Mum's the Word Read online

  WELCOME TO MELANCHOLY MANSION …

  “Great balls of fire,” Miss Rumpson said.

  My sentiments exactly. The place was a combination of the Old Curiosity Shop and Alice’s Wonderland. As far as the candle could see were hand-painted leather trunks and marble columns and statues and clocks and silk screens and feather fans …

  But no Mangé Meeting.

  “Well, m’dear, if that doesn’t beat all!” Miss Rumpson’s voice bounced off gilded mirrors and under japanned tables. “There’s a coffin down here.”

  Had I not gained so much weight I would have leaped into her arms. “Wh … Where?”

  Following the trail of her finger I saw a coffin, snuggled into a space between a Victorian love seat and a tallboy.

  I didn’t expect any body to be inside, truly. It had come to me in a flash that the collecto-maniac responsible for loading up this room must have bought the coffin from an undertaker having a going-out-of-business sale. The lid groaned—or was it Miss Rumpson? We would surely find the space used for storage of a different kind. Sheets was my guess. Those won’t-wear-out ones that have to be ironed.

  Wrong! I couldn’t breathe—partly because Miss Rumpson was clutching my throat. Someone lay against the white satin pillow.

  Someone I recognized.

  MUM’S THE WORD

  A Bantam Crime Line Book

  Bantam hardcover edition / March 1990

  Bantam paperback edition / August 1991

  CRIME LINE and the portrayal of a boxed “cl” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Copyright © 1990 by Dorothy Cannell. Cover art copyright © 1991 by Tom Hallman. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-29983. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81671-9

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  I dream I am a child again, coming to Merlin’s Court for the first time. No … that isn’t quite the way it is. My grown-up self watches, off-stage, as ten-year-old Ellie is driven in that magical vehicle of childhood—a taxi—through the village of Chitterton Fells. The shops and houses, now steeped in twilight, are of classic Christmas card design. Look, there’s the amputated Roman arch, and yes … the wavering moonbeam of coast road.

  Child Ellie is wearing her blue-and-gold striped school blazer. The badge of her Panama hat heralds the motto of St. Roberta’s: Life Is Strife. Her plaits are tied with bows the size of giant moths and her face is an all-over smile.

  Does that make her sound an appealing little moppet? Sorry, the truth is that she is fat. Poor dear, she was born fat. And really there was no excuse. Her parents lived thin and productive lives. Aunts, uncles, and cousins were respectable in size. And the family tree revealed only one obese antecedent—Augustus Wentworth Grantham, 1784–1863, who was forced into exile after unlacing his stays at a regimental dinner. Not another blot on the record until I, Giselle Simons, weighed in. Giselle! I know my parents chose the name as a sort of magic talisman against the inevitable. My first word was chocolate.

  Peering through the shadows of my dream, I remember all those years of shelling out blackmail money to my low-cal cousin Vanessa. Anything to retrieve damning photos of Child Ellie in varying poses of indecent exposure. Short sleeves, short socks … shorts. Destroying the evidence had become vital after I went on a diet at age twenty-seven and won. Days, weeks of complacency had followed wherein I was sure I had bumped off the Before version. But every once in a while Child Ellie would creep up behind me, tap me on the shoulder, and cry, “I’m still here!”

  The taxi zigs around a bend in the road and Child Ellie winds down the window to sniff the scenery. Don’t lean out too far, Child Ellie. The cliff sheers down like a bird shot from the sky. The taxi nears the top of the hill. Here stands St. Anselm’s Church, walls the colour of pumice stone. The moon is its halo. A weary congregation of tombstones and trees that writhe as though wringing their hands at the wickedness of the world.

  Child Ellie smiles. Anyone would think she had never smelled the sea before, never heard it break in white-foamed rushes against the cliffs, never savoured its Alka Seltzer taste, nor seen a gull cresting the wind. What blithe optimism! What wanton vulnerability! She lunges through the window, arms flung wide to embrace the moment. But all is well. She doesn’t fall. The window is a tight fit.

