To Say Nothing of the Dog (35 page)

The dress description was even longer than Elliott Chattisbourne’s letter. I gave myself over to some serious petting of Mrs. Marmalade.

She was not only enormous, but extremely fat. Her stomach was huge and felt oddly lumpy. I hoped she wasn’t suffering from something. An early form of the distemper that had wiped all the cats out in 2004 had been around in Victorian times, hadn’t it?

“—and a pleated lilac sash with a rosette at the side,” Tossie read. “The skirt is prettily draped and embroidered with a border of the same flowers. The sleeves are gathered, with shoulder and elbow ruffles. Lilac ribbons band—”

I felt cautiously along her underside as I petted her. Several tumors. But if it was leptovirus, it must be the early stages. Mrs. Marmalade’s fur was soft and sleek and she seemed perfectly happy. She was purring contentedly, her paws kneading happily into my trouser leg.

I was clearly still suffering from Slowness in Thinking. She doesn’t seem ill at all, I thought, even though she looks as though she’s about to explode—

“Good Lord,” I said. “This cat is pre—” and was struck in the back of the neck with a sharp object.

I stopped in mid-word.

Finch, behind me, said, “I beg your pardon, madam, there’s a gentleman here to see Mr. Henry.”

“To see me? But I—” and got clipped again.

“If you will excuse me, ladies,” I said, made some sort of bow, and followed Finch to the door.

“Mr. Henry has spent the last two years in America,” I heard Tossie say as I left the room.

“Ah,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

Finch led me down the corridor and into the library, and pulled the door shut behind us.

“I know, no swearing in the presence of ladies,” I said, rubbing my neck. “You didn’t have to hit me.”

“I did not strike you for swearing, sir,” he said, “though you are quite right. You should not have done it in polite company.”

“What did you hit me with anyway?” I said, feeling gingerly along my neckbone. “A blackjack?”

“A salver, sir,” he said, pulling a lethal-looking silver tray out of his pocket. “I had no alternative, sir. I had to stop you.”

“Stop me from what?” I said. “And what are you doing here anyway?”

“I am here on an assignment for Mr. Dunworthy.”

“What sort of an assignment? Were you sent to help Verity and me?”

“No, sir,” he said.

“Well, then, why are you here?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I am not at liberty to say, sir, except that I am here on a . . .” he cast about for a word, “. . . related project. I am on a different time-track from you, and therefore have access to information you have not discovered yet. If I were to tell you, it might interfere with your mission, sir.”

“And hitting me on the back of the neck isn’t interfering?” I said. “I think you’ve cracked a vertebra.”

“I had to stop you, sir, from commenting on the cat’s condition,” he said. “In Victorian society, discussion of sex in mixed company was utterly taboo. It was not your fault that you did not know. You weren’t properly prepped. I told Mr. Dunworthy I thought sending you without training and in your condition was a bad idea, but he was adamant that you should be the one to return Princess Arjumand.”

“He was?” I said. “Why?”

“I am not at liberty to say, sir.”

“And I wasn’t going to say anything about sex,” I protested. “All I intended to say was that the cat was preg—”

“Or anything resulting from sex, sir, or relating to it in any way.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “Girls were kept completely ignorant of the facts of life until their wedding night, when I’m afraid it proved a considerable shock to some of them. Women’s bosoms or figures were never mentioned, and their legs were referred to as limbs.”

“So what should I have said? That the cat was expecting? In the club? In a family way?”

“You should not have said anything at all on the subject. The fact of pregnancy in people
and
animals was studiously ignored. You shouldn’t have referred to it at all.”

“And after they’re born and there are half a dozen kittens running all over the place, am I supposed to ignore that as well? Or ask if they were found under a cabbage leaf?”

Finch looked uncomfortable. “That’s another reason, sir,” he said obscurely. “We don’t want to draw any more attention to the situation than necessary. We don’t want to cause another incongruity.”

“Incongruity?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. When you return to the morning room, I would refrain from all mention of the cat.”

He truly did sound like Jeeves. “You’ve obviously been prepped,” I said admiringly. “When did you have time to learn so much about the Victorian era?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said, looking pleased. “But I can say I feel as though this is the job I was born to.”

“Well, since you’re so good at it, tell me what I
am
supposed to say when I go back in there. Who am I supposed to say was here to see me?” I said. “I don’t know anyone here.”

