Chapter 13 – The Tea
Hermione had been more than a little surprised to receive a call from her only son on a Saturday morning. Usually if she wanted to hear his voice she had to listen to his abominable radio program in the wee hours. Occasionally she would have her personal assistant place a call to Shepard. Nine times out of ten, Hermione would be too busy to pick up the phone immediately, however, and Shep would usually hang up after holding for two or three minutes.
It was frustrating to actually have Shepard on the phone yet not have a real conversation with him. He only wanted to set up a visit—perhaps tea on Sunday afternoon.
“Marvelous!” Hermione told him. “Three-thirty. I’ll have Cook bake those tortes you like.”
“Set an extra place for Bean,” Shep said. “She’ll be driving.”
“Bean?” Hermione’s voice was cold. “You’re bringing someone named after produce?”
“It’s a nickname. You’ve met her, actually. Phyllis Ogilvy’s niece.” Shep waited a long time while his mother processed the unwelcome news and constructed what, to her, would be a tactful response.
“Indeed,” was Hermione’s careful reply. “I understood that she was not ... involved ... with anyone. Are you telling me she is involved with you?”
Shep laughed. “She’s involved. She just doesn’t know it yet. See you tomorrow, Mother.”
They disconnected. Hermione didn’t pretend she was looking forward to it.
Miranda agonized about what to wear to tea with the queen mum, but in the end it made little difference. Every outfit Miranda owned fell into one of two categories: Librarian/Nun or Servant/Urchin. She wore the first style.
She was ready when Shep and Dave knocked on her back door. She grabbed her purse and keys and led them around the side of the house to her tiny, second-hand commuter car. Dave led Shep to the passenger side of the car, and Miranda opened the door. Shep ran his hands over the door, the miniature seat, and the roof—which didn’t reach as high as his armpits.
“Is this your car?” he asked Miranda. When she said yes, he continued, “Where’s the rest of it? There’s not, like, a side car or a trailer or something?”
She said no.
“Maybe Dave should stay home,” Shep said.
“Nonsense. There’s plenty of room—well, not plenty of room, but—there’s room for Dave in the back. He won’t mind. Will you, Dave?”
Dave whined.
Miranda bent down to look in his eyes and pat his head. “You’ll be fine. I’ve ridden back there.”
“It’s small enough, you can probably drive from back there!” quipped Shepard.
Dave whined again.
Miranda turned on Shepard. “You’re not helping.”
He shrugged.
She turned back to Dave. “C’mon. Try something new. Don’t be a big baby like you-know-who.” She poked a thumb over her shoulder toward Shepard.
“I saw that,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” she said. She raised her eyebrows at Dave and gestured with one arm toward the open car door.
“Whuff,” said Dave, and wormed his way into the miniscule back seat. From outside the car, the rear window appeared to be a shag carpet.
Miranda turned to Shepard. “Your turn.”
He began angling to squeeze into the passenger seat. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got a duffle bag that’s bigger than this,” he said. “I’ve never tried to sit in it, though. Maybe when we get back I’ll do that. Just for comparison.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re both a couple of whiners,” said Miranda. “Man up!” She closed the passenger door and circled the hood to climb into the driver’s seat.
Miranda drove for over an hour with Dave’s lolling tongue hanging beside her left ear. Shepard’s shoulders touched the passenger window on the right and the driver’s seat on the left. Miranda knew she would later find long, golden hairs snagged in the overhead fabric where his head had rubbed the ceiling.
….
Miranda’s overloaded mini-car chugged through electrically opened security gates and onto a vast circular driveway. Miranda thought that if two driveways like this one were placed as mirror images, they would comprise an oval the size of the Daytona Speedway.
She parked at the apex of the driveway arc, directly in front of massive double doors opening off a snowy-marble colonnade that spanned the mansion’s facade. The house seemed a football field wide. It was three stories plus gables projecting from the attic level. That meant to Miranda that small rooms for the servants made up the fourth floor.
