The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 02] Page 4

  “I might sleep as you carry me.”

  “That’s all right,” he told her.

  He trudged along Fair Field Track. When the guards saw him, they raised a shout.

  “‘E’s gone and done it!”

  Charles tried a modest smile. The shout was taken up, spread around. Soon, they became hurrahs.

  * * * *

  vi: “something about the little girl”

  Dr. Rud’s parlour was filled with merry people, as if five Christmases had come along together and fetched up in a happy, laughing pile.

  Mrs. Harvill clung to her princess, who had momentarily stopped ordering everyone as if they were servants. Philip and Sairey, stunned and overjoyed, pinched each other often, expecting to wake up. Sairey had to sit but couldn’t keep in one place. She kept springing up to talk with another well-wisher, then remembering the strain on her ankles. Philip had made another cake, with Maeve’s name spelled out in currants.

  Rud and Major Chilcot drank port together, laughing, swapping border war stories.

  People Charles had not met were present, free with hearty thanks for the hero from London.

  “We combed Hill Wood and did all we could,” said the Reverend Mr. Weddle, Vicar of Eye. “Too familiar, you see, with the terry-toree. Could not see the wood for the trees, though acts of prayer wore the trews from our knees. Took an outsider’s eye in Ashton Eye, to endeavour to save the Princess Maeve. Hmm, mind if I set that down?”

  Weddle had mentioned he was also a poet.

  P.C. Throttle, of the long white beard and antique uniform, kept a close eye on the limping, scowling Hamer Dando—lest thieving fingers stray too close to the silverware. Hamer’s face was stamped on half a dozen other locals of various ages and sexes, but Throttle was marking them all.

  Charles’s hand was shaken, again, by a huge-knuckled, blue-chinned man he understood to be the Ashton schoolmaster, Owain Gryfudd.

  “Maeve’s coming to the Welsh school now,” he said, in dour triumph. “No more traipsing over the stile to that Episcopalian booby in Moreton. We shall see a great improvement.”

  Charles gathered Gryfudd captained an all-conquering rugby team, the Head-Hunters. They blacked their faces with coal before going onto the pitch. The teacher still had war paint around his collar and under his hairline, from frequent massacres of the English.

  Cake was pressed upon Charles. Gryfudd clapped his back and roared off, bearing down on a frail old lady—Mrs. Grenton, of Moreton Eye school—as if charging for a match-winning try.

  Whenever Mrs. Harvill saw Charles, she wept and—if Maeve wasn’t in her arms—flung an embrace about him. She was giddy with joy and relief, and had been so for a full day.

  Her princess was home.

  As Sairey had said, she would never accept Davey as Davey. But Maeve’s return ended the matter.

  That, among other things, kept Charles from entering into the spirit of this celebration.

  In this room, he sensed an overwhelming desire to put Davey and the mystery out of mind. Davey was upstairs, shut away from the celebration.

  All’s well that ends well.

  But Charles knew nothing had ended. And nothing was well.

  He could do no more. In all probability, his report to the Ruling Cabal would be tied with pale green ribbon and filed away forever.

  He left the parlour. In the hallway, soldiers and maids sipped punch. Smiles all round.

  But for Sergeant Beale.

  “I suppose you’ll be back to London now, sir?”

  “I see no other course.”

  “There’s something about the little girl, isn’t there?”

  “I fear so.”

  “Where were those kids? What happened to the boy?”

  “Those, Sergeant, are the questions.”

  Beale nodded. He took no punch.

  Charles left the Sergeant and walked to the door. A tug came at his arm. Sairey held his sleeve. The woman was bent almost double. It was nearly her time. That was all this party needed: a sudden delivery and a bouncing, happy baby.

  “Phil and I’ll take in Davey.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Sairey. I know it won’t be easy.”

