Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) (11 page)

“Not yet! Hurry and come inside—it’s freezing out there!” I knew who she meant without asking, as I was just as eager as she was to get a look at Idonia’s mysterious Melrose DuBois.

Ellis’s husband Bennett crowded in after her, beating his gloved hands together. “You picked a dandy night for caroling. Must be twenty degrees out there!”

“Actually, it’s twenty-six,” I informed him. “Ben has a bar set up in the kitchen if you need some antifreeze.”

“Everybody else is here,” I told Ellis. She had brought her clam dip over earlier and now hurried into the dining room to adjust the heat under the chafing dish. Claudia’s husband Brian hovered over the table competing with Zee for the sweet-and-sour meatballs, while Jo Nell’s Paul kept Ben company in the kitchen. Bennett, I noticed, soon joined them.

Nettie, who stood at the living room window nursing a glass of red wine, held aside the curtain to peer into the street. “Seems they should be here by now … you don’t suppose she’s forgotten the time?”

“Oh, dear! What if they don’t come?” Jo Nell looked over Nettie’s shoulder. “Do you think something’s happened?”

“I
think
I’m going to have some of these appetizers everybody’s wolfing down with a nice glass of wine,” Ellis said, warming herself by the fire.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Weigelia set a dish of mixed nuts on the coffee table and stretched out her hands to the blaze. “Only I’m gonna warm my insides with some good hot coffee before I go out in the cold.” She shook her head. “I think the whole lot of us are crazy—that’s what I think!”

Weigelia has cleaned for most of The Thursdays at one time or another, and not only knows about the dust balls under the sofa, but our other secrets as well. Ellis finally admitted to me that she’d given Weigelia her grandmother’s treasured recipe for frozen fruit salad years before she gave it to me.

Claudia moved among us, a glass of wine in one hand and a tray of her marinated mushrooms in the other. “Well, I wish they’d hurry and get here before I lose my nerve to go out and face the elements. I don’t know how I’ll manage to sing if my teeth are chattering!”

“Have another glass of wine,” Zee advised her, lifting her own.

“Has anybody ever
seen
Melrose?” Jo Nell asked. “I wonder what he looks like.”

Nettie turned from her vigil by the window. “You’ll soon find out—they just drove up!”

“Everybody hush, now! Just act natural,” Zee advised.

“And how’s
that?”
Ellis said.

Jo Nell crossed over to admire the tree, examining each ornament as if she’d never seen them before. “How pretty!” she exclaimed, fingering a fragile glass bird. “Where did you find this one, Lucy Nan?”

“Jo Nell Touchstone! You gave it to me yourself when you drew my name last year,” I reminded her.

All of us were laughing when Idonia and Melrose made their entrance, somewhat hesitantly, through the dining room from the kitchen, so I suppose we did present sort of a laid-back front.

“It was much easier coming in the back way,” Idonia said, slipping out of a tan suede jacket I’d never seen before, and I’ll swear she looked as if she’d lost at least five pounds! Melrose, of course, was at her side to receive it, along with her muffler, hat, and gloves. “I’d like all of you to meet my friend, Melrose DuBois,” she said, beginning introductions all around.

I stepped up to relieve Melrose of his burdens and welcome him to my home, and after a few minutes of awkward chatter, Ben and some of the other men whisked him away to the kitchen. That devil Ellis Saxon smiled at me from across the room, and I turned quickly away to steer Idonia toward the refreshments. The two of us had discussed earlier what we expected Melrose to look like, and I’ll be darned if he didn’t fit the description down to his holiday bow tie and trim mustache!

A good four inches shorter than Idonia, who towered over him at five feet nine, Melrose DuBois was a round sturdy man with ruddy cheeks and a fringe of graying brown hair, who looked as if he might have stepped right out of the early nineteen hundreds. If he had plucked a pipe from inside his coat and sported a pocket watch, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

While the others gathered around Idonia with assurances of her new friend’s welcome, I found a spot on the table for her fruit tray and put a cup of hot punch in her hand. Idonia doesn’t care for alcohol, but she has finally gotten used to seeing the rest of us indulge now and then.

“He’s every bit as nice as you said he was,” Claudia said. “And so polite, too.”

“And such a pleasant smile,” Nettie added. “I’ll bet he has a good sense of humor.”

