Mum's the Word

by Dorothy Cannell

  With relief, the gourmet gang gathered around a table at the library end of the room. Everyone that is, except the bloodless Divonne and my spouse Ben, who would have to be pried up from his gloomy sulk with a spatula.

  He groped for my hand. “Ellie, I can’t believe it. I’m competing with a magician, a caterer of disposable food, a child, and worst of all, an ordinary housewife.”

  “Be a man, my lad!”

  Rising from his chair, his eyes turned black as his hair. “Ellie, you don’t understand this attack on my manhood.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ben! Are you afraid Mrs. Lois Brown will come after you with the nutcrackers?”

  He didn’t answer because Jeffries had appeared beside us. Frilled cap down low on her forehead, she had the sort of face my cousin Freddy would insist had been turned inside out. Especially when she smiled.

  “Want to fight or want to eat?” She proffered a tray of perfectly executed stuffed mushrooms and bacon-wrapped shrimp. Ben’s appraisal was a mixture of admiration and envy.

  To cover his silence I loaded up my plate. “Is it Mrs. Jeffries?”

  “That’s my business.” Her curls bounced. “Ain’t much else a woman in my position can call her own. Independently poor, that was my folks.” That said, she was off, to present her tray to Bingo. I could hear him theorizing on the oregano content of the mushrooms, cheeks bulging as he munched. Poor kid. He reminded me of myself as a child.

  Turning to Ben, I found him making painstaking conversation with Mr. Henderson Brown, husband of the nice woman with the corsage.

  “Hot today, wasn’t it?”

  Mr. B reacted as if asked to name ten major cities in Yugoslavia. “Sorry, I’m no judge of the weather. Always feel cold myself.”

  “These mushrooms are tops,” I contributed.

  “Yes, but are they good for us?” Perhaps it was the greyish-brown hair, but Mr. Brown put me strongly in mind of Eeyore. “So often we’re taken in by the pleasure of the moment,” he gloomed. “Will my wife’s success be good for her? For me? She was always so plain down-home sensible but this could change her into one of those women on Dynasty. What if she starts wanting to jazz herself up wearing hats and see-through nighties. I’m not the man for that sort of thing, you know.” The lines on his face were permanent press. Pity. He would have been quite handsome if the weight on his shoulders hadn’t shortened him by several inches and bowed his back.

  “How did you get over to the island?” Ben asked him.

  “Motorboat. It was waiting for us when we reached the river at seven o’clock.” He waved his hand to include the group milling about the room. “We all came over together.”

  An unhappy reminder that we had arrived late. Caught up in the horror of discovering he was not the lone candidate, Ben may well have forgotten he was in violation of the punctuality rule.

  For occupational therapy, I sent him to fetch me a tonic water. Mr. Brown offered to walk over to the drinks table with him. He himself did not indulge—something to do with his stomach or intestines. The comtesse tapped me on the arm.

  “ ’Allo! I intrude to ask—how far along are you expectant?”

  “Four months!” I waved Ben and the drink away. After all it had been decades since I conversed with a woman.

  “What, so leetle far along!” She waved her hands in disbelief. Her cerise nails were longer than my fingers. “You are très grande for four months.” Patting my abdomen, she raised her voice. “Leesten up everyone, is she not huge for only four months enceinte!”

  No one looked our way. As well, because my smile did not extend to my lips.

  She pinched my cheek, eyes shiny bright as onyx. “You must not be embarrassed. Have a happiness splurge! Call me Solange!”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Vincent and I have six. All with sweet brown eyes and the curly hair.”

  “How lovely!”

  “They’re poodles.”

  When Divonne, Mr. Grogg’s vampiric love, had drifted past, I asked Solange if she knew who now owned Mendenhall.

  “You do not know?” Surprise stretched the rouged skin tight over her cheekbones. “Why, ma chérie, this house belong to the great actress Theola Faith.”

  Pepys toddled up and tried to take my plate, but I needed something to hold onto. Of course if the walls closed in completely, they would support me. Were one to look coincidence straight in the eye, stripped of silly superstition …

  “Frog legs,” Solange said.

  I thought she was offering me something to eat. I shuddered.

