To Say Nothing of the Dog

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Verity was not my final visitor. A half hour after she left there was another sound of scratching on the door, so faint I would not have heard it if I had been asleep.

I wasn’t asleep. Verity, with her news of increased slippage and discrepancies, had pretty much put paid to that. Not to mention Lady Schrapnell and the bishop’s bird stump.

And Cyril had somehow managed, in spite of his short legs, to sprawl over the entire width of the bed and both pillows so that there was only a narrow edge left, which I had a tendency to roll off of. I wrapped my feet round the bedpost and anchored the coverlet with my hands and thought about Lord Lucan and Schrödinger’s cat.

It had been put into a box in Schrödinger's thought experiment, along with a doomsday device: a bottle of cyanide gas, a hammer hooked to a Geiger counter, and a chunk of uranium. If the uranium emitted an electron, it would trigger the hammer which would break the bottle. That would release the gas that would kill the cat that lived in the box that Schrödinger built.

And since there was no way to predict whether the uranium had emitted an electron or not, the cat was neither dead nor alive, but both, existing as side-by-side probabilities which would collapse into a single reality when the box was opened. Or the incongruity was repaired.

But that meant there was a fifty percent probability that the incongruity wouldn’t be repaired. And for each moment the cat stayed in the box, the probability that the uranium would emit said electron became greater, and so did the likelihood that when the box was opened, the cat would be dead.

And the first line of defense had already failed. The coincidences of Tossie’s meeting Terence and my meeting Terence and our rescuing Professor Peddick and his meeting the Colonel proved that. And discrepancies were the next step.

But Terence hadn’t affected history, at least not directly, or his name would have been in the official records, and Oxford Railway Station was thirty miles and four days from Muchings End. And T.J. had said the immediate vicinity.

But what seemed to have escaped Verity in her time-lagged state was that even if their meeting wasn’t in the immediate vicinity, Mrs. Mering’s decision to take Tossie to Madame Iritosky’s was, and that was what had led to her meeting Terence and to Terence’s running into Professor Peddick and being asked to meet the agèd relicts. And running into me. And what did immediate vicinity mean anyway? T.J. hadn’t said. It might be years and hundreds of miles.

I lay there in the dark, going round and round, like Harris in the Hampton Court Maze. Baine hadn’t intended to drown Princess Arjumand, but if she hadn’t drowned and become nonsignificant, why hadn’t the net refused to open for Verity? And if she had drowned, why had it opened for me?

And why had I come through at Oxford? To keep Terence from meeting Maud? I didn’t see how that could possibly contribute to a self-correction. Or had it been to keep the cat away from Muchings End? I remembered dropping her basket at Folly Bridge when Cyril charged at me, and it nearly rolling into the river before Terence caught it. And my grabbing the carpetbag as it toppled, and sending Cyril into the drink. Had the course of history been trying to correct itself by drowning the cat, and I’d kept interfering?

But she couldn’t have been intended to drown. Baine hadn’t been trying to drown her when he threw her in. If Verity hadn’t interfered, he would have dived in, morning coat and all, and saved her. Perhaps he’d thrown her out too far, and she’d been carried away by the current and drowned, in spite of Baine’s best efforts. But that still didn’t explain—

There was a faint scratching at the door. It’s Verity, I thought. She forgot to explain Hercule Poirot’s detecting methods. I opened the door.

There was no one there. I opened the door wider and looked down the hall in both directions. Nothing but blackness. It must have been one of Mrs. Mering’s spirits.

“Mere,” a small voice said.

I looked down. Princess Arjumand’s gray-green eyes shone up at me. “More,” she said, and sauntered past me, tail in the air, jumped on the bed, and lay down in the middle of my pillow.

This left me no room at all. Plus, Cyril snored. This in itself could have been got used to, but as the night progressed, it got louder and louder, till I was afraid it was going to wake the dead. Or Mrs. Mering. Or both.

And he seemed to do variations on a theme — a low rumble, like distant thunder, a snore, an odd whuffling sound which ruffled his jowls, a snort, a snuffle, a wheeze.

None of this bothered the cat, who had settled herself on my Adam’s apple again and was purring (without variations) in my ear. I kept dozing off from cat-induced lack of oxygen and then waking up, lighting matches, and trying to read my pocket watch by them at II, III, and a quarter to IV.

I dozed off again at half-past V only to be awakened by the birds chirping the arrival of the sun. I had always been led to believe this was an idyllic, melodious sound, but this sounded more like a full-scale Nazi air raid. I wondered if the Merings had an Anderson shelter.

