“Good evening, gentlemen,” said he. “You both look worn and weary. I was told that this was a lively, convivial place.”
“Dr. Timberry,” I said, rising to my feet to better formalise my introduction, “I’d like you to meet…my brother Harry.”
“Half-brother, to be precise,” Scadger corrected me. “The time had come, you see, for me to tell my friend Frederick that he is a bit more to me than friend and that he has, in fact, a blood relation in the apricot line.”
Timberry shook his head in amazement. He was eager to hear the story of our linked parentage, but not as eager to address the condition of Harry’s oldest daughter; whilst Florence was not amongst the worst consumptive cases he had seen in his studies of the disease at the Lung Hospital, she was, nonetheless, in a very bad way, and if we did not treat the illness quickly and aggressively, she would, by his estimation, succumb within two or three months.
I thought of Ruth Wolf and how she had healed Bevan Dabber with her Outlander drugs. Were there drugs that doctors used for consumptives in the Terra Incognita? Was this disease, often referred to by its scientific term “tuberculosis,” as deadly a scourge amongst Outlanders as it was in the Dell? I would not be shy about asking this of Miss Wolf in my very next encounter with the woman. Nor would I forbear asking her about a good many other things now that I knew her true identity to be that of covert expatriate Beyonder.
Chapter the Thirty-sixth. Thursday, July 3, 2003
nwittingly, I took a page from Muntle’s book.
I left the East End and journeyed back across the Westminster Bridge, only to find myself gravitating inexorably to the Heavenly Rest Memorial Cemetery. Passing first beneath the great iron entry arch, I bent my steps toward the gravestones of my mother and my father (who now I knew to be the father of Harry Scadger as well) and to the gravestone of the love of my young life, Fanny Lumbey. Then, my obligatory obeisances having been made, I began to wander about in aimless reflection, finally coming to rest upon the “Bench of Perpetual Memory” dedicated to Muntle’s brother George.
I wondered as I sat there how long my own brother must be gone from the Dell before I should consider putting in a bench in honour of his memory. I wept in this spot, not only over the potential loss of my brother, and the veritable loss of my mother and father and my dear Fanny, but also over the impending loss of my ancestral home. Because I knew in my soul that the only reason that prosperous, well-settled men such as Pupker and Feenix and Fitz-Marshall should pack their bags and leave Dingley Dell was this: that the valley was soon to change in some dark and perilous way that I could not begin to fathom. It was a fearful thought, but one that also beset me with a sense of great sadness.
I bowed my head and stared abstractedly at the green grass cushioning my feet. It was some time before I raised my head again and I did so because I heard my name being invoked by one who had come upon me. The voice belonged to my friend Sheriff Muntle.
“Ah,” he said, “you have found some comfort, communing with the spirit of my lost brother?”
I shrugged. I pulled myself heavily from the bench. “You were away at the Chowser School longer than you said you would be.”
“I have asked Maggy to marry me.”
“And did she accept?”
“Aye. We are to be wed as soon as circumstances permit. There is, of course, the minor matter of where we shall live. Chowser doesn’t wish to lose his valuable cook, and this is no time at all for me to resign my position as sheriff. Let us walk, Trimmers. We must go to Fingerpost. Your sister-in-law needs you. She is newly returned from Hungerford and has just received news of Gus’s journey into the Outland. You should have sent word to me, for it came as a shock to me as well.”
“There was nothing that you could have done. I didn’t wish to cast a cloud upon your visit with Miss Finching.”
“Still, I am your friend.”
“It seems these days that friendship exists only for the purpose of commiseration. Every former purpose for platonic union appears to have been subverted by circumstances that can only be met by impotency and ineffectuality. We cannot go after Gus. There are a great many other things that we are unable to do for our friends. Is Charlotte alone?”
Muntle shook his head.“By luck, Miss Bocker chanced upon her on her return from Hungerford and accompanied her the rest of the way to her cottage. Knowing what Charlotte would discover when she arrived home, Antonia held her hand and explained in as dulcet tones as that woman’s gruff demeanour generally allows the reason for Gus’s absence. Your sisterin-law is taking the news quite badly, Trimmers. It is best that we hurry so you can be with her.”
Gus was right. When we arrived at the cottage, Charlotte lay distraught and moaning in her bed, although according to Ruth Wolf, who sat nearby, she was just beginning to yield to the sedative she’d been given. Antonia paced the floor, waiting as well for Charlotte to drift off.
Seeing me, Charlotte struggled with drowsiness to ask me if it were true about Gus, for she still could not bring herself to fully believe it. I could do nothing but agree to that which had already been said, but I added that I still held out hope for his return. Charlotte had scarcely made a feeble nod in response when a hard and fast sleep overtook her, and her two female attendants, Muntle and I were given leave by circumstances to withdraw from the bedchamber.
“She was quite upset when I arrived,” said Miss Wolf, snapping her medical bag shut. “But I have put her under the influence of a strong sleep agent. It was good that I was passing by at just the time that I was most needed.”
“Given her fragile and nearly demented state,” added Antonia, “I know not what Charlotte was capable of doing to herself once she realised the true reason for Gus not being home to greet her return.”
I devoted the next hour to informing my companions of everything I had learnt over the last two days, and Antonia in turn discussed with us the invitation that Mrs. Gargery (or rather her pug dog) had taken from the hand of Mrs. Pyegrave as she lay crumpled and bleeding upon the cobblestones of Park Lane. Ruth Wolf had sat and listened as if she too had every need to hear all that was said, taking especial notice when I voiced the name “Michelena Martin.” Ruth’s presence seemed a natural thing, as if there were no doubt that she should be in this room, that she should be a part of everything discussed here.
But eventually the time came for Ruth to reciprocate. We had questions for her—a good many questions. Would she indulge us? That was the top question on the list.
Her answer was a most welcome one; not only would she indulge us, but she had, in fact, been hoping for an opportunity to address us, to put herself before the Fortnightly Poetry League, about which she had heard a thing or two. “I know not what your true purpose is, but I should like to bring you into my confidence nonetheless. It is time that some of you who have been marching for so long in the darkness should be given a little light to see where that path has been taking you.”
And so Messrs. Graham and Upwitch were summoned, and within the hour an ad hoc meeting of the Fortnightly Poetry League was figuratively gavelled to order with all members present.