174. On the Butler and Granny Milksops

174. On the Butler and Granny Milksops

“Mum?” I mumbled.

“You´ve been sleeping for three days. I’m not Mum, I’m Heather."

I blinked and saw I was in the orange orchard bedroom of Heathie's ideal home. It's one of the best places ever to have a nap. The perfume of the ever blooming orange blossoms is so stunning one falls giddily asleep. 

"But Mum is here," continued Heathie in her honeyed voice.  "She's in the kitchen having chocolate cake with Thistle. I made one early this morning because I thought we'd have guests. I have to wake you because she wants to see you. And Thistle says if she keeps injecting slumber juice into Petey, he’ll go daft. It’s too much.”

 “I don’t think he can get worse than he is. Any change would have to be an improvement,” I yawned. And then I got serious. “He’s not violent or anything is he?”

“No! Thistle pokes him with more stuff before he can even snore in his sleep. You have to stop her. It’s too much!” insisted Heather. “Plus there are these two dreadful men at the foot of his bed  who sneaked in here somehow and who want us to end him so they can become a trio. What is that about, Arley?”

“Oh, no! That…they have to be…Let me check, Heathie. Where is he sleeping?”

Heather took me to the bedroom chamber where Petey was resting. Sure enough, at the foot of his pink unicorn-shaped gently bouncing and rocking giant crib, were the ghosts of the Greed King and the Sheriff of Sherbananawood lurking like vultures.

“No! “ I cried. “You can’t take him with you. Not just yet. Come back another time and I …I’ll invite you to a drink or something, but right now we’re too busy to be welcoming anyone. Domestic trouble. We're overburdened, overwhelmed and all tied up.  I’m sorry, but you have to leave. Please leave.”

They were so surprised at how I promised to give them a drink that they actually let me lead them to the window and they flew out. 

And then I went to see the person I was really afraid of. Mum was, fortunately, in a good mood. Heather had done well to feed her chocolate cake.

“So he’s uncovered himself, hey? What does he look like now?” Mum asked me.

“Uncle Gentlerain?”

“He threatened to disappear forever but he hasn’t even managed to disappear for three hundred years. I wish I had made a bet with him. I would have won.”

“He looks…he looks like…”

I looked at Mum. Sitting at the breakfast nook table nibbling chocolate and smiling and looking contented. Mum always looks very pretty when she is satisfied. It was as if I were seeing her for the first time. 

“You.Now that I think of it. Yes, Mum, he looks like you!   Only kinder,” I said.

“Kinder? Kinder? Gen looks kínder? You have no idea who Gen is.”

“Well, who exactly is he?”

“We look alike because he is my twin brother. We were born out of a rain drop that fell into a dew drop. They fused, and there were lovely sparks, and a bit of fire, like when you throw water at electircity. Probably a teensy ray of lightning hit thewater.  We sprang out of there. Your grandpapá was dancing and frolicking  in the light rain under  the waning moonlight when he saw us being born. You know how it is with babies. Whoever sees them first can claim them. He was with my nagging mamá and with my mean mother-in-law.”

“Neither of my grandmothers is bad,” I protested.

“To you. Of course not. I wouldn’t allow it. Anyway, upon seeing us looking so divine sitting pretty on a green leaf dangling over a silver pond, illuminated by the first ray of sunlight, your grandpapá said something like, `Mine! I want those!’ And your grandmothers, who are always wanting anything anyone else has, rushed and grabbed us, one each, before he could get to us. But you know how it is with fairy babies. The first one who sees them has the same right as the first one who touches them. So Mamá got me and your father’s mother got Gentlerain, and Papá got to be father to both of us. That is what makes Gen my half-brother and why he is also your father’s half-brother, though Gen and I  were born twins. Heathie, I’ll have another peice of chocolate cake, dear, if you don’t mind. Nobody bakes it like you do. So Gen is looking good, because if he still looks like me, he has to be. Is he still a fussbudget?” 

“A fussbudget?”

“That’s why he left. Nobody could put up with him. He was always opening windows to air rooms and shutting them so there wouldn’t be a draft and fixing roofs before they caved in on us, and sweeping away banana peels so no one would slip and wanting to water the plants so they wouldn’t dry  and telling everyone what they had better do. I don’t know how his wife can put up with him. Or does she? Maybe she hasn’t seen him in almost three hundred years either.”

