To Say Nothing of the Dog

by Connie Willis

  Tossie appeared. “What’s happened, Mama?”

  “Tocelyn, go and see whether any of your jewelry is missing!”

  “My diary!” Tossie cried and scampered off, nearly colliding with Verity, who must have come up the back stairs.

  “What is it?” Verity said. “What’s happened?”

  “Robbed!” the Colonel said succinctly. “Tell Madame Whatever-Her Name-Is and that Count person to come down immediately!”

  “They’ve gone,” Verity said.

  “Gone?” Mrs. Mering gasped, and I thought she was going to pitch over the stairs.

  I raced up and Verity hurried down, and we supported Mrs. Mering down the steps and into the parlor. We deposited her, sobbing, on the horsehair sofa.

  Tossie appeared breathlessly at the top of the stairs. “O, Mama, my garnet necklace is missing!” she cried, pattering down the stairs, “and my pearls, and my amethyst ring!” But instead of running into the parlor, she disappeared down the corridor and reappeared a moment later, carrying her diary. “Thank goodness I hid my diary in the library, in amongst all the other books where no one would notice it!”

  Verity and I looked at each other.

  “Knew all this table-tipping nonsense would come to no good,” Colonel Mering said. “Where’s Baine? Ring for him!”

  Verity started for the bellpull, but Baine was already there, carrying a chipped pottery jug.

  “Put that down,” Colonel Mering ordered, “and go fetch the constable. Mrs. Mering’s necklace is missing.”

  “And my amethyst ring,” Tossie said.

  “I removed Mrs. Mering’s rubies and the other pieces of jewelry last night for cleaning,” Baine said. “I had noticed when the ladies wore them last, they seemed somewhat dimmed.” He reached in the jug. “I left them to soak overnight in a solution of vinegar and baking soda.” He pulled out the ruby necklace and handed it to Colonel Mering. “I was just returning the things to their cases. I would have mentioned it to Mrs. Mering, but she was busy with her guests.”

  “I knew it!” Mrs. Mering said from the sofa. “Mesiel, how could you have suspected dear Madame Iritosky?”

  “Baine, check on the silver,” Colonel Mering said. “And the Rubens.”

  “Yes, sir,” Baine said. “What time would you like the carriages brought round?”

  “Carriages? What for?” the Colonel said.

  “To take us to Coventry,” Tossie said. “We are going to St. Michael’s Church.”

  “Pah!” Colonel Mering said. “No business going anywhere. Thieves in the neighborhood! No telling when they might come back!”

  “But we have to go,” Verity said.

  “The spirits summoned us,” Tossie said.

  “Stuff and nonsense!” Colonel Mering sputtered. “Probably concocted the whole thing to get us all out of the house so they could come back and steal our valuables!”

  “Concocted!” Mrs. Mering said, rising up majestically from the sofa. “Are you implying the spirit message we received last night was not genuine?”

  Colonel Mering ignored her. “We won’t need the carriages. And better make certain the horses are there. No telling what—” He looked suddenly stricken. “My Black Moor!”

  I thought it unlikely that Madame Iritosky would steal the Colonel’s goldfish, even if she had been foiled in the matter of the rubies, but it seemed like a bad idea to tell the Colonel that. I stepped back to let him pass as he shot out the door.

  Mrs. Mering sank back down on the sofa. “O, that your father would doubt Madame Iritosky’s genuineness! It is a mercy she’s gone and is not here to suffer such vile accusations!” She thought of something. “What reason did she give for their departure, Baine?”

  “I was unaware of their departure until this morning,” Baine said. “It appears they left sometime during the night. I was extremely surprised. I had told Madame Iritosky that I felt certain you would write the Psychic Research Society this morning and ask them to come witness the manifestation, and I supposed of course that she would have stayed for that, but perhaps she had urgent business elsewhere.”

  “No doubt,” Mrs. Mering said. “The spirits’ summons may not be denied. But the Psychic Research Society here! How thrilling that would have been!”

  The Colonel came back in, carrying Princess Arjumand under his arm and looking grim.

  “Is your Black Moor safe, sir?” I asked anxiously.

