The Wrong Rite

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Which shows his good taste, in my opinion. I expect I could work up a fairly healthy scunner to that pair myself, if I had to be around them long. How long are they planning to stay, do you know?”

  “Just through tomorrow night, I hope. Mother said something at dinner about their having an urgent appointment to haunt a house. I think she was being facetious, but I’m not quite sure. Well, well, look who’s coming. What’s the matter, Dafydd, did Aunt Elen throw you out for singing bawdy ballads? Where’s Tom?”

  “Peering interestedly down the front of Iseult’s blouse, the last I saw of him,” the elder brother replied. “Where did you park the kid?”

  “She’s taking a nap. Tad and Uncle Caradoc are baby-sitting.”

  “Chacun à son goût. Where are you off to?”

  “We thought we might pop in and say hello to Lisa, if she’s not too busy baking brown and white cakes.”

  “Why brown and white?”

  “That’s Bob’s latest crotchet. He was nagging Betty to bake a batch for some extra bit of hocus-pocus he wanted to tack on tomorrow night at the bonfire. She wasn’t interested.”

  “I’m sure Lisa wouldn’t be, either. Bob does tend to make one feel there’s something to be said for human sacrifice, don’t you think? Jenny, if you were delegated to hurl somebody into the fire tomorrow night, which would you pick: Bob or Mary?”

  “Well, I shouldn’t pick Bob because he has a nice singing voice even if he is a bore. And there’d be no point in my picking Mary because, from the way she’s been talking, she’d already be in it. Besides, it’s not polite to shove people into bonfires.”

  “Really? I hadn’t thought to consider that aspect of the question. But then I’m a rude fellow, as you must have noticed. Not a bit like my brother.”

  “That’s all right, Dafydd. I’m not much like my brother, either. How long are you here for?”

  “Is that Canadian for ‘How long do you intend to stay’?”

  “Yes, we don’t like to waste words. We save our breath to call the polar bears.”

  “And what do you do with the polar bears once you’ve got them?”

  “Nothing, they never come. We just like to exercise those old Celtic yearnings for the unattainable that I’ll bet somebody around here’s just finished writing a poem about.”

  “Ah, you’ve been reading romantic novels about Welsh poets.”

  Actually Janet’s tastes in reading tended to be on the scholarly side, but she wasn’t about to belabor the issue. “Well, I can’t read the poems themselves because they’re all in Welsh, and Madoc won’t translate for me because it makes him feel silly. Is anybody writing a poem for Uncle Caradoc’s birthday, I wonder?”

  Dafydd laughed. “Is anybody not would be the more pertinent question, and you’re going to be sorry you asked. Prepare yourself for at least two solid hours of bardry tomorrow afternoon, Jenny darling. What do Canadians yearn for, by the way?”

  “Blubber and tallow candles. You ought to know that, you’ve been to Canada often enough. What does Reuel Williams write?”

  “Scripts for the sort of movie Iseult plays in. Which is a dreadful thing to say about anybody, but there it is. I can’t think why she dragged him along, unless he’s planning to use us all as characters in his next horror story. Hello, Tib. Looking for me?”

  Chapter 7

  “MOTHER SENT ME TO find you. She’s steaming because you left that great monster of Uncle Tom’s parked behind her bug. She can’t get out to go to the shops and they’re desperate for flour in the kitchen.”

  “Oh God! I gave the keys back to Tom, and he’s gone wondering off somewhere with Iseult.”

  “Then you’d better find him, unless you want to find snakes in your bed tonight.”

  The pretty teenager was enjoying herself, this must be Tib’s revenge for Dafydd’s refusal to ride with her this morning. Poor Dafydd, Janet thought, he was getting it both barrels this trip. An idol was not without worshipers save among his own relatives. Too bad for him.

  “Madoc,” she said out of pity, “can’t you jump-start the Daimler and move it out of the way?”

  “Not I, love. I’m not messing around with anything that pricey. Come on, Tib, let’s saddle up the horses and gallop into town western-style. I’ll be the hitching post while you buy the flour.”

  “Super! Come on, then.”

  Tib raced off without a backward glance. Dafydd’s scowl would have looked just right on Baron Scarpia, hardly a role for a tenor.

