The Trouble with Harriet (26 page)

Indeed, everyone else seemed to be of like mind. We gathered around the table and stuck to safe topics of conversation. Freddy and Mrs. Malloy even refrained from talking about the play, which would have brought up Mrs. Ambleforth and inevitably her husband. Aunt Lulu didn’t try to slip the sugar bowl into her pocket. I noticed Daddy smiling a couple of times at Ursel, and I sensed that he did find her presence comforting. The soup was delicious, as was the salad, the selection of cheeses, and the crusty bread. It’s amazing what good food can do to restore your frame of mind.

But two things happened to disturb me before the evening was over. When I was in the bathroom, giving my face a quick wash and brushing my teeth, I noticed that the silver powder box Ben had given me for my birthday was missing from its place by my collection of antique scent bottles. But it was when I went into the bedroom and Ben looked at me with a worried crease between his eyes that I felt a shiver run down my spine.

“Ellie,” he said, “I’ve really taken to Ursel, and I can tell you like her, but don’t we have to step back and ask ourselves if there may be more to her showing up here than meets the eye?”

I overslept the next morning after having a horrible dream in which Ursel suddenly turned into Harriet and chased me toward the edge of the cliffs wielding a jar of pickled cabbage while Mr. Price stood cheering her on. Naturally, this was all Ben’s fault for putting nasty ideas about a very nice woman into my head. But I didn’t get to snarl at him, for when I got up, he wasn’t in the bedroom, and by the time I’d had a shower and washed my hair, my annoyance had gone down the drain with the soap suds. That’s the trouble with husbands. If you don’t catch them when you’re at the boil, it’s over; because you start remembering how wonderfully they scramble an egg and how they never seem to notice that you haven’t won any beauty competitions lately.

When I came down the stairs, he was in the hall looking handsomer than ever. It had to do with the way his black brows were drawn into a straight line, the tightening of his classic features, and the way his eyes darkened so that when he looked at me it was difficult to tell if they were emerald green or midnight blue.

“I’m sorry.” I looked guiltily at the grandfather clock, which showed twenty minutes past ten. “The morning seems to have gotten away from me.”

“That’s not the only thing that got away, Ellie.”

“Meaning?”

“Why don’t you come and sit down?” Ben took me gently by the elbow and propelled me into the drawing room. It usually looked restful, with the soft morning light touching the damask sofas and the peacock-and-rose Persian carpet. But now I didn’t find its atmosphere the least bit soothing. Abigail’s portrait above the fireplace looked braced for bad news, and the curtains stirred restlessly at the half-open windows.

“Please tell me what’s happened.” I sat down to a bleat of protest, and Tobias clawed his way out from under me. At least he wasn’t missing.

“Drink this first.” My better half handed me a glass of orange juice from a tray on the coffee table, also supplied with a toast rack and marmalade.

“The vicar showed up over an hour ago.” Ben swigged down his own juice and stood looking as though he would have liked to send the glass smashing into the fireplace. Perhaps if it hadn’t been from a set given to us by Mother, he would have done so. Instead, he placed it, as if hardly daring to trust himself, back on the table.

“But I don’t see what’s so bad.” My hand fumbled toward a piece of buttered toast. “Unless”—a chill coursed down my spine— “Mr. Ambleforth didn’t bring our car back because he managed to misplace it while he was stuck on the top of Mount Sinai with his head in the clouds. Are we destined never to see the urn again or find out what was in it?”

“Oh, he brought the car back.”

“You’re going to have to start at the beginning.” As aids to staying calm, I munched on my toast with one hand and stroked Tobias with the other.

“I was out looking for that delinquent cat, Ellie.” Tobias did not have the grace to look one whit abashed. “I had heard him meowing like a banshee while I was putting on the coffee. And I had just spotted him high in that tree by the gates when the vicar drove past. So I left Tobias to tumble out of the tree on his own, as he had been threatening to do, and raced after the car.” Ben pulled a face at the obnoxious animal. “Fortunately, Ambleforth stopped to offer me a lift and inquire directions to Merlin’s Court. After we got it sorted out who I was and he had thanked me for the loan of the car, I took the wheel and drove us back here. I was in such good spirits because the canvas bag was still on the floor of the passenger seat and I could feel when I picked it up that the urn wasn’t broken, I decided to be not only grateful but gracious.”