  The taxi glides through sagging iron gates onto a gravel drive riddled with weeds. Look … there is the old chestnut spreading its moon-dappled cloak upon the lawn … and there the lodge, a cobbled house with a brass plate on the door: Cliffside Cottage. The taxi slows, then moves on. Then suddenly the maternal ancestral home is in sight: Merlin’s Court. Her breath catches. It’s exactly as Mother had described it. Still, nothing could have prepared her for this Grimm’s fairy tale castle complete with moat, ivied walls, turrets like witches’ hats, and best of all, a portcullis.

  A place of pure magic. Ah, but I know what Child Ellie does not. A wicked wizard, Great Uncle Merlin, reigns within the castle walls. Picture him now, chomping on his toothless gums. Nightcap a-bobbing, he rubs fleshless hands together at the merry prospect of a child being left in his keeping. How touchingly naive of her parents to decide a holiday at the seaside will do her a world of good, while they sail off to America to prospect for fame and fortune.

  The taxi rounds a final curve. While I am wondering how soon before I wake up, Child Ellie disembarks. Witness a flash of stout legs. Socks rolled into doughnuts at the ankles. I want to pull them up for her, straighten her bows, warn her. But she is headed for the moat bridge. Will it collapse under her thudding hopscotch? The immortal words of Aunt Astrid knell in my ears. “All cannot be blessed with beauty, grace, and charm, Ellie.” Certainly not. After giving so generously of those blessings to Aunty’s darling daughter Vanessa, God ran short. “But one can always strive to excel at something other than mediocrity, Ellie.”

  “Thank you, Aunty.” Child Ellie might always be picked last for school games, but she would walk a tightrope across the Alps for a jelly bean.

  Watch out! She almost goes over into the moat. A curtain twitches hopefully at one of the countless windows, then falls. Oh, no … Child Ellie has left her suitcase in the taxi, now vanishing into the blackness of time. But does her smile dim? Never! She discovers that the gargoyle beside the heavily studded castle door is a doorbell. A yank of the tongue, the mottled yellow-green eyes roll around in its head, and a deep ringing is heard.

  Silence.

  Child Ellie�
�s chubby fists pound the door. “Uncle Merlin! It’s me, Ellie! Mummy and Daddy said you and I would be good for each other. They don’t believe you are bonkers. I am to be a little breath of fresh air, blowing away the cobwebs. Your life will gain new meaning when you help me grow gaunt and beautiful by not letting me have seconds … pardon me, thirds.”

  Silence.

  “Standing here on the step like this, I can’t help wondering if Mummy and Daddy decided I was old enough to travel on my own because they were scared.”

  Wind laughing among the trees.

  “Surely, Uncle Merlin, you’re not having a last minute charge round with the Hoover, are you? I’ve sworn on birthday and Christmas presents not to comment on the squalid state of the house. Believe me, I don’t mind in the least if you do your washing up once a year rather than once a day.”

  Has she caught the attention of the silence?

  “Uncle Merlin, you may be interested to know that I intend to be a house decorator when I grow up. Dried flowers need not look dead these days; and I know—from reading The Wickedest Girl in the Class—how to remove stubborn stains. Even blood.”

  Thicker silence.

  Did the time draw near for me to wake up? But my eyes won’t open.

  “Uncle Merlin, perhaps I have come at an inconvenient time. Should I …?”

  With the appalling suddenness of an animal striking, the castle door flings inward. Legs moving pell-mell, Child Ellie is swept by an invisible force into the cavernous hall with its flagstone floor and peekaboo staircase. Cobwebs sway in tattered banners from the lofty ceiling. Moth-eaten fox heads grin from walls marbled with damp. Dead flowers, bunched into funeral urns, give off the odour of decay. In this house only the dirt is alive.

