The Importance of Being Ernestine

Seven

I awoke to find another question staring me in the face: What about Ernest, the under gardener who fathered Flossie Jones’s baby girl? There had been no mention of him when Lady Krumley talked about Flossie living out her last days in a miserable bed-sitter. Was he a rotter who had bunked off rather than face up to his responsibilities? Or had Flossie shut him out of her life? Did he even know that the baby had been put up for adoption?

A moment later I lost interest in these speculations. Ben was not in bed beside me. A distant bonging of the grandfather clock let me know that it was 8:00 and that I had overslept by an hour. There was no reason for me to panic. He would be downstairs giving the children their breakfast after getting them up and dressed. We usually did this together and had become quite good at speeding things along without making anyone feel rushed. But if I didn’t wake with the alarm clock, he would let me sleep on before bringing me up a cup of tea. Usually on those days he would take Abbey and Tam to school and Rose to her playgroup. Even so, as I dragged on my dressing gown and headed barefoot for the stairs, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling abandoned. I had dozed off in the drawing room the previous night while still talking to Freddy. He was gone when I came drowsily back to my surroundings at 3:00 in the morning. And Ben was in bed and asleep when I climbed under the covers. The sensible thing would be to take him at his word that he had forgiven me, but I couldn’t. The mad idea crossed my mind that if I looked in the study I would find a note propped up on the mantelpiece, saying that he had gone away for a while because he needed time to think, the classic words to end a doomed relationship. I reminded myself, even as I pushed open the door, that Ben loved me, that our marriage was solid and he would never abandon his children, especially over something so trivial. The study was exactly as it had been when I showed it to him last night, except for a cold cup of tea sitting beside the computer. Really, I did need to get a grip on myself. But to be fair a lot of women might go to pieces after having a gun pointed at them, real or not. Shaking my head so that my hair, which I hadn’t combed, tumbled out of its pins, I entered the kitchen, which didn’t look as inviting as usual.

On chill, gray mornings such as this it helped to have a small blaze going in the red brick fireplace, but Ben hadn’t got one started. Nor was he there. Freddy was the one wandering around the table urging the children to eat up their cereal.

“I want porridge,” Tam had his elbows on the green and white check cloth and was blowing bubbles in his juice glass.

“Daddy always makes us porridge,” Abbey contributed wistfully.

“Love Daddy.” Rose dropped her spoon in her cornflakes and giggled with delight when milk splashed everywhere. Tobias sat happily licking his whiskers while Freddy appeared ready to tear his out. Indeed his beard already looked extra mangy.

“We all love Daddy,” I said, stepping up to the table, “but it seems we’ve got to manage without him this morning.”

“Mummy! Mummy!” squealed Rose.

“Your hair is so pretty.” Abbey reached up to stroke it. “Will I have to be all grown up before mine gets long down my back?”

“Can I have a boiled egg?” Tam asked.“With the army?”

“He means he wants his bread and butter cut up into soldiers,” I explained to Freddy while getting down a saucepan from the hanging rack above the Aga. “Where is Ben?”

“Gone down to Abigail’s. He said that if he stayed here he’d waste the whole morning at the computer. Obviously, he would have waited until you got up if I hadn’t done my cousinly duty in showing up to forage through the fridge. I’ve nothing in mine except a bottle of tomato sauce.”

“There are such places as supermarkets,” I replied, popping eggs into the boiling water.

“I’ve heard they charge money”-Freddy stood eating cereal out of the box-“and I don’t think that sort of thing should be encouraged. Call me an idealist, but someone has to make a stand.” He elbowed past me to munch on the slice of bread I had buttered for Tam.

“I suppose it’s a matter of principle with your mother,” I said before I could stop myself. “Enjoying getting things for free, I mean.”

“You mean pinching stuff?”

“It was wrong of me to bring it up.”

“A girl at school pinched me,” Abbey’s mouth trembled.

