Chapter Ten

Hetty pressed on relentlessly with her plans for Roger’s reception. She sent invitations, planned refreshments that grew more grandiose with each passing day, commandeered teacups, worried about the weather and generally drove most of the Kings to distraction with her constant flurry.

“The people of Avonlea are certainly going to remember Roger King’s reception if I have anything to do with it,” Hetty asserted firmly and often, running her eye over her numerous and ever-present lists.

And, of course, she soon discovered that such a major social event was going to cost her money—money that she would have to get out of the King trust account at the Abbey Bank. Straightaway, she and Olivia set out to Carmody to make the necessary withdrawal.

Because of the number of errands on their list for the day, they had to stop at the bank during one of its busiest times. They nodded to people they knew as they joined the line waiting to be served at the teller’s wicket. Even then, there was no safety from Hetty’s lists. In the bank lineup, Hetty whipped one from her bag and began to go over it with Olivia.

Olivia sighed and kept her thoughts to herself. The Kings, at least, would never forget this occasion - provided they had any strength left after all the work Hetty was putting them through.

The woman ahead of Hetty finished her business and left. Stuffing her list away, Hetty stepped up to the wicket to take her turn. She handed the teller her account card. The teller was a plump, gray-haired woman who had an ear-trumpet lying on the counter by her side.

“Good afternoon,” Hetty greeted her. “I wish to withdraw forty dollars from this account.”

“Thirty, did you say?” asked the teller, who was more than a little deaf. She lifted up the ear- trumpet and aimed it at Hetty.

“No, four-ty,” Hetty repeated, enunciating the number sharply into the wide end of the device.

Nodding, the teller set down the trumpet, entered the debit and handed Hetty her money.

“Sign here, please,” the teller asked, pushing forward the account book.

“Mm-hmm,” Hetty murmured as she picked up the pen and signed with a flourish, demonstrating the beautiful Penmanship of which she was so justly proud.

“And that brings your balance to two dollars and fifty cents,” the teller said matter-of-factly. “Next, please.”

“Thank you very much,” Hetty murmured, smiling and turning to leave. Since her mind had been on the reception the whole time, she took three steps towards the door before the teller’s words actually sank in. Jerking to a halt, she spun round and pushed her way back to the teller’s window. In her haste, she all but knocked over the woman next in line, who had just taken her place at the grille.

“Two dollars and fifty cents?” Hetty squawked. “Well, there must be a mistake!”

“A what?” The teller held up her ear-trumpet again, the better to catch Hetty’s words.

“A mistake,” Hetty sputtered, trying to keep her voice down.

Already, the customers in line behind her were starting to look interested. And in Avonlea, no delicious little piece of gossip was ever overlooked.

“There’s no mistake, madam,” the teller announced loudly. “Your balance is two dollars and fifty cents. Next, please.”

Casting a glance behind her, Hetty leaned over and whispered forcefully into the teller’s ear-trumpet. “My good woman, there has to be a substantial amount of money in this account. It is the King trust account. Clearly, you have confused our number with somebody else’s. Kindly check it again.”

The teller shook the ear-trumpet irritably. “Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you when you’re talking, let alone whispering.”

“I said,” Hetty growled, finally bursting into a shout, “check it again!”

Realizing how loud she had just been, Hetty shut her mouth firmly and looked studiously away from the others. The teller turned to the ledger while Olivia twisted at her handbag, looking very uncomfortable.

“Oh, good Lord,” the teller said, mildly shocked, “I did make a mistake. I’m so glad you pressed me to check. I would have been,” she added under her breath as the manager peered out of his office behind her, “in a good deal of hot water.”

Vindicated, Hetty smiled in anticipation of a fat balance statement.

“Your balance isn’t two dollars and fifty cents,” the teller informed Hetty breathlessly. “It’s one dollar and fifty cents.”

Hetty could only stare at the teller and gasp faintly. “What did you say?”

