“My primary mistake was being born an only child. My parents put all their eggs in one basket. Mother was nearly forty when I was born. She never could have any more children.”
Probably afraid to, poor woman, I thought. “Your mother must be getting up in years,” I suggested slyly.
“Nearing seventy.”
Which made Ben about thirty, one of my favourite ages for other people, particularly single men.
“Go on,” I said.
“All right, if you must know, I wrote a book—a very graphic book—modern.” He searched for a word suitable for ladies’ ears. “Robust?”
“That’s an adjective favoured by wine connoisseurs and girls with my kind of figure. Wouldn’t pornographic be more apt?”
“Not in my opinion.” His black brows came down again in that haughty manner that immediately turned those paperback heroes into swashbuckling demons. Bentley Haskell looked like a kid who couldn’t get his ball back.
“Has this masterpiece been published?”
“Don’t sneer. I’m now well into my second draft.”
“Aha! In other words you are not yet a household word. Why couldn’t you wait until the thing came out in hardcover before dumping it in your parents’ laps? What’s so admirable about that kind of honesty? Were you trying to teach two old people a new set of dirty words?”
Ben looked injured. “I thought they’d like it! Besides, I had to get Mother and Dad off my back. They kept pushing me to go to work for my uncle Solomon. He owns a restaurant near Leicester Square.”
“Sounds a fine opportunity, a nice family business.”
“Sure, at one time it was what I wanted. I trained as a chef in some of the best hotels in Europe and the United States; but then the writing bug bit me while I was working in Paris last year and I turned my creativity in another direction. Bending over a hot oven for the rest of my life no longer appeals.”
A cook? Could I never escape from food?
Sympathizing with someone who could blithely turn his back on Cordon Bleu was not in my nature. “I suppose,” I said tartly, “that working for Uncle Solomon, even part-time, would have meant compromising the integrity of your artistic aspirations. Do you live in a garret?”
Ben folded his serviette and dropped it on the table. “I’m not starving, thanks to good old Eligibility Escorts and women like you.”
“You mean ‘robust’ old maids.” I lumbered to my feet and grabbed my bag. “But you are too wishy-washy to damn well say so.”
“What foul language!” His shocked voice followed me out into the entry-way. “My mother never permitted me to mix with girls who swear.”
The man was not even mildly funny. We stepped out the pub door into biting cold, in silence more frigid than the weather. We were on the road when he remembered the hot water bottle, jerked the car round, and disappeared back into the pub.
The second half of the drive was twice as miserable as the first. Night had clamped down and even with the car’s brights piercing the swirling vapours it was impossible to see ten feet ahead. Ben was an expert driver, but I could sense he was having trouble staying out of ditches. As we drew nearer the coast, the wind striking our faces was harsh and stinging with salt. Snow was blowing off the trees, drifting into big white bolsters. Perhaps it was as well Ben and I were not talking. Aunt Sybil expected us around seven. The hour was now nearly 9:30. We drove through the town of Walled Minsterbury and kept moving northeast. “Once we reach the village of Chitterton Fells, will you be able to give me directions to your uncle’s house?” Ben’s voice broke our long silence with such a rasp that I, drowsy with cold, lurched sideways against the steering wheel, sending us into a spin.
Ben took a word out of his own book (I couldn’t blame him for being upset), elbowed me roughly aside, and with some difficulty straightened the front wheels.
“Before killing both of us—do you know the way?” If ever a girl needed to redeem herself, this was the time. But I am one of those unfortunates who under normal circumstances cannot find their way to their own front gate without a road map, and these circumstances were not normal. I couldn’t see Ben, let alone a signpost.
“You are not going to like this,” I remarked chattily, “but I haven’t been there since I was twelve.… Don’t snarl at me!” I glowered into the dark. “In weather like this, people put out a hand and never see it again.”
“Thanks a lot,” sneered the invisible man. The car did a bounce, a skid and, like a revolving door, slid very slowly into a tree, or a telegraph pole, or some other vertical obstruction that had no business standing around in the thick of drifting fog and whirling snow.
