“Princess Arjumand?” I said and reached through the reeds to pick her up. “There you are, you naughty thing.”
The white suddenly rose up, revealing a long, curving neck.
“Squaw-w-w!” it said, and exploded into a huge white flapping. I dropped the dish with a splash.
“It’s a swan,” I said unnecessarily. A swan. One of the ancient beauties of the Thames, floating serenely along the banks with their snowy feathers and their long graceful necks. “I’ve always wanted to see one,” I said to Cyril.
He wasn’t there.
“Squaww-w-w-k!” the swan said and unfolded its wings to an impressive width, obviously irritated at being awakened.
“Sorry,” I said, backing away. “I thought you were a cat.”
“Hiss-s-s-s!” it said, and started for me at a run.
Nothing in all those “O swan” poems had ever mentioned that they hissed. Or resented being mistaken for felines. Or bit.
I finally managed to escape by crashing through a thicket of some thorny variety, climbing halfway up a tree, and kicking at its beak with my foot until it waddled back to the river, muttering threats and imprecations.
I waited fifteen minutes, in case it was a trick, and then climbed down and began examining my wounds. Most of them were to the rear and difficult to see. I twisted round trying to see if there was blood, and saw Cyril, coming out from behind a tree, looking shamefaced.
“A rout,” I said. “Just like the Persians. Harris had trouble with swans. In Three Men in a Boat” I said, wishing I’d remembered that chapter before now. “They tried to drag him and Montmorency out of the boat.”
I picked up the lantern, which, amazingly, had fallen in an upright position when I dropped it. “If King Harold had had swans on his side, England would still be Saxon.”
We set off again, staying away from the river and keeping a wary eye out for patches of white.
Polly Vaughn’s boyfriend had killed her because he mistook her for a swan in the old poem. She’d been wearing a white apron, and he thought she was a swan and shot her with an arrow. I could sympathize completely. In future, I’d shoot first and ask questions later, too.
The night got darker and damper, and the bushes thornier. There were no patches of white or shining eyes and scarcely any sounds. When I dropped the last of the bread and called, “Here, cat!” my voice echoed in the black, empty stillness.
I had to face it, the cat was long gone, to starve to death in the wilderness or be murdered by an irate swan or be found in the bulrushes by Pharaoh’s daughter and change the course of history. Cyril and I weren’t going to find her.
As if in confirmation, the lantern began to smoke. “It’s no use, Cyril,” I said. “She’s gone. Let’s go back to camp.”
That was easier said than done. I had been paying more attention to finding the cat than to the way we had come, and all thickets look alike.
I held the lantern close to the ground, looking for the trail of bread crumbs I’d left, and then remembered Hansel and Gretel were another couple who had come to a bad end.
“Show me the way, Cyril,” I said hopefully, and he looked around alertly and then sat down.
The thing to do, of course, was to follow the river, but there was the possibility of swans to be considered, and surely the wolves hadn’t eaten all the bread crumbs. I set off in a likely looking direction.
Half an hour later it began to drizzle, and the leaf-strewn ground turned wet and slick. We slogged on like Saxons who’d been marching for eleven days. And were about to lose England.
I had lost the cat. I had wasted hours of precious time, unaware I had her, and then let her get away. I had gone off with a total stranger, made Terence miss a possibly important meeting and . . .
A thought occurred to me. I had gone off with Terence, and we had shown up at exactly the right moment to save Professor Peddick from a watery grave. Would that have happened if Terence had met Maud, or had he been meant not to meet her so that he would be in the right place at the right time to save his tutor? Or was Professor Peddick supposed to drown, and I had the rescuing of him to add to my list of transgressions?
But if it was a transgression, I couldn’t make myself feel too guilty about it. I was glad he hadn’t drowned, even though he had complicated my life significantly, and I began to understand how Verity felt about rescuing the cat.
The cat, which was lost somewhere out in the rain. Like Cyril and I were. I had no idea where we were, I knew I had never seen a row of trees like that, or a tangle of thickets like that. I stopped and then started back the way we had come.
And there was the boat. And the clearing. And my bedroll.
