He was driving me into nosiness. “Do you have any family now, Mr. Digby?”
“A daughter… Wren, aged twenty-seven.” Was the tremor of his hands more pronounced? “And to alleviate the necessity of your having to ask where she is, I will tell you-off living with some man who has nothing to recommend him. The old story of the new generation.”
I restrained myself from scanning the room for photographs. To ask what had become of Mrs. Digby struck even me as unconscionably rude.
A sound somewhere outside the room made me forget all else save the hope that Roxie was at the front door. Mr. Digby half-turned.
“That must have been my… my gardener, Mrs. Haskell, come in to make himself a cup of tea. He’s nothing to rave about, but whatever my other sins, I am not a putterer.” He was puttering now, toward the door. “I understand your own gardener has deserted, Mrs. Haskell.”
“Only temporarily. Ben and I have raked the leaves around a bit, but we are going to need someone to bridge the gap. Is this man who works for you fully booked?”
“I doubt it. Whatsit is new in the area and you well know, Mrs. Haskell, how long the natives take to accept anyone whose antecedents don’t date back at least to the days of smugglers in the bay. As for his capabilities, I can attest that he is reliable. He turns up even on days such as this when all he can do is pick up his wages. Your Mrs. Malloy could learn a thing or two from him, but since you continue to be here, perhaps you would like to meet Mother?”
“I would be delighted.”
As the door closed on him, a weighty hush settled on the room. Then I heard voices. Distance made Mr. Digby sound unduly caustic, and the gardener effeminate. My eyes nipped from the desk to the door and back again. A piece of thin yellow paper protruded from the typewriter. Straightening the towel around my shoulders, I rehitched my trousers and tiptoed forward. Just one quick peek to see what Mary Birdsong had in store for her patient readers. Technically it wouldn’t be snooping if I kept my hands behind my back.
Leaning forward to find the preceding page among the flotsam, the towel slid off my neck, sending an avalanche of paper swishing out in all directions. My aerobic conditioning came in handy. I was two feet in the air, hands grabbing, when Mr. Digby reentered. And strange as it may seem, even in that moment of awkwardness I noticed he did not look as well as when he had left me. The beard could not hide his purple-veined pallor.
“Yes, Mother”-he bent his head-“I know you are not overly excited at the prospect, but she…” He espied the spill of manuscript on the floor; I dropped to my knees, scooping as I crawled.
“Sorry, you startled me when you came in and… I collided with the desk. Nice goosey!” Stuffing paper back on the desk, I struggled to rise and back up all in one un fluid movement.
While Mr. Digby appeared to accept my frail excuse, clever Mother kept her beady eyes upon me.
Mr. Digby’s face cracked into a smile. “Mrs. Haskell, I do believe Mother has taken to you. Perceive-she is heading toward you.”
“Mmm!” Mother, the Persil-white goose, had indeed fanned out her wings and was ominously waddling toward me, guttural squawks rising above the whir of feathers.
I dodged behind the curtain. Hopefully the colour red did not have the effect on geese that it did on bulls. Craving contact with something nonthreatening, I reached out toward a nearby shelf and heard a dull thud as something-a book-toppled to the ground. Mother swung her beak in an arc, snapped at the air and responded reluctantly to Mr. Digby’s command. “Heel!”
“Mrs. Malloy did understand that you needed your key today?” Mr. Digby was back at the decanters. Mother gazed hopefully at him. What did she crave-a drink or the pleasure of booting me out of the house?
“How did you and Mother team up?” I asked; the silence would have buried all of us.
“She was a Christmas present. Came decorated with a red bow, cooking instructions attached. Needless to say, she is emotionally scarred for life. Hates Christmas and has absolutely no sense of humour.”
Probably fiction, but my heart was touched. “Poor person!” I looked down at Mother, and surprisingly, she toddled toward me like an open-armed child. She skipped over the book I’d dropped and I picked it up. Stroking her with one hand, I noticed the title,
“Her feathers are-like clouds.” I chucked Mother under the chin the way I did Tobias, and it seemed to me that the sound vibrating up from her throat was very like a purr. Of course, I know almost nothing about birds, which reminded me that Mr. Digby did. “As an ornithological enthusiast, can you tell me the significance of a line of blackbirds? Since coming to Chitterton Fells I have seen several women wearing brooches with-”
Something slammed; it was the decanter. My host’s voice came out in angry jerks. “Blackbirds in a line are blackbirds in a line. The women you mention are indubitably members of some egg-stealing club. Soulless individuals who go clumping up the cliff faces, brandishing binoculars. Let them but trespass on my turf and I will throw rocks at them!”
He was enraged. Wishing I had not set him off, I apologised. “Sorry about knocking stuff off your desk.”
“It makes no difference. None of it has either end or beginning.” He didn’t pretend to look at me. Silence smothered the room. I buzzed around in my mind for something to say and came up with:
“That’s what happens when you do your own typing. You should have a secretary.”
“I did indulge in that luxury once. The result was disaster.” His words were chilly. “Speaking of hired help, I saw Whatsit when I fetched Mother. Have a word with him as you leave.
That last word was severed by the chiming of the doorbell. The air positively hummed with joy. My host sucked in his lips, flung open the library door and with Mother gusting ahead we went out into the chilly hall.
“One moment, if you please, Mrs. Haskell. I must put Mother in the cupboard under the stairs. She can be most unwelcoming, and we would not wish your Mrs. Malloy to leave without you.”
Mrs. Malloy crossed the threshold of The Aviary on waves of arctic cold and Attar of Roses. At a glance I saw why I had been kept waiting. Enormous pains had been taken to do justice to this impromptu meeting with Chitterton Fells’s most famous. Roxie wore a three-quarter-length black astrakhan coat, below which extended several yards of emerald taffeta skirt. Her hair was capped by a velvet bandeau, sprouting veiling down to her painted-on eyebrows. Even her makeup was unusually lavish; a couple of charcoal beauty spots had been added.
“This, sir, is an honour I never expected were I to live to be a thousand.” Roxie clutched a sequined handbag in her work-roughened hands. Affection for her welled up in me. I ignored Mr. Digby’s hand at the ready on the doorknob.
“This is very kind, Roxie, considering my stupidity in getting myself locked out.”
“I’m never one to cast stones, Mrs. H.” Roxie’s face was tilted rapturously sideways. “And I’ve made up me mind only to charge you the usual hourly rate, unless you absolutely insist on time-and-a-half, along with the bus fare, of course.” The rainbow lids fluttered. “The privilege of being here in this house, breathing in that… smell.” She gazed worshipfully toward Mr. Digby.
“I would have you know, madam”-he had his eyes closed-“that when Mother heeds that particular call to nature, she does so in the rookery.”
Roxie wrung the sequined bag between her hands.
“I meant the smell of genius. I wonder, sir, would you do me the immense honour of signing me autograph album? I can’t count the times I have wanted to speak when I saw you coming out of the Gentlemen’s at the-” She stopped and gave a fluting laugh. “Oh, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned-”
Mr. Digby dismissed her splutterings with a wave of his hand. “I will sign your book upon the condition you swear on the name of Booth’s Dry Gin that you will not presume upon my good nature the next time you perceive me at The Dark Horse.”
Roxie hovered like a star-struck teenager as Mr. Digby plunged a pen across her album page.
“I’ve read every word you’ve ever written, Mr. D.! My favourites are the ones you did early on and can’t buy for love nor money anymore, but, believe you me, you don’t owe no apologies for none of them.”
He shoved the album at her. “My good woman, do not verbally cavort as though my tired little penny dreadfuls are works of great literature.” He screwed the cap on his pen and stomped up the stairs.
