The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Writing sentimental drivel.”

  Then he did understand. However, Dittany was not about to give ground. “If you want to talk business with my husband’s aunt, why don’t you telephone her some day this week at her own house and ask her for an appointment?”

  “Appointment? Faugh! I come as a harbinger of immortality and you try to fob me off with an appointment.”

  Hellespont turned away from her in haughty disdain, whipping his cloak in so wide a circle that it almost knocked the pans off the stove. He’d had dress weights sewn into the hem, the old popinjay, was Dittany’s surmise. But where was this other whirl coming from? All of a sudden, the kitchen had become a veritable maelstrom of flapping black broadcloth.

  “Ungh!”

  “Urff!”

  “Confound—”

  “You!”

  Jenson Thorbisher-Freep was first to recover his aplomb. “Sorry, Dittany, I should have knocked before I barged in. Leander, I never expected to find you here.”

  “He was looking for Cleopatra,” Dittany took it upon herself to explain, as Hellespont seemed completely preoccupied with getting his cloak untangled from the towel rack.

  The thespian furled the last breath of his cloak and gave her a cold look. “I was looking for a leading lady,” he amended. “Surely, Jenson, you must agree that the superb actress who chooses for some reason I cannot fathom to let herself be known as Arethusa Monk was grievously miscast in that trumpery bit of fustian we were constrained to sit through last night. And yet there were moments of transcendence. That ineffable gesture, for instance, when she clasped the dying feedbag man to her bosom! Tender, protective, ferociously possessive! The eternal mother! The anguished spouse! Vénus toute entière à sa proie attaché.”

  “Actually, Carolus was squirming around and Arethusa was trying to make him lie still,” said Dittany.

  “Ah yes, Carolus.” Jenson became all solicitude. “How is the dear fellow?”

  “Bearing up, more or less. He’s playing cribbage with Osbert. And Archie is helping me get supper.” She hoped Jenson would take the hint and leave, preferably accompanied by Hellespont. She could do without what would no doubt ensue should the two discover that Arethusa was actually in the house.

  Jenson did get her message, though he got it wrong. “No, no, my dear, I can’t stay. I wouldn’t dream of imposing on your hospitality twice in one day. I came out to get Wilhedra’s prescription filled and though I might as well pop over for a moment to see how our other patient is doing. You’re quite sure Carolus is resting comfortably?”

  “I’m sure he’d let us know if he weren’t,” Dittany assured the putative father-in-law. “Carolus isn’t the bashful type, we’ve discovered. Wilhedra’s doing all right, I hope? I spoke with her on the phone a while back.”

  “You are the soul of kindness, dear lady. I’m sure your call was a great comfort to her. But I mustn’t keep you from your cooking. I’ll come again at a more convenient time. Leander, can I offer you a ride back to Scottsbeck?”

  “Thank you, Jenson. My own conveyance awaits. Yet I shall not return to my ancestral soil until I have achieved my sworn purpose.”

  “You mean persuading Arethusa Monk to join the Scottsbeck Players?”

  “Nay, more! Far more! I will mold her, I will shape her. I will—”

  “You will do no such thing!” Jenson thundered. “Arethusa Monk will have nothing to do with you or your claptrap crew of bumbling amateurs. If you try to badger her, Leander, you’ll answer to me!”

  Hellespont bristled, but it was Archie who yelled. “How dare you take it upon yourself to speak for Miss Monk? She’s not your client. You don’t own her!”

  Jenson Thorbisher-Freep drew his black cloak about him, threw back his hoary head, and gave Archie the kind of smile Sir John A. MacDonald might have given Louis Riel if they’d happened to meet in the kitchen of a very tired young housewife who was trying to warm up a panful of leftover turkey in giblet gravy. “That, my good man, is what you think. A bientôt, Dittany.”

  Chapter 18

  DITTANY PICKED UP THE glass of sherry she hadn’t yet got to taste, and took a calming sip. It failed to calm.

  Archie shook his head and drained the last of his whiskey. That didn’t seem to be doing much good, either. “It can’t be true! Can it?”

  “That would depend on what you mean by it,” Dittany replied cautiously.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. That Arethusa could have—that she and that fatuous lump of affectations—”

  “Which fatuous lump of affectations? Want me to pour you another drink?”

