The Widow's Club (25 page)

Mrs. Hanover, I do trust you are not having second thoughts after all the time and energy expended in training you for—

Mrs.
H.:

Heavens, no! Not for the world. One is so thrilled, for the minute one couldn’t speak.

President:

Then I will report your concurrence to the board and ring you again this evening with the details.

Mrs. H.:

Such an honour! Words … words quite fail one.

 … Primrose gasped. “A young woman, partially clothed, entering the premises of a single gentleman of unsteady reputation! May we hope, dear Ellie, that Mr. Digby did nothing to make you blush!” …

“The last time I admitted an unknown woman reeking pathos to this house, she pocketed a silver table lighter.”

The great Edwin Digby might have walked straight from the pages of his own genre: goatee beard, natty daffodil-hued waistcoat, grey hair crinkling back from a lofty forehead, rheumy eyes under brows which twirled at the ends to tilt sinisterly upward. We were seated in his study, a red velour room crammed with Victoriana and dominated by a massive desk on which sat a cast-iron typewriter and a turbulence of papers, a hint that Mary Birdsong also dwelt here.

“I do not smoke.” I spoke with credible aplomb, considering I was dressed like a film extra from
Gandhi
. Mr. Digby’s eyes travelled from my towel turban to the three-piece suit I had taken (per his instructions) from the wardrobe in his bedroom.

I looked down at my boots, wishing they weren’t six sizes too big. Fleeing through the snow in these would be no joke. “Thank you for the loan of dry clothes, I—”

My host sank deeper into his leather chair. “Mrs. Haskell, pray do not use the borrowed apparel as an excuse to pursue an acquaintance which we would both find tedious.

Should your husband not wish to add the suit to his wardrobe, your woman will know of some indigent worthy.” The lizard lids narrowed. “I trust you reached this Mrs. Malloy on the telephone?”

I inclined my top-heavy head an inch. Detestable Mr. Digby. He stroked the goatee with a bony finger. “And she will not tarry in bringing your key?”

I pushed up my sleeves, then yanked them back down. He hadn’t so much as offered me a cup of tea. “She swore on the telephone directory, Mr. Digby, that she would haste herself to the bus stop and commit hijacking if necessary to get here.”

The fingers stopped moving.

“You are fortunate, Mrs. Haskell, in having so devoted a servant.”

“No.” I looked him smack in the eye. “Mary Birdsong is fortunate in having so devoted a fan.”

Mr. Digby grimaced, which did nothing to make him more appealing. “You err in your attempted flattery, madam. Nothing could be more abhorrent to me than some female churl, autograph album clutched to her overripe bosom, bleating a path to my door. Be warned—the instant she arrives, out you both go into the snow.” He withdrew his gaze to the frosted window.

“I understand, sir, you have not written a book in years. Aren’t you glad that some of your fans are still alive?”

The eyebrows vee’d sharply upward; Mr. Digby crossed his legs at the ankle, showing yellow socks to match the waistcoat. “Mrs. Haskell, I have been misled by the yokels at The Dark Horse, that home away from home wherein I quaff away the nights.” Easing out of his chair, he paced, somewhat unsteadily, to a cluttered buffet and unstoppered a decanter. “Will you join me in a glass of Madeira?”

“Tea would be rather welcome, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Far too much trouble.”

I punched down my turban. “How were you misled, Mr. Digby, about me?”

He replaced the stopper in the decanter. “Into supposing that in comparison to your rent-a-date spouse you are a creature of dolorous decorum.”

So! Word was out that Ben and I had met through
Eligibility Escorts. Any one of my relations could have ferreted out the truth and spread their X-rated version. Or had Ben spilled the beans to Freddy? Never mind. Our love story may have started out as a commercial venture, but it had matured into passion, tenderness, and truth, if you delete a few moments here and there.

“Bentley was employed by a highly respectable service. I am not ashamed of how we met.”

Mr. Digby’s eyebrows twitched. “Assuredly your meeting was worth every penny it cost you.” He downed the Madeira while I delved deep for something vicious to say in response, but he was quicker off the mark.

