Luckily, I didn’t get to answer, because a voice called out from the stage: “I’m ready if you are, Mrs. Ambleforth,” and Lady Grizwolde emerged from the wings; in reality, the space where the Hoovers and floor polishers were kept.
It was hard to believe that such a woman as her ladyship coexisted in a world with domestic appliances. She was a dark-haired, classic beauty of about thirty-five, with that elusive something called presence and the sort of figure that would have caused most men to drop dead at her feet without putting her to the trouble of having to shoot them. I found myself wondering if Freddy got to kiss her during any of their scenes together and if, in the process, he was able to remember that she was married in real life to a peer of the realm.
Kathleen Ambleforth had bustled away from me in a murmuring of thanks for the chafing dish and hopes that I and my lovely husband would enjoy our holiday. And I was suddenly sorry not to have the time to stay and watch Lady Grizwolde step into her starring role in Murder Most Fowl. I had only met her a few times without any sense of getting to know her. It had been a surprise when she had phoned to express an interest in hiring me to do some redecorating for her at the Old Abbey. A week later, I had come away from the consultation without high hopes. But she had got back in touch to say she liked my ideas and had chosen me over a London decorator. And after the first euphoria wore off, I wished I had a better feeling for what made her tick. That sort of understanding is crucial to doing the best possible job for a client. Now, as I was about to walk out of the church hall, I heard her ladyship speak from the stage in a throaty whisper that seemed to darken the room.
“It’s one of those funny facts of life that when someone doesn’t do things precisely to my satisfaction, they tend to end up very dead.” Turning around slowly, I saw that she was talking to Dawn, who, in the role of the maid, ducked a trembling curtsy before backing out of sight. Then, as I walked out into the gathering dusk, I told myself that my sense of foreboding was all tied in with the Gypsy’s nonsense and should be put right out of my head.
A few minutes later I reached the gates of home, standing open to the cliff road. The house had been built at the turn of the century at the whim of some distant cousin on my mother’s side. What a lovely man he must have been, I thought for the umpteenth time as I drove past what had originally been the caretaker’s cottage and was now my cousin Freddy’s digs.
In creating Merlin’s Court, Eustace Grantham had brought a fairy-tale castle to life, complete with turrets, a moat, and even a miniature portcullis. It had fallen into a sad state of disrepair by the time I visited as a child. But when my Prince Charming finally showed up (they don’t make white horses the way they used to), we moved in and eagerly set about removing the curses of time and neglect. We were so lucky, Ben and I, with our adorable, healthy children and this marvelous house in which to bring them up. If I had to walk around with my fingers crossed for the rest of my life, I would gladly do so. Not that I was superstitious. Far from it. I was already thinking about what I would have for my first dinner in France. The asparagus mousse or lobster bisque for a starter? Or possibly both?
It was only after I had stowed the car in the old stable that we used for a garage that I noticed another vehicle, a battered old crock, if ever there was one, parked in the courtyard. Could it belong to the Reverend Dunstan Ambleforth? He had been promising to pay us a call, and his wife had laughingly warned us not to be unduly surprised if he turned up in the middle of the night; apparently he was very much the absentminded clergyman. Especially after long hours spent in his study working on volume eleven of his Life of St. Ethelwort. But here he was, I presumed, at a perfectly seemly hour.
Crossing the moat bridge, I felt considerably cheered. Surely a spiritual visit from a man of the cloth would offset the Gypsy’s warning. Being exceedingly High Church, he might even offer to come out to the stable and sprinkle the car with holy water, just to be on the safe side. I was halfway up the stone steps when Ben opened the front door. He is a man who looks good in any light, but the violet shadows cast by the onset of twilight planed his face to perfection and did marvelous things to his jawline. Even in his old corduroys and navy blue sweater he could still make my heart miss a beat.
“Ellie,” he said, running lean brown fingers through his curly black hair, “there’s someone here.”
“I know.” The wind ruffled my hair as I glanced back at the parked car.