I fumbled for a match, realized I could read my pocket watch without it, and got up. I pulled on my clothes, put on my shoes, and began trying to rouse Cyril.

“Come along, boy, time to go back to the stable,” I said, interrupting him in mid-whuffle with a shake. “You don’t want Mrs. Mering to catch you in here. Come along. Wake up.”

Cyril opened one bleary eye, closed it again, and began to snore loudly.

“Don’t try to pull that!” I said. “It won’t work. I know you’re awake.” I poked him in his midsection. “Come along. You’ll get us both thrown out.” I tugged on his collar. He opened the eye again and staggered to his feet. He looked like I felt. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was swaying gently, like a drunk after a night on the tiles.

“Good boy,” I said encouragingly. “That’s it. Off the bed. Down we go.”

Princess Arjumand chose that moment to yawn, stretch luxuriously, and settle comfortably into a nest of bedclothes. The message couldn’t have been clearer.

“You’re not helping,” I said to her. “I know it’s not fair, Cyril, but life is not fair. I, for instance, am supposed to be on holiday. Resting. Sleeping.”

Cyril took the word “sleeping” for a command and sank back onto the pillows.

“No,” I said. “Up. Now. I mean it, Cyril. Come. Heel. Wake up.”

One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning. Outside, the grounds had the rosy flush of dawn, the grass bright with diamond dew, the roses just op’ing their sweet faces, all of which indicated I was still suffering from severe to terminal time-lag, which meant when I saw Verity at breakfast I would still be completely under her spell, even though she had told Lady Schrapnell I knew where the bishop’s bird stump was.

In the meantime, the bird Luftwaffe must have gone back to refuel, and the world lay silent in the early light, a silence as much a part of the past as Victorian country houses and boating on the Thames, the stillness of a world that had yet no ken of airplanes and traffic jams, of incendiaries and pinpoint bombs, the still and holy hush of an idyllic world gone by.

It was too bad I wasn’t in a position to appreciate it. Cyril weighed a ton, and set up a pathetic and piercing whine as soon as I set him down. I almost tripped over the slumbering stableboy on the way out, and, back inside the house, I nearly collided with Baine in the upper hall.

He was setting polished boots in neat pairs outside the bedroom doors. In the second before he saw me, I wondered when he slept.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said, dropping the subjects of my sentences like Colonel Mering in my nervousness. “Went downstairs looking for something to read.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He was holding Tossie’s white boots. They had ruffles on the toes. “I find Mr. Toynbee’s The Industrial Revolution very relaxing. Would you like me to fetch it for you?”

“No, that’s quite all right,” I said. “Feel as though I shall be able to sleep now.”

Which was a blatant lie. I had far too many things to worry about to be able to fall asleep — how I was going to get my collar on and my tie tied in the morning. What Time Travel was going to discover about the consequences of my not returning Princess Arjumand to Muchings End for four full days. What I was going to tell Lady Schrapnell.

And even if I were able to stop worrying, there was no point in trying to sleep. It was already getting light. In a few minutes, sun would be streaming through the windows, and the bird Luftwaffe were already returning for a second raid. And I didn’t dare fall asleep for fear of suffocation at the hands of Princess Arjumand.

She had taken over both pillows in my absence. I tried to push her gently to one side without waking her, and she stretched curvingly and began flipping her tail on my face.

I lay there under the lash and thought about the bishop’s bird stump.

I not only didn’t know where it was, I didn’t have any idea what could possibly have happened to it. It had stood in the church for eighty years, and there was no indication it hadn’t been there during the raid. In fact, there were a lot of indications that it had been. The order of service I’d found in the rubble proved it had been there four days before the raid, and I had seen it there myself on the day before that, the ninth, after the Prayers for the RAF Service and Baked Goods Sale.

I supposed it might have been removed for safekeeping at the last minute, but that hardly seemed likely when neither the Purbeck marble baptismal font nor the organ Handel had played on had been sent to the country or put down in the crypt, even though in retrospect they obviously should have been. And the bishop’s bird stump looked far more indestructible than the marble baptismal font.

It was indestructible. The roof collapsing on it wouldn’t have even chipped its cherubs. It should have been standing there in the ashes, rising above the rubble, untouched, unscathed, un—

When I woke, it was full daylight and Baine was standing over me with a cup of tea.

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “I took the liberty of returning Princess Arjumand to her mistress’s room.”