  “I’ll get it, thanks.”

  Archie retired to the pantry. Perhaps he needed to be alone with his thoughts. Dittany checked the noodle water, discovered it was boiling, and put in the noodles. It was a good thing she’d decided on noodles; by now the half hour Arethusa had stipulated with such misguided optimism was well past.

  Dittany herself was feeling the need of a good, hot, sit-down supper in contrast to the snacks she’d been subsisting on all day. She started to suggest that Archie hurry along the preparations by bringing some plates out with him, then decided she hadn’t better. She was fond of the ancestral ironstone and he was pretty shaky at the moment.

  So was she, now that she had a moment’s peace to take stock of her condition. The possibility of Arethusa’s becoming stepmother to Wilhedra was not one Dittany cared to contemplate with any degree of seriousness. Even Andy McNaster’s cobra would, as far as she was concerned, be a more acceptable addition to their family circle.

  Taking things all around, she was sick and tired of the Thorbisher-Freeps. She was sick of having backwater thespians barge in and emote all over her kitchen while she was trying to get a meal on the table. She was sickest of being niece-in-law to the reigning queen of regency romance.

  Why couldn’t life be the way it used to be back in those halcyon days before Jenson Thorbisher-Freep decided to get rid of his collection? Even now, she and Osbert could be sitting side by side at their respective typewriters, he chasing a gang of rustlers down some sun-baked arroyo, she answering his fan mail. She adored writing long, chatty letters back to those kind readers who’d taken the time to pour out their admiration for Lex Laramie’s books and their own secret yearnings to be literary cowboys, too. Osbert adored having her write them because he himself always got bashful and couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Ethel could be sprawled out here by the kitchen stove where she’d always loved to lie before traffic got so thick as to make the floor unsafe for tail and paws. Arethusa could wander in unescorted with no thought in her head beyond snaffling the little pearl onions out of the mustard pickle dish before Osbert beat her to them. All these lovesick swains cluttering up the place were a plain bloody nuisance. Dittany went and got the plates herself. Archie wandered over to the rocking chair and sat there brooding. She let him sit.

  As she was putting the plates around, Osbert and Arethusa came down from the sickroom together. Their respective utterances were, “Hope we didn’t keep you, darling,” and “Gadzooks, not ready yet?”

  “Another few minutes,” she replied curtly. “I was interrupted. Namely and to wit by Leander Hellespont, who wants to mold Arethusa, and by Jenson Thorbisher-Freep, who says he can’t.”

  “Does he, i’ faith?” Arethusa replied absently, her fathomless gaze on the table. “Were you planning to set out some of that plum jam Therese brought? And perchance bread and butter and a few rolls and biscuits? And pickles and preserves and a simple appetizer like pâté en croûte or oeufs en gelée?”

  “We’re having warmed-up dindon au sauce d’abatis and passion fruit ice cream in honor of your recent coronation. If that doesn’t appeal to you, there’s always the pizza parlor.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Arethusa fished in the pot with the stirring spoon, managed to trap a slithery noodle, blew on it, and bit. “Not quite done. Whatever possessed you to invite Leande
r Hellespont here, ecod?”

  “I didn’t invite him. He came. As did Jenson, ostensibly to inquire after Carolus, which he could perfectly well have done by telephone. Arethusa, you haven’t really gone and got yourself engaged to that man?”

  “What man?” Arethusa spoke abstractedly, being engrossed with trying to snare another noodle.

  “Will you get your head out of that pot and answer Dittany’s question?” snapped Osbert. “Are you or are you not engaged to Jenson Thorbisher-Freep?”

  “I thought she said Leander Hellespont.”

  “Either or both. Or anybody else,” Osbert added in the hope of getting to the crux without further preamble.

  Arethusa secured her noodle, nibbled at it, and pondered. At last, with Archie watching in an agony of suspense, she shook the purple turban she’d taken to wearing draped tiara-wise atop her raven tresses. “To the best of my recollection, no.”

  “Then why was Freep talking as if he had an option on you?” Archie cried hotly.

  “Perchance because he likes to hear himself talk? You can drain the noodles now, Dittany.”

