The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish (14 page)

Miss Bentwhistle Recuperates

M
iss
Bentwhistle dabbed her lips with the best linen napkin of the Reverend Rector and Mrs. Brice Harvey Mandible. She had just completed an especially fine mid-morning breakfast of coddled eggs, sausage, cured ham, and crumpets with plum jam, washed down with a little tea and honey — a breakfast that had been delivered to her bed, here in the master room of the St. James manse, by Mrs. Mandible herself. The Mandibles had taken her in following the fire. They had given her full use of their home, including their very own bedroom.

Sun poured through the casements and drenched the room, spilling over the twin easels sporting the Bentwhistle Coat of Arms and the Bentwhistle Family Tree. Thank heavens she’d rescued them from the Academy dining hall during the conflagration. The parchments, curiously, had been improved by the ordeal. The ornate gilt calligraphy and decorative seals of the Heralds’ College of Westminster still glittered, while the recent soot and singeing intimated ancient family lore and
gravitas
. God was smiling on her master plan.

The headmistress had a little stretch, and settled back against the bank of fluffed pillows propped against the oak headboard. Another teaspoon of laudanum and the world would be tickety-boo.

I
t had been a challenging few weeks.

Miss Bentwhistle’s tribulations had begun the night following the reception for Mary Mabel. She was prowling the corridors when she was overcome by a death stench coming from behind the door to the laundry room. Rat poison had been put down the previous week, but this smell signalled more than a dead rodent. Surely an army of raccoons lay putrefying under the tubs. Miss Bentwhistle entered the room and traced the stink to a clothes hamper. Using the end of a nearby mop, she lifted a crumpled sheet. Underneath was a beast all right, but of the two-legged variety. A big palooka in hunting gear. He was burrowed in a mound of undergarments, garters hanging from big red ears.

Miss Bentwhistle was so outraged, she forgot to scream. “What are you doing in my laundry room?”

“Nothin’. I was out for a stroll. Must of taken a wrong turn somewheres and got lost.”

“I see.” Miss Bentwhistle noticed his shotgun. “Sorry to have disturbed.” She calmly dropped the sheet back on his head, fled to the hall, and locked the door.

What to do now? A call to the police was out of the question; word that armed brutes prowled her corridors would empty the school. On the other hand, the intruder couldn’t be set free. Nor could he be kept as a house pet. If only she could have stuffed his mouth with a mop, trussed him in sheets, and cemented him behind some pipes.

There was no more time to think. Inside the laundry room, her gentleman caller had removed the pins from the door hinges. A mighty heave and the portal ripped from its moorings. The beast stood before her in a cloud of plaster dust. He had a shotgun under his arm; a skinning knife hung from his belt. “No more hide-and-seek, woman. Where’s Brewster McTavish?”

“Ah! So you’re here for Mr. McTavish?”

The woodsman was confused. Normally people didn’t ask questions. They spilled the beans and screamed for mercy. “Yeah,” he said warily. “We’re old pals.”

“I might have guessed. Sorry to say, your friend’s left town for parts unknown. I suggest you do likewise.”

The hunter fingered his trigger. “Where’s his young’un, Mary Mabel?”

“Do you live in a cave?” At a glance, perhaps he did. “Miss McTavish is off saving souls, my dear. Her itinerary is posted in the
Free Press
.”

“You’d best be telling the truth,” the hunter said, “or I’ll be back to shoot your girlies.” With that, he blasted out the nearest window, hopped through and disappeared.

I
f Miss Bentwhistle had been upset to have her school invaded, she was outraged to have it burned to the ground.

Trust Miss Budgie. The little snip had been the only fatality, count your blessings. Still, her funeral was a trial. All those hankies to clean. Finding something nice to say had been no picnic, either. Miss Bentwhistle made a dozen false starts on the eulogy. “Miss Budgie was a teacher who fired up her students.” Perhaps not. “Miss Budgie was a special favourite of the janitorial staff.” Hmm. “Miss Budgie was well-known for the liveliness of her classes.” Yes, well. She settled on the theme: “Gone, but Not Forgotten.”

