Mum's the Word Read Free

Maurice, and the rest. When it comes to flowers, Jonas is second to none. His dahlias are the size of tea plates and he produces colours not yet invented. I tell myself (and sometimes him) that he is entitled to his quirks and crotchets. Well past seventy, to outsiders he is the gardener who has been a fixture since the late Mr. Merlin Grantham was a lad. To we who love him, he is someone else entirely.
    Ben shifted on the bed. The breakfast tray which he had set across my middle tipped and tilted like a ship in a storm. “Ellie, I am not talking about the electric bill or the towel rail which hates you. I am trying to talk about a letter sent to me from America.”
    My eyelids weighed as heavy as piano lids. But Chapter One of
The Pregnant Pause
stresses not playing the invalid. “From whom in America did this letter come?” Why did he keep bringing me breakfast in bed? I had begged him to stop. That poached egg was staring at me. A gargantuan eye. Filmed with cataract. The few sips of tea I had swallowed sloshed up and down in the hull. Marmalade? I couldn’t face the stuff. Ah, but what was this cannily concealed under the pot? An envelope. Reaching for it, I perked up. A letter from my friend Primrose Tramwell was always a treat. She and her sister Hyacinth have confirmed my faith that the years of discretion—or mature indiscretion—can be life’s great adventure. The sisters, both of them over sixty, owned Flowers Detection agency.
    â€œSorry Ben, I didn’t quite catch …”
    His black brows merged. “Am I losing my voice or is the baby pressing on an auditory nerve?”
    â€œI’m not yet three months.”
    â€œOnce more with feeling, then, my correspondent is the Secretary of the Mangé Society.”
    Instantly I was all sympathy. “Oh, not one of those crackpot organizations that promise to trace your family tree for a nominal fee of a thousand pounds? Drop it in the waste paper basket, darling!” I shifted the pillow under my head.
    â€œEllie—”
    â€œDo listen to this. Primrose writes, ‘Dearest Ellie, Hyacinth and I send our best love to you and Bentley. Life is tranquil here at Cloisters. We are sadly underworked in our chosen profession. Butler, speaking with authority—having, as you know, acquired his start in life as a burglar—asserts that crime doesn’t pay what it once did.’ ”
    â€œAs well no one has poisoned the old girls’ smelling salts.” Ben, pacing at the foot of the bed, did not sound pleased.
    â€œMust you use the word old?” I reproved.
    â€œWhy not? It’s a status most of us wish to achieve. We want time to fulfill our dreams, one of mine having always been—”
    â€œDarling,” I said, “you will be so touched by this. Primrose encloses an old family remedy, ideal for someone in my delicate condition. She says it has been favoured by members of the Royal Family in times of stress. It uses only natural ingredients.”
    Ben dredged up a smile. “Sweetheart, you have magnanimously led this conversation back to the Mangé Society. It does not dig up family trees, but is a custodian of history in the ultimate sense.” He withdrew his letter from its envelope and crackled the stiff parchment. “The Mangés are a secret organization of chefs, dedicated to the noble cause of tracking down long lost recipes of cultural importance.”
    â€œMy word!”
    â€œEllie, we are not talking about Aunt Maddie’s mislaid variation of jam tarts.”
    â€œI should think not!” I laid Primrose’s letter down on my paperback copy of
Pregnancy for Beginners
. Tobias Cat strolled out from behind the wardrobe and I tried not to meet his eyes.
    Ben made himself comfortable on the bed and my feet.“None but the Crème de la Crème are admitted to membership and those fortunates only after arduous admission