The Wrong Rite (7 page)

The person to talk to was Uncle Caradoc, Janet thought, but she didn’t say so. Uncle Huw wouldn’t want his father pestered by a goofy distant relation with a bee in her bonnet.

“Oh gosh, Madoc. I hope that poor woman’s not going to make a nuisance of herself. We’d better alert your mother to keep an eye on her. What sort of relation is Mary to you?”

“A damned annoying one, since you ask.” Madoc didn’t often use even the mildest of cusswords, he must be finding Mary one straw too many. “She and Bob are the children of Lisa’s grandfather’s stepsister. Lisa’s grandfather was a second cousin to my grandfather. You figure it out.”

“What for?” said Janet. “It sounds to me as though you and they aren’t related at all.”

“Oh, we’re bound to be, one way or another. Anyway, I believe the stepsister and my grandmother, or Lisa’s grandmother, or at any rate somebody’s grandmother, were bosom friends, which makes up the difference, you see.”

“No, I don’t see, but I’ll work on it. Madoc, do you think Mary was just being oracular, or—” Janet didn’t quite know what she’d meant to say.

Madoc didn’t know, either. “I think it’s quite possible that Mary wandered out here last night hoping to see the Druid walking or to catch the fairy queen having it off with the fairy knave, and got scared off by—I don’t know. An owl or a bat, perhaps. I can’t think why else she’d be yammering for mistletoe. Once she’d heard about your ghost, she was bound to start having psychic twinges.”

“I’m sorry I ever mentioned the darned thing.”

“Jenny love, don’t feel that way. Over here, an apparition is regarded as a status symbol. We’d all have felt a bit cheated if some spook or other hadn’t rolled out for the occasion.”

“Then why didn’t the silly thing do its haunting downstairs where everyone could see? It was pure happenstance that I came along just when I did.”

“Who knows? Maybe it’s not a particularly sociable ghost, or maybe this was just a rehearsal for the main event.”

“Somebody practicing up to give Uncle Caradoc a thrill on his birthday, you mean? I can’t see how.”

“Easily enough, I should think. It must have taken a bit of rigging, but then all the operator had to do was stand behind those heavy draperies at the end of the hall ready to twiddle the wires or strings, as the case may have been. You wouldn’t have noticed them in that dim light, against the dark woodwork and busy carpeting. Exactly where were you when you spotted the thing?”

“Almost to the stairs.”

“Just the right spot. The operator saw you coming up the hall and had plenty of time to wiggle the whatsits. You were on your way down and it was odds-on you’d mention the ghost at dinner, as who wouldn’t?”

“Well, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? It must have been nothing more than a piece of gray chiffon or tulle draped over a thin wire to give it shape. I suppose I stood there gawking for a second or so. As soon as the joker was sure I’d noticed, he just dropped the thing to the floor and whisked it under the drapery. I should have gone over and investigated, but Uncle Caradoc had said they’d hold dinner till I got back from checking the baby. I’d asked him not to, but I was still afraid he might, and didn’t want to keep the rest waiting. You didn’t happen to notice who followed me upstairs?”

“Nobody did.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Darling, do you have any idea what an effect you made in that blue gown? There wasn’t an eyeball in the place that wasn’t straining after you, my own included. Believe me, I’d have noticed.”

“Which means it was either some outsider or one of the help?”

Janet spoke rather brusquely, being a cynosure was not the Canadian way. Now she’d be embarrassed to wear that blue gown again, and she did love it so. “I can’t see that meek little Megan working the fiddle, unless she had fishlines strung the whole length of the hall. Anyway, she doesn’t strike me as the type. What about Danny the Boots? Is he inclined to go in for practical jokes?”

Danny the Boots had been playing second footman. Madoc didn’t tell Janet so. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Come on, let’s go see whether Dorothy’s worn out her welcome with Aunt Elen yet.”

She hadn’t, of course; she was sitting on the floor making goo-goo eyes at her Uncle Dafydd, of all people. Dafydd was eyeing her back as he might have eyed a mermaid in his bathtub; charming to look at, but what was one supposed to do about her? He greeted his brother with noticeable relief and some degree of puzzlement.

“Madoc, did you actually produce this kid all by yourself?”

“Oh no, Jenny helped a bit. What got you up so early?”

“Tib was after me to go horseback riding with her.”

“And did you go?”