  “The butler, he walks like zee frog.” Solange watched Pepys cross the room. “I wonder, was he here when Mendenhall was given to the beauteous Theola Faith by one of her lovers. The one who directs the film made here—where she eez a burlesque queen married to the eighty-year-old homme horrible, what eez stabbed through the ear with one of the feathers from her fan dance.”

  “Then this is Melancholy Mansion.”

  The room fell abruptly silent, as though someone had made a pronouncement on the stock market. But the group wasn’t staring at me. Bingo was standing off by himself, holding up a hardcover book. The title leaped off the red and black cover: Monster Mommy.

  “Read any good books lately?” When boy genius speaks, people listen. You could have heard a paper plate drop, before his mother crossed the room in a rush of pumpkin polyester.

  “Bingo, hon! You don’t open that trash!”

  No child of mine would ever learn to read.

  “Shush!” The word swept through the ranks. The door was opening. Was this Theola Faith, right on cue?

  My cousin Vanessa entered the room. Or so I thought for a jelly-kneed moment. Thank God my eyes deceived me. The lithesome lovely with the tawny hair, sherry-coloured eyes and glorious complexion was not my cousinly nemesis. Merely as close to being her double as made no difference. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even fall into Ben’s arms because he was somewhere behind me, way out of catching distance.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse my having kept you waiting.” The Vanessa clone crossed the room with fluid grace, her black knit dress moulded to her faultless figure. Her smile as much a celebration of self as a greeting.

  A chorus of inaudible response. Pepys showed an unwillingness to exit. Jeffries, skirt bunching out like a feather duster, stood on tiptoe, grabbed him by the ear and marched him out the door.

  Taking pride of place under the portrait of the Cat Cadaver, the newcomer continued in her throaty voice. “I am the Mangé member assigned to conduct the Interrogatory Proceedings that will determine which of you candidates is to be honoured with an invitation to join the Mangé Society.”

  I could see Ernestine Hoffman fussing with son Bingo’s hair and witnessed his accompanying scowl. Jim Grogg, fiddling with his Charlie Chaplin moustache, had already shrunk two sizes. His lady was playing dead on the sofa. The comte absently plucked silver coins from his wife’s hair. I could feel Ben’s shadow. I recognized his breathing.

  “I am Valicia X.” The lady Mangé fingered the pearls at her pearly throat. “Sorry, no last name supplied. You will understand the necessity to keep such information top secret. And I trust even my first name will not go beyond this room.”

  Valicia! The similarity to my dread cousin’s name was frightening.

  “A special welcome to spouses, and”—a glossy lipped smile for Ernestine Hoffman—“mothers. Am I neglecting anyone?”

  The vampiric Divonne opened her eyes. “I’m his insignificant other,” she said, pointing a languid finger at Jim Grogg.

  Valicia X smiled without straining her lips. She could have been posing for a fashion layout, using the fireplace and Cat Cadaver portrait as a whimsical background. Had I been wearing maternity clothes I could have made the fashion statement that I was pregnant. Solange had recognized that I was dressing for two, but Vanessa … Valicia X would never consider pregnancy a viable excuse for gaining weight. She was detailing
the program for the next three days. No formal meals, except for one outdoor evening barbecue, the day after tomorrow on the Fourth of July, and a farewell dinner to be prepared by the candidates, after which the name of the chosen candidate would be announced. Otherwise, Jeffries or Pepys would set out buffet meals. Times to be posted outside the dining room. Mangé candidates were precluded from participating in any activity associated with cooking other than when specifically instructed. Neither were they permitted to leave the island. Anyone else might do so, whenever Pepys was available to man the motor boat.

  “And so, Mangé candidates”—gaslight rippled through the masses of her hair and stroked the perfect cheekbones—“we now adjourn for our first session.”

  In the ensuing flurry I caught sight of Ben’s sleeve. Later I would attempt to pry from him his opinion of Valicia X, although his opinion wouldn’t be worth much considering he would be looking at her as a Mangé, not a woman. I was turning to him, ready to wrap my love—if not my arms—around him and whisper words of good luck when Pepys came in, his hands atremble. The face of death warmed up with righteous fire.

  “Ms. Valicia, ain’t no joy to me, but I know my duty. I must bring to your attention a Fearful Violation!”

