The three of us trooped back down the main thoroughfare of the second floor and entered a bedchamber. The floor-to-ceiling four poster with tapestried hangings and the cast iron fireplace pronounced this a room designed for deaths and difficult confinements.
“My mother’s room, mine now.” Mary sucked in a breath and fondled a stiff-necked standard lamp, before leading the way toward a heavily carved wardrobe capable of housing a family of four. She opened the door, pushed aside a wall of clothes including several fur coats and a velvet cloak, to reveal an inner door, leading—you’ve guessed it, into the secret meeting room. Another Melancholy Mansion attraction.
This was as far as I went. We had come to a parting of the ways. Time to wish Marjorie all the best, make one small adjustment to her hat and administer the requisite small push. Good-bye and many thanks, Ms. Faith.
Alone at last. Leaning against the closed wardrobe, my mind picked away at a country-and-western dirge. I’m so all alone, so far away from home, shadows on the wall, say don’t go down the hall … Oh, I was clever, no mistake, at frightening myself silly.
What was that … fluttering noise outside the door—the one to the bedroom, not the wardrobe? I contemplated going under the bed; but when push comes to shove I’d rather be caught standing up than lying down. Smoothing back my hair I sallied from the room to … be met by a pigeon. A real life bird of the species capable of singlehandedly bringing hats back into vogue. Being taller than he (or she) I didn’t feel at too much of a disadvantage and was about to ask for some form of identification, when Solange and Ernestine came up the stairs.
They had been in the hall below, looking for some sign that Marjorie and I had survived our mission, when Pigeon scooted past and they had been sufficiently intrigued to follow. Unfortunately not being a parrot, he refused to provide information as to age, sex, political persuasion or position in household. And the moment I began to account for my recent whereabouts, Pigeon cocked its pearl grey head, fixed me with a bored, beady eye and did a flit down the hall.
“Tell on,” Solange prompted eagerly. “After you meet Mademoiselle Mary, what next?”
Knee deep in my monologue it did occur to me I might be making a mistake in revealing that I had been where wives of Mangé candidates had never trod—had seen things, heard things that stretched the boundaries of credibility. But these were my trusty associates, weren’t they? And believe me, when you have been the fattest girl in the fourth form, you tend to butter your relationships. Put jam on when necessary. Besides, both crossed their hearts and hoped to die, should they squeal to their respective candidates.
Ernestine’s eye might twitch a bit, but which of us wasn’t tired? Solange looked splendide. She claimed fatigue suited her and I could only hope it would not be equally kind to Ms. X—doing marvelous shadowy things to her eyes while putting hollows under her cheek bones.
The comtesse pinched my cheek and called me little wilted cabbage.
“Ma chérie, the bonne Ernestine and I took Jeffries to our hearts when she brings our glasses of water. I tell her we should warm our hands on her smile, that she eez enchantée and I am blue with envy. At that she hots up to say, she eez invited to be a mannequin in a parade of fashion tomorrow at Jimmy’s Bar, but she eez too busy.”
“Sure she is, if she’s working overtime as a Mangé! Come on gals, let’s not knock her! She and Pepys are out there doing a job that has to be done, if we’re to see the advances in food preparation the nation demands.” Ernestine sounded revved up, but her face looked as though it hadn’t been slept on for a week. I was about to call it a night when I remembered something.
“All the time I was with Miss Rumpson I never asked what her area of culinary expertise is.”
Ernestine snickered. “You sure don’t read Tattle Tale, the magazine for people who want the pooper scoop! Shucks. Between these four walls, I’ll admit to a free read at the checkout now and then. A couple of weeks back there was a full page spread on Marjorie Rumpson. The woman makes a living off that old saying about the way to a man’s heart. Say there’s some guy you want to reel in, but who keeps wriggling off the hook, you send Miss Rumpson his astrological sign, place of birth, favourite colour, names of both parents, you know how it goes, and she’ll send you—for a fee—recipes assembled with you in mind. That’ll bring his erotic juices to boiling point, and make him yours for life. And if you believe such crap I’m Miss America.”
Marjorie Rumpson—maker of spells! And to think I had complained about being dragged away from Massachusetts without having seen Salem.
