The Widow's Club (29 page)

“We’ll have to see about a medal for chivalry.” I ducked under his arm and grabbed a pillow off the bed. “Am I correct in assuming you informed your mother that I was at one time enormous?”

Ben paced in front of the fireplace, head down. “Ellie, don’t drag Mum into this. She has already been subjected to enough. You and I have been heading for a confrontation. We’ve been sieving the lumps out of our relationship, trying to keep everything smooth and creamy, and I guess that can’t be done.” He stopped midstep. “I was wrong, not telling you about Angie, but I’m not exactly ecstatic about the way you conduct yourself with Rowland. Think I didn’t notice”—his voice went all cutesy—“the way you almost broke your arm off picking up his pipe when he dropped it yesterday?”

“I did not want a hole burnt in the carpet.”

“Sure!” Ben went back to pacing. “And while we are on the subject, do you really go to church for his sermons, or is it the frisk of his cassock as he steps out of the pulpit that pleases you?” A long pause, with both of us staring at the ceiling. “Ellie, if we are going to make this work …”

“
If
?” I retreated behind a brittle laugh. “Having your mother here should add a few lumps. In between polishing her halo, she can provide me with endless hours of enjoyment listening to her petty criticisms.” My last words lacked total conviction. Magdalene skirted the letter of criticism.
In the instance of my skirt, she hadn’t said it was too long, she had merely offered to hem it.

Ben, this man I no longer knew, pounced within three inches of the bed. “Don’t you speak about my mother that way. She has been through hell!”

“I couldn’t agree more, if your father takes after you.”

He headed for the door, then turned back. “Since the day you and I met, I have been wading through your crazy relatives. Now, if it doesn’t take too much time away from them, I am going downstairs to cook dinner for my mother. Join us if you wish.”

Ben bunked down the hallway. I clung to the door jamb, and snarled after him:

“Do we include Freddy among my crazy relatives? Don’t you know you two are the talk of the neighborhood? The Dark Horse expects to go bankrupt if you two desist from stopping in for a quick one on your way home from Abigail’s!”

Ben swung around. He looked like one of those robots, the vicious kind that sizzle you with their eyes. “I refuse to apologise for stopping in at the pub once or twice a week for a pint and a game of darts. Freddy needs to let off steam about Jill and—”

“Her petulant insistence on marriage?”

“Will you let me finish! I was about to say that the one thing my parents denied me was a brother. Sid sometimes joins us. He’s been rather edgy of late, and what are friends for? Marriage isn’t intended as a prison, is it? Do you find me interrogating you on each and every one of your activities?”

“I don’t have any activities.” My smile was the last word in nonchalance. Unfortunately it threatened to tear my face apart.

“Oh, no?” He folded his arms. “Mum mentioned in passing that you were wearing male attire when she arrived and that the trouser cuffs were rolled up, meaning they weren’t mine. Mum didn’t mention a clerical collar, but even had she, I would not become hysterical.”

I closed my eyes and got this lovely picture of me slowly strangling his mother. “There is a perfectly reasonable explanation—”

Ben lifted his hand as though stopping traffic in Leicester Square. “I don’t need explanations, Ellie. My feeling for
you is based on trust.” Whereupon he tapped his watch; this meeting having run beyond its allotted span, he sped down the stairs to dine with Mum.

I doubt he had once looked at his watch while with A.E. Brady. Leaning over the bannister rail I could hear noises from the kitchen. Laughter probably. Never mind. There were still some pleasures to be squeezed from life. Feeling as if I would suffocate, I opened the bathroom door, slid down onto the floor in a huddle, and flung my hair over my face. That way no one would hear me gulping down noisy sobs. I didn’t want anyone to feel guilty.

A furry shadow appeared along the wall—Tobias! I put him on the clothes bin, then stood clinging to the shell-shaped pedestal basin until I was breathing almost normally again. My face, alas, didn’t recover that quickly. It was red-eyed and puffy. Even Tobias was mildly revolted. “I don’t want you to take this to heart”—I splashed on cold water and rubbed vigourously with a towel—“but I have quarrelled with the man of the house. Will you wipe that smile off your face? I didn’t say anything about divorce. I am physically and emotionally attached to the man, so the hardest part of all this is that I am going to have to forgive him, after he has eaten his words—the way you are eating the toothpaste.”