Not often, but occasionally, being heavy is a definite plus. I now did my fair share of pushing, shoving, and cajoling that car out of the ditch. My efforts earned me a reluctant word of praise from Ben. He called me a “pal.” One hour later, my feet now slabs of frozen fish, we had that empty-headed vehicle back on the road. Huffing and puffing, my companion-of-the-night and I climbed back aboard.
I was prepared for the fact that my hot water bottle had died of exposure; the shock was finding the battery was about to do the same. The engine gave one Drief bronchial cough, sputtered twice, and wheezed its last breath. My horoscope had not predicted my day would end this way. But there I was crunching down a barren country road, torn and muddy silk skirts lashing about my ankles under a coat that didn’t do the job, and clinging to the arm of a man who hours earlier had been a total stranger.
“Keep going,” Sir Galahad muttered through clenched teeth, “we are bound to reach a village or at least a house before the turn of the century.”
A tree loomed up—one of its scraggy branches reached out to claw my cheek. It was all too much. I was finished—a broken woman.
“Light ahead!” shouted Ben. He went into a wild war whoop that nearly knocked me over, but this was no time to pick an argument. To our right I saw the house emerge like a dark apparition with blinking yellow eyes. Involuntarily I turned, and Ben’s arm moved around me in the embrace of comrades who together have come through direst peril.
“Let’s go, Ellie!” He squeezed my hand and we ploughed on, arriving within minutes at a pair of drunken iron gates.
“Civilization!” he yelped.
“Better than that,” I said. “A pair of homing pigeons couldn’t have done better. This is Merlin’s Court.”
CHAPTER
Four
“One would think,” grumbled Ben, “that a house this size could afford the luxury of a doorbell.”
“Patience! Uncle Merlin’s grandfather—builder of this mediaeval fantasy—disliked the obvious.” I came squelching up behind him across the narrow moat bridge, feeling like a deep-sea diver trying to retrieve his land legs. “Somewhere to the left of you is a gargoyle. He’s the knocker.”
“This? I thought the house was sprouting fungus! What do I do? Belt him one?”
“Moron! You yank his tongue out and watch his eyes roll round.”
Ben grimaced and did as he was told. We stood huddled on the step, stamping our feet, listening to the unholy din clamouring inside the house, like a shower of falling crockery.
“Who’s out there?” queried a distrustful voice from beyond the door.
“Aunt Sybil? It’s me, Ellie!”
“You go first,” said Ben at his most gentlemanly. “Then if something dark and rubbery hits you over the head, I can run for help.”
A bolt creaked and a wedge of pale light gradually widened. “My dear! We had quite given up expecting you. Merlin went up to bed an hour ago.” Aunt Sybil peered short-sightedly out into the night. “And this must be your gentleman friend. Come in, come in, before that wind takes off the door. My gracious! You look …”
“Please”—Ben extended a hand to my bewildered great-aunt—“don’t put it into words. Ellie and I both know we look like visiting vampires.” We were now in the hall, a shadowy cavern lit by a couple of bilious, wall-mounted ga
s lamps which threw into ghastly relief a pair of moth-eaten fox heads grinning hungrily at us.
“Dear, oh dearie me.” Aunt Sybil gave me one of her slack kisses. “A hot bath for each of you would seem best, but we are having trouble with the boiler. Old Jonas, the gardener, who is supposed to see to such matters, is a little poorly at present. A nuisance, but then every cloud … we might have had him planting himself, muddy boots and all, in the drawing room, just like one of the family. Doesn’t know his place and Merlin is too soft with him. Now let’s see, do either of you need to go upstairs”—she paused delicately—“or would you prefer coming straight to the drawing room fire?”
Remembering, despite the years since I had visited, the ghastly chill of the upper regions, I voted for instant warmth.
“Good idea,” agreed Ben, removing his coat and adding it with mine to the tumbled array atop the trestle table. “I think I am beginning to mildew.”
“Merlin will be so disappointed to have missed your arrival.” Aunt Sybil went ahead of us. From the rear she looked rather like a small disapproving rhinoceros, her dark silk dress riding up over her rump in a concertina of wrinkles. Bad weather was no excuse for unpunctuality with Aunt Sybil.