The St. James Board of Session had sent flowers and arranged for Miss Bentwhistle to stay at the rectory. Over the generations, her family’s tithes had contributed mightily to the church’s good fortune, and the session thought its act of charity would be a useful down payment on favours yet to come. The Mandibles were upset at being evicted from their matrimonial bed, but who paid the bills?

London had opened its heart, as well. Churches immediately offered to rent their Sunday school classrooms to the Academy, while community-minded citizens eagerly invited the young ladies into their homes in exchange for the school’s boarding fees. “Vultures,” Miss Bentwhistle fumed privately. Publicly she expressed gratitude. She and her students would move in forthwith, though naturally she couldn’t discuss money matters while mourning her dear friend, Miss Budgie.

Unhappily, association with Miss Budgie became increasingly awkward. At first the schoolmarm had been hailed as a martyr. However, the morning of the interment, officials announced that the source of the inferno was her very own classroom, and asked pointed questions about kerosene and a peculiar mountain of ash. As well, reports suggested that on the night of the blaze, a bevy of young ladies had wakened to the smell of smoke and someone cackling opera. They ran to the cricket pitch from which they saw Miss Budgie dancing from window to window like a latter-day Mrs. Rochester, setting fire to the curtains with flaming sheets of foolscap. Gossip spread faster than influenza. Memories stirred of her infatuation with the unspeakable Mr. Fontaine. Overnight, it was common knowledge that the Academy’s teaching staff was a collection of arsonists, perverts, and sexual hysterics.

Miss Bentwhistle was aware of the rumours. Not that anyone said anything to her face. Rather, she knew from the increasingly smug tone of her sympathizers. Mrs. Mandible was particularly solicitous. “It must be so difficult to check references,” she commiserated. More telling was the sudden and precipitous drop in the school’s enrollment. Within days, the only girls left were those whose parents preferred they risk immolation than darken the family door.

It didn’t help that these delinquents were now loose in the community. Churches providing space to the Academy reported trashed Sunday schools, defaced hymnals, and cigarette butts in the choir loft. At St. James, the Reverend Mandible’s vestments went missing, only to be discovered in shreds, plugging the toilets. Worse, someone absconded with the cathedral’s silver candlesticks and chalice, and its nineteenth-century European oil paintings:
The Annunciation
,
The Beheading of John the Baptist
, and
The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
.

The Academy’s credibility, like its woodwork, was up in smoke. It had no securities with which to rebuild. There were no revenues to pay for the rented classrooms. The room and board money had already been spent. Gossip foreclosed fundraising. And insurance monies would be stripped by past creditors.

As for Miss Bentwhistle, she was living on the charity of church mice. How long before they turned to rats? The wolf might not be at the door, but one could smell him from the verandah. She began to plan for the inevitable day of judgment.

T
he headmistress knew it was time to put her plans into effect when Mrs. Mandible brought her this morning’s breakfast tray. Coddled eggs, cured ham, sausage, crumpets, and plum jam had replaced the customary boiled egg and toast. What unexpected kindness. She’d better watch her back.

“The mayor was wondering if you’d be up for a delegation of well-wishers,” Mrs. Mandible enquired. “Say around ten?”

“I’d be delighted. Say around eleven.”

They meant to humiliate her, of that she was certain. Let them dare. She polished off her breakfast, reviewed her strategy, and placed a call to her secretary. “Gird your loins, Dolly. The enemy is at the gates.” Then, dressed in style and fashionably late, she floated down the rectory staircase, into the parlour, past her visitors, and onto the Mandible’s finest floral wingback at the head of the room.

She gazed around the circle of starched collars, reserving a special nod for Mrs. Mandible, simpering by the tea trolley in the back corner. “And what can I do for you, gentlemen?”

The men shifted their weight, fiddled with their trousers, and cast sideways glances at the mayor. His Worship rose. “Sorry to trouble you, Miss Bentwhistle, but, uh, over the past couple of weeks there’ve been problems around town.”

“In that case, you had best deal with them.”

Pause. “Yes. Well, uh, that’s why we’re here. You see, these problems, well, they seem to involve your young ladies.”

