GERRUND PLACED MY plate in front of me – a mound of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, liver and fried potatoes.
‘Delicious,’ I crooned, uncertain that I would be able to eat a quarter of it.
There was an interesting article in The Englishman’s Weekly warning mothers to stay indoors during the heatwave or their unborn babies’ brains would be coddled and they – the children not their mothers – would have to be put into asylums. I made a note to ask my father to stop forwarding it to me.
‘The condemned woman do eat a hearty breakfast,’ Agnust announced as she entered bearing a coffee pot on a tray, in a manner reminiscent of Salome triumphantly parading the head of John the Baptist.
‘They are unlikely to kill me,’ I protested, wondering if I felt like eating at all.
‘You say it’s unlikely man goo to the moon,’ she reasoned, ‘but he never do goo yet.’
If there was a logic in that argument it eluded me, and Gerrund who rolled his eyes despairingly.
I took a golden triangle of toast from the silver rack and dipped my knife into the butter, liquified, despite having been stored in the cellar and brought up in a pottery cooler.
‘Gerrund will be waiting outside,’ I reminded her.
‘Rather be inside with you,’ he muttered.
‘I do not think they will let us both in,’ I reasoned, ‘and I will not intimidate them.’
‘They might need intimidating,’ he pointed out.
‘Then I shall blow on this.’ I touched my silver whistle.
‘If he hear it,’ Agnust said. ‘He never hear me asking for the rubbish to goo out.’
‘Didn’t know you wanted to go out,’ he mumbled.
‘Anyway,’ I broke in before they came to blows. He would be no use to me with a broken jaw. ‘I shall be quite safe.’
Agnust cleared her throat.
‘Old Gerrund is all very well if you want that kind of thing,’ she conceded, ‘but what use is a man in a n’emergency?’
I was preparing a list of times men had been useful when he rounded on her.
‘Saved your life when you were caught in that fire.’
‘Yes, but who started it?’
‘Placton the footman,’ he said and Agnust crossed her arms, the sleeves of her black dress rising. Was that a tattoo on the back of her forearm? Surely not?
‘There you goo,’ she snorted triumphantly. ‘A man.’
And you wonder why men think we are irrational creatures, Ruby chipped in. She was not in the best of moods that morning, regarding any outing as a distraction from her predicament. What if I have secreted an electrical drill on my person? she proposed.
Where would you insert the plug? I objected and she huffed.
‘Well I must not keep you from your tasks,’ I told Gerrund and Agnust and they left reluctantly, for they liked to watch me relishing his food and fattening myself.
I jumped up, hurried to the sideboard, opened it, scooped almost all my breakfast into a soup terrine, put the lid on and was at my place, opening my letters. This was a propitious start to the day indeed, for I had won a diamond tiara once the property of Marie Antoinette. All I had to do was send ten guineas and my prize would be securely delivered the very next day. Reassuringly they would only accept cash payment to a post office box in Whitechapel.
‘That was quick,’ Gerrund commented, materialising at my elbow.
‘I was hungry.’
‘Good,’ he said as my eye fell upon a sausage that had rolled off my plate and onto the floor. ‘There’s plenty more.’
‘There is no need.’
‘It’s no trouble, milady,’ he assured me, ‘just as soon as I get Agnust to clear that trail of food leading towards the sideboard.’
‘Oh,’ I said, never at a loss for the bon mot, as I followed his gaze to the bits of egg and the rasher of bacon now carpeting the carpet. ‘Goodness.’ I looked at the clock. ‘Is that the time? I must get ready.’
You will never be ready, Ruby warned forebodingly and, as usual, she was right.
As always, she corrected me while Gerrund opened the sideboard door.
‘I was saving it for later,’ I protested.
‘What?’ he puzzled, taking out a clean plate.
Old Queeny trudged wearily. She had looked exhausted before we had left the square.
‘She stay up late chin-waggin’ with next door’s cat,’ Friendless fended off the criticism that he was certain would be levelled at her.
‘If you ever feel that the job is too much for her,’ I called up tactfully.
‘Years and years in her yet,’ he insisted, for he could not bear to think of his companion as cat food and glue. ‘And weeks,’ he added for good measure. ‘And days.’
‘I was reading about a charity,’ I continued, ‘for retired horses.’
‘She dint want no charity,’ he told me. ‘She do got her pride.’
‘It is only for deserving horses.’
‘Of good character?’
‘The best,’ I assured him and he screwed up his lips.
‘Do you being sarsastic again?’
‘Certainly not,’ I said, and he spat with impressive accuracy at a telegraph pole, though I had no idea how it had offended him.
‘We do talk it over and she might may consider it,’ he conceded and it was probably my imagination but it seemed to me that Old Queeny walked, if not with a spring in her stride, at least a little less listlessly.
Her owner must have taken a tentative step towards cheerfulness as well, for he cleared his throat – a long and loud process – before treating us to a revolutionary revision of the musical scale.
‘My true love is sent to Bot’ny Bay,’ he squawked, ‘and she int been there more than a day when she fall in the water and drown-ded.’
‘That’s a cheery song,’ Gerrund commented.
‘It is,’ Friendless agreed. ‘Alway give me a laugh, ’specially when the shark do come.’ He raised his voice again. ‘To that fish human legs is bacon and human arms is eggs and human arms is EEGGGGGS.’
Gainsborough Gardens was busy as we entered the square. A small crowd had gathered around a man in the middle who was playing a penny whistle while jigging about on stilts.
‘He int really that tall,’ Friendless explained for our edification.
‘I think milady knows that,’ Gerrund told him.
‘How?’ our driver enquired. ‘Do she seen him ’fore?’
‘Feminine intuition,’ I said.
‘Fem’nin int wha’?’
‘Int sitting in this cab all day,’ Gerrund replied and Friendless unlocked the flaps.
‘Clear off,’ Friendless yelled, and for a moment I thought he meant me, but he was cracking his whip harmlessly in the direction of Chaos, who was ambling towards us. ‘If they get into conversatin’ I’ll be stuck here for hours,’ he explained, though we had already arranged that he would wait. ‘Four hours and eight minutes prob’ly.’
‘I hope not,’ I said.
‘So do I.’ Gerrund climbed out. ‘Got a certain for the three thirty at Newmarket to lay a bet on.’
‘Which horse?’ I asked, taking his hand to clamber out.
‘Pandora.’
I had never heard of the nag but I said, ‘Not a hope,’ just to annoy him and, from his grimace, I succeeded.