Beware The Peckish Dead!

by William Stafford

  She opened the book and tapped a page. “You are seeing, here is where he is, as you are saying, cropping up for the first time. This symbol here, I am believing is a greeting. He is letting me know he is there. And here,” she turned a few pages, “he is here again. The same symbol but, Mr Mortlake, the parchment that was copied for this book is originating from two centuries after the previous one.”

  I frowned.

  “Mr Mortlake, do you know what this is meaning?”

  “Well - I-” I struggled to string two words together never mind something approaching coherent thought. Miss Lindquist smiled patiently, like a governess with a particularly dim-witted charge. “It means your father has been in Ancient Egypt for over two hundred years.”

  “Or...?” she prompted.

  “Or what? He hasn’t?”

  “Or he is making more than one visit and is being in and out of that hole, like your English saying, a rat up a greyhound.”

  “I’m not entirely surely that’s precisely the saying,” I blushed.

  “But you are understanding my point?”

  I was staggered, I’ll tell you the truth. I lowered myself onto a chair opposite hers as I took in what this might mean with regard to my lost Cuthbert.

  Wherever he is, he might be there for years. Decades! Centuries!

  As though reading these distressing thoughts on my face, Miss Lindquist reached across the table and patted my fingers. “Do not be worrying,” she smiled kindly. “All those years my father is being away are all in the past, done and dusted. I am not having to live through them and be waiting hundreds of years for him to be coming back. And the same with your valet. When he is coming back through the Hole, it may be as though he has been gone only days or weeks. A month or two!”

  “Why not hours?”

  She laughed. “Because it has already been days. Are you not seeing it?”

  I was more than a little flummoxed. “What are we to do?”

  “We are needing to plot the course of the Hole as best as we can. Cross-reference with sightings of Nessie Monster and be trying to establish a schedule, a timetable of where and when the Hole might appear.”

  I was disheartened. “That seems like a lot of mathematics. It’s not like tracking a London omnibus, you know. The bally thing doesn’t stick to a regular timetable, as far as I can see. It crops up at random, it looks to me.”

  “Then it is very much like being one of your London omnibuses!” Miss Lindquist laughed her tinkling laugh. “But I am having a degree in mathematics. My father was being keen to have his daughter educated.”

  “His lack of regard for convention seems to be paying off. I am happy for you to do the legwork with the abacus and all the rest of it.”

  “I was thinking you might be.”

  “But without Laird Baird’s rare book I fear the calculations will be nigh on impossible”

  “True,” she conceded. “That is why we must be having that book at once!”

  My shoulders slumped. I explained the unfeasibility of that eventuality and why I may never show my face or anything else on Laird Baird’s estate. Miss Lindquist pouted.

  “And it is being such a nice face, too. And such lovely hair. Like a woman’s...”

  There was a glint in her eye I didn’t much care for. She slapped the table, startling Cassie out of her slumbers, and got to her feet.

  “Mr Mortlake, I shall return within the hour. In the meantime, will you be so kind as to be arranging transportation to Scotland? Baird Hall, here we are coming!”

  She strode from the apartment, leaving the dog and I to exchange looks of bemusement and perplexity.

  ***

  “No!” I cried, shaking with horror. “I will not do it!”

  Upon her return to the flat, exactly an hour since she had left it, Miss Lindquist brought with her a trunk of clothes and a most shocking suggestion.

  “It is being the only way,” she said sternly. “You will be pulling it off.”

  “My dear Miss Lindquist,” I paced the carpet, “What you propose is abhorrent and morally degenerate in the utmost!”

  She laughed at my tantrum. “Pish-posh! It is being dressing-up, that is all.”

  “It’s - it’s - transvestism!” I found the very word distasteful.

  “You Englishmen are doing it all the time. Your Dan Leno, your dame of the pantomime.”

  “That is different,” I huffed. “That is entertainment.”

