The Importance of Being Ernestine Read online

  “Dudley!” His wife got out of her chair to fume over him. “You really are naughty going outside in this weather. With all I have to do must I be worrying about your catching one of your nasty colds? And all your handkerchiefs already in the wash. It simply is too vexing. If I weren’t so fond of you,” she said, wiping the rain drips off his neck with her scarf, “I would be very much put out.”

  “So sorry, my dear.” The vicar dragged his mild blue eyes away from his book. “Such a trial I am to everyone. As was St. Ethelwort from time to time. His bishop had to admonish him on several occasions for allowing his monks to sunbathe on the beach in their birthday suits while groups of nuns were picnicking nearby. He was, as I have so often written, a saint ahead of his time.”

  “That’s all very nice, Dudley.”

  “Good morning, vicar,” I piped up from the sofa, and he responded with a blink before taking a couple blundering steps toward me. In this room one must always be wary of stumbling over some object left lying in the middle of the floor.

  “So you’ve arrived.” He extended a hand pried away from the book. “We received your letter and are delighted to have you pay us a visit. I didn’t think,” he turned a bemused face to his wife, “that we weren’t expecting her until next Tuesday.”

  “Dear,” Kathleen responded with obvious restraint. “This isn’t cousin Alice. She came and spent four days with us and only left this morning.”

  “So she did.” Reverend Ambleforth shook his head, causing his white hair to fluff out. “Then who, my dear, is this lady?”

  “Ellie Haskell.”

  “Ah!”

  “From Merlin’s Court.”

  “The,” he spoke into Kathleen’s ear, “the psychiatric place? Did they let her go, or has she escaped?”

  There were some of my acquaintance who suspected that the vicar had himself escaped by way of a knotted bedsheet from some such facility, but as clergy were difficult to come by in small parishes they thought it best not to make a big thing about it.

  “Always one of your little jokes, Dudley!” Kathleen produced an unconvincing chortle. “You’re talking about that place at Melton Kings, where they put criminals who can’t help doing what they do-like Peeping Toms and kleptomaniacs.”

  I thought about Aunt Lulu, Freddy’s mother. How terrible if she was to end up in such a place.

  “Merlin’s Court.” Reverend Ambleforth closed his book and stowed it tenderly in his trouser pocket. “I remember now. It’s the house that looks like a castle just past the bus stop.” He did, as even his detractors admitted, have his brief moments of lucidity. “And this lady is married to,” he hesitated, furrowing his brow, “her… well, it would be her husband, wouldn’t it? No need to help me on that one, my dear.”

  “Dudley, you have caught a cold,” Kathleen bundled him into a chair. “They always go straight to your head.”

  “I can see him as we speak.” The vicar flashed us both a triumphant smile. “A dark-haired, good-looking young man. By the name of Jones. I’m almost sure that’s what he said. Or maybe it was Smith. One of those common names. He was here this morning. Wanted a word with me about books approved by the church on the subject of divorce. Said he had a friend… or it could have been a relative who was considering leaving his wife. One of those overbearing women from the sound of it.” His abstracted look had returned. “Dear me, we do live in unsettled times.”

  “It wouldn’t have been Ben.” Kathleen threw up her hands. “Why on earth would he come here pretending to be someone else?”

  “He wouldn’t.” I smiled because it gave me something to do with my face. The vicar got up, patted his pocket, took out his book and crossed the room to the door. A moment later we heard a couple of thumps as he encountered some obstacle out in the hall. Then all was silent save for the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.

  “Dudley’s always the same when he gets wrapped up in St. Ethelwort.” Kathleen sat back down. “If there was a man here this morning he was probably fair-haired and never said a word about a friend or divorce. No need for you to look so upset, my dear. Unless,” she said, eyeing me intently, “that problem you mentioned has to do with your marriage?”

