Many Unpleasant Returns Read online

  Margaret smiled. “I hope you can, Mr. Morton. It would be nice to be home early with Christmas and everything.” She shook her head regretfully. “It’s been years since I’ve spent Christmas in England.”

  “Ah, yes, there’s nothing like an English Christmas.”

  “Greasy goose,” Rudley muttered, “soggy trifle and plum puddings — last used by Nelson at Trafalgar.”

  Margaret nudged him with her elbow.

  “I’m going to stop at my father’s retirement home on the way in,” Mr. Morton went on. “I want to drop off some things for the staff. You’ll be keeping my room in case I don’t get a flight today?”

  “As promised.”

  “I don’t like to leave things so up in the air,” he went on. “But there is a chance the snow forecast may cause some cancellations tomorrow. I don’t want to risk that.” He took a deep breath. “If this is it, if I don’t see you again, I hope you and everyone here has a wonderful Christmas.”

  “Our best wishes for you too, Mr. Morton.” Margaret pushed the candy dishes toward him. “Have a piece of candy before you go. Gregoire’s bonbons are to die for.”

  “Oh,” — his eyes feasted on the candy — “I just brushed my teeth.”

  “Wait right here.” Margaret disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a Ziploc bag. She filled it with bonbons and handed it to Mr. Morton. “A little something for you to nibble on later.”

  “Just before you have a chance to brush your teeth again,” said Rudley.

  Margaret gave him a frosty look.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rudley.” Morton paused. “Oh, drat, I’m going to have to use the loo again. Those cursed pills.” He dropped his suitcase and trotted off down the hall.

  “That man can be quite irritating,” Rudley said.

  “He’s fussing because he’s concerned about his flight,” said Margaret. “And he did just settle his father’s estate.”

  “I don’t recall any fuss settling my father’s estate.”

  “That’s because your father was so organized.”

  “He didn’t like to leave messes for…” Rudley stopped as Lloyd reached around Geraldine, took a piece of fudge, then reconsidered and took several. “Why don’t you take the whole plate?”

  “It’s for the deer.”

  “Of course.”

  Mr. Morton returned and picked up his suitcase.

  “Are you sure you got everything?” Margaret asked him.

  “I’m sure, Mrs. Rudley.” He took a step away from the desk, then turned back and set the suitcase down. He seized her hand and held it tenderly. “And thank you, Mrs. Rudley. You’ve been so kind.”

  She smiled. “It’s been a pleasure to have you, Mr. Morton.”

  Mr. Morton disappeared out the front door, leaving it ajar.

  Rudley sprang out from behind the desk and slammed the door shut. “Damn man, doesn’t he realize it costs money to heat this place?”

  “Sometimes the door doesn’t catch, Rudley. You know that.”

  “If someone paid as much attention to fixing the door as feeding the deer, it might.”

  Lloyd grinned.

  “Could you see to that?”

  Lloyd finished a piece of fudge before responding. “Yes’m.”

  Lloyd went off down the back stairs. The Phipps-Walkers adjusted their cameras.

  “Ta ta,” Geraldine called over her shoulder, Norman in tow. He paused to take extra pains to make sure the latch caught.

  Thornton came down the stairs at that moment and winked at Margaret as he passed into the dining room. Margaret interpreted the wink as saying Tiffany would follow shortly.

  “That man is an ass,” Rudley murmured.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “A smug, self-satisfied nincompoop.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  He stopped, surprised at her agreement, not sure what to say next. “So we agree?”

  “We agree he’s a bit smug. I don’t agree he’s an ass or a nincompoop. And he’s a rather talented writer.”

  “If you say so.”

  “His book on abandoned barns was soulful and thought-provoking.”

  “Yes, Margaret. It just proves you can’t judge the character of a writer by his books.”

  Rudley looked up as Keith and Sheila Nesbitt came down the stairs, decked out in sunflower yellow and robin’s-egg blue.

  “Headed for the slopes?” he asked as Sheila smiled at him.

  “Just for a couple of hours.”

  “We’re expecting a lot of snow later, apparently.”

  “That tends to be a good thing for skiing,” Keith said.

  Rudley crossed his eyes. “Provided the visibility is sufficient to see the trees.”

  Sheila laughed. “We’ll be back after lunch.”

