Chapter Five #4
“Lord Alistair Shilling,” he says, interrupting, and straightening his shoulders as he introduces himself.
My night-owl internet research is proving useful; I unearthed a family tree for the Shilling clan last night that is now printed and tacked to the white board in the office.
From what I can remember, Alistair Shilling was the last lord to live at Maplemead before it was sold outside the family, not counting Barty Letterman.
“I can’t tell you how interesting it is to be able to talk to a breather,” Eleanor says.
“Yes, I can imagine it must be tricky, just the two of you…” I murmur, nodding sympathetically as I let my words trail off.
“Oh, there isn’t just us,” she says hurriedly. “You’ll no doubt meet my niece soon enough.”
“You mean Britannia?”
A wistful smile touches Eleanor’s lips at the mention of Britannia’s name. “We didn’t even know she was still here with us for all of those years after she…well, after it happened.”
I’m on red alert now, almost holding my breath because the sound of it seems incongruously loud in the quiet library. Come on, Lady Eleanor, I think, using the silence tactic to urge her to keep speaking and tell me something useful.
Her fingers worry the edge of her sleeve in a nervous way, but just as she seems about to speak, Lord Shilling coughs and shakes his head, a tiny but noticeable signal not to spill any family secrets.
Perturbed, I change tack.
“She’s very striking,” I say admiringly.
“Like her mother,” Eleanor murmurs.
I wonder whether she means her own sister or Lord Shilling’s, and I’m about to ask when both Lord and Lady Shilling’s attention is snagged by something behind me. I turn and find Marina in the doorway.
“Just checking that you haven’t been eaten by the lion,” she says, taking in the way I’m sitting at the table and no doubt realizing I’m not alone. “Glad to see you still have all of your limbs.” She hesitates and then wanders away again.
Lord Shilling pointedly picks up his playing cards, and after a pause, Lady Eleanor does the same.
“Bad show about that ace,” he mutters at me, a clear signal that we’re done here as he tosses down a card.
“Come and visit us again if you’d like to,” Eleanor whispers as I stand up, and I shoot her a tiny smile and leave them to their game.
I’m surprised to see Lois and Artie playing chess at a table in the main hall or, rather, Artie appears to be instructing Lois in the basics of the game.
He looks up and beams at me when he realizes that I’m there and his expression is pure joy.
I don’t know if he’s teaching Lois to play chess as part of his prong-three attack or if it’s just a lucky break, but I don’t think the creepy twins could have brought that to the table.
Speaking of Nikki and Vikki, they’re clustered around Barty and Marina by the fireplace.
It’s double unfortunate for them that Marina knows quite a lot about art and she’s leading a lively discussion about the work of the artist who painted the portrait that hangs over the fireplace.
Go, prong two, go. Leo has flopped down in an armchair, feigning interest while trying to do his hair in his reflection in the glass china cabinet beside his chair.
“Melody,” Lois calls, raising her glass, any lingering reticence toward me washed away by the gin in her tonic and Artie’s easy companionship. Her call alerts the others to my arrival too, and they drift away from the fireplace.
“Y’all know each other pretty well, right?
” Lois looks inquiringly from me to Leo, her eyes sparkling.
I give the slightest of nods and Leo shrugs, neither of us willing to commit.
“Only I’ve been thinking how much better it’d be to have y’all work on these ghosts together, you know?
Two heads are better than one, many hands make light work, and all that. ”
Not when those heads and hands belong to Leo and me, I think darkly.
“There’s really no need,” I say. “It’s sort of duplicating work.”
“And cost,” Leo throws in, clearly as horrified as I am by the idea of us working together.
Lois lets out a tinkly laugh and bats the air.
“Hang the expense. You guys are all such a hoot, we insist. Don’t we, Barty, honey?
” She looks over at her husband and catches him gazing longingly down Marina’s blouse.
I don’t think he even heard what his wife said.
He looks caught out, like a naughty schoolboy, and as a result, he booms, “Absolutely, darlin’!
” in a robust way that brooks no argument.
I know what Lois is thinking. She wants the best of both worlds.
That spot on TV is too alluring to pass up, but I suspect she’s realized that we’re the better bet when it comes to actually getting the job done.
Lois Letterman is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it kind of woman and right now she wants the entire Key lime pie, or whatever the equivalent is in Oklahoma.
I make a mental note to ask Lois about this another time, because someone who can educate me on new things about cake is a good thing, especially American cake, which has to be the top of the cake tree in anyone’s book.
Some people want to visit the States for Disneyland, some yearn to see New England in the fall.
My overriding interest would be the USA Dessert Trail.
Florida for its Key lime pie, New York for its cheesecake, Georgia for its oozy warm peach cobbler.
Every state has something fabulous to offer on the dessert front, and I’m more than ready to be the woman who taste tests them all and picks an overall winner.
Nikki and Vikki look from Leo to me as if they’re watching tennis, while Lois bolts across to the corner of the room, picks up a mallet, and whacks it against a huge brass gong on a stand near the wall.
The sound is sudden and deafening, and Lois staggers backward with the weight of the mallet still in her hands.
The creepy twins cower with their hands over their ears as if a jumbo jet is passing over their heads, and Artie looks dazed as Hells Bells, the young kitchen assistant, appears in the doorway.
“You rang, m’lady?” she says breathlessly, wiping her hands on her apron.
Lois taps the glass face of her watch. “Forty-six seconds,” she says, and the look of consternation on Hells Bells’s face tells me forty-six is not a good number.
Lois looks at me, faux-pained. “We’re aiming for under thirty seconds.
It’s a work in progress.” Her tone suggests smug and she flicks her eyes in a “you just can’t get the staff” way that pisses me right off.
I’d like to see her make it from the kitchen to the reception hall in less than a minute; this place is huge.
She’s clearly watched far too much Downton Abbey and this upstairs-downstairs gig has gone right to her head.
“Champagne all around, please, Belinda. We’re celebrating.”
Hells Bells smiles politely and starts to back out of the room. “Very good.”
Lois stares at her and rolls her hand in the air, clearly waiting to hear more.
“Very good, m’lady.” Hells Bells fidgets with the lace collar of her dress and flicks a momentary glance at Artie before she darts from the room.
“I’m afraid we can’t stay for celebrations; we’ve got another appointment in half an hour,” I say quickly, glancing at my watch-free wrist and nodding so hard that Marina and Artie start doing it too even though they know perfectly well I’m lying.
The last thing I feel like doing is celebrating the prospect of working with Leo.
“But you’ll be back in the morning, right?” Lois’s eyebrows knit together and her forehead lines up like a musical score. “This needs doing pretty darn fast, because trust me, once the film crew rolls into town, this place really will be a circus.”
“Not to mention the small fact that their precious star is refusing, point-blank, to even get on a plane unless it’s certified spook-free,” Barty says. “And if she won’t come, then the whole project is up the wazoola, along with our reputation and our business plans, most likely.”
Nothing like a good dose of emotional blackmail. My shoulders slump; these two sure know how to get what they want.
Leo looks like I feel, like a petulant child backed into a corner. Marina sighs because she knows what needs to be said and that neither Leo nor I can bring ourselves to utter it. Fixing her features into a toothpaste ad smile, she reaches out and shakes Lois firmly by the hand.
“We’ll all be here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, one big, happy ghost-busting family. You can count on us.”
Lois’s brow smooths out instantly and she sees us chirpily out onto the portico.
We smile and wave, and the second we’re over the drawbridge and back into reality, I thump my forehead against the skinny black steering wheel.
“One big happy family?” I groan.
Marina fastens the button on her blouse and starts to laugh. “Yeah. Like the Mansons.”