The Widows Club

the waistcoat. “Mrs. Haskell, I have been misled by the yokels at The Dark Horse, that home away from home wherein I quaff away the nights.” Easing out of his chair, he paced, somewhat unsteadily, to a cluttered buffet and unstoppered a decanter. “Will you join me in a glass of Madeira?”

“Tea would be rather welcome, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Far too much trouble.”

I punched down my turban. “How were you misled, Mr. Digby, about me?”

He replaced the stopper in the decanter. “Into supposing that in comparison to your rent-a-date spouse you are a creature of dolorous decorum.”

So! Word was out that Ben and I had met through Eligibility Escorts. Any one of my relations could have ferreted out the truth and spread their X-rated version. Or had Ben spilled the beans to Freddy? Never mind. Our love story may have started out as a commercial venture, but it had matured into passion, tenderness, and truth, if you delete a few moments here and there.

“Bentley was employed by a highly respectable service. I am not ashamed of how we met.”

Mr. Digby’s eyebrows twitched. “Assuredly your meeting was worth every penny it cost you.” He downed the Madeira while I delved deep for something vicious to say in response, but he was quicker off the mark.

“I hear the transvestite who threw himself upon your bridal altar has, in essence, moved in with you.”

Would Roxie never get here with that key! “My cousin Frederick is an estimable young man with an exuberant sense of humour, which I adore. He is of invaluable assistance to my husband.”

“Relieving you of certain duties, no doubt.” Mr. Digby swigged his second Madeira and poured another. “Does rumour lie or is your husband about to foist a new restaurant upon this community? One which specialises in unpronounceable food at unaffordable prices.” He watched me nastily over the rim of his glass.

He circled the buffet, twirling the glass slowly between the fingers of both hands. “Your husband, in addition to his other peccadilloes, appears to be a man of industry. I hear he has recently authored a cookery book, laced with herbal nostalgia. One would have thought the world already harbors sufficient recipes for tomato soup, but I surmise that you, in your blind, wifely devotion, believe Mr. Haskell is now in my league?”

“Not at all.” Flexing my lips into a smile, I stood. “Ben makes no claim to be a literary genius, and he is certainly not in competition with you. His professional reputation depends on nobody dying.”

Again the eyebrows twitched. “You did assure me, Mrs. Haskell, when I admitted you over my threshold, that unlike your Mrs. Malloy, you are not a besotted fan.”

What a childish manoeuvring for praise! Unwrapping the turban, I rumpled my soggy hair down about my shoulders, sat down, and plumped my cushion. A dazzle of sunlight broke through the curtained windows. The decanters on the buffet glowed red, gold, and bronze. “I know you don’t care one way or the other, Mr. Digby, but I have read two of your books.”

He thumbed the wineglass. “Which ones?”

“At the risk of offending you, Mr. Digby, I have to say that I found both extremely…”

The glass came to a standstill.

“… extremely enjoyable.”

“Trite of you, Mrs. Haskell.”

“Thank you. That last scene in The Butler Didn’t Do It almost did me in. I came out in goosebumps the size of gnat bites. Do you know that right up until Hubert Humbledee swung down from that chandelier, I was certain the bishop’s niece was the one embalming the bodies in the attic?”

Mr. Digby set his glass down on the nest of tables beside his chair and closed his eyes. “The Butler was one of my better efforts, not up to the standard of”-he paused-“some of the others, but I was fairly well pleased.”

I felt a pang of pity for him, goodness knows why. “My husband and I are staging a premiere performance on Friday in honour of the opening of Abigail’s. Would you come?”

Mr. Digby opened his eyes. “I have told you, madam, I go nowhere except The Dark Horse.” He intercepted my glance at the decanter. “You wonder, Mrs. Haskell, why, being such an assiduous hermit, I do not drink here in privacy of an evening. The answer is regrettably prosaic. I am a man haunted by demons. And at night this house spills forth an ambience of gas-light horror.”

I could believe it. There was a desolation to this room, buried under the red plush, which could not entirely be blamed on my damp clothes.

“Perhaps if you were to redecorate?” I suggested brightly. “Danish modern tends to have a dispiriting effect on ghosts.”

His smile was bleak. “Mine are made of sterner stuff.”

I persisted. “The ghosts who prowl the night, are they of any great local interest?”

Mr. Digby brushed a slightly tremulous hand down his yellow waistcoat front and headed back to the decanter. “Of possible interest to you, Mrs. Haskell.”

I had the feeling the subject had been subtly changed. He handed me a glass. “Rumour, borne upon the fumes of slopped bitters at The Dark Horse, Mrs. Haskell, credits the gentleman who built your house with misconducting himself, while in his late seventies, with the two elderly spinsters who inhabited this very house in the latter part of the nineteenth century.”

“Good heavens!” I slopped my Madeira. “That would be my forebear, Wilfred Grantham. His building a house like Merlin’s Court does rather suggest that he dwelt within the enchanted forest of the mind.” I held my glass steady with both hands. “Did you say he was having a fling with both these women?”

The beard creased into a mocking smile. “Spare your blushes, Mrs. Haskell. Unless legend lies, your antecedent did not indulge in orgies. On Monday nights Miss Lavinia was favoured. On Thursdays Miss Lucretia got her turn. And neither sister ever knew about the other.”

“Remarkable.” I rolled up my trouser legs, walked over to the buffet, and refilled my glass. “How-even under the cloak of night-did great-grandfather Grantham enter this house and the allotted bedroom undetected?”

“Ah, Mrs. Haskell”-my host reached behind him and tapped upon the panelled wall, his face reflective-“that is a mystery.”

“Did the sisters ever find him out?”

I thought that he would never answer, but finally he spoke. “You will be pleased to learn, Mrs. Haskell, that I have talked myself out of any growing enthusiasm for you.”

I pushed back some typing paper hanging over the edge of the overloaded desk. “Does this mean you won’t be coming to the party on Friday?”

To my surprise he countered with a question. “Who attends this free-food binge? The ex-chorus girl and the silver-haired, silver-tongued lawyer. The arctic antique dealer and the wife who dreams of being a nightclub singer. And what of the estate agent who refuses to die and his froggy-faced wife? And, yes, the Reverend Mr. Foxglove!”

“Foxworth.”

The liverish lips curled. “I understand, Mrs. Haskell, that a sigh of disappointment swept the county when it was learned you were to wed another.” I could feel him savouring my intake of breath. “But I imagine the church organist didn’t make herself ill crying.”

“Miss Thorn is a very nice woman.”

“Ah! Nice: the ultimate disparagement from one female to another.” Mr. Digby fingered the red velvet curtain. “Speaking of spinsters, will Lady Theodora Peerless adorn your little gathering?”

“I hope so.”

“It seems you will be extremely crowded.” He let the curtain fall. “Hence, I am not interested.”

I looked through the window. The snow edging the glass was like ermine against the red velvet. Five bird feeders dotted the swath of white lawn. “The Aviary is the right name for this house.”

“Originally it was called Rocky Meade. Sort of name Lavinia or Lucretia would pick.”

“Have you lived here long?”

Mr. Digby was back at the buffet. “Five years.”

“Why did you come here?”

“A foolish nostalgia. As a boy I was fond of the place; my family spent several summers here.”