Muriel's Reign

by Susanna Johnston

  Chapter 12

  Mambles sent word that she wished to see Muriel in her bedroom before breakfast was brought to her on a tray at nine-thirty.

  She was propped on her pillows and her mouth had already been swiped across with bright lipstick. Her hair was in a net and Jubilee snuffled under one of her thick white arms.

  ‘I needed someone to talk to.’

  The floor was scattered with splinters of white – alongside larger bits of broken china.

  ‘I was given horrid presents yesterday. Really horrid. I smashed the one your awful ex-husband gave me. Was he playing some sort of trick?’

  Muriel picked up a few of the larger fragments and pieced them together. It had, until smashed by Mambles, been a large and hideous mug with the words ‘Old Fart’ printed on the side. It was hard to imagine how Mambles had broken it so thoroughly – made, as it was, from hard but tinny porcelain. With a shock of dismay she realised what had happened. Hugh, concentrating on his stately bow, had handed Mambles a packet that had just been handed to him by Marco assuming that they were both in a part of a royal chain of presentation.

  She looked at a large bit that had formed the base of the mug and read the logo. ‘1st for fun.’

  ‘Oh Mambles. It was for Hugh. Marco was giving it to his father. They must have got muddled.’

  ‘Cunty opened it for me last night after I came up to bed. Neither of us knew what to say. I threw it against the skirting when she’d gone.’

  She insisted that Muriel sit on her bed. ‘None of that curtseying now there’s no one to witness.’ Jubilee went on wriggling.

  Mambles’s efforts to beguile faded and her eyes went very black. ‘If you only knew how much I hate Cunty.’

  ‘Cunty?’

  ‘Yes. The way she sucks up and has to have goat’s milk – or is that Farty? She treats Jubilee as if he was her own dog.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you mind about goat’s milk but I’m sure she doesn’t suck up exactly. Just reveres. As for Jubilee. She does quite a lot of the looking after.’

  ‘Now you’re taking her side.’ Mambles started to cry and asked for a vodka. Then she told Muriel to summon Cunty. ‘Jubilee needs to be taken walkies.’

  ‘Why don’t you get dressed and we could go for a walk together with Monopoly? It’s cold but it might cheer you up.’

  ‘If you ever talk about cheering me up again I’ll scream and frighten Mummy. You know how I hate being cheered up. Why is everything so horrid? Everybody’s cross and sad. Why can’t I have a drink when I want one?’

  Muriel heard the shrill cheep of Lizzie’s voice and the tic-tac-tic of her high-heeled shoes on the landing.

  ‘I’ll send Cunty up but, Mambles, don’t be beastly to her.’

  ‘I’ll be as beastly as I like,’ she said as she rolled her eyes and reached for a cigarette and a vast box that contained jewels beside a smaller box jammed with pills of different colours.

  Muriel plodded down the back stairs in order to avoid Lizzie who used the handsome front ones and wondered if she understood any of the inner workings of any of her visitors. She went in search of Peter. If she sat on the floor at his feet there was a chance that he might place his hand heavily on the top of her head and stop it spinning. He did and she almost recovered.

  Chapter 13

  As the senior ladies breakfasted in their rooms, Lizzie raced to the squash court where she found Hugh and Phyllis dallying over coffee cups as Cleopatra, tidily adorned, played with plastic in the pen. Marco stood beside it, encouraging her movements. He straightened up when Lizzie entered and demanded, straight out, ‘Is anyone here going to the supermarket? I know it never closes.’

  Hugh did have the use of an old car, battered and provided for him by Muriel. Marco, too, had shabby transport and Phyllis was allowed use of either one. Lizzie’s hopes were high.

  ‘Surely one of you must be going to a shop.’

  The three adults looked blank. What with lunch at the manor house and Hugh’s small larder now well stocked, there was no need on Boxing Day to venture out.

  Hugh, pleasantly reminded of Lizzie’s artful appearance and sparkling manner, asked, ‘Is it urgent? Perhaps I could run you there.’

  Phyllis said, ‘I’ve got duties this morning so you’ll be needed here for Cleopatra. That is to say, unless her parents are prepared to do the job.’

  Marco shifted. ‘Sorry. Flav’s not at her best this morning and I’ve got to tidy the barn. Get our show on the road. You know. Get our act together.’

