Dorothy Cannell - She Shoots to Conquer

Mrs. Malloy failing to take pity on one less fortunate, I was grateful when Livonia suddenly and sweetly came to life. “Look,” she said, in her gentle voice, “it’s a strain for everyone trying to make the best possible impression on Lord Belfrey.” I doubted she included herself in this statement, but there was no doubting her sincerity. “Lunch has been so lovely-the food, I mean.” She smiled at me. “Why don’t we all make an effort to relax with each other and enjoy the pudding when it comes? Doesn’t that sound a good idea?”

“I always say sweet,” countered Mrs. Malloy, who did nothing of the sort. In any other company she would have been holding forth that a jam roly-poly was a pud, as was anyone of them fancy meringue things Mr. H was so fond of making. And don’t let the Queen herself say different.

“Really?” Molly, looking neither a swan nor a cobweb fairy but ordinary to the point of frumpishness, sounded uncertain yet eager to open herself to a different view of the world. “I always think of a toffee when someone mentions sweets. I’ve always loved toffees, but I can’t eat them now I wear dentures. Mummy will continue to say false teeth, which sounds so much worse. More… more dribbly, if you get what I mean.”

“Oh, I do,” exclaimed Livonia. “Can’t mothers be awful? Not Dr. Rowley’s, I don’t mean her,” delightful blush, “she sounds as though she was absolutely lovely. Perhaps the reason he hasn’t married is that he hasn’t found a woman to equal her. Of course, anyone the least bit nice would never try to compete with her late mother-in-law.”

“I’m not the least competitive,” Alice Jones of the abundant hair and home-woven clothes broke in. “That’s why I find the situation we are all in-other, that is, than Mrs. Haskell-so stressful. I know I should have anticipated being uncomfortable, but thinking about something isn’t the same as being thrust in at the deep end.”

“No, it isn’t,” agreed Livonia, “and I think your teeth are absolutely lovely.”

“Mine?” Alice looked delighted.

“Oh, yes, but I meant… also meant Molly’s.”

I heard myself say that everyone present had lovely teeth. How stupid could I sound? A diversion would have been welcome. Alas, the huge and rusty light fixture, so reminiscent of a medieval torture apparatus, did not begin swaying ominously overhead. Nor did the cutlery choose to leap out of a sideboard drawer and go skimming like unguided missiles through the air, as had reportedly happened at yesterday’s lunch. It seemed that, like Homer, Georges sometimes nodded.

“I know I haven’t been very chatty,” Judy spoke from the foot of the table, “but I’ve been thinking about the grounds.”

Mrs. Malloy folded her arms purposefully under her bosom and curled a damson lip. “You would be!” Honestly! Georges (I couldn’t bring myself to look his way) had to be lapping this up like double cream. The woman needed to be shoved under the table and her hand trodden on if she attempted to crawl out.

“How can you not be thrilled, Judy, by the repairs you’ve already made to the broken wall?” I rushed to say. “I understand you all got together this morning to plan what each of you will do to improve Mucklesfeld while you are here.”

“We did.” Alice Jones fingered the frayed edge of the tablecloth. “I said I would go through the linen cupboards. Plunket,” like a true mistress of Mucklesfeld Manor she forewent the Mr ., “tells me there are ten of them, although Mrs. Foot said there were not more than seven.”

Mrs. Malloy stared at nothing, unless hopefully into her conscience. Livonia looked at her hands, but whether because she wasn’t deeply engaged by improvements at Mucklesfeld or was thinking of Tommy Rowley could only be a mind reader’s guess.

Alice tucked up a bundle of hair that had escaped from a large tortoiseshell comb. “However many cupboards there may really be, I hope to locate a sewing machine and repair as much of the linen as I can. It doesn’t match up to Judy and the wall, I know.” There was none of Mrs. Malloy’s rancor in her voice and Judy responded appreciatively.

“Kind of you to say, but we all do what we can. I can’t sew a stitch.”

“Same here,” said Molly. “Working in a supermarket isn’t my life’s dream,” no faltering or conscious look here, “but like I said this morning, I started out stocking shelves.” That must have thrilled Mother Knox. “Boring, unless you learn to take pride, and it taught me a thing about being quick to get organized. So I think I can help organize the furniture, at least to make better paths through it.”

“I could help you with that,” I offered, realizing with surprise that for several minutes now I had been unaware of Georges, crew, and moon-sized stare of the camera.

Livonia turned to me. “Oh, Ellie, you are kind. I said if it would help I’d make up inventories of what’s in each room. Being a bank teller isn’t the most exciting job in the world either, but you have to be quick and make sure you’re correct to the penny. The only difference is I’ll be adding up tables and chairs.” She beamed at me. “Could you also give us some ideas of what is and what isn’t valuable so I can make note of that, too?”

“I’ll tell you what I think.”

“That is nice.” Molly looked directly at me for the first time. There was nothing in her gaze beyond gratitude, nothing to suggest that she connected me in any way with the library.

“This is all well and good,” proclaimed Mrs. Malloy with a toss of her black head with its two inches of white roots and a heightening of rouge, “but what the place needs more than anything is a start on a good clean. From the looks of it, that’ll be left to Muggins here.”

Before offers of assistance in this nearly impossible endeavor could pour in, Mrs. Foot entered the dining room wheeling a trolley with one of Ben’s delectable chocolate orange gateaux ornamented with Chantilly cream, candied almonds, and marigold petals. Knowing it to be laced with Grand Marnier, my tongue melted at the sight. Behind her came Mr. Plunket, bearing a tarnished silver coffeepot. Creeping in last came Boris. A cheery raspberry pink short-sleeved shirt emphasized quite horribly his zombie appearance. That he carried a knife, admittedly a cake one, served to heighten the impression that he had been given his orders and would perform them in glassy-eyed fashion.

Mindful, one presumed, of the need to display aplomb worthy of the mistress of Mucklesfeld even when faced with having their throats cut, not one of the contestants squealed. Indeed, a smiling Judy complimented him on the shirt.

“Taken from a dead man.”

“Oh!” Livonia committed the solecism of turning pale.

Seizing the moment for additional points, Mrs. Malloy said in her best high falutin’ voice: “How frightfully nice of some… body,” capping off this bon mot with a posh-sounding chuckle.

Mrs. Foot placed the gateau on the very edge of the table, either unaware of the risk or daring it to attempt a flying leap so she could flatten it with a hand that outmatched it in size. “The word’s corpse .”

“So it is! So it is! Trust you, Mrs. Foot, to know the medical terminology.” Mr. Plunket chuckled appreciatively. “Comes from all her years as a ward maid,” he confided to the gathering, which at that moment decreased considerably with the clanging exit of Georges and the crew. “But to explain clearer, Boris didn’t himself take that there shirt of his off the bod… corpse. He got it from an undertaker acquaintance of ours. Amazed you’d be,” Mr. Plunket was now wending his way around the table with the coffeepot, missing more cups than he hit but not appearing to notice the sloshy saucers, “proper amazed at how many people don’t want the clothes back that their loved ones is brought in wearing. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Foot?”