by Tamar Myers
‘Ta da!’ said Rupert.
‘Listen, dear,’ I said, ‘if you were my son—’
‘Which he is not,’ the Babester said.
Rupert twisted his lips into a smirk which even Satan could envy. Mercifully – for him – he said nothing.
‘But he taxes my Christian soul,’ I wailed.
I don’t know what I would have done had not my dear, dear Jewish husband, Dr Gabriel Rosen, aka the Babester, put his arm firmly around my shoulder and whispered his wintergreen-scented breath in my ear. It was better than being held in my mother’s arms, as hers were bony, her bosom non-existent and her mood slightly more pleasant than a disturbed hornet’s nest.
‘Remember that they’re your guests,’ he said so softly that even my guardian angel had to strain in order to hear. ‘And they’re foreigners to boot. It’s not their fault that they’re heathens and that they can’t speak proper English. Just be grateful if they turn out to be housebroken. You did put that on your questionnaire, didn’t you?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ the earl growled. ‘We are Englishmen, not French! I may have just one good eye but my ears have compensated for my visual impairment. You would be well-advised to remember that.’
My hero squared his broad shoulders. ‘Then perhaps you should inform your son that in this house we show our elders respect.’
‘Harrumph,’ the earl said.
‘Hooray,’ I said. ‘Now where were we – before we got side-tracked by all this unnecessary unpleasantness? Oh, yes, we were working out the matter of names.’ I turned to the youngest and fairest of us all. ‘So, what do you wish to be called, Miss Grimsley-Snodgrass?’
‘If we have to go common,’ Lady Celia said with a sigh and a slump, ‘then remember to call me Cee-Cee.’
‘Will do, dear. By the way, you get room six, which has the best view. If you lean way out the window – but take care to hang on to the shutter super tight, so that you don’t fall – you can see Stucky Ridge. Not only that, but the part that you can see is Lover’s Leap, where legend has it that an Indian maiden leaped to her death along with her white colonial boyfriend. Their love was, of course, forbidden in the year 1768. The settler was my great, great, great, great, great-grandfather, Elias Yoder.’
‘Say what?’ Mister Grimsley-Snodgrass said. ‘He was probably some stowaway vagrant from the sewers of London.’
‘He was a Swiss farmer,’ I said. ‘His Christian name was actually Christian, unlike yours, which is Peregrine. Nevertheless, in the spirit of Christian charity, I believe that I shall call you just plain Peregrine. After all, if you were to fall down my impossibly steep stairs, and I needed to call for outside help, it would be much quicker to say: “Help, Peregrine has fallen and he can’t get up,” than it would be to explain that you were an English nobleman who has taken for himself a title that belongs only to the Lord God Himself, for you see, dear, everyone on our volunteer rescue squad is either a devout Christian or recently descended from one, and will have no truck with such highfalutin ways, although they all own trucks, so go figure.’
‘Magdalena,’ said Aubrey softly, calling me by name for the first time, ‘do they teach grammar in American schools?’
‘Of course!’
‘Hmm. But do they teach one how to diagram sentences?’ Aubrey said.
‘Man, them English schools must be somethin’ else!’ Alison said. ‘We learnt about them diagrams in sex education class, but we didn’t learn nothin’ about putting them into sentences. You sure that you got them facts right, Auntie Aubrey?’
There were snickers all around, and not the delicious American kind, which is a brand of candy bar. A good deal of exception was taken, along with some umbrage.
‘My mother is not your auntie!’ The viscount was obviously quite vexed by my presumptive daughter’s claim to kinship.
Aubrey reached out and pulled Alison into a motherly embrace which, I must admit, I thought very American of her. ‘You must forgive my son, dear,’ she said. ‘He is a bit full of himself, I’m afraid. On account of his rude behaviour, I am giving all of you permission – seeing as we are on American soil, anyway – to call my first born by his Christian name: Rupert. And I am quite sure that Rupert comes straight out of the Bible.’
Oy vay! If only Alison would learn when to put a sock in it – I mean that metaphorically, of course.
‘No way, Auntie Aubrey,’ she said. ‘Did you know that Adam was the very first man to have sex?’
