Not Grandmother's House But Something Like It

"You're an arsonist wannabe," Pam hissed, referencing something I may possibly have said in passing yesterday (see below).

"I was making a literary allusion," I retorted and snatched up my copy of Rebecca in what must have appeared a fairly defensive gesture.  Turning quickly to the last page, I read:

"I went on watching the sky.  It seemed to get lighter even as I stared.  Like the first red streaks of sunrise...
'That's Manderley.'
I glanced at him and saw his face.  I saw his eyes.
'Maxim,' I said.  'Maxim, what is it?'
He drove faster, much faster. The road to Manderley lay ahead.  The sky on the horizon was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood.  And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea..."

"Oh please," Pam snorted, but my eyes had gone misty as they always do, thinking of that final scene played with such black and white pathos by the young Joan Fontaine; it was a moment before I could refocus on the incensed sixteen-year-old standing arms akimbo before me.

"I am not Mrs. Danvers," I replied, hoping I had achieved a credible tone of voice.  "I would never dream of burning down your grandmother's house with you in it.  I was merely attempting to find a way of conveying to my readers something of the nature of the unpleasant discord which exists between us.  And as for your grandmother, you know I adore her."

In point of fact, there is virtually no one who does not adore Pam's grandmother, Dotty Van Loon, a lady of not only immense wealth but considerable charm, widow of the late Cyrus Van Loon of Van Loon Motors Corporation - a name doubtless familiar in its sleek chrome cursive to anyone who's ever mowed a lawn or plowed a field.  A Van Loon in Every Barn and Every Yard, as that old slogan goes, and as Dotty will remind you, Cyrus always loved the smell of cut grass.  It was the smell, he used to say, of money.  But I digress. 

"I just wish you could be nicer to Didier," I offer, since to make this long story somewhat shorter, Didier is the primary source of the tension between the two of us. 

"Nicer?" she replies with incredulity.

"Pam," I say in a warning tone.  "You tried pushing him out that very window, and in case you don't remember that's a five storey drop which may not be quite enough to kill you but will certainly takes its toll."

At this her eyes narrow.  

"Those packages from Marseilles," she says in a slow manner too calculatedly casual to signify anything nice.  "The ones your precious Didier has sent to you?"

"From his aunt," I reply.  You may recall I mentioned Didier picking up the latest parcel just yesterday (see below).

At these words, she rolls her eyes in a fashion not even a Gossip Girl director would call subtle. 

"Pam," I say cautiously, having no other choice but to call her bluff,  "what are you trying to tell me?"

What she says next makes my blood run cold.