“It’s a man.”
“I thought it might be.” As so often was the case, I marveled that my husband’s blue-green eyes were flecked with gold.
“Not just any man, Ellie.”
“You’re right.” I understood what he was getting at. As our new vicar and a foremost authority on St. Ethelwort, Reverend Ambleforth deserved to be welcomed by Mrs. as well as Mr. Haskell on his first visit to Merlin’s Court. “I’m sorry I was so long, darling. The beastly cashier acted as though I had the getaway car at the door when I asked for traveler’s checks. He summoned the manager, who kept insisting, with all the authority conferred by his pinstriped suit, that our account was thousands of pounds overdrawn. Finally, he admitted that he had misplaced his bifocals and had read the plus as a minus sign, by which time I was ready to cosh him with my handbag.”
“Our visitor is in the drawing room.” Ben took my hand and led me through the front door into the flagstone hall.
“Well, I hope you made him a nice cup of tea,” I said.
“Of course I did, and gave him a good-sized piece of chocolate cake.” My husband drew me to him and kissed my cheek. “After all, sweetheart, it’s not every day that your long-lost father shows up out of the blue.”
Chapter 2
When Ben and I came to live at Merlin’s Court, the hall was feebly illuminated by gas lamps that threw into ghastly relief the moth-eaten fox heads grinning down at us from the walls. Cobwebs had veiled the stained-glass window at the turn of the stairs. There was a strong, musty smell and mouse holes in the skirting boards. Not surprisingly, the twin suits of armor standing against the banister wall had looked as though they lived in perpetual dread of whatever melodrama would next befall the premises.
Now Felix and Fergy the foxes were gone, banished years ago to the St. Anselm’s Church jumble sale, where they had failed to sell even when reduced to 10 pence each. There was a faint but encouraging smell of furniture polish. A copper vase filled with chrysanthemums and autumn leaves stood on the trestle table across from the stairs, and a Turkish rug took the chill off the flagstones.
“Could he be a figment of your imagination?” I whispered, eyeing the drawing room.
“Your father?”
I nodded tremulously while clasping a hand to my heather-tweed bosom.
“If so, he’s rather a large one.” Ben managed to look cheerful, which couldn’t have been easy given the fact that much as he loved our children, he had swept me into his arms the moment they left and proclaimed: “Alone at last!”
“How do you mean ‘large’?” I asked him.
“Corpulent. Which is a good thing, Ellie. One wouldn’t wish one’s father-in-law to have a lean-and-hungry look.”
“But Daddy was always rather slight.”
“Did you only ever see him standing sideways?”
“This is no time to jest,” I snapped, something I had vowed not to do during the blissful interlude of togetherness. “I’m just wondering if he really is my father. It seems such an enormous coincidence given the Gypsy’s prediction.”
“What Gypsy?” Ben raised a dark eyebrow.
“The one who warned me against our going to France. Which is now a moot point, because we can hardly go bunking off on holiday, leaving Daddy to fend for himself,” I said, striving to sound patient.
“Perhaps he’s only come on a flying visit.”
“That doesn’t look like an overnight bag to me.” My voice faded as I looked toward the cord-bound suitcase, the size of a seaman’s trunk, positioned between the two suits
of armor.
For years, during my single days, I had dreamed of receiving a letter from my father asking me to join him in Cairo or Katmandu. But his brief scrawls had made it clear he preferred to roam the globe unshackled—an aging vagabond riding off on his camel into the sunset. Only my mother would have been amused. She had been such a whimsical fey creature. And Daddy had adored her. Had I failed to understand his raging grief at her loss? Tears misted my eyes as I crossed the hall at a run. So much lost time! So much to say!