The teller was only too happy to repeat the sum—and in the hearing of a whole bank full of customers. This time Hetty could not argue, for there the figures were, in black and white, down in the account book. The bulk of the money had already been withdrawn—under Alec King’s signature!

As fast as she could, Olivia rushed Hetty out into the fresh air to fan her with her handkerchief. The only bright side to this disaster, Olivia thought distractedly as she watched Hetty turn a furious crimson, was that, for once, the lists for the reception were forgotten.

As soon as Hetty recovered her powers of locomotion, she went charging straight to the King farm, stinging from the embarrassment in the bank line, not to mention the worry about what had happened to the healthy bank balance. Perhaps Alec had had a fit of madness from eating oysters out of season? Or the Kings had been the victims of a forger dressed up like Alec who had bamboozled that silly, deaf teller?

Hetty charged past the cows grazing peacefully in the fields and over to the barn where Alec, all unsuspecting, was cleaning out the stables. By the time Hetty sailed up to him, she was accompanied by Roger, whom she had made sure to collect in her wake.

“Alec!” she shouted. “Alec King. I have just returned from the bank in Carmody, and the teller tells me the money’s gone. Good grief, Alec, what have you done with the money?”

Here came the trouble Alec had fervently hoped to avoid. Until Amos Spry got paid for his crop, Alec had hoped none of his family would look too closely at the King bank account. Now, Alec had no choice but to set down his shovel and take on the look of a man caught openly in crime.

“Well, I...I’m sorry, Hetty. I meant to explain earlier.”

“Explain what?” Hetty demanded blazingly.

Alec let out a sigh and rubbed at his arm. “It’s a long story. You see, Amos Spry needed—”

“Are you actually saying you gave that money to Amos Spry?” Hetty exploded, everything about her, right up to her quivering hat feathers, expressing her outraged disbelief.

“I’m sure we’ll get the money back,” Alec told her, trying his best to sound soothing.

No amount of soothing was going to pacify Hetty. Once she got a bee in her bonnet, life was apt to be miserable for everybody until she, somehow, got it out again. Now here she was, every minute acting more and more like a volcano about to erupt.

“Why didn’t you just take it out of the bank and burn it?!” she cried, growing even more violently red.

“That money belongs to all of us—” Roger put in. He was nearly as irate as Hetty and even more determined to berate Alec for his idiocy. “—Olivia, Hetty, me—”

“Amos’s crop’s worth twice what I lent him. He’ll repay,” Alec insisted, feeling besieged.

Hetty certainly didn’t think much of that prospect. “Oh, we’ll never see that money again. Alec King, you’re an irresponsible fool.” Hetty turned on her heel to leave, certain that Alec had just brought ruin upon them all.

“You’ll get your money back, Hetty,” Alec called out to her as she stormed away. “I know what I’m doing.”

He looked in appeal to his brother, but Roger was stoutly on Hetty’s side, unable to resist the chance to get in one more potshot at Alec’s supposed incompetence.

“Oh, and I suppose handing all that money over to the likes of the Sprys shows your good business sense?”

He paused, and then, through his teeth, he flung what must have been a boyhood taunt at Alec.

“You can’t do anything right.”

As his brother and sister marched away, Alec leaned on the manure shovel looking quite defeated. Families were supposed to stick together, to help each other, he thought, not work a fellow over with brickbats and leave him stranded on the edge of the manure pile. Alec tossed down the shovel and went in search of consolation. Hetty and Roger might be against him, but surely he could get some support from his wife.

In the kitchen, Janet had plenty of problems of her own. That evening the kitchen table was completely covered with the freshly baked pies and cakes for the reception the very next day. Dessert-making was the job Hetty had unloaded on Janet and Felicity. The two had slaved in the kitchen, roasting in the heat blasting out from the cook stove as batch after batch went into the oven to be baked. Now, at the end of an exhausting day, when the children were finally in bed, Janet was counting anxiously, trying to calculate whether, at long last, they had made enough. If the food came out short at that fancy gathering, making the Kings look cheap, Hetty would never let them live the error down.