God Save the Queen, and God bless Aubrey, who turned the colour of raw chicken livers. But just as any true Brit would under those circumstances, she remained calm and carried on. Is it any wonder that we Americans are such Anglophiles?
‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I suppose we should all be glad, because that is how we got here. So, be a dear and show me to the dining room. Then after I’ve taken my tea, you can lead me up your mother’s impossibly steep stairs. But remember, you’re not to tote any of my bags on account of you’re still growing your important lady parts; I shall carry my bags by myself, rather like a Sherpa climbing Mount Everest.’
‘It’s a deal,’ Alison said.
‘The dead woman is at the top of the elevator car,’ Cee-Cee said.
The room was instantly so silent that I could hear dust motes settling on drapes three yards away. ‘Excuse me?’ I said. ‘Say that again.’
‘Your Granny Yoder just told me what happened to that missing Japanese tourist. She is on top of the lift car.’
Every hair on my body stood on end, which was rather indecent of them, if you ask me. At least the hair on my head behaved, thanks to the five pounds of hairpins I use to keep my coiled braids in place.
‘That is just plain ridiculous!’ I said. ‘There is only a two-inch gap – at most – between the elevator car and the ceiling. Even a very shallow person, such as your brother, couldn’t possibly fit between the two. Yoko-san was a petite woman but she wasn’t two-dimensional.’
Cee-Cee could still see Granny Yoder’s withered lips, whereas by then I had already stepped out of the parlour. ‘Ma’am, your granny says to tell you that when the elevator was halfway between floors, somebody stopped it, forced open the upper doors and then pushed the Japanese lady out on to the roof of the elevator car.’
I don’t mind sharing that this information stunned me. It sounded so true that I could feel it in my DNA. This phenomenon has only happened to me a couple of times, like when I’ve read certain scripture verses, or once years ago when Agnes forced me to watch an Oprah show with her. My point is that I needed no more convincing; what I needed was a game plan for how to proceed. That’s me, your typical Magdalena Yoder Rosen, lurching from crisis to crisis but never waiting for as much as a minute before casting about for Plan B or Plans C and D.
Alison was the first to break the stunned silence. ‘Ya mean there’s been a rotting dead lady in there all this time and I ain’t had a chance ta see her? Man, how is that fair? All the kids at school can talk about is zombies, and here I got me a real live one but it don’t do me no good!’
Cee-Cee gave Alison a light, playful push. ‘You Americans are a fun lot; a real live zombie! Jolly good, that.’
‘Yeah?’ my daughter said. ‘Because I’m thinking how cool it woulda been if we’d got to her in time to watch her eyeballs fall out, like in that insurance commercial on TV. Then we coulda sold the video to YouTube or someplace like that and made us, like, a gazillion bucks. I know that you’re already super rich and everything, being a novelty and all, but I read someplace that ya can’t be too rich or too single.’
‘Cheers,’ Rupert said. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
‘The actual quote is too rich or too thin,’ Agnes said through pursed lips, ‘and if you ask me, one certainly can be too thin. If you don’t believe me, just page through any beauty magazine the next time you get your hair done. All the models shown are one lettuce leaf away from utter starvation. Someone with murder on his mind wouldn’t ha
ve any trouble stuffing one of them through the gap between your elevator doors, Magdalena.’
‘Was that comment necessary?’ the Babester said in my defence.
Bless my husband’s heart. I did, however, understand where Agnes was coming from. The truth is that the last time the poor dear tried to ride in my rickety contraption she couldn’t squeeze through the elevator doors and had to take my impossibly steep stairs. My friend was barely able to clear the stairwell, and the journey of eighteen steps took her over an hour, but due to the circular nature of both friend and stairs, had she fallen she would not have travelled far before becoming safely wedged by one of my attractively painted walls.
‘Well, dears,’ I said generously, ‘let us bid haste, for we have much to do before tonight’s fun and games begin.’
‘Ah, yes, hunting for the fearsome Hernia snipe,’ sniped Rupert as he rubbed his smooth aristocratic hands in mock anticipation.
Alison, a veteran snipe hunter, chortled in sheer delight, but I quickly stifled her with a gentle nudge on her behind by one of my bony knees.
