by Paul Magrs
She nodded very slightly.
Oh, she was wily. Now he was gagging to read her opus. Mrs Mapp turned and gave me the prearranged signal that I was to bring in the manuscript, tied up in butcher’s paper and hairy string. I put down the crockery I was manhandling on to the hostess trolley and ambled off to bring the book like it was another lovingly prepared course.
‘Thank you, Brenda,’ whispered Mr Rupert, taking the parcel from me with all due reverence. You’d think it was a missing gospel or some such holy tome, the way he held it before him and bore it off that night, exiting the house in Tavistock Square and hopping aboard his waiting hansom.
I watched his cab jangle away over the cobbles, the moonlight bright on the horse’s flanks and painting the trees in the park a glossy jade. I pictured Mr Rupert sitting up in his bed, wearing some kind of nightgown. He’d be fingering his ’tache in the lamplight, turning those pages over one at a time, just as I had done the previous night. It even gave me a funny, giddy feeling, the thought of that book in my humble servant’s bed and then it being taken to Mr Rupert’s no doubt splendid, sumptuous place of repose at the top of his house on Baker Street.
Gaaaggghhh. I had to stop these daydreams about Rupert Von Thal. Servants shouldn’t hanker after anything or anyone. Not even in the privacy of their own secret thoughts.
I wondered if Mrs Mapp’s book would have the same disquieting effect on that beautiful man as it had had upon me.
What would Mr Rupert make of it all? I wondered, as I secured our house against the night. What would he think of Mrs Mapp’s world of Qab?
Not a lot, it seemed.
Time passed, and poor Mrs Mapp grew crosser and crosser. Very vexed she was, because she had convinced herself that Mr Rupert had forgotten all about her book. He had eaten her food, drunk her drink and listened to her tale. She had tried to impress upon him, as best she could, how vitally important this matter was to her.
But to no avail.
Two weeks slithered by in Bloomsbury.
I started to feel very disappointed in Mr Rupert. It seemed he didn’t care at all. Mrs Mapp was crushed. She was like those insect specimens of her great-uncle’s in that cabinet I dropped, back when I first moved in. Oops-a-daisy, that time. Ah, poor Mrs Mapp. How she railed against the elegant adventurer.
‘I suppose he must be laughin’ at me. Silly, scribblin’, sentimental fool. Thinking she has written something significant. Something worthy of a gentleman’s attention . . .’
Those great dark woolly clouds were descending on Tavistock Square. She was working her way into a bad’un, I could tell. I remonstrated with her. ‘Madam, I’m sure . . . Not Mr Rupert. I’m sure he really does care about your feelings . . .’
Though the fact was, he always was a bit cavalier. It was all too easy for me to imagine him tossing her manuscript on to the seat of the very cab he had taken home that night, and thoughtlessly leaving it behind as he alighted at his destination. Just the sort of thing he would do. Or he’d pop it on a shelf or console table at home in his rooms over Baker Street. It could have vanished from his mind in a flash, as some new urgent concern came rushing in. He was a man of action, Mr Rupert. He lived in the moment and was avid for thrills and novelty. He had never struck me as the kind to train his attention on novels, or any other sedentary occupation.
Mrs Mapp rounded on me, almost accusingly. ‘You! You sat up all night! You kept on, awake, until you had finished readin’ it till the very end. Loyal Brenda! Good Brenda! Brenda upon whom I can always rely.’
I blushed at this, and turned to continue going round her study with my feather duster. I was up on tiptoes, having a go at the topmost shelves, coughing heartily as I did so.
Mrs Mapp seethed as she coughed, too. ‘I should have known that silly man would spare no effort. He’d rather be orf havin’ important adventures abroad. He’d rather be orf dashin’ about after that ridiculous professor of his, getting themselves into ghastly danger, having intrigues with Chinamen or fisticuffs with pygmies or whoever. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they weren’t even in the country at the moment; if they hadn’t travelled clear across the other side of the world on some ridiculous pretext. They’ll be up to their necks in some silly escapade . . .’
I nodded. ‘I can imagine that too, madam. Those gentlemen seem to go off gallivanting into adventures at the drop of a hat.’
