Stop The Wedding! By Stefania Hartley

Could Don Pericle seize his last chance to help this bride make the right decision?

PANIC seized Giulia when the car stopped outside Villa Lingualarga. It’s normal to be nervous at your wedding, she reminded herself.

But something inside her clamoured that this was more than normal bride’s nerves.

It felt more like the last desperate cry of a wild animal about to be caged.

Suddenly the feeling of certainty that she didn’t want this wedding struck her like the sunshine that bathed the villa’s grand façade.

But in front of her, at the top of the wide baroque staircase, stood Riccardo in his three-piece suit.

How had she got herself into this situation? He hadn’t even proposed to her.

His mother had taken them aside one day after a family lunch and sternly told them that it was high time they got married.

So the wedding had been organised.

Run away, a voice in her head shouted. But all her family and friends were lining the staircase, ready to throw confetti and cheer for the happy couple.

It was too late.

****

Valeria hadn’t liked the look on her daughter’s face at breakfast that morning. It was the look of a wild animal startled by a car headlight.

She had put it down to wedding stress, like she had done with all other oddities of the last few months.

But now, as Giulia emerged from the bridal car, Valeria saw that look again.

Her daughter’s smile was tight and brittle, her eyes wide and scared, and suddenly Valeria was sure, like only a mother can be, that Giulia was not happy about marrying Riccardo.

As remorse squeezed her heart, adrenaline flooded her mind. She must stop the wedding.

Should she step out on to the bride’s path and block her way up? Should she shout out?

What if she were wrong? She would have needlessly ruined her daughter’s wedding day.

Valeria tried to catch her husband’s eye, but he was concentrating on his job of delivering their daughter to her fiancé at the top of the stairs.

She must find a way to pause the wedding and speak to Giulia in private.

Valeria rushed to the wedding organiser and host, who stood at the bottom of the stairs, surveying and smiling.

“Don Pericle, I must speak to my daughter now. I need you to pause the ceremony,” she panted.

The duke’s relaxed smile turned into bewilderment. “Pause the wedding?” Giulia and Tommaso were already halfway up the staircase.

“I fear that Giulia is not sure about this marriage.”

****

It took a couple of seconds for Don Pericle to register what the mother of the bride was telling him.

When it sank in, it shook him like a gale-force wind.

Before agreeing to host a wedding, he always screened the couple to make sure that they were willing, suited and ready to get married.

He had always taken great pride in his intuition, but if Signora Alcamo’s hunch was correct, on this occasion he had failed.

Most importantly, he now had to put things right.

Interpreting his silence as reluctance, the mother-ofthe-bride pressed on.

“I don’t need long; just a few seconds to talk to my daughter.”

“Of course,” he replied reassuringly, but when he looked up the stairs and saw the bride switching from her father’s arm to her fiancé’s, his confidence faltered.

It wouldn’t be long before Giulia and Riccardo would be standing in front of the mayor, saying their vows.

He had to speak to the mayor before that.

He sneaked away to the back of the garden, where a secret hatch led underground.

He lifted the hatch and descended some damp, slippery steps.

Guided only by touch and memory, he followed a narrow tunnel to a spiral staircase.

Thick cobwebs tickled his nose and the strong musty smell tickled his throat.

He climbed as fast as the stale air of the

narrow space allowed. He hoped that the door at the other end would open after all these years of not being used.

Giulia and Riccardo must have reached the end of the corridor by now.

He had to hurry, but the spiral staircase was making him dizzy.

He met the door so unexpectedly and with such momentum that the impact made it burst open.

A shriek told him that he had sprung out of the wall quite close to the couple.

The sudden light and fresh air revived him, and he lolloped to the far end of the ballroom, where the mayor was behind a desk draped in velvet and tassels.

The guests, who had been staring at the door to catch the couple’s entry, murmured in surprise when he appeared instead, all sprinkled with dust and wrapped in cobwebs.

“Signor Sindaco, we must pause the ceremony,” he panted to the mayor. The man’s eyes bulged. “Why don’t you take a seat and have some water?”

“I am serious, Sindaco. There might be an impediment to this marriage.”

The mayor was not an unreasonable man, but he was a stickler for protocol.

“If there is an impediment, let those who have shared it with you speak out at the appointed time during the ceremony.”

He looked away from Don Pericle and smiled at the incoming couple, making clear that he wasn’t going to let an eccentric old aristocrat waste any more of his time.