Flinging open the door, I cried: “Darling Daddy!” then gulped down a breath. Ben’s warning had not fully prepared me for the vast girth of the man who was endeavoring to pry himself out of the Queen Anne chair. The thought flitted through my mind that he must indeed be an impostor come here in hopes of some evil gain. A con man wearing a tropical-weight beige suit and a navy-blue-and-white-spotted bow tie. Daddy had never worn bow ties, or suits for that matter. I remembered he’d had a fondness for Nehru jackets. But at second glance I saw that his reincarnation did bear a slight family resemblance to the father I had known. His hair had thinned, revealing more of his domed head, his blue eyes had faded, and his lips were fuller (that’s always one of the first places we gain weight in our family), but his voice was as of old. Rich and plummy. Mummy used to say that he could read a grocery list and leave you desperate for the sequel.
“Giselle!” He was finally up and peering at me over the rim of his Roman nose. “The prodigal returns at last, my darling child. Alas, you see before you the pitiful ruin of a broken man; but we won’t talk about me.” He crossed the Persian carpet with the lightness of step often seen in people of his bulk, but there was nothing buoyant about his expression. “Homecomings are meant to be gladsome affairs, Giselle. So let it be with ours! And, ah, what a comfort it is to see that you haven’t changed at all!”
It would have been tactless to point out that I had lost weight. “What’s wrong?” I asked, returning his hug. “Did your father’s legacy run out? Have you been forced to take a job?”
“Worse, far worse!” He sank down on the sofa, which gave an accompanying groan.
“You’re not ill?” I collided with the drinks trolley in my haste to sit down across from him.
“The flesh is strong, but the spirit is weak,” he proclaimed, waving his hands with a weary flourish before resting his head against a cushion and closing his eyes. “But you must not repine for me, my beloved daughter. All I ask is that I be allowed to return for a brief spell to the bosom of my family. I shall enjoy meeting your children. How many do you have now? Five? Or is it six?”
“Daddy, I haven’t had a litter since I wrote to you last month.”
“The mail has been slow in catching up with me.”
“Well, there are only the twins, who are almost four, and little Rose, who is eight months and really Vanessa’s child. Although Ben and I love her as if she were our own.”
“Vanessa?”
“Fitz-Simons.”
“The name does not clang a bell.”
“Well, it should.” I’m sure I sounded both alarmed and exasperated. “It was Mummy’s maiden name.”
“Was it?” My father exuded apathy.
“Vanessa is Uncle Wyndom’s daughter.”
“Winston?”
“Wyndom. He was Mummy’s older brother. Surely you remember? He made a great deal of money on the stock exchange, possibly a euphemism for something illegal. And when he lost most of it, he and Aunt Astrid and Vanessa had to move in with us for an intolerable month.”
“Was that when I left home, Giselle?”
“No, Daddy.” I stood up and looked at him for a panicked moment before lifting a lap robe off one of the sofas and tucking it around his knees. When his eyes closed, I told him to rest, said I would be right back, and slipped from the room to find Ben in the hall, just putting down the telephone.
“I rang my parents,” he said, “and spoke to Pop. Mother was putting dinner on the table. Probably sausages and mash. She knows that’s a favorite with Abbey and Tam. And I expect it will be jelly and custard for pudding.”
“Red jelly. In the shape of a cat. Your father told me, before they left, that it was waiting in the fridge.” My sigh blew all the way up the staircase.
“You are pining.”
“It does feel odd being without them,” I heard myself say. “But your parents dote on them.”
“Ellie, what’s wrong?” Ben’s eyes always showed more green than blue when he got that intense look on his face.
I pulled a chrysanthemum out of the bronze vase on the trestle table and snapped its stalk in two. “My only living parent shows up after being gone almost half my life and behaves in a most peculiar way—something you might have noticed if you’d been in the room with us.”
“But, sweetheart”—Ben spoke in the sort of reasonable voice that would have driven any emotionally needy wife to further dismember a hapless flower— “I kept out of the way to give you and your father the opportunity for a heart-to-heart chat. And it’s only been a few minutes.”
“Well, it seems like hours.” I perched disconsolately on the edge of the trestle table. “There’s something seriously wrong with poor Daddy. He’s in abysmally low spirits, describes himself as a wreck of a man, and can’t seem to remember anything.”