“I’m sure you were wonderful,” I said soothingly, having learned that women aren’t the only ones who cannot always be rushed through a conversation. Ben could sometimes take ages telling me about a recipe that could have been cooked and distributed to the needy in half the time.

He looked ready to tear every hair out of his head. “Ellie, I not only introduced the man to Tobias, who had come down from the tree as if it were a stump; I also invited Mr. Ambleforth in for a cup of coffee, figuring he had to be embarrassed at all the trouble he had caused. In his place I would have been ecstatic to know there weren’t any hard feelings. But I needn’t have worried. He was completely oblivious to the fact that he could thank his lucky stars he hadn’t been arrested for car theft and had his face splashed all over the papers as another fallen clergyman. It was clear that only good manners induced him to make small talk about the Council of Trent as we walked to the house.”

“Was anyone else up?” I asked.

“Not a one.”

“What did you do with the urn?”

“I put it on the Welsh dresser.”

“And did Mr. Ambleforth say anything about it?”

“He asked if there was a tin of cat food in the bag, adding vaguely that he rather liked pussycats but his wife didn’t because a neighbor’s tabby had once chewed the leaves off one of her plants. And she ended up getting only a fourth-place ribbon in the parish flower show.”

“At least you got some information out of him.” I sat chewing on another piece of toast. Tobias, deciding he wasn’t going to get so much as a lick of butter, got off my lap.

“It was the last coherent thing Mr. Ambleforth said in a half an hour, Ellie. As soon as I brought him in here and handed him his coffee cup, his nose went between the pages of the book he had pulled from his pocket. He kept right on reading while I sat making attempts at conversation. All I could get out of him was Very nice dear, you must have your hair set more often.’ “

“He certainly is peculiar.”

“I wondered how long he would sit on the sofa turning the pages of that damn book.” Ben leaned against the bookcase as if exhausted by the memory.

“He took no notice of you at all?”

“Sweetheart, I might as well have been invisible. A ghost who wasn’t doing a good enough job of moaning and groaning, with some clanking of chains to get the point across, that one of us needed to leave. I was praying that you would walk in when suddenly Ambleforth got to his feet and, still without lifting his eyes from his book, said: ‘I have sinned, my dear. Vanity of vanities. I have sought to see him return in glory and in so doing have violated what is most holy.’ “

“Oh, poor man!” I experienced a rush of pity. “Did he ask if you knew where he had left his hair shirt?”

“He said he would take a stroll around the garden. And before I could expound on how much I had enjoyed his inspirational visit, he wandered out into the hall and out the front door.”

“Then what happened? Did he drive off in our car again?”

Before Ben could answer, the doorbell rang, and he darted from the room to answer it. He was back before I could swallow the toast in my mouth, bringing Kathleen Ambleforth with him. She was certainly worth a double take. The Edwardian-style skirt and blouse needed letting out to better accommodate her ample figure. And the enormous bunches of fruit on her hat looked ready to topple off if she didn’t stop shaking her head.

She advanced upon me with arms outstretched. “Ellie, I didn’t get home until very late last night. Dunstan was not at home when I returned. I sat up most of the night waiting for him to come back. But he never did. And finally I fell into an exhausted sleep from which I awoke only a short time ago. I rushed over here the minute I was dressed. I was in such a hurry I didn’t realize I’d put on an outfit for the play I had brought home for repairs. And now I really don’t know what to say to you both.”

“Mr. Ambleforth has already been here,” I said.

“He brought back the car?”

“It’s back in the old stable that we use for a garage,” Ben told her.

“What a relief!” Kathleen dropped into a chair. “Poor Dunstan, he does get himself into these pickles. I suppose he was sitting in the monastery ruins at the Old Abbey, reading his favorite book, before he went off in your car. It’s the one he wrote nearly forty years ago when he first began devoting his intellectual life to the study of St. Ethelwort. And it never fails to hold him enthralled. When my dear husband is most powerfully in the grip of his own insights into the impact of the Ethelwortian rule on society today, he loses all touch with this earthly life.”

“It would seem he can still drive a car,” Ben pointed out.