I had to hand it to Agnes; so far it was a lot more fun dealing with five foreign fops than any number of ‘ugly’ Americans. Truth be told, they really weren’t that foppish, except for the matter of toting their titles across the border, but fortunately lovely Aubrey had made short shrift of that. The one to watch closely was the uppity Rupert, who was reluctant to close the door on being a nob – even just for a few days.
As for the other twin, Sebastian, the hormone half of the identical duo – he would either show up in time for the evening’s escapade or he wouldn’t. Frankly, when one has lived through as much of life’s ups and downs as I have, and solved case after case of murder and mayhem, whether or not someone else’s adult son stays out all night is very low on one’s list of priorities.
Just as long as no one died on tonight’s hunt, that would be fine with me.
FIVE
HOW TO MAKE THE PERFECT CUP OF TEA
When boiling the kettle, always use freshly drawn cold water. This helps the flavour develop.
Warm the teapot in advance by swirling a small amount of boiled water in it before discarding.
Insert one teaspoon of loose tea per person, and one extra teaspoonful for the pot.
Allow the tea to brew in the teapot for six minutes before serving.
Ideally, the tea should be drunk from a porcelain teacup. (Just as fine wine may not live up to its full potential when drunk from a mug, the same can be said of fine teas.)
Always pour in the tea before the milk.
SIX
Agnes stayed over for ‘tea’ and Saturday night supper. In addition to the two cows, we at the PennDutch are home to an old grey mare named Becky, fifteen laying hens, a rooster named Chanticleer, a flock of rock doves, eight Indian runners (a breed of duck), six guinea fowl, four Chinese geese and a pot-belly pig named Cindy. In addition to those we have a multitude of bass, bluegill and turtles in our newly built pond. Many of these critters we acquired at the urging of spouse and eldest child, both of whom require a bit of care themselves. Simply put, we no longer serve fancy-schmancy dinners anymore.
It was Agnes’s intent to give our English visitors a bit of a culture shock, or, as she put it so eloquently: ‘a slice of ordinary American life.’ Therefore supper was hot dogs and buns (along with condiments), baked beans (without toast!), tossed salad (choice of three dressings), crisps, and for the pudding, homemade peach ice cream using milk from my very own cows.
I don’t permit alcoholic beverages on my farm, and state this clearly in my advertisements. Nonetheless, I was exceedingly grateful that the issue was never raised. My guests had to quench their thirst with ‘sky juice’ (water), ‘cow juice’ (milk), or orange juice (juice from oranges, in case one needed to ask).
Agnes had warned me to anticipate some resistance, not only to my ban on alcohol, but to the fact that I assigned seating and said grace before the meal. The truth is these supposedly well-bred folks were, for the most part, really well-behaved table guests. Perhaps food was their motivation, but I didn’t really care. What mattered to me were the results. Even when I fell short of my goal, they didn’t seem to mind.
‘Ach,’ I said at one point, ‘I forgot to make toast.’
‘Why do we need toast, Magdalena,’ lovely Aubrey said, ‘when you’ve supplied these wonderful buns?’
‘To put your beans on, dear,’ I said.
Alison dropped her fork with a clatter. ‘Beans, beans,’ she intoned, ‘the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.’
There followed a moment of awkward silence, and then Sebastian, who had shown up at dinner, instead of his rather arrogant brother, clapped vigorously with his strong, manly hands. ‘Jolly good performance,’ he said. ‘How heart-warming it is to hear that flatulence is practiced on both sides of the Atlantic.’
‘How disgusting,’ Agnes sniffed. ‘Shame on you, Alison. You may excuse yourself from the table.’
‘Huh?’ Gabe said. In his defence, he was busy feeding his male offspring. It is a job that he thoroughly enjoys, and which occupies much of his attention. The Little Bruiser, aka Little Jacob, is a miniature version of his father. As I’ve stated before, I don’t believe in evolution, or genetics, but if I did, I would venture to say that one of the reasons parents love their children so much is because they are loving little versions of themselves. This is evolution’s way of perpetuating the human race.
‘Hold your horses, missy,’ I hissed, wagging my finger like the tail of a happy dog – except that I wasn’t happy, and I was wagging it at Agnes and not my Alison. ‘You, best friend though you are, have no right to discipline my daughter.’