I agreed with Zee that Idonia’s gentleman friend was a brave
soul to take on all of us at once, and Idonia seemed to relax and bask in the glow of the pleasantries. And pleasantries were what they were. Melrose DuBois didn’t have the charm of a Cary Grant, the wit of a Robin Williams, or the sex appeal of a George Clooney—but then, who does? He was simply a Melrose, through and through, and if that was enough for Idonia Mae Culpepper, it was enough for me.

Tonight Idonia wore a sea green turtleneck tunic with beige wool pants and brown suede fur-trimmed boots. The gold locket with the two missing seed pearls glowed softly against her sweater. I don’t think she’d gone out without it since Melrose gave it to her a few days before.

Later, as we left to go caroling, I saw Augusta for just an instant out of the corner of my eye as she stood in the hallway wrapping herself in her “forty miles” of cape before stepping outside with the carolers. She pulled a plum-colored hat over her radiant hair before disappearing from my vision completely.

Everyone else was bundled to the teeth as well. In fact, most of us wore so many layers it was hard to tell one person from another. Claudia’s husband Brian, who claimed to be tone deaf, elected to stay and keep the home fires burning, but the rest of us waddled out looking like so many penguins. “If I fall, promise you won’t let me roll away,” I said to Ben as we maneuvered the front steps together. He pressed my gloved hand close against him as we started out. “Just try and get away,” he whispered, making me feel warmer at once.

“Where to?” called Ellis, who, with Bennett and Weigelia, led the way.

“Why not start with the Johnsons next door?” Zee answered, throwing the beam of her flashlight along the low stone wall that led to our neighbor’s house.

Our neighbors huddled politely in the doorway listening to our rendition of “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,” and even braved the
cold to hear a couple of verses of “Jingle Bells.” We declined their invitation to come in for eggnog and fruitcake and hurried along to the next house. Melrose’s tenor, we discovered, blended beautifully with Ben’s baritone, so we urged the two of them to the front of the group with Weigelia after that. Augusta, I noticed, stood at a discreet distance mouthing the words, and I ached for her, knowing how she wanted to sing.

Since they both sang alto, Idonia dropped back to stand next to Nettie at the rear of the carolers, but her eyes were only for Melrose, and the pride in her face was obvious as she listened to him sing.

“Couldn’t we just skip the Willoughbys?” Zee asked as we hurried across the street. “You know good and well Myrtle will pass around those awful cookies.”

“I don’t know how we can ignore them,” Ellis told her. “Besides, you don’t have to take one.”

But that, we found, was easier said than done. “I’m so glad you came around tonight—been baking all afternoon!” Myrtle Willoughby quickly threw a wrap about her. “Quick, Wilbur, bring me the cookie jar! I have plenty for everybody,” she called, hurrying to meet us. “Now, don’t be shy … take two—more if you like.” She shoved the container at each of us in turn. “Now, don’t tell me you’re dieting,” she said to Zee. “Nobody diets at Christmastime.”

“I’m glad we didn’t sing that song about the figgy pudding,” Paul Touchstone commented as we left. “She might’ve made some of that, too!”

Ben burst forth with his booming laugh. “That reminds me of this little maiden lady who lived over in Sweet Gum Valley, where I grew up,” he began. “Seems she was interested in the new preacher in town, and somebody told her they’d heard the fellow liked a woman with a big mouth … so she invited him over for dinner. ‘Won’t you have some
HAM, TATERS, and APPLE
PIE?’
she said, stretching her mouth as large as she could. Well, that didn’t do the trick,” he continued when the laughter died down, “so she reckoned he must favor the opposite. Well, the next time he came to dinner she made up her mind not to open her mouth any bigger than a keyhole. ‘Preacher,’ she said, ‘help yourself to some of them prunes, and please pass the pudding.’”

Nettie prodded him with her flashlight. “Do law, Ben Maxwell, I believe you made that up!”

“Did not! It was one of those McGaritys—Ruby Lee, I think it was—lived just down the road from my grandmama—ugly as homemade sin, the lot of them!”

We had decided to serenade the last two families on the block and call it a night, and were congregating on the Dorseys’ front walk when somebody jostled me from the rear and I turned to find Idonia practically breathing down my neck.

“Jo Nell, will you please stop crowding me? You’re stepping on my heels,” she complained.

“I don’t know how, since I’m standing over here,” Jo Nell said from a couple of feet away.

“Well, somebody keeps bumping into me. I can’t take a step without being shoved from behind,” Idonia insisted.

