The Trouble with Harriet (16 page)

“You look remarkably fit, dear Casper,” responded the voice from the shadows.

“Aye, and I shall be ready to cast off at least one of these sticks,” he said, tapping it on the floor, “after a hearty luncheon.”

“But you never eat anything but clear broth midday, and always in your room.” Lady Grizwolde’s voice was so cold, I wished I had a coat to put on. “If you are making this change in your routine because you think Mrs. Haskell is staying for lunch, it is unnecessary.” She turned to me. “I couldn’t find that magazine I wanted you to see, but I will get it to you another day. I do understand that as you and your father are expecting visitors this afternoon, you must get home as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, isn’t it a shame,” I managed to say just as Sarah wheeled in a trolley with a delectable-looking quiche—all golden and puffy, taking pride of place among dishes of fruit and marinated vegetables. I took some comfort in Daddy’s anguished expression. He was thinking about his stomach, not Harriet.

Some things shouldn’t happen to a person on an empty stomach, and discovering that the vicar had driven off in my car was one of them. Daddy, of course, was beside himself that Harriet had gone along for the ride. Being a responsible daughter, I had felt duty bound to suggest that my elderly parent take Mr. Ambleforth’s bicycle while I walked home, and I would have appreciated a little gratitude. Needless to say, none was forthcoming. Poor old Ned stood looking as if he expected to be hauled off and stuck in the stocks. He was now telling me for the third time that he had driven the car into the garage, as he had promised.

“Right there is where it was.” He pointed a gnarled finger at a sizable space between two cars, an elderly Rolls-Royce and a Honda Prelude. “Drove it in most careful, I did. And then I went and brought in Vicar’s bike and leaned it, just as you sees, up against the wall just inside the door, where he wouldn’t have to fall all over his self looking for it. It don’t take going to Oxford University to tell he’s an absentminded gent. Goes with the job, don’t it? And he’s been around here quite a bit of late, sitting like a nesting bird in them ruins and trying to talk to Sir Casper about Old Worty every blamed chance he gets. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I looks out from the greenhouse not ten minutes ago and sees the blighter—if you’ll pardon my language when talking about a gentleman that hangs over the pulpit of a Sunday—speeding off down the drive as if Lucifer his self was after him.”

“I don’t see a greenhouse,” I said.

“It be over round t’other side of the house.” Ned flagged a gnarled hand to our left. “Lady Grizwolde, that was Sir Casper’s mother, had it built. A very keen gardener, she was. Designed a lot of the beds, she did, and most of the arbors and rock pools was her doing. And, not surprising, some of it rubbed off on the son. Most mornings, before his health got so bad, he’d be out in that there greenhouse.”

“My esteemed fellow”—Daddy ballooned up to ferocious proportions— “I would not wish you to labor under the misapprehension that I do not delight in your discourse. I am, however, impelled to inform you that I wish to know how you plan to retrieve my daughter’s vehicle and its precious cargo.”

“I’m sure Ned was coming to that,” I said with a shake of my head that sent raindrops spraying right and left. Standing in the open garage doorway with the wind blowing our way, I had got quite wet. “He’ll take us to a telephone, and I’ll phone the vicarage. It’s a straight road there and no great distance, so with any luck Mr. Ambleforth will already have walked in the door.”

“And he can come right back for you.” Ned’s wizened face widened into the smile of a man who had just heard that the executioner was in bed with the flu.

“I think I’d rather it was Mrs. Ambleforth.”

“Likely you’re right.” He nodded at me before ducking out into the downpour.

“There isn’t an entrance to the house through the garage?” My father did not sound like a man who had cheerfully lived in grass huts and trotted across the burning desert on flea-ridden camels. But perhaps life in Frau Grundman’s well-run guest house has ruined him for life in the raw.

“If you come down here and around this corner, avoiding the drainpipe that’s come loose, we’ll be in the dry in two ticks.” Ned plowed forward like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Daddy and me sloshing along behind. I collided with a rain barrel, possibly the one from which Miss Finchpeck drew water to wash her hair. But before I could bend to rub my bruised shin, Ned had opened a door, and the three of us were stepping into a narrow whitewashed corridor with a green linoleum floor and an archway ahead. This led into a red-carpeted area with a flight of steps at one end, a dark trestle table against one wall, and several varnished doors bearing enameled signs. The one closest to me as I stood drip-drying read: Housekeeper. Ned passed this by and nipped nimbly over to another that stood ajar. But he stepped back just as he was about to go in and pressed a finger to his lips.

