Mum's the Word (14 page)

“You found a boat to bring you over?” I found I was sitting beside her, holding her hand.

“Wasted an hour knocking on doors, before taking the only course open to me. Stripped down, put some undies and a cotton frock in a plastic Baggie; stowed my luggage under a tree, and paddled out to the deep water.”

“You mean you swam out here?”

“Nothing to it.”

“Naked?”

“No, m'hearty—not in the rude! Wouldn't want to put the fishies off their supper. Wore m'all-in-one girdie, Baggie tied to brassiere strap.”

I squeezed her hand. “You might have drowned or …” I almost said “worse,” “been spotted by the Coast Guard.”

“Midchannel caught sight of an official-looking boat, so took the precaution of swimming a stretch under water. Afraid I'm not in shape I was when practicing crossing the English Chan with my cousin George. Have lived near water all my life. Bournemouth when we were in England.”

“Thank God you made it across.” I perked up the flattened ribbon on her hat while not looking at my velour dressing gown, which she filled out so nicely.

“No scare there! One calamity only—lost the Baggie en route. You can guess I was tickled pink to come aboard that boat house and its suitcases of old clothes. Salvation Army's loss is my gain. None of the frocks or shirts made it half way around me, but this”—she smoothed velour over her queen-size knees—“does beat arriving like Neptune roused from the deep in my all in one.”

“Absolutely!” Choking cough. “And those rubber thongs do complete the ensemble. May I ask why you entered by the window?”

Marjorie's St. Bernard cheeks quivered. “Bloomin' stupid, I know! But thought if I could get into the house unobserved I might be able to weasel out of being late. Never flattered myself I was the one and only candidate. So got this notion in my silly old noggin of a welcoming cocktail bash under way. Everyone in too much of a duster to count heads. A little bit o' luck and I'd slip into the house unnoticed and pretend to have been present all along. Too bashful to put meself forward.” Pulling a tissue from the box I had placed on the arm of the sofa, she blew. “There isn't a party, is there?”

This was worse than telling a child there isn't a Father Christmas. Over the lump in my throat I explained about the meeting in progress, in some undisclosed room, under the direction of one Valicia X. Impossible to hold back that the number of candidates was insufficient to justify any hope of confusion. My turn to reach for a tissue.

“Sorry! I am a little emotional these days.” For emphasis I jolted off the sofa when the door opened. I had forgotten Jeffries and my request for water. But, as it perchanced this was the return of the wanderers. Ernestine Hoffman and the Comtesse Solange had been gone so long I should perhaps have reintroduced myself, but settled instead for doing the honours for my new friend.

“This is Ms.…”

“Miss Marjorie Rumpson.” Squaring her jaw, straightening her hat, she stood up.

“Another candidate?” Ernestine did not look thrilled.

“Forgive us not being here to greet you,” Solange extended a bejeweled hand, “
mais
Madame Hoffman and I had went in search of the screamer.”

Miss Rumpson looked confused.

“We find nothing disordinary and were making the return when we became separated.”

“I went to the bathroom and got locked in!” Ernestine's heightened colour clashed horribly with her pumpkin outfit and I, remembering the terror of the plane, assured her I suffered from the same syndrome.

The comtesse's streamlined courtliness showed to great advantage alongside Miss Rumpson's unorthodox attire. “
Mes amis
, I have my intuition about scream. I theenk
Monsieur
Grogg and
Mademoiselle
Divonne make the
grand amour
so they forget this foolishness of the baking powder!”

Miss Rumpson looked even more confused so I hastened to explain her plight to the others. The results were mixed. Ernestine did not exactly bubble over with sympathy. What a pity, she said, but the lady would appear to have missed the boat on all counts. Solange, however, began circling Miss Rumpson, flouncing the bodice of the dressing gown out above the cord, assigning the collar a twitch and administering a pat on the shoulder.

“I say this
bonne femme
who brave the river should lie her way into zee house and out of zee problem. Thees is the story she tells: She arrives on time—goes knock-knock on the door, but no one comes. She lets herself in—heart making boom-boom and make ready for to say ‘Here I am!' Where is everyone? She finds the convenience, decides to jollie herself up and is locked in.”

Miss Rumpson trembled from head to thongs with emotion.

“Sounds sufficiently unreasonable to work,” I enthused.

Ernestine picked
Monster Mommy
off the floor where it must have fallen from the sofa and set it on a table. “Believe me, I don't like coming across as hardhearted Hannah, but I surely have a responsibility to think of my Bingo first. A mother's first task is to fan the flame of her offspring's genius. With Mr. Grogg and now Miss Rumpson out of the running, his chances of being selected look better all the time.”

“Will you squeal to Jeffries or Pepys?” I asked.

“Shush! I hear the pitpat of foots.” Solange gathered us into a huddle.

“Quick! Hide Marge behind the curtains!” Ernestine looked as surprised as the rest of us that she had thrown in her lot with the conspirators.

It was Jeffries who entered with my glass of water. Did something about the hang of the red velvet curtains arouse her suspicions? Would she be as slow taking her leave as she had been putting in an appearance? She stood, hands on her hips,
until it dawned on me she was waiting for me to drink my water. Taking a sip, I half expected my throat to swell closed, my eyes to pop out of their sockets as the poison took me.

“Excellent!” I managed.

“Natural carbonation. Comes from a well in town. We have our supply delivered mornings.”

“May I have a glass?” asked trooper Ernestine.

Mission accomplished. As soon as Jeffries scowled her way from the room, Miss Rumpson came out of hiding; we hastened to explain that it would have been folly to trust her fate to one who had helped bring down another candidate.

“So you think, m'hearties, the wisest course is for me to throw myself directly on the mercy of this Valicia X?”

Fighting off the shudder that name evoked, I nodded. “As long as you remember your lies—lines.”