  “Ben and I had an argument last night.” I stared down at my hands. “He was very angry that I had given away all the stuff in his study. I hadn’t consulted him, you see, and I realize it was upper-handed of me. That’s why I’m here… oh, not because Ben is considering a divorce… it’s not that serious,” I squeaked out a laugh, “but I am really hoping that you will let me have everything back. You have every reason to be annoyed with me, but I am in this awful predicament.”

  “You did explain to Ben that all donations go to highly worthy causes?” Kathleen could look her most fierce when not moving an inch.

  Despite quaking on the inside, I answered boldly: “He knows that, but he’s pining. And I don’t want him miserable. The study is both his personal space and his workplace. I’m not sure he will be able to get anything done the way things are. He particularly hates the computer. The point, as I should have realized, is that stuff isn’t just… stuff. That old typewriter was his friend… his partner… his…” I floundered to a halt.

  “I suppose I do understand,” Kathleen responded with a little more warmth in her voice. “How could I not, being married to Dudley with his obsession with St. Ethelwort. I’ll do what I can, Ellie, but I didn’t handle all the incoming and outgoing of the donations. That’s why cousin Alice was here, to help me with a job that became too much for one person. There are so many organizations in need. Some old, many of them fairly new. I couldn’t begin to list them off the top of my head. I’ll have to check through my records and Alice’s. She’s a most efficient woman.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Perhaps not given your situation. She may well have sent your stuff on its way without wasting time having it first unloaded here. We get very specific requests for items, and if yours fit the bill, well… you do see what I’m getting at, Ellie?”

  “Could you let me know something, fairly soon?” I got dolefully to my feet. “If I had an address I could perhaps track the things down and offer to buy them back.”

  “Let’s hope for the best.” Kathleen ushered me into the hall and hurried me into my raincoat. “They could well be in the church hall. We only have the overflow in the house. Now off you go,” she said, handing me my umbrella, “and try not to worry. Say a little prayer. But not to St. Ethelwort; from what I’ve read of his journals the man was frightfully long-winded, and might keep you talking all day.”

  With this small sally she closed the vicarage door. Glad to see the back of me and be off to her appointment. Who could blame the poor overworked woman? I walked back along the Cliff Road heedless of the rain to enter the hall at Merlin’s Court, where Freddy appeared like a wraith at my elbow to announce that Mrs. Malloy was on the phone, sounding as though someone had just died.

  Eight

  “What’s wrong?” I held the receiver with one hand while struggling to get out of my raincoat with the other. I was chilled to the bone, but there was no one to notice except the twin suits of armor and neither one of them looked ready to clank across the Turkish rug with offers of a cup of tea. Freddy had disappeared into the kitchen. Seasoned eavesdropper that he was he didn’t have to be standing next to me to get the gist of my conversation with Mrs. Malloy. Whistling kettles and doors left open the merest wedge would be no deterrents if he chose to snoop. But it could be that he wasn’t in the mood to involve himself with my trials and tribulations, given his worries about his Mum.

  “Never mind me.” Mrs. Malloy’s voice blasted in my ear. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t tell me that gunman found out where you live and is there this minute, threatening to shoot your head full of enough holes to turn it into a colander, if you don’t keep your trap shut? It’s alright,” she said, misinterpreting my silence, “I understand you can’t talk. Give one scream for ‘yes’
and two for ‘no’.”

  “Please!” I finally managed. “Let’s not go taking last night too seriously. After talking to Freddy I’m convinced our visitor played us for a couple of idiots.”

  “So that wasn’t a gun he shoved under our noses?” She laughed sarcastically. “What was it then, Mrs. H., a banana?”

  “A toy one.”

  “A toy banana?”

  “No!” I tossed my raincoat on the floor and barely restrained myself from kicking it the length of the hall. “A toy gun.”

  “Well, that makes a lot of sense, that does! But if Mr. Freddy Flatts says that’s the way things was who’m I to argue? Course, it could be said I was there and he weren’t, and it would be nice to think that you and me stood together as a team, especially now that things have taken such a nasty turn. But why should anyone consider my feelings? I’m just the woman that’s worked her fingers to the bone for you all these years, scrubbing and polishing on me poor worn-out knees.”

