Henderson Brown shot up from five foot eleven to six foot six. “Lois does not belong in this evil place. I’m going to phone the kids and get their input.”
“Not from here you’re not.” Ernestine stopped his rush to the door. “When I wanted to call Frank, I was told by that Jeffries person there isn’t a phone.”
“Damn!” Without a word of apology Mr. Brown stormed from the room. You may be too late, John Wayne, I thought. Undoubtedly you tried your best to bring your wife up to be a credit to you. But somewhere down the years you accidentally left the front door open. Was I guilty of shackling Ben’s ankle? Was our marriage destined to become a three-legged shuffle? Would the baby’s arrival improve, or make worse, the situation? These and other earth-shaking questions must wait. As Aunt Lulu is wont to say, We do not live in a vacuum cleaner.
“Poor leetle Monsieur Brown!” Solange consoled herself with a cashew.
“Poor little Mary!” Hair sticking out in tufts, two more buttons gone from her pumpkin jacket, Ernestine was halfway through Monster Mommy. “My Frank would kill me if I let Bingo get his hands on this! So what, if I don’t let him away from the stove until he’s done his practice! So what, if I tell him baseball’s for kids who don’t know their pâté de foies de volaille from their chou farci! Being a genius is an opportunity not given to most. Did Mozart’s mother let Wolfgang goof off?”
A sigh wrenched from the maternal bosom. “My Bingo, he’s never gone to school unless I’ve driven him. This poor tyke”—sound of pages frantically turned—“she’s sent God knows how many miles to stay with some nutso grand dame in the backwoods of nowhere. Listen: ‘At the tender age of nine or ten I was sent to stay with Guinevere DeVour at Tottery Towers. Her connection to my mother remains a mystery to this day. All I knew then was that Theola Faith wanted me out of the apartment because she had an orgy planned for over fifty people and was beside herself deciding what not to wear.’ ”
“Très witty!” Solange moved toward the velvet curtains. “Permit that I open a window. I am all over stuffy.” Her rouge did stand out on her cheeks like pox marks and I too was wilting. Kicking off my shoes, I eased my swollen feet onto the brocade-covered sofa.
“Read on, Ernestine.”
“ ‘Begita, the maid, wept and pled for me. She swore to keep me out of the way in a cupboard, but Theola would have none of it. She was terrified I would catch the eye of some Hollywood hotshot. She was phobic on the possibility that I might be offered the part of Little Lucy Lamplight in her current film, While the Mouse is Away. I was shoved onto a bus late at night, Guinevere DeVour’s address clenched in my timid hand, and told not to return under two weeks—unless I wished my parakeet to sleep on a bed of wild rice. Theola threatened me with other terrors, if I talked to anyone on the bus, even to ask directions.
“ ‘Twenty-four hours later I was a frightened child on the steps of Tottery Towers. No answer to my frantic knocking! Was I totally abandoned? In desperation I tried the door, discovered it unlocked and found myself in a nightmarish hall. What I took for unwashed curtains were giant cobwebs. Animal heads grinned a welcome from the walls. I was fighting down panic when Guinevere DeVour materialized on the stairs, wearing a shroud nightgown and emitting a piercing scream.’ ”
“Mon Dieu!” Solange sank down on the window seat. “You make me hear that pig squeal.”
Ernestine let Monster Mommy fall in her lap. “Frank always does say I read well.”
“I think that was a real scream,” I interrupted. “Coming from upstairs.”
“Zee tragic Monsieur Brown. We are criminals to let him go off alone, up to his nose with worry. He may have leapfrogged out zee window. No, ma chérie,” Solange pressed me back down. “You stay. Madame Hoffman and I go see.”
And poof! There I was alone in that devilish red room. Surely nothing too dreadful had happened or there would have been a scurry of congregating feet out in the hall. Even were the Mangé candidates and their luscious leader out of earshot, Pepys and Jeffries would not fail to pounce on any unorthodoxy. Perhaps Mr. Brown had stepped on a mouse.
Crossing to the drinks table, I poured myself a gargle of red wine, brought it to my lips, then came to my senses. I had not touched a drop of anything stronger than tea since the baby. And I would not let this house turn me into a health hazard.