  She laughed again. “Oh, Mr Mortlake! I am assuring you I shall be finding it most entertaining! Is it not being hypocritical of you to be raging against moral degeneracy?”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out. She adopted a more soothing tone.

  “Be thinking about it: you cannot be returning as yourself, but in disguise you will be where you are needing to be. Be thinking of your Cuthbert! He is needing you, Hector. You must be doing this!”

  My lips puckered with petulance. “Can you not go alone? I could hide out in an inn somewhere.”

  “Always thinking of your pubs! No, no! I shall be needing you at my side to be taking me to the locations you visited.”

  I tapped my foot, my mind racing to come up with an alternative. “Can I not be disguised as a man?”

  “No, you are being a man already.”

  “I could grey up, be a distinguished uncle or someone.”

  “You will be seen through at once. Laird Baird will not be dreaming you will be returning as a woman.”

  “But-”

  “No buts, Mr Mortlake. Let us be having a dress rehearsal.”

  She flipped open the trunk’s lid. I was close to flipping my own. She withdrew a gown and matching high-cut jacket with leg-of-mutton sleeves. She held it in front of me and tilted her head, making an unspoken evaluation, before delving her hand into the trunk again and pulling out a ribbed contraption of straps and buckles.

  “You will be needing this,” she thrust it at me.

  “A corset!” I blinked.

  “You will not be fitting the bodice else.”

  “Steady on! Are you calling me fat?”

  “No! Fatness is having nothing to do with it. This is being fashion. You are being the wrong shape.”

  I stared at the thing, an instrument of torture, and despaired. “Do you really think this is necessary?”

  “Yes, Hector,” she laughed. “Of corset is!”

  She enjoyed her joke far more than it merited. At last, she composed herself. “But first you must be shaving.”

  My hand flew protectively to my perfectly cultivated and topiaried sideburns.

  “Your chest too and also the backs of your hands.”

  “I shall wear gloves!”

  “Gloves shall be making your hands be looking even bigger. You shall be wearing long sleeves with lace-trimmed cuffs that reach almost to your knuckles. It is a good thing your hands are pale and soft as though you are never doing a day of work in your life.”

  Before I could react to that, she bundled me toward the bathroom. Cassie bounded along between our legs as though some game were afoot. I was roughly manhandled and shoved into the room. Miss Lindquist, having hurled the frock, corset, and several unmentionables at my head, pulled the door shut.

  “We shall be attending out here,” she called from the corridor. “Do not be tarrying, Mr Mortlake. We are having a train to be catching.”

  A groan escaped me. Someone really ought to be addressing her mangling of the English language - she even had me at it.

  I examined an underskirt, a delicate garment of cotton and lace. There was a petticoat, a shift, a pair of silk stockings, all of which I was expected to put on and then conceal with my frock and jacket. And the blasted corset! It is no wonder women are always fainting,
having to contend with this lot - although it was impossible to imagine the strident Miss Lindquist fainting from anything.

  I shed my manly attire with the solemnity of a prisoner on the morning of his execution and reached for my safety razor.

  ***

  “Exquisite!” Miss Lindquist clapped her hands. She circled me with an appraising eye as though I were a new item of statuary in her garden. I wilted beneath her scrutiny, like a defendant on trial. She adjusted my shoulders. “You must not be standing too proud, Mr Mortlake. Perhaps we can be softening your angularity with a shawl or a stole.”

  “And you must cease calling me Mr Mortlake; that would rather give the game away, what!”

  She was not listening; she rummaged in that trunk of hers until she pulled out a wide-brimmed hat, which she plonked on my head without ceremony.

  “Hold still!” She came at me with a vicious-looking hatpin. Finally, she pulled down a veil, shrouding my manly features in gauze. “There!”

  She dragged me in front of my full-length mirror.

  “I look like a beekeeper. A lady beekeeper,” I observed. Apart from that, I did cut quite a striking figure - if you go in for the female form, that is. Clothes maketh the woman. I rotated slowly.

