A Study in Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 4) (11 page)

“That ain’t no way to talk, Mister! You need to lay off Miss Plumtartt!”

“I take no notice for the yapping of a scurvy American lapdog as you!”

“I ain’t got scurvy. I eat lots of fruit. I’m proud of my Nationality, just like everybody oughtta be, wherever they come from, and there are worse things in life than to be a lapdog for the likes of Miss Persephone Plumtartt!”

The great brute moves to do me harm but is interceded on his mission by the sharp rap of a parasol
~twock!~
  on his forehead.

“Mind your manners, sir. I do not wish to physically instruct you before your peers. I suggest that you withdraw.”

“You uppity little tart! I shall destroy you!”

The enraged monster moves as if he intends to crush the brains of Miss Plumtartt.

The sound of several benches being pushed back stays his hand. The entire present company has stood as one as this sort of behavior is not tolerated.

Realizing that his position has become untenable, the foiled bully boils up with even more rage. Casting about, he looks to the hearth and snatches up a fireplace poker. All present ready themselves for battle. Instead of assaulting his mates, the frustration of the man is spent on the steel bar. Pressing upon the item from either end, the whole room is dumbstruck as the powerful man, with an enormous outburst of strength upon the utensil, bends the metal rod into a circular distortion.

Breathing heavily from the brief, but intense exertion, the steel twister sweeps his eyes around the room menacingly.

“Let that serve as a warning, to you, little Missy, and the rest o’ ye, too. The moors are no pretty playground. Ye’d all best watch your step.”

With a haughty snort of contempt the unpleasant man throws down the ruined poker and stomps out the door.

There is a moment of shocked silence.

“Well, this just will not do,” proclaims Miss Plumtartt. She picks up the discarded tool and gives it a brief examination and a light testing to check the veracity of the damage.

“I say, barman, would you happen to have a length of pipe?”

“It so happens that Oi do in fact have a bit of steel tubing. ‘ere you are, Miss Plumtartt.”

“Thank you, so much. Now then, I shall simply isolate one end of the poker in this iron ring set in the wall, and the pipe, I shall slip over the poker’s other end. With the advantage of the generous leverage afforded by the pipe, I am,
enh!
able to  straighten your poker anew!”

“Bloimey!” “Hurrah!” “Hear, hear!”

The lemony coloured delight smiles and gives an acknowledging nod of her pretty head amid enthusiastic rounds of applause and choruses of hearty cheers.

“Should any of you gentlemen feel a need to straighten your rods, feel free to think of me.”

“Hooray!”

We depart our happy friends and return to our cart to further our little errand.

Mary sets us off at a goodly pace up the GrimSmackle Trail. It is a full mile or more before we reach the gates of the ‘Copper Copse.’ Though this was at one time a fine estate, it is rather overgrown and perhaps become too much for the tenants to maintain. I blaze a trail through the herbovatic invaded path for Miss Plumtartt and pull the bell rope. I have a distinct impression that it is not functioning properly and thus fall to knocking on the frame with my knuckles. It is a long few minutes before the door is eventually answered, not by a servant, but by the Colonel himself.

“Colonel WinterBottom? Howdy, we’re your new neighbors from across the way. My name is Temperance. Ichabod Temperance. This here is Miss Persephone Plumtartt.”

The Colonel’s mouth drops open and his jaw begins an uncontrollable up and down high speed bounce. Eyes grow as large as good, honest English cannonballs and I am afraid that the poor fellow is about to have some sort of seizure, right before our eyes.

“Colonel, are you all right? Is there anything we can do to assist you?” asks a worried Miss Plumtartt.

The Colonel is even more taken aback to hear Miss Plumtartt’s voice, yet at the same time it seems to rally his sensibilities.

“Burbity-burb! Miss Persephone Plumtartt! Burbity-burb! This is quite an, eh, unexpected pleasure, eh, burbity-burb. Come in, come in! Please follow me to the drawing room and I shall go and seek out Mrs. WinterBottom. The help is away on, er, family business. Burbity-burb. Eh, hem. Yes. What. Family business. Most assuredly. I shall now depart to fetch my good wife. Please have a seat here and
don’t move!
I shall return directly!”