“Good idea,” I said, realizing belatedly that I had a pillow and was able to breathe.

“Yes, sir. It would be most distressing to Miss Mering to wake and find her gone again, though I can quite understand Princess Arjumand’s attachment to you.”

I sat up. “What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock, sir.” He handed me the cup of tea. “I am afraid I was unable to retrieve the majority of your and Mr. St. Trewes’s and Professor Peddick’s luggage,” he said. “These were all I was able to find.”

He held up the size small suit of evening clothes Finch had packed for me. “I am afraid there has been considerable shrinkage, due to their immersion in the water. I have therefore sent for replacements, and—”

“Replacements?” I said, nearly spilling my tea. “From where?”

“Swan and Edgar’s, of course, sir,” he said. “In the meantime, your boating costume.”

He had done more than press it. My shirt was bleached and starched to within an inch of its life, and the flannels looked like new. I hoped I would be able to figure out how to get into them. I sipped thoughtfully at my tea, trying to remember how the tie had gone.

“Breakfast is at nine, sir,” Baine said. He poured out hot water from the ewer into the bowl and opened the box of razors.

The tie probably didn’t matter. I would cut my throat shaving before I ever got to it.

“Mrs. Mering wishes everyone to be down to breakfast by nine o’clock as there are a great many preparations to be made for the church fête,” he said, laying out the razors, “particularly as regards the jumble sale.”

The jumble sale. I had almost managed to forget about it, or perhaps I was only in denial. I seemed to be doomed to attend bazaars and church fêtes no matter what century I went to.

“When is it to be held?” I asked, hoping he would say next month.

“The day after tomorrow,” Baine said, draping a towel over his arm.

Perhaps we’d be gone by then. Professor Peddick would be eager to go on to Runnymede to see the meadow where the Magna Carta was signed, to say nothing of its excellent perch deeps.

Terence wouldn’t want to go, of course, but he might not have any say in the matter. Mrs. Mering had taken a pronounced dislike to him, and I had a feeling she would like him even less when she found out he had designs on her daughter. And hadn’t any money.

She might even pack us off directly after breakfast, pleading the preparations for the jumble sale, the incongruity could begin correcting itself, and I could take a nice long nap on the river while Terence rowed. If I hadn’t killed myself with the straight razors before that.

“Would you care to have me shave you now, sir?” Baine said.

“Yes,” I said, and bounded out of bed.

I needn’t have worried about the clothes either. Baine fastened my braces and my collar, constructed the tie, and would have tied my shoes if I’d let him, I didn’t know whether from gratitude or if this was the usual custom of the times. I would have to ask Verity.

“Which room is breakfast in?” I asked Baine.

“The breakfast room, sir,” he said. “First door on your left.”

I went tripping downstairs, feeling positively cheerful. A good old-fashioned English breakfast, bacon and eggs and orange marmalade, all served up by a butler, was a delightful prospect, and it was a beautiful day. Sun streamed in over the polished banisters and onto the portraits. Even Lady Schrapnell’s Elizabethan ancestor looked cheerful.

I opened the first door to the left. Baine must have told me wrong. This was the dining room, almost entirely filled with a massive mahogany table and an even more massive sideboard with an assortment of covered silver dishes on it.

The table had cups and saucers and silverware on it, but no plates, and there was no one in the room. I turned to start back out and look for the breakfast room and nearly collided with Verity.

“Good morning, Mr. Henry,” she said, “I hope you slept well.”

She was wearing a pale-green dress with tiny pleats in the bodice and had a green ribbon bound round her piled-up auburn hair, and I obviously needed a good deal more sleep before I was over my time-lag. I noticed shadows under her green-brown eyes, but otherwise she was still the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

She went over to the sideboard. “Breakfast is served from the sideboard, Mr. Henry,” she said, taking a flower-rimmed plate from a large stack. “The others will be down shortly.”

She leaned toward me to hand me the plate. “I am so sorry I told Lady Schrapnell you knew where the bishop’s bird stump was,” she said. “I must have been more time-lagged than I realized, but that’s no excuse, and I want you to know I’ll do everything I can to help you find it. When’s the last time anybody saw it?”

“I saw it on Saturday the ninth of November, 1940, after the Prayers for the RAF Service and Baked Goods Sale.”

“And no one saw it after that?”

“No one’s been able to get through after that till after the raid. The increased slippage around a crisis point, remember?”