And how my heart ached, all of a sudden, at the thought of joining them. Somehow. Anyhow. And I knew that Mrs Mapp felt exactly the same.
I knew it was all impossible, for me at least. What was I? A mere woman, and a servant to boot. And neither of those things authentically. Not really.
But I could dream. I could listen in. When people like Mr Rupert paid visits to my mistress, I could have vicarious excitements. Despite everything, I could still inhabit my imagination.
That was why I had stayed up all that night with Mrs Mapp’s bundle of pages. Through it I had been transported and immersed into an adventure that was all my own. I had consorted with reptile men, beast men, winged lizards . . . and warrior queens.
Perhaps Mr Rupert wasn’t impreessed by the book simply because he took such things for granted. He was pretty blasé about the exotic, as anyone knew who had earwigged on just an evening’s conversation with that gentleman.
‘Damn him! Damn the awful man!’
Mrs Mapp’s cries rang through the house. The heavy clouds tumbled round our rooftops and I prepared to weather my mistress’s stormy mood.
But then, that night, there was a terrible banging at the front door.
It was teeming down with rain. Coming down in brutal, stiff curtains. At first I hardly recognised the wretched specimen standing on the doorstep. He was bedraggled, filthy, improperly dressed. But there was no mistaking him.
‘Brenda?’ shouted Mrs Mapp. ‘There’s a shockin’ draught! Who is it? Tell them there’s no one at home!’
Mrs Mapp was still in her awful vexed temper. She came tearing down the stairs to box my ears for letting out the house’s heat.
She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the man in the front hallway. He had a month’s growth of beard, at least. His clothes were expensive but hung in soaked tatters on his skinny frame. Under that lank, damp hair those eyes were eloquent with exhaustion and very familiar to both the women at whom they looked with such pleading.
His marvellous ’tache was in a shocking state.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘Rupert!’ Mrs Mapp burst out. ‘Mr Von Thal!’ she corrected herself. Then she scooted around him, hastening me into action. ‘Brenda, help him. He looks fit to drop. He looks like . . .’ She glared at him sharply. ‘Where on earth have you been, you silly man?’
His mouth worked without sound for a moment. It was as if even he could hardly believe what he was trying to tell us.
‘I have been there,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I have been . . . been . . .’
‘Where?’ thundered Mrs Mapp. She hated signs of weakness and fallibility, especially in men. This performance was frightening her.
Somehow I knew what Rupert Von Thal was going to tell us.
Just before he collapsed on the hall floor tiles he said: ‘I have been to the world of Qab . . .’
She was trembling. She did her best to hide it but, as Mrs Mapp pitched in and helped me settle the poor man before the fire in her study, I saw that she had been profoundly shaken by his words. But he was babbling, wasn’t he? He was feverish and gyppy. His mind was straying. He couldn’t possibly know what he was raving about.
I banked up the glorious fire and helped him off with his wet outer things. He looked soaked to the skin, poor fellow. I brought him woolly rugs and blankets and held them out while he wriggled himself nude under their ticklish protection. Then he sat swaddled up by the flames.
I hurried off to heat brandy in milk and to see what else we could tempt him with. He looked as if he had lost half his body weight, wherever he had been. When
I had taken that pile of sodden rags from him I had marked the appearance of his ribs before he hoiked up the blankets. He must be starving. I set a pan of soup bubbling on the hob, I sawed at a joint of ham and placed a hunk of cheese and bread on a tray with the rest. All the while Mrs Mapp was hovering.
‘Did he really say what I thought I heard?’ she asked me. Her voice was deadly serious. She looked white.
‘Of course not, ma’am,’ I shook my head. I was miffed at her lack of concern for Mr Rupert, truth be told. ‘Do you think we should call the doctor? He doesn’t look at all well.’
She blinked. ‘Of course not. He’s made of hardier stuff than that. And besides, I have to ask him . . . questions. I need to know.’ She seemed to realise then that she was standing in her night things, including a rather demure dove-grey gown that swept the chilly stone floor of the kitchen. Her hair was up and her face smarmed with cold cream. She had been ready to settle in for the night. To place her head on her Egyptian cotton pillows and to dream about her strange land of Qab.
