Mum's the Word (2 page)

Is the child paying any attention as she walks in circles, making snuffling noises? Not so brave now.

“Look, I'm sorry, but there's no point in crying for Mother.” I stop, unable to say that Mother is dead from a fall down a flight of railway stairs when I was seventeen. “Uncle Merlin was a lonely old man—locked up, emotionally speaking, in a cupboard that rattled with skeletons. His greatest enjoyment was terrifying the family out of its wits for fear he would leave his fortune to a cat home.”

Talk about wasting my breath. Talk about talking to myself. Child Ellie is gone. Hiding. “Would you get back here!” I huff. “Am I supposed to lie in bed all day trying to talk sense into you? I have a life to lead. And, if you don't mind my saying so, I am rather disappointed that you haven't bothered to ask how things turned out. Believe it or not, Merlin's Court is now my home and at the risk of sounding boastful, I have used my considerable talent as an interior designer to restore it to former glory. Uncle Merlin, you see, did
not
leave everything to a cat home. The house and a considerable sum of money was willed to me jointly with a gentleman by name Bentley T. Haskell, who, I am proud to inform you, became my husband.”

Do I hear Child Ellie's ears prick up? “Surprised, aren't you? Never thought I would land a husband, did you? And believe me, Ben isn't your common or garden husband—the kind cousin Vanessa would try on for size, then donate to the Salvation Army. Ben is a Three-D Man: Dashing, Debonair, and Devoted. And he's employed, too. Presently he's asleep after an arduous day at Abigail's, his restaurant in the village. Otherwise I would introduce you.”

Silence.

Those fox heads grin from the walls, but I don't see another face.

“Would you please look at me!” My voice fills up the hall, the house … the night. “Take a good look. Can't you see what a success I have made of myself? And, if you don't
mind my saying so, with very little help from you. I'm thin. Radiantly thin. Ben happens to be one of the greatest chefs in the world—Paris trained. Which makes it a miracle that he was the one who brought out the new me. My darling seduced and reduced me. I now spurn chocolate. The word cream is obscene. Raw vegetables and clear broth excite me.”

I begin to feel a bit of a fool, but I won't be intimidated by a pair of gawking suits of armour.

“Child Ellie, are you there? Answer me!” All this shouting is making me dizzy. The rooms in Merlin's Court, past and present, merge into a whirlwhip of faded colour.

“Why won't you answer?” My voice is far away. “How can you be so selfish? Do you think I would have come all this way back to find you, if there were anyone else for me to turn to? Don't you see, you are the only one who can show me … remind me … what it is like to be a child.”

And I need to know. I am going to have a baby.

I, Mrs. Bentley T. Haskell of Merlin's Court, Chitterton Fells, retired interior designer, proud owner of a gifted cat named Tobias, experience no sense of impending doom. On that Saturday morning in June, I lie amidst the burgundy and silver-grey ambience of the matrimonial bedroom. Sunshine turns the latticed windows to harlequin dazzle, highlighting the dark glow of mahogany furniture.

Idly I pick up the hand mirror from the bedside table. Ugh! Keep up this brutal honesty and out the window you go! Do I need reminding that I have foam rubber cheek bones? Or that I failed to heed Aunt Astrid's dictum that crying over trifles washes all colour from the eyes? Fortunately I have long hair. I arrange it artfully over my face. The pheasants on the wallpaper have never heard the word migration. They aren't the only ones who will be utterly unprepared for what lies ahead.

“Ben, darling …”

“What is it, sweetheart?” responds my dark, handsome, and devoted spouse.

“I had such a strange dream last night. I was a child again, visiting here for the first time. Little did I know then that years later Uncle Merlin would come up with the bizarre idea of hosting a family reunion, resulting in my inspired idea
of renting you for the weekend from Eligibility Escorts. Doesn't it seem like only yesterday that, for a modest fee, you agreed to pose as my besotted fiancé?”