I removed the tube of McLeans and Tobias’s face split into a yawn that went all the way down to his tail. I cradled him against me. “Remember, Tobe, you must not bear our mother-in-law a grudge because she suggested sending you to the big cat farm in the sky whenever—if ever—Ben and I have kittens of our own. Tell me, should I fight the urge to creep downstairs and telephone Poppa, begging him to come and remove her, or would you really hate to miss the chance to use her legs for scratching posts?”

I stooped to put him down and noticed Mr. Digby’s suit lying beside the clothes bin where I had left it earlier, uncertain what to do with it. Now I wanted it out of sight. I would roll it up and toss it in the wall cabinet, way at the back. But first I probed through the jacket pockets, then the trouser ones. I wasn’t being nosy, merely responding automatically to putting anything away. And, of course, I was killing time. Ah! What was this? From the jacket breast pocket I removed a snapshot and a small coin. A very small coin.

“Look here, Tobe. Bet you’ve never seen one of these. It’s a farthing. Once the smallest coin in the realm. Not so surprising that Mr. Digby didn’t want the suit back—if it’s that old.”

I sat on the edge of the bath; Tobias nuzzled up onto my shoulder. Together we studied the photo. “Here’s the man of mystery, Mr. D. himself. And who else do we have in the shadow of yon tree? A woman in a skirt and cardigan. And a teenager—probably a girl. It’s hard to tell with that short hair and leather jacket.” I turned the snapshot over and perused the writing on the back. Tobias trod from my left shoulder to my right, meowing for me to continue.

“All right! It says here, ‘Eddy, Wren, and Miss Peerless.’ And, upon close inspection, the woman in the skirt and cardigan does look like a younger Theodora Peerless.” My mind bubbled with possibilities. Reaching up, I patted at the furry face. “What do you make of that, chum?”

Tobias was no help at all. And suddenly sounds of life from below stairs began drifting under the bathroom door. I tucked the photo back in the suit pocket and opened the wall cupboard. I’d have to think of the implications of all this later, when my own life didn’t intrude. That
ping
was the telephone receiver being lifted. As I settled a sleeping Tobias in the bathroom basin (one of his favourite nesting places), I strained to hear more. Was Magdalene contacting her spouse in an attempt at reconciliation? I felt a small glow. Perhaps my rift with Ben might not be on public display too much longer. With one last look at my puffy face, I headed downstairs. No one in the hall. Either the phone call had been short or no one had answered. What were the odds that Paris and Poppa were home but wearing their earphones?

The glow flickered and died as I entered the kitchen. Was it blatantly obvious I had been crying? I could say my cold was back. Hand on the doorknob, I heard that sound which so often exasperated but was now Beethoven to my ears. Freddy’s voice.

Magdalene murmured something indistinct and then Ben spoke. “Don’t get rattled, Mum. Death is not likely to occur before Dr. Melrose gets here.”

“He’s not the one with a fancy for bumping off elderly women, is he, son? I overheard talk about him on the coach.”

My hand fell off the knob. Ben’s finger must have taken a terrible turn for the worse while I was upstairs wallowing in self-pity. Would he ever forgive me? Did I deserve to be forgiven?

Freddy was slung hammock-style between two chairs. He cocked an acknowledging eyebrow on seeing me and then closed his eyes. Magdalene was hovering over him, mopping at a reddish-brown spot on his shirt—he’d been learning to carve roast beef for almost a fortnight now. And Ben was pouring tea, which seemed all wrong in his disintegrating condition.

“Hello, old sock.” Freddy sounded like he was suffering from a bad case of wrist fatigue.

“Don’t get up for me, Freddy,” I said crisply. Magdalene’s intake of breath filled the room. Ben turned, and Freddy went right on smiling wanly up at me.

“Come to bid me adieu, have you, Ellie?”