“Don’t look at me,” Nettie said. I noticed that she had moved up beside Claudia and Zee in an effort to move things along. “Let’s sing ‘Rudolph,’ that’s a lively one,” she said, beating her mittened hands together.

“How about ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’?” Bennett joked.

“And how about we leave you here to sing a solo?” Ellis suggested.

My feet were so numb I could hardly feel them as we sang “Deck the Halls” to Amelia Kimbrough at the house on the corner, ending with “Silent Night,” and if I hadn’t been so cold, I could have listened to more. The voices of Ben, Melrose, and Weigelia, with others blending in harmony, were so sweet it
brought tears to my eyes. I quickly wiped them away before they could freeze on my face and walked ahead of the others to get a start on warming the soup and pastries.

Idonia caught up with me as I hurried up the front walk. “Lucy Nan, I think somebody’s been following me,” she said, panting to keep up.

“You mean tonight? Idonia, we were all out there together. It was probably just somebody in our group.”

She glanced behind her as we went inside together. “I thought so, too, at first, but the whole time we were caroling, I heard footsteps a few steps behind me, and once, when we sang at the Dorseys’, I’m sure somebody tried to grab my arm.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Melrose?” I smiled, trying to make light of the situation, but Idonia wasn’t amused.

“You know good and well he was with Ben and Weigelia. He wasn’t even near me!”

“Were you able to get a look at this person at all?” I asked, thinking it was probably Nettie or one of the others.

In the kitchen, Idonia slipped out of her coat and tossed her gloves onto a chair. “Everybody was so bundled up, it was hard to tell who was who, but I really don’t think it was one of us. Whoever it was had a scarf wrapped over his face, and whenever I turned around, he seemed to move away. I’m sure I saw somebody slip into the shadows of that big magnolia in the Dorseys’ front yard.”

“But why? What do you think they wanted?”

“I can’t imagine, but it made me feel uncomfortable, and, Lucy Nan, you know me well enough to know I’m not easily excitable.” She peeked inside the slow cooker. “Mm … soup smells good! Butternut squash?”

I nodded. Upon our return to the house we had found our fire keeper, Brian, watching a football game in the sitting room while the fire burned to ashes on the living-room hearth. Somehow,
I noticed, Augusta had managed to slip back inside and turn up the heat on the cooker, and checking the oven, I found foil-wrapped meat pastries warm and ready to serve.

Voices and laughter in the living room alerted us the others had returned, and Idonia drew me aside as we went to greet them. “I’d rather you not mention this to Melrose, Lucy Nan. I don’t want him to think I’m one of those hysterical women who gets upset over nothing.”

I gave her a reassuring hug. “I won’t,” I said, “and you aren’t.”

In the living room a shamefaced Brian added wood to the fire and Nettie settled into the closest chair to pull off her boots and warm her feet. “I’m not moving,” she announced, “until I can feel my toes again.”

With Weigelia’s help I set out trays of pastries and mugs of soup to have with the fruit Idonia had brought earlier, and Ellis arranged a huge platter of cookies, jam cake, and lemon bars for dessert. Seated on the sofa, Idonia, her cheeks still flushed from the cold, laughed with Melrose at something Bennett was telling them.

“Remember the first time we were served vichyssoise?” Bennett said, winking at Ellis.

Ellis made a face. “How could I forget when you keep reminding me?” She laughed. “We were just out of college,” she explained, “and were invited to a progressive supper. The first course was vichyssoise served like this—in mugs.” She glanced at Bennett, who took up the story.

“It was cold, of course, with chives sprinkled on top, and neither of us had ever had it before …” Bennett waited for a signal from his wife before continuing. “On the way home, I asked Ellis how she liked the soup, and she said she reckoned it was okay once you got used to the cold, but she had an awful time straining those pine needles through her teeth!”

“Idonia tells us you’re staying over at the Spring Lamb,” Paul
Touchstone said to Melrose, after the laughter died down. “Getting enough to eat over there?” he added, ignoring his wife’s warning frown.

Melrose patted his round stomach and laughed. “Obviously, I’m getting enough somewhere, but I take most of my meals out.”

“Working over at the funeral home, I guess you get the news firsthand when anybody around here dies,” Zee said.

Melrose nodded solemnly. “Sooner or later, that’s where we all end up, only I’d a whole lot rather it be later.”