Jane came in with a pot of marmalade, set it on the table, bobbed a curtsey, and left. Verity stepped over to the first of the covered dishes, which had a statuette of a flopping fish for a handle.

“And it wasn’t found in the rubble after the raid?” she said, lifting the lid by the fish.

“No,” I said. “Good Lord, what’s that?” I was staring at a bed of blindingly yellow rice with strips of flaked white in it.

“It’s kedgeree,” she said, putting a small spoonful on her plate. “Curried rice and smoked fish.”

“For breakfast?”

“It’s an Indian dish. The Colonel’s fond of it.” She put the lid back on. “And none of the contemps mention having seen it from the ninth to the night of the raid?”

“It was listed in the order of service for Sunday the tenth, under the flower arrangements, so presumably it was there during the service.”

She moved down to the next covered dish. This lid had a large antlered deer. I wondered briefly if they represented some sort of code, but the next one down was a snarling wolf, so I doubted it.

“When you saw it on the ninth,” Verity said, “did you notice anything unusual about it?”

“You’ve never seen the bishop’s bird stump, have you?”

“I mean, had it been moved? Or damaged? Did you notice anyone hanging about it or see anything suspicious?”

“You’re still time-lagged, aren’t you?” I asked.

“No,” she said indignantly. “The bishop’s bird stump is missing, and it can’t just have disappeared into thin air. So someone must have taken it, and if someone took it, there must be a clue to who it was. Did you notice anyone standing near it?”

“No,’ I said.

“Hercule Poirot says there’s always something that no one noticed or thought was important,” she said, picking up the Stag at Bay.

Inside was a mass of pungent-smelling brown objects. “What’s that?”

“Devilled kidneys,” she said, “braised in chutney and mustard. In Hercule Poirot mysteries, there’s always one little fact that doesn’t fit, and that’s the key to the mystery.” She picked up a charging bull by the horns. “This is cold ptarmigan.”

“Aren’t there any eggs and bacon?”

She shook her head. “Strictly for the lower classes.” She held out a shellacked fish on a fork. “Kipper?”

I settled for porridge.

Verity took her plate and went over and sat down on the far side of the huge table. “What about when you were there after the raid?” she said, motioning me to sit down across from her. “Was there any sign of the bishop’s bird stump having been in the fire?”

I opened my mouth to say, “The cathedral was completely destroyed,” and then stopped, frowning. “Actually, there was. A charred flower stem. And we found the wrought-iron stand it stood on.”

“Was the stem from the same kind of flower that was listed in the order of service?” Verity asked, and I was about to say there was no way to tell when Jane came in again, bobbed, and said, “Tea, ma’am?”

“Yes, thank you, Colleen,” Verity said.

As soon as she’d gone, I said, “Why did you call the maid Colleen?”

“It’s her name,” she said, “but Mrs. Mering didn’t think it was fashionable for a servant. Too Irish. English servants are what’s en vogue.”

“So she made her change it?”

“It was a common practice. Mrs. Chattisbourne calls all of her maids Gladys so she doesn’t have to remember which is which. Weren’t you prepped on this?”

“I wasn’t prepped at all,” I said. “Two hours of subliminals, real-time, which I was too time-lagged to hear. On the subservient status of women, mostly. And fish forks.”

She looked appalled. “You weren’t prepped? Victorian society’s highly mannered. Breaches of etiquette are taken very seriously.” She looked curiously at me. “How have you managed thus far?”

“For the past two days I’ve been on the river with an Oxford don who quotes Herodotus, a lovesick young man who quotes Tennyson, a bulldog, and a cat,” I said. “I played it by ear.”

“Well, that won’t work here. You’ll have to be prepped somehow. All right, listen,” she said, leaning across the table, “here’s the short course. Formality is the main thing. People don’t say what they think. Euphemisms and politeness are the order of the day. No physical contact between the sexes. A man may take a lady’s arm, or help her over a stile, or up the steps into a train. Unmarried men and women are never allowed to be alone together,” she said, in spite of the fact that we seemed to be. “There must be a chaperone present.”

As if on cue, Jane reappeared with two cups of tea and set them down in front of us.

“Servants are called by their first names,” Verity said as soon as she’d gone, “except for the butler. He’s Mr. Baine or Baine. And all cooks are Mrs., no matter what their marital status, so don’t ask Mrs. Posey about her husband. This household has a parlormaid, that’s Colleen — I mean, Jane — a scullery maid, a cook, a footman, a groom, a butler, and a gardener. It had an upstairs maid, a lady’s maid, and a bootboy, but the Duchess of Landry stole them.”