“One, two, three, four, five,” she muttered to herself, “six, seven cherry pies.”

Intent upon keeping her count straight, Janet took no notice of her husband walking in through the kitchen door. She’d been working so hard that Alec hadn’t the heart to disturb her until now.

“Janet...” he began.

“Two lemon pies...two apple pies...”

“Janet, I need to talk with you.”

“Yes, what it is, Alec?” Janet asked distractedly, trying to keep the pies straight in her head and still not looking at him.

“Well...it has to do with Amos Spry.”

Janet flung up her hands in annoyance. “Oh. ..oh dear,” she groaned. “Hetty hasn’t invited him, too, has she, with his brood?” The Sprys would go through the food like locusts on a rampage! Janet would have to start baking again as fast as she could.

In spite of his troubles, just a flicker of humor touched Alec’s mouth.

“No, I don’t think she’d invite him.”

“That’s a relief,” Janet sighed, wiping at her forehead with her apron. “She’s had me cook enough for half the Island as it is.”

“Well, actually,” Alec tried again, “it’s about the King trust. You see—”

“Trust Hetty to leave all the work to us,” Janet flew off again, not even hearing what her husband was trying to say. She walked over to the sink to wash her hands. “Oh, she’s just been impossible to deal with since she’s taken charge of this ridiculous party.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the reception, Janet,” Alec said, with a wry twist to his lips. There were plenty of bigger things to worry about at the moment. Janet, however, only saw all the work that still had to be done to get the reception set up to Hetty’s satisfaction.

“Well, it’s all very well for you to tell me not to worry,” Janet declared, thinking how obtuse men could be sometimes. “You don’t know what it’s like to have all these pressures on your mind in my condition. I’m just exhausted, Alec. I’ve got to go to bed. Could you cover those pies before you come up?”

“Janet, I really need to talk to you.”

His message finally penetrated, though not the urgency that went with it. Janet stopped and looked at him with a wide-eyed, exasperated sigh. Alec saw then that she was hot, overworked and weary from her pregnancy The last thing she needed was more worries.

“All right,” he said, “I can do it.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Good night, love.”

Janet smiled and hurried upstairs, glad to make her escape from the kitchen.

Alec pulled open a drawer, took out a dish towel, twisted it in his hands a moment, then put it back. He had a better idea. He closed the drawer, reached into the cabinet underneath instead and took out his hidden bottle of whiskey. The King home was a strict Temperance household, and any strong drink found inside it was strictly for medicinal purposes. Alec held the bottle up to the light and decided he was greatly in need of medicinal aid. Tucking the bottle into his back pocket, he picked up his hat and made for the barn.

Sometime later, the gleam of lantern light could be seen through one of the barn windows, and the soft lowing of cattle drifted out on the night air. Alec was in the cow stable, sitting on a milking stool near the shiny new milking machine. He rested his forehead against the warm side of one of the farm’s three holstein cows. The level in the whiskey bottle was considerably lower than it had been in the kitchen and Alec looked suspiciously tipsy. The cow lowed and Alec put his finger to his lips in an effort to silence it.

“Shhh! Let’s not wake up the whole bloody neighborhood now, huh?” He took a drink from a teacup also purloined from the kitchen. “Here’s to ya, girl. I know, I know, I know, it’s Roger.” He leered over at the milking machine. “Roger and his crazy ideas. He’s been my brother for...what is it?.. .forty years or more, and we still don’t get along.” He paused and hiccuped, the better to emphasize the point to the cow. “And I’ve tried. Really, really, I have. I’ve tried.”

The cow, perhaps nervous about getting mixed up in King family squabbles, moved restlessly. When she stepped backward, her heel kicked over the milking machine. It made a satisfying clatter as it fell.

“Right,” Alec agreed, taking another swig from the cup. “You don’t like it either. Then we won’t use it any more.”