“He has a wife?”

“A very pretty one too. Mabelle. Not May Bell, that´s someone else. Mabelle, with a short a and the accent on the belle.  One of the Blue Fairies. Of the Bluebell clan. They are all called something bell or something blue. If you haven’t met her, don’t. She’ll have you married to a relative of hers before you have a chance to say hey! Gen married her when he was seven. He’s probably sorry he did. People who rush into marriage always tend to repent.  I’ve always warned you about that. Though maybe he has not, because if they haven’t seen each other in almost three hundred years they can’t have bickered much, can they? So what is this war thing he got you into I have been hearing about? Something he said you had to do?”

“No. It was something I think he didn’t want me to do.”

“Hm. Well, it must have upset him if he couldn’t prevent you from doing it. He must feel destroyed. He never takes anything lightly.”

“He helped me do it right, I think. He gave me all sorts of advice on how to go about it. And he stood by my side all throughout it. He was like a father to me.” Suddenly, I thought I shouldn’t have said that.  “How does Dad get along with him? He won’t be jealous or anything, will he? Maybe I should have asked Dad to-“

“To go off to war with you? No, sweetie. No. Your father never goes anywhere like that. Somebody wrote a poem about him going off to a ridiculous miniature war once and he is still sore about it.”

“Michael Drayton’s Nymphidia?” I asked.

“Right. That one. Pretty thing. Rife with fauna and flora. Now, don’t you mention Nymphidia to your father because that is what is bound to rouse the drama queen in him. I’ll tell you how your father feels about Gen. He let Mr. Twinky loose on him. Some joke, eh? That’s how your father solves his problems. He creates a worse one. And then he pretends he thinks it’s funny.”

“Mr. Twinky?”

“The crazy man  the girls have sleeping in the garden.”

“Ah! Mungo John Binky! The Prime Minister! Of course!”

“Are you going to put this other conflictive person you have sleeping here out there in another glass coffin next to Mr. Finkly?”

“We can’t do that!” protested Heather. “Mr. Binky is Fay, and what happened to him was natural and will probably be over someday. If we put the human we have here out there, we might lose him. Forever.”

It did not escape any of us that lose him forever was a delicate way of saying it would be plain murder. 

“You tell our uncle the meddler to get off his divine arse wherever he is sitting on it and come here and take this …this jerk dictator human wherever he sees convenient!” Thistle suddenly shouted at me. She had been very quiet all the while, but now she exploded. “I want him off my hands! I’m sick of doping him. Jabbing him every so many hours  since you told me to three days ago and not knowing what will become of him!”

Poor Heather cannot stand shouting. But in this family, that is what there is. Still, she insists on trying to avoid  conflict by changing the subject as often as she can.

“If you knew Gentlerain was our uncle, you should have introduced us to him, Arley. I know you were very busy, but still, you could have found a moment to do that, instead of keeping us wondering who the mysterious, interesting man who followed you everywhere was. Is Gentlerain really your twin, Mum? I found him nice to look at. I think he does look like you,” said Heather. She, too, was among the nurses and the ambulances when the dragoness rescued Petey. 

“And like you, dear. We’re as alike as three lovely drops of the clearest water! Three sweet little peas in a pod.”      

“Thank you,” said Uncle Gentlerain, “thank you both. I’m flattered.”

He was leaning on  the kitchen door smiling broadly at us and looking a lot less haggard than he had when I left him.

“There you are!” cried Mum. “And you are doing another of those annoying things you do! Creeping up on us, like you love to do!”

“I never creep up on anyone. It’s you people that never see me coming. Because you never look! You never know what there is around you. If I were a wolf, I could have eaten you up!”

“Speaking of food. Would you like to have a piece of cake, Uncle?” asked Heather, offering him a dish and a seat at the table.

“Thank you. Is that… What the pesky mannekens! Is that  Indomitable Cake? I can’t believe it!”

“I found the recipe in an old, handwritten notebook  titled Granny Milksops’  Secret Treasures.”

“Margery Milksops  was  in charge of cooking the desserts in Papa’s household. Do you remember, Tani? She gave me her notebook when she decided to retire and go live with her granddaughter by the sea. What was that kid’s name?”

