Tea with Jam and Dread (5 page)

Oy vay!
If only Alison would learn when to put a sock in it – I mean that metaphorically, of course.

‘No way, Auntie Aubrey,’ she said. ‘Did you know that Adam was the very first man to have sex?’

God Save the Queen, and God bless Aubrey, who turned the colour of raw chicken livers. But just as any true Brit would under those circumstances, she remained calm and carried on. Is it any wonder that we Americans are such Anglophiles?

‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I suppose we should all be glad, because that is how we got here. So, be a dear and show me to the dining room. Then after I’ve taken my tea, you can lead me up your mother’s impossibly steep stairs. But remember, you’re not to tote any of my bags on account of you’re still growing your important lady parts; I shall carry my bags by myself, rather like a Sherpa climbing Mount Everest.’

‘It’s a deal,’ Alison said.

‘The dead woman is at the top of the elevator car,’ Cee-Cee said.

The room was instantly so silent that I could hear dust motes settling on drapes three yards away. ‘
Excuse
me?’ I said. ‘Say that again.’

‘Your Granny Yoder just told me what happened to that missing Japanese tourist. She is on top of the lift car.’

Every hair on my body stood on end, which was rather indecent of them, if you ask me. At least the hair on my head behaved, thanks to the five pounds of hairpins I use to keep my coiled braids in place.

‘That is just plain ridiculous!’ I said. ‘There is only a two-inch gap – at most – between the elevator car and the ceiling. Even a very shallow person, such as your brother, couldn’t possibly fit between the two. Yoko-san was a petite woman but she wasn’t two-dimensional.’

Cee-Cee could still see Granny Yoder’s withered lips, whereas by then I had already stepped out of the parlour. ‘Ma’am, your granny says to tell you that when the elevator was halfway between floors, somebody stopped it, forced open the upper doors and then pushed the Japanese lady out on to the roof of the elevator car.’

I don’t mind sharing that this information stunned me. It sounded so true that I could
feel
it in my DNA. This phenomenon has only happened to me a couple of times, like when I’ve read certain scripture verses, or once years ago when Agnes forced me to watch an
Oprah
show with her. My point is that I needed no more convincing; what I needed was a game plan for how to proceed. That’s me, your typical Magdalena Yoder Rosen, lurching from crisis to crisis but never waiting for as much as a minute before casting about for Plan B or Plans C and D.

Alison was the first to break the stunned silence. ‘Ya mean there’s been a rotting dead lady in there all this time and I ain’t had a chance ta see her? Man, how is that fair? All the kids at school can talk about is zombies, and here I got me a real live one but it don’t do me no good!’

Cee-Cee gave Alison a light, playful push. ‘You Americans are a fun lot; a real
live
zombie! Jolly good, that.’

‘Yeah?’ my daughter said. ‘Because I’m thinking how cool it woulda been if we’d got to her in time to watch her eyeballs fall out, like in that insurance commercial on TV. Then we coulda sold the video to YouTube or someplace like that and made us, like, a gazillion bucks. I know that you’re already super rich and everything, being a novelty and all, but I read someplace that ya can’t be too rich or too single.’

‘Cheers,’ Rupert said. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

‘The actual quote is too rich or too
thin
,’ Agnes said through pursed lips, ‘and if you ask me, one certainly
can
be too thin. If you don’t believe me, just page through any beauty magazine the next time you get your hair done. All the models shown are one lettuce leaf away from utter starvation. Someone with murder on his mind wouldn’t have any trouble stuffing one of them through the gap between your elevator doors, Magdalena.’

‘Was that comment necessary?’ the Babester said in my defence.

Bless my husband’s heart. I did, however, understand where Agnes was coming from. The truth is that the last time the poor dear tried to ride in my rickety contraption she couldn’t squeeze through the elevator doors and had to take my impossibly steep stairs. My friend was barely able to clear the stairwell, and the journey of eighteen steps took her over an hour, but due to the circular nature of both friend and stairs, had she fallen she would not have travelled far before becoming safely wedged by one of my attractively painted walls.

‘Well, dears,’ I said generously, ‘let us bid haste, for we have much to do before tonight’s fun and games begin.’

‘Ah, yes, hunting for the fearsome Hernia
snipe
,’ sniped Rupert as he rubbed his smooth aristocratic hands in mock anticipation.

Alison, a veteran snipe hunter, chortled in sheer delight, but I quickly stifled her with a gentle nudge on her behind by one of my bony knees.

I had to hand it to Agnes; so far it was a lot more fun dealing with five foreign fops than any number of ‘ugly’ Americans. Truth be told, they really weren’t that foppish, except for the matter of toting their titles across the border, but fortunately lovely Aubrey had made short shrift of that. The one to watch closely was the uppity Rupert, who was reluctant to close the door on being a nob – even just for a few days.

