I turn my attention back to Mr Tyler, who is now making his fifth attempt at staying upright for more than a millisecond. 'Come on, Mr Tyler! You can do it!' I shout to the surprisingly cheerful figure waving at us. Daniel revs the engine and off they go. At some point Mr Tyler must have taken in my words of wisdom, or perhaps decided to ignore them, because after a shaky start, he regains his balance. A great cheer erupts from the shoreline and, overcome with enthusiasm, I run like mad along the pontoon shouting things like, 'Well done! That's great, Mr Tyler!' until I run straight off the end of the pontoon and fall into the bulrushes.
I squelch with as much dignity as I can muster into the kitchen. I am absolutely mortified. The Americans are finding the whole thing very amusing indeed.
Monty looks up from the crossword. 'Izzy! What the hell happened to you?' His mouth twitches suspiciously.
'Dear God, Izzy! You needn't try to drown yourself!' says Aunt Winnie. 'I'm sure we can sort things out here!'
'I fell in the lake,' I say sulkily.
'You smell!' says Monty.
I open my mouth to utter a stinging reply but words fail me. I have to resort to snorting derisively which I hope conveys my sentiments just as well. Coming from a family who farm for a living, I think this is a bit rich.
Simon strides into the kitchen at that precise moment. 'Dad, have you seen … CHRIST! WHAT IS THAT SMELL?'
'It's me,' I say miserably from over by the door.
'Izzy! What happened to you?'
'I fell in the lake.'
'How on earth did you manage that?'
'I was coaching Mr Tyler at water-skiing.'
'Really?' His mouth also twitches suspiciously. 'Did you think it would help to demonstrate?'
'I fell off the end of the pontoon.'
'Ah. Tricky things pontoons. There one minute and gone the next.' He shakes his head knowingly. I think he's taking the piss.
'I fell into the bulrushes. There were lots of bird droppings in there and a couple of dead things too.'
'Probably explains the smell.'
I shiver a little and Simon hurries me upstairs to get changed. I could really, really do with a cigarette.
C h a p t e r 19
A
pparently, falling into a lake fully clothed is just the thing to get any troubled takeover running smoothly again. It's probably not in the textbook. After I've washed my hair, got changed and flushed repeatedly with embarrassment at the thought of it all, I start organising lunch. Mrs Delaney is busy in the kitchen preparing a feast of crab cakes with a cream sauce of horseradish and dill, roasted sea bass on a bed of Jerusalem artichokes and Dauphinoise potatoes, and iced berries with a white chocolate sauce (complete with sprigs of mint, but then Mrs Delaney is a chef). Harry is sitting at one end of the kitchen table, swinging his legs and eating a French Fancy (this looks shop-bought unless Mrs Delaney has turned into Mr Kipling as well as being a miraculous chef). I might know her a little better now but she still scares the living daylights out of me. Even more so, if that were possible. In my experience, chefs are tricky, volatile characters, prone to picking up meat cleavers.
The visitors have returned from the lake and are now having pre-lunch drinks in the drawing room. Will informs me gleefully that my fall from grace was just the thing to pull the group together and after I left the whole lot wanted to have a go at water-skiing. In fact, the atmosphere was almost party-like. I must remember this for future events.
At lunch I am fallen upon like a long lost friend. The Americans pump my arm repeatedly and laugh a lot. Probably at my expense but I take it all in blushing good spirit; it's difficult not to as they are so good-humoured. With a marginally lighter heart, I go back to the kitchen.
Aunt Flo has lent me a black dress for this evening. It is absolutely beautiful, unspeakably elegant and completely timeless. The straps are very delicate silver chains which link behind my neck in a halter-neck and then hang down my back, ending in diamante balls which knock against my shoulder blades as I walk. The rest of the dress is very plain and exquisitely cut, with slits either side of the skirt that run all the way up to my thighs.