Miss Bentwhistle stared at the centre of the mayor’s forehead. He shuffled. He dabbed his brow with a handkerchief. He sat down.

“What Herb means to say,” said the town clerk, “is that ever since the Academy moved into our Sunday schools, there’s been theft and vandalism at the churches.”

“What makes you suspect my young ladies?” Miss Bentwhistle bristled. “Why not an insurrection of local Bolsheviks?”

“London doesn’t have any Bolsheviks.”

“Oh, doesn’t it, though. I know a Ukrainian grocer when I see one,” she said with a withering glance at Alderman Cole, formerly Kulesha. “Nor let us forget the bog Irish in our midst.”

The room leaped to its feet. “And who do you suppose is raiding our liquor cabinets?”

“I wouldn’t know,” sniffed Miss Bentwhistle. “Perhaps your wives?” A sea of bobbing Adam’s apples. “Come, gentlemen, half of you are married to known tosspots. I’m sure they’re only too happy to use my girls as window dressing for their debaucheries.”

The town clerk shook his fist. “It was your little vixens, and none other, whom I found in my living room playing strip poker with the neighbour boys!”

Miss Bentwhistle gasped. “How dare you have left them unsupervised!” She swept the crowd with an eyebrow. “I have entrusted to you the flower of this nation’s youth. And what have you done? By your own admission, surrendered them to booze, boys, and bedlam! You ought to be sued for breech of trust, reckless endangerment, and contributing to the delinquency of minors!”

“No one’s looking for trouble,” the Reverend Mandible soothed. “It’s just that we’re going through hell providing for your Academy, without a penny of compensation.”

“So that’s it!” Miss Bentwhistle sneered. “Money! It always comes down to money with your sort. For generations, this town has been sustained by my family’s generosity. More recently, my girls have spent their trust funds in your shops. Now, in our darkest hour, as we mourn our dead, you seek to beggar us! You seek to extort recompense for your self-confessed derelictions of duty!”

“We seek nothing of the kind.”

“Do you take me for deaf? Your effrontery is beyond preposterous! It is an outrage! I will not have it! No! I will not allow the good name of Bentwhistle to be spat upon by ingrates! Better that the Academy should fold than suffer mob attack! Indeed, I shall shut its gates forever and forthwith!”

The righteous burghers, whose stores indeed had benefited from the Academy’s clientele, scrambled to make amends.

Miss Bentwhistle would have none of it. “You call yourselves town fathers. Town eunuchs is more like it. Gelded pigs. Well you’ve killed the goose that laid the golden egg. I’m already packed. Yes! I’m leaving this little piss-hole you’re pleased to call home. I’m off to greener pastures. To a world that appreciates my gifts.” There was a knock at the door. Miss Bentwhistle checked her watch. “That will be my secretary and her brothers. They have arrived to fetch my bags and convey me to the station. Good day.”

Before the delegation could pick their dentures off the floor, Miss Bentwhistle had sailed from the rectory. Her grand plan was in motion. She was about to take on the greatest role of her life, a role commanded by destiny.

The BARONESS and the SHOWGIRL

Opening Night

T
he
new revival tour got off to a rocky start. All the way to Flint, Brother Percy shook with fury at the advertisements for the Miracle Maid decorating the Olds. On the bright side, he didn’t say much; his outpouring at the Twins had been so impassioned that he’d popped a few sutures. As a result, the only time he ventured a word was at the Sarnia/Port Huron border. The customs agent asked, “Do you have anything to declare?”

“YEZ!” Percy announced. “JEZUZ CHRIZE IZ MA PERZONEL LORE AN ZAVER!”

F
loyd had made reservations at the Walden Hotel. The moment they drove up, a gaggle of curiosity-seekers mobbed the car. “It’s her! It’s her! Like in the movies!” Two police officers cleared a path, the doorman hustled them inside, a bellboy packed them into an elevator, and — bingo — they were on the third floor in front of their rooms. Mary Mabel was put in the middle. “The rose between two thorns,” Floyd joked.