Instead she had this visitor. This man who was claiming to have brought the latest news from Qab itself.
Oh, these aristos and their funny ideas.
We gathered around the skinny and hairy Mr Rupert as he sipped his milk laced with brandy and slurped at his chicken broth.
‘I haven’t eaten anything decent in days and days,’ he told us. ‘For a while we subsisted on the strange roots and fruits we found in the forest. The professor fashioned a bow and arrow and shot a variety of swine, which we roasted. That’s over three weeks ago, and it was the last hot meal I had. When we were in the palace, deep under the palace, and escaping through the catacombs, we were eating anything we could catch with our bare hands. Eating them raw. Insect things and pale grubs. It was . . . it was horrible . . .’ His voice trailed away for a moment and he stared into the flames.
Mrs Mapp coughed discreetly. ‘Mr Von Thal, I feel obliged to point out the discrepancy in what you are tellin’ us. It is two weeks since you were here at my house. Two weeks to the day, in fact. Therefore, how can you talk about being . . . elsewhere for more than a month? How can that be true? Don’t you see? I’m having some problems acceptin’ the truth of what you are trying to tell us.’
He turned back to us both quickly, his shaggy head swinging round. A weird glint in his eye. Fury, was it? Frustration? I’d never seen him like that before. He was always so solicitous and kind. ‘I tell you, I know where I’ve been, and for how long. Am I stupid? Am I mad?’
Mrs Mapp hesitated. ‘No, of course not. But . . . in your condition, exhausted like this, perhaps you have become confused . . . about what has been happenin’ to you.’
‘No,’ he growled, sounding as sure of himself as ever I had heard him. ‘I know full well what has been happening to me. Time works differently there, Mrs Mapp. As you yourself know. If we cross over to that land, there is no guarantee that time will pass in equal measure there as it does here. The two planes of existence do not keep tally with each other. How could they? When we return here, who’s to say how long will have passed by? You tell me it’s only two weeks and I’m relieved to hear that. A hundred years might have passed. A thousand. I’m very glad . . . very glad indeed . . . to have made my way back to a time not so far from my point of departure. To be among friends again. I thought . . . I thought I might be lost for ever. As, I fear, Professor Quandary might be—’
‘Professor Quandary. . . lost for ever?’ Mrs Mapp broke in.
‘He’s still there,’ said Mr Rupert. ‘I couldn’t help him. He’s still in the clutches of. . . them. Of Her. I tried to save him. I thought I had. Yet I couldn’t. No . . . he’s still back there. In that dreadful, savage land.’
We both absorbed this. Professor Quandary! Lost!
My mistress’s face was a study in perplexity. Questions flitted and buzzed in her mind. I could tell just by looking at her. She was gauging his ability to give us straight and honest answers. But his exhaustion was overcoming him. I could see that he was sinking.
I also thought he was still babbling. This talk of palaces and eating insects and Professor Quandary at the mercy of a mysterious Her. It was sounding extremely fishy to me. We were overhearing the fever dreams of a young man who’d picked up some nasty kind of bug, I thought.
‘We should get him into bed,’ I prompted. ‘He needs to rest.’
‘Yes, of course,’ agreed Mrs Mapp, though I knew she was impatient. She was avid to learn more from our unexpected guest.
‘Yes, yes . . . I need sleep,’ said Mr Rupert, faltering as he stood, clutching the blankets around himself. ‘Can I stay here? Have you room?’
‘Mr Von Thal,’ smiled my mistress, ‘we have seven unused bedrooms here. There is only myself and Brenda. You are welcome.’
‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly, and looked to me to guide him to his room. I stepped forward to help him, and he suddenly swung round to say to Mrs Mapp: ‘But how did you do it? How could you know about it? How on earth . . . did you possibly write about Qab?’
She stared back dumbly at him. ‘I don’t know. It . . . it came to me, that’s all.’
He shut his eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. ‘It came to you. And I went to it.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s some deep kind of magic going on here. Something . . . eldritch and perverse.’
I swear that Mrs Mapp’s eyes lit up at this utterance of his.
‘Come on, sir,’ I told him, wedging my weight under his slight frame, helping him towards the hall. ‘Time for rest.’