“We burn Jeanne d’Arc.” Solange sighed. “Time for bed I theenk, and hope that my familiar soon comes. Ellie, your room eez 3L, third from left at top of stairs. Bonne nuit.”
My response was a little absentminded. It had occurred to me that I had not seen Mary Faith since she disappeared into the wardrobe with Marjorie. Considering all the talk of top-level secrecy, I doubted she would be encouraged to stay after making her appeal for Marjorie. Was it possible she had exited this floor by way of another staircase?
This house cried out to be explored in all its bizarre entirety. But it was the need to retrieve my handbag from the Red Room that sent me downstairs. As I passed the dining room I found the door open. I paused to contemplate the knives displayed on the wall. Surely there had been six. Now only four glittered in the harsh light. I pictured Pepys and Jeffries skulking in the shadows, blades at the ready to fillet any who dishonored the Mangé name. Odd, what fancies pregnant women have! I vowed my child would not have her mother’s overblown imagination and hurried upstairs.
Entering the bedroom I was to share with my one-and-only I uttered a four letter word. Poky. And I had thought everything was bigger and better in America! Our assigned room was the size of a pantry and had more angles than a geometry lesson. The walls were papered in silver lurex accented with burgundy thread. The lampshade reminded me of a rag-and-bone woman’s hat and the curtains could have been someone’s underwear, hung up to dry. Curses! In attempting to reach the bed I became trapped between the plastic walnut dressing table and a nightstand with laminated carving. Was this what eclectic really meant?
Kicking off one of my shoes, I scored a goal between the bed posts and a rebound on my overnight bag. All criticism of Pepys aside, it was kind of him to carry it up for me. Knowing my toothbrush and nightdress were close at hand made me feel somehow less alone. Time to prepare myself for bed and the return of Candidate Haskell. My jealousy of Valicia X seemed a lifetime away. Ben wouldn’t have all his male hormones if he hadn’t done a double take on meeting her. Poor woman, she was—to put it crudely—gorgeous. Something society rather frowns upon these days. Brushing out my hair, I thought, lucky me, not having to face the mirror each day, wondering what on earth I could do to make myself look worse in order to be taken seriously. I picked up a pair of tweezers and sympathy for Ms. X went out like a light. Think she ever plucked an eyebrow in her life?
My hair down, sporting the white lawn nightdress Ben’s mother sent for my last birthday, I looked like a well-fed ghost. A mirror had never been my best friend. Hunching an offended shoulder I sidestepped my way to the bed and lay down on the spread that pretended to be a field of poppies. The temptation to get between the sheets was strong, but I recalled Aunt Astrid’s words: A wife should always be ready to do her duty. Probably accounted for the late Uncle Horace always having those dark shadows under his eyes. Tossing and turning, I tried to find a really uncomfortable position. No good. Sleep hovered ready to pounce the moment I closed my eyes. Why not fetch Pregnancy for Beginners from my bag and look up the illustrations showing the baby’s prescribed appearance at this stage? Better not. I preferred my own version of what the wee elf looked like. Silken curls, a button nose, dimpled knees, and dressed in a smocked white frock and bonnet. Stretching, I almost knocked the bottle of water off the bedside table. Deciding a glass might revive me, I toyed with a swig, trying to determine the vintage and deemin
g it a fine natural spring water with excellent clarity and spirited carbonation … when I realized sleep was impairing my vision. A copy of Monster Mommy lay beside the table lamp.
Usually I prefer bodice rippers to soul barers, but Mary Faith had been so pleasant in her peculiar way, I felt obliged to open up, sink back on my pillows, and try to enjoy being depressed. Chapter One.
Hello Mother, this is your daughter speaking. Are you out there listening? It matters terribly to me that you understand this book is written out of love. I offer you the opportunity to grow—to change. I want you to know that I don’t hate you for what you did to me—starting with the day you brought me into the world. I should have been born on November 23rd, but you had to go mountain climbing and so gave birth to me in an old hut on November 15th. Small wonder that all my life I’ve felt I’m being ripped in two. Inside I’m Sagittarius, but on the charts I’m a Scorpio.
My heart bled—for me. I was in the wrong profession. I had no more business becoming a mother than a doctor performing sex change operations. I had never changed a nappy, never said more than two words to a baby—if goo-goo counts as two words. How would I know if it were getting enough to eat? Or too much? Do cats really suck the breath out of babies? Should I have a talk with Tobias the moment I got home and explain the time had come for him to make a life for himself outside?