Meanwhile, the bride and groom had almost reached the desk.

The expression on the bride’s face deeply troubled Don Pericle.

She looked like a woman hoping that something – anything – would stop her wedding.

So Don Pericle took the matter into his own hands.

“I am sorry, but we have to pause the ceremony!” he declared.

The violins stopped and a stunned silence crashed into the room like an uninvited guest.

The fog that had shrouded Giulia’s face like a grey veil gave way to a hopeful, tentative smile.

It was enough to reassure Don Pericle that he was doing the right thing.

“What are you doing, Don Pericle?” the mayor protested.

Don Pericle ignored him. “This villa is haunted . . .” Some of the guests sneered, a few arched their eyebrows, while others looked nervously behind.

The bride continued to smile.

“Its supernatural resident has just visited me.”

Gasps rippled through the room and eyes lingered on the wisps of cobwebs tickling Pericle’s face.

He couldn’t have looked more convincing if he had tried.

“The ghost has informed me that today is the anniversary of his assassination, and he strongly objects to the celebration of such a joyous event as a wedding.

“If the ceremony goes ahead, he will curse the marriage.

“In view of this, I would like to speak to the bride and groom in private for a moment.”

Those who had sneered at the mention of ghosts, now sneered more; those who had arched their eyebrows now let their jaws hang; and those who had nervously looked behind now glanced at the exit.

But two people grinned from ear to hear: the bride and her mother.

****

Giulia couldn’t believe her luck.

The relief that flooded through her when Don Pericle interrupted the ceremony confirmed to her that she didn’t want this marriage.

Now there was a chance to call off the wedding.

Postponing it would give her time to talk to Riccardo, time to plan what they should tell their families and friends, and time to plan how to minimise Riccardo’s humiliation.

Hurting him was the last thing she wanted.

It had been her fear of hurting him that had allowed things to go this far.

She glanced at Riccardo. There was confusion, irritation and reluctance on his face as they followed Don Pericle and retraced their steps down the corridor.

Riccardo darted suspicious glances at the portraits on the walls, as if the pestiferous ghost might be hiding in one of them.

Don Pericle stopped outside his study.

“I don’t want you to influence each other when I ask you what you want to do, so I will ask you separately.

“The bride first. Riccardo, please, wait here.”

Riccardo’s brow knotted, but he obediently sat down on the red velvet armchair in the antechamber.

Giulia found it strange to be in the green study again.

It was here that Don Pericle had received them on that first meeting, here that they had planned every aspect of the ceremony and the party, and here that she finally had the opportunity to undo it all.

The whole messed-up affair would come full circle if she didn’t waste her chance this time.

Don Pericle closed the door behind them and looked into her eyes knowingly.

For the first time in months, Giulia felt safe to speak the truth.

“I don’t want to marry Riccardo.”

“That’s a relief, because I made up the story of the ghost.”

“Oh, thank you, Don Pericle!” Giulia laid her hands on her heart.

“You mustn’t thank me. You must thank your mother.

“She guessed that you weren’t happy, the way a mother can. You have been lucky.

“Sometimes upsetting a man is the kindest, most loving thing you can do to him.”

Giulia nodded, biting back a tear.

Don Pericle looked like he was unsure whether to hug her or not, but they didn’t really have time for that.

“Now, do you want me to tell Riccardo, or will you tell him yourself?”

It was the last thing Giulia wanted to do, but it was her duty.

“I will.”

****

Don Pericle left Giulia and Riccardo in his study to have the talk that they should have had much earlier, and returned to the ballroom.

It would be a pity to send the guests home, and all the food for the wedding lunch was ready anyway, so he announced that the wedding had been postponed, but the party reception would go ahead immediately.

He instructed the waiters to serve the aperitifs and, as soon as the alcohol got flowing, the ghost stories that went round the hall became wilder.

****

Giulia and Riccardo eventually got married, but not to each other.

Don Pericle heard about it years later and wasn’t surprised.

The reason for their break-up was generally attributed to the ghost who, apparently, had been so displeased about the wedding that he had cursed the couple, despite the cancellation.

This meant that nobody troubled Giulia or Riccardo with questions on the whys and hows of their break-up, because everyone knew that there was nothing logical about ghosts’ behaviour.

Instead, the extra questions came to Don Pericle.

From that non-wedding onwards, before setting a date for their wedding, his clients would invariably ask him to clear it first with the ghost. ■