  She snorted. “Neither one’ll take him in class, not Gryfudd nor Grenton. So that’s an end to his schooling. And he’s a clever lad, Davey. Give him a pencil and he can draw anything to the life. Mam... she’s daffy over Maeve, hasn’t any left for Davey. Won’t have him in the house.”

  Charles patted her hand, understanding.

  “And what is it about Maeve? She calls I ‘Sarah.’ I’ve been ‘Sairey’ so long I forgot what my name written down in the family Bible were.”

  “She doesn’t know Silas Gobbo.”

  Sairey closed her eyes and nodded.

  “She frightens I,” she said, so quietly no one could overhear.

  Charles squeezed her fingers. He could give no reassurance.

  Riddle came into the hallway, looking for his wife. He escorted her back into the warmth and light. A cheer went up. Someone began singing...

  “A frog he would a wooing go...

  Heigh-ho, says Rowley!

  And whether his mother would let him or no...”

  Other voices joined. One deep bass must be Gryfudd.

  “With a roly poly gammon and spinach...

  Heigh-ho, says Anthony Rowley!”

  Charles put on his hat and coat and left.

  * * * *

  ACT II: UNCLE SATT’S TREASURY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

  i: “Lady of the Leprechauns”

  “If that’s the Gift,” commented a workman, “I’d likes ter know as ‘oo gave it, and when they’re comin’ ter fetch it back.”

  Kate jotted the words into a notebook, in her own shorthand. The sentiment, polished through repetition, might not be original to the speaker. She liked to record what London thought and said, even when the city thought too lightly and said too often.

  “Dunno what it thinks it looks like,” continued the fellow.

  In shirtsleeves, cap on the back of his head, he perspired heavily.

  Freezing winters and boiling summers were the order of the ‘90s. This June threatened the scorch of the decade. She regretted the transformation of the parasol from an object of utility into a frilly aid to flirtation. As a consequence of this social phenomenon, she didn’t own such an apparatus and was just now feeling the lack—and not because she wished the attention of some dozy gentleman who paid heed only to females who flapped at him like desperate moths. Like many blessed (or cursed) with red hair, too much sun made her peel hideously. Her freckles became angry blood-dots if she took a promenade sans veiled hat. Such apparel invariably tangled with her large, thick spectacles.

  At the South end of Regent’s Park, the Gift shone, throwing off dazzles from myriad facets. Completed too late for one Jubilee, it was embarrassingly early for the next. To get shot of a White Elephant, the bankrupt company responsible made a gift of it (hence the name) to the Corporation of London. Intended as a combination of popular theatre, exhibition hall and exotic covered garden, the sprawling labyrinth had decoration enough for any three municipal eyesores. The thing looked like a crystal circus-tent whipped up by a colour-blind Sunday painter and an Italian pastry-chef.

  It was inevitable that someone would eventually conceive of a use for the Gift. That visionary (buffoon?) was Mr. Satterthwaite Bulge, “Uncle Satt” to a generation of nieces and nephews,soi-disant Founder of Færie and Magister of Marvells (his spelling). This afternoon, she had an invitation to visit Bulge’s prosperous little kingdom.

  “Katharine Reed, daredevil reporter,” called a voice, deep and American.

  A man in a violently green checked suit cut through gawping passersby and wrung her hand. He wore an emerald bowler with shining tin buckle, an oversize crepe four-leafed cloverboutonniere, a belt of linked discs painted like gold coins, and a russet beard fringe attached to prominent ears by wire hooks.

  “
Billy Quinn, publicist,” he introduced himself, momentarily lowering his false whiskers.

  She filed away the word. Was it a coinage of Quinn’s? What might a publicist do? Publicise, she supposed. Make known personalities and events and products, scattering information upon the public like lumps of lava spewn from Vesuvius. She had a notion that if such a profession were to become established, her own would be greatly complicated.

  “And, of course, Oi’m a leprechaun. Ye’ll be familiar with the leettle people.”