“Stole them?” I said, reaching for the sugar.

“They didn’t eat sugar on their porridge,” she said. “And you should have rung for the servant to pass it to you. Stealing each other’s servants is their chief entertainment. Mrs. Mering stole Baine from Mrs. Chattisbourne and is currently in the process of trying to steal her bootboy. They didn’t put milk on it either. No swearing in the presence of ladies.”

“How about ‘balderdash’?” I said. “Or ‘pshaw’?”

“ ‘Pshaw,’ Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering said, sweeping in. “What are you pooh-poohing? Not our church fête, I hope? It benefits the restoration fund, such a worthwhile project, Mr. Henry. Our poor parish church is in such desperate need of restoration. Why, the baptismal font dates back to 1262. And the windows! Hopelessly mediaeval! If our fête is a success we hope to purchase all new ones!”

She heaped her plate with kippers and venison and wolf, sat down, and swept her napkin off the table and onto her lap. “The restoration project is all our curate Mr. Arbitage’s doing. Until he came the vicar wouldn’t even hear of restoring the church. I’m afraid he is quite old-fashioned in his thinking. He refuses even to consider the possibility of communication with the spirits.”

Good man, I thought.

“Mr. Arbitage, on the other hand, embraces the idea of spiritism, and of speaking with our dear departed ones on the Other Side. Do you believe contact is possible with the Other Side, Mr. Henry?”

“Mr. Henry was inquiring about the church fête,” Verity said. “I was just going to tell him about your clever idea of a jumble sale.”

“O,” Mrs. Mering said, looking flattered. “Have you ever been to a fête, Mr. Henry?”

“One or two,” I said.

“Well, then, you know that there are donated fancy goods and jellies and needlework tables. My idea was that we also donate objects that we no longer have any use for, all sorts of things, dishes and bric-a-brac and books, a jumble of things!”

I was gazing at her in horror. This was the person who had started it all, the person responsible for all those endless jumble sales I’d been stuck at.

“You would be amazed, Mr. Henry, at the treasures people have in their attics and storerooms, sitting there covered in dust. Why, in my own attic I found a tea urn and a lovely celery dish. Baine, were you able to get the dents out of the tea urn?”

“Yes, madam,” Baine said, pouring her coffee.

“Would you care for coffee, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering asked.

I was surprised at how pleasant Mrs. Mering was being to me. It must be the politeness Verity had referred to.

Tossie came in, carrying Princess Arjumand, who had a large pink bow tied round her neck. “Good morning, Mama,” she said, scanning the table for Terence.

“Good morning, Tocelyn,” Mrs. Mering said. “Did you sleep well?”

“O yes, Mama,” Tossie said, “now that my dearum-dearums pet is safely home.” She snuggled the cat. “You slept cuddled next to me all night long, didn’t you, sweetum-lovums?”

“Tossie!” Mrs. Mering said sharply. Tossie looked chagrined.

Obviously some sort of breach of etiquette, though I had no idea what. I would have to ask Verity.

Colonel Mering and Professor Peddick arrived, talking animatedly about the battle of Trafalgar. “Outnumbered twenty-seven to thirty-three,” the Colonel was saying.

“Exactly my point,” Professor Peddick said. “If it hadn’t been for Nelson, they’d have lost the battle! It’s character that makes history, not blind forces! Individual initiative!”

“Good morning, Papa,” Tossie said, coming over to kiss the Colonel on the cheek.

“Good morning, Daughter.” He glared at Princess Arjumand. “Doesn’t belong in here.”

“But she’s had a terrible ordeal,” Tossie said, carrying the cat over to the sideboard. “Look, Princess Arjumand, kippers,” she said, put one on a plate, set it and the cat down, and smiled defiantly at Baine.

“Good morning, Mesiel,” Mrs. Mering said to her husband. “Did you sleep well last night?”

“Tolerably,” he said, peering under the wolf. “And you, Malvinia? Sleep well, my dear?”

This was apparently the opening Mrs. Mering had been waiting for. “I did not,” she said, and paused dramatically. “There are spirits in this house. I heard them.”

I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Verity with her “The walls in these country houses are thick. One can’t hear a thing through them.”

“O, Mama,” Tossie said breathlessly, “what did the spirits sound like?”