“And here we are, my treasure!” He sat down on the edge of the bed, stroking my cheek with those slim, elegant fingers which can arouse such passion from a simple sponge cake. His touch was incredibly gentle, his voice incredibly absentminded. “Speaking of dreams, Ellie, I received by this morning's post a letter which I read before bringing up your breakfast tray, and believe me—the news is a dream come true!” Blue-green eyes sparkling enticingly, he patted the pocket of his black silk, man-about-the-bedroom dressing gown.

Smiling wanly from my pillow edged with Nottingham lace, I ached to tell him how desperately I loved the way his dark hair curled against his neck. But I wasn't up to the exertion. I had discovered that morning sickness was something for which I had natural flair.

“Exciting news, darling? Has the Electricity Board written to say it will adjust our bill?” I fingered his manly chest where the black silk gapped away. “I was afraid they wouldn't believe me concerning the heated towel rail's habit of turning itself on at will, but possibly my assertion that Dorcas and Jonas have also noticed did the trick.”

Dorcas, let me explain in a swift aside, came to Merlin's Court as housekeeper, shortly after Ben and I took up residence. An avid sports woman, she is happier with a hockey stick in her hands than a mop. And that's fine with me. Dorcas is one of life's creature comforts. The older sister I never had. During the last few weeks, she had done some straight talking about this being the time for her to move from the main house to Cliffside, the cottage at the gates. She claimed to relish the idea of being several hundred yards closer to her new job as gym teacher at the village school. Huh! Had I believed she really wanted a place of her own I would have understood, but I know Dorcas. Nobility is her besetting sin. She had this bee in her red head that Ben and I should be on our own. As if there weren't more than enough room in this huge house for us all to wallow in privacy. If Dorcas were off the premises, she might miss the baby's first smile … first step. I'd had to put my foot down and tell her
in no uncertain terms that in my condition I was not up to turning her bedroom at Merlin's Court into a shrine. Embroidering a plaque to place above her bed
—Gone But Not Forgotten—
would take forever.

Now for Jonas. He also lives in, while maintaining a separate suite of rooms over the stables to which he retreats whenever any of my relations brave his displeasure and show up for afternoon tea. Tobias, who is supposed to be my cat, sneaks off with him. Later I find the two of them seated in the rocking chair reading
Of Mice and Men
. Brindled moustaches dampened with Ovaltine. Good cheer restored from plotting the murders of Aunt Astrid, Aunt Lulu, and Uncle Maurice, and the rest. When it comes to flowers, Jonas is second to none. His dahlias are the size of tea plates and he produces colours not yet invented. I tell myself (and sometimes him) that he is entitled to his quirks and crotchets. Well past seventy, to outsiders he is the gardener who has been a fixture since the late Mr. Merlin Grantham was a lad. To we who love him, he is someone else entirely.

Ben shifted on the bed. The breakfast tray which he had set across my middle tipped and tilted like a ship in a storm. “Ellie, I am not talking about the electric bill or the towel rail which hates you. I am trying to talk about a letter sent to me from America.”

My eyelids weighed as heavy as piano lids. But Chapter One of
The Pregnant Pause
stresses not playing the invalid. “From whom in America did this letter come?” Why did he keep bringing me breakfast in bed? I had begged him to stop. That poached egg was staring at me. A gargantuan eye. Filmed with cataract. The few sips of tea I had swallowed sloshed up and down in the hull. Marmalade? I couldn't face the stuff. Ah, but what was this cannily concealed under the pot? An envelope. Reaching for it, I perked up. A letter from my friend Primrose Tramwell was always a treat. She and her sister Hyacinth have confirmed my faith that the years of discretion—or mature indiscretion—can be life's great adventure. The sisters, both of them over sixty, owned Flowers Detection agency.

“Sorry Ben, I didn't quite catch …”

His black brows merged. “Am I losing my voice or is the baby pressing on an auditory nerve?”

“I'm not yet three months.”