“She’ll go to hell for that.” Tam was gobbling up his egg, and Rose was looking around for hers. Abbey did not eat eggs. She said they gave her indigestion just like they did Mrs. Malloy. All three children were devoted to Mrs. Malloy, cheerfully believing that she had magic potions in her bag and flew around on the Hoover when they were in school to speed up the cleaning.

“Your mother’s a dear,” I said, handing Freddy a cup of tea. “And we all have our little foibles. I know you worry about her, but look on the bright side. She doesn’t smoke or drink…”

“People that smoke go to hell.” Tam licked egg off his face.

“Who told you that?”

“A boy in my class. His father says he hopes they all fry. Like a pan of chips. And choke on the smoke.”

“Did you ever smoke, Mummy?” Abbey clutched my hand in blue-eyed terror.

Freddy saved me from answering. “Some ghoul, that father! Puts the point across that there are worse things in life than dear old Mum’s little problem. Although I’ve got to admit, coz, that I do occasionally worry that it’ll all catch up with her, and she’ll end up in the clink.” He sighed heavily. “The thought of Dad cooking Christmas dinner for the next thirty years is not a happy one. I’ll be lucky to get a poached egg. He was fixing himself one last night when I phoned. And was in a very nasty temper about it. You’d have thought Mum had left him to fight the Battle of Waterloo all on his little lonesome.”

“Where was she?” I was gathering up plates and putting them in the sink.

“Down at some pub.”

“She’s entitled to a little outing.”

“Dad said she’d been there for three days.”

“That’s odd, considering as I was just saying that she doesn’t drink.” I spoke lightly, hoping Freddy wouldn’t see that I was worried. I was fond of Aunt Lulu and couldn’t believe Uncle Maurice hadn’t got off his rump to go and look for her. She could have taken a knock on the head during a brawl and be wandering the London streets senseless or gone off with the Guinness deliveryman. Or something worse, too terrible to contemplate, might have happened. “What exactly did your father say, Freddy?”

“Not much. He was in a state trying to get the poached egg out of the saucepan. To hear him shouting, you’d have thought it was a fish that kept leaping back into the water. I told him to calm down, and he said that if I couldn’t stop making silly suggestions I could hang up. The thing is, Mum doesn’t know how to cook, but she knows how to send out for a curry. So I imagine he was taking her absence harder than he was prepared to admit. All I got out of him was the name of the pub.”

“And what was it?” I was wiping Rose’s face and hands.

“That’s just it!” Freddy thumped his forehead with a fist, sending his skull-and-crossbones earring into a wild spiral. “I can’t remember. For some reason I keep thinking Long-fellows… but that’s not it.”

“Phone again and ask your father.”

“I did this morning, risking getting an earful about my lack of fiscal responsibility-two of his favorite words-in making back-to-back calls. But there was no answer.”

“Try his office.”

“He told me he was taking a few days off to get his shirts washed and ironed. Mum always pinches a couple of new ones for him each week. So it’s understandable that he’s at sixes and sevens without her.”

“I expect she got tired of spoiling him and has gone somewhere to relax.” It was a logical explanation, and I reminded myself that Aunt Lulu had proved well able to take care of herself in the past.

“Mummy we’re going to be late for school.” Tam eyed me sternly.

“Oh, my goodness!” I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece above the kitchen fireplace. “So you are! And I’m not even dressed. But I promise you no one goes to hell for arriving two minutes after the bell rings.”

“I’ll take them if you’ll let me use your car,” offered Freddy, whose only vehicle was a motorbike.

“Are you sure you don’t mind, with this business…”

“Of the missing Mum?” He grinned at me. “She’ll turn up. Come to think of it this isn’t the first time she’s done a bunk. A spirited lass, my mother. Dad isn’t easy to live with. Remember how I was forced to run away when he stopped my pocket money after finding me playing ‘doctor’ with that girl next door?”

“Freddy you were twenty five at the time. And she was married.”

“Picky! Picky! Come on gang!” He marshaled the children toward the alcove, where their coats and schoolbags hung, and had them out the door before I had completed my second round of hugs. “Back in half an hour, Ellie.”

