Confronting Kathleen Ambleforth, or Mrs. Vicar, as she liked to be called, for the second time in one day, I was struck anew by the fact that she was a woman who had undoubtedly taken life by the throat from the moment she emerged from the womb. Her boundless energy made the average person look in need of an immediate blood transfusion. Upon her arrival in Chitterton Fells, she had unloaded the moving van while two strong men in cloth caps sat drinking the cups of tea she provided for them. Within an hour she had the furniture in place, the pictures hung, and the ornaments arranged to her satisfaction. Whereupon she settled her husband in his study, made a batch of cheese scones, and went back outside to dig up most of the garden.
I’d heard all this from Mrs. Malloy when she was sitting in my kitchen trying to get the point across that coming to clean for me three mornings a week would be a lot more fun if I would only get everything shipshape before her arrival. She had become an even greater admirer of Mrs. Ambleforth after auditioning for a role in Murder Most Fowl and being given a walk-on part, along with the opportunity to understudy the lead. Her only criticism being that Mrs. Vicar had no fashion sense. This said while Mrs. M. was wearing purple velvet that allowed for more cleavage than the San Andreas Fault. Tonight Kathleen was wearing a tweed coat with inches of pink nightie showing below the hem, a curler above each ear, and a pair of brogues on her bare feet. As usual, she exuded the desire to get life sorted back to her satisfaction.
“I’m sorry to knock you up at this hour.” She closed the front door for me and looked around as if searching out pictures that needed straightening. “But the thing is, Ellie, Dunstan has got himself misplaced again. I left him in his study while I went into the kitchen to whip up half a dozen sponge cakes for the Women’s Institute tea, and when I got back, he was gone. At first I didn’t worry because he often goes off on a walk to sort out St. Ethelwort in his head. But when he didn’t come back after a couple of hours, I said to Ruth, ‘If I know your uncle Dunstie, he’s gone wandering into the wrong house. And the one closest to us is Merlin’s Court.’ “
“He’s in the sitting room,” I said.
“Silly old dear!” Mrs. Ambleforth shook her head fondly. “The neighbors at our former parish got quite used to his little visits. They even used to leave the cocoa tin out for him.”
“I’m afraid he had to look in the pantry tonight.”
“That must have been a blow! Dunstan isn’t used to fending for himself. Not with me and Ruth to look after him. Such a wonderful girl. She does all her uncle’s typing for him—his sermons as well as the manuscripts. Her living with us suits all of us for now. And it’s not as though she never gets to meet any eligible men. There’s Freddy, for instance. As I may have mentioned this afternoon, he’s really quite outstanding in the play. Of course, I do think it’s one of the best I’ve written. And we are very lucky to have Lady Grizwolde in the lead. You know she was on the stage before her marriage?”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“Dunstan wasn’t the only lucky one”—Mrs. Ambleforth had found a picture to straighten— “in coming to live here, I mean. I expect you realize that the reason he was so keen on the move is because it puts him right on the spot with St. Ethelwort.” Turning in time to catch my perplexed expression, she continued: “The ruins of the monastery he founded in 1014 stand on the grounds of the Grizwolde ancestral home. You’ll have to excuse me, my dear. The trouble with living with Dunstan is one expects everyone to know these things.”
Watching her move on to reposition the vase of flowers on the trestle table, I tried not to sound defensive. “I knew about the ruins, but I tend to think of all monks as Benedictines.”
“Just don’t ever say that to Dunstan or he might come out of one of his trances to murder you.” Mrs. Ambleforth gave another of her fond chuckles and, taking my arm, led me toward the drawing room, where her spouse sat in apparent oblivion with his cup of cocoa on his knee. “Dear old thing!” She stood in the doorway, looking at him fondly. “He really is just a little potty on the subject of his eleventh-century hero. The saint only a man could love is what I call him. But that’s husbands for you! They all have their little quirks, don’t they?”