  I didn’t remind her that she had always strictly adhered to the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s charter (commonly referred to as the Magna-Char), which prohibited its members from performing any tasks above or below eye level. This was no time for petty bickering. “What sort of nasty turn?”

  “Well, it’s like this,” she said, dropping her snotty tone, “I came down here to the office to water the plants and practice up on me typing and I wasn’t through the door when the phone rang. I picked it up all of a tremble, thinking it would be Milk ringing up to say he’d been stabbed coming out a bar.”

  “And his wallet pinched by a one-legged jogger?”

  “I’ll let that pass, Mrs. H., seeing it’s clear you’re having a bad day. Not made up with the hubby from the sound of it. But you’re about to feel downright ashamed of yourself.”

  “I am?”

  “That phone call was from the old Cottage Hospital in Mucklesby. Seems,” Mrs. M. continued with relish, “Lady Krumley was brought in last night after a car accident. I couldn’t get the gist of how bad she was because the woman phoning, some nurse I suppose, had one of those posh voices like someone talking Shakespeare.”

  “What sort of an accident?” I asked stupidly.

  “I just told you.”

  “I mean did her ladyship collide with another vehicle or did she crash into a lamppost after being forced off the road? What I’m getting at is… was it really an accident or attempted murder?”

  “So now you’re admitting it wasn’t all fun and games with that bloke last night? Change with the wind you do, Mrs. H., but I can’t stand here fussing with you all day. We’ve got to get down to that hospital. Don’t want the old girl sinking into a coma before we arrive, now do we?”

  “She wants to see us?” I was struggling back into my raincoat.

  “No, that nurse phoned for the weather report.” Mrs. Malloy’s sarcasm dripped through the receiver. “Her ladyship had told her to phone Jugg’s Detective Agency and keep ringing until someone answered. Poor soul! Sounds as though she’d worked herself up into a terrible state. Don’t suppose she’s meant to have visitors except for the immediate family.”

  “Who might not be such a good idea under the circumstances.”

  “Well, I must say it’s about time you came round to my way of thinking, Mrs. H., ’cos my name’s not Roxie Malloy if there isn’t a nasty nephew or sneaky sister-in-law at the bottom of this.” The woman could be unbearably smug, but I reminded myself that one had to keep Lady Krumley front and center.

  “I’m merely keeping an open mind. No more, no less. You can fill me in on any other information you’ve acquired when I pick you up.” I not only had my raincoat back on but also was wearing Tobias around my neck as a scarf. That cat was worse than the children for demanding attention the minute I got on the phone. He would drop off a wardrobe onto my head or, as on this occasion, leap from the table onto my arm and shin the rest of the way with a steel-clawed determination worthy of an assault of the Alps. By the time I had disentangled him, Freddy had stuck his head around the kitchen door to say that he had a lovely pot of tea ready. And if I was in the mood to turn a loaf of bread into a plateful of sandwiches we could have an early lunch. I hated to see the light go out in his eyes. It’s a tough business being a housewife pretending to be a P.I. I told him, while draining half a cup of tea, that there was sliced ham, lettuce and tomatoes in the fridge, but he would have to assemble them on a plate without any help from me because I had to meet up with Mrs. Malloy.

  “Ah!” He stroked his beard, eyes gleaming. “So the Krumley case thickens.”

  “Freddy,” I rammed a rain hat on my head, “do not be melodramatic.”

  “What? Me? Make mountains out of molehills?” He staggered backward until he rammed up against the sink. “Her ladyship has merely been in a near fatal car accident that may or may not be the result of foul play. She’s lying in The Cottage Hospital at Mucklesby, clutching her oxygen mask, clawing at all the tubes while waiting for you and Mrs. Malloy to arrive so she can impart some vital piece of the puzzle before she gasps her last.”

  “Good marks for listening.”

  “No need to thank me,” he said with a winsome smile, “someone has to look out for you. And Ben’s not here to do it.”