“Once more with feeling, then, my correspondent is the Secretary of the Mangé Society.”

Instantly I was all sympathy. “Oh, not one of those crackpot organizations that promise to trace your family tree for a nominal fee of a thousand pounds? Drop it in the waste paper basket, darling!” I shifted the pillow under my head.

“Ellie—”

“Do listen to this. Primrose writes, ‘Dearest Ellie, Hyacinth and I send our best love to you and Bentley. Life is tranquil here at Cloisters. We are sadly underworked in our chosen profession. Butler, speaking with authority—having, as you know, acquired his start in life as a burglar—asserts that crime doesn't pay what it once did.' ”

“As well no one has poisoned the old girls' smelling salts.” Ben, pacing at the foot of the bed, did not sound pleased.

“Must you use the word old?” I reproved.

“Why not? It's a status most of us wish to achieve. We want time to fulfill our dreams, one of mine having always been—”

“Darling,” I said, “you will be so touched by this. Primrose encloses an old family remedy, ideal for someone in my delicate condition. She says it has been favoured by members of the Royal Family in times of stress. It uses only natural ingredients.”

Ben dredged up a smile. “Sweetheart, you have magnanimously led this conversation back to the Mangé Society. It does not dig up family trees, but is a custodian of history in the ultimate sense.” He withdrew his letter from its envelope and crackled the stiff parchment. “The Mangés are a secret organization of chefs, dedicated to the noble cause of tracking down long lost recipes of cultural importance.”

“My word!”

“Ellie, we are not talking about Aunt Maddie's mislaid variation of jam tarts.”

“I should think not!” I laid Primrose's letter down on my paperback copy of
Pregnancy for Beginners
. Tobias Cat strolled out from behind the wardrobe and I tried not to meet his eyes.

Ben made himself comfortable on the bed and my feet.
“None but the Crème de la Crème are admitted to membership and those fortunates only after arduous admission proceedings.”

“Such as?”

“My dear, all that is kept exceedingly hush-hush. The members take a vow of silence. As for those who don't make the grade, blabbing would be professional suicide.”

“Heavens!” If that poached eye did not stop gawking at me, I might be driven to take a poke at it with my fork. Maybe not. My mind dodged the dreadful vision of yellow goo running out. “In other words, these Mangés are sort of like Masons with cooking spoons? Given to secret handshakes and coded eye twitchings?”

Ben caressed my layman's brow.

“These are the people who one year ago announced to the world—the thinking world, Ellie—that they had singlehandedly tracked down a recipe for a minestrone dried soup mix, created by none other than …” The maroon velvet curtains stopped rippling in the breeze from the open window. Tobias Cat, who had been stalking his tail, sat frozen. “… By none other than Leonardo Da Vinci.”

“Gracious! And history has written him off as an artist who dabbled in aviation, anatomy, et cetera, et cetera.” Must quell the urge to ask if the soup would be marketed under the label Momma Mona. My beloved was clearly infatuated with this gourmet sect.

“Why have the Mangés written to you?”

Ben stood up. The bed heaved, threatening to keel over. I hugged the rim and the room settled back into shape. My spouse was standing before the dressing table mirror, taking a good hard look at himself. His eyes danced with emerald sparks.

“Ellie, I hold here in these hands” (staring as though they had sneaked up and attached to his arms while he wasn't looking) “I hold here an invitation from the Society to present myself for consideration as a Potential Member.”

I strove to look dazzled.

“Speechless, aren't you? The question I keep asking is, Why me?” He was pacing in front of the marble fireplace, every fourth step hitting the board that squeaked.

I adore this man. He is my knight in shining armour. He
who saved me from a fate worse than death—Aunt Astrid's scorn, thinly veiled as pity: poor Ellie, single by default! But there are times when his masculine smugness, poorly disguised as self-deprecation, irritates me just a smudge.

He stopped pacing and tossed me a wry smile. “Hard to credit isn't it? Me! Son of a humble greengrocer!”