‘Thank you, Brenda.’ He smiled. ‘But I must tell you. My clothes . . . those rags I was wearing. Where have you taken them?’
‘Why, they’re in the scullery. I just dumped them in the old sink. But I don’t think they can be salvaged, Mr Von Thal. They were ruined. Rags, as you say.’
‘Yes, but in the inner pocket of my blazer, there is a pair of scissors. Not scissors. Pinking shears. You must fetch them out. You must look after them. They must not be let out of your sight . . .’
Then his head was flopping about on my shoulder and he was just about passing out in my arms.
‘You’d better get them, Brenda,’ my mistress said. ‘When you’ve put him to bed. The Blue Room, I think, would be best for him. Go to the scullery and find these shears. Make sure you look after them. They seem very important to him . . .’
She was rambling just as much as he was. I mean, pinking shears? What could he possibly want with pinking shears?
Both the mistress and myself were itchy with impatience the next morning. We carried on as if nothing was different – she nibbling at a portion of porridge, glutinous with lavender honey, and me bustling round at my myriad morning tasks. Neither of us were mentioning the novelty of there being a man about the house.
Come time for elevenses, and no sooner have I brought in the coffee than there’s a creaking on the floorboards directly above us. That was the Blue Room up there. Mrs Mapp and I exchanged a sharp glance. So, he was up and about at last. I poured the coffee. Mrs Mapp returned to her scribbling, but I could tell her mind wasn’t on it. Her attention was elsewhere.
We listened to the bath in the Blue Bathroom filling up, a lovely bass rumble. Mr Rupert kept us in horrible suspense as he shaved and scrubbed and made himself respectable again. As he made himself fit to face the civilised world.
As I lay in my bed the previous night I had stewed it all over. How could any of it be possible? These intrepid men’s adventures often seemed a bit unlikely, verging on the impossible. But when Mr Rupert wrote them up in serial form in the pages of the Fitzrovian Spree, they always convinced me. I never doubted the veracity of his word. Those mummies they brought back from the pyramids of Peru were placed on public exhibition. As were the giant eggs they carried back from Africa. And the fragments of the last surviving Martian ship, inside of which they had had the most remarkable adventure, deep beneath the freezing North Sea . . . All of these things I – along wit
h thousands of others – had accepted as true.
Why not Qab as well?
Because . . . if the warrior women and lizard men of Qab were real . . . then how did my mistress get wind of it all?
She believed that she had made it all up out of her head. Out of ingredients no more exotic than airy imagination, Indian ink and the effects of midnight snacks upon her delicate constitution.
Yet . . . I was used to having very queer dreams myself, wasn’t I? I was prone to the oddest fancies and phantasmagoria. Sometimes I’d be hard pressed to tell what was real and what wasn’t, the way my own mind and memories worked. And so I had a lot of sympathy with both Mr Rupert and Mrs Mapp, beset by the unreal as they seemed to be.
The coffee was finished with by the time Mr Rupert appeared. He was clad in a red silk dressing gown that had belonged to Mrs Mapp’s late brother. She gasped at the sight of him, but quickly resumed possession of herself. ‘Brenda, coffee for our visitor.’
I hurried out and back again with a fresh pot and sugar lumps and thick yellow cream and best china and I found Mr Rupert was already talking. The two of them were in armchairs by the longdead fire. Coffee table. Conspiratorial tones. Rain clicking calmingly on the window that looked out on Tavistock Square. I poured coffee and my stomach roiled at its dark, heady tang.
‘Brenda, please. Pull up a pouffe and listen,’ said my mistress. ‘Mr Von Thal’s story involves you too.’
I did as I was bidden.
Mr Rupert favoured me with a special, very handsome, smile, and then he began.
‘Those pinking shears, I hope you’re looking after them. We will need them before long. They are very special. They are the most vitally important element in this whole strange saga.
‘They belong to Professor Quandary. He wouldn’t explain to me where he had procured them and nor would he explain how they worked. It seemed a bit of a rum do to me, when he first told me that those seemingly everyday implements could cut through . . . what did he call it? The Fabric of Time and Space. The Very Fabric, as he put it.