“God, no! What do you think I’m made of? I told her I had to see Uncle Huw on urgent business. Namely conning Aunt Elen into cooking my eggs. Lisa wouldn’t feed me, she’s got a gaggle of minions over there chopping leeks for tomorrow’s pies. Thank you, Auntie love, this is beautiful. Want a bite, Jenny?”

“No thanks, I’m on a strict diet of tea and Welsh cakes. I’ve tried making them at home, but for some reason mine never come out the way Aunt Elen’s do.”

That was just for manners, Janet’s cakes were as good as anybody’s. Even Sir Emlyn said so, and he should know if anybody did. Who the heck did Dafydd think he was, coaxing her to eat from his plate like the princess and the frog? Or the prince and the frogess? The great Dafydd Rhys gave her a pain where she’d never had an ache. One of these days she was going to tell him so.

Which was mean, rotten, and uncharitable, and she ought to show more compassion. Maybe he was just trying to be brotherly. That glamorous life Dafydd led must in fact be rather a lonesome one at times, when you came right down to it. Being a star meant always having to shine, being so much in demand meant being on the road too often for comfort. Having a different woman panting after him every time he turned around meant that he never really got to know any of them. Except, perhaps, in the biblical sense. “Come on, Dorothy,” she said. “Quit teasing Uncle Dafydd and let him eat his breakfast in peace. Where can I change her, Aunt Elen?”

“I’ll show you.”

Bathrooms had come to the farm during the brief but opulent reign of Edward VII; nice, commodious ones with plenty of room to do what needed to be done. Dorothy enjoyed herself hugely. When they finally got back to the kitchen, Tom the Flicks was there too. Tom Feste, actually; she’d finally learned his real name though not yet his precise connection with the Rhyses. Not that it mattered, they all appeared to call each other cousins regardless of degree.

Madoc was still the best-looking, Janet decided, comparing the three of them together. Dafydd was the handsomest, an entirely different thing. That made Tom the ugly duckling, which wasn’t fair. He wasn’t so bad, if you liked them tall and skinny and oozing personality from every pore. Magnetic, that was the word. Like those fancy gadgets that well-meaning people gave you at Christmas to stick on your refrigerator door. And about as useful, from what little she’d seen of him so far. His job on the films was supposed to involve production, but nobody seemed all that clear as to what he produced.

Dorothy didn’t think much of Tom, that was plain enough. When he tried to chuck her under the chin, she turned her head away and primmed up her mouth, so exactly like her mother when Janet was miffed about something that Madoc burst out laughing.

“Let her alone, Tom, she’s too young for you. What happened to Patricia, by the way?”

“Good question. What happened to Patricia, Dafydd?”

That must have been the blonde in the Daimler, trust Madoc to remember her name. Apparently Dafydd didn’t; he looked blank for a moment, then shrugged. “Oh yes, Patricia. She wanted to go to Swansea, so I drove her to the station and put her on the train. I assumed you knew.”

“Clever you.”

Meaning, Janet supposed, that Tom admired the way Dafydd had thwarted Patricia’s hope of being driven to Swansea in the Daimler. Or that Tom was pleased at having got the woman off his hands so effortlessly. Or that Tom was not pleased, and wanted Dafydd to know it. This wasn’t Janet’s kind of conversation. She stood up and reached for the diaper bag.

“This has been lovely, but I expect Betty will be wondering where we’ve got to. We’ll see you later on, won’t we? Madoc, do you want to stay and visit awhile longer?”

“No, I promised Uncle Caradoc I’d help him hang up his new sickle. Come on, Dorothy, say thanks to Aunt Elen and Uncle Huw. Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help this afternoon.”

There would be, for sure. They left the farm with their consciences clear and dawdled back toward the big house, taking time to sniff the apple blossoms along the way.

After a while, Madoc asked, “How does Dafydd strike you this trip, Jenny? He seems a bit down in the mouth, don’t you think?”

“It could be that he’s worn-out from the rackety life he leads; but if you really want to know, I’m wondering whether he might be plain jealous.”

“Jealous? Of whom?”

“You, of course.”

“That’s a switch. What makes you say that? Is it because of you?”

“I suppose I’m part of it, in a way. I expect it’s more seeing everybody making a fuss over Dorothy, and us being so well settled in our own house and, oh, you know. Dafydd’s used to being cock of the walk; now you’ve got something to crow about that he doesn’t. Dafydd’s what? Thirty-eight?”

