Mennyms Under Siege by Sylvia Waugh

Author:Sylvia Waugh [Sylvia Waugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 1996-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

19

Back to Square One

JOSHUA WAS ON his way to work that Friday evening when he saw the notice pinned on the inside of the front door. In the most ornate of copperplates, surrounded by a border of twirls and flourishes, it read:

No one is to leave this house

till further notice.

This door must remain closed.

There was no signature, but the style and the hand were sufficient in themselves to identify the writer.

Joshua read it, took a deep breath. And opened the door anyway.

That can’t refer to me, he decided. I have to go out. How else would I go to work?

At that time in the evening, no other member of the household had any thought of going out. When, some hours later, Soobie took his late-night jog, he did not see the interdict. The lobby was dark, and that was as it had to be for the house door to open and close without the risk of his departure being observed.

Tulip, of course, knew all about the notice. Under orders from Magnus, it was she who had pinned it there.

Vinetta first saw it next morning as she checked to see if the postman had been. Every nuance of its meaning was quite clear to her. Tulip must have told Magnus of the health visitor’s interest in the family, and he was signalling panic-stations. Perhaps, she thought uneasily, this time he could be right. Vinetta did not know anything about the telephone call from the Education Department.

“So what happens next?” she asked Tulip, guessing that the notice was simply an opening flourish. “I see Magnus is putting up the barricades again.”

Tulip was barely speaking to Vinetta by this time. She, of course, knew all about the phone call Magnus had taken, and she had guessed that her daughter-in-law was holding something back over that whooping cough business. There had to be a connection.

It was seven-thirty in the morning. Very soon Joshua would be returning home from work. Tulip already knew that he had ignored the notice pinned to the door. Another reason to be disgruntled!

She gave Vinetta a very prim look before replying.

“There is to be a meeting this evening,” she said. “Everyone is to attend. It is vitally important.”

So once again Joshua’s Saturday at home was ruined. The whole family were summoned to take their places in Granpa’s room at seven o’clock precisely. They sat themselves down on chairs and cushions, then watched in wary silence the angry old man sitting bolt upright in his bed. The purple foot was stretched out stiff and rigid. Uneasy minutes were spent waiting for Sir Magnus to give utterance as if he were some ancient oracle.

Tulip sat in the armchair looking round very severely. She had not even brought her knitting to this meeting.

Joshua, in his chair by the door, was hoping that it would all be over soon, whatever it was. He kept his counsel, but he secretly believed that his father was too apt to create irritating mountains out of molehills. Vinetta and Hortensia, seated side by side, both felt uneasy, knowing that they shared a secret.

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