Paws for Alarm (4 page)

‘Come and meet the others.' Lania strode across the room with superb disregard for the fragile, shimmering, blue carpet.

Arnold moved forward gingerly, as though crossing an ice floe. I kept pace with him, looking nervously at the carpet. If only it had been patterned, we could have tried to step on the darker bits just in case we were trailing dirt into the house. One thing was sure: little Angela and Peregine were never allowed into this room or it would not be in such pristine condition. Not unless English kids were a totally different breed of child.

The man rose from the sofa as we reached it; the woman smiled pleasantly. I caught my breath and slid a sideways look of awe at Lama. I had thought Celia was houseproud, but Lania was Olympic class. Of course, it was possible that she did not actually choose her guests to match the decor; it was quite probable that they had been here before and had dressed for the occasion.

‘Hazel Davies –' We greeted her as the introductions were made. She was wearing a slim black sheath which could have been chosen by a
House Beautiful
photographer to set off the room.

‘And Piers Alperton –' So they weren't together. At least, not married-together. He was just as disconcertingly flawless in a pale silver-grey lounge suit. He was also quite devastating with his blond hair, pale blue eyes and thin aristocratic features. Around one wrist he wore a heavy chain which looked like silver but was probably platinum.

‘That's a fine old English name –' Arnold blundered in like a bull in a china shop. ‘As in
The Vision of Piers Plowman,
eh?'

‘Actually –' the man did not actually wince, but he gave that effect – ‘my family were landowners. We're in the Domesday Book.'

‘Oh –' Deflated, Arnold sank down on the matching sofa opposite them. I sank down beside him, feeling as though I were going down for the third time, Me, in my shrieking scarlet chiffon, looking as out of place as a pool of blood on the carpet.

‘Piers was an old colleague of Richard's before he went off on his own,' Lania explained, bringing us drinks. ‘He's an interior designer now.'

‘Oh.' A light began to glimmer at the end of a long dark mental passageway. I tried not to stare around the room too obviously.

‘It's beautiful –' Hazel Davies had no such inhibitions. ‘Really beautiful, Lania.'

‘Yes, I'm frightfully pleased,' Lania agreed. She turned to us. ‘Piers uses me as a guinea pig for some of his ideas, I'm afraid. Not that I mind –'

Richard, standing behind us, made a small indeterminate sound. It might have been a growl.

‘One of my more successful efforts, I must admit.' Piers took a bow.

‘I couldn't be more pleased.' Lania looked around the drawing-room complacently. Her gaze wavered as it got to Arnold.

He had decided that it would be a subtle compliment to wear his Black Watch plaid jacket matched with his dark green gabardine trousers. It was obviously a mistake in this room. It could have been worse. If Lania thought that outfit was bad, wait until she saw him in his Bleeding Madras Bermuda shorts.

‘Fair do's –' Piers Alperton had an attack of modesty. ‘The lighting is an important part of the effect – and poor old Blake did a magnificent job.'

‘Oh, you're so lucky,' Hazel sighed to Lania. ‘Here I am, with an absentee husband who seems to be permanently seconded to the Export Drive, and you're surrounded by able-bodied clever men. That is,' she amended, with a guilty glance towards our half of the house, ‘you
were
surrounded.'

Suddenly, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

‘Mmm, yes.' Lania set her drink down on the glass table with a definite
clink.
‘I think perhaps it's time for us to go through to the dining-room. Mrs Thing must be ready to serve by now.'

‘You're not the only one,' I told Hazel as we filed into the dining-room. ‘As soon as I let him off the leash, Arnold is going to disappear into the depths of London and all its specialist libraries and I'm going to be on my own, too.'

‘Oh, good!' she said, then recovered quickly. ‘I don't mean that – I just mean perhaps we can get together once in a while. I'm very much the new girl in town and everyone else has their own schedules and routines. It would be rather comforting to join forces with another newcomer and moan together over a cup of tea once in a while.'

‘I know just what you mean,' I agreed. I had already decided that Lania was not going to prove exactly a soulmate. It was comforting to know that a native of the country felt the same way about her. I was afraid it might just be me and my silly ingrained American prejudices. ‘We'll get together just as soon as my jet-lag has worn off.'