  “You will be doing.” Miss Lindquist was pleased with the overall effect. “But you must be leaving all the talking to me. Be restricting yourself to simpering and pointing at things.” Her face lit up with inspiration. “I shall say you are my sister from Svalbard and you are having no English to speak of. This is explaining your lacking of speech and your sturdy outdoors frame.”

  “And does she have a name, this sister of yours? Miss Lindquist?”

  I found myself unable to tear my eyes from my unfamiliar reflection. So like me but yet unlike me.

  “Of course she does - of course you do. They are not being so eccentric in Svalbard to go without giving their children names. You shall be Annie! How do you like that?”

  Annie Lindquist.

  It struck something of a bum note.

  ***

  Self-conscious, I made my way to the street where a cab was waiting to take us to the station. Miss Lindquist was hooked on one arm, an umbrella on the other. It had taken forever to cram my feet into a pair of boots at least two sizes too small for me and then a second eternity to fasten the interminable rows of hooks and eyes. I cannot tell you the agony I was in, even taking those few steps from the front step to the carriage! I was glad of the veil masking the discomfort - nay, torment! - I must endure. Add to that the breathlessness induced by that damned corset - at least it robbed me of the ability to scream from the pain. It was all I could do to concentrate on keeping my head erect and my pinching feet walking in a reasonable approximation of a straight line. Without Miss Lindquist to support and steer me, I don’t know where I would have ended up. In the gutter, no doubt, looking at the stars - well, the clouds.

  A horn honked like an angry goose and Miss Lindquist yanked me backwards.

  “All right, darlin’,” leered the ruffian behind the wheel of a horseless conveyance. His vehicle made my jaw drop in admiration. It was a newer model than my dear Bessie - it even had a roof! I wanted to give chase and ask the fellow all about it, and hang my aching feet! But Miss Lindquist directed me toward our cab, our humdrum, olde worlde, horse-drawn hackney, as though we were Neanderthals or people of that ilk.

  “They are being so uncouth,” Miss Lindquist muttered. “These men with their driving machines. We shall be seeing a decline in good manners, be marking my words.”

  I issued a noncommittal grunt.

  The cab driver hopped down and held the door for us. Being a lady has its boons, I see, but it is no compensation for having to wear instruments of torture.

  “And do not be worrying about your dog. I am sure he will be very happy with your friend.”

  I wanted to correct her on two points. Firstly, Cassie is a ‘she’ and we had not left her with my ‘friend’ but with my publisher - an important distinction. But, remembering our plan to have me play a mute, I held my tongue and climbed into the carriage. The driver tipped me a wink; I do not know what it signified.

  We rode to Euston station in silence. I was concerned about Cassie, it was true, but at least my publisher has children and a garden and all the rest of it. I had argued the case for bringing her with us but Miss Lindquist shot me down like a clay pigeon.

  “Laird Baird may be recognising the dog as his tenant’s, his missing tenant’s. No, it would be giving rise to too many questions.”

  To which I muttered that one collie is very much like another - surely that is the point of dog breeding. Miss Lindquist had countered with, “You are knowing that and I am knowing that, but the dog is not knowing that. The dog will be behaving as if he knows where he is. The dog may even be recognising Laird Baird, like an old friend. We cannot be risking it.”

  Well, there was no arguing with the woman; that much was evident. And so, Cassie had gone to the publisher’s house in Maida Vale and there was an end to it.

  Euston was bustling, perhaps even teeming. Miss Lindquist paid off the cabbie and then scoured around for a boy to haul our luggage to the requisite platform. Costermongers and bootblacks vied for our attention, their cries and smells adding to the din and the noisome air. Perhaps it was the corset but I was finding the role of delicate female coming easy to me. I steeled myself, ready to use my umbrella to ward off unwelcome interlopers, while Miss Lindquist strode and I tottered into the steam-shrouded hall, beyond which our train was waiting.