Mrs. Mering got a faraway look. “It was a strange, unearthly sound such as no living being could make. A sort of sobbing exhalation like breathing, though of course the spirits do not breathe, and then a…” she paused, searching for words, “…a shriek followed by a long painful gasp, as of a soul in torment. It was a dreadful, dreadful sound.”

Well, I would agree with that.

“I felt as though it were trying to communicate with me, but could not,” she said. “O, if only Madame Iritosky were here. I know she would be able to make the spirit speak. I intend to write to her this morning and ask her to come, though I fear she will not. She says she can only work in her own home.”

With her own trapdoors and hidden wires and secret connecting passages, I thought, and supposed I should be grateful. At least she wasn’t likely to show up and expose my harboring of Cyril.

“If she could have but heard the spirit’s fearful cry, I know she would come to us,” Mrs. Mering said. “Baine, has Mr. St. Trewes come down yet?”

“I believe he is coming momentarily,” Baine said. “He took his dog for a walk.”

Late for breakfast, and walking his dog. Two strikes against him, though Mrs. Mering didn’t look as irritable as I’d thought she might.

“Hullo,” Terence said, coming in, and without Cyril. “Sorry I’m late.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Mrs. Mering said, beaming at him. “Do sit down, Mr. St. Trewes. Would you care for tea or coffee?”

“Coffee,” Terence said, smiling at Tossie.

“Baine, bring coffee for Mr. St. Trewes.”

“We’re all so delighted you’ve come,” Mrs. Mering said. “I do hope you and your friends will be able to stay for our church fête. It will be such fun. We shall have a coconut shy and a fortuneteller, and Tocelyn will be baking a cake to raffle. Such an excellent cook, Tocelyn, and so accomplished. She plays the piano, you know, and speaks German and French. Don’t you, Tossie, dear?”

“Oui, Mama,” Tossie said, smiling at Terence.

I looked questioningly at Verity. She shrugged back an “I don’t know.”

“Professor Peddick, I do hope your pupils can spare you for a few days,” Mrs. Mering was saying. “And Mr. Henry, do say you’ll help us with the Treasure Hunt.”

“Mr. Henry has been telling me he lived in the States,” Verity said, and I turned and looked at her in astonishment.

“Truly?” Terence said. “You never told me that.”

“It… it was when I was ill,” I said. “I… was sent to… the States for treatment.”

“Did you see Red Indians?” Tossie asked.

“I was in Boston,” I stammered, silently cursing Verity.

“Boston!” Mrs. Mering cried. “Do you know the Fox sisters?”

“The Fox sisters?” I said.

“The Misses Margaret and Kate Fox. The founders of our spiritist movement. It was they who first received communications from the spirits by rapping.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have that pleasure,” I said, but she had already turned her attention back to Terence.

“Tocelyn embroiders beautifully, Mr. St. Trewes,” she said. “You must see the lovely pillowcases she has sewn for our fancy goods stall.”

“I am certain the person who purchases them will have sweet dreams,” Terence said, smiling goopily at Tossie, “ ‘a dream of perfect bliss, too beautiful to last.…’ ”

The Colonel and the professor, still at Trafalgar with Nelson, pushed back their chairs and stood up, muttering, one after the other, “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Mesiel, where are you going?” Mrs. Mering said.

“Out to the fishpond,” the Colonel said. “Show Professor Peddick my nacreous ryunkin.”

“Do wear your greatcoat then,” Mrs. Mering said. “And your wool scarf.” She turned to me. “My husband has a weak chest and a tendency to catarrh.”

Like Cyril, I thought.

“Baine, fetch Colonel Mering’s greatcoat,” she said, but they were already gone.

She turned back immediately to Terence. “Where do your people come from, Mr. St. Trewes?”

“Kent,” he said, “which I always thought the fairest spot on earth till now.”

“Might I be excused, Aunt Malvinia?” Verity said, folding her napkin. “I must finish my glove boxes.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Mering said absently. “How long have your family lived in Kent, Mr. St. Trewes?”

As Verity passed me, she dropped a folded note in my lap.

“Since 1066,” Terence said. “Of course, we’ve improved the house since then. Most of it’s Georgian. Capability Brown. You must come and visit us.”

I unfolded the note under the table and sneaked a look at it. It read, “Meet me in the library.”

“We should love to come,” Mrs. Mering said eagerly. “Shouldn’t we, Tocelyn?”

“Oui, Mama.”

I waited for an opening and dived in. “If I might be excused, Mrs. Mering,” I began.