“Thirty-nine. Six years older than I. Good Lord, he’ll be forty his next birthday. I see what you mean.”

“Then you’d better take him aside and give him a little brotherly talking-to about growing up, don’t you think?”

“No, you do it. You know him better than I.”

“Madoc, that’s ridiculous! I’ve seen Dafydd maybe half a dozen times in the four years we’ve been married: once here, once that time when he stayed overnight with us in Fredericton right after we’d bought the house, and occasionally for dinner in St. John or someplace when he happened to be passing through.”

“But he talks to you.”

“He flirts with me. Not because he’s interested, just from force of habit. I don’t think I’ve ever had two minutes’ worth of serious discussion with Dafydd about anything at all.”

“Neither have I, that I can remember. Dafydd was just that much older, you see. When I was a kid in Canada, he was off at school in England. When I was at school in Winnipeg, he was already studying voice in London; and so it went. You know, love, it’s a funny thing. Back at your brother’s farm, I can wander out to the barn with Bert and pretty soon we’ll be sitting on a couple of upended milk pails. We’ll get to talking about taxes or plumbing or whatever, and wind up solving the riddle of the universe. With Dafydd, it’s just polite chitchat. We’ve nothing in common except our parents and the relatives. I’m fond of him, I suppose; but when it comes down to cases, Jenny, I don’t really know my own brother at all.”

“W
ELL, IT’S HIS LOSS,
not yours.” Janet couldn’t bear to see Madoc looking glum on such a lovely morning, not over a lightweight like Dafydd. “I expect sooner or later some nice, tough-minded woman a lot like your mother’s going to take him in hand and straighten him out. What about your cousin Tom, or whatever he is? Are he and Dafydd friendly? Really friendly, I mean, like you and Bert. I should think they’d have more in common, both being in the entertainment field, in a manner of speaking.”

“Perhaps they do, though you’d better not let Mother hear you calling grand opera ‘the entertainment field.’” Madoc was smiling now. “Tom’s no relation to us, but he and Dafydd knew each other as kids. Whether they pour out their souls to each other, I couldn’t say. What they really appear to have in common these days is a taste for flashy cars and persuadable women, though at least Dafydd has sense enough not to marry every third one who comes along. God knows what Tom’s paid out in alimony by now.”

“It doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in his pocketbook, if that Daimler’s any sign.”

“Oh, they make big money on the flicks. Besides, if Tom gets hard up, he can always come and sponge on Lisa.”

“Does he?”

“He comes. I don’t know whether he sponges. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Making judgmental remarks unsupported by evidence was not a habit of Madoc’s. Janet wondered a bit, then changed the subject.

“Speaking of Lisa, she wants us to visit. Are we supposed to drop in whenever we feel like it, or wait to be properly invited?”

“Let’s get Dorothy bedded down for her nap, then drop. If Lisa’s still chopping leeks, we can say we’re just out for a walk and mustn’t stay because Betty expects us back to lick the spoons.”

“I hope she doesn’t.”

Uncle Caradoc’s kitchen door was standing open now; the day had turned warm as they’d known it would. Somebody was holding forth inside; Janet recognized the plummy voice as Bob’s. She raised her eyebrows at Madoc, he shrugged back as best he could with Dorothy trying to climb over his shoulder, and they went in.

“Properly speaking, the
coelcerth
should be ignited by a spark achieved by rubbing two pieces of oak together,” Bob was insisting.

“This is after the nine men with no money in their pockets and no buckles on their belts have collected the sticks from the nine different kinds of trees?” That was Gwen, being flip.

Bob might not have realized she was pulling his leg. Anyway, he refused to be disconcerted. “‘With no metal on their persons’ would perhaps be the apter phrase. The sticks would by now have been more or less symmetrically arranged within the perimeter of a circle cut in the turf. One stick would catch the spark and be used as a torch to kindle the
coelcerth.”

“The
coelcerth
being the Beltane fire, right?”

“Or the balefire, as it is sometimes called. There may be two fires instead of one.”

“Oh, not two fires!” That was Mary, all set to pout. “You’re not going to do two fires, Bob?”

“My only hope is that there will be sticks enough for the one fire, since we are unable to assemble nine men to do the gathering.”

So this was the real reason why Dafydd and Tom were hiding out at Uncle Huw’s, and why Bob was casting that baleful glance at Madoc.