Cyril saw it first and made a dash for it, wriggling happily, and then stopped dead. I hoped the swan hadn’t taken up residence in it.
It hadn’t. There, curled up in the middle of the rugs, sound asleep, was Princess Arjumand.
“In the little grey cells of the brain lies the solution of every mystery.”
Hercule Poirot
CHAPTER 9
My First Night in the Victorian Era—Crowding—Snoring—Rain—Importance of Weather to the Course of History—Pneumonia—The Cat Is Missing—An Early Start—Professor Peddick’s Double-Gilled Blue Chub Is Missing—Abingdon—Rowing Advice-Professor Peddick Is Missing—Souvenirs—The Telegram’s Sent—A Tardy Departure
My first night in the Victorian era was not exactly what the nurse in Infirmary had had in mind. Or what I’d had in mind, for that matter. It was a good deal less comfortable than I’d imagined, and a great deal more crowded.
I had intended to put Princess Arjumand back in the basket, with a strong lock and some rocks on the lid for good measure: But when I’d picked her carefully up, watching out for claws and sudden moves, she’d snuggled cozily into my arms. I carried her over to the basket and knelt down to deposit her. She looked up appealingly at me and began to hum.
I had read of cats purring, but I had always imagined it as more of a low growl, or perhaps a sort of static. This had nothing unfriendly or electromagnetic about it, and I found myself apologizing. “I have to put you in the basket,” I said, petting her awkwardly. “I can’t run the risk of your running away again. The universe is at stake.”
The hum increased, and she laid a paw beseechingly on my hand. I carried her back over to the bed. “She’ll have to be in the basket all day tomorrow,” I said to Cyril, who had settled down in the middle of the rugs. “And I don’t think she’ll run away now that she knows me.”
Cyril looked unimpressed.
“She was frightened before,” I said. “She’s quite tame now.”
Cyril snorted.
I sat down on the rugs and took off my wet shoes, still holding the cat against me, and then tried to get into bed. Easier said than done. Cyril had staked out his claim and refused to move. “Move over!” I said, freeing one hand from holding the cat to push. “Dogs are supposed to sleep at the foot of the bed.”
Cyril had never heard of this rule. He jammed his body up against my back and began to snore. I tugged at the rugs, trying to get enough to cover me, and turned on my side, the cat cradled in my arms.
Princess Arjumand paid no attention to the regulations of animals on the bed either. She promptly wriggled free and walked round the bed, treading on Cyril, who responded with a faint “oof,” and kneading her claws in my leg.
Cyril shoved and shoved again, until he had the entire bed and all the covers, and Princess Arjumand draped herself across my neck with her full weight on my Adam’s apple. Cyril shoved some more.
An hour into this little drama it began to rain in earnest, and everyone moved in under the covers and began jockeying for position again. Eventually both of them wore themselves out and fell asleep, and I lay there and worried about what Verity was going to say when she found out I had the cat and about the rain.
What if it rained all day tomorrow and we couldn’t go to Muchings End? The weather had
affected how many turning points of history, starting with the heavenly wind, the kamikaze that had destroyed the Kublai Khan’s fleet when it tried to invade Japan in the thirteenth century.
Gales had scattered the Spanish Armada, a blizzard had determined the outcome of the battle of Towton, fog had diverted the Lusitania into the path of a German U-boat, and a low-pressure front over the forest of Ardennes had nearly lost the Battle of the Bulge for the Allies in World War II.
Even good weather could affect history. The Luftwaffe’s raid on Coventry had been successful because of cold, clear weather and a full “bomber’s moon.”
Weather and its sidekick, disease. What if Professor Peddick caught cold from sleeping in the rain and had to be taken back to Oxford tomorrow? The United States President William Henry Harrison had caught cold standing in the rain at his inauguration and died of pneumonia a month later. Peter the Great had caught cold while sighting a ship and died within a week. And not just colds. Henry the Fifth had died of dysentery, and as a result the English lost everything they’d gained at Agincourt. The undefeatable Alexander the Great was defeated by malaria, and the face of the whole continent of Asia changed. To say nothing of the Black Death.
