The Wrong Rite (31 page)

To everyone’s surprise, including her own, Iseult came around the table and kissed her ladyship with genuine affection. “Thank you, Sillie darling. I refuse to concede that Mary had a conscience, and I don’t mind her bitchiness a whit, provided I get to keep the money. Not to be crude, Madoc, but how much?”

“You’ll have to take that up with the Inland Revenue. According to Mary’s passbooks, she’d squirreled away more than a hundred thousand.”

“My God! Tom must have got skinned far worse than I, no wonder he was always dunning Lisa. And you think the will is valid?”

“Don’t ask me. It looked all right. If it came to a suit between you and Bob, I should say you’d have the stronger case.”

“Then let’s get him down here and watch him explode!”

“Not in my kitchen!” Betty, who’d been listening spellbound, made no move to refill the teapot. “Sir Caradoc, it is no dinner I will be cooking for you tonight unless I will be having my room to prepare it in, asking your pardon, sir. Megan, you will cease gaping like a fish and be shelling out the peas. Mrs. Madoc will be wanting you to sit with Dorothy at dinnertime, I doubt not. Is it some nice bread and milk she will be having for her supper, Mrs. Madoc, or would an egg sit better on her tiny stomach?”

“She had a big luncheon of chopped chicken and vegetables at Elen’s,” said the doting grandma. “Perhaps a little gruel, don’t you think, Jenny? With some stewed fruit perhaps? Could you manage that, Betty?”

“Is it my larder your ladyship has ever found wanting? Muesli, then, with apricot puree to strengthen her baby bones. Sir Caradoc, will I be fixing a tray for Mr. Bob Rhys, or will he be taking the five o’clock train now that we know it was not he who will have been blowing up his sister?”

Sir Caradoc, who’d said hardly a word through the long palaver, sat up straight and beamed like the setting sun. “That is an excellent question, Betty. I will go at once and tell Bob what has occurred, then Danny the Boots will drive him to the station. He can dine on the train and still be in time to address the Lesser Demons. Dai may go or stay as he pleases; we shall have to look into that matter of his father’s bequest. Tell Danny to hurry, no time must be lost. I will leave it for the lawyer to tell Bob about Mary’s will,” the old man added as he walked swiftly from the kitchen. “If he is to burst, let it be somewhere else.”

“Father is a great man,” said Huw, getting up to leave.

“And Reuel is a cad and a rotter.” Iseult was in high spirits now, quite understandably. “What did you do, Reuel, seduce the poor innocent maiden?”

“Not bloody likely! I was just trying to be civil, this being my first shot at a documentary script and a big step up, or so it seemed at the time. She mistook gentlemanly affability for grand passion and all hell was to pay. It’s not an experience I care to recall. Do we dress?”

“Of course,” said Lady Rhys in shocked surprise.

“Sorry, I just thought you might not care to celebrate, with a member of the family in the slammer on a murder rap.”

Lady Rhys had spent much of her life on the North American continent; she was able to unravel Williams’s verbiage and swift to correct his misapprehension. “Tom Feste is not a member of our family. His father married Lisa’s mother, it was a second marriage for both of them. Lisa herself is only tenuously connected to this branch of the Rhyses. While we all love her dearly, the closeness of the relationship is due more to proximity than to consanguinity. We shall not be celebrating tonight, merely dining.”

“Want to bet?” Janet murmured to Madoc.

“Dafydd and Lisa, you mean? Think it will work?”

“Oh yes. He’s really a family man at heart, Madoc. You were the same, you know. And Lisa likes husbands who go away and come back again. It’ll work, you wait and see.”

“If you say so, love. Are you going to wear that blue dress tonight?”

“I guess likely, if it’ll make you happy. Come on, Dorothy, time to get your bath. Bring her supper along when it’s ready, will you, Megan?”

Going upstairs, they passed Bob on the way down, followed by Danny the Boots with two giant suitcases, one Bob’s and one Mary’s. He bade them an affable farewell and went off babbling gaily of Mary’s great fortune that would come to him when the will was read.

“Old warthog,” Janet muttered. “I hope a lesser demon gets him.”

There was lots to talk about but they didn’t say much. Madoc took his bath while Dorothy was having hers, then Megan came along with the muesli, and Madoc had to dress in the bathroom so he wouldn’t embarrass her. Then Megan got to feed the baby as a special treat while Janet bathed; then Megan took the dish away while Janet nursed Dorothy and Madoc told them both a bedtime story; then Megan came back and Janet finished dressing, and by then it was time to go down to dinner. They were almost to the stairs when Janet grabbed Madoc’s arm.

“Look,” she whispered. “There it is!”

At the far end of the hall, a grayish mist was collecting. As they stood watching, it formed itself into a cowled shape. Madoc whispered, “Stay here,” and charged headlong. Joke or not, Janet felt panic rising in her throat as Madoc clutched at the apparition.

His hand came away empty. He flung open the heavy draperies, pawed among the folds. He stretched on tiptoe to grope for wires or strings. Janet was with him now, they both searched along the baseboard. They found nothing whatever, but they both felt the sharp chill in the air.

“So there it is, love,” said Madoc. “Just a plain old run-of-the-mill ghost.”

“My, my,” said Janet. “Won’t that be something to tell the folks back home. Come on, darling, we mustn’t keep Uncle Caradoc waiting.”

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copyright © 1992 by Charlotte MacLeod

cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4532-7741-6

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