The Trouble with Harriet (7 page)

I was brought back to the moment by a thud. It was incurred by Ben’s walking into the suitcase that Freddy had left standing in the middle of the landing, which we rather grandly referred to as the gallery. That’s what Mrs. Malloy had insisted it should be called. In hopes, I think, that her portrait would one day hang on its main wall and people with guidebooks in their hands would strain against the velvet ropes in attempts to glean what lay behind her enigmatic smile. There was, however, nothing ambiguous about Daddy’s bellow of alarm as the urn—to give the clay pot its due—tilted sideways with a bounce of its lid before Ben righted himself in what could easily have passed for slow motion.

“Whoops!” Freddy shook his head, smacking me in the eye with his ponytail. Fortunately, he didn’t lose contact with the decanter.

“That was a silly place to leave the case,” I told him, being in one of those moods when I had to nitpick.

“Where else could I have put it?” He looked at me with reproach.

“Up against the wall wouldn’t have been a bad idea.”

“I didn’t know which room you had picked for Uncle.”

“Do you two want to stand around quarreling while Morley and I take a taxi the rest of the way?” Ben sounded thoroughly fed up, and it belatedly occurred to me that this hadn’t been the best of all days for him, either. He’d been looking forward to the trip to France even more than I had. Yet in the blink of an eye he’d had to come to terms with the fact that not only wasn’t he going to Gay Paree; his home had been turned into a morgue.

Opening the door closest to me, I said: “I thought Daddy could sleep in here. The bed’s made up, and it has the best view of the sea.”

A silly thing to have mentioned. Given his present disconsolate state, my father probably shouldn’t be encouraged to hang out of second-floor windows. He had talked about ending it all when Mummy had died but had decided to wait until he had lost a few pounds so that I wouldn’t be put to the expense of a large coffin. Not that he’d been a fifth of his present size at that time. Fortunately, the mood had passed, possibly because Freddy’s mother had pointed out that my mother might be enjoying the opportunity to make her own way in the next world. Aunt Lulu was a twit in many ways, but she had her moments. It cheered me a little to remember that Daddy hadn’t made light of Mummy’s passing.

The bedroom we entered had neutral wallpaper with matching curtains and a beige carpet. Innocuous would best describe it. But my father immediately prowled around the space between the foot of the bed and the dressing table like a disgruntled bear in a cage while never taking his eyes off Ben, who was still holding the urn.

“What’s the prob, Uncle?” Freddy put the coffeepot and decanter down on a trunk that served for a table and elbowed me aside to flop down in an easy chair.

“Harriet wouldn’t have liked this room.” Daddy’s lips flapped in distaste.

“Wouldn’t she?” I was tempted to say that it was fortunate her powers of observation had been curtailed, but with the urn right there in our midst, that would have made me a poor hostess.

“She wouldn’t have liked that fox-hunting picture.”

“She didn’t have the killer instinct?”

“Harriet was one of life’s fragile blossoms! She disliked violence.” Daddy’s eyes took on a glow, as if reflecting a distant sunset. “I remember sitting with her one evening in the biergarten where we first met and her saying to me in that wonderful voice of hers that she had always shunned situations where someone was liable to be physically injured. She asked me to remember that; one of those woman things, I suppose, because Harriet wouldn’t have upset a teacup, let alone a person.” He rescued the urn from Ben and stood stroking it with the soft touch of a man who was swathed in clouds of contemplation.

He now deposited the treasured repository on the bedside table and surveyed it tenderly before touching two fingers to his lips and transferring a butterfly kiss to the clay lid.

“Sweet dreams, beloved.” He lay down on the bed, folding his hands across his chest.

“Don’t go easy on the brandy, Bentwick,” he found the strength to murmur.

“Coming up.” Ben got busy pouring, and I had just opened the wardrobe to make sure there were sufficient clothes hangers when the telephone rang—a muffled, almost apologetic sound coming from the extension in our bedroom and the one downstairs in the hall. This time it would surely be in-laws reporting on the children. Probably just to say that they were tucked in bed, sound asleep, but my mother’s heart smote me. What if Rose wouldn’t take her bottle? Or Abbey was homesick? Or Tam had put the tablecloth over his head and tried to parachute out the window?

“Freddy must have gotten it.” Ben was handing Daddy his coffee when the telephone stopped ringing.