  Chapter Twelve

  We had a compartment to ourselves - once we had rid ourselves of the somewhat lascivious porter by means of a judicious gratuity.

  “I am thinking he is fancying you,” Miss Lindquist tittered, pulling down the shade over the window to the corridor. “You are cutting quite a dash with that slim waist of yours.”

  “The bloody thing is killing me,” I gasped. “Could we not loosen it a little, just for the duration of the journey?”

  “That is not being on your nelly,” she sounded firm. “You must be remaining in character all the while, until you have convinced yourself that you are being a woman and my sister to boot.”

  I groaned. The effort knocked me breathless.

  “Please do not be fainting; I have forgotten to be bringing smelling salts.”

  Beneath my veil, I scowled. “And this thing?” I attempted to lift it but Miss Lindquist stayed my hand.

  “You must be remaining covered up. By the time we are getting to Glasgow, you will be growing quite the five o’clock shadow.”

  “This is ludicrous. It will never work.” I sat back. Miss Lindquist tapped my knee with the handle of her fan.

  “You must not be slouching! Be sitting up! Prim and proper! You are being a lady!”

  I made adjustments to my posture until she was satisfied, folding my hands over the handle of my umbrella.

  “It is not being comfortable to be a woman in this day and age,” she opined. “In matters other than sartorial also. But we shall not be standing for it much longer.”

  “Quite,” I muttered. “I don’t see how anyone could remain standing for more than two minutes in this bloody contraption.”

  “What I am meaning is we women shall be rising up and challenging our oppressors.”

  “Who?” I blinked. “The corset makers?”

  “Men!” she snarled venomously. “It is being about time they are realising we are being their equals - if not their superiors.”

  I groaned, but not because of the corset. Miss Lindquist was one of those. A suffragette!

  “Frankly,” I said, “You don’t know when you’re well off. If you get the vote, what will you do with it? Vote for the same unscrupulous arseholes. Only then you must share the blame for whichever band
of robbers comes to power. No, no; much better to have no part in it and keep a clear conscience.”

  She stared at me in a manner I found unnerving.

  “What’s the matter?” My hand flew to my head. “Is my hat crooked?”

  A stony silence descended. I watched the verdant fields of a couple of counties roll by. The peace was interrupted by the intrusion of the guard, requesting to see our tickets.

  “Oho!” he laughed, clipping holes with abandon. “Going all the way, are we, girls?”

  Miss Lindquist’s lip curled but the fellow was not addressing her. He smoothed his unruly moustaches with a finger and wiggled his equally bushy eyebrows in my direction. “Always happy to punch your ticket, Miss,” he touched the peak of his hat. “If you catch my meaning.”

  I froze. How to respond? I was forbidden the expediency of a smart retort. I dipped my head - would that be taken as acknowledgment? Or as encouragement? Flirtation? What is the etiquette in these situations?

  Luckily, Miss Lindquist intervened. She got to her feet, snatched our tickets from the fellow’s grasp and bade him a good day. Her glacial tones drained the good cheer from his cheeks and he withdrew, backing out like a nervous servant.

  “Are you seeing what I am meaning? Men!”

  My shoulders hitched in a shrug. I knew better than to say so out loud but I suspected much of her annoyance arose from jealousy. The fellow had shown no interest in her charms and, to rub salt into the wound, had overtly preferred her sister. No wonder she was so anti- the whole gender!

  Our journey rumbled on in silence, save for the percussive progress of the train along the tracks. Eventually, by the time we had passed through the Midlands and into the North Country, Miss Lindquist thawed and, taking a notebook from her purse, came to sit beside me.

  “Sister, dear,” she began with a hint of mockery, “I must be bringing you up-to-date with matters concerning my - that is to say, our - father.”

  “Which art in heaven,” I intoned, rather drolly I thought, but she was having none of it. She slapped the back of my hand.

  “Be remembering when I was telling you not to be speaking,” she admonished. “Now, be attending this tale I will be telling, for there might be something in it that will be helping our ends.”