  Lizzie was unrelenting and she, Hugh and Cleopatra (strapped into the baby seat behind) set off to buy a copy of the Boxing Day tabloid.

  As they left Phyllis pursed her lips and said to Lizzie, ‘Very well, and you can see to baby’s bedtime tonight.’

  After buying the newspaper Hugh returned Lizzie to the big house where she flattered him to excess. ‘I can’t thank you enough. Muriel is so obstinate. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want her guests to have what they need. I really don’t understand it. If I had a huge grand house with masses of servants I’d want them to feel at home.’

  Hugh, in his slighted position, agreed but with restraint since the arrangement suited him for the time being.

  Triumphantly armed with the newspaper that bulged with supplements Lizzie went into the house, thanking Hugh again and saying that she looked forward to seeing him at lunchtime.

  Muriel was aggravated when she saw a copy of the loathsome paper flaunted on the hall table but her hands were full and she didn’t speak; merely rebelled within to see that Lizzie had had her way; had satisfied her want and that Hugh had assisted her.

  Newspapers were, in fact, delivered to the door but none to Lizzie’s liking so Lizzie felt justified and gloated over having inched nearer to Hugh; not that she wanted to have to put Cleopatra to bed. The project needed thought.

  As she considered, Cunty came down the staircase; sharp-eyed, red-nosed and in a dither. ‘Mrs Cottle. Her Majesty believes there to be a rat or some other type of rodent in her bedroom. She detected a loud, squeaky sound coming from under the floorboard. Miss Farthing and I have pulled all the furniture from the skirting and opened up a trunk containing old clothing. Fancy dress, I imagine. An antique trunk.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Well. Her Majesty suggested you go and sit with her for a while. You might know if it is or is not some form of vermin in there. Possibly under the carpet.’

  Was she a landlady as well as a hostess? Providing beds, baths, curtains, light, heat and hanging space was clearly not enough. Her duties, it transpired, lay well beyond her open-housed munificence. If only they were all paying guests instead of costing her a slice of her indefinite fortune.

  Queen Elizabeth, hair in a net and wearing an eye shade, sat propped up on pillows, Cunty close beside her on an upright chair.

  Muriel was asked to sit on a divan at the foot of the bed and to listen for sounds. They heard nothing whatsoever as they sat still as stones for over half an hour.

  ‘It must have died. That or be unconscious,’ the old lady suggested. Muriel apologised for the distress and begged to be set free to find out what had happened below and how the Boxing Day lunch was progressing. Before taking up her post in the hall she went to find Kitty in the kitchen.

  ‘That Dulcie. She ought to have oiled the pulley. Squeaks like an animal it does – when she tugs on it. It’s her own oilskin garments she’s drying. Why she has to do it at this time – and on Boxing Day – I’ll never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the old lady – Her Majesty I mean – hadn’t been disturbed by it. Her hearing is fairly sound.’

  All in a rush the lunch party was upon them. Those staying in the house were assembled. Hugh and Tommy Tiddler arrived more or less simultaneously – soon followed by the judge. Both Hugh and the judge dressed tidily; each suit a trifle too tight. But Tommy Tiddler!

  No one, least of all Muriel, had anticipated such an apparition. Scen
t and stole. He did not wear the brooch made up of copulating goats but a diamante fairy seated on an enamel toadstool. He whispered to Hugh, ‘One was creamy round the crutch when one dressed for this. Nearly parked a crafty. I hope one hasn’t overdone it but one was rather pretty when one was young.’

  Hugh, appalled to be coupled with this freak, walked towards Lizzie who wanted to thank him again for having taken her to the supermarket.

  The judge, having made his obeisances, also leered at her. His face was lopsided as if he’d suffered a mild stroke. She sparkled and said, ‘Isn’t this fantastic. Muriel at home to nobs.’ Then, animatedly to both pairs of ears, ‘I’m allergic to royalty myself. Actually allergic. I feel physically sick when they’re in the room. I can’t wait for this afternoon when they leave.’

  The two men, terrified but impressed, laughed loudly but glanced at the causes of the allergy as they did so – wondering which side their bread was likely to be buttered.

