Mum's the Word (5 page)

Hyacinth shook her head, sending the canaries into chirruping spins. “To have taxed her further would have accomplished nothing other than to have resulted in her being in no condition to top and tail the Lavender Bedroom. Prim and I pondered all yesterday as to what was best to do. We retired early to bed still sorely tried in spirit, but arose this morning serene. We drove here in our trusty hearse, at reckless speed, to urge you to fly these portals before Destruction strikes.”

I would have swooned, had I felt up to it.

“Leave here! What a positively ripping suggestion!” Ben stepped out of the doorway with the startling effect of a portrait come to life. Crossing to the sofa, he seemed to be treading on my mind. The door was now wide open and Jonas and Dorcas were gone. Were they upstairs packing?

Under the pretext of kissing the top of my head Ben whispered, “The curse of the gypsy woman—eyes like dank pools! Sleazy black clouds! It's enough to make me eager to try my hand at writing trashy novels again.” Straightening, he walked around the front of the sofa to shake hands with the sisters. “How splendid to see you both!” He availed himself of one of the Queen Anne chairs, eyes sparkling like stolen jewels. “Forgive my eavesdropping, but talk about being held spellbound! I was unable to move a muscle.”

The Misses Tramwell had been reared in an age when forgiving male misdeeds was a fact of life. Primrose blushed to match her rose pink blouse. Hyacinth touched a gleaming red fingernail to her cone of hair and said, “Your gentlemanly apology is accepted, Bentley. I trust you do not believe Primrose and I are making too much of Chantal's dark vision.”

Re-angling his chair, Ben's face planed to geometric
shadow, he avowed, “On the contrary, I fear you may if anything be understating the seriousness of the situation. Ellie and I owe you an immense debt. The moment you uttered the words jealousy, anger, and fear, I knew what form danger would take. We are in for a visit from the relations.”

He meant my family of course, an insult which I embraced like a life jacket. Uncle Maurice would be on the run from his creditors, Aunt Lulu would be needing a respite from the daily grind of shoplifting. I gave the baby a reassuring pat. I was flooded with joy. God wasn't about to punish me for forgetting my iron tablets twice last week.

“What say you, sweetheart?” Ben spoke with degenerate suavity. “Where can we flee that is sufficiently far from the Black Cloud?” Pressing a finger to his forehead, he closed his eyes. “How about America?”

“I think that might be a bit close, darling.” Happiness tends to effect me like champagne. “Wouldn't Australia be safer? Just think of the exciting gourmet things you might do with kangaroos. Quite tasty, I would imagine, and so easy to stuff.”

Hyacinth's painted black brows converged. “Australia! Are you sure? One cannot but feel that a country which has its seasons the wrong way around isn't quite civilized.”

Ben placed his hands behind his head, crossed his ankles and bestowed upon me his sultan smile.

“My dear Ellie,” said Primrose, “I do feel America would be preferable. On the admittedly remote chance that Chantal's dire predictions do not come to pass, Hyacinth and I would be mortified at having put you to the expense of travelling to the under world. Then too, we do wish to please Bentley, don't we?”

“Not obsessively.”

Primrose hastened on. “We have a sister, Violet, living in Detroit. Quite one of the garden spots of the country, so she has given us to understand. Her married name is Wilkinson and her husband and sons are in the undertaking business. Never the least need to worry that dear Vi won't be well taken care of when the time comes. Pray do look her up if you have the time and tell her how well you find Hy and myself.” She tweaked one of the bows in her hair. “And, if you would be so good, reassure her that our doctor thinks we look remarkably young.”

“I think we can promise a phone call, don't you, sweetheart?” said the louse … I mean
spouse
.

Ben can read me like a kindergarten book. He knew that I would travel to the ends of the earth given the least chance that the Black Cloud was my cousin Vanessa arriving for an extended visit. Over the phone the other day she had purred, “Darling, I'm sure you'll look
lovely
pregnant. Being heavy was always so … 
you
!” Nothing would give her greater pleasure than to flaunt her elastic-band-sized waist in front of me and Ben, not that
he
would take the least bit of notice.