“I hear the transvestite who threw himself upon your bridal altar has, in essence, moved in with you.”

Would Roxie never get here with that key! “My cousin Frederick is an estimable young man with an exuberant sense of humour, which I adore. He is of invaluable assistance to my husband.”

“Relieving you of certain duties, no doubt.” Mr. Digby swigged his second Madeira and poured another. “Does rumour lie or is your husband about to foist a new restaurant upon this community? One which specialises in unpronounceable food at unaffordable prices.” He watched me nastily over the rim of his glass.

He circled the buffet, twirling the glass slowly between the fingers of both hands. “Your husband, in addition to his other peccadilloes, appears to be a man of industry. I hear he has recently authored a cookery book, laced with herbal nostalgia. One would have thought the world already harbors sufficient recipes for tomato soup, but I surmise that you, in your blind, wifely devotion, believe Mr. Haskell is now in my league?”

“Not at all.” Flexing my lips into a smile, I stood. “Ben makes no claim to be a literary genius, and he is certainly not in competition with you. His professional reputation depends on nobody dying.”

Again the eyebrows twitched. “You did assure me, Mrs. Haskell, when I admitted you over my threshold, that unlike your Mrs. Malloy, you are not a besotted fan.”

What a childish manoeuvring for praise! Unwrapping the turban, I rumpled my soggy hair down about my shoulders, sat down, and plumped my cushion. A dazzle of sunlight broke through the curtained windows. The decanters
on the buffet glowed red, gold, and bronze. “I know you don’t care one way or the other, Mr. Digby, but I have read two of your books.”

He thumbed the wineglass. “Which ones?”

“At the risk of offending you, Mr. Digby, I have to say that I found both extremely …”

The glass came to a standstill.

“… extremely enjoyable.”

“Trite of you, Mrs. Haskell.”

“Thank you. That last scene in
The Butler Didn’t Do It
almost did me in. I came out in goosebumps the size of gnat bites. Do you know that right up until Hubert Humbledee swung down from that chandelier, I was certain the bishop’s niece was the one embalming the bodies in the attic?”

Mr. Digby set his glass down on the nest of tables beside his chair and closed his eyes. “
The Butler
was one of my better efforts, not up to the standard of”—he paused—“some of the others, but I was fairly well pleased.”

I felt a pang of pity for him, goodness knows why. “My husband and I are staging a premiere performance on Friday in honour of the opening of Abigail’s. Would you come?”

Mr. Digby opened his eyes. “I have told you, madam, I go nowhere except The Dark Horse.” He intercepted my glance at the decanter. “You wonder, Mrs. Haskell, why, being such an assiduous hermit, I do not drink here in privacy of an evening. The answer is regrettably prosaic. I am a man haunted by demons. And at night this house spills forth an ambience of gas-light horror.”

I could believe it. There was a desolation to this room, buried under the red plush, which could not entirely be blamed on my damp clothes.

“Perhaps if you were to redecorate?” I suggested brightly. “Danish modern tends to have a dispiriting effect on ghosts.”

His smile was bleak. “Mine are made of sterner stuff.”

I persisted. “The ghosts who prowl the night, are they of any great local interest?”

Mr. Digby brushed a slightly tremulous hand down his yellow waistcoat front and headed back to the decanter. “Of possible interest to you, Mrs. Haskell.”

I had the feeling the subject had been subtly changed. He handed me a glass. “Rumour, borne upon the fumes of slopped bitters at The Dark Horse, Mrs. Haskell, credits the gentleman who built your house with misconducting himself, while in his late seventies, with the two elderly spinsters who inhabited this very house in the latter part of the nineteenth century.”

“Good heavens!” I slopped my Madeira. “That would be my forebear, Wilfred Grantham. His building a house like Merlin’s Court does rather suggest that he dwelt within the enchanted forest of the mind.” I held my glass steady with both hands. “Did you say he was having a fling with
both
these women?”

The beard creased into a mocking smile. “Spare your blushes, Mrs. Haskell. Unless legend lies, your antecedent did not indulge in orgies. On Monday nights Miss Lavinia was favoured. On Thursdays Miss Lucretia got her turn. And neither sister ever knew about the other.”