Shepard unfolded himself from the car with exaggerated moans and elaborate stretching. Dave squirmed out the driver’s side door because there was no room for him to turn around and exit on the passenger side. Dave went immediately to Shepard’s side, where Dave executed his own yawning and stretching.
“Very funny,” Miranda said.
Shepard was all innocence. “What?”
As they walked up the wide steps toward the front door, Miranda said, “You’re better than a GPS system. I’ve never received such specific, accurate directions from anyone before. ‘Take County Road 162 west for three-tenths of a mile, then turn right on Weaver’s Mill Road and go north for two point three miles....’ Who gives directions like that?”
Shepard chuckled. “What, did you think I’d use landmarks? ‘Turn right at the yellow house with the blue birdbath?’”
“Point taken,” said Miranda.
Dave stopped at the front door, and Shepard rang the doorbell. Miranda looked surprised.
“It’s your mom’s house. You don’t just walk in?”
“Not unless I develop a death wish.”
The huge doors divided ponderously, revealing a black-clad butler. He did not smile, but stepped aside and gestured for them to enter. “Good afternoon, Mr. Shepard. Madam is expecting you. Please go through to the east parlor.”
“Good afternoon, Hanson. This is my neighbor, Miss Ogilvy. She was … is … was Miss Phyllis’ niece,” said Shepard.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Hanson,” Miranda said, extending her hand.
“Just ‘Hanson,’ miss,” said the butler. He did not shake her hand. “Sorry for your loss.” He didn’t sound particularly sorrowful.
“Thank you, ... Hanson,” Miranda said, retracting her hand awkwardly.
Shepard placed a hand on Dave’s back and said, “East parlor, Dave.” Dave led the way, with Shep and Miranda following. “Safer to let Dave navigate,” Shep whispered. “Mother’s always rearranging the furnishings.”
They arrived at the parlor entrance like characters out of The Wizard of Oz: a dowdy Good Witch accompanied by an impaired Viking and a lion-size bandana-wearing beast. If flying monkeys had suddenly launched themselves from the room’s eight-foot ficus trees, Miranda would have taken it in stride.
Seeing the odd trio in the doorway, Hermione rose from her seat at the tea table. Her silk cocktail pajamas billowed gracefully as she glided across the room and gave Shepard a Euro-kiss on each cheek. “So glad to have you, dear,” she said. “Please be seated.”
Hermione neither looked at nor spoke to Miranda. Dave and Miranda were nudged aside as Hermione stepped to Shepard’s side and put her hand on his elbow as if to guide him.
“I’ve got this, Mother,” said Shepard, withdrawing his elbow and reaching around her to touch Dave.
Hermione returned to her chair. Shepard followed Dave to the table, where Shep pulled back a chair and seated Miranda before sitting down beside her. Dave lay down beside Shepard’s chair.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Montgomery-Krausse,” said Miranda.
Hermione did not raise her eyes above the exquisite silver teapot from which she was pouring. “I hadn’t expected to meet you again, Miss Ogilvy. So soon, I mean.” She passed a delicate tea-filled cup to Miranda and then one to Shepard. “Will you have milk, sugar, or lemon, Shepard?”
Miranda noticed his mother looked up whe
n speaking to Shepard. When Shepard declined condiments for his tea, Hermione made no such offer to Miranda. Miranda smiled and helped herself to milk and sugar.
Hermione lifted a crystal plate of tea sandwiches and pastries and set it beside Shepard’s saucer. “Cucumber sandwiches and Black Forest torte,” she said proudly, “as promised.”
“Wonderful,” Shepard said, and offered the plate to Miranda before selecting anything for himself.
“Shepard, dear, you are always welcome, you know that.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“Yes. Well, ever since you telephoned yesterday I have been wondering about the occasion for this unexpected visit. You, ah, you’re not announcing an engagement or anything, are you?”
“No!” Miranda said.
“Not yet,” Shepard said.
“It isn’t ‘not yet,’ Shepard, it’s no. N. O.” Miranda clarified.