“It won’t be a problem, sir,” he said, opening the library door with a gloved hand.

“Won’t be a problem? What do you mean? I’ll have to say something.”

“No, sir. They will not care why you were called away, so long as it has afforded them the opportunity to discuss you in your absence.”

“Discuss me?” I said, alarmed. “You mean as to my authenticity?”

“No, sir,” he said, looking every inch the butler. “As to your marriage-ability.” He led me across the corridor, bowed slightly, and opened the door with a gloved hand.

He was right. There was a sudden caught-out silence in the room, and then a spasm of giggles.

Mrs. Chattisbourne said, “Tocelyn has just been telling us about your brush with death, Mr. Henry.”

When I almost said “pregnant”? I wondered.

“When your boat capsized,” Pansy said eagerly. “But I suppose it is nothing compared to your adventures in America.”

“Have you ever been scalped?” Eglantine said.

“Eglantine!” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

Finch appeared in the door. “I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, “but will Miss Mering and Mr. Henry be staying to lunch?”

“Oh, do stay, Mr. Henry!” the girls chimed. “We want to hear all about America!”

I spent lunch regaling them with a story of stagecoaches and tomahawks I’d stolen from Nineteenth-Century lectures I wished now I’d paid more attention to, and watching Finch. He signalled the proper utensil to use by whispering, “The fork with the three tines,” in my ear as he set the courses in front of me and by signalling discreetly from the sideboard as I held their attention with lines like, “That night sitting round the campfire, we could hear their tomtoms in the darkness, beating, beating, beating.” (Giggles.)

After lunch, Iris, Rose, and Pansy begged us to stay for a game of charades, but Tossie said we must go, and carefully relocked her diary and put it, not in the basket, but in her reticule. “Oh, but can’t you stay for just a short while?” Pansy Chattisbourne begged.

Tossie said we still had to pick up contributions from the vicar’s, for which I was grateful. I had had hock and claret at lunch and that, combined with the currant cordial and the residual effects of time-lag, made me want nothing but a long afternoon nap.

“Shall we see you at the fête, Mr. Henry?” Iris said, giggling.

I’m afraid so, I thought, hoping the vicar’s wasn’t far.

It wasn’t, but first we had to stop at the Widow Wallace’s (for a sauceboat and a banjo missing two strings), the Middlemarches’ (a teapot with the spout broken off, a vinegar cruet, and a game of
Authors
missing several cards), and Miss Stiggins’s (a bird cage, a set of four statuettes representing the Fates, a copy of
Through the Looking Glass,
a fish slice, and a ceramic thimble inscribed “Souvenir of Margate”).

Since the Chattisbournes had already given us a hat pin holder, a cushion with crewelwork violets and sweet peas, an egg boiler, and a cane with a carved dog’s head, the basket was already nearly full, and I had no idea how I was going to carry it all home. Luckily, all the vicar had to donate was a large cracked gilt-framed mirror.

“I will send Baine for it,” Tossie said and we started back.

The walk home was a repeat of the walk there, except that I was more laden and a good deal more tired. Tossie prattled on about Juju and “bwave, bwave Tewence,” and I thought about how glad I was my name didn’t begin with a “C,” and focused on finding a hammock.

Baine met us at the end of the drive and relieved me of my basket, and Cyril came running out to greet me. His unfortunate tendency to tilt to port, however, brought him up to Tossie’s feet, and she began to cry, “O naughty, naughty,
bad
creature!” and emit little screamlets.

“Come here, Cyril, boy!” I called, clapping my hands, and he ambled over happily, wagging his whole body. “Did you miss me, boy?”

“What, ho, the travellers return,” Terence called, waving from the lawn. “ ‘Back to the white walls of their long-left home.’ You’re just in time. Baine is setting up the wickets for a croquet match.”

“A croquet match!” Tossie cried. “What fun!” and ran up to change her clothes.

“A croquet match?” I said to Verity, who was watching Baine pound stakes into the grass.

“It was this or lawn tennis,” Verity said, “which I was afraid you hadn’t been prepped in.”

“I haven’t been prepped in croquet either,” I said, looking at the banded wooden mallets.

“It’s a very simple game,” Verity said, handing me a yellow ball. “You hit the ball through the wickets with a mallet. How did this morning go?”

