To Say Nothing of the Dog (33 page)

“How about ‘balderdash’?” I said. “Or ‘pshaw’?”

“ ‘Pshaw,’ Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering said, sweeping in. “What are you pooh-poohing? Not our church fête, I hope? It benefits the restoration fund,
such
a worthwhile project, Mr. Henry. Our poor parish church is in such
desperate
need of restoration. Why, the baptismal font dates back to 1262. And the windows! Hopelessly mediaeval! If our fête is a success we hope to purchase all new ones!”

She heaped her plate with kippers and venison and wolf, sat down, and swept her napkin off the table and onto her lap. “The restoration project is all our curate Mr. Arbitage’s doing. Until he came the vicar wouldn’t even
hear
of restoring the church. I’m afraid he is quite old-fashioned in his thinking. He refuses even to consider the possibility of communication with the spirits.”

Good man, I thought.

“Mr. Arbitage, on the other hand,
embraces
the idea of spiritism, and of speaking with our dear departed ones on the Other Side. Do you believe contact is possible with the Other Side, Mr. Henry?”

“Mr. Henry was inquiring about the church fête,” Verity said. “I was just going to tell him about your clever idea of a jumble sale.”

“O,” Mrs. Mering said, looking flattered. “Have you ever been to a fête, Mr. Henry?”

“One or two,” I said.

“Well, then, you know that there are donated fancy goods and jellies and needlework tables.
My
idea was that we also donate objects that we no longer have any use for, all sorts of things, dishes and bric-a-brac and books, a
jumble
of things!”

I was gazing at her in horror. This was the person who had started it all, the person responsible for all those endless jumble sales I’d been stuck at.

“You would be amazed, Mr. Henry, at the treasures people have in their attics and storerooms, sitting there covered in dust. Why, in my
own
attic I found a tea urn and a lovely celery dish. Baine, were you able to get the dents out of the tea urn?”

“Yes, madam,” Baine said, pouring her coffee.

“Would you care for coffee, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering asked.

I was surprised at how pleasant Mrs. Mering was being to me. It must be the politeness Verity had referred to.

Tossie came in, carrying Princess Arjumand, who had a large pink bow tied round her neck. “Good morning, Mama,” she said, scanning the table for Terence.

“Good morning, Tocelyn,” Mrs. Mering said. “Did you sleep well?”

“O yes, Mama,” Tossie said, “now that my dearum-dearums pet is safely home.” She snuggled the cat. “You slept cuddled next to me all night long, didn’t you, sweetum-lovums?”

“Tossie!” Mrs. Mering said sharply. Tossie looked chagrined.

Obviously some sort of breach of etiquette, though I had no idea what. I would have to ask Verity.

Colonel Mering and Professor Peddick arrived, talking animatedly about the battle of Trafalgar. “Outnumbered twenty-seven to thirty-three,” the Colonel was saying.

“Exactly my point,” Professor Peddick said. “If it hadn’t been for Nelson, they’d have lost the battle! It’s character that makes history, not blind forces! Individual initiative!”

“Good morning, Papa,” Tossie said, coming over to kiss the Colonel on the cheek.

“Good morning, Daughter.” He glared at Princess Arjumand. “Doesn’t belong in here.”

“But she’s had a terrible ordeal,” Tossie said, carrying the cat over to the sideboard. “Look, Princess Arjumand, kippers,” she said, put one on a plate, set it and the cat down, and smiled defiantly at Baine.

“Good morning, Mesiel,” Mrs. Mering said to her husband. “Did you sleep well last night?”

“Tolerably,” he said, peering under the wolf. “And you, Malvinia? Sleep well, my dear?”

This was apparently the opening Mrs. Mering had been waiting for. “I did not,” she said, and paused dramatically. “There are spirits in this house. I heard them.”

I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Verity with her “The walls in these country houses are thick. One can’t hear a thing through them.”

“O, Mama,” Tossie said breathlessly, “what did the spirits sound like?”

Mrs. Mering got a faraway look. “It was a strange, unearthly sound such as no living being could make. A sort of sobbing exhalation like breathing, though of course the spirits do not breathe, and then a . . .” she paused, searching for words, “. . . a shriek followed by a long painful gasp, as of a soul in torment. It was a dreadful, dreadful sound.”

Well, I would agree with that.

“I felt as though it were trying to communicate with me, but could not,” she said. “O, if only Madame Iritosky were here. I know she would be able to make the spirit speak. I intend to write to her this morning and ask her to come, though I fear she will not. She says she can only work in her own home.”