Monster Mommy had flopped open, and it was impossible not to be wearily interested in it.
But after a page and a half of the sexually active suit of armour, I, Ellie Haskell, cried “Tommy Rot!” as I tossed down the book in disgust. “Unfair!” cried the ghost of childhood past. Mary might be viewing the world through the distorted lens of prepuberty, but her terror was real. Theola Faith was a brute. Drawing the sheets up to my chin I fought down a panic I couldn’t explain, but which had the clammy chill of familiarity and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the door was opening.
“Ellie!” Crossing the room in half a stride, Ben flung himself down on the bed and crushed me in his arms. “The meeting went on so long I was afraid you would have me declared legally dead. Come to me, my angel.” He ran his fingers through my hair and kissed my eyes, my nose, my lips. “Did I never spill the beans that you are my sanity, my strength, my very reason for being?”
“Have you been drinking?” I raised him up by his hair to look deep in his eyes. He didn’t have boozy breath, but I wouldn’t have put it past the Mangés to invent a drink that was kiss-proof as well as eighty-proof.
He stuck a finger into the knot of his tie. “Darling, you know better than to ask questions about what went on in the secret meeting room. But I can tell you that nothing intoxicates like you …”
“Hmmmm.” This did not bode well for Valicia X. I took over undoing his tie and told him to get his shoes off the designer poppy spread. “Would it be a breach of Mangé morality to tell me what you thought of the other candidates?”
“Meaning as fellow members of the human race?” He sat up and dropped his shoes on the floor. “Ellie, had I been expecting other candidates, these would still have floored me. Vincent LeTrompe, magician! A child prodigy named Bingo! Lois Brown, housewife. And Margaret Rumpson, latter-day witch.”
“Marjorie,” I corrected.
He didn’t ask how I knew. He was unbuttoning his shirt. A faraway look turned his eyes the colour of the sea on a cloudy day.
“Ben.” Kneeling on the bed, I massaged his shoulders. “One does wonder why you are the only traditional chef in the bunch.”
“Darling”—he reached back for my hand—“my lips are sealed.”
“Because you don’t know? Or because you’re afraid this room is bugged?”
His laugh was no answer. But I still hoped that were I to stroke his hair just right and nibble his ears just so, he might become putty in my hands. If it can happen to case-hardened spies like James Bond, why not a woman’s own husband? I certainly deserved some reward for not mentioning Valicia X. An inner voice whispered coward, but I didn’t bite.
Time to work my way in by the back door. “I really liked Solange LeTrompe and Ernestine Hoffman.” I rubbed his shoulders.
“Great.”
“Mr. Henderson Brown certainly adores his wife.” Nibble, nibble on his neck. “Darling, I know you will respect my confidence as I will yours. He’s fearful of Lois’s involvement with the wacky world of cookery. Afraid she might start tippling the cooking sherry perhaps.”
This time I got a reaction. Ben abandoned my hands and started to pace—although, space being limited, he appeared to be treading water. “Lois Brown is a gem. Kind, decent, always thinking the best of others. Damn her! Why did she have to be on the team! I have absolutely no compunction about beating out the chaps—and that includes Miss Rumpson. She can take it on the chin; but when it comes to Mrs. Brown …”
“You’re afraid of Lois Brown, hubby mine!”
“Hell, Ellie”—he kicked a shoe toward the door—“must you see through me, to the venal core? My feelings aren’t those of chivalry. She’s the one to be knocked off the horse. I can compete with a man who pulls cooked rabbits out of a hat. I’m not afraid of some snotty-nosed child star who asks several times during the evening “to be excused.” I can surpass Dame Lovecharm. But a woman who puts three meals on the table for a family of eight, day after day, year after year—never once being sued for botulism poisoning—she has me worried.”
“Darling, you’ll fight a fair fight,” I soothed. Should I mention Valicia’s likeness to Vanessa so he could explain away the rude way he had stared? Too late! The peace of our boudoir away from home was shattered by a piercing scream.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured my hero as he grabbed for me. “Old houses always manufacture these strange noises. Our group heard such a scream earlier. But no bodies turned up. We concluded that Jim Grogg and his lady Divonne must be having a moon howl.”
