The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain Page 7

  “Right,” said Hazel absent-mindedly. She was already pacing off the gracious, high-ceilinged living room. “Seventy-five, you said. Plus the two Burberrys and yourself and Joshua. Anyone else? What about the twins?”

  These were Samantha’s offspring, twenty-year-olds who could never be accused of shortness in the intellect. Though still enrolled at McGill, they had already begun to make their collective mark in the field of entomology.

  “They’re in Patagonia studying web-footed beetles,” Samantha told her. “They couldn’t come all the way back here just for a party. Anyway, Father Burberry says science must be served. So far that’s the only thing I know of that will be served. I can’t cook for seventy-nine people.”

  “I can,” said Hazel. “Quit nattering, Samantha, and leave this to me. So we’ll need twenty bridge tables, eighty-folding chairs—are these people too doddering to manage a buffet?”

  “Lord, no! They all belong to curling clubs and do yoga exercises.”

  “Good, then we can set up the food in the dining room. It’ll be a cinch. Could you find me a paper and pencil?”

  “Yes, I should be able to manage that much.” A modicum of Samantha’s normal calm amusement was beginning to return.

  Supplied with writing materials, Hazel began prowling and muttering, jotting things down, shaking her head over the outsize Biedermeier sofa, nodding approval of the gold velvet draperies and bisque-painted walls, cocking an eyebrow at the carved mantelpiece, pondering earnestly over the Persian rugs on the floor, finally wandering into the dining room to commune with her higher self.

  Leaving her to it, Dittany ignored whatever further protest Samantha might have in mind about being thrust into politics at this time of marital crisis and got down to basics.

  “You’ll have to be at the town dump on Saturday morning to shake hands when people bring their garbage. That’s the crux of any successful campaign. And you must put in an appearance at Candidates’ Night on Monday evening in the lower town hall. Can you write your own speech or shall I do it for you?”

  “You’ll have to,” Samantha moaned, another wave of despondency hitting her. “All I can think of is what Mother Burberry’s going to say when she finds out.”

  “What do you care if she finds out or not? They’re not moving back to Lobelia Falls, are they?”

  “God forbid! No, they’re just flying in for the party, then going on to a convention at Dalhousie where Father Burberry’s going to speak. Joshua’s going, too. How are we ever going to cram all those people in this house?”

  “Samantha, will you quit worrying? There’s plenty of room.”

  Dittany hadn’t the faintest idea whether there was or not, but she’d long ago learned the efficacy of a strong positive statement at a moment of indecision. Besides, the house was one of those nice old unfunctionally planned ones that had lots of agreeably odd-shaped rooms running into one another, including a gloriously wasteful six-sided foyer that could hold at least three card tables and maybe four in a pinch.

  “Okay,” she went on before Samantha could start stewing again. “I’ll write the speech and reserve a spot for you on the program. Whom do you want on your committee?”

  “Zilla Trott would be good. She’s a real live wire.”

  “Great.” Dittany grabbed another pencil and wrote, Dump. Speech. Zilla. “Now let’s see. We’ll need some kind of flier to hand out. I can type it up and get Mr. Gumpert at Ye Village Stationer to run off copies on his speedy instant printer. That shouldn’t take him more than five or six hours. Then we’ll get the members’ kids to ride around on their bikes and stuff the flyers under people’s doors.”

  “Wouldn’t a telephone squad be more effective? Five members could call five other members and get each one to call five neighbors—no, it’s got to be better organized than that.” Samantha, her woes forgotten, snatched Dittany’s pencil and started making a list of her own. “We’ll need a voting list from town hall, divide it into precincts and then into segments, appoint a precinct captain for each segment, get her to round up her own volunteers—”

  “Now you’re perking,” said Dittany. “Good, then you line up the phone squad first thing in the morning, right? We haven’t a minute to waste.”

  “Just don’t call any of this lot,” said Hazel, thrusting her own list under Samantha’s nose. “They’re the best cooks in the club and I’ll need them for my Luncheon Committee.”

  “Yes, Hazel. Now, Dittany, what about posters and publicity? And money? Josh and I won’t have a spare nickel by the time we get through shelling out for this idiotic party.”