A bell rope hung on the wall to my left; I gave it an authoritative yank. Minutes passed. The cuckoo shot out of the clock and counted to eleven; the tiny door clapped shut. I myself was ready for darkness and shut-eye.
“You rang.” Jeffries bundled into the room, frilly cap down on her eyebrows, nose down on her chin. Best not to mention the scream in case she took it as criticism of her housekeeping.
“Hello!” I gushed.
“What you want?”
“Only a glass of water, but if it’s any trouble …”
“Might be and might not. My psychiatrist tells me not to make hasty decisions. Which tells you why Pepys is still alive. That man’s three-quarters crazy and one-fourth mad. He hates that woman.”
A man who did not fall under the spell of Valicia X was a man after my own heart.
“Last night he hid an escargot in her bed.”
“Good for him!” Warming as we were toward civility, I decided to stick out my nose. “Jeffries, does Theola Faith come often to Mendenhall?”
Her face squeezed shut. I had crossed the line drawn by her psychiatrist. “I’ll go think about that glass of water.”
Alone again, I suffocated in the room’s silence. The mahogany, the red flock wallpaper and the bobbled velour were oppressive. I don’t like rooms that play games and this one was still pretending to be a movie set. Sinking down on the only comfortable looking chair, I immediately felt trapped in a quicksand of cushions. Worse, my back was to the door.
Time fell away like a stripper’s clothes. I was Child Ellie again on that first fateful visit to Merlin’s Court. Aunt Sybil had left me alone with instructions to sit and not move a muscle, an easy enough task, until I heard the drawing room door pounce open behind me. My stout legs had begun thrashing in a vain attempt at reaching the floor, as the rest of me sank deeper, deeper into the bottomless pit where the springs should have been.
Back in the here-and-now I reclaimed my courage with the silent admonition that I was frightening the baby.
“Ahoy there!” Rasping whisper.
The door hadn’t opened. My ears being all atwang, I would have heard.
“Anyone there, m’hearties?”
I stopped breathing. The voice came from the window—which the comtesse had left in open invitation to the arm and knee now putting in an appearance.
“First bloomin’ bit of luck all day.”
Relief poured over me. Whoever this was, it wasn’t the enemy. That voice was British.
By the time I had fought my way to my feet, a stout, white-haired woman with a St. Bernard dog face, wearing a flower seller hat and—of all improbabilities—my dressing gown, was sitting on the window seat.
“Foiled!” Face sagging, she lumbered over to the sofa. “Knew I was crackers to hope, but that’s the way Marjorie Rumpson was reared. Neither a bawler nor a loser be. Entering the house unnoticed was asking for miracles. Ah, woe! The world won’t be the poorer if I don’t get to be a Mangé.”
“You’re a candidate?” Coming up close to her I caught the unmistakable whiff of eau de river.
The black hat nodded; a tear coursed down Marjorie Rumpson’s cheek.
“So is my husband. Did you make a mistake about the time?”
“Never! The day, the hour are tattooed on my heart. But this morning my dear old mum took one of her queer turns and I couldn’t bring myself to leave her until the doctor came and said it was just a matter of prune juice. The old sly puss had been pouring it into the plant pot beside her bed.”
“Your mother must be getting up there.”
“Ninety-seven.”
“Remarkable. No wonder
you seem so fit.”
“Couldn’t have reached here otherwise, my love. Borrowed a friend’s plane to fly down from Canada (lived there, have Mum and me for the last thirty years), landed at Chicago, hitchhiked from there—ever such a nice motorcycle chappie. Then when I got to Mud Creek—”
“You found a boat to bring you over?” I found I was sitting beside her, holding her hand.
“Wasted an hour knocking on doors, before taking the only course open to me. Stripped down, put some undies and a cotton frock in a plastic Baggie; stowed my luggage under a tree, and paddled out to the deep water.”
“You mean you swam out here?”
“Nothing to it.”
“Naked?”
“No, m’hearty—not in the rude! Wouldn’t want to put the fishies off their supper. Wore m’all-in-one girdie, Baggie tied to brassiere strap.”
I squeezed her hand. “You might have drowned or …” I almost said “worse,” “been spotted by the Coast Guard.”
