Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

He knew most of Ophelia’s “dear and trusted friends.” He knew them quite well. Gossips, the lot of them. They made it their business to find out everything about everyone, and then to toss this information around them like flowers at a wedding. If they had obtained some scandalous bit of news, every drawing room in London would have heard of it by now. What humiliation. What dishonor to his name. People had always thought him a pleasant, vacant sort of person. The sort of person you could invite to parties without having to worry about his bringing up sore topics like faery integration or Charles Dickens’s novels. No one had ever taken much notice of Mr. Jelliby, but at least they hadn’t thought ill of him. And now? Now they would be inventing all sorts of stories. He had an image in his mind of a gaggle of long-necked geese, all done up in petticoats and crinolines, sitting around a stuffy parlor and talking about him.

“Did you hear, Jemima, he broke down a door? Oh, yes! In the Lord Chancellor’s house! You know, behind all those handsome looks and broad smiles he must be secretly quite the violent fellow.”

“Almost certainly, Muriel. One has to be in his profession. And how poor Ophelia is faring, with that hanging over her head like a veritable Sword of Damocles, heaven only knows. She’s a perfect angel, not carrying on and saying only good of him. The silly dear. When he’s so obviously a wicked spy. .”

And they were not even the worst. He absolutely dreaded the next meeting of the Privy Council. Mr. Lickerish would be there. The other members would be there, all quite well-informed, all wondering whether he worked for the Americans or the French or some radical anti-faery formation. All wondering how well it paid.

But the day came whether he wanted it to or not, and when Ophelia pressed her ear against his door and told him he must make himself ready, he growled at her to send the valet with a note.

“Arthur, that will only make things worse,” she said, leaning her head against the door. “You must go out and confront them! You have nothing to fear.” She waited for a reply, and when none came she added gently, “ I don’t believe you were spying on Mr. Lickerish. And you know you weren’t. You did no wrong other than that little accident with the door, and I’ve already sent Mr. Lickerish a sincere apology with six guineas for the repairs.”

Mr. Jelliby grunted and stabbed at the cold ashes in the grate with the poker. “Six guineas. Six guineas won’t mend my reputation. I won’t ever be able to show my face again. Thanks to your daft friends it may as well have been printed front page in the Times .”

Ophelia sighed. “Oh, Arthur, you’re making it out to be far worse than it really is. People will always talk! They will always invent and embellish things to make them more interesting. Why, you remember the time I wore the blue silk instead of the mourning colors for Father’s passing, and it was quite by mistake, but a tale started up that Papsy had not been my father and that I was in fact adopted from India. From India, darling! The only thing one can do against these things is ignore them. Present yourself cheerfully and confidently and. .”

She was forced to go on like this for a good fifteen minutes, reassuring him patiently while he sulked and grumbled. But there are few things quite so persuasive as time, and in the end he said, “Oh, confound it all,” and dressed himself, and combed his hair, and left his room rather cautiously, as if he expected the whole house to pounce on him the instant he stepped into the hall. He was almost surprised when the maid only curtseyed, Brahms was cheerful, and the ancient gnome, whom he again had the misfortune of having as his driver, was no more ill-disposed toward him than usual.

Wagons and steam carriages clogged the thoroughfares more thickly than the smoke that day, but the gnome took a roundabout down Tothill Street and Mr. Jelliby arrived at Westminster in good time. He stepped down from the carriage in front of the South Gate and stood for a few moments, very still, in the usual gaggle of protesters and newsboys that collected there. He let the chimney ash drift onto his coat. Then he took a deep breath and plunged into the cool of the hall.

All Ophelia’s gentle coaxing and encouragements melted away as he stepped onto the massive stone slabs of the floor. Suddenly he was a boy again, the new one entering the boarding school refectory for the first time, and every titter and sideways glance set off little pangs of embarrassment around his temples. He kept his eyes fixed on the tips of his shoes as he walked, wishing he could simply fly past all those staring faces. It was only when he was seated in the farthest, darkest corner of the Privy Council’s chamber that he dared raise his eyes again. A servant looked back at him from where he was waxing the chair legs. For a moment they stared at each other. Then the servant shrugged and returned his attention to his wax cloth. Mr. Jelliby slumped back. Drat. Except for him and the servant the room was empty. He was ridiculously early.

He couldn’t just sit there for twenty minutes. Not while the lords and barons trickled in with their noses in the air and bemusement in their eyes. He got up and left the room, walking down the hall at a brisk pace so that everyone who saw him would think he was actually going somewhere. There were miles of corridors in the new palace, all very wide and slightly dim despite the gasoliers burning along the walls. At first there were people crowding everywhere and the air was full of voices, but the farther he walked the more deserted the halls became until he could hear nothing but the distant ticking of a clock, echoing in time with his shoes. After several minutes he began to feel foolish hurrying down corridor after empty corridor. He sidestepped quickly into a doorway, listened, and hearing nothing, let himself in.

The room was small, just a closet compared to some of the other chambers in the palace. The wall facing the river was all windows, and the rest was all empty bookcases except for a large walnut cabinet that stood next to the door. There were no drapes, no papers or photographs. Mr. Jelliby decided it must be a clerk’s office not yet moved into. All the better. He sat down on the bare floorboards and resolved to wait. In ten minutes he would hurry back to the council chamber and enter unnoticed during the main crush of gentlemen.

It was very quiet in the room. The absence of books on the shelves made it feel hollow somehow, not lived in. He pulled out his timepiece and waited for the minute hand to move. It took an eternity. Tick . He set to drumming his fingers against the floor. Tick. Two people passed by the door, deep in conversation. “Most unbecoming. .” he heard, before the voices receded again. Tick. More footsteps. Another person was coming down the hallway, pattering lightly. Mr. Jelliby stood, stretching. The footsteps came closer. Are they slowing? Oh heavens, they won’t stop. They will go past. They must go past.

The feet stopped, directly in front of the door to the empty clerk’s office.

Mr. Jelliby clutched his watch so hard he almost cracked its glass face. His eyes flickered around the room. What am I to do? He could go to the door and face whoever was about to enter. Or he could hide. Hide in the cabinet and hope upon hope that whoever it was, he was a quick fellow utterly uninterested in walnut closets. Mr. Jelliby chose the cabinet.

It was one of those odd desk cabinets that is actually a tiny closed chamber, with drawers and compartments for ink and envelopes all up its walls. It had a little padded bench and a paraffin lamp to see by. A pane of warped glass looked out its door. Mr. Jelliby scooted in clumsily, and when he was pressed back as far as he could get, he shut himself in.