even original. I expect your writing is equally trite.” Standing up, I declaimed with wide-flung arms, “ ‘Our stalwart hero Porno Hardcore ripped the clothes from the protesting body of lithesome lovely Tessie Tease, pressed his rapacious hand upon her curvaceous beep, beep, Deep and cried, “Gee, sugar cube, I’d really love to beep-beep your beep-beep-beep!” ’ ”
Ben’s lips quivered. “You have just made my point. I write spy stories and for them to be credible the characters must sound like real people. No one in this day and age shrieks, ‘Oh naughty, naughty!’ when an alligator stomps up the river bank and nips off their left leg.”
“True,” I said, slumping down again and absently reaching for a piece of leftover fruitcake, dry as the Sahara, “but there’s an easy way round that problem. You transport your story to another era. The eighteenth century was a little raunchy; you’d do better in the Victorian reign, when being a gentleman did not necessarily mean you were impotent, or …”
Ben shook his head. “Too limiting for my medium. A spy story needs the fast action of wireless, air travel, chemical warfare, and all the intricacies of modern-day espionage, nuclear secrets, intrigue.…”
“All right.” I cracked off another piece of fruitcake. “If you insist on remaining within the twentieth century your hero must be from another world.”
“Tremendous,” said Ben, pitching a scrunched-up piece of paper into the grate. “I’ll make him a pointy-eared little green man from Mars, running on a transistor battery, who …”
“Must you take everything literally? By ‘another world’ I meant cast your hero in a different mould from Mr. AverageSpy with his upturned raincoat collar and limp trilby hat. Make him a college professor with a passion for Keats, or an opera singer with laryngitis. Make him a woman.”
Ben’s eyes flashed. “Ellie,” he said, “you have given me an idea.”
I held out my hand. “Half the royalties?”
“Nothing doing.” Ben stood up and began pacing between our two chairs. “At the end of the six months I want to be able to shake my fist at Uncle Merlin and tell him where he can put his inheritance. A roof over my head for a while is one thing but …”
A tap at the door interrupted my exuberant whoop of triumph at Ben’s apparent capitulation. In came Jonas Phipps, head bent and the inevitable scuffed old hat dangling between his fingers. In the half-light all I could see of the gardener’s face were the jutting grey eyebrows and bristly scrubbing-brush moustache. Electricity would be one of the first amenities I would install in Merlin’s Court.
As a novice at the lady of the manor game I wondered how I should address this elderly retainer. Aunt Astrid would have said, “Don’t stand there gawking all day. Out with it, my man!”
“Yes, Jonas,” said Ben, offering his hand. “Is there something Miss Simons and I can do for you?”
“Be I to sleep up at the cottage as usual, sir? Now that it rightly belongs to Miss Grantham I don’t want to do nowt to upset her, but what with there being no bed in the rooms over the stables and me lumbago acting up, sir, I was awondering …”
“No problem. Miss Grantham is spending the night in her old room. Ellie and I have not discussed the matter yet, but it seems a shame for the old lady to be uprooted—unless of course she would like the privacy of her own place. And I am sure you do not relish being evicted from your home. In any event you must remain at me cottage until a decision is made.”
“I’ll not go against the will, sir.” Phipps was probably a simple soul, subject to a superstitious terror of falling foulof the legal system, to say nothing of the thwarted ghost of Uncle Merlin,
“Mr. Phipps, have you eaten?” I asked. “I believe there is some cold roast beef in the kitchen.”
“Nay, I cook me own meals, mistress. I’ll be on my way and thank ye both
Ben’s lips quivered. “You have just made my point. I write spy stories and for them to be credible the characters must sound like real people. No one in this day and age shrieks, ‘Oh naughty, naughty!’ when an alligator stomps up the river bank and nips off their left leg.”
“True,” I said, slumping down again and absently reaching for a piece of leftover fruitcake, dry as the Sahara, “but there’s an easy way round that problem. You transport your story to another era. The eighteenth century was a little raunchy; you’d do better in the Victorian reign, when being a gentleman did not necessarily mean you were impotent, or …”
Ben shook his head. “Too limiting for my medium. A spy story needs the fast action of wireless, air travel, chemical warfare, and all the intricacies of modern-day espionage, nuclear secrets, intrigue.…”
“All right.” I cracked off another piece of fruitcake. “If you insist on remaining within the twentieth century your hero must be from another world.”
“Tremendous,” said Ben, pitching a scrunched-up piece of paper into the grate. “I’ll make him a pointy-eared little green man from Mars, running on a transistor battery, who …”
“Must you take everything literally? By ‘another world’ I meant cast your hero in a different mould from Mr. AverageSpy with his upturned raincoat collar and limp trilby hat. Make him a college professor with a passion for Keats, or an opera singer with laryngitis. Make him a woman.”
Ben’s eyes flashed. “Ellie,” he said, “you have given me an idea.”
I held out my hand. “Half the royalties?”
“Nothing doing.” Ben stood up and began pacing between our two chairs. “At the end of the six months I want to be able to shake my fist at Uncle Merlin and tell him where he can put his inheritance. A roof over my head for a while is one thing but …”
A tap at the door interrupted my exuberant whoop of triumph at Ben’s apparent capitulation. In came Jonas Phipps, head bent and the inevitable scuffed old hat dangling between his fingers. In the half-light all I could see of the gardener’s face were the jutting grey eyebrows and bristly scrubbing-brush moustache. Electricity would be one of the first amenities I would install in Merlin’s Court.
As a novice at the lady of the manor game I wondered how I should address this elderly retainer. Aunt Astrid would have said, “Don’t stand there gawking all day. Out with it, my man!”
“Yes, Jonas,” said Ben, offering his hand. “Is there something Miss Simons and I can do for you?”
“Be I to sleep up at the cottage as usual, sir? Now that it rightly belongs to Miss Grantham I don’t want to do nowt to upset her, but what with there being no bed in the rooms over the stables and me lumbago acting up, sir, I was awondering …”
“No problem. Miss Grantham is spending the night in her old room. Ellie and I have not discussed the matter yet, but it seems a shame for the old lady to be uprooted—unless of course she would like the privacy of her own place. And I am sure you do not relish being evicted from your home. In any event you must remain at me cottage until a decision is made.”
“I’ll not go against the will, sir.” Phipps was probably a simple soul, subject to a superstitious terror of falling foulof the legal system, to say nothing of the thwarted ghost of Uncle Merlin,
“Mr. Phipps, have you eaten?” I asked. “I believe there is some cold roast beef in the kitchen.”
“Nay, I cook me own meals, mistress. I’ll be on my way and thank ye both
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