  Dittany hauled out McNaster’s twenty-dollar bill. “Not to worry, Samantha. See, we’ve already had one donation and that’s from the opposition. Wait till we start putting the arm on the good guys! Come on, Hazel, let’s go see if Zilla Trott’s still up.”

  Chapter 8

  ZILLA WAS UP, LOOKING handsome and peppy as always in her long red flannel nightgown topped by an experimentally-knitted sweater in a startling shade of pink. Striding easily in her buckskin earth shoes, she led Dittany and Hazel out to the kitchen where she’d been grinding something in a hand mill, dragged out two tall pine stools for them to sit on, and went on grinding.

  While the things that came out of Zilla’s kitchen were sometimes peculiar, the kitchen itself was a dream. Old grocers’ bins stood full of rice, oats, barley, and other grains. Bunches of dried herbs and festoons of onions and garlic hung from hooks in the oaken beams. On the high-backed iron stove the same old curly-nosed graniteware teakettle Zilla’s mother had bought new when she got married was sending up gentle puffs of steam.

  “Well, this is a nice surprise,” cried Zilla, pushing back a strand of iron-gray hair and reaching for three pottery mugs. “I was just going to put my soybeans to sprout and make myself a cup of camomile tea before bedtime. You’ll have some, won’t you? It soothes the nerves.”

  “Then you’d better make plenty,” Dittany answered. “Zilla, listen.”

  Zilla listened, her gray locks bouncing ever more violently and her black eyes snapping red fire as she listened to the unfolding tale of McNaster’s perfidious intentions and the mystery surrounding Mr. Architrave’s alleged accident. Zilla always claimed to be part Cree and she certainly looked it tonight with a scarlet flush spreading like war paint over her high-bridged nose and sun-browned face. Metaphorically speaking, she was already reaching for her tomahawk by the time Dittany finished her bloodcurdling narrative.

  “That’s outrageous! Infamous! Downright stinking! I can see somebody plugging an arrow through John Architrave in a fit of pique, because he could be the most exasperating old he-devil that ever trod the face of this earth, but for anybody to go wantonly rooting up the only wild place left where I can still get my sassafras and wintergreen is totally inexcusable and of course we’re going to stop it. Count me in with bells on and if you need McNaster shot, too, remember I can pull a bow with any man in town.”

  “Thanks, Zilla,” said Dittany with an uneasy feeling that Mrs. Trott might not be joking and a fervent desire not to know whether she’d happened to run short of sassafras earlier on that same day. “I’m hoping we can manage without any more mayhem.”

  “Maybe so, but we’ve got to do a good deal more than just get Samantha elected. We’ll have to show this half-witted town that we really do care about the Enchanted Mountain.”

  “But, Zilla, of course we care,” said Hazel, sipping suspiciously at her camomile tea. “Why would we be here talking to you right now if we didn’t care?”

  “I didn’t say talk, I said show,” snapped Zilla. All that wheat germ she ate tended to accelerate her mental processes and she could wax testy sometimes with those who were slower on the uptake. “We’ve got to send a work party up there first thing in the morning to clean out the dead wood, pick up trash, tear down the poison ivy, make paths, put up trail markers—”

  “Whoa! Hold your horses,” gasped Hazel. “It would take
an army half a year to do all that. How could we even make a dent, plus run a successful political campaign and put on a bash for eighty people? We’ve only got till next Tuesday. Monday, actually, because Tuesday’s election day and if we haven’t got our licks in before then we might as well forget it.”

  “Well, don’t ask me how, Hazel. I’m just telling you it’s got to be done and it’s got to be done right. If we don’t put up a good show, McNaster and his crowd will go blatting around that we’re just trying to obstruct progress and stand in the way of free private enterprise and all that garbage. And you know as well as I that there’d be people around here ready to believe them.”

  “Yes, I know, Zilla, but if we try to spread ourselves too thin—though Lord knows with a figure like mine—”

  “Hazel, listen to me. Suppose we do fail to get Samantha elected? I’m not saying we will, but suppose we do? If we’ve at least managed to demonstrate that this town is genuinely interested in keeping the Enchanted Mountain as a wildflower preserve and fixing it up so people can enjoy it, then we’ve still got an arrow or two in our quiver to fight McNaster with, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, Zilla,” sighed Hazel. “You’re right as usual. I’m sure I don’t know what Roger’s going to say.”