With her own trapdoors and hidden wires and secret connecting passages, I thought, and supposed I should be grateful. At least she wasn’t likely to show up and expose my harboring of Cyril.

“If she could have but heard the spirit’s fearful cry, I know she would come to us,” Mrs. Mering said. “Baine, has Mr. St. Trewes come down yet?”

“I believe he is coming momentarily,” Baine said. “He took his dog for a walk.”

Late for breakfast,
and
walking his dog. Two strikes against him, though Mrs. Mering didn’t look as irritable as I’d thought she might.

“Hullo,” Terence said, coming in, and without Cyril. “Sorry I’m late.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Mrs. Mering said, beaming at him. “Do sit down, Mr. St. Trewes. Would you care for tea or coffee?”

“Coffee,” Terence said, smiling at Tossie.

“Baine, bring coffee for Mr. St. Trewes.”

“We’re all so delighted you’ve come,” Mrs. Mering said. “I do hope you and your friends will be able to stay for our church fête. It will be such fun. We shall have a coconut shy and a fortuneteller, and Tocelyn will be baking a cake to raffle. Such an excellent cook, Tocelyn, and so accomplished. She plays the piano, you know, and speaks German
and
French. Don’t you, Tossie, dear?”

“Oui,
Mama,” Tossie said, smiling at Terence.

I looked questioningly at Verity. She shrugged back an “I don’t know.”

“Professor Peddick, I do hope your pupils can spare you for a few days,” Mrs. Mering was saying. “And Mr. Henry,
do
say you’ll help us with the Treasure Hunt.”

“Mr. Henry has been telling me he lived in the States,” Verity said, and I turned and looked at her in astonishment.

“Truly?” Terence said. “You never told me that.”

“It . . . it was when I was ill,” I said. “I . . . was sent to . . . the States for treatment.”

“Did you see Red Indians?” Tossie asked.

“I was in Boston,” I stammered, silently cursing Verity.

“Boston!” Mrs. Mering cried. “Do you know the Fox sisters?”

“The Fox sisters?” I said.

“The Misses Margaret and Kate Fox. The founders of our spiritist movement. It was they who first received communications from the spirits by rapping.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have that pleasure,” I said, but she had already turned her attention back to Terence.

“Tocelyn embroiders beautifully, Mr. St. Trewes,” she said. “You must see the lovely pillowcases she has sewn for our fancy goods stall.”

“I am certain the person who purchases them will have sweet dreams,” Terence said, smiling goopily at Tossie, “ ‘a dream of perfect bliss, too beautiful to last. . . .’ ”

The Colonel and the professor, still at Trafalgar with Nelson, pushed back their chairs and stood up, muttering, one after the other, “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Mesiel, where are you going?” Mrs. Mering said.

“Out to the fishpond,” the Colonel said. “Show Professor Peddick my nacreous ryunkin.”

“Do wear your greatcoat then,” Mrs. Mering said. “And your wool scarf.” She turned to me. “My husband has a weak chest and a tendency to catarrh.”

Like Cyril, I thought.

“Baine, fetch Colonel Mering’s greatcoat,” she said, but they were already gone.

She turned back immediately to Terence. “Where do your people come from, Mr. St. Trewes?”

“Kent,” he said, “which I always thought the fairest spot on earth till now.”

“Might I be excused, Aunt Malvinia?” Verity said, folding her napkin. “I must finish my glove boxes.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Mering said absently. “How long have your family lived in Kent, Mr. St. Trewes?”

As Verity passed me, she dropped a folded note in my lap.

“Since 1066,” Terence said. “Of course, we’ve improved the house since then. Most of it’s Georgian. Capability Brown. You must come and visit us.”

I unfolded the note under the table and sneaked a look at it. It read, “Meet me in the library.”

“We should love to come,” Mrs. Mering said eagerly. “Shouldn’t we, Tocelyn?”

“Oui,
Mama.”

I waited for an opening and dived in. “If I might be excused, Mrs. Mering,” I began.

“Absolutely
not,
Mr. Henry,” she said. “Why, you haven’t eaten a thing! You must have some of Mrs. Posey’s eel pie. It is unparalleled.”

It was, and so was the kedgeree, which she made Baine dump on my plate with a large shovel-like utensil. A kedgeree spoon, no doubt.

After some eels and as little kedgeree as possible, I made my escape and went to look for Verity, though I had no idea where the library was. I needed one of those diagrams like in Verity’s detective novels.