  “Let’s go, Sheila.” Keith turned and headed for the door.

  “Mr. Nesbitt is a rather sour man,” said Gregoire, who had come out of the kitchen with Tim in time to witness the exchange.

  “Idiot,” Rudley grumbled. “Going to that pedestrian ski hill decked out like Olympians.” He huffed. “When I was young, it was a felt ski jacket and pants and a toque and wooden skis — none of this spandex and helmets and skis of unnatural materials.”

  “I think it has to do with wind resistance,” said Gregoire, “and protecting their heads.”

  “When I skied, we didn’t worry about our heads.”

  “Sometimes, I can tell that,” said Gregoire, sauntering toward the kitchen.

  Rudley turned on Tim, who shrugged. “Mrs. Nesbitt does look very good in a ski suit.”

  “Mrs. Nesbitt is what some might call a temptress. I don’t believe we’ve ever had a woman like her here before.”

  “She does turn heads,” said Tim, following after Gregoire.

  Rudley rolled his eyes. He’d never had his head turned in his life. Except by Margaret, of course. And it wasn’t because she was glamorous. As he told his father, he knew she was a keeper from the moment he saw her. “That’s because she stayed around after the introduction,” his father said. Rudley smiled a lopsided smile. True, he had sent a number of women scurrying after the first date, but who would want a wife who got turned off the first time he shouted at her? It wasn’t personal. He shouted at everybody. The first time he shouted at Margaret, she just said, “Don’t be a grouch, Rudley.”

  Why did people think he was a grouch? He was just being direct, communicating clearly. Why did people want conversation gift-wrapped? He supposed he did get out of hand occasionally, mostly with the laundryman, who baited him with his bland exterior and smug sarcasm. And Mrs. Blount. He couldn’t understand why Margaret valued her so highly as a friend. Thin-skinned little twit, he thought, always trying to foist those unconventional colour schemes on him. And those damn little Santas. What an abomination.

  Santa, he believed, should be fat and jolly. These were skinny and sinister looking. The anti-Santas. The damn woman is probably edging toward devil worship. He shook his head, feeling a little silly for that thought. The woman didn’t have the imagination to be a Satanist.

  “Mr. Rudley” — Mrs. Sawchuck landed at the bottom of the stairs, accompanied by Walter and aided by Harry Justus. While Harry and Walter went on into the dining room, Doreen made her way to the desk.

  Rudley gritted his teeth. Doreen had that petulant edge to her voice that always spelled endless aggravation. “Yes, Mrs. Sawchuck?”

  “It’s snowed.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  “Harry was going to take us for a little walk around the property. I need the exercise for my arthritis. And I think it might be too slippery with all that snow and if I fall, I don’t know what might happen.”

  You’d probably break the damn flagstones, Rudley thought. To Mrs. Sawchuck, he said, “
Lloyd has attended to the walks and smoothed everything clear to the road. You should be fine.”

  “I hope it isn’t too cold.”

  “It’s hovering around zero.”

  She put a hand to her mouth. “Zero?”

  “In Rochester, that would be thirty-two degrees.”

  She sighed with relief. “I’ll tell Walter,” she said and hobbled off to the dining room, where Walter was gazing myopically toward the window, satisfied that the outdoors was still there. He turned toward his usual table in the corner, then waved imperiously to Tim, who was coming out of the kitchen with a tray, which he deposited at Miss Miller and Simpson’s table.

  “Where’s our table?” Walter demanded.

  “Lloyd took it downstairs,” Tim replied. “With the tables moved around, it was a bit in the way. Besides” — he lowered his voice — “with Mr. Justus with your party it seemed like too tight a fit in the corner. He was really squeezed last night.” He gave Doreen and Walter an apologetic shrug. “As you see, there’s a Christmas tree there now.”

  “Well, if he’s squeezed, he should lose a few pounds.” Walter’s voice carried across the dining room. He gave Tim a sharp look. “You’ll have to move a table, I guess. And get rid of the tree.”

  Mr. Simpson jumped to his feet. “Please join us, Mr. Sawchuck.”

  “I’ve got to sit down, Walter.” Doreen leaned heavily on her cane, grabbing onto Harry, who looked embarrassed.

  “Yes, we’d love to have you join us,” said Miss Miller. “Our table’s set for six.”

