“It’s us,” Terence shouted, cupping his hands round his mouth. “St. Trewes and Henry. We’ve been looking for you.”
“Ah, St. Trewes,” Peddick shouted. “Come over. I’ve found some excellent shallows, perfect for chub.”
“You must come over here and fetch us,” Terence said.
“Hitches?” Professor Peddick said, and I thought, here we go again.
“Fetch us,” Terence said. “You’ve got the boat.”
“Ah,” Professor Peddick said. “Stay there.” He disappeared into a thicket of willows.
“Let’s hope he remembered to tie up the boat,” I said.
“Let’s hope he remembers where he left it,” Terence said, sitting down on the bank.
I sat down next to him, and Cyril lay down and immediately rolled over on his side and began to snore. I wished I could do the same.
Now we’d have to row the professor all the way back to Oxford, which would take at least three hours, if we could talk him out of stopping at every fish and meadow.
But perhaps this was all to the good. Verity had said to keep Terence away from Muchings End, and this was certainly doing that. It would be dark by the time we reached Oxford. We’d have to spend the night, and in the morning perhaps I could talk Terence into going upriver to Parson’s Pleasure. Or going down to London or to a horse race. When was Derby Day?
Or, who knows, with a good night’s sleep he might come to his senses and see Tossie for the twittering ignoramus she was. Infatuation was a lot like time-lag, an imbalance of chemicals, cured by a good night’s sleep.
There was no sign of the professor. “He’s found a new variety of chub and forgotten all about us,” Terence said, but presently the boat appeared, nosing around the end of the island, Professor Peddick’s sleeves billowing like black sails as he rowed.
The boat pulled up downstream from us, and we scrambled down the towpath to it, Cyril wobbling after us.
I turned to urge him. “Come along, Cyril,” I said, and crashed into Terence, who had stopped short and was staring down at the boat.
“You cannot imagine the wonderful discoveries I’ve made,” Professor Peddick said. “This island is the very image of the location of the battle of Dunreath Mow.” He held up the pan. “I want to show you the double-gilled blue chub I’ve found.”
Terence was still staring strickenly at the boat.
I couldn’t see any scrapes or dents except for the ones that had been there when Jabez rented it to us, and there didn’t seem to be any holes. The boards of the stern and the bow looked perfectly dry.
The boards of the stern. And the bow. “Terence . . .” I said.
“Professor Peddick,” Terence said in a strangled voice. “What’s happened to our things?”
“Things?” Professor Peddick said vaguely.
“The luggage. Ned’s portmanteau and the baskets and—”
“Ah,” the professor said. “Under the Salix babylonica on the far side of the island. Climb in. I shall ferry you across like Charon bearing souls over the River Styx.”
I climbed in and helped Terence get Cyril in, propping his front legs on the gunwale while Terence hoisted his rear legs over and then clambered in himself.
“Wonderful gravel bottoms,” Professor Peddick said, and began rowing across. “Perfect spot for dace. Lots of midges and flies. I caught a trout with a red ridge-gill slit. Have you a net, St. Trewes?”
“A net?”
“For trawling. I do not want to endanger the mouth by using a hook.”
“There really isn’t time for fishing,” Terence said. “We must repack the boat as quickly as we can and then start back.”
“Nonsense. I’ve found a perfect place to camp.”
“Camp?” Terence said.
“No use in going home and then having to come back again. Chub bite best near sundown.”
“But what about your sister and her companion?” He pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock. If we leave now, you can be there to see them at dinner.”
“No need,” he said. “A pupil of mine has already met them.”
“I’m that pupil, Professor,” Terence said.
“Nonsense. This pupil was boating along the Thames while I was working on my—” He peered at Terence through his pince-nez. “By George, you are.”
“I met the 10:55,” Terence said, “but your sister and her companion weren’t on it, so they must have come in on the 3:18.”
“Didn’t come,” he said, peering into the water. “Good grass for perch.”