We are running a little behind schedule and I am starting to feel stressed. Mrs Delaney is upset about something and is banging pots and pans around like there is no tomorrow. Monty is making a huge fuss about joining everyone for dinner, something about his health, and Aunt Winnie almost has to lock him in his room to get changed. I haven't seen Flo since she popped in with the dress first thing this morning which is highly unusual and I am hoping that Poppet hasn't eaten her or something.
I hurriedly dress, shove my hair up and then go to put on my pair of very strappy God-send shoes. The same shoes I was wearing when I met Rob, I think bitterly, sitting down and beginning the arduous task of wrapping the leather straps around my ankles akin to ballerina pumps (unfortunately there the similarity ends). In the background, Meg is rustling about in the wardrobe, burying another of her Bonios.
I am just about to slip the second shoe over my heel while admiring my freshly painted toenails when I hear my name being called and turn around to see Dominic throwing himself into the room.
Without so much as a hello, he takes firm grip of my elbow, hauls me up and, like one of those little tugs that pull ocean liners, turns me around and hurries me out of the room. I resist strongly, digging one heeled shoe into the carpet, saying, 'Dom, what on earth are you doing?'
'Izzy. You have to come. Now,' he hisses and pulls at me. He has quite a job on his hands; I am no lightweight.
'What's wrong?' I ask in alarm, 'God, is it Flo? Is she okay?'
'She's fine. The spider has gone though.'
'Gone? How do you mean gone?' I squeal, my first thought being for my cowardly custard self.
'Gone to the pub for a drink with its mates. OF COURSE I MEAN GONE GONE. Aunt Flo has been looking for it all day.'
'Christ! It could be anywhere by now!' I start to frantically limp down the corridor, still carrying my shoe.
'Yes, but that's not the problem.'
'It's not? Are you sure? Because that sounds like a problem to—'
'No. I went up to help her look …' he pants as we belt through the doors at the end of the passage and through to the wing where Monty and Flo live'… and she was frantic. Apparently she only let it out for a walk and it just disappeared …' We arrive outside Flo's room and knock at the door.
'What's the other problem?' I urge.
'Come and see,' he says grimly.
Flo opens the door. 'Hello dear! That dress does look wonderful on you!'
I spy Harry in the corner on his hands and knees. 'I promised him ten bob-a-jobs if he finds it,' Dominic murmurs.
'Only one shoe though? New fashion?' Flo questions.
I simultaneously hold up my other shoe and say, 'Aunt Flo, I hear Poppet has gone missing?'
'Sorry?'
'I SAID, I HEAR THE SPIDER HAS GONE MISSING?'
'Ssssshhhhhhh,' Dominic hisses. 'Someone will hear you.'
'Yes dear. She's done this before,' says Aunt Flo.
'Oh really?' I squeak. 'Em, quite recently? Over the last few weeks at all?' I've read somewhere that you swallow ten spiders a year while you're asleep. The ridiculous thought springs to mind that I might have inadvertently swallowed Poppet while dead to the world. Thinking of my own precious neck again. Dom gives me a sharp poke in the ribs with his elbow.
'I take her out for a little walk every morning.' Another ridiculous image springs to mind of Aunt Flo wandering around the garden with the spider on a red leash.
'Er, sorry?'
'I SAID, I TAKE HER OUT FOR A WALK EVERY MORNING.'
'Sssshhhhh,' hisses Dominic again. I hastily tuck a few inches of my dress into my knickers and balance on one shoe. Don't want Poppet mistaking me for a climbing frame.
Dominic gives me another nudge. 'That is not the only problem,' he whispers, 'look at this.' He leads me over to a chest of drawers and stands me in front of it. I warily lift my foot off the floor again.
'What?' I ask.
'That,' he hisses and points at a very innocuous-looking urn.
'What about it?'
'I've already seen it.'
Has Dom completely lost it? 'Have you?' I ask carefully, still looking around, much more concerned with where the spider is than where Dom is.
'I took it up to Mr Berryman's room.'