  “I want to see Rudley,” Walter bawled.

  “I have to sit down,” said Doreen, taking a step forward. Walter turned, got tangled in her cane, and would have toppled into her if Tim hadn’t grabbed him.

  Harry took his sister’s arm, steered her to Miss Miller’s table, and helped her into a chair.

  Tim beckoned to Rudley, who galloped in from the desk. “What’s the matter?” he asked Walter.

  “You took my table away and moved that tree into my corner.”

  “We’ll have it back for you at supper,” Rudley said. “We had a rather raucous group at the last sitting last night. Everyone kept bumping into your table. Then someone backed up into the Christmas tree and knocked it askew. It wasn’t in the ideal location.”

  “That’s your problem,” Walter said to a glowering Rudley. “I don’t know why MacIntyre sold this place.”

  “Please have breakfast with us, Mr. Sawchuck,” Mr. Simpson interjected. “We’d be honoured.”

  “Yes, you would,” Walter muttered.

  “We’ll have everything back to normal by lunch,” said Rudley.

  Simpson took Walter’s arm and steered him gently but firmly to the head of the table.

  “You’ll be all right,” Doreen said. “Just don’t drink so much.”

  “You’re not much further away,” Harry said, nodding toward the restroom.

  “Easy for you to say,” Walter grumbled. He huffed about, wriggling in his seat as if it were a chore to get comfortable on the unfamiliar chair. Finally he allowed Tim to fuss over him. Tim removed the serviette from Walter’s tumbler, spread it across his lap, and took his order with great concentration, although it hadn’t changed in several decades.

  Rudley returned to the desk, opened the piano window, and lit a furtive cigarette. Rudley, they’ll drive you nuts, he recalled Mr. MacIntyre saying of the Pleasant’s guests as he handed over the keys. The deal sealed, all MacIntyre’s pretense of loving them had evaporated. Rudley took a deep drag from his cigarette, reached for the ashtray he kept hidden in the drawer under the desk, and tapped the ashes away. MacIntyre’s problem was that he was a control freak. He wanted a staid, orderly, ordinary establishment and had a definite idea of how guests should behave and what they should be interested in. The poor devil had never heard of Music Hall. Used to bring in local bands for dances on Saturday nights instead. Showed silver screen films and travelogues on Sundays. Probably held church services in the ballroom. The old crackpot even shut down between Christmas and New Year’s and went to Florida.

  Rudley smiled in remembrance. That first Christmas at the Pleasant was Margaret’s and his first Christmas in their first home. They’d had only a handful of guests that year. Mostly old duffers, most of them six feet under now. Their cook back then had a young family. He and Margaret had given her the day off and cooked the festive dinner themselves. Not as fancy as what Gregoire put together, but superb. Margaret and he behaved like any hosts — they cooked the dinner, served their guests, then sat down with them.

  He sighed. They wouldn’t have Aunt Pearl this year. Mrs. Millotte, the starchy old doll who had been a waitress at the Pleasant since Caesar was a pup, wouldn’t be with them until after New Year’s. She’d finally had her first grandchild and wasn’t going to miss its first Christmas. Trudy, their part-time waitress, was off in college. On the plus side, they would have most of the old regulars. He paused. If that were a plus…

  “Mrs. Rudley mentioned you’re a magician,” Miss Miller said to Harry.

  “He’s an amateur,” Walter said before Harry could respond. “Does Rotary shows and the like.”

  “Are you going to do a magic act for Music Hall?” Simpson asked.

  Harry smiled. “I think I will. Mrs. Rudley asked if I would.”

  Doreen scooped up her last prune and tapped Walter’s bowl to indicate he wasn’t keeping pace. “Eat up, Walter.”

  “I’m looking forward to your act, Mr. Justus,” said Simpson. “I was always trying magic acts when I was young but was never much good at it.”

  “Neither was Harry,” Walter said in a voice so loud Tiffany and Thornton at the next table turned their heads. “He would have starved if I hadn’t set him up in the insurance business.”

  “Well,” said Miss Miller, “it’s extremely difficult to make a living in the arts.”

  “Even Shakespeare had trouble,” said Simpson.

  Margaret came in at that moment and joined the group.

  “We were talking about how hard it is to make it in show business,” said Miss Miller.

