satisfy!”
“There’s no rush,” I said, “seeing that our mutual friend Jill recommended you so highly.”
“You must check me up!” Gerta shook her head with enough vehemence to knock one of her plaits down and set it swinging like a bell rope. “These days it does not do to be too trusting. For all you know, I could be a bad can of worms.”
“I doubt that.” Ben’s voice broke in upon us as he came down the stairs. He looked like a study in black and white in his dark suit and crisply starched shirt.
“You are one of the few kind men in this world, Herr Haskell!” Gerta’s gratitude showed in her glowing eyes as she pinned up the errant plait. I was immediately flooded with a profound satisfaction. Two lives salvaged as the result of the Haskells’ intervention. Ben and I were undoubtedly quite a team.
And moments later I was assured of our domestic bliss when he bent to kiss my lips as I finished telling him how Heathcliff had landed on all four paws in finding a new home. “You’re a miracle worker, Ellie. Why don’t you walk out with me to the car and we’ll talk about how you would like to celebrate your birthday tomorrow?”
“Darling, I would love to”—I handed Tam into his arms—“but I think I just heard Mrs. Malloy coming in the back way. Gerta will go with you so the twins can say bye-bye to Daddy. See you tonight, Ben.”
Typical husband! He stood rooted to the spot in mute reproach as I whisked around and headed down the hall. Even as I entered the kitchen, I knew he still hadn’t moved and that Abbey, sensing the moment was less than idyllic, had stopped jigging up and down. What Ben didn’t understand was that I had to explain Gerta to Mrs. Malloy. Myfaithful daily was liable to get her powdered nose out of joint upon learning I would now have less need to impose on her good offices.
“Morning, Mrs. H!” The words were dourly spoken and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had been found out already.
“It is a nice day.” I resisted the cowardly impulse to babble on about the lovely month of May. Mrs. Malloy is famed among her colleagues and clientele as a woman who takes no back chat from anyone. So far I had not entirely mastered the knack of holding my own with her. Part of her mystique was linked to the fact that she invariably turned up for work in a fur coat and sequinned toque, with her feet squeezed into impossibly tiny shoes with rhinestone clips and four-inch heels. “Nobody talks down to me when I’m on me stilts,” Mrs. M. had informed me balefully on the morning she conducted the interview set up by her to determine whether I met her standards of employment. And it was weeks into our “trial marriage” before I saw a friendly gleam flicker in her neon-lidded, heavily mascaraed eyes, let alone a smile make a crack in the rouge she laid on with a trowel.
She certainly was not smiling now as she removed her chapeau to reveal the full glory of her jet-black hair with its trademark two inches of white roots. “This is the life, Mrs. H.” She tossed the hat on the kitchen table, along with her supply bag, in which she kept a bottle of gin for emergencies, such as buffing up a piece of badly tarnished silver. “One bloody upset after another.”
Common sense should have told me she couldn’t have got wind of Gerta’s arrival on the scene, but while scurrying over to check whether the tea was still warm in the pot so that I might ply her with a cup, I began apologizing for having had the temerity to hire an au pair without first consulting her.
“A what do you call her?” Mrs. Malloy started to raise a painted eyebrow, wearily gave up the attempt, and sank onto the rocking chair in front of the hearth.
“It’s a fancy name for a nanny.” I narrowly missed tripping over her black fishnet legs in my haste to place the teacup in her hands.
“What? One of those foreign ones?” She said the “F”word with obvious distaste. “Some young
“There’s no rush,” I said, “seeing that our mutual friend Jill recommended you so highly.”
“You must check me up!” Gerta shook her head with enough vehemence to knock one of her plaits down and set it swinging like a bell rope. “These days it does not do to be too trusting. For all you know, I could be a bad can of worms.”
“I doubt that.” Ben’s voice broke in upon us as he came down the stairs. He looked like a study in black and white in his dark suit and crisply starched shirt.
“You are one of the few kind men in this world, Herr Haskell!” Gerta’s gratitude showed in her glowing eyes as she pinned up the errant plait. I was immediately flooded with a profound satisfaction. Two lives salvaged as the result of the Haskells’ intervention. Ben and I were undoubtedly quite a team.
And moments later I was assured of our domestic bliss when he bent to kiss my lips as I finished telling him how Heathcliff had landed on all four paws in finding a new home. “You’re a miracle worker, Ellie. Why don’t you walk out with me to the car and we’ll talk about how you would like to celebrate your birthday tomorrow?”
“Darling, I would love to”—I handed Tam into his arms—“but I think I just heard Mrs. Malloy coming in the back way. Gerta will go with you so the twins can say bye-bye to Daddy. See you tonight, Ben.”
Typical husband! He stood rooted to the spot in mute reproach as I whisked around and headed down the hall. Even as I entered the kitchen, I knew he still hadn’t moved and that Abbey, sensing the moment was less than idyllic, had stopped jigging up and down. What Ben didn’t understand was that I had to explain Gerta to Mrs. Malloy. Myfaithful daily was liable to get her powdered nose out of joint upon learning I would now have less need to impose on her good offices.
“Morning, Mrs. H!” The words were dourly spoken and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had been found out already.
“It is a nice day.” I resisted the cowardly impulse to babble on about the lovely month of May. Mrs. Malloy is famed among her colleagues and clientele as a woman who takes no back chat from anyone. So far I had not entirely mastered the knack of holding my own with her. Part of her mystique was linked to the fact that she invariably turned up for work in a fur coat and sequinned toque, with her feet squeezed into impossibly tiny shoes with rhinestone clips and four-inch heels. “Nobody talks down to me when I’m on me stilts,” Mrs. M. had informed me balefully on the morning she conducted the interview set up by her to determine whether I met her standards of employment. And it was weeks into our “trial marriage” before I saw a friendly gleam flicker in her neon-lidded, heavily mascaraed eyes, let alone a smile make a crack in the rouge she laid on with a trowel.
She certainly was not smiling now as she removed her chapeau to reveal the full glory of her jet-black hair with its trademark two inches of white roots. “This is the life, Mrs. H.” She tossed the hat on the kitchen table, along with her supply bag, in which she kept a bottle of gin for emergencies, such as buffing up a piece of badly tarnished silver. “One bloody upset after another.”
Common sense should have told me she couldn’t have got wind of Gerta’s arrival on the scene, but while scurrying over to check whether the tea was still warm in the pot so that I might ply her with a cup, I began apologizing for having had the temerity to hire an au pair without first consulting her.
“A what do you call her?” Mrs. Malloy started to raise a painted eyebrow, wearily gave up the attempt, and sank onto the rocking chair in front of the hearth.
“It’s a fancy name for a nanny.” I narrowly missed tripping over her black fishnet legs in my haste to place the teacup in her hands.
“What? One of those foreign ones?” She said the “F”word with obvious distaste. “Some young
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