Weather, disease, changes in climate, shifts in the earth’s crust—Professor Overforce’s blind forces—all were factors in history whether Professor Peddick would admit it or not.
The problem, of course, as in so many wars, was that Professor Overforce and Professor Peddick were both right. They were just a century too early for chaos theory, which would have incorporated both their ideas. History was indeed controlled by blind forces, as well as character and courage and treachery and love. And accident and random chance. And stray bullets and telegrams and tips. And cats.
But it was also stable. I remembered distinctly T.J. saying that, and Mr. Dunworthy saying that if the incongruity had done any damage it would have shown up by now. Which meant that the cat had been returned to its original space-time location before it had caused any long-lasting consequences.
Or, the other possibility was that the cat’s disappearance hadn’t affected anything, but I knew that wasn’t true. It had made me make Terence miss meeting Maud. And I wasn’t taking any chances. I intended to return the cat to Muchings End as quickly as possible, which meant getting us on the river in the morning as quickly as possible.
Which meant it couldn’t rain. It had rained at Waterloo, turning the roads to an impossible muck and bogging down the artillery. It had rained at Crécy, soaking the archers’ bowstrings. It had rained at Agincourt.
Somewhere in the midst of worrying about the rain at the Battle of Midway, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke with a jerk to the gray light of dawn. It had stopped raining and the cat was gone.
I leaped up in my stocking feet and flung the rugs aside, trying to see if she was hidden in them somewhere, disturbing Cyril, who whuffled and rolled over.
“Cyril!” I said. “The cat’s gone! Did you see where she went?”
Cyril shot me a look that clearly said, I told you so, and subsided among the covers.
“Help me look for her!” I said, yanking the rug out from under him.
I fumbled with my shoes. “Princess Arjumand!” I whispered frantically, “Where are you? Princess Arjumand!” and she strolled into the clearing, treading daintily on the wet grass.
“Where have you been?” I said. “I should have shut you in the basket!”
She sauntered past me to the disordered bed, lay down next to Cyril, and went to sleep.
I wasn’t going to take a second chance. I got the carpetbag and emptied out the shirts and the escargot tongs. Then I got the fileting knife out of the hamper and made several short slashes in its sides with the point, making sure they went all the way through the lining. I arranged the too-small tweed jacket in the bottom for a nest and stuck the saucer next to it.
Princess Arjumand didn’t even wake up when I put her in the carpetbag and closed the clasp. Perhaps Verity was right, and she was suffering from time-lag. I jammed the clothes in the portmanteau, and rolled up all but one of the rugs, which Cyril was on.
“Rise and shine, Cyril,” I said. “Time to get up. We need to make an early start.”
Cyril opened an eye and stared at me disbelievingly.
“Breakfast,” I said, and, carrying the carpetbag, went down to the remains of the campfire. I gathered wood, laid the fire, and lit it like an old hand, and then looked through Terence’s luggage till I found a map of the river, and sat down by the fire to plot our trip.
The map was an accordion-style which folded out to portray the full winding length of the Thames, which I certainly hoped we didn’t have to cover. I had learned to read maps when I was an undergraduate, but this one suffered from a wealth of details: it not only listed villages, locks, islands, and all the distances between, but weirs, shallows, canals, towpaths, historic sights, and recommended fishing spots. I decided I’d better keep it out of Professor Peddick’s hands.
It also provided an assortment of editorial comments, such as “one of the most charming views along the river” and “a rather difficult current just here,” with the result that it was difficult to find the river in amongst all the wordage. Terence had said Muchings End was just below Streatley, but I couldn’t find either.
I finally found Runnymede, which was listed as “the historical site of the signing of the Magna Carta, not, as certain river people would have you believe, the stone on Magna Carta Island. Good bream deeps. Poor for gudgeon, dace, and jack.”
I worked my way up from Runnymede to Streatley, marked its place with my finger, and looked for Iffley. There it was: “Quaint mill, which people come from miles about to see, 12th cent. church, middling chub.” We were halfway between Iffley and Abingdon, and twenty-three miles from Streatley.