  “Oh, it is,” said Margaret. “But I imagine once you’ve trod the boards, it’s hard to give it up.”

  “Harry didn’t have much to give up,” said Walter.

  “Harry did the best he could,” said Doreen.

  “Well, he was never any damn good,” said Walter.

  Margaret gave Harry a sympathetic pat on the arm. “I am so looking forward to your performance, Mr. Justus.”

  At eleven, Margaret appeared at the front desk, pulling on driving gloves. “Rudley, I’ll be back around 4:30.”

  He was hunched over the newspaper at that moment, contemplating how lovely it was to have a few minutes of quiet before the herd rumbled by for lunch. “Where are you going?”

  “Rudley” — she gave him an aggrieved look — “I’m going into town to have lunch with Frances. I’ve mentioned that to you several times.”

  He crossed his eyes. That damn Frances Blount. God knows what she would fob off on Margaret this time. Probably yards of teal and fuchsia garlands. “Do you think you should, Margaret? In this weather?”

  “It’s stopped snowing. The roads are quite clear.”

  “What if you run into freezing rain?”

  “There isn’t any freezing rain projected, Rudley.”

  “It could.”

  “We could have a tornado, but I don’t think we will.” She leaned over the desk and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Rudley, there’s no need to worry. It isn’t expected to start snowing again until late evening and I’ll be home by then.”

  “Don’t let that woman talk you into anything garish.”

  “Rudley, I don’t intend to bring home anything but some bayberry candles. Frances called to say they just came in
.”

  She sailed out the front door, just as Tim came up the back steps. “I finally found the jingle bells,” he said, holding up a length of old leather studded with bronze bells.

  Rudley examined them with a sigh. “They’re starting to look as if they’d seen better days.”

  “They’ll be all right, Boss. I’m going to take some saddle soap and brass cleaner to them.”

  “Good.” Rudley brightened. “Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the sleigh bells.”

  “I’ll put them in the closet for now,” said Tim. “I promised the Sawchucks I’d get them downstairs in time for lunch.”

  “Where’s Tiffany?”

  “With her beau, I imagine. She’s on vacation, Boss.”

  Rudley harrumphed around as Tim went upstairs to help the Sawchucks. He didn’t care to have Tiffany and Thornton in the inn, on the same floor, in — as they had finally revealed to him — adjoining rooms. And when they did reveal it to him, they acted as if he should have known all along. “We couldn’t very well have Tiffany staying in the bunkhouse while she’s on holiday,” Margaret had said. “And the best room left happened to be the one next to Mr. Thornton’s. You wouldn’t want Tiffany to have anything but the best.”

  “Well…”

  “The only other option would have been to have Tiffany stay with me in our quarters and you could have stayed in the room adjacent Mr. Thornton.”

  That comment made the veins at his temples throb.

  “Nothing will happen, Rudley, that wouldn’t happen if she were in the bunkhouse and he was in a room at the inn. They’ve been in Toronto together.”

  “That’s the point. They were in Toronto.”

  Rudley sighed. He knew Mr. Thornton was a dud, but if Tiffany was determined to marry a dud, there was nothing he could do about it. Young women, he considered, have no taste in men. Not like Margaret. He smiled and did a little two-step behind the desk. Yes, they made men different in his day. I wasn’t a bad catch. Well-mannered, reliable, with some prospects. Properly raised, the son of an old-fashioned general practitioner and a resilient mother with the patience of Job. He inherited the best from both. His father had expected him to follow in his footsteps, but from the moment he walked into the old Baltimore Hotel in Galt for his first summer job, he knew he was to become an innkeeper. In the past thirty years, in spite of a series of misadventures, he and Margaret had been a source of comfort and excellent service to a regular stream of guests. He ran the inn with a firm but gentle hand and it wasn’t always easy riding herd on a spirited staff and a group of eccentric guests always eager to jump the traces and run amok. He couldn’t have done it without Margaret. She’d been at his side since the day they first met at that stuffy London party, one of those arty things he usually loathed. He remembered standing in a corner, nursing his Jamieson, the other guests looking at him as if he were a bear in a bush. She was the only one there worth spit. She was pretty in a way that attracted him, bright and warm. From the minute he laid eyes on her, he knew she would never be unkind to any living thing. And she never had been. “Great girl, Margaret,” he told Albert.