back into the kitchen. She knew Ursula’s house as well as her own, a white clapboard Cape perched strategically on one side of Aleford’s Green with a view from the bay window straight down Main Street. Not much got past Millicent, who had been admitting to being seventy for many years now. Her hairstyle was as unvarying as her age. She’d adopted Mamie Eisenhower’s bangs during Ike’s first term and stuck to them. Millicent’s stiff perm was slate gray when Faith met her and it now appeared as if she’d been caught in a heavy snowfall—yet a storm that left every hair in place.
Although not a member of First Parish, Millicent behaved like one, freely offering Faith advice she didn’t want. Their relationship was further complicated by several incidents. The first occurred when Faith, early on in Aleford, had discovered a still-warm corpse in the Old Belfry atop Belfry Hill. With newborn Benjamin strapped to her chest in a Snugli, Faith did what she supposed any sensible person would do. She rang the bell. It produced immediate results, although not the capture of the murderer. That took Faith a while and came later. The most long lasting of these results came from Millicent, who was appalled that Faith had dared to ring the venerable icon—cast by Paul Revere himself, Millicent’s many times removed cousin. It had sounded the alarm on that famous day and year. Subsequent peals were restricted to April 19, Patriot’s Day, that curious Massachusetts and Maine holiday; the death of a President; and the death of a descendent of one of those stalwarts who faced the Redcoats on the green. None of these categories, Millicent was quick to point out, applied in Faith’s case. Rapidly running down the hill screaming loudly would have sufficed.
The other incidents involved Millicent’s saving Faith’s life not once but twice. Since then, Faith had labored in vain to repay this debt, hoping to drag Millicent from the path of an oncoming train—the commuter rail passed through Aleford—or else surprise a desperate burglar intent on purloining Millicent’s collection of Revere McKinley mourning wreaths, intricately woven from bygone tresses.
For the moment, all she could do was follow her savior into the kitchen if not meekly, then obediently, and put the Mason jar of jelly in the fridge.
“I’d like to give you the recipe, Faith, but it’s a treasured family secret.”
Faith could never understand why families that treasured their recipes wouldn’t want to share them with the world, but in this case, she would not expect otherwise. Millicent hoarded information like the Collyer brothers hoarded newspapers—and everything else. Prying anything out of the woman was well nigh impossible. Faith had tried with varying success. As for calf’s foot jelly, she had her own recipe. It called for a lot of boiling and straining, but when you added lemon juice, cinnamon, clove, and some sherry to the gelatin and put it in a nice mold, the result was quite pleasant. She’d recently come across the actor Zero Mostel’s recipe, which was similar. An epicure, he never met a gelatin or—judging by his girth—a pudding, he didn’t like.
Millicent got herself a cup and saucer from the china closet in the butler’s pantry. Miss McKinley—not Ms., thank you very much—didn’t do mugs, and poured herself a cup of coffee before sitting down. Faith had had enough caffeine for the day, but joined her at the table. She didn’t have to pick Amy up for another half hour. In any case, it was a command performance.
“I hope Pix isn’t upsetting her mother about this trip. The last thing Ursula needs is her daughter moaning about having to go away. Why these people want to spend all that time together with people they’ll rarely see after the wedding is another story. In my day you got married and spent one holiday with one set of in-laws and another with the others. None of this bonding business.”
Faith was interested in