Before I could answer, my father came downstairs. He wore a blue-and-white striped nightshirt and, with arms outstretched, glided right up to this seemingly imperturbable woman. Glassy-eyed and larger than life, he extolled her in a voice that should have been accompanied by the clanking of chains: “Cast off death’s embrace and return to my empty arms, oh, most exquisite of passion flowers!” It was a bright spot of the evening that, unmindful of the cocoa, Mrs. Ambleforth, fearful of being ravaged by a madman, charged into the room and sat down on her husband’s venerable knee.
Chapter 9
I was standing at the latticed window of a house by the sea on a breezy October morning, watching a dark-haired man descending the steps into the courtyard. He was my every dream come true: handsome, witty, charming, and best of all, endearingly in love with ordinary, everyday me. There was only one problem. He should have been loading cases into the car for a trip to France. Instead, he was about to drive Daddy’s Rent-A-Wreck into the stable before the man who delivered fish on Tuesdays could plow into it.
“You’re a selfish, spiteful cow; that’s what you are!” The female voice spoke from behind me, enunciating every syllable with brutal relish. “It’s not love he feels for you but pity! After all, it can’t be said you’re either use or ornament in this house. Only because he’s a gentleman born and bred did he agree to take you away to foreign parts in the first place.”
My hand gripped the curtain as the voice flowed over me, softening just a little, making it even more unpleasant. And for some reason reminding me of the Gypsy. “When he comes through that door, I expect you to tell him you have remembered where your duty lies. Wish him happiness with a woman better suited to a man of his virile good looks and speed him on his way.”
For another couple of seconds I remained too stunned to move, but when I mustered the wherewithal to turn around, I saw Mrs. Roxie Malloy planted on one of the drawing-room sofas. Her dyed black head, showing two inches of white roots, was bent over the sheaf of papers she was holding.
“I trust you understand me, Clarabelle!” she proclaimed. The sweep of her arm made the table lamp quiver.
Clarabelle! I had long ago shortened my name to Ellie. But as my father had unfortunately remembered, the full version was Giselle. Something Mrs. Malloy knew. Indeed, there was very little she didn’t know about me, having been my household helper from the time she arrived to serve canapés on my wedding day and agreed to stay on in the hope of adding a little tone to the establishment. It was understood between us that she ruled the roost at Merlin’s Court. But even if she hadn’t called me by the wrong name, I would have realized something was seriously amiss. It was only eight-thirty, and she never arrived before nine unless she had occasion to report a death. Preferably a murder.
“Mrs. Malloy!” I bent to touch her arm.
“Get away from me, you miserable upstart!” Tossing down the papers so that half of them fell on the floor, she sprang to her feet. A risky maneuver given the fact that she wore extremely high heels and had an hourglass figure with more sand in the top than the bottom. “Fetch me a cup of tea this instant! And remember, I don’t take milk, sugar, or arsenic!”
I was wondering whether to ring for the doctor or look in the yellow pages to see if there were any exorcists listed when Mrs. Malloy blinked her purple-shadowed lids. As if coming out of a trance induced from drinking something stronger than tea, she brought my face into focus.
“Oh, it’s you, Mrs. H. Almost gave me a heart attack, you did, creeping up on me like that. If this was America, I’d probably sue you for everything you’ve got.” She shook her head and pursed her magenta lips. “Who’d have thought you’d be back from Gay Paree already!”
“I haven’t been.”
“Are you sure?” Dropping back down
on the sofa, she pressed a hand to her black-taffeta bosom. She always dressed as if going out for a night on the town. If rhinestones were diamonds, she would have had to put herself in a safety-deposit box. “Well, I suppose I’ve got to take your word for it, although I could swear on a stack of Bibles that you told me you was leaving today at the crack of dawn. The last time I was here, you said good-bye at least three times. I can’t think what could have happened, short of an earthquake, to keep you from setting off on your holiday the minute you got up.” She suddenly turned her head sideways as a rumble sounded from above and the pictures on the walls shifted to cockeyed angles.
“That’ll be my father,” I told her, “coming downstairs.”