I tried several doors and finally found her in a room lined from floor to ceiling with books.

“Where have you been?” Verity said. She was seated at a table covered with a litter of shells and pots of glue.

“Eating vile, unspeakable things,” I said. “And answering questions about America. Why on earth did you tell them I’d been to America? I don’t know anything about the States.”

“Neither do they,” she said imperturbably. “I had to do something. You haven’t been prepped, and you’re bound to make mistakes. They think all Americans are barbarians, so if you use the wrong fork, they’ll put it down to your having spent time in the States.”

“Thank you, I suppose,” I said.

“Sit down,” she said. “We need to plan our strategy.”

I looked at the door, which had an old-fashioned key in the lock. “Should I lock the door?”

“It’s not necessary,” she said, selecting a flat pinkish shell. “The only person who ever comes in here is Baine. Mrs. Mering disapproves of reading.”

“Then where did all this come from?” I said, indicating the rows of brown- and scarlet-bound books.

“They bought it,” she said, swabbing glue on the shell.

“Bought what?”

“The library. From Lord Dunsany. The person Baine worked for before he came to the Chattisbournes. The Chattisbournes are who Mrs. Mering stole Baine from, though I think Baine actually chose to come. For the books.” She stuck the shell down on the box. “Sit down. If anyone comes in, you’re helping me with these.” She held up a completed box. It was covered with shells of assorted sizes in the shape of a heart.

“That’s absolutely hideous,” I said.

“The entire Victorian era had the most atrocious taste,” she said. “Be glad it’s not hair wreaths.”

“Hair wreaths?”

“Flowers made out of dead people’s hair. The mother-of-pearl shells go along the edges,” she said, showing me, “and then a row of cowrie shells.” She shoved a glue pot at me. “I found out from Baine why Mrs. Mering’s suddenly so friendly toward Terence. She looked him up in DeBrett’s. He’s rich, and he’s the nephew of a peer.”

“Rich?” I said. “But he didn’t even have enough money to pay for the boat.”

“The aristocracy are always in debt,” she said, looking at a clamshell. “He’s got five thousand a year, an estate in Kent, and he’s second in line to the peerage. So,” she said, discarding the clamshell, “our priority is to keep Tossie and Terence away from each other, which will be difficult with Mama matchmaking. Tossie’s collecting things for the jumble sale this morning, and I’m going to send you with her. That’ll keep them apart for at least half a day.”

“What about Terence?” I said.

“I’m going to send him to Streatley after the Chinese lanterns for the fête. I want you to try to find out from Tossie if she knows any young men whose names begin with ‘C.’ ”

“You’ve checked in the neighborhood for ‘C’’s, I suppose,” I said.

She nodded. “The only two I’ve been able to discover are Mr. Cudden and Mr. Cawp, the farmer who’s always drowning kittens.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven. What about Mr. Cudden?”

“He’s married,” she said glumly. “You’d think there’d be lots of Mr. C’s. I mean, look at Dickens—David Copperfield, Martin Chuzzlewit, Bob Cratchet.”

“Not to mention the Admirable Crichton,” I said, “and Lewis Carroll. No, that won’t work. It wasn’t his real name. Thomas Carlyle. And G.K. Chesterton. Eligible suitors all,” I said. “What are you going to do while I’m with Tossie?”

“I’m going to search Tossie’s room and try to find her diary. She’s hidden it, and I had to cut my search short. Jane came in. But this morning they’ll all be working on the fête, so I won’t be interrupted. Failing that, I’ll go through to Oxford and see what the forensics expert’s been able to find out.”

“Ask Warder how much slippage there was on the drop when you rescued Princess Arjumand,” I said.

“Going through to Oxford with her, do you mean?” she said. “There’s never any slippage on return drops.”

“No,” I said, “the drop where you came through and saw the cat.”

“All right. We’d better get back in there.” She stuck the cork in the glue pot, stood up, and rang for Baine.

“Baine,” she said when he appeared, “have the carriage brought round immediately, and then come to the breakfast room.

“As you wish, miss,” he said.

“Thank you, Baine,” she said, picked up the shell-covered box, and led the way back to the breakfast room.

Mrs. Mering was still interrogating Terence. “O, how exquisite!” she said when Verity showed her the box.

“We still have a good deal to do for the fête, Aunt Malvinia,” she said. “I so want the jumble sale to be a success. Have you your list?”