We were in the dining-room now and Lania was making traffic-directing signals which somehow relegated each of us to the seat she had intended.

I found myself between Richard and Piers. Arnold was between Lania and Hazel. We smiled at each other falsely as we settled into our chairs and Richard poured the wine while Mrs Thing brought in the gazpacho.

I was already beginning to suspect that the English went by the calendar rather than the thermometer and this was another bit of confirmation. Although it was late June, the weather was damp and chill and I personally would have served a hot soup, if not devilled chicken drumsticks, or something – anything – to try to bring the body temperature up to blood heat.

I exchanged a martyred glance with Arnold as we reached for our soup spoons – and stopped dead.

Okay, I know America is unique in that we usually lay out just one knife, one fork, one spoon – and that's it. I've read the etiquette books clueing you in as to how to conduct yourself at the fancy formal occasions. But, Dear Abbey, Amy Vanderbilt and Emily Post – you've let me down. I've grasped the feet that you should start at the outside and work your way towards your plate when you're confronted by an unfamiliar array of cutlery. Only – there was another set of cutlery at the
top
of my plate. How about that? Where did those implements sort themselves into the routine?

I glanced across at Arnold and found no help there. No doubt about it, we were just a couple of hicks from the sticks. The only thing to do was to fall back on that other dubious instruction – and follow the hostess's lead. But Lania was deep in muted conversation with Piers and giving every indication that she might skip the first course entirely. Perhaps she was dieting and didn't care.

I slid a sideways glance at my host, but he was no help, either. He was glaring at his wife and tearing a roll to pieces.

In despair, I turned to see what Hazel was doing. Thank heavens, she was actually paying attention to the food that had been set in front of her. She was attacking the gazpacho with a giant-sized circular implement, sipping delicately from it as it reached her lips. As on a peak in Darien, I realized why all English-based etiquette books exhorted you never to put the soup spoon in your mouth: if you did, odds were that you'd never be able to get it out again.

Frowning towards Arnold, I picked up the same implement – I could not think of it as a spoon – and began wielding it. With an incredulous expression, he followed my example and we struggled through the soup course.

Like a fool, I relaxed when Mrs Thing carried in a large casserole and set it before Lania. It was hot and still bubbling from the oven. A cloud of fragrant steam wafted upwards as Lania lifted the lid. Mrs Thing had already set bowls of vegetables on the table and now she carefully carried in a stack of plates, using oven mitts, so they were evidently hot.

Lania dished out and passed round the plates, handling them very cautiously. I took mine gingerly, all I needed was to drop it because it burned my fingers and splash that rich brown gravy all over the white lace tablecloth.

I exchanged glances with Arnold, knowing he feared the same, but we managed successfully. It wasn't until we started eating that we realized that the trap was not in the plate but on it.

My first mouthful told me that this was something new in my experience. I wasn't sure I liked it. I chewed thoughtfully and allowed my gaze to wander to Arnold. He was sawing away at a piece of meat, hampered by a bone in an unexpected place. The mistrustful expression was deepening on his face. He glanced up, met my eyes, and crossed his own eyes briefly in a signal he hadn't used since the early days of our courtship.

I nodded agreement and took another cautious mouthful. The meat was rather dry, faintly sweet with a hint of nutmeg — although that could have been the recipe – and completely unidentifiable.

‘Say –' In desperation, Arnold took the bull by the horns. ‘This is pretty unusual. What is it?'

‘Oh, I'm so glad you like it.' Fortunately, Lania missed the fine distinction between ‘pretty unusual' and a genuine compliment. ‘I thought I'd serve you a real old English dish. It's jugged hare.'

‘Hare -?' My throat closed up and I fought to keep from gagging. ‘You mean rabbit?' With dismay, I heard my own voice rise to a squeak. ‘
Bunny
rabbit?'