Amazing what French chic Solange had tweaked out of my dressing gown. How well Ernestine's pumpkin jacket worked in bringing out the bloom in Miss Rumpson's cheeks.

“Flushed with bloomin' terror!”

“Nonsense,” I said. Finding the secret room without the help of Pepys or Jeffries would not be a piece of cake, but I sometimes have a sixth sense where houses are concerned. It was therefore agreed that I sally forth with Miss Rumpson while the other two held the fort.

Onward and outward into the hall.

“What a handsome painting!” Marjorie dallied before the portrait of the old dame, peering out sans mercy through layers of dark varnish to give the finger to posterity.

“You wouldn't want to meet her on a dark staircase.” Propelling my new friend forward, I crossed the shadowy floor as though this were Leicester Square at rush hour and any moment we would get clobbered by a bus driven by Pepys. Was the secret meeting room somewhere in the great beyond above that rollercoaster sweep of staircase? My head said maybe, but my legs—having begun to appreciate the lateness of the hour—voted to check this floor first. Several darkened corridors elbowed off the hall. Any one of them might provide the privacy demanded by the Mangé Manifesto. The trick would be not landing in the kitchen. And the soup.

Pinned beside a door was a bulletin board containing a schedule of meals and a listing of rooms to be occupied by the candidates and Insignificant Others—to quote the vampiric Divonne. Should I turn the knob, open this door? If so, then what? In the first flush of heroics I hadn't faced up to this moment. What if I not only brought rejection on Miss Rumpson, but ignomy on Ben? Would he be held accountable for my violation of the sacred Mangé codes? Then again, could I tell the woman who had been prepared to sacrifice all for her aged mother that we had come on a wild goose chase? Life, I decided sadly, is strewn with ifs, ands, and buts. Ben would simply have to say, Am I my wife's keeper?

An empty dining room came groggily to life in the light from the hall when I opened that door. Did America go in for king-sized tables as well as beds? This oak slab was ideal for your average estranged family. A town crier's horn would be needed to request the salt. Those weren't chairs, they were thrones, and the iron chandelier sounded a gallows creak in addition to casting dismembered shadows on the wall. Out of the gloom, six huge knives gleamed menacingly in their place of honor on the wall. Surely that couldn't be dried blood which limned the razor-sharp edge of the largest one? I could have lingered soaking up the charm of the swashbuckler knives, but Marjorie Rumpson was taking panting breaths and her brown eyes reminded me more than ever of a St. Bernard.

We headed up one corridor and down the next, opening up one fruitless door after another. At one point I thought I heard a third pair of footsteps, but the mind plays tricks. I'm sure, too, that the scent of fried banana was only a product of my imagination.

I was about to suggest to Marjorie that we proceed to the upper floor, when I noticed a door cut into the paneling of the staircase wall. Easy to miss because there wasn't a knob, only a finger groove.

“Lead on, Macduff.” Miss Rumpson was panting in my ear as I slid back the panel and fumbled for a light switch. “Don't bust your stays, all is not lost!” She crossed the hall, surprisingly light on her feet, the gaslight and her flower seller hat making of her a music hall figure. She had spotted Pepys' candle left on the marble topped table. She returned with it lit and a packet of matches.

Stepping onto the enclosed staircase, I was sure I had lost my mind, never to be found again. Miss Rumpson slid the door shut and we began our descent. The railing was a slackened rope strung between posts standing top and bottom. The steps were so narrow I didn't look beyond the one immediately below until suddenly I was in a subterranean room.

“Great balls of fire,” Miss Rumpson said.

My sentiments exactly. The place was a combination of the Old Curiosity Shop and Alice's Wonderland. As far as the candle could see were hand-painted leather trunks and marble columns and statues and clocks and silk screens and stone garden seats and feather fans …

But no Mangé Meeting.

“Well, m'dear, if that doesn't beat all!” Miss Rumpson's voice bounced off gilded mirrors, over stenciled chests, and under japanned tables. “There's a coffin down here.”

Had I not gained so much weight I would have leaped into her arms. “Wh … Where?” No sooner were the words out than I could have kicked myself for my gullibility. She had to be pulling my leg.

Wrong. Following the trail of her finger I saw a coffin, snuggled into a space between a Victorian love seat and a tallboy.

The bow on Miss Rumpson's hat was all of a tremble but she avowed stoutly that we owed it to the health department to investigate.

“Certainly!” I matched my teeny weeny steps to hers. Had I been right about Divonne? Did she never travel without her coffin? Had six phantom horses dragged this piece of furniture across the river, or had she sat inside and rowed? Surely I wasn't putting Our Baby in supreme jeopardy by investigating? “Want to do the honours?” I whispered to Miss Rumpson.

“Not on your Nellie, m'dear.” Ducking behind me, she re-thought cowardice. “Shall we make it a team effort?”

Certainly not one of my favourite ways to end a day. But musn't show cowardice while the little one was in its formative months. Setting the candle down on a table, I said, “On our marks, get set, lift!”

I didn't expect any body to be inside, truly. It had come
to me in a flash that the collecto-maniac responsible for loading up this room must have bought the coffin from an undertaker having a going-out-of-business sale. The lid groaned—or was it Miss Rumpson? We would surely find the space used for storage of a different kind. Sheets was my guess. Those won't-wear-out ones that have to be ironed.

Wrong! I couldn't breathe—partly because Miss Rumpson was clutching my throat. Someone lay against the white satin pillow. Someone I recognized.

Miss Rumpson screamed loud enough to waken the dead, and the corpse sat up. Whereupon the woman who had braved the skies and waters of the deep to keep her date with destiny dropped her hands from my throat. Picking up the candle, I mustered my voice.

“Ms. Mary Faith, as you live and breathe!”