  Tommy puzzled Mummy who didn’t know if she spoke to a man or a woman. It was all a bit much at her age – what with Dulcie in the van. He said, ‘One does love Christmas and putting on all one’s bits. What it must be to wear a crown. The mind boggles.’

  Queen Elizabeth, rising above such matters, said, ‘I think there was a rat in my room.’

  Mambles was being charmed by Marco but Flavia had failed to appear. ‘Still getting into her gear,’ he explained, ‘that and the little one who’s to be fed in the kitchen again. Good on Ma. And Pa come to that. We’ll soon be off the hook if this Phyllis thing works out.’

  ‘Phyllis thing?’ Mambles asked.

  ‘Yes. Pa and Phyllis. A bit of a twosome. Suits us as she does all the dirty work in the squash court.’

  ‘Hope it’s not too much of a squash,’ Mambles opened her eyes very wide and was happy to have made a joke although she did not approve of cross currents with lower orders.

  Marco laughed lustily and Muriel began to hope that all was going well.

  Tommy’s fingers neared Mummy’s diamond brooch. It had large baroque pearls hanging from it and she put up a hand for protection. He feigned a swoon. ‘What a celestial piece. Would that you’d do swappums with my fairy,’ but she didn’t appear to understand his words.

  A table plan had been worked out by Peter. Mummy sat at the head. Hugh on her right – then Mambles, Tommy Tiddler, Muriel and the judge at the end – opposite Mummy. To the judge’s right sat Flavia, then Peter, Lizzie, Marco and back to Mummy.

  Marco talked to Mummy of her importance to the country as Lizzie struggled with Peter, cross not to be beside Hugh or, at least, the crooked-faced judge.

  Mambles asked Hugh, ‘Has Marco turned over a new leaf since becoming a father?’ Hugh, taken aback with Marco only a few feet away, replied, ‘Yes. The country suits him. Lessens the peer pressure.’ Mambles who, in spite of Mummy’s efforts had never received pressure from peers, sat nonplussed.

  Flavia, also downcast by her place at table, pouted and drank.

  Muriel was saddened that Mummy and Mambles were in no way struck by the splendour of the dining room or of what Mambles had, on other occasions, spoken of as ‘nice things’.

  Tommy Tiddler asked Mambles what it was like to be a bird in a gilded cage. He began to sing, lifting his eyes to the ceiling and a glass to his lips.

  Muriel loathed it all. Mercifully the entourage, it turned out, was set to depart in the afternoon. Return to some sort of reason. She yearned to settle, quietly with Peter and Monopoly, to wallow in the thrill of her unexpected fortune; to sum up her duties, possibly to buy a horse.

  She heard snippets of conversation as courses came and went.

  There was a sixpenny bit in Mummy’s slice of pudding left over from the day before and fried. She asked Hugh to polish it up for her. It was wrapped tightly in a piece of greaseproof paper and, as she swallowed brandy butter, she asked, ‘Is it the late King, my husband, or my daughter, the Queen, on the coin?’

  Hugh reproachful and at a loose end. Lizzie staying indefinitely. Marco, Flavia and Cleopatra. Phyllis’s shifting position added to anxieties whilst, in the short term, solved some.

  Dulcie menacing; donkeys incestuous; Sonia insane; Dawson and Delilah a constant tug at her conscience. What, she asked herself, is there to hope for? Hugh and Lizzie? It didn’t do to picture Lizzie permanently in the squash court but, hang on, she did have a flat in London and now that Monopoly loathed Hugh, there was no interest for him in the country. But what of Phyllis? Too many conundrums.

  Mummy and Mambles took up a whole page in the visitors’ book. Cunty, Farty and Moggan didn’t sign their names. It was, according to Mambles, inappropriate, although they had stayed in the house.

  When the hoo-ha of their departure was over, the judge turned his wonky face to Lizzie and asked, ‘And how long, dear lady, are you staying here?’

  Lizzie, hunted, said that Muriel had not mentioned a date for her departure. ‘I feel like a displaced person. Not knowing if I’m wanted.’

  ‘Come come, dear lady, I was hoping you might make up a bridge four this evening. Do you have wheels?’

  ‘Wheels? No but I’m sure someone …’

  Muriel, quickly, said, ‘We’ll try to get you there. There and back. Let me have a quick think.’

  An evening alone with Peter promised her happiness and hope.

