by Tamar Myers
‘What rules?’ Lord Huff and Puff was getting quite impatient with me.
I arranged my lips in what approximated, or so I hoped, a placid smile. ‘I don’t allow food to be taken upstairs. You see, here in the colonies we are plagued by all manner of vermin, such as have been long since eradicated on your side of the pond. Just the other day I saw a cockroach as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. It was trying to wrestle a mattress out of room six, on account of some woman tourist had sneaked a bag of chocolate bars into her room and then accidently sat on one, thereby mashing it into the bed.’
All traces of belligerence melted from Peregrine’s face. It was like watching a soufflé fall when the oven door has been slammed. Unfortunately, this caused his moustache to droop further, making it even more difficult to understand his hoity-toity accent. Can I then be blamed for tuning out a lot of what he said? Based on what the Babester filled me in on later, what follows is a somewhat faithful rendition – I say only ‘somewhat,’ because, alas, I don’t always pay strict attention when the Babester is speaking either. One might say that I have a short attention span.
‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘you are one fine specimen of a woman: good teeth, long limbs, strong withers. I take my membership in the House of Lords quite seriously, you know; I believe in the principle of Noblesse Oblige. In all honestly, it has been a long time since I’ve been privileged to encounter a spokeswoman both as articulate and – dare I say – imaginative as you in either chamber of government. You, madam, are an honour to your sex.’ With the last remark he doffed an imaginary top hat.
I had nothing that I wished to doff. Au contraire, I donned my serviette by draping it over my heaving yet oddly concave chest. There are times – perhaps such as this – when I might do well to listen carefully to the other person rather than jump to conclusions based on one or two key words.
‘Why you cheeky, uh, bowl of bouillabaisse,’ I said. ‘My sex life is none of your business.’ I attempted a one-eyed wink at the Babester. ‘And although it is off limits,’ I continued, ‘in the spirit of the special relationship our two countries share, I will throw out the following statistics: once on Mondays, twice on Tuesdays, thrice on Wednesdays, etc., but never on Sundays, because that’s my day of rest.’
The Babester winked back.
‘Huh?’ Alison said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Brava!’ Aubrey whispered.
‘No fair,’ Agnes managed to hiss without any ‘s’s. ‘Remember that I’ve only recently been widowed.’
‘Jolly good,’ Sebastian said. ‘Not about you being a widow,’ he hastened to assure Agnes, ‘but the other thing.’
Cee-Cee gazed at the Babester adoringly. Trust me, I could read the large print in her late adolescent brain. Not only was this handsome American her father’s age, he was both fertile and virile. These qualities alone were enough to drive her parents crazy. But the fact that Gabe was a doting father – well, there is nothing sexier to any woman than the sight of a man caring for a baby. Even cool, calm and collected Aubrey salivated every time the Babester scooped up Little Jacob and smothered him with kisses.
‘Harrumph,’ Peregrine probably said, although strictly speaking it sounded more like ‘hump-a-lump’ to my ears.
‘Now, dears,’ I said, as much to change the subject as to inform, ‘Agnes shall forthwith serve dessert, known to you in your quaint version of our common language as the pudding, and since this is cake, it is certainly not pudding, although there is real American pudding in the cake mix, in order to keep the cake moist. But I must have been a pudding-head to even have brought this up, when I should, instead, be explaining to you the rules and regulations of tonight’s hunt.’
Oh my stars, you should have seen the way all four of the guests sat up in their chairs. It wasn’t the mention of sweets that did it, either, but when I dropped the ‘h’ word. Even Agnes, who had started to get up in order to serve the pudding-cake for the ‘pudding’ that wasn’t pudding, plopped back on her seat with a soft thud. I also thought that I heard the back of her chair groan a bit too loudly, as per everyday wear and tear, but I resolved not to mind. After all, the snipe hunt had been Agnes’s idea, and she had put it all together from start to finish. By rights, it was she who should do the explaining.
I cleared my throat of any residual disappointment. ‘I must apologize for what will be a slight delay in receiving your pudding course. You see, Agnes is also the mistress of the hunt.’