  “Who cares?” Zilla replied with her customary tact and finesse. “Come on, let’s go rope in Minerva Oakes. She’s the other half of the Landscape Committee.”

  “You rope her. The Luncheon Committee’s flaking out for the night, so you can just kiss Minerva for me and ask if she has any big casserole dishes to spare. Mind dropping me at my house, Dittany?”

  “Not at all.”

  Hazel, after all, had done her noblest already and was probably down on her husband’s schedule to brew a rousing noggin of Ovaltine for the returning bowlers. Dittany dropped her as requested, then went on with Zilla, who had added an aged sheepskin jacket of her late husband’s to her red nightgown, pink sweater, and earth shoes.

  By this time Dittany had become so imbued with a sense of her mission that she’d entirely forgotten about Minerva’s new boarder until the man from the Water Department smiled at her from behind the cribbage board and got to his feet, looking taller than ever in the low-ceilinged room.

  Minerva was delighted at the unexpected visit, her old-rose-petal face crinkled in smiles and dimples. She was short and plump as her friend Zilla was tall and lanky, and a much better knitter. Her own cardigan, though it did stretch a bit over her grandmotherly bosom, was flawlessly done in a tricky pineapple pattern, of bright yellow worsted. It made her look like a somewhat overfed goldfinch that had somehow swapped its black cap for a white one.

  “Now this is what I call neighborly. Come in. Haul up an’ set, as Aunt Ruby used to say. Here, Zilla, let me swing that chair around so you can toast your shins by the fire. Rheumatiz acting up again? Aunt Ruby always claimed there was nothing like red flannel and carrying a raw potato in your pocket to draw the pain, though I personally think a hot footbath with two tablespoons of Coleman’s mustard—oh, you haven’t met my new boarder. Mrs. Trott and Miss Henbit, this is Benjamin Frankland.”

  Zilla said, “How do you do?”

  Dittany felt a sudden mental jolt. What did she know about this stranger, except that he’d been on the mountain when John Architrave was killed? Maybe he’d been stationed there as a lookout, to keep any chance comer like herself from crossing that ridge at the fatal moment. If jolly old Sam Wallaby, who’d supposedly never done anything worse than supply the means of pickling a few livers, could be McNaster’s henchman, then anyone might be anything. She acknowledged the introduction with icy hauteur.

  “We’ve met. Minerva, Zilla and I have something to discuss with you. Could we step out to the kitchen?”

  “Why, I—” Minerva gaped. She herself operated on a principle of “The more, the merrier,” and was clearly at a loss to perceive why a pretty unmarried woman would take exception to the presence of an undoubtedly attractive and apparently unattached male. Frankland looked somewhat nonplussed himself, but he had the grace to back away from a potentially awkward situation.

  “Glad to know you, ladies. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go on up to my room and let you have your chat in peace. Don’t forget I’m two games up on you, Mrs. Oakes.”

  “In a pig’s eye you are. We still haven’t pegged out on the last round. Just because you happen to be seventy-three holes ahead with only five to go, you needn’t think—Dittany, quit glaring at me like that. What’s got into you tonight, anyway?”

  Dittany waited for the man’s footsteps to get up the stairs and for the gurgle of overhead plumbing to suggest that he was in fact preparing to take his rest. Then she began her tale. As this was the third time in telling, she told it very well. Minerva was both impressed and appalled.

  “And you say my Mr. Frankland was actually up there doing perk tests when it happened? He never breathed one word to me about that.”

  “There, see how right I was not to trust him?”

  “I don’t see that at all. Why should he tell me anything, just because we both happen to enjoy a game of cribbage? And furthermore, he’s an honorable man.”

  “Oh yeah?” sneered Dittany. “So are they all, all honorable men. What about that bird who kept sneaking that oversexed doxy from Harry’s Hamburger Haven up to his room and getting ketchup stains all over your best yellow sheets?”