I am thoroughly confused by this point. 'So? He's got one just like it. Strange that he would carry it around but—'
'It's the same one,' Dom hisses.
I frown. 'How do you know?'
'I carried the damn thing, stupid. You told me to. This is what was inside the wooden box. Look inside …' I lean cautiously over and lift the lid. The urn is full of strange grey stuff. 'His mother's ashes. He told me earlier that he carries them around with him. He pulled me to one side to ask if the house was safe.' Dom looks at me wide-eyed at the implication of the last word.
Bloody hell! I drop the lid with a loud clunk and swing around to face Flo, who is prostrate on the floor looking under the sofa. 'Er, Aunt Flo?'
'Still can't see her …' she murmurs.
'Aunt Flo?' I say again. 'Em …' She is paying no attention to me whatsoever so since we seem to have taken up pole position on the floor I drop down to join her. Could do with a nice lie down actually.
'Aunt Flo? Where did you get that lovely urn thing?' I ask urgently from our horizontal positions.
'Hmmm? Oh that? I found it. Nice, isn't it?'
'When? When did you find it?'
'Today while I was looking for Poppet. It was in a wooden box. Dominic, be a darling and lift up the sofa?'
I leave Dominic to heave up the sofa and hop like I've never hopped before downstairs.
I locate Simon in the drawing room with the rest of his crew. They all look at me in astonishment as I hop in but I have other things on my mind. 'Simon? Can I talk to you for a second?'
'Er, sure.'
'In private?' Eyebrows are raised even higher. I hop across the hallway into his still-empty study and flop on to a bean bag. I gabble away, explaining the sorry situation but missing out the part where Poppet goes walkabout, all the while desperately trying to put on my other shoe.
'So you see, I'm sure she didn't mean to steal it. Or take it. Or … or … however you want to put it.' I don't really want to accuse his nearest and dearest of being a thief – I'm not quite sure how Simon will react.
'She does have a habit of taking things,' he says slowly.
I blink nervously. 'What do you mean, a habit? Like a, er, kleptomania habit?'
'Well, if you want to get technical about it. We just go and pick up our stuff from her room once a month.'
'She's a kleptomaniac?'
'Izzy, all families have their idiosyncrasies.'
'That's an idiosyncrasy? Actually, now I think about it, I'm missing my white bra.'
'Are you?' He blinks quickly.
'Anyway, don't you think you should have warned me about this?' I jab out quickly, to get off the subject of the bra.
Simon looks surprised. 'I had forgotten about it. It's kind of second nature to us here. In fact, I thought all aged aunts were the same.'
'Not my Aunt Winnie!'
'Well, she's not really your run-of-the-mill aunt, is she?'
'She's never nicked anything.'
'Oh I wouldn't say that. She's stolen three rooms' worth of antiques.'
'She did not steal them, she borrowed them to save your precious neck!'
He raises his eyebrows at this. 'And yours.'
I nearly laugh out loud. Somehow this little exchange has gotten off track. I swiftly re-direct it by saying, 'I'm not going to start splitting hairs with you on the subject of aunts. What are we going to do about the urn?'
'Oh yes, the urn.'
'Where are the guests?' I ask.
'In the gardens. Having a wander about before dinner. Some of them might have gone to get changed already.'
'So Mr Berryman might have already noticed it's gone.'
'But he might not have.'
'This is not going to look good, is it? A treasured item missing from his room.'
'No, I think we can safely say it is not going to look good.'
'He might want to call the police or something; the urn looks quite valuable.'
'That would certainly put a dampener on the takeover.' Dom arrives in the room with a screech. 'We're just going to have to put it back.'
'Right! What if he's missed it already?'
'Well, Aunt Flo took it out of the wooden box, which is presumably still there, so unless he's checked the box he'll be none the wiser. Besides, I think if he'd noticed it was missing he would have said something by now. If he catches you putting it back we can just say it was taken away accidentally … for cleaning.' Out of the thirty-odd words he has just uttered one in particular catches my attention.