I heard a wink in his voice when he assured the Tramwells we would send them postcards from America.

Why fight on? Once fate has you by the collar, struggling is useless. Besides, I was late for my nap and Ben was late for Abigail's. Let the Mangés but send us the secret password and we would be on our way. A sideways glance at the bookcase stiffened my resolve. Those scrapbooks Dorcas and Jonas had kept during their sojourn to America seemed to have mated and bred to the point where they had taken over the shelves at an alarming rate. Better to see the New World for myself than through weekly
National Geographic
sessions with a pair of former explorers.

Ben's voice addressing the Tramwells brought me back. “Ah, here comes Dorcas with the coffee. And I believe you've met Jonas.”

“They've had that pleasure.” Jonas gave the braces holding up his baggy trousers a twang. Dreadful man! He hadn't removed his gardening boots. His hoary moustache twitched wickedly as he held out a plate of teacakes to Primrose.

Dorcas held her whistle at the ready (Ben having taken over pouring the coffee in order to speed up the job and make his get-away to Abigail's) but Jonas was irrepressible. Gripping the teacake plate, as if for courage, he growled, “I do be risking the sack putting meself forward so, Miss Primrose, but I be born and bred a liar if you don't look like one of them film stars sitting there.”

Such charming rusticity caused Primrose to slop her tea.

Hyacinth's expression turned frosty. “One feels so glad, Prim, that one leant you one's blouse. As you will recall, I have on several occasions been compared to the famed Theola
Faith in her kittenish heyday. Which does remind me”—taking her sister by the elbow, she propelled her upright—“we must be on our way.”

“So soon?” Ben downed both cups of coffee he was holding.

Hyacinth gathered up her bag. “I fear so. On our way back to Cloisters we will attend a rally of the Warwickshire branch Theola Faith fan club. Her daughter—an absolute nobody in her own right, no one even knew there was a daughter—has penned one of those abysmal mud-slinging books about her. We intend to picket the library.”

The name Theola Faith scratched at an old memory. Theola Faith had been the sex goddess of her generation, adored by millions. My mother, when I was about nine or ten, performed a small dancing role in one of her films,
Melancholy Mansion
. But this wasn't the time to brag. Turning my thoughts forward, I wondered if there were any female Mangés. Not that it mattered—a tall white chef's hat does absolutely nothing for even the most divinely inspired female.

I have none of Chantal's psychic powers. So often I don't see what's under my nose, such as Tobias circling the sofa, ready to take a flying leap at Hyacinth's birdcage earrings. Had the room chosen to darken and develop an arctic chill I would not have taken the hint that in fleeing the Black Cloud Ben and I were destined to run toward it.

We were going to America.

The morning of departure day I awoke knowing something was wrong. I felt well. Every part of me was alive—waiting to experience all the wonders of marathon waits at the airport. The joy of shouldering sideways down the aisle of the airplane, my carry-on bag balanced on my head! I could have been the happiest woman on board but for Ben's claustrophobia.

“No, darling.” I squeezed his hand as the plane took off. “Better not open your window.” I'm ashamed to say I hadn't looked at
Pregnancy for Beginners
since the day we received the Mangés' invitation. Now, watching Ben listen with petrified attention to the captain's weather bulletin, I was tempted to climb over my companion on the aisle seat and retrieve the book from the overhead compartment. But Ben wouldn't let go of my hand. The drink trolley was rattling its way down the aisle, and I did have something else up my sleeve, or rather in my handbag, which might have a calming effect upon us both.

“Ben, dear.” I turned his face toward me and looked deep into his eyes. “A letter arrived this morning from your mother. Would you like me to read it to you?”

“That would be nice.”

Like Jane Eyre ministering to Mr. Rochester after the fire, I drew out my mother-in-law's letter, written in response to one of mine. Ben, like so many of his sex, would no more handle family correspondence than wear lace underwear.