When I was a child the drawing room had always reminded me of a funeral parlour. Time had not improved it. Here, as in the hall, the lighting flickered dimly, produced by one gas lamp and a scattering of candles. Dark, cumbersome furniture crowded every patch of floor space. A nicely morbid addition was the picture over the mantel—a young maiden on her deathbed, lips serenely smiling, a rose clasped in one waxen hand while the Greek chorus sobbed in the background. My relations were arranged in a semicircle before the fireplace looking for all the world like players in a Victorian melodrama. But that was the wrong way round. They were the audience—Ben and I the actors.
“Good gracious, Ellie!” snorted Aunt Astrid, as stiff-necked as her boned taffeta blouse. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Looks like a very large drowned rat,” supplied Freddy unimaginatively. He should talk. Leaning up against the mantelpiece, he could easily have been mistaken for a dirty floor mop except for the gold skull and crossbones puncturing his ear.
I decided to cut corners. “Okay!” I said, yanking Ben into the middle of the room. “So I’m soaked through and, unfortunately, I did not shrink in the wash. Now can we all say hallo nicely?”
“Must you be so belligerent, darling!” Vanessa uncoiled herself like a skein of silk from the chair closest to the fire and fixed her luminous topaz eyes on Ben, who I am ashamed to say was grinning foolishly. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your delightful friend?” she pouted. “Or am I jumping to conclusions? Even wringing wet, he doesn’t seem your usual type, Ellie dear.”
As the only man with whom Vanessa had previously seen me was a porter at Charing Cross Station, I decided to maintain a dignified silence. Let Ben introduce himself. He was quite happy to do the talking. Shaking hands all round, he agreed that the weather was shocking and then, like the pendulum of his namesake, swung back to my lovely and unprincipled cousin. Ben would have to be reminded at a very early date that chatting up the enemy was not in his contract.
My rescuer was bland, paunchy Uncle Maurice. He reached for a decanter of port and poured some into a rather grimy glass, wondering in his rather booming voice whether it had been two years or three since he had last seen me. I wasn’t paying attention. The man from E.E. was embarking on a witty account of our journey, in which I did not figure strongly. Vanessa has a sneaky habit of being a superb listener when a man is doing the talking.
The fire, like a tired old volcano, belched forth more smoke than heat. But standing as close to it as he was, Ben’s trouser legs were beginning to steam, and from the smouldering light in his eyes, so were his thoughts. Aunt Sybil murmured something a little harried about roast beef sandwiches and tea, and took off for the kitchen—not quite closing the door behind her.
“That draught”—Aunt Astrid winced—“will be the death of me.”
“Oh, come now, Auntie!” Freddy had shrunk down into a crouching position and was bouncing off the soles of his feet. “If your sciatica, lumbago, heartburn, and other assorted ailments have not finished you off yet, a little chill won’t do the trick. Didn’t Mum say something last month about your having a nasty case of piles?”
“Must you be so vulgar!” Aunt Astrid drew herself up in fury.
“Sorry, Auntie! Should have known you wouldn’t take that one sitting down,” Freddy replied cheerily, while pulling at the tufts of his beard with both hands.
“For heaven’s sake, Frederick,” snapped Uncle Maurice, “stop tweaking yourself. One would think you were moulting. And if it is not too much to ask, either stand up or sit down properly. Stop bobbing about like a jack-in-the-box! You make me feel seasick.”
Freddy did stand up but remained unrepentant. He gave me a playful poke in the middle. “Ever tried losing weight, Ellie?”
“Ever tried finding a job, Freddy?”
He looked reproachful. “Certainement! But employers are never prepared to meet my conditions—that I work from twelve to one with an hour for lunch.”
“What a great grief your son and heir must be to you, Maurice, and our poor Lulu,” interjected Aunt Astrid bitingly.
“Speaking of the fond mother,” I said, looking round, “where is Aunt Lulu?”
