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Authors: Dorothy Cannell
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to drive home or at least find a place to spend the night.”
“Out of the question.” Tommy was back to his beaming schoolboy self. “Aubrey will insist you stay here. If I know him, he will already be seeing that a room is prepared for you—preferably one that isn’t layered in dust; although I could prescribe a mask.” Radiating cheerful self-approval at this clever solution to what might or might not be a problem, he gathered up the bag and, saying that he would inform Aubrey and my friend of the situation, trotted from the room.
“Sweetheart,” Ben got off the sofa to pace, “I don’t put much faith in our Dr. Rowley.”
“That was blatantly apparent. You must have hurt his feelings horribly.”
“How do we know he’s even a doctor? Mad as hatters, everyone in this house! Not a normal person among them!”
“Lord Belfrey . . .!” I protested.
“Him!” My adored spouse presented a nasty sneer. “The worst of the lot. Stalking around doing his impersonation of Cary Grant!”
“He can’t help it if he’s the spitting image. Besides,” sidling my legs off the sofa the better to face him, “normal is highly overrated. My parents certainly thought so. To their way of thinking, normal was the real weird!”
“Sweetheart,” Ben just missed colliding with a marble Aphrodite on a pedestal and a six-foot urn containing a dead shrub, “don’t get worked up. You’ll make your headache worse.”
“And you shouldn’t be ungrateful. You should be down on your knees in gratitude to Lord Belfrey for providing a port in a storm.” This was nonsense. We rarely quarreled. But for some reason I couldn’t put a lid on it. “I hope you enjoy the satisfaction of saying I told you so if Dr. Rowley’s diagnosis proves wrong and I wake up in the middle of the night to find myself in a coma!”
“Is she always this much of a histrionic nutcase?” demanded a querulous male voice.
Ben and I froze in place, but Aphrodite jumped or . . . did a wobble on her pedestal. Gliding his circuitous way from the opposite end of the mile-long room was a man in a wheelchair. He was cloaked in shadow, as the cliché goes, which to my bewildered mind made him appear the more ominously substantial. He cleared the edges of the table bearing the tea tray and rolled to a silkily soft halt a few yards from the sofa. An enormously stout man, with a bloated bloodhound face, and sparse, greasy black hair combed over a high, bald dome. His eyes bored into mine, conveying a distaste that flattened my back to the sofa. Only by biting down on my lip did I prevent myself from quiveringlyinquiring what right he had to call me histrionic. Then he smiled, a jovial smile that seemed instantly part and parcel of his brown and yellow checked waistcoat and voluminous cravat.
“I was teasing, my dear. Only teasing! I adore a spirited woman. You are a lucky man, sir,” he swiveled around to look up at Ben, “what zest she must put into your life and so captivating in her looks. I have always been an admirer of the subtle beauty of the woodland nymph fleshed out to full womanly glory.”
“Ellie and Ben Haskell,” I said hastily. “Wherever did you spring from?”
He performed a half-swivel this time, waving a vastly plump hand as he did so. “Through an archway beyond the dark reaches of all these hellish medieval furnishings. What possesses people to accumulate the hideous? The British nobility and their excesses! Take the Empire, for one small example. Ah, but as someone, possibly myself, so pertinently phrased it—vulgarity on a vast enough scale achieves a certain grandeur. For myself, I prefer the Spartan elegance of midcentury modernism in my London and Paris pieds à terre. But each to his own, and Aubrey Belfrey is a decent enough chap, perhaps not to be blamed for the sins of his forebears. One has to be broad-minded.”
“My wife is an interior designer.” Ben offered this tidbit warily.
“We don’t have your
“Out of the question.” Tommy was back to his beaming schoolboy self. “Aubrey will insist you stay here. If I know him, he will already be seeing that a room is prepared for you—preferably one that isn’t layered in dust; although I could prescribe a mask.” Radiating cheerful self-approval at this clever solution to what might or might not be a problem, he gathered up the bag and, saying that he would inform Aubrey and my friend of the situation, trotted from the room.
“Sweetheart,” Ben got off the sofa to pace, “I don’t put much faith in our Dr. Rowley.”
“That was blatantly apparent. You must have hurt his feelings horribly.”
“How do we know he’s even a doctor? Mad as hatters, everyone in this house! Not a normal person among them!”
“Lord Belfrey . . .!” I protested.
“Him!” My adored spouse presented a nasty sneer. “The worst of the lot. Stalking around doing his impersonation of Cary Grant!”
“He can’t help it if he’s the spitting image. Besides,” sidling my legs off the sofa the better to face him, “normal is highly overrated. My parents certainly thought so. To their way of thinking, normal was the real weird!”
“Sweetheart,” Ben just missed colliding with a marble Aphrodite on a pedestal and a six-foot urn containing a dead shrub, “don’t get worked up. You’ll make your headache worse.”
“And you shouldn’t be ungrateful. You should be down on your knees in gratitude to Lord Belfrey for providing a port in a storm.” This was nonsense. We rarely quarreled. But for some reason I couldn’t put a lid on it. “I hope you enjoy the satisfaction of saying I told you so if Dr. Rowley’s diagnosis proves wrong and I wake up in the middle of the night to find myself in a coma!”
“Is she always this much of a histrionic nutcase?” demanded a querulous male voice.
Ben and I froze in place, but Aphrodite jumped or . . . did a wobble on her pedestal. Gliding his circuitous way from the opposite end of the mile-long room was a man in a wheelchair. He was cloaked in shadow, as the cliché goes, which to my bewildered mind made him appear the more ominously substantial. He cleared the edges of the table bearing the tea tray and rolled to a silkily soft halt a few yards from the sofa. An enormously stout man, with a bloated bloodhound face, and sparse, greasy black hair combed over a high, bald dome. His eyes bored into mine, conveying a distaste that flattened my back to the sofa. Only by biting down on my lip did I prevent myself from quiveringlyinquiring what right he had to call me histrionic. Then he smiled, a jovial smile that seemed instantly part and parcel of his brown and yellow checked waistcoat and voluminous cravat.
“I was teasing, my dear. Only teasing! I adore a spirited woman. You are a lucky man, sir,” he swiveled around to look up at Ben, “what zest she must put into your life and so captivating in her looks. I have always been an admirer of the subtle beauty of the woodland nymph fleshed out to full womanly glory.”
“Ellie and Ben Haskell,” I said hastily. “Wherever did you spring from?”
He performed a half-swivel this time, waving a vastly plump hand as he did so. “Through an archway beyond the dark reaches of all these hellish medieval furnishings. What possesses people to accumulate the hideous? The British nobility and their excesses! Take the Empire, for one small example. Ah, but as someone, possibly myself, so pertinently phrased it—vulgarity on a vast enough scale achieves a certain grandeur. For myself, I prefer the Spartan elegance of midcentury modernism in my London and Paris pieds à terre. But each to his own, and Aubrey Belfrey is a decent enough chap, perhaps not to be blamed for the sins of his forebears. One has to be broad-minded.”
“My wife is an interior designer.” Ben offered this tidbit warily.
“We don’t have your
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