“Remarkable.” I rolled up my trouser legs, walked over to the buffet, and refilled my glass. “How—even under the cloak of night—did great-grandfather Grantham enter this house and the allotted bedroom undetected?”

“Ah, Mrs. Haskell”—my host reached behind him and tapped upon the panelled wall, his face reflective—“that
is
a mystery.”

“Did the sisters ever find him out?”

I thought that he would never answer, but finally he spoke. “You will be pleased to learn, Mrs. Haskell, that I have talked myself out of any growing enthusiasm for you.”

I pushed back some typing paper hanging over the edge of the overloaded desk. “Does this mean you won’t be coming to the party on Friday?”

To my surprise he countered with a question. “Who attends this free-food binge? The ex-chorus girl and the silver-haired, silver-tongued lawyer. The arctic antique dealer and the wife who dreams of being a nightclub singer. And what of the estate agent who refuses to die and his froggy-faced wife? And, yes, the Reverend Mr. Foxglove!”

“Foxworth.”

The liverish lips curled. “I understand, Mrs. Haskell, that a sigh of disappointment swept the county when it was learned you were to wed another.” I could feel him
savouring my intake of breath. “But I imagine the church organist didn’t make herself ill crying.”

“Miss Thorn is a
very
nice woman.”

“Ah!
Nice:
the ultimate disparagement from one female to another.” Mr. Digby fingered the red velvet curtain. “Speaking of spinsters, will Lady Theodora Peerless adorn your little gathering?”

“I hope so.”

“It seems you will be extremely crowded.” He let the curtain fall. “Hence, I am not interested.”

I looked through the window. The snow edging the glass was like ermine against the red velvet. Five bird feeders dotted the swath of white lawn. “The Aviary is the right name for this house.”

“Originally it was called Rocky Meade. Sort of name Lavinia or Lucretia would pick.”

“Have you lived here long?”

Mr. Digby was back at the buffet. “Five years.”

“Why did you come here?”

“A foolish nostalgia. As a boy I was fond of the place; my family spent several summers here.”

He was driving me into nosiness. “Do you have any family now, Mr. Digby?”

“A daughter … Wren, aged twenty-seven.” Was the tremor of his hands more pronounced? “And to alleviate the necessity of your having to ask where she is, I will tell you—off living with some man who has nothing to recommend him. The old story of the new generation.”

I restrained myself from scanning the room for photographs. To ask what had become of Mrs. Digby struck even me as unconscionably rude.

A sound somewhere outside the room made me forget all else save the hope that Roxie was at the front door. Mr. Digby half-turned.

“That must have been my … my gardener, Mrs. Haskell, come in to make himself a cup of tea. He’s nothing to rave about, but whatever my other sins, I am not a putterer.” He was puttering now, toward the door. “I understand your own gardener has deserted, Mrs. Haskell.”

“Only temporarily. Ben and I have raked the leaves around a bit, but we are going to need someone to bridge the gap. Is this man who works for you fully booked?”

“I doubt it. Whatsit is new in the area and you well
know, Mrs. Haskell, how long the natives take to accept anyone whose antecedents don’t date back at least to the days of smugglers in the bay. As for his capabilities, I can attest that he is reliable. He turns up even on days such as this when all he can do is pick up his wages. Your Mrs. Malloy could learn a thing or two from him, but since you continue to be here, perhaps you would like to meet Mother?”

“I would be delighted.”

As the door closed on him, a weighty hush settled on the room. Then I heard voices. Distance made Mr. Digby sound unduly caustic, and the gardener effeminate. My eyes nipped from the desk to the door and back again. A piece of thin yellow paper protruded from the typewriter. Straightening the towel around my shoulders, I rehitched my trousers and tiptoed forward. Just one quick peek to see what Mary Birdsong had in store for her patient readers. Technically it wouldn’t be snooping if I kept my hands behind my back.
Chin up, my dear. You did nothing wrong in borrowing your best friend’s earrings. Losing the pawn ticket was the only naughty part
.