‘That's right.' Lania smiled complacently. ‘Although hares are rather more on the wild side and –'

I stopped listening. Rabbit was rabbit – and rabbits were pets where we came from. Oh, I knew some hunters caught and ate them – but not in our circles. Why, we'd bought an Easter Bunny for the twins when they were tiny and when it died several years later, we'd given it a full funeral. To eat it was unthinkable. It would have been like eating the cat or the dog.

‘Is anything wrong?' Our silence seemed to get through to Lania.

‘Oh, er, no. I was just thinking –' I temporized hastily. ‘I'm afraid it might be a bit rich for the kids –'

‘Oh, you don't have to worry about that,' she laughed. ‘The children are having sausages and mashed potatoes and baked beans. It's all they ever want to eat. Children are so unadventurous, aren't they?'

Lucky kids. And smart. If Lania served many meals like this, no wonder her kids stuck to something safe. I looked at Arnold again. He was judiciously pushing his meat around his plate, but it was no use. If only she had served cabbage – there isn't much room for concealment under a Brussels sprout.

‘It's absolutely delicious,' Hazel said warmly. ‘You
must
give me the recipe.'

Lania promptly launched into it while I sent Hazel a grateful glance. I wasn't sure whether Hazel really wanted the recipe or whether she was trying to take the heat off us. I was afraid Arnold's face couldn't stand the strain for much longer, but she had successfully distracted Lania's attention and we could relax and exchange another agonized look.

I studied my own plate and experimentally tried to slide a chunk of rabbit beneath a roast potato. The potato perched there for a moment, then rolled off. There was nothing for it, I was going to have to eat more of the ghastly stuff. I sneaked another look at Arnold's face as he stabbed a morsel of meat with his fork and saw that he had reached the same conclusion.

Fortunately, the others – except perhaps Hazel – seemed unaware of our dilemma. Politeness probably entered into it, too, as we all tried not to stare at each other's unaccustomed table manners. I've heard of two-fisted drinking, but the English went in for two-fisted eating. If I lived for a thousand years, I'd never be able to pile all that food on the back of a fork the way they did.

Somehow, we got through the meal and the rest of the evening. Piers went off with Hazel, ostensibly giving her a lift home.

Lania drew me aside just as we were about to make our own escape.

‘By the way,' she said, ‘if you're writing to Rosemary at any time, it would be as well not to mention anything about Hazel. And, for heaven's sake, never let Rosemary know that you met Hazel in my house.'

‘Sure,' I agreed, feeling too green around the gills to be surprised at anything by then. My only interest was in getting out of there before I disgraced myself.

Arnold and I jostled each other through the gap in the hedge and then through the front door, the twins bringing up the rear. My outraged stomach and psyche both began to heave.

‘Arnold,' I choked, ‘I think I'm going to be sick.'

‘You and me both, Babe.' He propelled me up the stairs. ‘After you with the bathroom.'

Of course, the twins thought it was hysterically funny. ‘Yeeuch!' they said over breakfast next morning. And, ‘Another piece of rabbit, Mom?' They reeled around the table, holding their stomachs, making retching noises and doubling up. There is little that cheers pre-teen monsters so much as catching adults in an awkward moment — especially parents.

‘All right, that's enough!' Arnold called a halt – or tried to.

‘But what about the bones?' Donald persisted. ‘Couldn't you tell there was something wrong from the bones? I mean, the whole skeletal structure is different.'

‘You must have noticed. Unless –' Donna giggled – ‘you thought it was cat. They say Chinese resta –'

‘Stop it! This minute!' I took up the cudgels as Arnold turned pale. ‘Remember, if you make us both so sick we can't face food, you'll have to do your own cooking. And you know what that means. Bread and water for a week!'

It was not quite an empty threat. A bout of'flu had left both Arnold and myself too incapacitated to stagger out into the kitchen for a couple of days last winter and the twins had had to fend for themselves, not very successfully.

‘Not another word. Sit down and eat!'

‘Okay.' They subsided into chairs and stirred their cornflakes moodily.

‘Well, if we can't talk, can we watch television?' Donald plainly rated television a poor second to tormenting his parents.

‘Only because it's time for the news.' Arnold tried to pretend that he was interested himself.