“What, Mr. Baking Powder? That weedy chap?” Ben smiled at my gullibility. “Not so! That was a scream that bears investigating. Sweetheart, hide under the bed if you feel the least bit insecure. Remember your delicate condition.” And with that he was gone.
Was this to be the story of my stay at Mendenhall? Bedtime always an unrealized hope? Stop, cried a voice inside my head. Must you forever carp? Ben didn’t leave you to rush out on a date. He … Footsteps beyond my door, voices congregating in the hallway … My stomach began to churn. I was afraid to venture into the hall to discover what dread misfortune had occurred, but I couldn’t stay here. Peering around for my dressing gown, I remembered it now belonged to Miss Rumpson. Never mind. When without, go like Scarlett O’Hara. Dragging up the poppy field spread, I wrapped it around me. That lump in my throat must be my heart!
As far as my eye could see, the hall was empty. Then the bathroom door opened and out came Bingo Hoffman. A towel rolled up under his arm, he wore a bright red dressing gown which made him look like an apprentice Father Christmas.
“Get a load of you!” He thumbed his specs back on his nose. “What you supposed to be, an American Indian?”
Refusing to explain my attire, I solicited information on the scream.
“Oh, that!” His scowl filled out his already full cheeks. “I told the possé it wasn’t me, but when in doubt—blame a kid. I was on my way along to Mum’s room to tell her something, when I glanced over the railing and saw the ghost of Mendenhall. She was dressed up in a freaky long dress and a black bonnet with a ruffle of white round the face. And this is the fun part …” Bingo smacked his lips “… she was sticking up her finger.”
“Dame Gloom,” I whispered.
“What?”
“The woman in the portrait downstairs.” Gingerly—I tend to approach children as if they are stray dogs—I touched his shoulder. “You poor old thing; someone’s idea of a joke, which gave you a real scare.”
He hugged the towel tighter. “So! I yelled. More of a gasp really. Sure didn’t scream like I was in a Stephen King movie. My gues
s is it was Ms. Faith, waking up from a nightmare.”
“You are a genius!” Convinced Bingo was anxious to see the back of me, I excused myself and entered the bathroom. Leaning against the door I took a couple of restorative breaths—one of which went down the wrong way. What was that scratching sound behind the bath curtain? Would a knife plunge through the fabric if I moved a muscle? I had my hand on the doorknob, when there came a whirring sound—rather like an electric blender. Sometimes I think I spend my life in a blender. The curtain moved and … that damn pigeon plopped onto the exposed portion of bath ledge.
“You!” Drawing back the curtain to ascertain he was alone, I saw scrawled on the tile behind the bath in big green letters: THIS HOUSE IS GOING TO GET YOU. Ah ha, was that why Bingo was carrying a towel? Somewhere to hide his markers. Was the prodigy a mean-spirited kid at heart? For a moment Pigeon and I looked at each other, before I turned pointedly away and opened up the medicine cabinet. If ever a night called out for an antacid tablet this was it! And I remembered seeing a bottle when Mary Faith showed Marjorie Rumpson and me the added dimensions of the cupboard.
I don’t know what made me do it. A chance to show off for the pigeon? Removing the deodorants and such like, I pressed the miniscule button above the third shelf. Abracadabra! I was a magician equal to the comte. I could see right into the secret meeting room. I could see the stand with the coffee pot and paper cups. I could see the table … and I could see the demoralizingly beautiful Valicia X talking to Ben!
My heart squeezed closed, but I managed to press the button to my left; his voice was so close he could have been talking to me. “The moment you walked into the room I knew,” he said.
“Did you?” Her Titian hair rippled back from her ivory brow. “And have you been counting the minutes until we could talk alone?” Her laughter was an avalanche burying me in cold. “Do tell, Ben, does your wife suspect?”
There being nowhere else for me to turn, I went home that night to St. John’s Wood where I grew up. I had always thought the house rather like my Uncle Maurice—double-breasted, glassy eyed, a little shabby under the new coat of paint, but none the less thinking itself a cut above the neighbours. We lived in the top floor flat, a makeshift renovation of what had been servants’ quarters—Dad’s little joke being that one day we would move down to something better.
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