Colonel WinterBottom runs from the room and we hear him bound up the stairs in a barely controlled frenzy of excitement as he calls to his wife in an urgent, but low voice.

“That’s nice, Miss Plumtartt; we finally get to meet a friendly face.” I say, but my heart immediately drops through the floor for it reminds me of my erstwhile London friend’s parting words of advice and warning.

We must wait several minutes in the dusty drawers of the WinterBottom drawing room.

At last the Colonel reappears. His appearance is slightly altered from before. He has spruced himself up a bit I think. Where before he answered the door in a well serviced dressing gown, he now is almost resplendent in a maroon smoking jacket. The jacket is slightly threadbare but is still nonetheless well set off by a paisley silk cravat. The Colonel’s generous amounts of blond hair, along with his mustache and beard, are now freshly combed. The supreme accessory in the form of a monocle on a string goes a long way to gentrify the handsome officer.

Mrs WinterBottom trails just behind.

There is no visible appendage to the woman. Her hands are clasped before her and hidden from view within her sleeves as the cuffs meet in the front like a shiny, sophisticated, insanity restraint jacket. Her floor-length Auriental robes allow her to move as if propelled along wooden dowel conveyor lines. She glides into the room presumably on hidden feet, but I could easily imagine that she has shoes that are adorned by a quadro-set of wheels. Her dark hair is pulled back in a high bun and affixed by a pair of lacquered Chinaman’s eating sticks. Her eyes show no intention of blinking. Her eyebrows stay arched into a starchy and perpetual permanent perimeter of her upper face. Three inches of blueish purple mascaras accent the widened state of her black eyed stare.

“Miss Persephone Plumtartt! I khan-not say what an absolute thrill it is to make your acquaintance, my dear.” Mrs. WinterBottom speaks in a very high and sophisticated voice that implies a life of worldly travel and experience. “And this other fellow too, I suppose. I understand you have undertaken to refurbish the spaces of Plumtartt Manor?”

“Yes, Mrs. WinterBottom. It is a daunting task, but I feel I owe it to my late, great father, Professor Plumtartt.”

The WinterBottoms jump a little at the slightest mention of Professor Plumtartt.

“So, Colonel,” I start in an attempt at friendly small talk. “I understand that you are a veteran of Britain’s Colonial interests in India.”

“Oh, er, burbity-burb, yes. I served in, eh, a, um, castle, or fortress of some kind. Yes. I think they call them citadels. What was the name of that blasted place? Um, Hedyrebod, Hobiderod, no, Hydroxibid, wait, no, don’t tell me, I’ve got it, … Hyderabad! Yes, … those Poonjabis gave us quite a run. Yes. Quite. It was no day at the races. I say. Burbity-burb.”

Mrs. WinterBottom remains intensely fixed on Miss Plumtartt. The Colonel and I sit in chairs while the ladies sit on a couch. Mrs. WinterBottom is turned to Miss Plumtartt and is steadily leaning towards the chartreuse clad girl.

“You are getting settled in comfortably there at Plumtartt Manor?” Mrs. WinterBottom’s unblinking inspection of Miss Plumtartt endeavors to absorb the couch caught cutie. “I understand that building is quite a thing to see first hand.”

“It sure is, Mrs. WiinterBottom,” I inject. The lady of the house is steadily encroaching upon Miss Plumtartt’s personal space. “Miss Plumtartt was just sharing one of her father’s favorite sayings with me this morning. It really is a sweet sentiment. He would say, ‘Hope is in the House’.”

“Eep!” ejects the Colonel. His monocle leaps from his eye and I manage a deft catch of the singular eyepiece.

“Eep!” exclaims Mrs. WinterBottom in conjunction with her husband.

“Hope, is, in, the, … House? Hope is in the house? Hope is in the House? Hope is in the House!
Hope is in the House!
HOPE IS IN THE HOUSE!!!
” Mrs WinterBottom’s face is twisted in a terrible rictus of shocking realization as she screams this last bit.