  “For the moment,” he said, dumping the cat on the floor.

  Tossie scooped her up.

  “No coincidence that they arrived when they did, on the day before my red-spotted silver tancho was to arrive,” the Colonel said. “Baine! Want you to stand guard over the fishpond all day. No telling when they might come back!”

  “Baine is going with me,” Mrs. Mering said, rising from the sofa, looking like a Valkyrie with her braids and the light of battle in her eyes. “And we are going to Coventry.”

  “Balderdash! Not going anywhere. Intend to stay here and defend the battlements!”

  “Then we shall go without you,” she said. “The spirits’ summons cannot be denied. Baine, when is the next train to Coventry?”

  “Nine-oh-four, madam,” Baine said promptly.

  “Excellent,” she said, turning her back on the Colonel. “Bring the carriage round at a quarter past eight. We shall leave for the station at half-past.”

  He did, but we didn’t. Or at half-past nine. Or ten. Luckily, there were trains at 9:49, 10:17, and 11:05, which Baine, the walking Bradshaw, rattled off each time we experienced a delay.

  There were various delays. Mrs. Mering declared the drama of the morning had left her weak, and she could not go without a sustaining breakfast of blood sausage, kedgeree, and stuffed chicken livers. Tossie could not find her lavender gloves. Jane brought down the wrong shawl. “No, no, the cashmere is far too warm for June,” Mrs. Mering said. “The tartan shawl, the one from Dunfermline.”

  “We’re going to miss Mr. C,” Verity said, standing waiting in the foyer while Mrs. Mering changed her hat again.

  “No, we’re not,” I said. “We can leave in half an hour and still catch the 11:26, and the diary didn’t say anything about what time of day it happened. Relax.”

  She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about the bishop’s bird stump,” she said. “What if someone hid something in it to keep someone else from stealing it? And they came back to take it out again, but there wasn’t time, so they just took the whole thing?” She looked up the stairs. “What can be taking them so long? It’s nearly eleven.”

  Tossie came tripping down the stairs in her lavender gloves and a medley of lavender frills. She looked out the open door.

  “It looks like it’s going to rain,” she said, frowning. “We shan’t be able to see any sights if it rains, Mama,” she said to Mrs. Mering, who was descending the stairs. “Perhaps we should wait till tomorrow.”

  “No!” Verity said. “What if Lady Godiva has something urgent to tell us?”

  “It does look like rain,” Mrs. Mering said. “Has Baine packed the umbrellas?”

  “Yes,” I said. Also the guidebooks, the luncheon hamper, the smelling salts, a spirit lamp, Mrs. Mering’s embroidery, Tossie’s novel, Terence’s Tennyson, several issues of the psychic weekly magazine, The Light, and an assortment of lap robes and rugs, all of which Baine had managed to pack so well there was still room for us in the two carriages, though it was probably a good thing Professor Peddick had decided to stay with the Colonel.

  “I wished to discuss several points regarding the Battle of Thermopylae with the Colonel,” he told Mrs. Mering.

  “Well, don’t let him stay out if it rains,” she said, apparently softening a little toward her husband. “He’ll catch his death.”

  Terence led Cyril over and hoisted him up onto the running board.

  “Mr. St. Trewes,” Mrs. Mering said in Wagnerian tones, “you cannot possibly be thinking of taking that creature with you.”

&
nbsp; Terence stopped in mid-hoist, Cyril’s hind legs dangling in the air. “Cyril’s a perfect gentleman on trains,” Terence said. “He’s been everywhere on them—London, Oxford, Sussex. He loves to look out the window, you know, at passing cats and things. And he always gets along famously with the railway guards.”

  But not with Mrs. Mering.

  “A railway carriage is no place for an animal,” she said.

  “And I’m wearing my new travelling dress,” Tossie said, patting at the frills with a lavender glove.

  “But he’ll be so disappointed,” Terence said, reluctantly lowering him to the ground.

  “Nonsense!” Mrs. Mering said. “Dogs haven’t any feelings.”