After they’d had time to freshen up, Floyd knocked on their doors and asked if they’d care to join him for supper. Brother Percy preferred to fast. Until his jaw was healed, he’d be out of commission preaching-wise; he hoped this might inspire God to get a move on with his recovery. Mary Mabel wasn’t hungry, either.

“Butterflies,” Floyd said with a wink. “Get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Mary Mabel closed the door and flopped on her bed. Her premiere was in less than twenty-four hours. What if there were critics? What if they hated her? Should Mr. Cruickshank do like “Auntie” Irene? Before opening nights at the Milwaukee Little Theater Guild, she’d send the local reviewer a box of chocolates.

All week, Floyd had reassured her. Their hosts were filling the first half with local children’s choirs. This guaranteed a crowd of appreciative parents. After intermission, she’d talk about Timmy’s resurrection, a tale she knew backwards. Then there’d be preselected questions from the audience, a freewill offering, the choirs would return, she’d give the kids a hug, the crowd would sing “Amazing Grace” and everybody’d go home happy: “It’s as simple as cows.”

Mary Mabel took ten deep breaths. What right did she have to worry? She had food, shelter, and a future. And not just any future. The chance to perform — to fulfill her childhood dream! She counted her blessings over and over, even managing a thought for her hotel room. It was so different from the ones she and her papa had stayed in during their vagabond days. For one thing, she could look under the bed without blushing. For another, the mattress didn’t bite.

Soon Mary Mabel was off to the land of Nod … and a most peculiar dream. She imagined that she’d woken to a commotion outside her room. “She’s in here!” the crowd shouted, hacking through her door with fire axes. “Don’t let her get away!” She hid in the closet. To her surprise, it was filled with nurse outfits. She swam through rows of uniforms, the mob in pursuit.
What’ll I do when I reach the back wall?
she panicked. But there wasn’t a back wall. The closet kept growing. Soon there was no light. No air. She was tangled in clothes. Choked by coat hangers. Suffocating in fabric.

That’s when she woke up for real, twisted in bed sheets, to an argument coming from Floyd’s room. Whatever her partners were yelling about, she had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with her. She retrieved the water glass by the bathroom sink, pressed it against the wall, and cupped her ear. The reception came in dandy. Floyd’s end of it, anyway.

“If the car bothers you so much, we’ll get a new paint job. All black with flaming orange letters. ‘The Doomsday Special: Repent or Burn.’ Okay? Or how about ‘Brother Percy: The Hell and Back Tour’? Think that’ll draw crowds? Face it. Folks don’t give a rat’s ass about you. It’s her they want. God answers her prayers.”

“Whadeja mean he answers your prayers, too? Your prayers killed a kid. Hers brought him back to life.”

Howls of outrage.

“Who cares if it’s bullshit? It’s what they think.”

More outrage.

“Don’t threaten me, you sonovabitch!”

Door slam. Stomping back and forth in the hall. The stomping came to rest outside her room. She held her breath. More stomping.

“Keep it down,” someone called from the end of the corridor.

A rant, followed by the sound of Brother Percy’s door banging shut. He was still raving. Mary Mabel tiptoed over and pressed her glass to the wall. It was like he could see her. “SHE-DEVUH!” he roared through the plaster. “SHE-DEVUH!” His wastepaper basket hit the wall by her ear. She leapt back. He pummelled the wall with his fists.

Then his phone rang. They froze. It kept ringing.

Percy answered. “WHOZIT?” Incomprehensible grunts and explosions. His caller appeared to be talkative. On a hunch, Mary Mabel scampered over to listen at Floyd’s wall. Success.

“How many times do I have to say it? I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry!” Floyd exclaimed. “It’s just, right now we need her … Whadeja mean ‘why’? Cash flow, you idiot. She’s a hot ticket … Look, will you keep it down? You want the front desk to call the cops? You want to wreck your opening night?… Of course it’s your opening night. Who cares if you’re not preaching? You’ll be introduced and applauded. And once you’re back to normal, you’ll headline … No, I’m not lying. Heck, you’re God’s anointed. Heir to Billy Sunday … I am not making fun. I swear on the grave of my grandmother … Yes, Perce, of course we’re friends. Best of friends … I care about you, too. Now say your prayers, get some sleep, and don’t do anything you’ll regret … Amen, pal.” Click.

