Rick’s conflict with Opal seems unremarkable. As he said, an assignment is an assignment. Opal can bark orders at him until she’s blue in the face, but it will make no difference. Rick needs his employer’s permission, not hers, to alter a photo shoot.
“What about Peggy and Henry, though?” I asked. “Bree’s guesses about them were spot on. No one saw them visit the wishing well, so they must have gone there at night, as Charles did. Peggy’s wish must have been to own the tearoom and Henry’s must have been to take his act on stage again. And their wishes, like everyone else’s, came true.”
With catastrophic consequences. Sally’s taste of Cozy Cookery fame went straight to her head. Her arrogance goaded Peggy into buying a business she doesn’t need and won’t be able to run. Furthermore, Sally is delusional if she believes that Henry’s comedic gifts will catapult him—and by extension, her—into the stratosphere of stardom.
“Henry is pretty funny,” I reminded her.
Henry Cook tells humorous anecdotes in a tearoom. I’m not convinced that he has the drive to claw his way to the top of the entertainment industry. He may have given in to Arty Barnes’s blandishments as a lark, but I doubt very much that he yearns for the high-powered career Sally envisions.
“He didn’t seem to be as excited as Sally was about the gig at the comedy club,” I said reflectively. “He looked kind of gloomy when she started boasting about his big break.”
Of course he did. He knows that Peggy’s purchase of the tearoom will end the comfortable life he and Sally have fashioned for themselves in Finch. He also knows that he will be unable to support himself and Sally with his modest talents. He must feel as if his world is caving in on him.
“He’s not alone,” I said. “Peggy can’t bake and no competent baker will work for her because she’s such a bossy-boots. Once she buys the tearoom, Finch’s supply of jelly doughnuts and custard tarts will dry up. I know of at least two grown men—namely, Derek Harris and my own sweet Bill—who will become extremely cranky without their daily pastry fix.”
Peggy, too, will become disagreeable when her new venture fails, as it inevitably will.
“And she’ll take it out on the rest of us,” I said, adding darkly. “The wishing well has a lot to answer for.”
The wishing well. Yes. It does seem to be at the center of Finch’s recent spate of disasters.
“People have gotten what they wished for,” I said, “but it hasn’t made all of them happy. Sally’s smugness, Peggy’s lust for power, Elspeth’s naiveté, and Charles’s thirst for revenge made their wishes backfire. Mr. Barlow’s wish hasn’t backfired on him, but it has backfired on the vicar, not to mention my thumb. I suppose my own wish backfired on me. I wished the rain would stop and ended up dehydrated.”
It’s not hard to understand why so many wishes have failed, Lori. The real mystery is why so many came true in the first place. There’s something unreal about what’s happening in Finch, something contrived, as if a mastermind were at work behind the scenes, as if a puppeteer were pulling the villagers’ strings.
“He’d have to pull some pretty long strings to control the rain,” I said.
Let’s set aside the rain for the moment and focus on the more terrestrial wishes. Who could the mastermind be? Jack is the most likely suspect, of course. He discovered the well. He’s allowed all and sundry to visit it. Finch was a relatively peaceful community until he arrived.
“Jack MacBride? A conniving meddler?” I said, laughing. “Impossible. He was nowhere near the wishing well when the wishes were made.”
One needn’t be near the well to learn who made which wishes. Remember, Lori, there are no secrets in Finch. I suspect Sally and the others couldn’t keep themselves from divulging their wishes to someone who in turn mentioned them to someone else and so on, until everyone in Finch knew of everyone else’s wishes. The puppeteer could get wind of them quite easily.
“It still can’t be Jack,” I argued. “It would take someone with power and influence to grant so many wishes. A guy with power and influence doesn’t live out of a backpack. Our puppeteer would also have to know a lot of people—Jemma’s editor, for instance, and Arty Barnes the talent agent—and Jack doesn’t know anyone outside of Finch. How could he? He hasn’t been in England since he was six.”
Dabney Holdstrom has power, influence, and a wide circle of friends, and his arrival in Finch precipitated a number of unfortunate events. Perhaps he’s pulling the strings.
“Why would Dabney Holdstrom make the villagers’ wishes come true?” I asked. “Why would he care about them at all?”
I don’t know, but someone might. It’s time for you to take action, Lori.