The spasmotic tremor that took hold of the Colonel’s gait while we were at the door has returned, two-fold.

The spooky swami, Mrs. WinterBottom, appears to have entered a trance. Staring before her without vision, her eyes busily dance in representation of the mad flight her mind has taken. Her lips perform a numbing chant:

“...hopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehouseopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisinthehousehopeisin...”

Miss Plumtartt and I take our leave.

Verily Mary very merrily

pulls our cart along the lane.

“They seemed like some nice folks, Miss Plumtartt. I sure hope they get to feeling better. I don’t know how that little phrase could have set them to frettin’ so. I noticed a funny thing though. The Colonel said that he served in Hyderabad. I don’t think that is anywhere near to the Poonjabis. His conflict would have been with the Muughals. His story sounded a mite queer on that account.”

“That may be worth noting, Mr. Temperance.”

“I see a path leading off to the left, into the Forsaken Barrows, Miss Plumtartt.”

“Direct our Mary down that nameless track, Mr. Temperance.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Golly, Miss Mary don’t want to go. I reckon I’ll have to get out and lead her.”

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Temperance.”

“No Ma’am, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am. Come on, Mary; I’ll watch out for you.”

“I say, we may as well be on the Moon for the landscape is all gray stone, eh hem?”

“Yes Ma’am, Miss Plumtartt, Ma’am, the high boulders protruding from the mire are like the teeth of a long dormant, huge dragon, lying half buried in the ground.”

“I see a structure looming out of the mist, Mr. Temperance.”

“It’s a stone wall, Miss Plumtartt. Do you want me to scramble up real quick and have a look around?”

“I would advise you not to, sir. I  detect large shards of broken glass embedded in the mortar along the top.”

“Broken glass! Gee, that’s downright unfriendly.”

“Indeed, nevertheless, I intend to pay my regards.”

“Okey dokey, well, now we have come to a low, iron door set in the wall. There’s a little metal hammer, affixed to a chain in the wall next to it. Do you reckon there’s a chance someone will answer if I bang on that iron door with it?”

“Let us test your hypothesis.”

~bang, bang, bang.~

~SNIFF!~

“Yikes! There’s something back there, Miss Plumtartt! Something big sniffed at me. A really heavy angry animal pushed against the door! Look! Long black claws are scrabbling underneath the door as the monster is trying to get at us!”

“Right you are sir. Please help me to secure Mary as she is attempting to flee.”

“She’s got the right idea, Ma’am.”

“No, I wish to pay my regards, Mr. Temperance.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Okay, I’ve got Mary hitched to this tree. Let’s go back to the door and say hello to the huge monster with long, black claws.”

“I hear the approach of human footfalls, Mr. Temperance.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Oh, look, there is a little sliding, peep hatch set in the door. It is being flung aside to reveal a pair of angry, glaring, female eyes.”

“Yeah? Shove off, we didn’t order nothing. And if you want something, we ain’t giving nothing neither, see?”

“Howdy, Ma’am. We’re your new neighbors from across the way. My name is Temperance and this here is Miss Persephone Plumtartt.”

“Persephone Plumtartt! … Wait here!”

The woman slams the little viewing gate shut, storming away with her enormous and grumpy creature in tow. In a few minutes she returns with a different enormous and grumpy creature in tow.

Several stout locks are heard to turn before the small main gate of the wall swings inward. Before Miss Plumtartt and I can move, a ferocious, stoutly-built, and bearded man of immense strength moves quickly through the portal. A woman of matching power and dimensions is right behind him.

“So, which one of you is the Plumtartt girl?” demands the bearded man.

I look down at my heavy boots, with protective, canvas gaiters. Tweed pants follow from there. I remove and look at my goggle bedecked derby and then replace it on my head. I then look at the bright yellow ensemble encompassing the very pleasingly feminine form of Miss Plumtartt. I jerk an indicative thumb in her direction and she slowly raises a yellow satin gloved finger to indicate that she is the person in question.