‘Who?’ Agnes said. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses she looked and sounded uncannily like a barn owl.
‘Don’t tease us, Agnes,’ I said. ‘Although I must admit that you do an excellent job of imitating Timothy, our resident owl. Now, be a dear and explain the rules.’
Agnes reached into her cavernous handbag, which sat on the floor, and whipped out a notepad and felt-tip pen. ‘Snipes,’ she read, ‘are plump, North American game fowl, about the size of small barnyard hens. That is to say, they are similar in size to chickens. Are your Royal Highnesses familiar with the word “chickens”?’
‘Lord love a duck,’ my Babester groaned, ‘they’re neither Royal Highnesses nor are they blithering idiots, Agnes. They’re simply Brits whose ancestors either bought a title or else bashed enough heads in, in order to get one.’
‘Ha,’ Peregrine said, ‘you can be sure that my family had no need to buy its titles; we rose through the ranks of the aristocracy by bashing heads, as you so quaintly put it. Lots and lots of Norman heads.’
‘Tempus fugit,’ I said. ‘Carry on, Agnes, with the snipe-hunting spiel.’
‘I’ll thank you not to swear,’ Peregrine said, scowling at me. ‘But indeed, do carry on with this tiresome lecture.’
Agnes flushed. ‘Uh, because the birds – I mean, the snipes – live in heavily forested areas, they possess small wings, and therefore are poor fliers, preferring to run along the ground when frightened or pursued. Snipes live in small flocks of about a dozen related individuals. Their diet is similar to that of quail. Both sexes are brown with black herringbone checks fading to buff on their undersides, but the males have a startlingly green, iridescent circle around each eye.’
The above description was total hogwash. It was something that Agnes had written just for that night’s entertainment. Nonetheless, I was a freckle’s thickness away from being a believer. After all, it sounded like something that could be true, and since it was in black and white that meant it had to be right – except that it didn’t. I mean, both the Book of Mormon and the Koran were also in black and white and I didn’t believe them. And Gabe didn’t believe in the New Testament – or the Old Testament, for that matter.
Anyway, now that Agnes had everyone’s attention, she licked her lips seductively. ‘Snipe meat is moist and tender, and far more flavourful than even the most expensive free-range chicken. Fresh snipe meat, like that which we are about to catch tonight, is considered to be one of the most sought-after delicacies in the world.’
‘Balderdash,’ Peregrine said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Agnes said through a mouth that had shrunk to the size of a Cheerio.
Peregrine emitted a moustache-ruffling snort. ‘If that claptrap about tripe meat were the case, then I dare say that I would have heard about it before this. The chef at my club in London is up on all the latest trends and he’s never mentioned tripe.’
‘That would be snipe, dear,’ I said. So he’s half deaf, as well as blind, I noted to myself.
Before continuing, poor Agnes shot Alison a warning look. My fourteen-year-old was about to explode with pent-up mirth. A snipe hunt is a practical joke; a fool’s errand. In a few minutes we would lead the eager hunters out across my moonlit pastures to the distant woods, each armed with a battery-powered torch and a cotton pillow case. Then Agnes would station the four unknowing nobles about thirty meters apart along the edge of the woods. The Grimsley-Snodgrasses would be directed to stand quietly and wait for the rest of us to fan out into the woods and flush
the snipes.
The clueless aristocrats would wait, and wait, and wait, until finally one of them caught on that it was only a game and that they had been played. If they were good sports – which they would be, given that all Englishmen were jolly, good-natured folk – they would at last come trudging back to the inn wearing sheepish grins and making plans for holding their own snipe hunts once they returned to their native soil. The only time a snipe hunt backfired on me was when I foolishly attempted to play the trick on a party of Germans. They stayed out all night, refusing to consider the notion that the proprietor of such a reputable establishment as mine would pull such a stunt on unsuspecting foreigners.
Of course, that was then and this was now, as Alison was wont to say. Then there were a few Germans goose-stepping over my grave, but now, curiously, when all should have been fun and games, I felt as if there were a gaggle of greylag geese rehearsing the rumba in my tummy.