“At such times, he acts completely on automatic.” Kathleen clasped her hands, and an apple dropped off her hat. “What worried me in this situation, knowing as I did that you had been planning a trip to France, was that you might have left suitcases in the back of your car. And seeing them, Dunstan could have taken it into his silly old head that he was off on a pilgrimage to the ruins of one of St. Ethelwort’s shrines. There’s one in Shropshire and another in Kent. In the Middle Ages men used to flock to them in droves.”

“I remember you saying that he was a man’s saint,” I said.

Kathleen nodded, and a pear went flying this time. “Ethelwort was the patron saint of men who, to put it bluntly, couldn’t come up to scratch in the bedroom.”

“And today he’s been replaced by a pill.” Ben barely repressed a smile. “I wonder if we can really call that progress.”

“I’ve often pondered,” Kathleen continued, “whether those poor dears in bygone times admitted to their wives that they were off in search of the ultimate miracle or if they salvaged their male pride by insisting they had to go off and pay fealty to their liege lords or attend a jousting tournament.”

“I’m beginning to think it is a miracle we got our car back,” I said.

Kathleen shook her head, but this time without dire results to the hat. “My dear, I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I’m afraid I was a little preoccupied when I spoke to you at rehearsal yesterday. The last time something of this sort happened it was the verger’s car at our old parish. Dear, silly old Dunstie! He was gone on that occasion for over a week. He had spent the time at a university library—I can’t remember whether it was Nottingham or Bristol—scouring through a collection of illuminated manuscripts that sadly produced not one reference to St. Ethelwort.”

Ben and I looked at each other. What was there to say? Kathleen got to her feet and stepped on Tobias, who resented being interrupted just as he had cornered a bunch of cherries. “I’m sure you must think my husband has stepped over the line between eccentricity and lunacy.” She picked up the fallen apple and stood polishing it on her sleeve. “But then again, having a father like yours, Ellie, probably gives you a little more understanding than most. I’m sure he’s just as lovely a man as Dunstan in his way, but definitely odd by most people’s standards.”

It was Ben who answered her. “He arrived here the other night after suffering a devastating bereavement.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” She went to take a bite out of the apple, realized what she was doing, and put it in her skirt pocket. “Believe me, I will keep him and your family in my prayers. Life is so hard at times, isn’t it? Dunstan had dreamed of coming to this parish for so long. To walk the lanes where St. Ethelwort once trod and to be within daily reach of the monastery ruins was his idea of heaven and earth. But I am afraid that the move has not been entirely beneficial. Sir Casper has not answered any of his letters. And Dunstan was so hoping for the opportunity to see the chapel at the Old Abbey again. He was shown it years ago by Sir Casper’s father but wanted to refresh his memory for some footnotes he wishes to include in volume twelve.”

“As lifetime studies go, it is a remarkable contribution.” Ben again looked ready to tear his hair out.

“A reviewer for the
Northumbrian Parish Preacher
called it monumental.” Kathleen stepped over Tobias, who was now after the grapes, one of which was trying to go into hiding under a chair.

“That says a lot.” I wasn’t able to work a lot of enthusiasm into my voice. It was hard to feel an overwhelming interest in someone else’s husband when the need to know what mine wanted to tell me gnawed away at my insides. What could have gone missing now that the urn had been returned? I had a sudden nasty suspicion and avoided looking at Ben in case I read confirmation in his eyes.

“Dunstan has always needed coddling, which makes it a blessing in disguise that we never had any children.” Kathleen smiled with rueful fondness. “Brilliant men do need to be spoiled more than most. They’re so busy thinking lofty thoughts that someone has to be there to do their ordinary thinking for them. And that has been a big part of the problem lately. I’ve been neglecting the poor lamb shamefully.
Murder Most Fowl
is my most ambitious production yet.”

“I’m sure it will be a huge success,” Ben responded tersely.

Kathleen looked as though she might finally be making a move toward the door. “Thank you, Ellie, for the loan of the silver dish. May Mrs. Potter, who’s in charge of props, stop by if we need to borrow anything else?”

“Certainly.” I stood up.

“You wouldn’t happen to have one of those gimmicky cigarette lighters in the shape of a gun?”