“Your what?” Mrs. Malloy sounded as though I had made a purchase without discussing it with her first.
“He arrived last night out of the blue.”
“So that’s why you haven’t bunked off to France.” She sat thinking the matter over. “What’s he look like? One of those rugged, be-damned-to-you-woman types?”
“You’ve been reading too many romance novels,” I chided.
“No, I haven’t. Leastways not for a week or two.” She gathered up a few sheets of the scattered papers. “But I know what you’re thinking, Mrs. H. Me and your dad probably wouldn’t suit. He’s bound to be years too old for me. And I’m not the sort to enjoy pushing a man around in a bath chair the way Lady Grizwolde is stuck doing with Sir Casper. Not even to live in a bloody great mansion, I wouldn’t. And besides”—her expression turned frosty— “it didn’t do my son George much good marrying into your family. What does he find out but that Vanessa has done the dirty on him and little Rose isn’t his! And I’m sent bringing her down here in my weekend bag. It’s a wonder I didn’t turn to the gin bottle.” This was spoken as if she had never touched a drop in her life except under doctor’s orders.
“It was all terribly hard on you.” I knelt to pick up the rest of the papers and hand them to her. “But you won’t have to worry about Daddy making a nuisance of himself. Ben and I will be here to keep an eye on him because we aren’t going to France. Also, he’s involved with somebody else.”
Mrs. Molloy bridled. “There’s not a woman alive, Mrs. H., that I couldn’t knock out of the running if I was to set me mind to it.”
I didn’t tell her that in this case the other woman was dead. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice me when you came in here,” I said, settling myself on the sofa across from the one on which she was seated.
“I was reading, Mrs. H., and had the pages up to me nose.”
“You certainly startled me with the things you said! You were very good. Really a powerful performance.”
Her attempt at appearing nonchalant failed because she was blushing through three layers of makeup. “Well, there’s no denying I always wanted to be on the stage. My old ma used to say I was another little Shirley Temple.” Reaching out a heavily ringed hand, she made a production of rearranging the papers on her fishnet knees.
“And here you are about to take Chitterton Fells by storm,” I said enthusiastically, although I had been under the impression that hers was only a walk-on part. Little more than a black hat and a veil in the funeral scene. Although I was sure she could pack a lot of pathos into standing with a hanky in her hand, it was unlikely that this scene would bring down the house.
“There’s a lot to keep straight when you’re understudying for the role of Malicia Stillwaters. It’s the role of a lifetime, Mrs. H.! Can’t you just picture me on opening night? There I’ll be standing in the wings, two minutes before the curtain is due to go up, when someone throws Malicia’s costume over me head and shoves me onstage.” Mrs. Malloy was being sucked back into her trance. “It’ll turn out that Lady Grizwolde didn’t show up. Poor thing! Her car will have run out of petrol miles from anywhere, just like always happens in the movies.”
“Really?” I evinced appropriate surprise. Tobias had leaped out of nowhere onto my lap, embedding his claws in my thighs. Now he settled down to give Mrs. M. the evil eye. They had never been terribly keen on each other, each always being wishful of having the upper paw. “Her ladyship could then break her ankle slogging across the marshes in search of a telephone,” I suggested, entering fully into the fantasy. “That way you would get to take over for all three performances. Of course, I’m sure that in reality she has a car phone, but you can’t let details ruin the big picture.”
“Whatever happens happens.” Mrs. Malloy assumed a philosophical mien. “At least you and Mr. H. will be here to see the play, unless you change your minds about going to France, that is.” This was punctuated by a deprecating snort. “Pretty rotten I thought it was your bunking off when—leaving me right out of it—Freddy should have been able to count on your claps.”
“The trip was already planned by the time he told us that he’d auditioned and got a part. And we did offer to go a week later, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said that having Ben and me there could be a drawback because we’d be bound to jump up and down in our seats, obscuring the view of the talent scout lurking in the back.”