‘Abort mission!’ something, or someone, screamed in my brain. Was it my guardian angel or was it my overactive imagination? Not that it mattered, however, for as usual, my rational nature took over and I followed the course of least resistance: I stuck with the status quo.
SEVEN
I honestly believe that if all the Redcoats had been as good sports as Aubrey, and even Celia, we colonialists might not have been turncoats and declared our independence from that ‘Looney Tunes’ King George III. The two Grimsley-Snodgrass womenfolk came traipsing back to the PennDutch in high spirits. They were laughing and carrying on as only a mother and daughter could – just not my mother and me.
This lack of gaiety in us Yoder gals wasn’t our fault, mind you. The Bible states quite clearly that one must fear God, and so my people had – for hundreds of generations. All that fear was bound to produce a few sourpusses. Yes, I know that just stating this sounds like I’m espousing genetics and evolution in some weird, twisted, theological way – which I’m not. As for those who wish to set me straight with a purely scientific point of view, my answer is simple: don’t confuse me with facts. Enough said.
I was beginning to think that Sebastian might have inherited a God-fearing gene or two as well, because he returned to the inn rather rankled. First he stomped on the outside steps like a wine-making peasant, next he slammed the kitchen door, and when no one ran to greet him he slammed it again.
‘Where is everyone?’ he shouted. Woe was me; I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. That gaggle of gabbling, grave-galumphing geese had finally come home to roost in the mixed metaphor of my overactive imagination.
I took a deep breath and prayed for a calm spirit so that I might carry on properly and not shame my fellow countrymen. Instead, my pulse pounded even faster and my thoughts chased each other so fast that they blurred into butter. At that point I could choose to lie down and accept defeat, or, like a tigress, go down fighting all the way. I decided on the latter.
‘Coming, dear,’ I trilled and sallied forth into the adjoining kitchen through the swinging saloon-style doors. Between forefinger and thumb I held aloft a saucer-sized chocolate chip biscuit, of the American variety: soft, chewy, full of shortening and a hundred million calories, and of course a gazillion chocolate chips. It is the kind of snack that you can feed to an enemy and then watch his, or her, hips literally swell in front of your eyes with each bite that is swallowed. In fact, I once wrote to President Obama that there was no need for drone strikes. All he needed to do was drop large bags of cookies down to each ISIL operative and watch them explode from within. My hopes of being appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James, on account of my service to my country, were dashed when I received a brief note telling me that I was not only naïve, but that the cookies had been confiscated by the Secret Service and demolished by explosives for his protection.
Thank heavens that Sebastian wasn’t as cautious as all that. ‘Give me one of those,’ he said, ‘after you explain to me why it is that you played such a nasty trick on us.’
I waved the fragrant biscuit under his nose and led him through the swinging doors and into my spacious, formal dining room where everyone else sat waiting. That is to say, everyone was there except for Peregrine, who had yet to return from the fields. The remainder of us were drinking tea or cocoa and were eating a variety of homemade treats. One could say that we were having a ‘jolly good time.’
‘Oh, Sebastian, do give it a rest,’ his mother said and took a sip of her chamomile tea. ‘Celia and I had a lovely time.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Didn’t we, dear?’
Celia sprung from her chair as if she’d been fired from a gun. ‘Yeah, Sebastian. And you’re not going to believe this, but after Mother and I walked down from where you and Papa were standing, we each caught three of them. Three, Sebastian!’
‘Aren’t you special,’ Sebastian said, contorting his mouth with every syllable.
‘Sebastian,’ said Aubrey, ‘please cut back on your sarcasm. Whatever will the Americans think?’
‘That I intend to immigrate?’ he said.
‘That’s rude,’ Celia said, thereby forever putting herself in my good graces, which for a teenager is a pretty ding-dong hard thing to do.
‘You go, girl,’ I mouthed.
Poor Aubrey looked desperate. ‘Please, darlings, mightn’t we all just get along? For the sake of England?’ She began softly humming ‘The White Cliffs of Dover,’ which never fails to bring tears to my eyes.