“I know your sister didn’t come,” Terence persisted, “but if she arrived on the 3:18—”
“Not my sister,” he said, pushing up the sleeve of his robe and sticking his hand in the water. “Her companion. Ran off and got married.”
“Married?” I said. The woman on the platform had talked about someone getting married.
“In spite of my sister’s best efforts. Met him at church. Classic example of individual action. History is character/She brought my niece instead.”
“Your niece?” I said.
“Lovely girl.” He brought up a slimy piece of trailing brown grass. “Wonderful at labelling specimens. Too bad you weren’t there to meet them when they arrived so you could have met her.”
“I was, but they weren’t there,” Terence said.
“You’re certain?” Professor Peddick said, handing the grass to me. “Maudie’s letter was quite clear about the time.” He patted his coat pockets.
“Maudie?” I said, hoping I’d misheard.
“Named after her poor dear mother, Maud,” he said, looking through his pockets. “Would have made a good naturalist if she were a boy. Must have lost the letter when Overforce tried to murder me. Certain it was the 10:55. Might have been tomorrow’s train, though. What day is it? Ah, here we are, arrived at last in paradise, ‘the Elysian plain at the ends of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthys is.’”
The boat hit the shore with a jolt hard enough to wake Cyril, but it was nothing to the jolt I’d just had. Maud. I had made Terence miss meeting the “agèd relicts.” If it hadn’t been for me, Professor Peddick’s sister and niece would still have been sitting on the platform waiting for Terence when he skidded in. And if I hadn’t told him no one of that description had come in on the train, he’d have caught up with them on their way to Balliol. But he had said “aged relicts.” He had said they were “positively antediluvian.”
“Can you get the rope, Ned?” Terence said, pulling the nose of the boat into the shore.
Meetings are notoriously pivotal in the complex chaotic course of history. Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Crick and Watson. John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And Terence was supposed to have met Maud on that railway platform in Oxford.
“Ned?” Terence said. “Can you get the rope?”
I took a giant step onto the muddy bank with the rope and tied the boat up, thinking this was the last thing I should be doing.
“Hadn’t we better leave for Oxford now to meet your niece? And sister,” I added. They wouldn’t be at the station, but at least they’d have met. “We can leave this luggage here and come back for it. Two ladies, travelling alone. They’ll need someone to see to their luggage.”
“Nonsense,” Professor Peddick said. “Maudie’s perfectly capable of ordering their luggage sent and hiring a fly to take them to the hotel. She’s extremely sensible. Not silly like other girls. You’d like her, St. Trewes. Have you any mealworms?” he asked, and set off toward the willows.
“Can’t you convince him?” I said to Terence.
He shook his head. “Not where fish are concerned. Or history. The best thing to do is to set up camp before it gets dark.” He went over to where our various suitcases and boxes were piled under a large willow tree and began rummaging through them.
“But his niece—”
“You heard him. Sensible. Intelligent. His niece is probably
one of those dreadful modern girls who have opinions and think women should go to Oxford.” He pulled out a skillet and several tins. “A most unpleasant sort of girl. Not like Miss Mering. So pretty and innocent.”
And silly, I thought. And he shouldn’t have met her. He should have met Maud. “You’d like her ” Professor Peddick had said, and I had no doubt Terence would have, With her dark eyes and sweet face. But I had looked suspicious, and Verity had acted without thinking, and now Terence and Tossie, who would otherwise never have met, were planning rendezvouses, and who knew what complications that would cause?
“We shall meet her in the morning, at any rate,” Terence said, slicing meat pie. “When we take Professor Peddick back tomorrow.”
He would meet her in the morning. Chaotic systems have redundancies and interference and feedforward loops built in, so the effect of some events is not multiplied enormously, but cancelled out. “Missing you one place, we meet another.” Terence had missed meeting Maud today, but he would meet her tomorrow. And, in fact, if we took him back tonight we might be too late and Professor Peddick’s sister would not be receiving visitors, and he’d miss meeting her again. But tomorrow morning, she’d be wearing a pretty dress and Terence would forget all about Muchings End and ask Maud to go punting up to the Port Meadow for a picnic.