Alison, who had been rightly embarrassed by Agnes’s chastisement of her, was now smirking. I knew that my daughter was thrilled that I was taking her side ‘for a change,’ and in front of all of Auntie Agnes’s ‘fancy guests.’ ‘Take that, Auntie Agnes,’ is probably what Alison wanted to say, instead of just smirking, but even at her young age, she has begun to learn the art of compromise. Remember your goal – three words to live by that Gabe had been trying to drill through her thick, but still somewhat permeable, skull. In this case, Alison’s goal was undoubtedly not to get grounded.
‘As for you, young lady,’ I said to Alison, ‘since you are so fond of poetry, you would be wise to remember the following ditty: “There’s nothing like smirking to bring on the irking.”’
There followed another awkward silence. Thank heavens my sweetheart, the Babester, my Gabe, took a break from baby-feeding long enough to start the conversation going again. This time he directed a question to Sebastian.
‘Tell me, young man,’ he said but in an awful imitation English accent, ‘how you rally feel about being born without a title? I mean, your twin brothah is lahd such and such now, but when your fathah dies, than he will become the next oil. Doesn’t it bothah you that you will always be just plain Mr Sebastian?’
At that the young man’s noble father, the ‘oil’ in question, cleared his throat in a not-so-genteel way. It was obvious that he wished to formally interject an opinion. In the old days, I suspect, he might have had someone, such as a footman, blow a bugle before such a forthcoming announcement.
‘I shouldn’t suppose it bothers Sebastian at all,’ he said. ‘This is how it has always been done, so this is how it is; we don’t question such things. Why, we scarcely give these silly matters a thought at all.’
‘Bravo, Papa,’ Cee-Cee said.
‘Actually, Papa, I do mind, rather,’ Sebastian said. He looked down at his plate. ‘After all, that silly fool is only two minutes’ older than me, and that is only because he is the one whom the surgeon removed from Mother’s tummy first. Isn’t that right, Mother?’
‘Yes, well, it was my womb, to be precise,’ Aubrey said.
Sebastian looked at me as if asking for my support. ‘Miss Yoder, my brother and I were delivered by Caesarean sectio
n, you see. He was taken out first because he was the smallest and the weakest, and therefore the one most at risk. Do you know that he didn’t even show up on the ultrasound because his heart was positioned directly under mine?’
‘That is quite true,’ Aubrey said. ‘That has happened more often than you might think. We went to hospital expecting one infant and came home with twins.’
‘So anyway,’ Sebastian said, ‘the entire time that mother was pregnant, it was my heart that was seen beating on the ultrasound screen. I was the heir whom they both named and planned for. It was only when some wretched surgeon reached into my mother’s belly—’
‘Sebastian!’ Peregrine snapped behind his moustache, ‘that will be quite enough.’
‘But Papa—’
Peregrine looked at me accusingly. ‘Do you see what that husband of yours has started with that ridiculous and irrelevant question of his?’
I puckered my brow as I shook my head. ‘No. Frankly, dear, I can’t see that far, given that it was such a small thing, and he is all the way down at the other end of the table. Perhaps you’d care to ask him.’
‘Ooh,’ Cee-Cee cautioned as she sucked up half the room’s oxygen – or enough, at least, to cause the drapes to sway.
Peregrine stood abruptly, pushing his chair over backwards as he rose. ‘What I would like is for you to bring my supper up to my room on a tray.’
‘What a lovely idea,’ I said, clasping my hands together. ‘Too bad it’s against the rules.’
‘The rules?’ Peregrine roared. ‘Madam, surely you jest!’
‘Jest not, lest it lead to jousting,’ I said solemnly. ‘Be forewarned that I never joke about any of my rules. While I am a pacifist, born and bred, there have been times when a rolling pin, or a broom handle, has found its way into my hands with me fully intending to use it.’ It would have been self-defeating to point out that those were the times that I intended to either roll out a pie crust or to sweep the floor. However, once, while daydreaming, I may even have swept the floor with a pie crust dangling from the end of my broom handle. There should be limits to self-disclosure, don’t you think?