As for the other twin, Sebastian, the hormone half of the identical duo – he would either show up in time for the evening’s escapade or he wouldn’t. Frankly, when one has lived through as much of life’s ups and downs as I have, and solved case after case of murder and mayhem, whether or not someone else’s adult son stays out all night is very low on one’s list of priorities.

Just as long as no one died on tonight’s hunt, that would be fine with me.

HOW TO MAKE THE PERFECT CUP OF TEA

When boiling the kettle, always use freshly drawn cold water. This helps the flavour develop.

Warm the teapot in advance by swirling a small amount of boiled water in it before discarding.

Insert one teaspoon of loose tea per person, and one extra teaspoonful for the pot.

Allow the tea to brew in the teapot for six minutes before serving.

Ideally, the tea should be drunk from a porcelain teacup. (Just as fine wine may not live up to its full potential when drunk from a mug, the same can be said of fine teas.)

Always pour in the tea before the milk.

A
gnes stayed over for ‘tea’ and Saturday night supper. In
addition to the two cows, we at the PennDutch are home to an old grey mare named Becky, fifteen laying hens, a rooster named Chanticleer, a flock of rock doves, eight Indian runners (a breed of duck), six guinea fowl, four Chinese geese and a pot-belly pig named Cindy. In addition to those we have a multitude of bass, bluegill and turtles in our newly built pond. Many of these critters we acquired at the urging of spouse and eldest child, both of whom require a bit of care themselves. Simply put, we no longer serve fancy-schmancy dinners anymore.

It was Agnes’s intent to give our English visitors a bit of a culture shock, or, as she put it so eloquently: ‘a slice of ordinary American life.’ Therefore supper was hot dogs and buns (along with condiments), baked beans (without toast!), tossed salad (choice of three dressings), crisps, and for the pudding, homemade peach ice cream using milk from my very own cows.

I don’t permit alcoholic beverages on my farm, and state this clearly in my advertisements. Nonetheless, I was exceedingly grateful that the issue was never raised. My guests had to quench their thirst with ‘sky juice’ (water), ‘cow juice’ (milk), or orange juice (juice from oranges, in case one needed to ask).

Agnes had warned me to anticipate some resistance, not only to my ban on alcohol, but to the fact that I assigned seating and said grace before the meal. The truth is these supposedly well-bred folks were, for the most part, really well-behaved table guests. Perhaps food was their motivation, but I didn’t really care. What mattered to me were the results. Even when I fell short of my goal, they didn’t seem to mind.

‘Ach,’ I said at one point, ‘I forgot to make toast.’

‘Why do we need toast, Magdalena,’ lovely Aubrey said, ‘when you’ve supplied these wonderful buns?’

‘To put your beans on, dear,’ I said.

Alison dropped her fork with a clatter. ‘Beans, beans,’ she intoned, ‘the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.’

There followed a moment of awkward silence, and then Sebastian, who had shown up at dinner, instead of his rather arrogant brother, clapped vigorously with his strong, manly hands. ‘Jolly good performance,’ he said. ‘How heart-warming it is to hear that flatulence is practiced on both sides of the Atlantic.’

‘How disgusting,’ Agnes sniffed. ‘Shame on you, Alison. You may excuse yourself from the table.’

‘Huh?’ Gabe said. In his defence, he was busy feeding his male offspring. It is a job that he thoroughly enjoys, and which occupies much of his attention. The Little Bruiser, aka Little Jacob, is a miniature version of his father. As I’ve stated before, I
don’t
believe in evolution, or genetics, but
if
I did, I would venture to say that one of the reasons parents love their children so much is because they are loving little versions of themselves. This is evolution’s way of perpetuating the human race.

‘Hold your horses, missy,’ I hissed, wagging my finger like the tail of a happy dog – except that I wasn’t happy, and I was wagging it at Agnes and not my Alison. ‘
You
, best friend though you are, have no right to discipline
my
daughter.’

Alison, who had been rightly embarrassed by Agnes’s chastisement of her, was now smirking. I knew that my daughter was thrilled that I was taking her side ‘for a change,’ and in front of all of Auntie Agnes’s ‘fancy guests.’ ‘Take
that
, Auntie Agnes,’ is probably what Alison
wanted
to say, instead of just smirking, but even at her young age, she has begun to learn the art of compromise.
Remember your goal
– three words to live by that Gabe had been trying to drill through her thick, but still somewhat permeable, skull. In this case, Alison’s goal was undoubtedly not to get grounded.