“Absolutely not, Mr. Henry,” she said. “Why, you haven’t eaten a thing! You must have some of Mrs. Posey’s eel pie. It is unparalleled.”

It was, and so was the kedgeree, which she made Baine dump on my plate with a large shovel-like utensil. A kedgeree spoon, no doubt.

After some eels and as little kedgeree as possible, I made my escape and went to look for Verity, though I had no idea where the library was. I needed one of those diagrams like in Verity’s detective novels.

I tried several doors and finally found her in a room lined from floor to ceiling with books.

“Where have you been?” Verity said. She was seated at a table covered with a litter of shells and pots of glue.

“Eating vile, unspeakable things,” I said. “And answering questions about America. Why on earth did you tell them I’d been to America? I don’t know anything about the States.”

“Neither do they,” she said imperturbably. “I had to do something. You haven’t been prepped, and you’re bound to make mistakes. They think all Americans are barbarians, so if you use the wrong fork, they’ll put it down to your having spent time in the States.”

“Thank you, I suppose,” I said.

“Sit down,” she said. “We need to plan our strategy.”

I looked at the door, which had an old-fashioned key in the lock. “Should I lock the door?”

“It’s not necessary,” she said, selecting a flat pinkish shell. “The only person who ever comes in here is Baine. Mrs. Mering disapproves of reading.”

“Then where did all this come from?” I said, indicating the rows of brown- and scarlet-bound books.

“They bought it,” she said, swabbing glue on the shell.

“Bought what?”

“The library. From Lord Dunsany. The person Baine worked for before he came to the Chattisbournes. The Chattisbournes are who Mrs. Mering stole Baine from, though I think Baine actually chose to come. For the books.” She stuck the shell down on the box. “Sit down. If anyone comes in, you’re helping me with these.” She held up a completed box. It was covered with shells of assorted sizes in the shape of a heart.

“That’s absolutely hideous,” I said.

“The entire Victorian era had the most atrocious taste,” she said. “Be glad it’s not hair wreaths.”

“Hair wreaths?”

“Flowers made out of dead people’s hair. The mother-of-pearl shells go along the edges,” she said, showing me, “and then a row of cowrie shells.” She shoved a glue pot at me. “I found out from Baine why Mrs. Mering’s suddenly so friendly toward Terence. She looked him up in DeBrett’s. He’s rich, and he’s the nephew of a peer.”

“Rich?” I said. “But he didn’t even have enough money to pay for the boat.”

“The aristocracy are always in debt,” she said, looking at a clamshell. “He’s got five thousand a year, an estate in Kent, and he’s second in line to the peerage. So,” she said, discarding the clamshell, “our priority is to keep Tossie and Terence away from each other, which will be difficult with Mama matchmaking. Tossie’s collecting things for the jumble sale this morning, and I’m going to send you with her. That’ll keep them apart for at least half a day.”

“What about Terence?” I said.

“I’m going to send him to Streatley after the Chinese lanterns for the fête. I want you to try to find out from Tossie if she knows any young men whose names begin with ‘C.’ ”

“You’ve checked in the neighborhood for ‘C’’s, I suppose,” I said.

She nodded. “The only two I’ve been able to discover are Mr. Cudden and Mr. Cawp, the farmer who’s always drowning kittens.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven. What about Mr. Cudden?”

“He’s married,” she said glumly. “You’d think there’d be lots of Mr. C’s. I mean, look at Dickens — David Copperfield, Martin Chuzzlewit, Bob Cratchet.”

“Not to mention the Admirable Crichton,” I said, “and Lewis Carroll. No, that won’t work. It wasn’t his real name. Thomas Carlyle. And G.K. Chesterton. Eligible suitors all,” I said. “What are you going to do while I’m with Tossie?”

“I’m going to search Tossie’s room and try to find her diary. She’s hidden it, and I had to cut my search short. Jane came in. But this morning they’ll all be working on the fête, so I won’t be interrupted. Failing that, I’ll go through to Oxford and see what the forensics expert’s been able to find out.”

“Ask Warder how much slippage there was on the drop when you rescued Princess Arjumand,” I said.

“Going through to Oxford with her, do you mean?” she said. “There’s never any slippage on return drops.”

“No,” I said, “the drop where you came through and saw the cat.”

“All right. We’d better get back in there.” She stuck the cork in the glue pot, stood up, and rang for Baine.

“Baine,” she said when he appeared, “have the carriage brought round immediately, and then come to the breakfast room.