  “I’m sure there’s plenty to keep him occupied at Abigail’s,” I replied with superb nonchalance. “Not that you don’t do a great job, Freddy, but he always likes to catch up after being away on a trip. He didn’t happen to phone while I was at the vicarage?”

  “It so chances that he did. Said to tell you he would collect Rose from her play group at 1:00 and go back for the twins at 3:30.”

  “Oh, splendid!”

  And so it was, because now I wouldn’t have to shift my attention away from Lady Krumley every five minutes to check my watch. Driving down the Cliff Road I heroically banished Ben, between one sniff and the next, from my mind. I was wondering just how badly Lady Krumley had been injured when I drew level with Abigail’s. Ben’s car was neither out front nor visible in the side parking lot. Nothing to that of course, although at 11:30 he would not have set off to collect Rose. There were dozens of places he might have gone. I just couldn’t think of any for the moment. I had the car heater going full blast, and my head was fuzzy. A moment later I was given my answer. While passing the Chitterton Fells Library I saw a man who was unmistakably my husband exiting by the side door with an armload of books balanced precariously under his chin. To honk at him would have been disaster for he would undoubtedly have dropped the lot. So I proceeded on my way, wedged in between a lorry and a woman wobbling along on a bicycle, feeling vaguely comforted. Ben and I were both avid readers. Not much for television, we enjoyed many an evening-especially in wintertime-locked in our own separate worlds yet linked by that special silence that can be better than any amount of talking.

  It was no longer raining, but the roads had the black gloss of night and ragged clouds whipped across the sky like clothes blown off a line. What had been a scattering of cottages became rows of tight-faced houses with front doors opening directly onto the street and shops that looked as though they should have signs in the windows warning customers that they entered at their own risk. I drew level with a greengrocer’s. It had boxes of drowned fruit and vege set out front, being sniffed at by a mongrel dog. Catching my eyes he cocked his leg in a desultory fashion and disappeared around a corner. Mucklesby, I decided, was no more attractive by day than at night, a thought shared by Mrs. Malloy when I stopped in the alleyway outside Jugg’s Detective Agency and she climbed into the car.

  “What a rat hole of a town!” she said, buckling her safety belt around her middle. She removed her headscarf and patted her blonde hair back into shape. “Course it suits Milk a treat, and us too, Mrs. H., in our line of business. But you couldn’t pay me to live here. Pigeon muck everywhere you step, and the whole place smelling of cat’s pee. Drive on do.” She gave me a nudge that shot the car forward. “Before we catch som
ething and end up in the hospital along with Lady Krumley.”

  I started to say that I was not in any line of business other than being a wife, mother and part-time interior designer, but a glance at her set profile let me know I would be wasting my breath. So I stuck to the issue at hand.

  “How critical is Lady Krumley’s condition?”

  “Oh, you know them nurses, they can spend ten minutes putting the wind up you just saying ‘the patient is doing as well as can be expected.’” Mrs. Malloy took a compact out of her handbag and waved it at me before powder puffing her nose with enough abandon to cause me to gasp and choke.

  “Could you put that thing away,” I said testily. “It has to be every bit as hazardous as secondhand smoke.”

  “Well, you’re a fine one to talk! But you know what they say about them holier than thou reformed types.”

  I ignored this thrust. “Did the nurse who phoned say if her ladyship was in ICU?”

  “What?

  “The Intensive Care Unit.”

  “No, she didn’t, and watch where you’re driving. You almost went up the back of that van and now me lipstick’s all smeared.” Mrs. Malloy eyed herself in the compact mirror before dropping it back with an irritated plop into her handbag. “And me wanting to look my best for all them handsome young doctors that’s bound to be lining the corridors. Some of the happiest days of me life was watching Emergency Ward 10 on the telly and now that I’m going to live it you have to go and spoil things.”

  “That’s not a van?”

  “What isn’t?” Mrs. Malloy was dabbing at her purple lips with both pinkies.