  “Never mind, Cyril,” Professor Peddick said. “You can come with me out to the fishpond. I’ve always been extremely fond of dogs. So has my niece, Maud. Feeds them from the table.” They walked off together.

  “Do get in, Mr. St. Trewes,” Mrs. Mering said. “You will make us late for the train. Baine, did you pack my lorgnette?”

  We finally left for the station at half-past ten. “Remember,” Verity said to me as I helped her into the carriage, “Tossie’s diary only says ‘the trip to Coventry.’ It doesn’t say which part of the trip. Mr. C could be someone at the station or on the train.”

  We arrived at the station at 11:09. The train had already gone, which was probably just as well since it took us nearly ten minutes to get everyone and everything out of the carriages. By the time we got out onto the platform, there was no one there.

  “I don’t see why the train couldn’t have waited!” Mrs. Mering said. “A few minutes either way surely wouldn’t make a difference.So inconsiderate!”

  “I know it’s going to rain and ruin my travelling dress,” Tossie fretted, looking at the sky. “O, Terence, I do hope it doesn’t rain on our wedding day.”

  “‘Ah festal day, so fair, so bright,’” Terence quoted, but absently, looking off toward Muchings End. “If it does rain, I hope Professor Peddick won’t leave Cyril outside.”

  “I do hope they don’t decide to go fishing in this weather,” Mrs. Mering said, “what with Mesiel’s weak chest. He caught a dreadful chill last spring. He was in bed for two weeks, and such a frightening cough! The doctor said it was a miracle it didn’t go into pneumonia. Mr. Henry, do go and see if there’s any sign of the train.”

  I walked down to the far end of the platform to check. When I came back, Verity was standing apart from the others. “I’ve been thinking about the bishop’s bird stump,” she said. “In The Moonstone, the jewel was taken by someone who didn’t know he’d stolen it. He was sleepwalking, and he put it in something, and then a second person stole it from him. What if the person who took it—?”

  “Was sleepwalking?” I said. “In Coventry Cathedral?”

  “No. Didn’t know they were committing a crime.”

  “Exactly how many drops have you done in the past week?” I asked.

  Baine reappeared, with a porter who was at least seventy years old, and they and the groom began transferring our luggage from the carriages to the edge of the platform. Verity looked speculatively at the porter.

  “No,” I said. “She was married to him for over fifty years. That means he’d have to live to be a hundred and twenty.”

  “Did you see any sign of the train, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering called.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” I said, walking over to her.

  “Where can it be?” she said. “I hope its being late isn’t an omen. Mr. Henry, have the carriages gone?”

  “We must go to Coventry today,” Verity said. “What would Madame Iritosky think of us if we ignored the spirits’ message?”

  “She herself thought nothing of departing in the middle of the night in response to a message she received,” I said, wishing the bloody train would hurry up and come. “And I have no doubt the weather will be fine when we reach Coventry.”

  “And there are such lovely things in Coventry,” Verity said and then obviously couldn’t think of any.

  “Blue dye,” I said. “They are famous for their Coventry-blue dye. And ribbons.”

  “I might buy some for my trousseau,” Tossie said.

  “Professor Peddick tends to be absentminded,” Terence said wistfully. “He won’t go off and leave Cyril, do you think?”

  “Azure ribbons, I think, for my going-away hat,” Tossie said. “Or baby blue, perhaps. What do you think, Mama?”

  “Why can’t these trains arrive at the time listed on the schedule instead of making us wait for hours?” Mrs. Mering said.

  And so on. The train arrived at exactly 11:32, pulling into the station with an impressive whoosh of steam, and Verity practically pushed everyone onto the train, keeping an anxious eye out for anyone who looked like he might be Mr. C.

  Baine assisted Mrs. Mering up the steps and into our compartment and then ran back to supervise the porter in loading our belongings. Jane settled Mrs. Mering in her seat, gave her her lorgnette, her embroidery, found her handkerchief and her shawl, and then bobbed a curtsey and climbed down the steps.

  “Where’s she going?” I said to Verity, watching Jane hurry down the platform to the rear of the train.

  “To second-class,” she said. “Servants don’t travel with their employers.”

  “How do they do without them?”