Silence. Mary Mabel put her glass to Brother Percy’s wall and heard a strange sound. Brother Percy was crying.

M
ary Mabel tossed and turned all night. She’d known that Floyd played with truth. But did he really think her miracle was a fraud? What were his actual plans for Brother Percy and her? Speaking of Percy — should she be moved to pity, terror, or both? By morning Mary Mabel wasn’t fit for company. She stayed in her housecoat, huddled in a blanket with the drapes drawn. Floyd honoured her D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
sign till ten. Then he knocked with a cheery, “Rise and shine.”

She opened the door a crack. “Mr. Cruickshank, I hate to be rude, but like the sign says, I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“We have an invitation for lunch. The Chamber of Commerce.”

“Send my regrets.”

“Can’t. They’re the sponsor. No sponsors, no cash flow.”

“Rumour has it
I’m
the cash flow.”

A careful pause. “I’m not sure what you overheard last night, but when Perce and I get to arguing, sometimes I say things I don’t mean to keep him in line.”

“Oh. And do you ever say things you don’t mean to keep
me
in line?”

His eyes flickered. “You owe me an apology.”

“And you owe me an answer.”

He leaned in. She could smell his breakfast. “I won’t be called to account in a public hallway. Lunch is at noon. I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty.”

T
he Chamber of Commerce was a crowd of very loud men in very loud suits. They stank of cigars. They thought they were funny. Floyd was in his element. Brother Percy, on the other hand, feared for his life. He got stuck between two bankers who slapped his back with the enthusiasm of Swedish masseurs. Mary Mabel was spared the more robust shenanigans, including the bun toss. In fact, the only thing that threatened her was the conversation: “So you’re from Canada. Any igloos in your neck of the woods?”

“Can’t wait for the show. Will you be tap dancing?”

“As a healer, what do you recommend for a cold?”

At first she tried to make herself disappear by staring at her mashed potatoes, but Americans are relentlessly friendly. “If you don’t mind my asking, how long have you had that mole?” She closed her eyes and pretended to pray. Even that didn’t work. “Look, she’s fallen asleep! Isn’t that the sweetest thing? Wakey-wakey!” When a geezer in plaid came up, pinched her cheek and remarked that she was the spitting image of his daughter, she’d had enough. “Pinch me again and I’ll bop you one.”

Back in the car, Floyd lit into her. “Threatening a sponsor! Making sculptures with your damn potatoes! What on earth were you doing?”

“Getting a preview of Hell.”

“The Chamber of Commerce has busted its butt to make tonight’s event a success. The least you could have done was pretend to enjoy yourself.”

“I’d need a can of laughing gas.”

“That’s snooty, selfish, and just plain spoiled. Brother Perce is a walking bruise. Do you hear him complain? No sir. If somebody pinched his cheek, he’d turn the other one.” (Righteous whimpers from the back seat.) “You may not care for those boys, but they’re doing their best, clinging to families and businesses by their fingernails. Despite that, they volunteer for their town. They think you can help. You oughta feel privileged.”

She lowered her head. “You’re right. I was mean. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” he replied, tossing her his handkerchief. “I want you to shape up. You’re an actress. Act.”

“I’ll do my best,” Mary Mabel promised. She blew her nose. In future, she resolved to be kind. She resolved to be generous. Above all, she resolved to act.

A
ll Mary Mabel’s stage training, she owed to her “Auntie” Irene, a woman who, like herself, had had a childhood fantasy of becoming an actress. When Auntie Irene had told her parents her dream, they were so horrified they ran out and found her a husband. He was a third-generation undertaker by the name of Bigelow. Auntie Irene spent the rest of her days wearing black. “‘I am in mourning for my life,’” she’d say. And indeed she was. The closest she got to a life on the boards was bossing the Milwaukee Little Theater Guild.