  “Be nice, Uncle Merlin. Stop playing hard to find. I promise not to start screaming if you have come down with some hideous deformity since Mummy and Daddy last saw you. Cross my heart, I think werewolves are sweet. But if it makes you more comfortable, feel free to slip a bag over your head. Oh, crikey! Why there you are, naughty uncle!”

  Child Ellie’s brain is not overweight. She is addressing a rusty suit of armour, stationed against the banister wall. Not Uncle Merlin. Lifting the visor, she inquires within. No one home. But never say die. Our metal knight has an identical twin standing to attention a few yards away. Bother! He isn’t hiding any fugitives either.

  “Uncle Merlin, I’m warning you—I’m going off you in a hurry.” She digs into her blazer pocket for the friend that never fails—a bar of chocolate. Restored, she blunders about some more. She pokes her nose through the banisters, she checks a mound of formless debris, she opens doors that go nowhere.

  Time is running out. I try to enter the dream. “Pssst!”

  “Listen to me, Ellie,” I try. “You don’t need to find Uncle Merlin. I can tell you how it really was on that holiday. No electricity. Cold baths. Everything mildewed—including the food. And always that sense of something refusing to let the house rest. But I did come to realize that Uncle Merlin was not the monster of your exuberant imagination.”

  Is the child paying any attention as she walks in circles, making snuffling noises? Not so brave now.

  “Look, I’m sorry, but there’s no point in crying for Mother.” I stop, unable to say that Mother is dead from a fall down a flight of railway stairs when I was seventeen. “Uncle Merlin was a lonely old man—locked up, emotionally speaking, in a cupboard that rattled with skeletons. His greatest enjoyment was terrifying the family out of its wits for fear he would leave his fortune to a cat home.”

  Talk about wasting my breath. Talk about talking to myself. Child Ellie is gone. Hiding. “Would you get back here!” I huff. “Am I supposed to lie in bed all day trying to talk sense into you? I have a life to lead. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, I am rather disappointed that you haven’t bothered to ask how things turned out. Believe it or not, Merlin’s Court is now my home and at the risk of sounding boastful, I have used my considerable talent as an interior designer to restore it to former glory. Uncle Merlin, you see, did not leave everything to a cat home. The house and a considerable sum of money was willed to me jointly with a gentleman by name Bentley T. Haskell, who, I am proud to inform you, became my husband.”

  Do I hear Child Ellie’s ears prick up? “Surprised, aren’t you? Never thought I would land a husband, did you? And believe me, Ben isn’t your common or garden husband—the kind cousin Vanessa would try on for size, then donate to the Salvation Army. Ben is a Three-D Man: Dashing, Debonair, and Devoted. And he’s employed, too. Presently he’s asleep after an arduous day at Abigail’s, his restaurant in the village. Otherwise I would introduce you.”

  Silence.

  Those fox heads grin from the walls, but I don’t see another face.

  “Would you please look at me!” My voice fills up the hall, the house … the night. “Take a good look. Can’t you see what a success I have made of myself? And, if you don’t mind my saying so, with very little help from you. I’m thin. Radiantly thin. Ben happens to be one of the greatest chefs in the world—Paris trained. Which makes it a miracle that he was the one who brought out the new me. My darling seduced and reduced me. I now spurn chocolate. The word cream is obscene. Raw vegetables and clear broth excite me.”

  I begin to feel a bit of a fool, but I won’t be intimidated by a pair of gawking suits of armour.

  “Child Ellie, are you there? Answer me!” All this shouting is making me dizzy. The rooms in Merlin’s Court, past and present, merge into a whirlwhip of faded colour.

  “Why won’t you answer?” My voice is far away. “How can you be so selfish? Do you think I would have come all this way back to find you, if there were anyone else for me to turn to? Don’t you see, you are the only one who can show me … remind me … what it is like to be a child.”

  And I need to know. I am going to have a baby.