  Someone gasped. Oh, no! Here it came—the revelation of Ben’s late arrival. Now I couldn’t look at my love. All my fault in losing those blasted traveller’s cheques.

  She turned her serenely beautiful face toward the skeletal butler. Bingo lunged toward the plate of hors d’ouvres and shoved three in his mouth.

  “What is it, Pepys?” Valicia inquired.

  He stretched panic to breaking point before answering. “I was taking luggage upstairs when this fell out of somebody’s bag.” A packet of white powder dangled from his fingertips like a rat by its tail.

  A gasp rocked the room.

  What were we talking here? Heroin? Cocaine?

  Gliding forward, Valicia X removed the plastic Baggie from her henchman’s gleeful clutches, dipped in an elegant finger, dabbed it to her glossy lips, and made her pronouncement. “As I suspected. Baking powder.”

  Silence most aghast.

  Snap snap of her fingers. “Whose bag, Pepys?”

  “Mine.” Jim Grogg stepped forward. “Hell, I knew it was against the rules to bring in any illegal substances, but I figures what chance do I, an airline caterer, have against a pack of cookery celebs. So I decide to up my odds. Guess this means I’m out on my can, right?”

  Valicia X dropped the packet into Pepys’ skeletal hand, then signalled him to leave. Upon the closing of the door, she said, “Mr. Grogg, every candidate in this room was selected because he or she does not fit into the Jell-O mold. You would have started out even. As it is, you may remain the night and avail yourself of the buffet breakfast before getting the hell out of here.”

  “Lady, if I had a Popsicle on me I’d ram it up your … nose.” Hair wafting around her face, as if blown by a fan, Divonne wafted over to Mr. Grogg and pressed his head to her non existent bosome. “Come here, Babykums. You wouldn’t have liked being a dumb old Mangé anyway.” The sound of his sobs was heartrending. This was no time to rejoice that the axe had not fallen on someone nearer and dearer.

  Finally I faced Ben. His eyes were stunned, dazzled. He was gawking at Valicia as if she were some incredible apparition. Mr. Grogg’s plight was swept from my mind. With a wife’s sure and certain instinct I knew Ben had been standing thus since she had entered the room. Even more horrible, Valicia X chanced, at that moment, to look toward the man I thought of as my husband. His bedazzlement was reflected in her eyes. Her breath hung in the air … her heartbeat was the pounding in my ears. And realization knifed through me.

  Oh, God, how I remembered the feeling. The certainty that I was standing knee deep in clouds, the day I met the man from Eligibility Escorts. Somehow, someway I would get him back. Tomorrow be damned, I’d do it tonight.

  Homewrecker Valicia X and the Mangé candidates departed for the secret meeting room. Ben, Bingo, Lois Brown and the comte went off in eager, humble silence, clearly awed to be undertaking the first step in the Mangé competition. As for poor Jim Grogg, he was shuffled offstage by Divonne, a woman proved to be made of flesh and blood. I hoped with all my broken heart she would bite him on the neck, or whatever it took, to turn their bedroom into a haven. My misery did not demand that others suffer. Indeed, I was already beginning to question whether I might have been overdoing the woman scorned bit. Insecurity had brought Mr. Grogg down, and there was no denying I was prone to the condition.

  Ellie, this is your ego speaking. Do you really wish Ben to be the sort of man whose blood fails to turn red hot when a woman turns on the burner? Yes! He can look but he can’t gawk. Oh, hell, I know the credo! When the going gets tough, the tough woman stays put.

  Hitching up my smile, I smoothed my sailor collar and declined the dish of cashews Solange offered. Not another gained ounce until I could get into maternity clothes.

  “Anyone for bridge?” Ernestine Hoffman clashed horribly with the ruby lamp standing next to her. But I liked her bellbottoms and the way her pudding basin hair gave fashion the go by. Here was a woman who wouldn’t consider it a social requirement to flirt with the handsomest man in the room.

  “Zat is fine wizz me, but what of you, ma petite?” Solange tapped me on the cheek with a cerise nail.

  “I only play a little, by ear.”