  “I suppose I’ll have to go fetch those blasted keys or I’ll never hear the end of it. Want to come with me, Jenny?”

  “Thanks, but I’m beginning to feel I’ve done enough walking for today. Good hunting, Dafydd. They probably haven’t gone far, Iseult’s wearing high-heeled sandals. I’ll see you in a while, then.”

  Her brother-in-law didn’t bother to say good-bye, just turned around and started back the way he’d come. Left alone, Janet took time for a good look at Lisa’s house. This was exactly the sort of place one might expect a writer who had a tortoise as her heroine to live in: low and wandering; part stone, part half-timbered; with little diamond-shaped windowed bays jutting out in odd places. She was wondering which of the many doors to knock at when Lisa herself dashed out of the one at the farthest end.

  “Dafydd! Dafydd! Oh, that beastly man! What’s he running off for? Didn’t Tib tell him to move the car? Jenny, how nice of you to come. Isn’t Madoc with you?”

  Janet explained, Lisa chuckled.

  “Trust Madoc! And never, never trust Dafydd. He has a positive gift for turning the simplest errand into a full-scale flap. The operatic temperament, I suppose. Come and meet the tortoises.”

  “Please don’t feel you have to play hostess, Lisa. We just came to see if we could help with the cooking.”

  “You can’t. I’ve three ladies from the Women’s Institute in there chopping leeks for the pies. We can’t start making the paste till Madoc gallops back with the flour, bless his ears and whiskers.”

  They were around behind the house now, in what Janet supposed must be the kitchen garden. “Insouciant” would be as good a description of its layout as any, she decided. The focal point was a somewhat helter-skelter ring of stones, in the midst of which were a few growing plants, a weathered structure that resembled a miniature doghouse or else a large birdhouse, and five lumps of brown shell.

  “Here we are,” said Lisa. “That’s Tessie under the geranium. The big chap’s her boyfriend, Jonathan, the three little ones are Bip, Bop, and Boo. They don’t do much; but they’re rather sweet, don’t you think?”

  “We have snapping turtles in the pond back home on my brother’s farm, but these are much prettier.” Janet didn’t feel at all disloyal in saying so, no snapping turtle would ever be hanged for its beauty. “Is a turtle a kind of tortoise, or is it the other way around?”

  “No, you got it right the first time. Yours would be freshwater turtles, I assume; these are land tortoises. I don’t know whether you have any in Canada.”

  “Come to think of it, neither do I. I’ll have to check them out when I get home. Oh look, Bip’s putting his head out. Or is that Boo?”

  “Actually I think it’s Bop. I mix them up myself if I don’t have my specs on. Here, ducky, have a nibble of lettuce. All right then, don’t. Little wretch! Why is it animals and children will never perform when one wants them to?”

  “General cussedness, I expect. I understand you write books about a tortoise.”

  “Write, illustrate, and peddle from door to door if my American publisher has his way. He’s yammering for me to go over and do something he calls a tour, but I’m not going. My tortoises need me. Don’t you, loves? Well, anyway, I like to think they do. Besides, I’m scared green of flying. I sit there with my hands riveted to the armrests, holding up the plane the whole way. I suppose you’re brave as anything.”

  “Not really, but it’s not the flying that bothers me. I’m too busy stewin
g over whether we’ll ever get our luggage back.”

  Lisa chuckled. “There is that. I see we have a lot in common. What’s the matter with Dafydd? He’s been grouchy as an old bear ever since he got here.”

  Janet thought she’d better skate warily over this one. “Has he? You must know him far better than I. Better than Madoc, for that matter. They never saw much of each other when they were growing up, and of course they still don’t, with us in New Brunswick and Dafydd on the go all the time. You don’t suppose he’s coming down with something? So much traveling and having to be a celebrity both onstage and off must be awfully wearing on a person. It’s not as though Dafydd were a young kid. Madoc told me he’ll be forty his next birthday.”