“I see,” said Hermione in a tone that belied the words. “What is it, then? Are you changing jobs? Moving from the woods back into the city? Preparing to run for office at long last?”
Shepard took a moment to chew and swallow a circular, bite-size sandwich. “Who is Iggy?” he said, too casually.
A lesser matriarch might have choked on her torte or sloshed the tea from her Limoges cup, but Hermione Montgomery hyphen Krausse was made of sterner stuff. She reacted not at all. Just as casually, she answered, “I don’t believe I know anyone named—Eggy, was it?”
“Iggy.”
“Iggy. Nnn-no, I don’t recall meeting an Iggy. Who is he? Or she, as the case may be?”
Shepard shrugged. “Dunno. Phyllis mentioned him.”
“Not recently, I trust,” Hermione said with a bitter smile.
“Why have you and my aunt been estranged for the last thirty years?” Miranda spurted. For the first time that afternoon, Hermione looked Miranda directly in the eyes. It was not a friendly look.
“If you must know, Miss Ogilvy, your aunt was in love with my husband. More fool she, because he chose me. We all knew how Phyllis felt. We thought it best to sever all contact and avoid any unpleasantness or misunderstanding.
“The fact that Phyllis never married, I believe, proves that we made a wise decision. Neither she nor my husband were forced to contend with awkward social situations or temptation of a salacious nature.”
“Salacious?” asked Miranda. “Aunt Phyllis?”
Hermione’s voice was hard and strong: “Garrett Krausse was the love of her life. I did them both a favor by making it a clean break.”
Miranda reeled mentally and sat back in her chair to sort the ideas piling into her head.
Shepard let the silence breathe for a moment before he asked quietly, “Did Phyllis ever contact you—after Dad died, maybe?”
“Why should she?” Hermione was abrupt. “Garrett was dead. Phyllis and I had nothing in common any more.”
“Nothing in common?” he asked. “Not even me? Not even Iggy?”
His mother ignored all but the last. “I told you, I don’t know anyone called Iggy.”
Shepard finished his last sip of tea, folded his linen napkin carefully, placed it beside his saucer, and stood. Dave scrambled up immediately.
“What are you doing?” asked Hermione.
Shepard pulled back Miranda’s chair and offered her a hand to rise. “Thank you for an enlightening visit, Mother, but we really need to be getting back to the woods. I find the air in the city especially oppressive this afternoon.”
“Thank you for tea, Mrs. Montgomery-Krausse,” murmured Miranda. She followed as Dave led Shepard toward the exit.
Hermione jumped to her feet with considerably less aplomb than when they’d first arrived. “But you can’t go! It’s too soon! You’ve only just arrived!”
Shepard stopped and turned to face her. “Too soon? For what?”
His mother stammered uncharacteristically, “Um, well, i-i-it’s too soon to get back into a stuffy automobile. You’ve scarcely had time to cool down from your long drive.”
“Cool down, Mother?” Shepard spoke as if exercising great self-control. “I’m afraid if I stay much longer I won’t be cool at all, I’ll be ‘hot under the collar,’ as the saying goes. Then this visit could deteriorate into one of those ‘awkward social situations’ you’ve spent thirty years avoiding. Allow me to wish you good day. Perhaps we’ll speak again when I have indeed ‘cooled down.’”
Hermione was silent and still while her visitors left the house.
In the car a half-hour later, Shepard broke the silence for the first time since leaving his mother’s mansion.
“Well,” he said, “Phyllis is dead, Hermione is lying, and I still have two questions. Who, who, who might have the answers?”
“Depends,” said Miranda. “What are the two questions?”
“Who is Iggy? And where did Phyllis put the pictures?”
“Mmm,” said Miranda. Dave panted into her left ear while she thought.
Shepard shifted in his seat, trying to keep the vibrating passenger window from bruising his shoulder. The little car chugged valiantly, maxed out at a racy fifty miles per hour.
“Oh, and I have one other question,” said Shepard.
“What?”
“Bean, will you marry me?”
“Not today. But thanks for asking.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said. They finished the trip in comfortable silence.