‘As for you, young lady,’ I said to Alison, ‘since you are so fond of poetry, you would be wise to remember the following ditty: “There’s nothing like smirking to bring on the irking.”’

There followed another awkward silence. Thank heavens my sweetheart, the Babester, my Gabe, took a break from baby-feeding long enough to start the conversation going again. This time he directed a question to Sebastian.

‘Tell me, young man,’ he said but in an awful imitation English accent, ‘how you
rally
feel about being born without a title? I mean, your twin
brothah
is
lahd
such and such now, but when your
fathah
dies, than he will become the next
oil
. Doesn’t it
bothah
you that you will always be just plain Mr Sebastian?’

At that the young man’s noble father, the ‘
oil
’ in question, cleared his throat in a not-so-genteel way. It was obvious that he wished to formally interject an opinion. In the old days, I suspect, he might have had someone, such as a footman, blow a bugle before such a forthcoming announcement.

‘I shouldn’t suppose it bothers Sebastian at all,’ he said. ‘This is how it has always been done, so this is how it is; we don’t question such things. Why, we scarcely give these silly matters a thought at all.’

‘Bravo, Papa,’ Cee-Cee said.

‘Actually, Papa, I
do
mind, rather,’ Sebastian said. He looked down at his plate. ‘After all, that silly fool is only two minutes’ older than me, and that is only because he is the one whom the surgeon removed from Mother’s tummy first. Isn’t that right, Mother?’

‘Yes, well, it was my womb, to be precise,’ Aubrey said.

Sebastian looked at me as if asking for
my
support. ‘Miss Yoder, my brother and I were delivered by Caesarean section, you see. He was taken out first because he was the smallest and the weakest, and therefore the one most at risk. Do you know that he didn’t even show up on the ultrasound because his heart was positioned directly under mine?’

‘That is quite true,’ Aubrey said. ‘That has happened more often than you might think. We went to hospital expecting one infant and came home with twins.’

‘So anyway,’ Sebastian said, ‘the entire time that mother was pregnant, it was
my
heart that was seen beating on the ultrasound screen.
I
was the heir whom they both named and planned for. It was only when some wretched surgeon reached into my mother’s belly—’

‘Sebastian!’ Peregrine snapped behind his moustache, ‘that will be quite enough.’

‘But Papa—’

Peregrine looked at me accusingly. ‘Do you see what that husband of yours has started with that ridiculous and irrelevant question of his?’

I puckered my brow as I shook my head. ‘No. Frankly, dear, I can’t see that far, given that it was such a small thing, and he is all the way down at the other end of the table. Perhaps you’d care to ask
him
.’

‘Ooh,’ Cee-Cee cautioned as she sucked up half the room’s oxygen – or enough, at least, to cause the drapes to sway.

Peregrine stood abruptly, pushing his chair over backwards as he rose. ‘What I would like is for you to bring my supper up to my room on a tray.’

‘What a lovely idea,’ I said, clasping my hands together. ‘Too bad it’s against the rules.’

‘The
rules
?’ Peregrine roared. ‘Madam, surely you jest!’

‘Jest not, lest it lead to jousting,’ I said solemnly. ‘Be forewarned that I never joke about any of my rules. While I am a pacifist, born and bred, there have been times when a rolling pin, or a broom handle, has found its way into my hands with me fully intending to use it.’ It would have been self-defeating to point out that those were the times that I intended to either roll out a pie crust or to sweep the floor. However, once, while daydreaming, I may even have swept the floor with a pie crust dangling from the end of my broom handle. There should be limits to self-disclosure, don’t you think?

‘
What
rules?’ Lord Huff and Puff was getting quite impatient with me.

I arranged my lips in what approximated, or so I hoped, a placid smile. ‘I don’t allow food to be taken upstairs. You see, here in the colonies we are plagued by all manner of vermin, such as have been long since eradicated on your side of the pond. Just the other day I saw a cockroach as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. It was trying to wrestle a mattress out of room six, on account of some woman tourist had sneaked a bag of chocolate bars into her room and then accidently sat on one, thereby mashing it into the bed.’

All traces of belligerence melted from Peregrine’s face. It was like watching a soufflé fall when the oven door has been slammed. Unfortunately, this caused his moustache to droop further, making it even more difficult to understand his hoity-toity accent. Can I then be blamed for tuning out a lot of what he said? Based on what the Babester filled me in on later, what follows is a somewhat faithful rendition – I say only ‘somewhat,’ because, alas, I don’t always pay strict attention when the Babester is speaking either. One might say that I have a short attention span.

‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘you are one fine specimen of a woman: good teeth, long limbs, strong withers. I take my membership in the House of Lords quite seriously, you know; I believe in the principle of
Noblesse Oblige
. In all honestly, it has been a
long
time since I’ve been privileged to encounter a spokeswoman both as articulate and – dare I say – imaginative as you in either chamber of government. You, madam, are an honour to your sex.’ With the last remark he doffed an imaginary top hat.

I had nothing that I wished to doff.
Au contraire
, I donned my serviette by draping it over my heaving yet oddly concave chest. There are times – perhaps such as this – when I might do well to listen carefully to the other person rather than jump to conclusions based on one or two key words.

‘Why you cheeky, uh, bowl of bouillabaisse,’ I said. ‘My sex life is none of your business.’ I
attempted
a one-eyed wink at the Babester. ‘And although it is off limits,’ I continued, ‘in the spirit of the special relationship our two countries share, I will throw out the following statistics: once on Mondays, twice on Tuesdays, thrice on Wednesdays, etc., but never on Sundays, because that’s my day of rest.’

The Babester winked back.

‘Huh?’ Alison said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Brava!’ Aubrey whispered.

‘No fair,’ Agnes managed to hiss without any ‘s’s. ‘Remember that I’ve only recently been widowed.’

‘Jolly good,’ Sebastian said. ‘Not about you being a widow,’ he hastened to assure Agnes, ‘but the other thing.’

Cee-Cee gazed at the Babester adoringly. Trust me, I could read the large print in her late adolescent brain. Not only was this handsome American her father’s age, he was both fertile and virile. These qualities alone were enough to drive her parents crazy. But the fact that Gabe was a doting father – well, there is nothing sexier to any woman than the sight of a man caring for a baby. Even cool, calm and collected Aubrey salivated every time the Babester scooped up Little Jacob and smothered him with kisses.

‘Harrumph,’ Peregrine probably said, although strictly speaking it sounded more like ‘hump-a-lump’ to my ears.

‘Now, dears,’ I said, as much to change the subject as to inform, ‘Agnes shall forthwith serve dessert, known to you in your quaint version of our common language as the
pudding
, and since this is cake, it is certainly
not
pudding, although there
is
real American pudding in the cake mix, in order to keep the cake moist. But I must have been a pudding-head to even have brought this up, when I should, instead, be explaining to you the rules and regulations of tonight’s hunt.’

Oh my stars, you should have seen the way all four of the guests sat up in their chairs. It wasn’t the mention of sweets that did it, either, but when I dropped the ‘h’ word. Even Agnes, who had started to get up in order to serve the pudding-cake for the ‘pudding’ that wasn’t pudding, plopped back on her seat with a soft thud. I also thought that I heard the back of her chair groan a bit too loudly, as per everyday wear and tear, but I resolved not to mind. After all, the snipe hunt had been Agnes’s idea, and she had put it all together from start to finish. By rights, it was
she
who should do the explaining.

I cleared my throat of any residual disappointment. ‘I must apologize for what will be a slight delay in receiving your pudding course. You see, Agnes is also the mistress of the hunt.’

‘Who?’ Agnes said. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses she looked and sounded uncannily like a barn owl.

‘Don’t tease us, Agnes,’ I said. ‘Although I must admit that you do an excellent job of imitating Timothy, our resident owl. Now, be a dear and explain the rules.’

Agnes reached into her cavernous handbag, which sat on the floor, and whipped out a notepad and felt-tip pen. ‘Snipes,’ she read, ‘are plump, North American game fowl, about the size of small barnyard hens. That is to say, they are similar in size to chickens. Are your Royal Highnesses familiar with the word “chickens”?’

‘Lord love a duck,’ my Babester groaned, ‘they’re neither Royal Highnesses nor are they blithering idiots, Agnes. They’re simply Brits whose ancestors either bought a title or else bashed enough heads in, in order to get one.
’

‘Ha,’ Peregrine said, ‘you can be sure that my family had no need to buy its titles; we rose through the ranks of the aristocracy by bashing heads, as you so quaintly put it. Lots and lots of Norman heads.’

‘
Tempus fugit
,’ I said. ‘Carry on, Agnes, with the snipe-hunting spiel.’

‘I’ll thank you not to swear,’ Peregrine said, scowling at me. ‘But indeed, do carry on with this tiresome lecture.’

Agnes flushed. ‘Uh, because the birds – I mean, the snipes – live in heavily forested areas, they possess small wings, and therefore are poor fliers, preferring to run along the ground when frightened or pursued. Snipes live in small flocks of about a dozen related individuals. Their diet is similar to that of quail. Both sexes are brown with black herringbone checks fading to buff on their undersides, but the males have a startlingly green, iridescent circle around each eye.’