Allowing half an hour for breakfast, we’d be on the river by six. We could easily be there in nine hours, even allowing for Professor Peddick to stop along the way and send a telegram to his sister. With luck, we’d have the cat back to the place where it had disappeared by three, and the incongruity corrected by five.
“We can easily be there by teatime,” I told Cyril, folding the map up. I put it back in Terence’s bag and got eggs, a slab of streaky bacon, and the skillet out of the hamper.
The birds began to sing, and the sun came up, streaking the water and the sky with ribbons of rosy-pink. The river flowed serene and golden within its leafy banks, denying incongruities—the placid mirror of a safe, untroubled world, of a grand and infinite design.
Cyril was looking up at me with an expression that clearly said, “Exactly how time-lagged are you?”
“I didn’t get any sleep last night,” I said. “Thanks to you. Come along.”
I put the kettle on, sliced bacon, broke eggs into the skillet, and went down to the boat to wake Terence and his tutor up, banging on a pot lid with the Stilton spoon. “Time to get up,” I said. “Breakfast’s on.”
“Good Lord,” Terence said groggily, fumbling for his pocket watch. “What time is it?”
“Half-past five,” I said. “You wanted to make an early start to be at Muchings End by teatime. Miss Mering, remember?”
“Oh,” he said, and shot up out of the blankets. “You’re right. Wake up, Professor Peddick.”
“‘Morn, wak’d by the circling hours, with rosy hand un-barr’d the gates of light,’” Professor Peddick said from the stern, blinking sleepily.
I left them and ran back up to check on the eggs and the cat. She was sleeping soundly. And soundlessly, which was even better. I set the carpetbag over with the luggage and began dishing up the eggs.
“At this rate, we’ll be on the river by six,” I told Cyril, feeding him a strip of streaky bacon. “We’ll be through the lock by half-past, we’ll stop in Abingdon so the professor can send his telegram, we’ll be to Clifton Hampden by eight, Day’s Lock by nine, and to Reading by ten.”
By ten we were s
till in Abingdon.
It had taken us two hours to load the luggage, which seemed to have expanded, and then, at the last minute, Professor Peddick discovered his double-gilled blue chub was missing.
“Perhaps an animal got it,” Terence said, and I had a good idea which animal.
“I must catch another specimen,” Professor Peddick said, unloading the fishing pole and tackle.
“There isn’t time,” Terence said, “and you’ve still got your albino gudgeon.”
Yes, I thought, and it had better be put under lock and key, or an animal might get it, and we’d never get to Muchings End.
“We need to start, sir, if we intend to make Runnymede by tomorrow,” Terence said.
“‘Non semper temeritas es felix,’ ” the professor said, selecting a fly from his box.“‘Rashness is not always fortunate.’ Remember, if Harold had not rushed foolishly into the fray, he would have won the battle of Hastings.” He meticulously tied the fly to his line. “Early morning is not the best time for chub,” he said, making practice casts. “They do not usually rise before late afternoon.”
Terence groaned and looked beseechingly at me.
“If we leave now, we can be to Pangbourne by late afternoon,” I said. I unfolded the map. “It says the Thames at Pangbourne has long been a favorite spot of the angler. It is a perfect spot for barbel.” I read aloud, “Superior perch, roach, and gudgeon. Plenty of dace and chub. The weir stream is famous for large trout.”
“At Pangbourne, you say?” Professor Peddick said.
“Yes,” I lied. “It says, ‘There are more fish of every kind at this spot on the Thames than at any other.’”
That did it. He got in the boat.
“Thank you,” Terence mouthed and pushed off before he could change his mind.
I looked at my pocket watch. Twenty past VIII. Later than I’d hoped, but we could still be to Muchings End by five if things went well.
They didn’t. Abingdon Lock was closed, and it took us a quarter of an hour to wake up the lock-keeper, who took it out on us by letting the water out of the lock at a trickle. In the meantime, the rearward stack of luggage had overbalanced, and we had to stop twice and tie it into place.
To Say Nothing of the Dog Page 18