  The judge made a suggestion. ‘Why don’t you come back with me now and spend the night? I’ll return you to camp in the morning.’

  Lizzie, notwithstanding doubt, jumped at it. Hugh otherwise occupied. Muriel soppy with Peter.

  ‘I’ll make a quick dart and pack. Muriel, you don’t mind, do you? You know I worship bridge.’

  Muriel returned to the anthology of love poems and the fireside with Peter and Monopoly.

  Poems aside, there was an uncomfortable amount for them to discuss. Muriel’s fierce and utter disenchantment with Hugh was a tricky one. Peter had no wish to further rubbish his brother. He inclined to the belief that, whatever his true feelings about Hugh, he had rubbished him enough in that he lived in blissful contentment with Muriel.

  She hankered to be shot of her husband, his very presence a blight, and was irritated to remember that Mambles had bamboozled her into housing him in the absence of other solutions. She wondered whether the young man who had been so disturbed on seeing the picture hanging above the piano in the hall, had come to any conclusions on its provenance. Might the ownership of that still tempt Hugh into considering a divorce?

  Marco and Flavia, drunk and dissatisfied, dumping the demanding baby on her at inconvenient hours.

  Anxiety-ridden Lizzie, temporarily appeased by her bridge-playing sleepover with the goosing, widowed, exjudge, was to return the next morning for an indefinite number of days.

  Phyllis, destabilising in her triple role: housekeeper, husband’s mistress and nurserymaid to her granddaughter.

  She wondered whether she might not be happy as an ‘Avon Lady’ trudging up to the doors of others instead of owning so many doors herself.

  Her mind focused on Lizzie. Lizzie had, in spite of being no longer young, scampered up the stairs to pack her overnight needs; including the Queen’s kimono, in readiness for her journey with the judge.

  She had waved goodbye with neurotic brightness from the window of his old Mercedes as her escort strained to fasten the safety belt round his person – larger since lunch.

  Chapter 14

  Lizzie took stock. Hugh was no certainty. Muriel and Peter were excluding in their closeness to each other. The judge was worth a try and, on that path, she knew that she was certain to conquer. She was lively as they drove and she entertained Judge Jones (Jack) with tales of Muriel’s past and to an edited degree her own. She told him that she had been married, years before, to an eligible man but that she had left him for a Dutch magnate of vast wealth. The Dutch magnate had, in truth, let her down (she didn’t mention this in the Mercedes) but not before handing over several pieces of
valuable jewellery (which he tried, and failed, to regain – also not mentioned in the Mercedes) and setting her up in an antique shop in the Kings Road; the shop in which Muriel had worked for her before the shocking oddity of inheriting Bradstow Manor.

  ‘He was frightfully attractive.’ She spoke to the judge of the Dutchman, ‘But absolutely hopeless in bed.’

  The judge changed gear and colour.

  ‘My word. I bet you’re a good judge. Judge – ha-ha. Lovely lady like you.’

  They drew up on gravel beside a well-built house. It was bleak but not shabby. A lot of laurels.

  Inside, Lizzie looked about her and realised that it wouldn’t quite do. Not in the long run. A wide passage held several large mahogany cabinets displaying sets of china glistening with gold leaf and over-restored paintings of dim-looking ancestors. Large purple and blue rugs; a live Labrador in a bleak, flowerless sitting room; unlit fire. There were several framed photographs on stands. One, clearly, of the judge’s own wedding in a London church with several grown-up bridesmaids. He wore a carnation in his buttonhole and the bride looked timid. There was another of, presumably, his wife at her coming out party; tight hair and flouncy frock. One photograph Lizzie noticed in particular was of three grinning teenage youths. It certainly wouldn’t do.

  On a low table stood a tarnished silver box. Lizzie opened it and found it to be half full of cigarettes – in likelihood dating from the days of Judge Jack’s wife. He said that he never smoked, other than accepting the odd cigar when offered.

  Lizzie picked one out. It was dry and had gone an odd shade of brown. She lit it with a fiddly match from a tiny box that was also encased in tarnished silver. She hadn’t smoked a cigarette for years but took one as a ploy to find distance between herself and the judge. Her huge eyes watered and her throat went dry and scratchy as she took small puffs and tried to remember which fingers to use.