“Mr. Jarrow’s in there on the phone,” he whispered, guiding us all over to the wall, where we huddled like policemen about to pull our guns and burst in on a couple of bank robbers “Sometimes he can be nice as you please. And of another he can be as carpy as the dickens.”

“Who is he?” I turned my head to mouth back.

“Sir Casper’s secretary. And to be fair, he’s had his plate full this year. Just got back, he did, after being gone a month at least down in Colchester looking after his old sick Mum that’s got a nasty, grudging tongue in her head from what Cook tells me. So best to toss sonny boy a piece of raw meat before sticking a finger in his cage as of now is my thoughts. All for the quiet life, I am.”

Ned’s low voice faded away. And being at the front of our little group, I couldn’t resist the impulse to contort my neck until it felt as though it were being stretched to the snapping point in the hands of one of those people who twist balloons into animal shapes. Unfortunately, destiny hadn’t meant me for a swan. So I took the other approach, inching forward until I could stick my nose, which had never given me any difficulty, around the door frame.

What I saw was an office that was like most offices where people do a lot of dull, necessary work instead of sitting, with feet propped up, absorbing the smell of leather and the gloss of mahogany. There was a desk and a number of file cabinets, several wastepaper baskets, an electric typewriter sitting like a replaced wife across from a word processor, and of course a telephone. A slender man of medium height in a gray suit with a pale blue tie was standing with the receiver to his ear. What jumped out at you was his mustache, which was much too big for his narrow face; so much so that it looked as though it might have landed there by mistake after being dropped from a great height and he might be asked to return it at any given moment.

If he saw me peeking in on him, Mr. Jarrow took no notice. He continued talking into the receiver in the firm but mollifying voice so highly prized in a secretary.

“I shall certainly convey to Sir Casper that the business entailed unforeseen complications which lead you to believe you should be more handsomely compensated for your job performance. That way he will have time to consider his response before your meeting with him. Which is scheduled for ... Yes, that is correct, this evening at...” Mr. Jarrow looked down at the calendar on his desk. Because my father chose that moment to tread heavily down on my heel, requiring me to bite my lips off to refrain from screaming, the next thing I heard was the telephone being replaced. And before I could lead the march into the office, a door that was partially blocked from view by two filing cabinets opened, and Lady Grizwolde moved to confront the secretary at his desk.

“I was on the other line,” she informed him.

“If you choose to eavesdrop in your own house, your ladyship,” he responded with slightly more expression in his voice, “that is entirely your prerogative.”

“Indeed. I am, after all, closely concerned in the matter.”

‘‘Pivotal, one might say.”

The lady of the manor and the hireling. She, a woman of elegance and beauty with dark eyes and smooth black-satin hair. He, a man who wouldn’t have merited a second glance but for that ridiculous mustache. But it was she who moved restlessly around the desk, her rust skirt the only spot of color in an otherwise drab room.

“Perhaps you and I can come to some arrangement, John?” She paused to pick up a pencil and twirl it between her long fingers. “I’ve already tried to put a spoke in the wheel this morning and even for a few moments thought I might be able to take direct action. Blame my horoscope; it said my luck was out. But surely you must have some understanding of how I feel....”

“You didn’t have to marry him.” Jarrow was rearranging papers on his desk.

“At the time, he seemed the ideal candidate. You of all people should know how I am and what I require in a husband.”

“You got the wealth and a title to boot.”

“All that and a bedroom of my own when the exceedingly long honeymoon was over.”

“And you expect me to have pity?”

The rain beat upon the window high on the rear wall, making for a dreary accompaniment to the scene being played out before my spying eyes and those of my father, who was leaning over my shoulder with increasing heaviness. Another moment and we would have gone sprawling down in the doorway.

