I have said on occasion to Tobias, who admires her fondness for fur coats, all credit to her.
Nothing would induce Her Royal Personage to slop around as I was presently doing in an old green skirt and sweater and no makeup. She routinely takes me to task for not putting my best face forward, explaining that looking like a loaf of bread is no way to keep a husband when there are plenty of fancy cakes on little paper doilies out there. Regrettably, I always let this go in one ear and out the other, telling myself smugly that we can’t all be slaves to fashion. Not being clairvoyant, I did not foresee the danger of ignoring such pearls of wisdom. Oh, woe to the woman who sticks her nose in a book and forgets that real life is not always destined for Happily Ever After.
“I thought you’d left for the day,” I said, getting to my feet.
“What? Be drowned in that storm when no right-minded person would put a cat out in it?”
Tobias looked grateful. Had there been a saucer of milk handy, I am sure he would have offered her a slurp.
Her Mightiness began clattering around the kitchen in her six-inch heels, opening up cupboard doors as if hoping to surprise miniature burglars lurking behind the plates. The noise she made was not Beethoven to the ears, but then she has never been a woman to fade willingly into the next county.
Irritating as this can be, I’ve grown fond of her over the years. We’ve shared some good times and a number of adventures in which we have, more by luck than skill, managed to unmask evildoers bent on reducing England’s population one or two murder victims at a time. A recent escapade had found us on unauthorized assignment to a surly gumshoe named Milk Jugg. Our participation was the result of a silly mistake that could have happened to any pair of well-meaning busy-bodies. Milk had not been overwhelmingly grateful. We had, however, solved the murder and received a nice little mention in the local newspaper. Mrs. Malloy had sent a copy to George, her son by one of her husbands. (I couldn’t remember whether it was the third or the fourth-but then, neither could she.)
Now, mindful of my responsibilities as employer, I poured her a cup of tea and got out more biscuits.
“It’s good of you to stay so late this afternoon getting the house really shipshape.” I beamed my warmest smile.
“And nice of you, Mrs. H, to take the trouble to ignore me when I’ve been telling you the same thing twice over. Warms the cockles of me heart, it does, but then it never takes much to make me feel appreciated.” Mrs. Malloy teetered into full view on those stilt heels to strike a dramatic pose, one hand on her hip, the other still holding the feather duster aloft.
“I’m sorry. What have you been saying?”
“Nothing that important, Mrs. H.”
Now I felt guilty, something I do rather well. Had I been into nonfiction, I could have written a bestseller on female neuroses, to the accompaniment of a great many footnotes. Mrs. Malloy is devoted to the children, and it helps enormously to be able to leave them with her when Ben and I occasionally go out in the evening. My cousin Freddy, who lives in the cottage at the end of the drive and is second in command at Abigail’s, also helps out in this regard. Except when, as was currently the case, he is desperately in love with some hapless female who fails to grasp that he is already married to his motorcycle.
“I didn’t mean to ignore you,” I told Mrs. Malloy through a mouthful of digestive biscuit. “I was thinking about
It was the right ploy for making amends. Mrs. Malloy had recommended the book to me. She is every bit as keen on this sort of literary gem as are Ariel and I. Among our favorites are those set in Yorkshire, featuring-nine times out of ten-the orphaned heroine. A young woman who leaps at the chance to become a governess in a decaying mansion where Something Unspeakable is shut away in the north tower and melancholy music drifts up from the crypt. Her charge is frequently a plain child who has not been right in the head since taking a peep through the lepers’ squint and seeing Nanny stuff a body into the priest hole. Given these unhappy circumstances, along with the fact that he only inherited Darkwood Hall because his twin brother drowned in the hip bath, the master of the house tends to be somewhat morose. Sadly, this prevents him from telling the heroine (when first encountering her at dead of night on the secret staircase) that he adores her pale, prim face. Behind the masterful control of his emotions is a searing need. He yearns to explain that if she can overlook his limp, his missing ear, and the scar slashed across his right cheek, he will be willing to forget that his first wife died in childbirth and ravish her on the spot.
Setting the teacups on the kitchen table, I wondered if Lord Darkwood would have doted on the governess quite so passionately were she the one needing an immediate appointment with a plastic surgeon. Probably not. But never mind: there is something utterly beguiling about the image of a man tortured by the realization that he is unworthy of even a stray smile from the woman he adores. It is one of those vagaries of life that enable Ben to look fabulous in old blue jeans and a sweatshirt while I, a part-time interior designer dressed much the same way, look like an assortment of fabric swatches I would avoid using in my work.
Suddenly the air was rent by a piercing scream. It was only the kettle whistling. Mrs. Malloy, however, wilted into a chair as if she had received a mortal shock of her life, and only flickered back to life when I passed her a cuppa.
“I’m a bit unsettled today.” She smiled wanly up at me as she stirred in the third spoonful of sugar. “Yesterday evening I went on a journey… a long long journey.”
“Shopping in Pebble Beach?” I asked, receiving a scowl in return.
“It wasn’t that sort of journey. Something quite different. It’s what I was wanting to tell you from the moment you walked in, but it soon became clear you wasn’t listening.”
“Well, I am now.” Seating myself opposite her, I shifted the refilled plate of digestive biscuits her way. “Don’t keep me in suspense. You’re sounding delightfully mysterious.”
Mrs. Malloy mellowed visibly. “I went to see a psychic named Madam LaGrange. My friend Maisie from the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association had been to her and said she was quite wonderful. Of course, she charges quite a bit…”
“Why
“She’s a specialist.”
“Not your ordinary general practitioner?” I was wondering if another digestive biscuit would cross my path in the near future. Mrs. Malloy had put a couple on her plate and then proceeded rudely to ignore them. Not that I was one to talk about good manners. If I’d paid attention when she was trying to talk to me earlier, I would already have the scoop on Madam La-Grange. Probably named Mrs. Smith when serving up hubby’s dinner instead of staring into her crystal ball.
“Oh, she does some standard fortune-telling, because that’s what most people want.” Mrs. M smirked disparagingly. “She told me, at no extra charge, to be careful of standing at bus stops when it’s thundering and lightning because she saw a woman with an umbrella take a tumble and go under a double-decker.”
“Cheerful!”
“She didn’t think it was me, more likely someone I knew or would meet in the future.”
That’s right, Madam LaGrange, I thought, keep it vague.
“She also said”-Mrs. Malloy pursed her butterfly lips and stared into space-“that a woman of my acquaintance whose first name begins with
Suddenly, I wished that Madam had been a bit more vague. Did it make any difference that my name was really Giselle, although almost everyone called me Ellie?
“Or she may have said beginning with a 5.” Mrs. Malloy waved a negligent hand. “I can’t say as I was listening that close, being eager to get on with the journey back to one or more of me past lives.”
“Oh!” I stared at her, my momentary unease banished.
“That’s Madam LaGrange’s specialty.
“I thought the term was regression. Never mind. What do I know?” Truth be told, I was a little hurt. Mrs. Malloy and I are not joined at the hip, but we share more than a working relationship. She must have known I would be interested in discovering whether I’d ever hobnobbed with Cornish smugglers or queued up in a past life to get the Bronte sisters’ autographs. Unfortunately, being grown-up means having to rise above wounded feelings. “Tell me what happened. I’m dying of curiosity. Did Madam LaGrange hypnotize you?”