“Perhaps you were right, Ellie, about him being an impostor.”
“No. If he were a sham, he would have boned up on the family history until he could recite names and dates back to the Norman Conquest. Not only couldn’t he remember Uncle Wyndom, whom he used to call the abominable windbag”—my voice broke as I depleted the chrysanthemum of its last leaf— “he even seemed a bit fuzzy where Mummy was concerned.”
“Probably jet lag.” Ben drew me off my perch. “I couldn’t remember if I had one foot or two when we got back from America that time.”
“Is that where he came from?”
“He didn’t say. Come on,” he said, tucking my hand in his. “We’ll go back in together and find out what, if anything, is wrong and how long he plans to stay.”
“Your mother moved in once,” I reminded him.
“And it was only difficult while she was here.” Ben opened the drawing-room door, and we both peered inside like a couple of children uncomfortably aware that we were breaking a household rule. It was a long, rather narrow room, made graciously inviting by the Queen Anne furniture that I had rescued from the attic upon our coming to live at Merlin’s Court. A portrait of Abigail Grantham, who had been mistress here during the early 1900s, hung above the mantelpiece. Lamplight shed an amber glow. It mingled with the violet shadows cast by the mullioned windows on the ivory-silk wallpaper. That this was now a house for children was obvious. Their storybooks were scattered the full length of the window seat at the far end of the room. One of Tam’s lorries peeked out from under the skirt of the chaise longue. Abbey’s dollhouse stood on a table, and the walnut cradle we used when Rose was tiny remained in a corner. But my father wasn’t basking in the room’s pleasant ambience. His eyes were open but completely blank.
“Did you manage to catch forty winks, Daddy,” I asked as I bent to rearrange the lap robe around what parts of him it would fit.
“Alas, beloved fruit of my loins, sleep has failed me these many long days.”
“We’ll have to change that. Hot milk before bed and maybe some soft music playing in your room.” I stroked his shoulder and felt him wince.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing that will see me in my grave.” He sounded as though he were sorry about that. “A pulled muscle is all.”
“How did it happen?”
“I was about to go down the escalator at the underground station and had set my case down for a moment to get the kink out of my arm when a couple of chaps came up right behind me and one of them shoved me.”
“How awful.”
“Accidents will occur in this hurry-scurry world.” Daddy sounded nobly resigned. �
�And his companion, the shorter, stockier one of the two, did try to help by grabbing my suitcase. It was as I swung back around to grab at the rail that I wrenched my shoulder. But he got the worst of it.”
“Who?”
“The chap who pushed me. I missed the rail and got hold of his hand. He must have been off balance, because he went plunging forward, face smacking all the way down the escalator.”
“Was he hurt?”
“No, he was hopping about on one foot when I got to the bottom.”
“Would you like a couple of aspirin for your shoulder?” I asked.
“My Florence Nightingale! There is no pill on earth that can ease what ails me.”
“Why don’t we all have a brandy?” Ben propelled me over to the drinks trolley and, under an unnecessary clattering of decanter and glasses, whispered: “He does tend to emote. Not that I’m criticizing. It’s an admirable trait in a father-in-law.”
“And nothing new,” I mouthed back. “He always did. He was in a lift once with Laurence Olivier, and it sort of brushed off.”
Putting a brandy glass into my father’s flagging hand and quickly noticing the alarming tilt, Ben propped a cushion under his elbow. “There you are! And cheers!” he said, giving a tentative tap with his own glass. “To your welcome visit and our getting to know each other, Dad. Or would you rather I called you Morley?”
“Morley, thank you, Den.”
“Ben.”
“Are you sure? I always thought you were a Dennis.”
“I’ve got the most awful handwriting,” I hastened to say, and Ben was as quick to agree.
“Dreadful!”
“A sound biblical name.” My father took a lugubrious swig of his brandy.
“What is?” Ben was beginning to sound as worried as I felt.
The Trouble with Harriet Page 2