Celia gave her poor mother half a nod, which, I suppose, is better than no nod at all. I have been a teenage girl, but never one with a brother to best. However, I am quite sure that, had I been in Celia’s expensive English shoes, I would have done exactly the same thing.
‘Nice plump ones they were too,’ she said. ‘Mother said that they looked to be every bit as succulent as those French capons that cook got her hands on this spring. Magdalena agreed that they looked to be young, tender snipes. She put the snipes in with her chickens for safe keeping until morning. Gentle as lambs, they were – walked right into the pillow slips.’
‘You’re putting me on, you are!’ Sebastian grabbed one of my fabulous chocolate-chip biscuits and began tearing into it like a lion into its prey. ‘There isn’t any such thing as a snipe.’
‘Strictly speaking, dear, there is,’ I said as I dabbed at my eyes with a plain white cotton handkerchief.
‘Maybe so,’ he said, ‘but it’s not what you describe. In the meantime, my papa is missing.’
‘Missing?’ Aubrey said. ‘What do you mean? I just saw him.’
‘Yeah?’ Sebastian said. ‘Was that before or after you and Celia caught these plump, succulent game birds?’
The Babester, ever my handsome hero, stood and handed his son off to Alison. ‘Hey,’ he said to Sebastian, ‘enough with the attitude. I don’t care if you are our guest; in this house, people respect their mothers.’
Of course, there was stunned silence all around. Alison was the first to speak.
‘You go, Dad!’
‘Thanks, and the same thing applies to the peanut gallery,’ Gabe said with a wink.
‘I ain’t no peanut gallery!’
‘Shh,’ I said, ‘you’re going to wake Little Jacob, dear. How about doing me a big favour and putting him to bed tonight? Then you can watch TV in our room.’ Mind you, that was an enormous privilege, so the favour aspect was really all stacked in her direction.
‘Ah, do I hafta?’
‘Yes,’ said her father firmly. ‘You must.’
‘Man, this ain’t fair! Yinz are so mean, ya know that?’
I don’t believe in reincarnation, but if I did, at one point I must have been a fish that took the first baited hook that it encountered. Perhaps it’s because I try my hardest to be the best mother that I can that when Alison tosses out these ‘wiggly worm’ accusations I swim right up to her boat.
‘I am so fair – I mean, life isn’t fair. No, that’s not right, either. It’s all in God’s hands, and we don’t know His plans. Enough
of that. We definitely aren’t mean; we just have grown-up things to discuss. You should be happy that I’m even letting you watch TV, which, as you know, I consider to be an instrument of the Devil, except for I Love Lucy and Are You Being Served? Although, personally, I think that given the state of the world today there should be a show titled Are You Being Saved? Of course, finding a good Christian actress is a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it? Too bad that Aubrey here is Church of England and not a proper Protestant, as the Good Lord intended, because she does have a lovely bone structure—’
‘Ahem,’ Aubrey said, ‘I, and my lovely bones, are sitting right here and my husband is still missing. Do you mind if we talk about him?’
‘Well,’ I said, feeling my ears turn red, ‘you don’t have to tell me twice on which side of the toast to spread the marmite. I suppose that I do carry on from time—’
‘Mags,’ Gabe said sternly, making a zipping motion across his mouth. ‘Alison,’ he said just as sternly, and pointed towards our bedroom.
Meanwhile, Agnes sat with her hands primly folded on the table, her features arranged in the same manner favoured by Queen Victoria in the many long years of her widowhood. I don’t believe in the transmigration of souls either, but if I did, I would swear (something else that I don’t do) that my best friend had fled for parts unknown on holiday, and that the ‘Mother of Kings’ was her temporary replacement.
Call me old fashioned, but sometimes I don’t mind it when Gabe pulls back on my reigns, especially when I’ve been making a fool of myself. As for Alison, it looked as if Buckingham Palace was weighing down her lower lip, but she managed to stomp off without another word, and miraculously without waking up Little Jacob.