“As you wish, miss,” he said.

“Thank you, Baine,” she said, picked up the shell-covered box, and led the way back to the breakfast room.

Mrs. Mering was still interrogating Terence. “O, how exquisite!” she said when Verity showed her the box.

“We still have a good deal to do for the fête, Aunt Malvinia,” she said. “I so want the jumble sale to be a success. Have you your list?”

“Ring for Jane to bring it,” Mrs. Mering said.

“She has gone to the vicarage to fetch the bunting,” Verity said, and as soon as Mrs. Mering had left the room to get the list, “Mr. St. Trewes, may I prevail on you for a favor? The Chinese lanterns we had intended to string between the stalls have not been delivered. Would you be so good as to go to Streatley for them?”

“Baine can go,” Tossie said. “Terence is to go with me to the Chattisbournes’ this morning.”

“Your mother cannot spare Baine, with the tea tent to be set up,” Verity said. “Mr. Henry shall go with you. Baine,” she said to the butler who had just come in, “bring Mr. Henry a basket in which to carry the jumble sale donations. Is the carriage waiting?”

“Yes, miss,” he said, and left.

“But—” Tossie said, her mouth forming a pout.

“Here is the address,” Verity said, handing Terence a sheet of paper, “and orders for the lanterns. This is so good of you,” and hustled him out the front door before Tossie could even protest.

Baine brought the basket, and Tossie went to get her hat and gloves. “I don’t see why Mr. Henry couldn’t have gone for the lanterns,” I heard her say to Verity as they went upstairs.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Verity said. “Wear your hat with the polka-dot veil to show to Rose Chattisbourne.”

Verity came back downstairs. “I’m impressed,” I said.

“I’ve been taking lessons from Lady Schrapnell,” she said. “While you’re at the Chattisbournes’, see if you can find out when Elliott Chattisbourne — he’s the one whose clothes you’re wearing — is coming home. She could have been secretly corresponding with him since he’s been out in South Africa. Here comes Tossie.”

Tossie fluttered down the stairs in the polka-dotted veil, carrying a reticule and a parasol, and we set off.

Baine ran to catch up with us. “Your hat, sir,” he said breathlessly, handing me my boater.

My straw boater, which I had last seen floating down the river, the ribbon already beginning to fade pale blue onto the soggy straw. Baine had somehow restored it to its original state, the ribbon bright blue, the straw scrubbed and crisp.

“Thank you, Baine,” I said. “I thought it was lost forever.”

I put it on, feeling jauntier immediately and fully capable not only of keeping Tossie away from Terence but of being so charming she’d forget all about him.

“Shall we?” I said to Tossie and offered her my arm.

She looked up at me through the polka dots. “My cousin Verity says your hat makes you look feeble-minded,” she said speculatively, “but I don’t think it’s that bad. Some men simply don’t know how to wear hats. ‘Don’t you fink Mr. St. Twewes looks dashing in his boater?’ my dearums Juju said to me this morning. ‘Don’t you fink he’s the han’somest, han’somest mannums?’”

I had thought baby talk was bad, but baby talk from a cat—

“I knew a chap at school who lived near here,” I said, changing the subject to something more productive. “I can’t remember his name just now. Began with a ‘C.’ ”

“Elliott Chattisbourne?”

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “It did begin with a ‘C,’ though.”

“You knew him at school?” she said, pursing her lips. “Were you at Eton?”

“Yes,” I said. Why not? “Eton.”

“There’s Freddie Lawrence. But he went to Harrow. Were you at school with Terence?”

“This was a medium-tallish chap. Good at cricket.”

“And his name began with a ‘C’?” She shook her curls. “I can’t think of anyone. Does Terence play cricket?”

“He rows,” I said, “and swims. He’s a very good swimmer.”

“I think he’s terribly brave for rescuing Princess Arjumand,” she said. “ ‘Don’t oo fink he’s the bwavest knight in awl the world?’ Juju asked me. ‘I fink he is.’ ”

This kept up the entire way to the Chattisbournes’, which was just as well since I didn’t know any other facts about Terence.

“Here we are,” Tossie said, starting up the drive to a large neo-Gothic house.

Well, you survived that, I thought, and the rest of the morning’s bound to go easier.

Tossie stepped up to the front door. I waited for her to ring the bell and then remembered it was the Victorian era and rang it for her, and then stepped back as the butler opened the door.

It was Finch. “Good morning, miss, sir,” he said. “May I say who is calling?”