  Quinn’s Boston tones contorted into an approximation of Ould Oireland. Inside high-button shoes, her toes curled.

  “There’s not a darter of Erin that hasn’t in her heart a soft spot for Seamus O’Short.”

  She was Dublin-born and Protestant-raised. Her father, a lecturer in Classics at Trinity College, drummed into her at an early age that pots o’ gold and wee fair folk were baggages which need only trouble heathen Papists dwelling in the savage regions of dampest bog country. Whenever anyone English rabbited on about such things (usually affecting speech along the lines of Quinn’s atavistic brogue), she was wont to change the subject to Home Rule.

  “You’re going to love this, Kate,” he said, casually assuming the right to address her by a familiar name. She was grateful that he had reverted to his natural voice, though. “Here’s your fairy sack.”

  He handed over a posset, with a drawstring. A stick protruded from its mouth, wound round with tinsel.

  “That’s your fairy wand. Inside, there’s magic powder (sherbet) and a silver tiara (not silver). Tuppence to the generality, but gratis to an honoured rep of the Fourth Estate.”

  Rep? Representative. Now, people were talking in shorthand. At least, people who were Americans andpublicists were.

  Quinn led her towards the doors of the Gift.

  A lady in spangled leotards and butterfly wings attracted a male coterie, bestowing handbills while bending just so to display her décolletage to its best advantage, which was considerable. The voluptuous fairy had two colleagues, also singular figures. Someone in a baggy suit of brown fur and cuirass, sporting an enormous plaster bear’s head surmounted by an armoured helm. A dwarf with his face painted like a sad clown.

  “Come one, come all,” said Quinn. “Meet Miss Fay Twinkledust, Sir Boris de Bruin, and Jack Stump.”

  The trio posed en tableau as if for a photograph. Miss Fay and Jack Stump fixed happy grimaces on their powdered faces. Sir Boris perked up an ear through tugging on a wire. In this heat, Kate feared for the comfort and well-being of the performer trapped inside the costume.

  Children flocked around, awed and wondered.

  Jack Stump was perturbed by affections bestowed on him by boys and girls taller and heftier than he. Kate realised she’d seen the dwarf, dressed as a miniature mandarin, shot out of a cannon at the Tivoli Music Hall. This engagement seemed more perilous.

  In the offices of the Pall Mall Gazette, she had done her homework and pored through a year’s worth ofUncle Satt’s Treasury for Boys and Girls. She was already acquainted with Miss Fay Twinkledust, Sir Boris de Bruin, Jack Stump, Seamus O’Short, and many others. Gloomy Goat and his cousins Grumpy (her favourite) and Grimy; Billy Boggart of Noggart’s Nook; Bobbin Swiftshaft, Prince of Pixies; Wicked Witch-Queen Coelacanth. The inhabitants of Uncle Satt’s Færie Aerie were beloved (or deliciously despised) by seemingly every child in the land, to the despair of parents who would rather their precious darlings practiced the pianoforte or read Euripides in the original in exactly the way they hadn’t when they were children.

  Kate was out of school, and near-disowned for following her disreputable Uncle Diarmid into “the scribbling trade,” well before the debuts of Miss Fay et al., but her younger brother and sisters were precisely of an age to fall into the clutches of Mr. Satterthwaite Bulge. Father, whose position on the wee fairfolk was no longer tenable, lamented he was near financial ruin on Uncle Satt’s account, for a mere subscription to the monthly Treasury did not suffice to assuage clamour for matters færie-related. There was also Uncle Satt’s Færie Aerie Annual, purchased in triplicate to prevent unseemly battles between Humphrey, Juliet, and Susannah over whose bookshelf should have the honour of supporting the wonder volume. Furthermore, it was insisted that nursery wallpaper bear the likenesses of the færie favourites as illustrated by the artist who signed his (or her?) works “B. Loved,” reckoned by connoisseurs to be the true genius of the realm which could properly be termed Uncle Satt’s Færie Empire. In addition, there were china dolls and tin figures to be bought, board games to be played, pantomime theatrical events to be attended, sheet music to be performed, Noggart’s Nook sugar confections to be consumed. Every penny doled out by fond parent or grandparent to well-behaved child was earmarked for the voluminous pockets of Uncle Satt.