“Midchannel caught sight of an official-looking boat, so took the precaution of swimming a stretch under water. Afraid I’m not in shape I was when practicing crossing the English Chan with my cousin George. Have lived near water all my life. Bournemouth when we were in England.”
“Thank God you made it across.” I perked up the flattened ribbon on her hat while not looking at my velour dressing gown, which she filled out so nicely.
“No scare there! One calamity only—lost the Baggie en route. You can guess I was tickled pink to come aboard that boat house and its suitcases of old clothes. Salvation Army’s loss is my gain. None of the frocks or shirts made it half way around me, but this”—she smoothed velour over her queen-size knees—“does beat arriving like Neptune roused from the deep in my all in one.”
“Absolutely!” Choking cough. “And those rubber thongs do complete the ensemble. May I ask why you entered by the window?”
Marjorie’s St. Bernard cheeks quivered. “Bloomin’ stupid, I know! But thought if I could get into the house unobserved I might be able to weasel out of being late. Never flattered myself I was the one and only candidate. So got this notion in my silly old noggin of a welcoming cocktail bash under way. Everyone in too much of a duster to count heads. A little bit o’ luck and I’d slip into the house unnoticed and pretend to have been present all along. Too bashful to put meself forward.” Pulling a tissue from the box I had placed on the arm of the sofa, she blew. “There isn’t a party, is there?”
This was worse than telling a child there isn’t a Father Christmas. Over the lump in my throat I explained about the meeting in progress, in some undisclosed room, under the direction of one Valicia X. Impossible to hold back that the number of candidates was insufficient to justify any hope of confusion. My turn to reach for a tissue.
“Sorry! I am a little emotional these days.” For emphasis I jolted off the sofa when the door opened. I had forgotten Jeffries and my request for water. But, as it perchanced this was the return of the wanderers. Ernestine Hoffman and the Comtesse Solange had been gone so long I should perhaps have reintroduced myself, but settled instead for doing the honours for my new friend.
“This is Ms.…”
“Miss Marjorie Rumpson.” Squaring her jaw, straightening her hat, she stood up.
“Another candidate?” Ernestine did not look thrilled.
“Forgive us not being here to greet you,” Solange extended a bejeweled hand, “mais Madame Hoffman and I had went in search of the screamer.”
Miss Rumpson looked confused.
“We find nothing disordinary and were making the return when we became separated.”
“I went to the bathroom and got locked in!” Ernestine’s heightened colour clashed horribly with her pumpkin outfit and I, remembering the terror of the plane, assured her I suffered from the same syndrome.
The comtesse’s streamlined courtliness showed to great advantage alongside Miss Rumpson’s unorthodox attire. “Mes amis, I have my intuition about scream. I theenk Monsieur Grogg and Mademoiselle Divonne make the grand amour so they forget this foolishness of the baking powder!”
Miss Rumpson looked even more confused so I hastened to explain her plight to the others. The results were mixed. Ernestine did not exactly bubble over with sympathy. What a pity, she said, but the lady would appear to have missed the boat on all counts. Solange, however, began circling Miss Rumpson, flouncing the bodice of the dressing gown out above the cord, assigning the collar a twitch and administering a pat on the shoulder.
“I say this bonne femme who brave the river should lie her way into zee house and out of zee problem. Thees is the story she tells: She arrives on time—goes knock-knock on the door, but no one comes. She lets herself in—heart making boom-boom and make ready for to say ‘Here I am!’ Where is everyone? She finds the convenience, decides to jollie herself up and is locked in.”
Miss Rumpson trembled from head to thongs with emotion.
“Sounds sufficiently unreasonable to work,” I enthused.
Ernestine picked Monster Mommy off the floor where it must have fallen from the sofa and set it on a table. “Believe me, I don’t like coming across as hardhearted Hannah, but I surely have a responsibility to think of my Bingo first. A mother’s first task is to fan the flame of her offspring’s genius. With Mr. Grogg and now Miss Rumpson out of the running, his chances of being selected look better all the time.”
“Will you squeal to Jeffries or Pepys?” I asked.
“Shush! I hear the pitpat of foots.” Solange gathered us into a huddle.
“Quick! Hide Marge behind the curtains!” Ernestine looked as surprised as the rest of us that she had thrown in her lot with the conspirators.