  “Forty’s still young, or so I keep trying to convince myself. Not so terribly young for a singer, I suppose. But it’s still early for him to start worrying about his voice. That should be good for another ten or fifteen years in opera, then he can do concerts or television spectaculars if he wants to. Even if his voice ever did give out, he could skid by on his looks and reputation. Dafydd will always be a smasher, like Uncle Caradoc. Or he could conduct, like his father. Dafydd’s often said he’d like to conduct. Still, forty’s a milestone, as well I know. I had mine in March, and I was in the dumps for two solid weeks. We’ll have to think of a way to buck him up.”

  “Tib seems to be in favor of putting snakes in his bed. I think she’s a bit miffed because he ducked out of riding with her.”

  “Oh, furious. Or was earlier on. I expect she’s over it by now. Tib has a mad crush on Dafydd, needless to say. Unless she’s transferred it to Madoc by now. I simply cannot get over the change in that man! Madoc used to be so—I don’t quite know, how to put it. One just tended not to remember he was around. Now all of a sudden he’s handsome and fun and, unfortunately for us poor old Welsh widows, possessed of a gorgeous wife and an adorable baby. Also a lovely house, according to Aunt Sillie. The house, I mean. That is to say—oh dear, what do I mean?”

  “The house isn’t all that special.” Janet reached into the pocket where she’d stashed her photographs. “We bought it mainly on account of the cupola. I do have some snapshots with me that I brought to show Aunt Elen. You don’t have to look at them.”

  “Oh but I want to, I’m a dreadful snoop. We could sit down over there on the bench if you don’t object to a few bird droppings.”

  “Not a bit. A person doesn’t dress up much if she’s toting a young one around. I learned that back when I used to baby-sit my brother’s kids.”

  “Tell me about them. How do they like their new cousin?”

  The two were deep into the stack of photographs, Lisa asking questions faster than Janet could answer them, when Madoc and Tib galloped back with the flour. Lisa offered lemonade, but Janet decided they’d better let her get on with her leek pies and go back to relieve their baby-sitters. There’d be plenty of time to talk families after the birthday party was over.

  “It’s just as well you went for that flour when you did,” Janet remarked as they started back to the big house. “Dafydd never did get back with Tom’s car keys. Lisa was asking me what’s got into him. I just said she knew him better than I do.”

  “Sensible of you.”

  “Well, you know how it is with families. I didn’t want to start anything. Oh, and Lisa thinks you’re handsome all of a sudden. I can’t imagine why she never noticed before. It was perfectly obvious to me even before you shaved off that silly red mustache. What happened to her husband, do you know?”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t. Nobody ever wants to talk about Arthur to me, not even Mother. He died about eight years ago. In France, I believe, or possibly Spain. He was a dealer in precious gems and traveled a lot. I rather suspect Arthur’s death may have occurred under less than dubious circumstances, and everyone keeps hushing it up for Lisa’s and Tib’s sakes.”

  “A heart attack in the wrong bedroom, for instance?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I only met Arthur a few times—he generally managed to have urgent business elsewhere when the family were gathering. He was a big chap, quite a bit older than Lisa, as I recall, pleasant enough in a buttoned-up way, and seemed fond of her and Tib. Other than that, I can’t remember much about him except that he wouldn’t let me take his fingerprints.”

  Madoc smiled. “That was one of my less attractive hobbies as a kid, you know; I was always nutty about police work. I kept a file of everybody’s prints who’d let me take them, and took careful notes on those who didn’t, on the theory that they must have criminal records they didn’t want me to know about. That may possibly have been the case with Arthur, come to think of it; I can’t say I’ve ever seen Lisa crushed down by weight of woe to be rid of him. Of course he left her pots of money. She’s spent a lot fixing up the house; it was in fairly bad shape when she inherited it. Her grandparents always used to have her here for summers; her own parents lived in London. They still do, as far as I know, but Lisa has always preferred Wales.”

  “I don’t blame her. I hope I get to see inside the house before we leave.”

  “You will; she likes you. If she didn’t, you’d know. Lisa has a strange way of getting the message across; she simply pulls in her head like one of her tortoises. I’ve seen her do it a time or two, it’s not something you forget in a hurry.”

  “I know,” said Janet. “I saw her myself, last night before dinner. That Williams fellow who came with your cousin Iseult went over and said something to her that must have upset her, though I don’t suppose he meant to. She turned absolutely chalk white, then just seemed to go away, even though she hadn’t stirred an inch. It was eerie to watch.”