  I, Mrs. Bentley T. Haskell of Merlin’s Court, Chitterton Fells, retired interior designer, proud owner of a gifted cat named Tobias, experience no sense of impending doom. On that Saturday morning in June, I lie amidst the burgundy and silver-grey ambience of the matrimonial bedroom. Sunshine turns the latticed windows to harlequin dazzle, highlighting the dark glow of mahogany furniture.

  Idly I pick up the hand mirror from the bedside table. Ugh! Keep up this brutal honesty and out the window you go! Do I need reminding that I have foam rubber cheek bones? Or that I failed to heed Aunt Astrid’s dictum that crying over trifles washes all colour from the eyes? Fortunately I have long hair. I arrange it artfully over my face. The pheasants on the wallpaper have never heard the word migration. They aren’t the only ones who will be utterly unprepared for what lies ahead.

  “Ben, darling …”

  “What is it, sweetheart?” responds my dark, handsome, and devoted spouse.

  “I had such a strange dream last night. I was a child again, visiting here for the first time. Little did I know then that years later Uncle Merlin would come up with the bizarre idea of hosting a family reunion, resulting in my inspired idea of renting you for the weekend from Eligibility Escorts. Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that, for a modest fee, you agreed to pose as my besotted fiancé?”

  “And here we are, my treasure!” He sat down on the edge of the bed, stroking my cheek with those slim, elegant fingers which can arouse such passion from a simple sponge cake. His touch was incredibly gentle, his voice incredibly absentminded. “Speaking of dreams, Ellie, I received by this morning’s post a letter which I read before bringing up your breakfast tray, and believe me—the news is a dream come true!” Blue-green eyes sparkling enticingly, he patted the pocket of his black silk, man-about-the-bedroom dressing gown.

  Smiling wanly from my pillow edged with Nottingham lace, I ached to tell him how desperately I loved the way his dark hair curled against his neck. But I wasn’t up to the exertion. I had discovered that morning sickness was something for which I had natural flair.

  “E
xciting news, darling? Has the Electricity Board written to say it will adjust our bill?” I fingered his manly chest where the black silk gapped away. “I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me concerning the heated towel rail’s habit of turning itself on at will, but possibly my assertion that Dorcas and Jonas have also noticed did the trick.”

  Dorcas, let me explain in a swift aside, came to Merlin’s Court as housekeeper, shortly after Ben and I took up residence. An avid sports woman, she is happier with a hockey stick in her hands than a mop. And that’s fine with me. Dorcas is one of life’s creature comforts. The older sister I never had. During the last few weeks, she had done some straight talking about this being the time for her to move from the main house to Cliffside, the cottage at the gates. She claimed to relish the idea of being several hundred yards closer to her new job as gym teacher at the village school. Huh! Had I believed she really wanted a place of her own I would have understood, but I know Dorcas. Nobility is her besetting sin. She had this bee in her red head that Ben and I should be on our own. As if there weren’t more than enough room in this huge house for us all to wallow in privacy. If Dorcas were off the premises, she might miss the baby’s first smile … first step. I’d had to put my foot down and tell her in no uncertain terms that in my condition I was not up to turning her bedroom at Merlin’s Court into a shrine. Embroidering a plaque to place above her bed—Gone But Not Forgotten—would take forever.

  Now for Jonas. He also lives in, while maintaining a separate suite of rooms over the stables to which he retreats whenever any of my relations brave his displeasure and show up for afternoon tea. Tobias, who is supposed to be my cat, sneaks off with him. Later I find the two of them seated in the rocking chair reading Of Mice and Men. Brindled moustaches dampened with Ovaltine. Good cheer restored from plotting the murders of Aunt Astrid, Aunt Lulu, and Uncle Maurice, and the rest. When it comes to flowers, Jonas is second to none. His dahlias are the size of tea plates and he produces colours not yet invented. I tell myself (and sometimes him) that he is entitled to his quirks and crotchets. Well past seventy, to outsiders he is the gardener who has been a fixture since the late Mr. Merlin Grantham was a lad. To we who love him, he is someone else entirely.