It was Jeffries who entered with my glass of water. Did something about the hang of the red velvet curtains arouse her suspicions? Would she be as slow taking her leave as she had been putting in an appearance? She stood, hands on her hips, until it dawned on me she was waiting for me to drink my water. Taking a sip, I half expected my throat to swell closed, my eyes to pop out of their sockets as the poison took me.
“Excellent!” I managed.
“Natural carbonation. Comes from a well in town. We have our supply delivered mornings.”
“May I have a glass?” asked trooper Ernestine.
Mission accomplished. As soon as Jeffries scowled her way from the room, Miss Rumpson came out of hiding; we hastened to explain that it would have been folly to trust her fate to one who had helped bring down another candidate.
“So you think, m’hearties, the wisest course is for me to throw myself directly on the mercy of this Valicia X?”
Fighting off the shudder that name evoked, I nodded. “As long as you remember your lies—lines.”
Amazing what French chic Solange had tweaked out of my dressing gown. How well Ernestine’s pumpkin jacket worked in bringing out the bloom in Miss Rumpson’s cheeks.
“Flushed with bloomin’ terror!”
“Nonsense,” I said. Finding the secret room without the help of Pepys or Jeffries would not be a piece of cake, but I sometimes have a sixth sense where houses are concerned. It was therefore agreed that I sally forth with Miss Rumpson while the other two held the fort.
Onward and outward into the hall.
“What a handsome painting!” Marjorie dallied before the portrait of the old dame, peering out sans mercy through layers of dark varnish to give the finger to posterity.
“You wouldn’t want to meet her on a dark staircase.” Propelling my new friend forward, I crossed the shadowy floor as though this were Leicester Square at rush hour and any moment we would get clobbered by a bus driven by Pepys. Was the secret meeting room somewhere in the great beyond above that rollercoaster sweep of staircase? My head said maybe, but my legs—having begun to appreciate the lateness of the hour—voted to check this floor first. Several darkened corridors elbowed off the hall. Any one of them might provide the privacy demanded by the Mangé Manifesto. The trick
would be not landing in the kitchen. And the soup.
Pinned beside a door was a bulletin board containing a schedule of meals and a listing of rooms to be occupied by the candidates and Insignificant Others—to quote the vampiric Divonne. Should I turn the knob, open this door? If so, then what? In the first flush of heroics I hadn’t faced up to this moment. What if I not only brought rejection on Miss Rumpson, but ignomy on Ben? Would he be held accountable for my violation of the sacred Mangé codes? Then again, could I tell the woman who had been prepared to sacrifice all for her aged mother that we had come on a wild goose chase? Life, I decided sadly, is strewn with ifs, ands, and buts. Ben would simply have to say, Am I my wife’s keeper?
An empty dining room came groggily to life in the light from the hall when I opened that door. Did America go in for king-sized tables as well as beds? This oak slab was ideal for your average estranged family. A town crier’s horn would be needed to request the salt. Those weren’t chairs, they were thrones, and the iron chandelier sounded a gallows creak in addition to casting dismembered shadows on the wall. Out of the gloom, six huge knives gleamed menacingly in their place of honor on the wall. Surely that couldn’t be dried blood which limned the razor-sharp edge of the largest one? I could have lingered soaking up the charm of the swashbuckler knives, but Marjorie Rumpson was taking panting breaths and her brown eyes reminded me more than ever of a St. Bernard.
We headed up one corridor and down the next, opening up one fruitless door after another. At one point I thought I heard a third pair of footsteps, but the mind plays tricks. I’m sure, too, that the scent of fried banana was only a product of my imagination.
I was about to suggest to Marjorie that we proceed to the upper floor, when I noticed a door cut into the paneling of the staircase wall. Easy to miss because there wasn’t a knob, only a finger groove.
“Lead on, Macduff.” Miss Rumpson was panting in my ear as I slid back the panel and fumbled for a light switch. “Don’t bust your stays, all is not lost!” She crossed the hall, surprisingly light on her feet, the gaslight and her flower seller hat making of her a music hall figure. She had spotted Pepys’ candle left on the marble topped table. She returned with it lit and a packet of matches.
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