How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law

S
ome women are born to meddle. They lurk in bathrooms, sticking their noses into medicine cabinets and rehanging the toilet paper. They lecture other people’s children and put their neighbours’ houseplants on diets. They would tell God what was wrong with heaven if they got half a chance. Enough is enough! I say they should be shot at dawn, every last one of them, including Mrs. Bentley T. Haskell, of Merlin’s Court, Chitterton Fells; for if anyone should have the words
I will mind my own business
monogrammed on her forehead, it is I.

In a flush of family feeling I decided to host a wedding anniversary dinner party for my parents-in-law—Magdalene and Elijah Haskell. Nothing elaborate, you understand. Just a beef stew with a slight French accent, a salad jardin, and perhaps a chocolate blancmange masquerading as a mousse. “Ellie, you’re the salt of the earth,” Dad would say. And Mum would pipe in with “I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to appreciate your
wonderful qualities.” Being the occasional wet blanket, my husband wasn’t keen on the idea. How I wish I had listened to Ben! And how sad it is to say that all I ever seem to learn from my mistakes is how to make new ones.

When the big day arrived, I was still feeling on top of my game. Ben had offered to come home early from Abigail’s, his restaurant in the village, but I stuck to my guns. I know I’m not as eclectic in my choice of lettuce as is my beloved. And I once wore out a pair of shoes looking for clarified butter in every supermarket in town. I eat a lot better than I cook, as is woefully apparent. But I had this mad urge to show Mum and Dad that in their honour I could put a decent meal on the table.

If I’d had my son, Tam, and daughter, Abbey, eighteen-month-old twins, on my hands that fateful day, things could have been a nightmare. Merlin’s Court is a large house, and I’d long ago abandoned the naive notion that if I gave it a thorough go-through once a month, it would repay me by keeping itself clean the rest of the time. Luckily, Jonas, who fronts as the gardener but is in truth one of the family, helped out with the twins during the morning. And in the afternoon my cousin Freddy, who lives at the cottage at the gates, ambled over to announce that he was taking a few hours off, as is his wont twice or thrice a day. Freddy is Ben’s second-in-command at Abigail’s; but he never lets this stand in the way of allowing me to impose on his services, for the trifling loan of a fiver. Abbey and Tam, who adore Freddy, with his ponytail and dangling earring, greeted him with gurgling cheers and toys tossed in the air.

Everything was going swimmingly, for—not to sound like a pampered puss, I was additionally blessed in having the assistance of Mrs. Roxie Malloy. Mrs. Malloy always “does for us” of a Monday. She had graciously consented to come in a little earlier than usual
and stay on through the evening to help with the clearing-away and washing-up.

After flying about the house like Batman, zapping windows and mirrors with ammonia, buffing the furniture with Johnson’s Lavender Wax, hosing down the bathrooms, making up beds, and feverishly wiping away fingerprints as if we were expecting a visit from the constabulary instead of my in-laws, I met up with Mrs. Malloy at four o’clock in the wainscotted dining room.

“What a team!” Smiling smugly, I faced her across the great divide of linen-clad table, set out with the Indian-tree china and crystal that had belonged to Abigail, the former mistress of Merlin’s Court. “My in-laws aren’t due for several hours and here we are, almost ready.”

“Not so cocky, Mrs. H.” Mrs. Malloy thrives on gloom and doom. “Them candlesticks could do with a trimming.” She eyed the pair as if they were a couple of naughty schoolboys. Hands on her stalwart hips, she looked the room up and down for all the world as if she were Lady Kitty Pomeroy, the terror of our little community, checking out the stalls at St. Anselm’s Summer Fête.

Mrs. M. would lend character to any room. Her jet-black hair always shows two inches of white roots as part of her fashion statement, not because she is between dye jobs. Her rouge would appear to be applied with a trowel, her lipstick is a violent purple, and her eyes are done up like stained glass windows. Since that memorable day when she took me on as a client (strictly on six months’ approval), we have had our run-ins.

“The candles are fine.” I adjusted the dripless beeswax in their pewter holders. “And dinner is all set. The beef ragout is in the fridge, waiting to be heated up. The salad dressing is made, the endive rinsed, and the rolls rising for the second time.”

“What about the chocolate goop?” Mrs. M.’s damson smile assured me of her complete faith in my ability to flub dessert.

“The mousse is chilling in little glass dishes. What took the time was finding the baking chocolate. Some nameless person had stuck it on the top shelf of that cupboard, where I keep the aspirin and cough syrup.”

“Think the silver could do with a buff-up?”

“The secret of successful entertaining is to know when enough is enough, Mrs. Malloy.” My voice was as crisp as the folds in the damask serviettes. I leaned against the sideboard, already groaning under the weight of enough silver chafing dishes to keep an industrious fence in business for a year. “The mantelpiece clock does not need winding, the pictures do not need straightening, and Jonas does not need to be reminded to take a bath.”

Arms folded beneath bosoms, as always in danger of popping like a pair of overblown balloons, Mrs. Malloy pursed her butterfly lips and looked sad. “Pride goes before a fall, Mrs. H.”

“For heaven’s sake!” I laughed blithely. “What are you trying to do, put a curse on me?”

“Don’t have the knack.” Mrs. M. gave her organdy apron a twitch and assumed a modest mien. “I leave that sort of thing to me former friend, Edna Pickle. Edna’s great-great-grandma was a witch, and they do say that sort of thing crops up, like twins, every so many generations.”

“What do you mean”—I fastened on the juicy part of her statement—“former friend? You and Mrs. Pickle have been pals forever. You’re always going in to see her at the vicarage on your way home from here.”

“We’ve had words,” she replied meaningfully. “No, don’t ask me any more, Mrs. H., me lips is sealed.”

“All right,” I said.

“Go on!” She let loose a bone-weary sigh. “Force it out of me. Yesterday Edna was telling me she has high hopes of winning the Martha—that’s the trophy given at the summer fête, in honour of the woman who was always scrubbing the kitchen sink in the Bible. It goes
to the person who comes in tops among the winners in the homemaking events—jam-making, marrow-growing, and all that nonsense. But you know that, Mrs. H. And when I answered, nice as you please, that I couldn’t sit listening to that sort of talk, what with you being this year’s chairwoman, Edna turned right nasty.”

“What—Mrs. Pickle?” I couldn’t believe it. The woman never seemed to me to have enough energy to get worked up about anything. Whenever I went round to the vicarage, it invariably took her two hours to answer the door and another fifteen minutes to troop down the hall to the study to announce my arrival to her employer. I wasn’t greatly surprised that Eudora Spike kept her on, because our deacon is an immeasurably warm-hearted woman. The wonder was that Mrs. Pickle also worked as a daily for several other people, including the exceedingly formidable Lady Kitty Pomeroy.