  “Thanks for letting me know. Fix Carolus a tray, why don’t you? There’s a jug of white wine in the fridge if anybody wants some.”

  They all decided they did, so the euphoric Archie poured while Dittany dished up and Osbert made a fast trip upstairs with the invalid’s tray. The food was good, the wine agreeable. The fire crackled in the old wood stove. Ethel returned from her wanderings, had a companionable bowl of dog food laced with the leftover giblet gravy, and stretched put in her favorite spot. Now and then she emitted a contented whoofle or thumped her tail to let the others know she was with them in spirit. She would have been content to lie there all evening long, thinking doggish thoughts, but Osbert decided she’d better go up and guard Carolus, so she went.

  This was the first peaceful time the Monks’ house had known in weeks. The diners chatted in soft, slow voices. Osbert talked of archery and last roundups, Dittany of archery and the Grub-and-Stakers’ plans for expanding the beds of plantain-leaved pussytoes on the Enchanted Mountain if spring ever came. Arethusa talked of archery and the Moonlight and Roses coronation. Archie talked lovingly of royalties. They were all in a state of utter content when the knock came at the door. Osbert got up reluctantly.

  “I’ll go.”

  “Maybe it’s Roger Munson coming to tuck Carolus in for the night,” said Dittany, though she really couldn’t believe they were going to get off that easily. They weren’t.

  “Good evening,” a high-pitched, somewhat nasal voice shrilled from the doorstep. “This is the Monk residence, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Osbert found himself confronted by a great deal of mink. He stepped back instinctively, and the mink stepped in.

  “Carolus Bledsoe is staying here, I’m told,” said its occupant.

  Osbert agreed cautiously that such was indeed the case.

  “Then could I just run up and say hello to him? I’m his former wife, Ermeline Bledsoe. I’ve brought him some fruit.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Osbert. “Carolus isn’t allowed visitors. Or fruit. Doctor’s orders.”

  A burst of incredulous laughter greeted his words. “No fruit? That’s crazy. All invalids are allowed fruit. It’s the rule in every hospital. For the vitamins, you know.”

  “Vitamins disagree with Carolus,” Osbert insisted doggedly.

  “They do, eh? Then how do they strike you?”

  Again Dittany watched the mink-clad arm fly up, again she saw an object hurtle through the air. Osbert ducked aside. The object flew across the kitchen to impale itself on the damper handle in the stovepipe. Another followed, and another and another, in rapid-fire succession.

  By now, Osbert had stationed himself at shortstop and was catching them on the fly. Archie, playing the outfield, intercepted the few Osbert missed. Dittany, with great presence of mind, fetched out the dishpan so they could dump their catches and leave their hands free for the next. By the time Mrs. Bledsoe quit pitching, the pan was full of fruit. All lemons.

  “Feel better now that you’ve let off steam, Mrs. Bledsoe?” said Osbert not unkindly. “You’re under arrest, of course.”

  “Arrest? Who do you think you are, Renfrew of the Mounted?”

  “Nope. Just Deputy Monk of the Lobelia Falls police force. The charge is assaulting an auxiliary officer of the law and making a mess of my wife’s kitchen. Of course if we should happen to find any bombs or anything of that sort inside these lemons, we’d have to book you on a more serious charge. Dittany, darling, why don’t you give Sergeant MacVicar another buzz?”

  “Wait a minute,” shrieked Mrs. Bledsoe. “Can’t you take a joke? I was just haying a bit of good, clean fun. It always amuses Carolus when I throw things at him.”

  “It doesn’t amuse me a bit,” Osbert said obdurately. “Furthermore, I don’t remember Carolus being particularly overcome with glee when you bopped him with that tomato at the dress rehearsal.”

  “And what about that ham and macaroni casserole you forgot to take out of the dish, forsooth, before you chucked it?” Arethusa put in. “Carolus will carry the scar to his grave.”

  Mrs. Bledsoe favored her with a haughty sneer. “I suppose he showed you his scar?”

  “Did he? I don’t recall.” Arethusa had located a cookie which had hitherto escaped her all-devouring gaze, and was giving it most of her attention. “Was yours a good casserole?”

  “It was a superb casserole! And he had the nerve to say it tasted like wallpaper paste.”

  “I’ fegs? What did you put into it?”