“I was once a scout with Buffalo Bill,” I said, “and I’m engaged to Pansy Chattisbourne.”

She didn’t smile. “What did you find out about Mr. C?”

“Elliott Chattisbourne’s not coming home for another eight months,” I said. I explained how I’d asked her about the chap whose name I’d forgotten. “She couldn’t think of anyone it might be. But that’s not the most interesting thing I—”

Tossie came running over in a pink-and-white peppermint-striped sailor dress and a large pink bow, holding Princess Arjumand in her arms. “Juju does so love to watch the balls,” she said, setting her on the ground.

“And bat them,” Verity said. “Mr. Henry and I shall be partners,” she said. “And you and Mr. St. Trewes.”

“Mr. St. Trewes, we are to be partners,” she cried, running over to where Terence was supervising Baine.

“I thought the object was to keep Tossie and Terence apart,” I said.

“It is,” Verity said, “but I have to talk to you.”

“And I have to talk to you,” I said. “You’ll never guess who I saw over at the Chattisbournes’. Finch.”

“Finch?” she said blankly. “Mr. Dunworthy’s secretary?”

I nodded. “He’s their butler.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. He said it was ‘a related project,’ and that he couldn’t tell me without interfering with ours.”

“Are you ready?” Tossie called from the stake.

“Nearly,” Verity said. “All right. The rules of the game are perfectly simple. You score points by hitting your ball through a course of six wickets twice, the four outside hoops, the center hoops, then back again in the opposite direction. Each turn is one stroke. If your ball goes through the wicket you get a continuation stroke. If your ball hits another ball, you get a croquet stroke and a continuation stroke, but if your ball goes through two hoops in one stroke, you only get one stroke. After you hit a ball, you can’t hit it again till you’ve gone through your next hoop, except for the first hoop. If you hit a ball you’ve hit, you lose your turn.”

“Are you
ready?”
Tossie called.

“Nearly,” Verity said to her. “Those are the boundaries,” she said to me, pointing with her mallet, “North, South, East, and West. That’s the yard line, and that’s the baulk line. Is all that clear?”

“Perfectly,” I said. “Which color am I?”

“Red,” she said. “You start from the baulk line.”

“Ready?”
Tossie called.

“Yes,” Verity nodded.

“I go first,” Tossie said, stooping gracefully and putting her ball on the grass.

Well, and how difficult could it be? I thought, watching Tossie line up her shot. A dignified Victorian game, played by children and young women in long, trailing dresses on lush green lawns. A civilized game.

Tossie turned, smiled prettily at Terence, and tossed her curls. “I hope I make a good shot,” she said, and gave the ball a mighty whack that sent it through the first two hoops and halfway across the lawn.

She smiled surprisedly, asked, “Do I get another shot?” and whacked it again.

This time it nearly hit Cyril, who had lain down for a nap in the shade.

“Interference,” Tossie said. “It hit its nose.”

“Cyril hasn’t got a nose,” Verity said, placing her ball a mallet’s head behind the first hoop. “My turn.”

She didn’t hit her ball quite so violently as Tossie had, but it wasn’t a tap either. It went through the first hoop, and her next shot brought her within two feet of Tossie’s ball.

“Your turn, Mr. St. Trewes,” Tossie said, moving so her long skirt covered her ball. After his shot, when she walked over to him, her ball was a good yard farther away from Verity.

I went over to Verity. “She cheats,” I said.

She nodded. “I wasn’t able to find Tossie’s diary,” she said.

“I know. She had it with her. She read the dress description to the Chattisbourne girls.”

“Your turn, Mr. Henry,” Tossie said, leaning on her croquet mallet.

Verity had not said anything about the proper grip, and I hadn’t been paying attention. I put my ball down by the wicket and took hold of the mallet with a sort of cricket bat grip.

“Fault!” Tossie called. “Mr. Henry’s ball isn’t the proper length from the hoop. You lose a turn, Mr. Henry.”

“He does not,” Verity said. “Move your ball back the width of a mallet head.”

I did and then hit the ball more or less the right direction, though not through the hoop.

“My turn,” Tossie said and thwacked Verity’s ball completely off the court and into the hedge. “Sorry,” she said, simpered demurely, and did the same thing to Terence’s.