“Yes, but ...” I headed for the door.

“He’ll be back up in a jiff, Ellie, if it’s anything that he can’t take a message on.”

“And in the meantime”—Daddy hoisted himself up on the pillows and took a sip, as if bravely endeavoring to follow doctor’s orders— “I will continue with the heart-wrenching story of my final days with Harriet.”

“Yes, you must, if not immediately ... very soon.” I was swaying like a pendulum between the bed and the doorway when Freddy reappeared, looking glum.

“That was the pater.”

“Uncle Maurice?”

“He’s the only father I’ve got, so far as I know.”

“What did he have to say?” Ben eyed my cousin—his friend—with man-to-man concern.

“Could I please have a decanter of brandy?” Freddy held out his hand, and when nothing found its way into it, he sagged against the chest of drawers. “I suppose I’ve got to be a man about this, but it’s not going to be easy.” His voice cracked. “To break it to you gently, my mother’s in a bad way.”

“Dying?” Eyebrows going up in alarm, Ben handed over the decanter.

“Oh, poor Aunt Lulu!” I whispered.

“It’s not that”—Freddy dragged himself over to the bed and planted himself on Daddy’s feet— “although to hear the pater talk he’d much rather she was breathing her last. And I must say that the Mum has really done it this time.” Taking the stopper out of the decanter, he inhaled deeply. “She’s got mixed up in bad company. Big-time shoplifters, forgers, even a couple of train robbers.”

“Wherever did she meet these people?” Ben and I asked as one.

“At the rehab place where she had gone for the latest cure.”

“Aunt Lulu’s a kleptomaniac,” I informed Daddy, who was trying to reclaim his feet.

“That’s the problem with this modern age,” he rasped. “Every woman has to have a career.”

“Uncle Maurice couldn’t have expected Aunt Lulu to stay at home changing nappies at nearly sixty,” I pointed out.

“It was the pater’s idea to pack her off to Oaklands.” Freddy sounded understandably aggrieved. “And now he’s all het up because he walked in tonight on the mum hosting an aftercare group session in the sitting room. Apparently, such meetings are a strict requirement of being released into one’s own custody after finishing the program.”

“Then I can’t see your father has anything to complain about,” Ben consoled him.

“My thinking.” Freddy took another sniff of brandy. “But the pater gave me an earful about how Mum and her gang were talking about holding up the local Lloyds bank—Barclays or the Midland being out of the question because several of the group had deposits with them and they seemed to have a moral objection to stealing their own money.”

Daddy shuddered. I was rather surprised he didn’t reach over to cover the urn’s ears.

“What it comes down to,” Freddy continued bravely, “is that somehow this is all my fault. If I’d been a better son instead of a complete lughead, Mum would have found fulfillment bottling fruit or playing bridge. So now it’s time to pay the piper.”

“Meaning?” Ben’s left eyebrow went up.

“The pater is bringing Mum down here tomorrow, handcuffed to his wrist, no doubt, and she’s to live with me at the cottage—confined to the spare bedroom on a diet of bread and water—until I have drummed some sense in her head. I’m even expected to take her to church.” My favorite cousin looked at me with anguished eyes. “Ellie, I don’t know that I can stand it. Not with the new vicar spouting off about St. Ethelwort, or whatever the bloke’s name is, for hours on end. Mrs. Vicar’s all right. She did give me the lead in
Murder Most Fowl.
But if I start showing up at church like it’s opening time at the local, she’ll start thinking I’m just the one to marry her pie-faced niece Ruth. And it’s bad enough having to kiss the girl for art’s sake in the play.”

My heart went out to him, although I reserved some pity for myself. Aunt Lulu, in addition to her talent for sleight of hand, was an accomplished escape artist and would doubtless show up at Merlin’s Court with increasing frequency as the days went by. And to think that tomorrow morning Ben and I should have been leaving for France! I was about to tell Freddy to look at the silver lining when my father embarked on the final chapter of
Life with Harriet.

“ ‘If I had my way,’ I told her tenderly, ‘I would shower you with summer days all our lives long. But as God did not put me in charge of the weather, you must tell me, sweetest of all Harriets, what I can do to complete your happiness.’

