one hell of a surprise?”
“Meow (surprise)?”
“The trust fund, the money. It was in the paper when the mister’s will was probated. She can’t touch the family fortune. Sure, she has a damn nice income but it all goes out, over half to the charities. They’d go broke without her.
“On it went. Once that four-flusher finds out about the trust fund, sees he’s up the creek without a paddle, he’ll skedaddle. And that’ll break her heart; the woman is nuts about that rat.”
Clara finally wound down, Midnight went to sleep, purring quietly as cats are wont to do.
The wedding story in the paper caused quite a stir; no wonder. Mr. Gregory was an international entrepreneur, currently engaged in delicate negotiations involving Singapore real estate. “As soon as the deal is completed, the couple will embark on a honeymoon in Spain, after which they will live in New York City” (“Putting you and me out in the cold,” Clara told Midnight bitterly) “so Mr. Gregory can remain in close contact with his Wall Street bankers.” Actually, Tony’s bankers operated seven blocks north, four blocks west of Wall Street, the financial headquarters of Heillman & Sons, Pawnbrokers.
There was a lot more to the story. It sounded just a little too good to many of Bunny’s friends. Had the dear innocent fallen for a fortune hunter? In the same issue of the paper a shorter story told of Dr. Thomas Larkin, renowned Pittsburgh surgeon whose specialty had been otolaryngology (disorders of the ear, nose, throat). Dr. Larkin had retired following the death of his wife, had bought a house in the mountains east of town, planned “to take life easy, read a lot, and, if needed, do volunteer work at the library and the humane society.”