To Say Nothing of the Dog (20 page)

“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.

“
Cats, it has been well said, will be cats, and there seems nothing to be done about it.”

P. G. Wodehouse

C H A P T E R E I G H T

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 riverbank. 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 church-warden’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.

“I say, have you found it yet?” Terence called out from the direction of the riverbank.

I sat up, dusting off my elbows, and looked at Cyril. “Don’t you say a word.” I stood up.

Terence appeared, carrying the tin of peaches.
“There
you are,” he said. “Any luck?”

“None at all,” I said. I walked rapidly back to the luggage. “I mean, I haven’t finished looking through everything.”

I jammed the lid on the basket and opened the satchel, hoping fervently it didn’t contain any surprises. It didn’t. It contained a pair of lace-up boots that couldn’t have been more than a size five, a large spotted handkerchief, three fish forks, a large filigreed silver ladle, and a pair of escargot tongs. “Would this work?” I said, holding them up.

Terence was rummaging through the hamper. “I doubt . . . here it is,” he said, holding up the scimitar-looking object with the red handle. “Oh, you’ve brought Stilton. Excellent.” He went off, clutching the tin-opener and the cheese, and I went back over to the edge of the clearing.

There was no sign of the cat. “Here, Princess Arjumand,” I said, lifting up leaves to look under the bushes. “Here, girl.”

Cyril nosed at a bush, and a bird flew up.

“Come, cat,” I said. “Heel.”

“Ned! Cyril!” Terence called, and I dropped the branch with a rustle. “The kettle’s boiling!” He appeared, holding the opened tin of peaches. “What’s keeping you?”

“I thought I’d just tidy up a bit,” I said, sticking the escargot tongs in one of the boots, “get everything packed so we can make an early start.”

“You can do it after your dessert,” he said, taking me by the arm. “Come along now.”

He led us back to the campfire, Cyril looking warily from side to side, where Professor Peddick was pouring out tea into tin cups.

“Dum licet inter nos igitur laetemur amantes,”
he said, handing me a cup. “The perfect end to a perfect day.”

Perfect. I’d failed to return the cat, kept Terence from meeting Maud, made it possible for him to get to Iffley to see Tossie, and who knew what else?

There was no use crying over spilt milk, even if that was an unfortunate metaphor, because it couldn’t be put back in the bottle, no matter how hard one tried, and what exactly would be a good metaphor? Opening Pandora’s box? Letting the cat out of the bag?

Whatever, there was no use crying over it, or thinking about what might have been. I had to get Princess Arjumand back to Muchings End as soon as possible, and before any more damage was done.

Verity had said to keep Terence away from Tossie, but she hadn’t known about the cat. I had to get it back to the site of its disappearance immediately. And the quickest way to do that was to tell Terence I’d found it. He’d be overjoyed. He’d insist on starting to Muchings End immediately.

But I didn’t want to create any more consequences, and Tossie might be so grateful to him for returning Princess Arjumand she’d fall in love with him instead of Mr. C. Or he might start wondering how the cat had got so far from home and insist on setting off after its kidnapper the way he had after the boat and end up going over a weir in the dark and drowning. Or drowning the cat. Or causing the Boer War.

I’d better keep the cat hidden until we got to Muchings End. If I could get it back in the basket. If I could find it.

“If we were to find Princess Arjumand,” I said, I hoped casually, “how would one go about catching her?”