“I want a copy of that!” cried Mum immediately. “Heathie, don’t return it until you’ve made two copies.”

“Oh, she needn’t return it at all! Finders keepers. You’re welcome to it, sweeheart.”

Uncle Gen blew Heather a kiss and sat down to eat Baker Milksops’  indomitable cake.

“You’re letting her have it because you’ve made a dozen copies and have them hidden in a safe somewhere, you egotist!” cried Mum. “Or in twelve different places. Where any unscrupulous ruffian can find them. You´ve had this for centuries and you’ve never thought to share it with your sister. Admit this, selfish August Gentlerain!”

Uncle Gentlerain shook his head and laughed. But it was to Thistle that he gave his attention.

“I’m sorry to have left the dictator on your hands, Thistle,” he said. “I was bushed and I needed to sleep. I couldn’t show up here after three hundred years looking like the Ghost of Christmas Past. They would have made short work of me and blown the dying candle on my head right out. But I promise I will make this up-”

“What three hundred?” cried Mum. “Don’t give yourself airs. You never disappeared for even three centuries!”

“Don’t make me wish I had!” pouted our uncle. “Look here, Thistle, that was quite a  temerarious bound you gave, jumping onto the dragoness to pacify Petey!”

“Don’t try to flatter me!” snapped Thistle. “It was no act of heroism. I have wings.”

“But you didn’t open them,” smiled Uncle Gentlerain. “I noticed!”

Heather shut her trap and made no reply. But Mum intervened.

“There he goes!” sighed Mum. “You see what I mean? You thought he was congratulating you, Thissy, and he was telling you to be more careful!”

“Well, maybe both,” said Uncle Gentlerain rising to his feet. “I’ll go see to Petey this minute, Thistle dear. Where do you have him?”

“It’s a miracle we haven’t had to bury him in Heather’s garden,” grumbled Thistle. “There is no way I would have him in mine.”

She got up too and led our uncle away.

Before I could follow them, things got even more complicated. There was a dreadful noise. A dozen pots and pans fell and claterred and rattled deafeningly on the floor. And Dad appeared.

“Is it true?” he said, peeking through a  window like a pie thief. “The butler is back?”

“Don’t you call my little brother names!” shouted Mum, casting her napkin at Dad.

Dad caught the napkin easily and slunk in through the window.  

“He’s my little brother too, more little to me than he is to you. I’m the eldest of us three. I can call him anything I like. And there’s nothing shameful about being a butler, you snob.”

“Being like a butler!” shouted Mum. “Because he’s not one. And the way you always call him what he isn´t  is offensive.”

Her eyes were gleaming dangerously. I was surprised at how seriously she was suddenly taking all this.

“I’m saying very little considering he’s taken my son off to war,” roared Dad, slapping the napkin back onto the table.

“That’s not the way it happened!” I cried out.

“Aha! So it did happen!” cried Dad, changing register again and sounding more elated than infuriated. He always becomes very happy when he thinks he is right about something

“My war is my own business. And there were no casualties. Well, there was this one person who almost got hit by a pebble, but almost is almost.”

“What about the enemy? Huh? Would they agree this was a cakewalk?” 

Before I could get a word in, Mum jumped at him.

“You nitwit! Whatever happened is because you sent your son to see our brother. It´s all your own fault and no one else’s!”

“What? It was your idea we send him to Gen!”

“No. I only said Arley was reminding me a lot of Gen. You know how depressed Gen looked when he said he  was  going to disappear forever. And look at Arley. Whatever Gen did has brought Arley back to us. Look at him. He’s sitting at our table having cake. When did you last see that?”

I thought Dad suddenly must have remembered he likes to appear to be fair. He asked Mum, more softly, almost tenderly, “Do you really think Arley is better?”

“Who wants some chocolate cake?” said Heather. She is often quicker than any of us to catch on to what is really happening.

“Because if he is better, according to you, Queenie,  I’m the one responsible, no? I sent him to Gen. So I worked the miracle. I do want some cake, Heathie.”

“Stuff what’s left of the cake into his mouth whole, Heather,” said Mum. “Maybe that way he’ll shut up!”

“There are worse ways of silencing people,” said Dad. “By the way, where is our plucky Thistle?”