  “And how thinks you, monsieur, who sit so quiet under the tall lamp with shade like a grandmère’s chapeau?” She crossed toward Henderson Brown. But not as a predator. Her black and white chic was not dependent on wearing her sensuality as a silk scarf around the neck.

  Not that Mr. Brown would have noticed had she thrown herself across his lap and begun undoing his waistcoat buttons. Was it my imagination or had he grown greyer since I first met him?

  “Forgive me.” He gripped his knees gloomily. “I don’t play any card games.” His eyes strayed to a wall clock, with wooden leaves garlanding the birdhouse face; he flinched as if pecked when out popped a cuckoo, who proceeded to sound off ten times. I found myself remembering Hyacinth’s birdcage earrings, swaying against her neck as she recounted the dire sayings of Chantal: writing not on the walls … in the book.

  Ernestine had picked up the copy of Monster Mommy and was leafing through it, her expression grimly rapt.

  Mr. Brown kneaded his brow. “What is going on at that meeting?”

  The urge to put him in the corner was strong. His worries were popcorn compared to some. The comtesse patted his arm. “Relax, my turtle! The bonne femme talks about zee placing of the cherry on the gâteau. She does not place one in a man’s navel when dancing zee seven veils.”

  He pried himself out of his chair. “My Lois was always a good woman, a regular churchgoer. She never went to Tupperware parties. Why has this madness seized her? I haven’t looked at another woman since the day I walked into Smart Mart to buy an engagement ring for another girl. Lois was the salesgirl. She smiled and that was it. We married six years later.”

  “You old romantic you!” Ernestine continued to leaf through Monster Mommy.

  “Gave her everything including seven kids.”

  “Très bon!” Solange moved to the piano, then back.

  Standing under the portrait of the Cat Cadaver, Mr. Brown appeared also to suffer from rigor mortis. “Always tried to appreciate her. When she’d clean out the linen closet, I’d go take a look at it. Always told her she was the best cook in town. Why wasn’t that enough? Why must she go join some damn, pardon my French”—there was a pardoning smile from Solange—“secret society?” He thumped a fist into the palm of his hand. “That Valicia X female—I wouldn’t trust her any further than I could kick an elephant.”

  On second thought, I liked this man. “Women have needs,” I said sadly. “That doesn’t mean we get the urge once a week to run naked through a department store chewing on a piece of red meat, but we can’t always find oursel
ves in the linen closet.”

  But my words of solace were wasted on the stuffy air.

  “I don’t know how Lois can be taken in by all this.” Throwing out an arm he caused a candlestick to do a jig on the mantel shelf.

  Ernestine looked up, marking her place in the book with her finger. “My Bingo said when we came in, ‘Mom, the room looks like it’s waiting to murder someone.’ ”

  “Mais oui, was that not so for zee evil butler in Melancholy Mansion? Was he not found stabbed through the heart on that very window embrasure?” Black eyes flashing, the comtesse pointed toward the red velvet curtains.

  A gurgle of alarm from Ernestine. Her plump cheeks ballooned out in a sudden unbecoming likeness to son Bingo. But let it not be said our conversation was the cause. “Merciful God, this dreadful book!” She suffered through several more pages of Monster Mommy read at a flip. “As a child Mary Faith suffered the ‘torment of the damned’—her very own words—being raised by that depraved woman. She tells here how for years she thought Begita the maid was her mother. She had to address Theola Faith as Miss Faith until her eleventh birthday, when, for her present, she was allowed to call her Theola.”

  “Did they spend much of their lives here?” Interested, Solange perched on the sofa arm, black skirt brushing her ankles.

  Rustle of pages. Ernestine crossed her pumpkin legs and took a breath which popped a button off her jacket. “ ‘My mother attested that Mendenhall was a gift to her from Richard Greenburgh, who had purchased it for the filming of Melancholy Mansion. On her rare excursions to the house she always refused to let me accompany her. Her reason? She was afraid I would get sick from having a good time! Her spaniel, Vanilla, got to go in my place, dressed up in my clothes. My tears and pleas moved her not at all. I still see her throwing back her silver-blonde head and laughing that manic laugh.’ ”

  “Mon Dieu!” Solange clenched her hands against her forehead. “A devil woman! If theese Theola Faith were in the house now, I would murder her with these naked hands.”