  “Williams did that?” Madoc wrinkled his nose. “I’d had the impression he was a complete stranger to everybody but Iseult and Tom. Unless Iseult got him up to something, I wouldn’t put it past her. What happened next?”

  “Nothing much. I did think maybe I’d better go prop her up in case she was going to faint, but Tib beat me to it. She’s a nice kid, isn’t she? Then Dafydd went and took Lisa’s arm and she snapped right out of it and went on chatting as though nothing had happened.”

  “To Williams?”

  “No, he’d gone. To get another drink, like as not. He must have been embarrassed, he couldn’t possibly not have noticed. I couldn’t help wondering what he’d said to make her react so badly. Not that it’s any of my business. And you’ve seen it before?”

  “Yes. Once with Bob and once with Mary.”

  “That I can well believe. That pair would be enough to give Count Dracula the willies. Does anybody really like them?”

  “They like themselves. And each other, I suppose. I can’t say I care much for either of them myself, but their father was Uncle Caradoc’s cousin, and one gets used to them. Anyway, they never stay long. You don’t mind too much, do you?”

  “It’s hardly my place to mind, if Uncle Caradoc wants to entertain his own relatives in his own house. I can’t say I’d be overjoyed to have them in ours, but I don’t suppose they’d ever come. Or would they?”

  “Not unless we sent them tickets. Bob’s too cheap to pay his own way, and too much the petty tyrant to let Mary come without him. Should we form a bodyguard for Lisa tonight, do you think?”

  “She’s not coming. Dafydd and Tom are taking her and Tib out to dinner, as they darned well ought to since she’s good enough to be putting them up.”

  It wouldn’t break Janet’s heart if Iseult and her boyfriend went too, but she didn’t say so. Madoc had something on his mind, why disturb him with small talk? There’d be enough of that when they got back to the manor.

  As she’d confidently expected, they found Madoc’s parents, Uncle Caradoc, and an assortment of relatives and farmhands sitting around the kitchen drinking tea. Dorothy was perched up in an antique high chair that had been dragged out from somewhere, her grandmother was feeding her tiny sippets of bread and milk from a coin-silver coffee spoon in
the neatest way possible. She smiled amiably at her mother and father, but showed no particular inclination to be picked up and hugged.

  “She’s not going to want to go home. Don’t bother, Betty, I’ll do it.” Janet poured for Madoc and herself and went to sit beside Sir Emlyn, who’d nudged himself over on the settle to make a place for her. “How did the baby-sitting go?”

  “Very well indeed. I think Dorothy is going to be a lyric soprano.”

  “Lovely. When should we start her lessons?”

  “Oh, not for a while yet. Give the lungs time to develop.”

  “What makes you think they haven’t? You should have been around when she used to wake up for a two o’clock feeding.”

  Janet helped herself to a Welsh cake, figuring she’d done enough walking today to balance the calories. But then she’d done a fair amount of eating as well. How did the Rhyses all manage to stay so svelte?

  Except for Bob. He was eating bread and honey, smearing it over his various chins. Even Dorothy knew better than that. Somebody ought to grab that old pig by the ear and scrub his face with a scratchy washcloth. She’d do it herself, if she weren’t company.

  “Dafydd hasn’t dropped in, by any chance? He went to find Tom and get the keys for the Daimler. It’s blocking Lisa’s drive, Madoc had to play cowboy.”

  Janet made a funny little story of the ride for the flour. Everybody laughed except Bob and Mary. They were reminded of scurrilous tales dating from Dai’s early boyhood and keen to rehash them. Nobody else wanted to listen, so they wound up sputtering back and forth to each other while the rest either talked around them or got up in silence and left the kitchen. Dai was first among the leavers. Lady Rhys watched him go, frowning a bit.

  “I hope that boy’s having a good time,” she murmured to Janet. Conductors’ wives got used to playing mother to singers and musicians; she’d developed a keen awareness of moods and megrims. “He doesn’t look happy to me.” She raised her voice, a full, rich mezzo-soprano that had once sung “‘Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life’” for the Queen Mum. “Mary, what does your nephew do? Is he still at school?”