“Better not to talk.” Magdalene stopped sponging at the stain. She was hoodwinked, all right. “You need to rest, Frederick.”

“You mean …” I began.

“I mean I am about to die,” replied Freddy serenely. His eyes closed, his hands dragged on the floor.

From the Files of
The Widows Club

Monday, 27th April
, 7:00
P.M
.

President:

Good evening, Mrs. Hanover. Is this a bad line or are your customers having a bit of a singsong around the bar? That’s better. You say you had something of a turnup this evening at The Dark Horse? Freddy Flatts … Gracious me! That disreputable young man who caused such a stir at the Haskell nuptials. One worries about that poor young woman.… Absolutely! One only has to look at her—so dreadfully changed in a few months … Oh, quite! Out of the frying pan into the fire when she married that handsome fortune hunter.… Has his hair cut a lot, does he? Well, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.… I do hope Mrs. Haskell wasn’t the one who attacked her cousin. One couldn’t wonder but … Well, that is good news! Now we
mustn’t keep chatting; we’re both busy people. Just wanted to let you know you will be working with Mrs. Millicent Parsnip on the night of the 1st of May, at that Retirement Party we talked about.… There won’t be too much for you to do, which is good—this being your first assignment.… Yes, The Founder is taking a hand in this one. No, no, it isn’t the irrepressible Mr. Daffy, but don’t worry, he’s about to be finally put to rest. Be assured that the next reports of his demise will not be exaggerated! Now, are you ready for your instructions?

Mrs. Hanover:

A moment, if you please, to wipe one’s eyes. Words cannot express how moved and honoured one is to be part of so momentous an event.

President:

Very good. The Subject To Be Retired on Friday the 1st May is …

… “Shot or stabbed?” Hyacinth and Primrose spoke in one voice with intense professional interest.

“Neither. Pinked by a dart thrown by Sid Fowler, who had been so shaken by the mishap that he’d fainted and been in no condition to leave The Dark Horse and bring Freddy home.”

“Most unmanly!” Primrose sounded deeply shocked. “How did cousin Frederick reach Merlin’s Court?”

“Astride his motorbike. I do not believe he seriously considered dying until he saw the effect his wound had upon Magdalene, whereupon his devious mind flew to the possibilities of the effect on Jill. Someone would break the news to her and she would come rushing to his side. Only, needless to say, she didn’t. And by the time her get-well card and recommendation of a honey poultice reached Freddy, he had relapsed into full health. Dr. Melrose’s main concern was that Freddy was up-to-date on his tetanus; after which he prescribed an antiseptic cream, then a stiff drink for all of us.”

Primrose laid her hand on mine. “What did the doctor say about Ben’s finger?”

“Nothing, because he didn’t know about it. I didn’t speak up because I told myself I wasn’t going to be labelled a meddlesome wife and Ben had a mouth of his own. If he was rendered speechless by fear of having the finger lanced and getting jabbed elsewhere with a needle, his mother could whisper in Dr. Melrose’s ear. Magdalene informed
me later, at a moment already bleak, that she wouldn’t have dreamed of interfering. A husband and wife have their own lives to lead. Famous last words.…”

When I awoke the next morning, Tuesday, Ben had already left for Abigail’s. He had left something behind: a note cut lopsidedly in the shape of a heart. Fingers trembling, I opened it.
Be mine tonight
, it said. Tears washed down my face. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve Ben! I had been such a shrew! How dare I deluge him with my relations, then turn snippy when his woebegone little mother requested the minimum in consideration—a roof over her head until … until … I swung my legs out of bed. Ah, Ellie, we are going to see some changes made in you! Ben’s mother shall reside here for as long as she chooses.

Magdalene was mixing up a fruitcake as I entered the kitchen. The table was lined with pans, but it still reminded me of the headmistress’s desk as I presented myself in front of it.

“I’m truly sorry, Magdalene, that I am so late down.” The hall clock struck eleven in slow, heavy emphasis. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. No special reason, you understand. First, I couldn’t nod off and then I kept nodding awake. I do feel dreadful, neglecting you like this.”