“Upstairs, chasing bedbugs around her room to relieve the tension. The old girl’s in a bit of a state.” Freddy rolled his eyes and thumped a resounding fist against his chest. “As you might guess, it’s all my fault. Vanessa has shown me up again, may her teeth rot! There she goes telling your boy friend all about her current success. Mother just couldn’t take it.”
“Lulu went up to bed with a migraine,” bristled Uncle Maurice. But no one paid him any attention.
“What’s the scoop, Vanessa?” My voice was supposed to portray inviting curiosity, but I am not much of an actress. Didn’t anyone want to hear that I had recently designed a Danish sunroom for Mrs. Hermione Boggsworth-Smith?
“Oh, Mummy, why did you go and tell them! You know I hate all this fuss.” The beautiful hypocrite sank down on the arm of the sofa. Lifting her lovely supple arms above her head, she ran long slim fingers through the heavy waves of chestnut hair in a gesture both tentative and beguiling.
“Liar.” Freddy cheerily spoke my thought out loud.
Aunt Astrid and (worse) Ben were both eying Vanessa with the besotted adulation properly reserved for little gold idols and fatted calves. Speaking of cattle, where were those roast beef sandwiches?
“Vanessa,” intoned Aunt Astrid reverently, “has been formally asked to model for Felini Senghini.”
“Who?” I croaked over Freddy’s guffaw.
Ben’s appalled expression informed me he considered me public embarrassment number one. “Ellie, you must be joking! Everyone has heard of Felini Senghini!”
“I never joke on an empty stomach.” My voice rose dangerously, but reminding myself that this man was supposedly my sweetheart, I put my arm possessively through his and bared my teeth in a friendly smile. “Is he the man with the olive oil complexion whose face is on the box of spaghetti?” I asked hopefully. “No, I’ve got it! He’s the opera star who brought down the house singing Figaro wearing only his moustache and a bowtie.”
Like her heroine, Queen Victoria, Aunt Astrid was not amused. Nobody made cracks about Vanessa and her career.
“I realize it must be difficult for you, Ellie, having a cousin like Vanessa,” she grated, looking above my head, “but spitefulness is never becoming.”
Freddy winked at me. “I like Ellie when she’s feisty. What is unbecoming is that frightful purple get-up. Looks like you just escaped from a harem, or did the sheikh run first?”
Aunt Astrid was talking over us. “Felini Senghini is considered by people in the know to be the couturier of this century.”
“Ellie, dear,” mewed
Vanessa, “aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
I was spared this fate worse than death by the arrival of Aunt Sybil with the supper tray. Finding a vacant spot to set it down took a little ingenuity. Ben came to the rescue, clearing a space on the buffet between two brass candlesticks and a tarnished silver bowl filled with hair clips, sugar cubes, and a knot of grey wool.
“What’s up with you?” he breathed in my ear. “I’m beginning to enjoy myself.”
“Don’t get in the habit,” I replied through clenched lips.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning—if you don’t stop cuddling up to Vanessa you can kiss your pay cheque goodbye.”
Ben had the audacity to look surprised. Before he could reply Freddy crept up behind us. “Let’s talk about you two, all the gory details—where you met, etc.”
Ben and I watched each other, momentarily united in an uneasy truce. “Where was it, Ellie?” mumbled my conspirator through a mouthful of stale sandwich. “We’ve known each other … a while, and with everything else … the details rather …”
And the man considered himself a creative genius!
“Singles club?” suggested Freddy.
I trod down hard on Ben’s foot to let him know he could safely leave the story-telling to me. His subsequent gasp might have been from relief or agony, but his eyes were a little glazed when I looked soulfully up into them. For added reassurance I gave his hand a tender squeeze, which produced a silent ouch and a flash of white teeth, hastily converted into a beaming smile for Freddy’s benefit.
“Ben really doesn’t have amnesia on the subject,” I said, “but our meeting came under rather unhappy circumstances. We met at a rally, protesting cruelty to children outside the Hallelujah Revival Chapel.”
“Met at church!” Aunt Sybil handed me a jug of lukewarm water to heat up the coffee pot. “How very nice. Such a change from all those discos and swingles places. What denomination are you, Mr. Handel?”
The Thin Woman Page 4