If he was meant to meet her. And Professor Peddick’s sister might well have thought the porter looked suspicious or felt a draft and gone off in a hired fly before Terence got there even if I hadn’t been there. And Terence, in a hurry to hire the boat, would still have gone off to Folly Bridge without ever meeting her. T.J. had said the system had self-correction capabilities.
And Verity was right. Princess Arjumand had been returned, the incongruity, if there even was one, had been repaired, and I should be resting and recovering, which meant food and sleep, in that order.
Terence was spreading out a blanket and putting tin plates and cups on it.
“What can I do to help?” I said, my mouth starting to water. When was the last time I’d eaten? A cup of tea and a rock cake at the Women’s Institute Victory Drive Sale of Work was all I could remember, and that was at least two days and fifty-two years ago.
He dug in the hamper and brought up a cabbage and a large lemon. “You can spread out the rugs. Two of us can sleep in the boat, the other on shore. And if you can find the silverware and the ginger beer, you can set them out.”
I went over and got the rugs and began spreading them out. The island was apparently owned by the churchwarden in Iffley. Signs were posted on virtually every tree and on a number of stakes pounded into the bank. “No Thoroughfare,” “Keep Off,” “Private Land,” “Trespassers Will Be Shot,” “Private Waters,” “No Boats,” “No Fishing,” “No Dumping,” “No Camping,” “No Picnicking,” “No Landing.”
I rummaged through Terence’s boxes and found an assortment of peculiar-looking utensils. I chose the ones which most closely resembled forks, spoons, and knives, and set them out.
“I’m afraid we’re rather roughing it,” Terence said. “I’d intended to stop for provisions along the way, so we’ve had to make do. Tell Professor Peddick dinner is served, such as it is.”
Cyril and I went and found Professor Peddick, who was leaning precariously over the water, and brought him back.
Terence’s idea of roughing it consisted of pork pie, veal pie, cold roast beef, a ham, pickles, pickled eggs, pickled beets, cheese, bread and butter, ginger beer, and a bottle of port. It was possibly the best meal I had ever had in my life.
Terence fed the last bits of roast beef to Cyril and picked up a tin. “Drat!” he said, “I’ve gone off and left the tin-opener behind, and here I’ve brought a tin of—”
“Pineapple,” I said, grinning.
“No,” he said, looking at the label, “peaches.” He bent over the hamper. “But there might be a tin of pineapple in here somewhere. Though I should imagine they’ll both taste about the same without a tin-opener.”
We could try opening it with the boathook, I thought, smiling to myself. That was what they’d done in Three Men in a Boat. And nearly killed George. It was his straw hat that had saved him.
“Perhaps we could open it with a pocket-knife,” Terence said.
“No,” I said. They had tried a pocket-knife before they tried the boathook. And a pair of scissors and the hitcher and a large rock. “We shall have to do without,” I said sagely.
“I say, Ned,” he said, “you haven’t a tin-opener in among your luggage, have you?”
Knowing Finch, I probably did. I unbent my legs, which had gotten stiff, went down to the willows, and started through the luggage.
The satchel had three collarless shirts, a set of formal evening clothes that were far too small for me, and a too-large bowler hat in it. It was a good thing I was only going on the river.
I tried the hamper. This was more promising. It held several large spoons and an assortment of utensils, including one with a blade like a scimitar and another with two long handles and a revolving barrel pierced with holes. It was possible one of these was a tin-opener. Or some sort of weapon.
Cyril came over to help.
“You don’t know what a tin-opener looks like, do you?” I said, holding up a flat grid affair at the end of a long handle.
Cyril looked in the satchel and then went over and sniffed at the covered basket.
“Is it in there?” I said, and unfastened the loop-and-peg arrangement that held the lid on, and opened the basket.