Mrs. Malloy looked as though this possibility had not previously occurred to her, while I hoped that the crowd that poured into the church hall wouldn’t be expecting Andrew Lloyd Weber. Unfortunately, there was no banishing the image of the three Miss Richards who routinely terrorized children’s piano recitals. Or that of Mr. Briggs, who wrote a review column of local events for the weekly newspaper.
“People enjoy a lighthearted comedy,” I said hopefully.
“A what?” Mrs. Malloy’s painted brows shot up. “Wherever did you get the idea that Murder Most Fowl is a barrel of laughs’? It’s a tragedy right up there with Hamlet. Only in English and without the men hopping around in tights. Hasn’t Freddy filled you in on the plot?”
“Just his part.”
“Men!” She looked at Tobias, who understandably took the huff and stalked off to the other end of the room. “As if I don’t have enough to do, Mrs. H., it’s left all up to me to fill you in from beginning to end. And this is a three-act play we’re talking about. Well, there goes the hoovering for this morning!” Her sigh sounded as though she had worked on it for weeks. “The curtain goes up on Malicia Stillwaters sitting at a little green desk, writing a blackmail letter to Major Wagewar.”
“How does the audience know that’s what she’s doing?”
“It’s that big word for talking out loud that Hamlet invented.”
“A soliloquy.”
“Always have to show off, don’t you, Mrs. H.?” Mrs. Malloy looked more pitying than condemning. “Malicia has just moved to the small seaside village of Chatterton Dells, and she’s gone and upset all the neighbors by turning the grounds of the ancestral home into a chicken farm. Not that she gives a bloody hoot. She’s always got what she’s wanted by fair means or foul. The Malicias of this world always do. And she really has the major by the regimentals because she knows that Reginald Rakehell, that’s played by Freddy, is his son from the wrong side of the blanket. But then she falls head over heels for Reg and tries to break up his marriage to Clarabelle. When the major turns the tables on her blackmailing scheme, she has to murder him. Only he’s left a letter telling what she’s been up to in a jar he’s brought back from India. In the final scene, Clarabelle shows up waving a gun, meaning to shoot Reg, but she aims all wild like and hits the jar. It breaks all over the mantelpiece. And Detective Inspector Allbright arrives just as Clarabelle turns the gun on herself. In the final scene, Reg is sobbing over her lifeless body, with the major’s letter in his hand.”
“A man who dumps his wife for a villainess deserves to suffer.” Such was my unsentimental view of things.
Mrs. Malloy sat drained of all emotion. “The audience will know when the curtain comes down that Reg is going to put on the old stiff upper lip and go outside and shoot himself. All very British. Mustn’t let the old school down and all that.”
“What happens
to Malicia?”
“She goes to jump out the window, but the vicar stops her and tells her that when she comes out of prison, she can come and work for him and do the typing for a book he’s writing on the life of St. Cuthbert.”
“Mrs. Ambleforth appears to have drawn rather largely from life in writing this play.”
“All great art is partly autobiographical,” Mrs. Malloy pronounced with the authority of a six-former who has just received an acceptance from Cambridge.
I turned the conversation back to my father. “Just now I said that Daddy was involved with someone,” I began, “but what I didn’t tell you is that he has brought her to Merlin’s Court.”
“Well”—Mrs. Malloy bristled as she got to her feet— “I hope she won’t go putting on airs and expecting to be waited on.”
“She’s not that sort of woman.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“This one’s not saying anything.”
“Lost her voice?” Mrs. Malloy tried not to sound interested. “Or is she in a snit?”
“Neither. She’s dead.”
“And she’s here in this house? Well!” With a deep intake of breath, she pronounced, “If there’s one thing you should know by now, Mrs. H., it’s that I don’t work with bodies cluttering up the place. For starters it’s not allowed by the C.F.C.W.A. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association.”
“Harriet isn’t laid out on Daddy’s bed. Her ashes are in an urn that looks like quite an ordinary clay pot, and although I don’t think he’ll let it out of his sight for long, I thought you ought to be forewarned.”
The Trouble with Harriet Page 8