  As a consequence, Bulge could afford the Gift. On his previous record, he could probably turn the White Elephant into the wellspring of further fortunes. Pots of gold, indeed.

  The Gift was not yet open to the general public, and excited queues were already forming in anticipation. No matter how emetic the Uncle Satt oeuvre was to the average adult, children were as lost to his Færie as the children of Hamelin were to the Pied Piper.

  A little girl, no more than four, hugged Sir Boris’s leg, rubbing her cheek against his fur, smiling with pure bliss.

  “We don’t pay these people,” Quinn assured her. “We don’t have to. To be honest, we would if we did but we don’t. This is all gin-u-wine.”

  Some grown-ups were won over to the enemy or found it politic to claim so, lest they be accused of stifling the childish heart reputed to beat still in the breasts of even the hardest cynics. Many of her acquaintance, well into mature years and possessed of sterling intellects (some not even parents), proclaimed devotion to Uncle Satt, expressing admiration if not for the literary effulgences then for the talents of the mysterious, visionary “B. Loved.” Even Bernard Shaw, whose stinging notice of A Visit to the Færie Aerie led to a splashing with glue by pixie partisans, praised the illustrations, hailing “B. Loved” a titan shackled by daisy-chains. The pictures, it had to be said, were haunting, unusual and impressive, simple in technique, yet imbued with a suggestiveness close to disturbing. Their dreamy vagueness would have passed for avant-garde in some salons but was paradoxically embraced (beloved, indeed) by child and adult alike. Aubrey Beardsley was still sulking because B. Loved declined to contribute to a færie-themed number of The Yellow Book, though it was bruited about that the refusal was mandated by Uncle Satt, who had the mystery painter signed to an exclusive contract. It was sometimes hinted that Bulge was B. Loved. Other theories had the illustrator as an asylum inmate who had sewn his own eyes shut but continued to cover paper with the images swarming inside his broken mind, a spirit medium who gave herself up to an inhabitant of another plane as she sat at the board, or a factory in Aldgate staffed by unlettered Russian immigrants overseen by a knout-wielding monk.

  “Come inside,” said Quinn. “Though you must first pass these Three Merry Guardians.”

  The publicist opened a little gate and ushered Kate into an enclosure that led to the main doors. The entrance was painted to look like the covers of a pair of magical books. Above was a red-cheeked, smiling, sparkle-eyed caricature of Uncle Satt, fat finger extended to part the pages.

  Envious glares came from the many children not yet admitted to the attraction. Cutting comments were passed by parents whose offers of bribes had not impressed the Three Merry Guardians. Kate had an idea that, if his comrades were looking the other way, Jack Stump would not have been averse to slipping a half-crown into his boot and lifting a tent-corner.

  “This is a Lady of the Leprechauns,” said Quinn, to appease the crowds, “on a diplomatic visit to Uncle Satt. The Gift will open to one and all this very weekend. The Færie Aerie isn’t yet ready to receive visitors.”

  A collective moan of disappointment rose.

  Quinn shrugged at her.

&n
bsp; Kate stepped towards the main doors. Long, hairy arms encircled her, preventing further movement. Sir Boris de Bruin shook with silent laughter.

  This was very irritating!

  “I had almost forgotten,” said Quinn. “Before you enter, what must you do?”

  She was baffled. The bear was close to taking liberties.

  “What must she do, boys and girls?” Quinn asked the crowd.

  “Færie name! Færie name!”

  “That’s right, boys and girls. The Lady of the Leprechauns must take her færie name!”

  “Katharine Reed,” she suggested. “Um, Kate, Katie?”