Princess Arjumand looked up at me with her gray eyes and yawned.
“CatSy it has been well said, will be cats, and
there seems nothing to be done about it”
P. G. Wodehouse
CHAPTER 8
Pandora’s Box—Underwear as a Topic of Conversation in the Victorian Era—My Mistake—Commands Suitable for Use with a Cat—King John’s Mistake—Importance of a Good Night’s Sleep—Opening a Tin—Cat-Calls—A Swan—Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow—Hansel and Gretel—The Perfect End to a Perfect Day
What are you doing here?” I said.
But it was obvious what she was doing here. Mr. Dunworthy had sent her through with me, and I was supposed to return her to Muchings End before her disappearance caused any consequences.
But I had been three days late and forty miles off. And too time-lagged to realize what I was supposed to do. And in the meantime, Mrs. Mering had gone to Oxford and consulted a medium, and Tossie had met Terence and Count de Vecchio, and Terence had missed meeting Maud.
And the incongruity hadn’t been repaired. It was right here, looking up at me.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said numbly.
The cat gazed up at me with its gray eyes. They had strange vertical pupils, like slits, and flecks of green in them. I had had no idea they had eyes that color. I had thought all cats had bright yellow eyes that glowed in the dark.
I had also thought dogs chased cats, but Cyril was simply sitting there, looking at me with an expression of utter betrayal.
“I didn’t know she was here,” I said defensively.
But how could I not have? What had I thought Finch would bring me in a basket—a covered basket!—at the last minute? A round of cheese? Why else would he have said he didn’t think sending me was a good idea because I was time-lagged?
Well, he was certainly right. I hadn’t even tumbled to it when Terence told me Tossie’d lost her cat. Or when Verity’d asked me where it was. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I could have given it to Verity to take back to Muchings End. Or to Tossie. I could have made some excuse to go back to the boat and then pretended I’d found it walking along the river-bank. If I’d known I’d had it. If I’d so much as thought to look in the luggage. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The cat was moving. She yawned and stretched delicately, extending one white paw. I leaned over the basket, trying to see her other feet. I couldn’t see anything but black fur.
; A wild thought occurred to me. What if this wasn’t Princess Arjumand after all? Tossie had said it was black with a white face, but no doubt there had been hundreds or even thousands of white-faced black cats in 1888. They had had to drown kittens to keep the population down.
“Princess Arjumand?” I said tentatively.
There was no flicker of response in her gray eyes.
“Princess Arjumand,” I said more firmly, and she closed her eyes.
It wasn’t Princess Arjumand. It was the lock-keeper’s cat, or the churchwarden’s, and it had crawled in the basket while we were in Iffley Church.
The cat yawned again, revealing a pink tongue and a lot of sharp little teeth, and stood up.
Cyril moved back like an ARP warden faced with an incendiary.
The cat stepped out of the basket and sauntered away on four white feet, her white-tipped tail in the air. She had white on her hindquarters as well, with rather the effect of pantaloons. Tossie hadn’t mentioned pantaloons, I thought hopefully, and then remembered this was the Victorian era. Well-bred people didn’t discuss pantaloons, or any sort of underwear, did they? And how many white-pawed cats were there who were likely to have stowed away in my luggage and then fastened the lid?
She was nearly out of the clearing.
“Wait!” I said. “Princess Arjumand!” and then remembered the proper command. “Stay,” I said firmly. “Stay.”
She kept walking.
“Come back here,” I said. “Stay. Stop. Whoa.”
She turned and looked curiously at me with her large gray eyes.
“That’s it,” I said, and began to advance slowly. “Good cat.”
She sat down on her haunches and began to lick her paw.
“Very good cat,” I said, moving forward. “Stay . . . stay . . . that’s it.”
She rubbed her paw delicately over her ear.
I was less than a foot away from her.
“Stay . . . good . . . stay . . . ,” I said and lunged for her.
She bounded lightly away and disappeared into the trees.
To Say Nothing of the Dog Page 16