Rehearsals were held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons, except if there was a death in town, in which case they’d be cancelled. Auntie Irene was expected to attend the visitations. A visitation on a performance night meant the curtain was held till nine. In order not to delay things further, she’d wear her costume under her funeral duds and greet the mourners in full makeup. “The show must go on.”

Auntie Irene began each practice with exercises in elocution and gesticulation. Guild members would stride about in grand circles, while she’d bellow instructions from the sidelines. “Breeeeeathe from your diaphragms! Expaaaaand those resonating cavities! Chins up! Chests out! Keep your mouths wide! Your foreheads high! Emote!”

Her actors looked pretty simple, but Auntie Irene reminded them that they’d be performing on a stage, not in somebody’s kitchen. “Dramatic art is larger than life. King Lear raged on a heath, he didn’t pick fights at the donut shop. Thanks to the magic of theatre, the audience shall willingly suspend its disbelief.” Guild members agreed, noting Auntie Irene’s recent triumph as Juliet.

Mary Mabel was cast in every production. When the play didn’t have parts for children, her auntie put her on stage as a kitten or a footstool. This was because there wasn’t anyone back at the funeral home to keep an eye on her. In addition to yard work, Brewster was up to his ears stacking coffins, clearing mice out of their upholstery, and cracking the joints of unruly cadavers.

As for Mr. Bigelow, he didn’t keep an eye on anything but his corpses. Even when Auntie Irene took Brewster to her bedroom for private acting lessons, he’d stay below ground in the Land of the Dead — that’s what Mary Mabel called the basement room where he did the preparations. When the upstairs vocalizing got out of hand, she’d wander down to keep him company. He rarely noticed her. When he did, he’d give her a nod as if she were a spirit passing through. Then his gaze would return to the middle distance, and he’d slowly inhale fumes from the jar of embalming fluids by his side.

His addiction didn’t bother the bereaved. They appreciated his calm demeanor and took the glassiness of his eyes as shared grief. Like Auntie Irene, he was an actor who could play his role pickled, knowing exactly when to make a comforting gesture, or to pass a tissue, or to say: “Good evening, it’s a great tragedy, so glad you could come.”

Mary Mabel liked Mr. Bigelow. He cared about the dead more than most people care about the living. All of his clients’ rough edges were smoothed away, their hair combed, ties knotted, and jewellery adjusted with absolute devotion. They were also treated to sympathetic patter. He’d wax enthusiastic about their obituaries, or tell jokes. When he worked on a child, he’d sing lullabies. For those who died friendless, he’d make up stories about stacks of condolence cards, and tell them not to be disappointed by a low turnout, there was a bad storm brewing. If they looked afraid, he’d hold their hands. “Don’t worry,” he’d whisper, “you’ll be fine.” And they were. By the time they went on display, his clients appeared more lifelike than the actors at the Guild.

Mary Mabel liked to sneak into the visitation room to look at the baskets of flowers around the caskets. Mr. Bigelow made sure there were lots, even for those who couldn’t pay. After admiring the flowers, she’d wander up and stare at the deceased. She was fascinated by their hands; they all seemed to be wearing pale silk gloves. Mostly, though, she concentrated on their eyelids. If she stared long enough, she began to imagine that the bodies were breathing. They weren’t lost in a terrible void. They were sleeping soundly, at rest in a land where dreams are good and every dream comes true.

She wished her mama had had a Mr. Bigelow. Her mama wasn’t at peace when they closed the lid. During the waiting-in, Mary Mabel had tried to climb into her coffin. They’d pulled her away, but not before she’d seen her mama’s face. It was hard and disfigured. The mouth crooked. The chin black. The tips of the nose and ears missing. Mary Mabel was too young to understand about death, much less about frostbite. All she knew was that something terrible had happened to her mama and it was all her fault.

A
fter lunch, Mary Mabel went over her speech in front of the bathroom mirror till it was time to go to the auditorium. The children’s choirs were already there when she arrived, as bubbly as soda pop except for one little boy who sat in the back row crying. He’d gotten so excited he’d peed himself. Mary Mabel knew how he felt.