  “Do you know, I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever heard them referred to as doxies in ordinary conversation,” Zilla remarked, perhaps because even she thought the situation was becoming a trifle sticky.

  “Dittany does have a marvelous way with words,” Minerva agreed quickly, “though I myself rather incline toward ‘wench.’ But, Dittany, you can’t possibly believe a nice man like Mr. Frankland would go shooting Mr. Architrave his second day on the job? What would be the point?”

  “If he’s in McNaster’s pay, like Wallaby—”

  “How do we know Sam Wallaby’s in McNaster’s pay?”

  “You don’t suppose McNaster’s in Wallaby’s, do you?”

  “It seems to me one’s as likely as the other. I thought I knew what was going on in this town, but now I don’t feel I know anything.”

  “You know I’m right about getting to work on the Enchanted Mountain,” said Zilla relentlessly. “How about sitting yourself down right now and drawing us a map of where the trails should go? Dittany, you might as well scoot along. We don’t need you for this. Though I expect we’ll be wanting you for other things,” she added kindly.

  “Don’t do me any favors. I already have to write a speech for Samantha and a few other odds and ends. Not to mention doing a little paid work to earn my bread and butter. You can get home all right, eh, Zilla?”

  “I always have so far, haven’t I? Go ahead, Dittany, scat before that camomile tea wears off.”

  Dittany scatted. As she approached the ancestral home of the Henbits, notwithstanding Zilla’s soothing potion, she began to feel herself assailed by doubt. Was she or was she not entirely happy with the prospect of having to spend the remains of what was by now a fairly advanced night all sole alone in this barny old house? By the time she’d turned her car into the driveway, she had come to the studied conclusion that she was not.

  Though as a rule she wouldn’t have bothered, Dittany took a long time locking the car. At last, when it became ridiculous to stand twiddling the handles any longer, she wound her way through the still leafless lilac bushes toward the back steps.

  She wished there’d been a moon tonight. She wished she’d thought to buy batteries for her flashlight. She wished she’d had presence of mind enough to leave the outside light on. She was ready to settle for a brace of lightning bugs when a black shape rose out of the gloom and a sepulchral voice boomed through the darksome night.

  “Avast, me hearty! Belay the lee binnacle and button up the main brace. Zounds, Henbit, what’s been keeping you?”

  “Arethusa,
” gasped Dittany, “if you’re trying to give me a heart attack, you couldn’t have thought of a better way. Why the avast?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was just sitting here wondering if it might be a good idea to have Lady Ermintrude shanghaied aboard a galleon.”

  “You’re thinking of Shanghai Lil and galleons are out of the period. It would have been luggers in Sir Percy’s time, wouldn’t it? Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine, and all that garbage.”

  “Hugger-Mugger on the Lugger? Not a bad title. I must give the subject careful thought.”

  “Do. Why don’t you go home and sleep on it?”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Arethusa bundled her sumptuous purple cloak (similar to the one Lady Ermintrude had been wearing when her post chaise was held up by Heartless Harold the Huntingshire Highwayman) about her and followed Dittany into the house without waiting for anything so bourgeois as an invitation. “About the end of Chapter Eleven, where Sir Percy says—”

  “Not now, Arethusa.”

  “Stap me, do mine ears hear aright?”

  “They certainly do and consider yourself stapped. I have more important matters on my mind.”

  “You couldn’t possibly,” Arethusa replied with that humility for which authors have ever been noted.

  “Would you care to place a small wager on that? Arethusa, what would you say if I told you there are foul, fell deeds afoot right here in Lobelia Falls?”

  “I’d say goody gumdrops and fill me in on the details before some caitiff knave swipes the plot. Unless you mean that hackneyed business about old John Architrave and the black arrow? Can’t use it, pet. Stevenson beat me to the draw ages ago. Anyway, John had it coming. I might have taken a shot at him myself if I’d happened to have a black arrow about me this morning.”

  “This morning? Are you telling me that you were actually up on the Enchanted Mountain then? You saw him?”

  “I was and I did. He was alive at the time, though. At least I think he was. I’d probably have noticed if he weren’t.”