  “They don’t,” she said, catching up her skirts and starting up the steps.

  They certainly didn’t. Baine came back as soon as everything was aboard to bring Mrs. Mering a lap robe and ask if there was anything else she needed.

  “A cushion,” she said. “These railway seats are so uncomfortable.”

  “Yes, madam,” he said, and took off at a gallop. He returned in under a minute, disheveled and out of breath, with a brocade-covered cushion.

  “The train from Reading is a corridor train, madam,” he panted, “but this one has only compartments. I will, however, attend you at each stop.”

  “Were there no direct trains to Coventry?” she said.

  “Yes, madam,” Baine said. “At 10:17. The train is about to leave, madam. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, the Baedeker. And a rug to put my feet on. The condition of these railway compartment floors is disgraceful.”

  Mrs. Mering had obviously never been on the tube. It is a temporal universal that people never appreciate their own time, especially transportation. Twentieth-Century contemps complained about cancelled flights and gasoline prices, Eighteenth-Century contemps complained about muddy roads and highwaymen. No doubt Professor Peddick’s Greeks complained about recalcitrant horses and chariot wheels falling off.

  I had ridden on trains before, in the 1940s, most recently to Hampton Lucy to see if the bishop’s bird stump was there with the east windows, but those trains had been packed with soldiers, the windows had been covered with blackout curtains, and all the fittings had been removed to make ammunition. And, even if it hadn’t been wartime, they had been nothing to this.

  The high-backed seats were upholstered in green velveteen, and the walls above were panelled in polished mahogany inlaid with a pattern of flowers. There were rich green plush curtains hung at the windows, and gas lamps in brackets on both sides, covered with etched-glass lampshades, and the luggage rack overhead, the hand rails, the arm rests, the curtain rings, were all of polished brass.

  Definitely not the tube. And, as the train lurched slowly forward (with Baine making a last flying run to deliver the Baedeker and the rug and another back to second-class) and then picked up speed through the beautiful, misty countryside, definitely nothing to complain about.

  That did not stop Mrs. Mering from complaining about the soot blowing in the window (Terence closed the window), about the stuffiness of the compartment (Terence opened the window again and drew the curtains), about the dimness of the day, the roughness of the ride, the hardness of the cushion Baine had brought her.

  She gave a little screamlet each time
the train stopped, started, or went round a curve, and a large one when the railway guard came in to take our tickets. He was even older than the porter, but Verity leaned forward to look at his name badge and subsided pensively in her seat after he’d gone.

  “What was the guard’s name?” I asked her when I helped her down at Reading Station, where we were to change trains.

  “Edwards,” she said, looking around the platform. “Do you see anyone who looks like he’d be willing to marry Tossie?”

  “What about Crippen over there?” I said, nodding my head toward a pale, timid-looking young man who kept looking down the track and sticking his finger nervously in his collar.

  “None of Crippen’s wives managed to stay married to him for fifty years,” she said, watching a large and irritable man with side-whiskers who kept bellowing, “Porter! Porter!” to no avail. The efficient Baine had commandeered all of them before the train even stopped and was directing the disposition of the Mering effects.

  “What about him?” I said, pointing at a five-year-old boy in a sailor suit.

  A young man in a boater and a mustache came bolting onto the platform and looked wildly around. Verity gripped my arm. He saw Tossie, standing with Mrs. Mering and Jane, and started toward her, smiling.

  “Horace!” A girl waved from another group of three ladies, and Horace raced over to her and began apologizing profusely for being late to meet them.

  I looked guiltily over at Terence, thinking about the fateful meeting I’d made him miss.

  The young man left with the three ladies, the sidewhiskered man grabbed up his own bags and stormed off, which left Crippen, now warily eyeing a station guard.

  But even if he or the young man with the boater had been suddenly smitten, Tossie wouldn’t have noticed them. She was too busy planning her wedding.

  “I shall carry orange blossoms for my bouquet,” she said, “or white roses. Which do you think, Terence?”

  “‘Two roses on one stem on one slender spray,’” Terence quoted, looking longingly at a woman carrying a terrier, “‘in sweet communion grew.’”