  “Oh, ham and macaroni and a bit of this and that. You know how it is with casseroles.”

  “I always add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, myself,” said Arethusa. “And a good pinch of dried basil if it’s anything fishy or chickeny.”

  “A dollop of mustard in the cream sauce works wonders with ham and macaroni,” Mrs. Bledsoe responded. “I also put in about a tablespoonful of marmalade more or less, depending.”

  “Marmalade? Stap my garters, what an excellent idea. Was there marmalade in the casserole you slugged Carolus with?”

  “No. The brute had pigged it all up at breakfast. So it was his own fault, really. Carolus never understood me. I’ll bet he doesn’t understand you, either, for all his big talk. I suppose he goes on and on.”

  “Perchance he does,” Arethusa conceded willingly.

  That wasn’t enough for Mrs. Bledsoe. “What do you mean, perchance? Don’t you listen?”

  This, like the marmalade, was clearly a new concept to Arethusa. “Oh, is one supposed to listen? I’ve been thinking of his voice more in the context of background music. Be fair, Mrs. Bledsoe. The worm may have entered the bud and the bloom be off the rose, but surely even you have to admit that Carolus’s timbre is more agreeable than the banal bleats and squawks one hears over the telephone when one’s waiting for an airline reservation.”

  The former Mrs. Bledsoe paused to reflect. “I must confess I’d never thought of Carolus as Muzak. Perhaps if I had, things might have been different between us.”

  “Even now it may not be too late,” Arethusa urged.

  “Stuff it, Arethusa,” said Dittany. “Not to dash any hopes of a reconciliation, but isn’t Mrs. Bledsoe aware that Carolus is about to become engaged to somebody else?”

  Mrs. Bledsoe emitted a short, bitter laugh. “Oh, that silly business with Wilhedra Thorbisher-Freep? Forget it, that’s just another of her father’s bright ideas. Jenson’s been encouraging Carolus to think he’s going to get his grabby mitts into the Thorbisher-Freep family money the way he did into mine, but what those two don’t know is that Wilhedra’s already secretly engaged to Leander Hellespont.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Ask the girls at the bridge club. Wilhedra’s had the hots for Leander ever since she saw him in his kilt as Macbeth. You wouldn’t believe it, but that wilt
ed string bean has the sexiest knees a woman ever dreamed of.”

  “Do women actually dream about men’s knees?” Archie was obviously making a mental note to send back to Toronto for his own kilt at the earliest possible moment should Arethusa reply in the affirmative.

  However, Arethusa voiced no opinion on the matter. Dittany, on whom the modest amount of wine she’d drunk was having an unusually mellowing effect because by now she was so desperately in need of mellowing, did.

  “I never dream about knees. I dream about that adorable cowlick behind Osbert’s left ear.”

  “Shucks, ma’am, you didn’t ought to say things like that in front of mixed company.” Blushing so furiously he forgot he was Deputy Monk, Osbert allowed his arms to encircle Dittany’s torso.

  What might then have transpired became moot as Sergeant MacVicar came along and Osbert had to switch back to being Deputy Monk. The sergeant was carrying a green plastic bowl full of lovely brown eggs.

  “Margaret sends these in case I wind up staying for breakfast.”

  Dittany took the bowl. “Thanks, but do I detect a note of acrimony?”

  “Aye, lass, you do. I hae a wee suspicion that my guid wife is nane too pleased wi’ the events of this weekend. Nor am I, gin you want the truth. Is this our latest miscreant? Mrs. Bledsoe, I believe?”

  “She was chucking lemons,” Osbert explained.

  “Only in a spirit of japery,” Arethusa intervened. “In my opinion, she’s more to be pitied than censured. She says Carolus told her the ham and macaroni casserole she threw at him tasted like wallpaper paste but it was his own fault because he’d eaten all the marmalade.”

  “An’ how does she explain yon lemons?”

  “She meant them for Carolus. To cheer him up. Can’t you see her as a woman grievously wronged?”

  “I can see her as a woman wi’ a most peculiar sense of humor,” Sergeant MacVicar replied severely. “Mrs. Bledsoe, gin sae you still style yoursel’, you are known to hae committed an assault upon your former husband in the Scottsbeck opera house on Friday e’en.”