Usually I enjoyed a little time on my own, but the house seemed too quiet after they had gone. Almost as though it had taken Ben’s side and was giving me the silent treatment. Tobias, who usually came slinking out of hiding when it was just the two of us, was conspicuous by his absence. Even the twin suits of armor appeared to avoid my gaze as I headed for the stairs. Telling myself that I had to snap out of this silly mood, I took a quick hot shower, washed my hair and after blowing it dry got dressed in a pair of brown corduroy slacks and an olive green sweater. There, that was better! Rather than waste time pinning my hair into a chignon I tied it back with a rubber band. A dash of lipstick, a brush of mascara, and I would be ready to march down to the vicarage and beard Kathleen Ambleforth in her den.

Freddy wasn’t back with the car when I left the house, but I didn’t mind walking even though it was pouring down rain. My umbrella sprang a leak before I reached the end of our drive. All to the good. It couldn’t hurt my cause to arrive looking pathetically drenched. Kathleen, I reminded myself as I rang the bell, had a kind heart under her forthright manner. She took a few moments to answer the door and usher me into the dark hall, crammed with enough cupboards, chests and sideboards to hide a dozen members of the clergy escaping persecution in foreign parts. Donations to her charity drive, I concluded. But although I peered into every corner I couldn’t spot any of the items from Ben’s study. Hope leaped in my damp breast. Perhaps Kathleen had decided they weren’t worthy of being delivered even to the most needy, and they were already on their way back to Merlin’s Court with a sensitive little note of apology.

“Sorry to barge in without phoning first,” I said, as she took my umbrella and shook it out the door before propping it up against a chair with three legs.

“Don’t give it a thought, dear. You know I’m always glad to see you, even when I’m just walking out the door.”

“Oh, are you?” It was a stupid thing to say given the fact that she was wearing a rain hat in addition to her coat and a long wooly scarf. But Kathleen had a way of rattling me. She was an imposing figure of a woman, with a commanding voice and brown eyes that missed very little. Freddy said she scared him most when she was being jolly, but I would have been thrilled at that moment to see a glimmer of a smile. “I promise not to keep you more than a few moments.” My voice came out in a pitiful stammer. “It’s just that I’ve got this little problem.”

At that her eyes did light up. Kathleen thrived on setting people’s lives to rights. All she asked was that they take her advice to the letter and not waste her time dithering on about what someone else had to say on the subject.

“You’d better come into the sitting room.” She maneuvered her way toward a door to our right, and I skinned both legs climbing over a chest of drawers in her wake.

“I hate to delay you.”

“First things first, I always say, Ellie.” She waved me toward an elderly sofa with a couple of cushions that looked as though a six-year-old child might have embroidered them. It was a shabby room with oatmeal-colored wallpaper and faded red curtains. Books and magazines were scattered over almost every surface, an old cardigan and a floral apron were tossed over the back of a chair and the mirror above the fireplace needed resilvering. Kathleen wasn’t the house-proud sort. She didn’t have the time, or the interest. I shifted my feet, so as not to knock over a cup and saucer that had been left on the floor, and sat back and admired the cozy muddle. I couldn’t have lived with it, but I envied Kathleen’s ability to do so.

She sat opposite me in a chair with mismatched arm covers. “No call to worry, Ellie, I’ll explain to the parishioner I’m to visit that I was unavoidably delayed.”

“That is kind.”

“Now tell me about this problem.”

Before I could do so, the Reverend Dudley Ambleforth wandered into the room by way of the French doors that opened onto the back garden. The white hair that normally stuck up around his head like a dandelion clock was flattened to his head by the rain. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, let alone a coat-just a thin gray cardigan. Impervious to his drenched state he had his nose in a book-probably one he had written himself of the life of the venerable St. Ethelwort, founder of a monastery whose ruins were located a few miles along the coast. The vicar was his own favorite author, which was a good thing because most people had trouble wading through even one of the thirteen volumes he had produced on his beloved subject.

“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.