“ ‘Dear Ben, please give our best to Ellie. Also thanks for her last of two days since. Poppa says it is kind of her to write often, but what with postage getting so dear, letters do become an extravagance. Have a good trip, both of you. Never mind that Poppa and I can't sleep nights for worrying how you'll go on. Haven't we always said we knew what was in store when we signed on as parents? We raised you, son, to have a life of your own. Not a word from Poppa or me when you went to work for Eligibility Escorts.' ”

Exactly true; they simply stopped speaking to him.

“ ‘My prayers are answered if you don't let our peace of mind stand in the way of your happiness. Mrs. Badger, next door but one, tells such dreadful stories about her niece Rosemary who lives in New York. Seems every other week the poor girl nearly gets murdered and has to write home for money, so's she can move to a safer place.' ”

“What a blessing we are going to Boston!” I said brightly.

Ben had grown paler. “Not the city proper. You do remember my explaining we have to travel some distance from there to meet with the Mangés?”

“Yes, dear, and you promised to rent us a nice car.” I watched him swig down his medicine—whisky over ice. Raising my voice so that my aisle companion—an oriental gentleman in a T-shirt inscribed Made In Japan—need not struggle to eavesdrop, I continued.

“ ‘I must say, son, I'm not much taken with the sound of these Mangé people. Are you sure you've got the name right? Mrs. Wardle round the corner says it puts her in mind of that disease dogs get. Then she went and stuck the fear in my head that you're being lured over there by the white slavers or something worse. Poppa says he sent you that write-up in the newspaper about some nasty religious group that believes you can't get to heaven unless you stop eating. A quick way to go, Poppa says. Diethelogians they call themselves. They think of chefs the way we Catholics think of Henry VIII. Poppa, as you might guess, says I'm getting worked up for the wrong reason. He thinks these Mangés want you over there to sell you something. A plot in some cemetery just for chefs is his guess. Mrs. Wardle says this world is going downhill faster than a runaway pram. Doesn't
come out and say it, but I know she's thinking as how those who live in houses with posh-sounding names like Merlin's Court are asking to be taken for a ride by all sorts of riff-raff.' ”

“Mother speaks wise words.” The oriental gentleman bowed his head over steepled fingers. “Very many bad people in this world.” Face impassive, I bowed back, then smoothed Ben's damp curls off his brow. Have to read on at a rush. Lunch only few seats away.

“ ‘I trust, son, that Ellie isn't having the difficult pregnancy I went through with you. Every day a heaving, shoreless sea. I'd get one hour of feeling good, just so's to remember what it felt like. But the great blessing, as they say, is that after the baby comes you forget!' ”

“Veal marsala or peppered beef?” inquired the blonde flight attendant with the hundred-watt smile.

Some things science can't explain. Ben emerged from his claustrophobia when his little white tray was placed in front of him. Artificially flavoured meat? Reconstituted lettuce? Thinking up rude names to call his meal promised to keep him occupied—if not for the rest of the trip, at least while I went to the loo.

I staggered down the aisle toward the lavatory. A woman waiting ahead of me suggested that a priest might be hearing confessions. She'd been waiting, she informed me sourly, for ten minutes to get inside.

Out came a brazen hussy, Gucci makeup bag tucked under her arm, hands clutching a hardcover book, a corner of which almost got me in the eye. But the person who can hold fifty-some people hostage while she lolls in the loo is unlikely to be the sensitive type.

“So sorry,” she fibbed through lips as violently red as the blood enlivening the glossy black jacket of
Monster Mommy
. “I'm afraid I was swept away by one riveting scene after another and completely lost track of time.” Snap-snap of her fingers at the steward. “Drinks for everyone aboard. No, nothing for me. I have an extremely taxing cocktail party to attend immediately after we land and I'll be as déclassé as dry roasted peanuts if I can't quote chapter and page.
People
magazine said, ‘This book will find its way onto every coffee table in America, even the vinyl coated
ones. It will burn its way into your heart, brand the letter M on your soul.' ” Snap-snap of her fingers at a man who looked as though he hadn't taken his daily Milk of Magnesia, her husband seemingly because he swept her away by her ear. To add insult to injury for us cross-legged sufferers, a stewardess was sleepwalking her way down the gangway reading what looked like the same book. What were the airways coming to?