But before we could show family solidarity by disgracing ourselves equally, Ned popped around from behind us, hacking out a disgusting cough into an even more disgusting handkerchief. Having announced to her ladyship and Mr. Jarrow that they were not destined to continue enjoying their tête-à-tête, he stuffed the rag back into his trouser pocket and scooted into the office, plucking at a tuft of his hair as he went.

“Morning, your ladyship.” He turned one of his little hops into a bow.

“Actually, it’s afternoon,” interjected the secretary, glancing up at a round wall clock.

“So it be, Mr. Jarrow, so it be! And I’ll not be taking up more’n a few minutes of your valued time; nor her ladyship’s, neither. We just come along—me and this pair of folks,” he explained, beckoning Daddy and me into the room, “to ask if you’d be so good as to let them use the phone. There was a mishap, you see. The vicar that’s so dotty about Old Worty drove off in their car.”

“Oh, so that explains it,” said Lady Grizwolde.

“Explains what, your ladyship?” Ned stood scratching his head.

“Why they’re still here.”

“Aye, that do be the point.”

“It’s really like something out of a bad play,” I murmured.

“Oh, please don’t say that to Mrs. Ambleforth or she’ll write in a new scene. And I’m really not up to learning any more lines.” Lady Grizwolde gave a laugh that contained absolutely no merriment and held out the phone to me. “You do know the vicarage number?”

I nodded and dialed, but without luck. After listening to a prolonged series of rings, I hung up and announced the obvious: “No answer.”

“Most annoying.” Mr. Jarrow sounded efficiently regretful.

“It’s a great deal more than that, sir.” Daddy commanded center stage with an operatic fire in his eyes and a stride suggestive of a billowing cloak and a rapier about to be drawn in a sizzle of steel. “It is an occurrence fraught with the most anguishing of possibilities, the most excruciating of regrets....” He broke off just as his voice swelled to such a volume that I expected him to burst into an aria—completely in Italian, with no stinting of notes held till his face turned blue. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he inquired of Mr. Jarrow.

“Not that I am aware of, Mr....?”

“Simons. Morley Simons.”

“I regret neither the name nor your appearance are familiar to me.”

“You weren’t perchance in Germany recently?”

“Not unless I was sleepwalking.” The mustache weighed down Mr. Jarrow’s attempt at a perfunctory smile. “I do have a cousin who resembles me closely. And he does travel quite a bit. It would make for rather a coincidence if you had run into him. However, these things do happen, I suppose.”

While Daddy stood with furrowed brow and I was about to suggest that we ring for a taxi, Sir Casper came through the door. He had the two walking sticks with him. Instead of leaning on them, as we had seen him do earlier, he had them tucked under his armpits. Although it couldn’t be said that he was entirely steady on his pins—indeed he progressed more sideways than forwards—his steps had an elongated prance to them that made him look rather like an aged ballet dancer attempting to relive a performance in
Swan Lake.
Had a couple of glasses of red wine got the blood flowing through his veins? Or had his doctor paid him a visit and broken the happy news that, all evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t dead yet?

“Phyllis, my darling.” His eyes watered with delight in his yellow face as he made for her with increasing, if haphazard, speed. “I have been looking all over the house for you.” A lilt had been added to his quavering voice. “On such a glorious day we should be outside smelling the roses.”

“It is raining, Casper.” Lady Grizwolde pointed out without looking at him or anyone else.

“All the better for the sort of romp I have in mind!” He wagged a stick and cackled a roguish laugh. “First we can play hide-and-seek among the trees, and when I catch you, we can dry each other off in the greenhouse.”

“You mustn’t miss your nap, Casper.”

“No forty winks for me today, Phyllis!”

“I believe what her ladyship is suggesting,” Mr. Jarrow interposed in a softly persuasive voice, “is that you should reserve your strength, for it would be a pity to do yourself an injury just when you have the promise of a full return to vitality.”

“But where is the harm in feeling frisky?” Spoken like an elderly spoiled brat who’s nanny had always given him everything he wanted.

“You are understandably buoyed up, sir, by the realization that the medicine you require is shortly to be made available to you.” The secretary looked down, but not before I glimpsed the malicious glance he gave her ladyship. “But you may damage your chances of a recovery if you mistake a psychological lift for the real miracle.”