Were she to carry out this threat I could have ended up with her in one turret and Magdalene in another. But something-call it stubbornness-stopped me from assuaging her curiosity.
“I’m sorry, but where would be the fun of having something like this if its secrets weren’t-secret?”
The chins quivered in disappointment, but Mrs. Bottomly made a valiant effort. “Never mind, Mrs. Haskell. Merlin’s Court will still be added to the Historical Society’s permanent register-meaning, we will be back next year.”
I was tempted to suggest that if they left right now they wouldn’t have to rush.
As the door closed on the last beret, I was torn between fatigue and elation. I should have realised that local legend spoke true. Wilfred Grantham had been too much of a purist to build his castle without that most basic of requirements, a dungeon. Had everything been different, I would have raced upstairs to tell Ben. As I passed the telephone, I even felt an urge to ring up Mr. Edwin Digby. He might be interested; after all, he had featured a dungeon in that book of his about Ethel the pickler, and he had a link with the mad-hatter doings of Wilfred Grantham, on account of the Misses Lucretia and Lavinia.
4:27 P.M. I returned to that chamber of horrors, the kitchen. The ticking inside my head was getting louder. No Bunty. Her apron was discarded on a chair; scrawled in the floured surface of the table was Gone home to slip into something comfortable-a bubble bath. Well, this explained why she hadn’t come out into the hall to see what all the commotion was about. But she had finished the last batch of chicken tarts. They looked nice, even the ones we had to make out of tuna because we ran out of jellied breast. Everything else looked subtly nongourmet, but the refrigerator was now full.
Too full. As I brushed past it, I heard a crash from within. The top shelf had collapsed. Hours of work reduced to pâté.
I wanted to kick off my shoes, lie on the floor, and turn up my toes, but there was a knock on the garden door. Freddy come to beg forgiveness? Thoughts of pressing his face inside the fridge revived me somewhat.
But the man on the step was short and stout with deep brown eyes, a bald spot, and a fluffy white beard. Two suitcases and a yippy little dog were by his feet.
“Ellie, is my son dead?”
His question revived me like a slap in the face. My father-in-law, Elijah Haskell, threw his arms around me and we both began to sob.
“No, Ben’s much better.” I wiped my face dry and stepped aside to let him and his dog enter. Tobias wouldn’t be pleased about the dog, but we are all called upon to adjust.
“My wife, she’s bunked off to another convent?”
“No, but…”
“Then, what’s to cry about?” Poppa asked over the dog’s yapping. His eyes took in the culinary turmoil. “This is a nice place you’ve got here. A Star of David on the wall, and it could look like home.” He put his luggage down and began unwinding the little dog. “Take me to see my family, Ellie, then tell Poppa how to help.”
Now was the time to inquire if Ben’s culinary skill was a genetic fluke, but I was put off my stroke by his suitcases. They didn’t look the weekend sort.
I gave a casual, hiccuping laugh and found myself thinking of the handmade furniture in the flat in Tottenham.
“You can make me a cake, Poppa, one I can leap out of on the night of Bunty Wiseman’s Aerobic Follies at the church hall.”
From the Files of
MEMO: From Executive Board to Mrs. Geraldine Stropp, Correspondence Chairwoman.
Thursday, 30th April
Please arrange to have two dozen yellow roses sent on Saturday, 2nd May, to Mrs. Ellie Haskell of Merlin’s Court, Cliff Road, Chitterton Fells. Card to be enclosed. Message to read: “Sorry.” No sender. Please be sure and bill Treasury before the first of the month.
NOTE: This action was not presented to the members at large. It is a direct order from The Founder.
18
… “My poor Ellie, what an agonising day! If only we had known… known you!” Primrose sighed. “We could have helped by sending Butler over to make little sausages on sticks. You would have been pleased to do so, would you not, Butler?”
The man removed plates scattered with toasted teacake crumbs. “Certainly, madam. Although not as much as I h’enjoyed breaking into The Peerless Nursing Home. Surely Mr. Freddy…”
“Please!” Hyacinth’s black brows zigzagged together. “We do not wish to hear that name…”
In all fairness, a certain person did knock on the front door Thursday evening to sob his apologies through the letter box. If Eli’s dog had been handy, I would have whispered, “Postman!” in her ear and flung wide the door.
“Ellie, old sock, did I by chance forget to mention that one of the deep freezes at Abigail’s is crammed with bite-sized morsels prepared during my training sessions with Ben? Of course, I never dreamed that they would go public-we have been eating them for lunch. But it occurs to me that in a pinch…”
I almost went through the letter box. To have suffered the horrors of the damned while a deep freeze had everything at the ready! A moment’s quiet reflection, however, brought me to realise that Freddy was not totally to blame. Had my husband and I been properly communicating, I would have recognised that while Ben lay blank-eyed on the pillows, he wasn’t fretting whether Freddy would recall the precise ratio of air to solid in a mousse, but whether he was up to proper thawing.
Freddy rattled the letter box to recapture my attention. “Of course, Ellie, you might like to make some chicken tarts. They’re a bit simplistic for Ben or me, but-”
“I know, they were a great hit at the wedding reception.” So, the chicken tarts weren’t wasted, but nothing could give me back the hours I could have spent with Ben, or undo the fact that he thought he came a poor second to dusting the drawing room.
When I brought Poppa up to see Ben, I could tell that the dent in our marital relationship had deepened into a bottomless pit. My own husband had to snap his fingers a couple of times to recall my name. And if I didn’t have enough problems, the little dog, misnamed Sweetie, took a snarling dislike to me. I couldn’t think of a thing to serve for dinner except ruined hors d’oeuvres. And, for all his pleasantness to me, Poppa soon made it plain that his desire to see his son did not include a willingness to speak to him. Honour must prevail. The possibility of instant reconciliation between my in-laws also went out the window like a loose canary when they met across Ben’s bed.
“You’re looking fatter, Eli.”
“You’re looking thinner, Maggie.”
“I will not turn my son’s mansion into a battleground.”
“Won’t seem like home, will it?”
She smoothed down her grey cardigan, he rubbed his bald spot, and that was that.
From then on, the house turned into a revolving door. Each time Magdalene saw Eli, she crossed herself. Each time he saw her, he chanted something in Yiddish. I grew dizzy wondering how long this might last. And, to add zing to the tension, Sweetie was trying to drive me off her territory. Tobias went into hibernation. Occasionally I would espy a dangle of fluffy tail out the door of a high cupboard but, in my time of need, the comfort of a warm furry body was denied me.
How long would Poppa stay? My suspicions became confirmed when he requested a room with a view, enquired as to the location of the nearest synagogue, and wanted to know whether I was aware of any chess societies in need of new members.
Within hours of Poppa’s arrival, I began to perceive unnerving signs of a different sort. He wasn’t making himself at home; he was making my home his home. Candlesticks bearing the Star of David and portraits of rabbis began springing up all over the house in direct competition with his wife’s statues, pictures, and the holy water fonts she had placed beside every door-from the refrigerator to the drawing room. What would Dorcas and Jonas think were they to walk in now?