“ ‘Darling, you can buy me another Edingerbier.’ She gave me one of her most mischievous smiles as she leaned across the table and tippy-toed her fingers across my hand. It was a sunny afternoon with just the right amount of breeze. She was wearing a frock that looked wonderful with the golden tan she had added to her charms during our weeks together. We were seated in the biergarten where we had first met. The old dog lay bathed in golden shadows in the doorway. The air was ripened to an intoxicating brew by the scent of oleander. And there was not a woman at any of the other tables who fulfilled the ideal of womanhood as did my Harriet.

“I beckoned to the waitress—the same young girl with the plait down her back who had waited on us the first time. By now she knew us very well, was always full of smiles for the
verlieben,
as she called us, and within minutes she returned with a brimming stein that she set down at Harriet’s elbow.

“ ‘You two together, so happy in your faces, it always makes my day go better.’ She stood wiping her hands on her white apron, her eyes pleased, like those of a child with a present to open. ‘I tell my Albert about you and say: “We must be like that when we are old. Our hearts must beat fast, and the songbirds must sing in our heads.” ‘

“She went skipping off, and Harriet, taking note of my frown, laughed. ‘Darling Morley, I know you think of me as little more than a babe in arms, but the truth of the matter is that I am at the very least a middle-aged woman. To a girl as young as that, I must appear quite ancient. And perhaps it is time I made a few home improvements. Try
a new shade of mascara, for instance.’

“ ‘Don’t change a thing!’ My heart threatened to burst with emotion.

“ ‘How very fierce of you!’ she cried, drawing back in her seat in mock terror.

“ ‘Only because I adore you.’

“ I know you do.’ Harriet’s hazel eyes darkened to brown as they gazed deep into mine. ‘I really believe that you would do anything in the world for me.’

“ ‘I’d give you the moon on a star-studded platter.’

“ ‘What I really want’—she spoke into the frosted stein—’is a promise.’

“ ‘Anything!’

“ ‘It has to be a solemn vow.’

“ ‘You have it.’

“ ‘Without even knowing what it is I ask?’

“ ‘I only wish ...’ I could not hold back the sigh. ‘I only wish, my adored one, that it was my vow to honor you and keep you as my wife from this day forward.’

“ ‘Morley, we’ve talked about all that. I thought you understood that I can’t marry you. Not now ... not until I am quite sure my illness won’t come back. I know I’m being irrational, but the fear doesn’t go away the moment you are told you’re cured. In a few months, perhaps, I’ll really believe it. Here ...’ Harriet pressed a hand to her heart. ‘Believe what my doctor has told me. That I am a walking miracle destined to live forever. And’—her mischievous smile reasserted itself—’they do tend to believe in miracles in these parts. It’s a cultural requirement, just like edelweiss and strudel and old men who look like Heidi’s grandfather. But just in case something befalls me, will you promise, Morley, to take me—my ashes, that is—back to England?’

“ ‘My angel!’

“ ‘Darling, don’t rush me!’ She stroked my hand and sat biting her lip for a moment. ‘I’ve never thought of myself as sentimental, but then I’ve never had a brush with death before.’ She started to cry, her face working itself into a shape that was unfamiliar to me, so that I felt that I had already lost some essential part of her, or would if I didn’t bring her back from the brink of the infernal abyss.

“ ‘Harriet, you have my solemn word that I will do as you ask.’

“ ‘Thank you, Morley.’

“ ‘But nothing is going to happen to you.’

“ ‘No, of course it isn’t. I’m just being a woman, that’s all.’ She took a few token sips of beer and got to her feet. ‘Let’s go for one of our walks, darling. And you can tell me some more about your wonderful little family in England. After all,’ she said, gathering up her handbag, ‘if I am going to meet them one day, I ought to know all about their likes and dislikes.’

“ ‘They couldn’t possibly dislike you.’ I placed the money on the table for our drinks and stood looking down at her with moist eyes.

“ ‘Your daughter could resent me.’

“ ‘Why ever would she? Giselle has her own life.’

“ ‘She might not relish the idea of anyone taking her mother’s place, especially a total stranger.’ Harriet took my arm, and we went out into the street lined with
Fachwerhoesen,
those charming gabled houses with their multicolored, leaded windows. To the passersby, we probably looked like an ideally happy couple. And suddenly I was walking on air. An amazing feat for a man of my size.

“ ‘My beloved,’ I said, gazing ardently at her exquisite profile, ‘may I take these foolish concerns as an indication that you will one day, in the not too distant future, relent and marry me?’