Kasey Michaels - The Anonymous Miss Addams

“The froggie, o’course. Who else do yer think? Now, take yerself off!”

She wasn’t afraid, for the voice sounded very young and more than a little frightened. Her smooth brow furrowed in confusion at his words, though, and she asked, “Hiding from a frog, are you? Well, if that isn’t above everything silly! I would imagine you’d be more likely to come upon a frog in the gardens, wouldn’t you? If you don’t wish to come face-to-face with one, don’t you think it would be preferable to hide where frogs don’t go?”

Jeremy Holloway was so overcome by this blatant idiocy that he forgot himself and stood up, just to get a good look at the woman who could spout anything so ridiculous. “Yer dicked in the nob, lady?” he exclaimed in consternation, then quickly ducked again, whining, “Yer seen me now. Yer gonna cry beef on me?”

She leaned forward some more and was able to see a boy as he crouched on all fours, ready to scurry off to find a new hidey-hole. “If you mean, am I going to turn you in, no, I don’t think I am. After all, who would I turn you in to in the first place?”

“Dat froggie, dat’s who! And all because Oi gots a few active citizens. Oi asks yer—is dat fair? Show me a lily white wot’s ain’t gots some, dat’s wot Oi says.”

Her head was reeling. “Are you speaking English?” she questioned, careful not to move for fear the boy would run off before she could get a good look at him.

All was quiet for a few moments, but at last, his decision made, Jeremy poked his head above the rose bush, looked furtively right and left, and then abandoned his hiding place. “Yer the one m’ gingerbread man found in the road yesterdee,” he told her unnecessarily. “Yer cleaned up right well, Oi suppose. But not this cove. Not Jeremy ’Olloway. Nobody’s gonna dunk this cove in Adam’s ale agin.”

“Thank you, I think,” she answered, beating down the urge to step back a pace or two, for, in truth, Jeremy didn’t smell too fresh. The boy was filthy, his clothing ragged and three sizes too small. “You might too. I imagine Adam’s ale is water? What’s a lily white, Jeremy, and whose citizens are active? And a gingerbread man?”

With an expression on his thin face that suggested she must be the most ignorant person ever to walk the earth, Jeremy supplied impatiently, “A lily white’s a sweep, o’ course. Everyun knows dat. Oi’m really a ’prentice, or Oi wuz, till yesterdee. My mum sold me ter ol’ ’Awkins fer ’alf a crown, which is more than m’ brother went fer. Wot else? Oh, yer. A gingerbread man is a rich gentry cove, like Mr. Standish. ’Appy now? Yer asks more questions than a parson.”

“Lily white because they’re so very dirty? Oh, that’s very good,” she commented, smiling at Jeremy, her heart wrung by his offhanded reference to what must have been a terrible experience. “But what’s an active citizen?”

Jeremy put his head down, scuffing one bare foot against the gravel path. “Lice,” he mumbled, then raised his head to fairly shout: “An’ ’e ain’t stickin’ Jeremy ’Olloway’s ’air in no tar an’ shavin’ it! Oi’ll skewer ’im first—an’ so Oi telled ’im, jist afore Oi kicked ’im an’ loped off! ’E didn’t foller me, ’cause ’e ’ates the ground Oi dirties an’ wants me gone. ’E telled me so ’imself.”

“Mon Dieu! There you are, you vilain moineau, you nasty sparrow! Please to grab his ear, mademoiselle, so that I might cage him! I have the water hot, and the scissors is at the ready!”

More rapidly than she could react, the scene exploded before her eyes. A thin, harried-looking Frenchman appeared in front of her, a stout rope in one hand, a large empty sack in the other, and Jeremy Holloway disappeared, faster than a gold piece vanishes into a beggar’s pocket.

“You have let for him to escape me again!” the Frenchman accused, his watery eyes narrowed as he glared at her.

“You frightened him, the poor boy,” she accused, feeling protective.

“Please not to put in your grain of salt, mademoiselle,” he returned nastily, drawing himself up to his full height. “I have been run to the rags searching for the small monster. I have been made sore with trying.”

She understood. In that moment she understood something else as well—Jeremy’s words coming back to her—and the light of battle entered her eyes. “Oh, do be quiet, froggie,” she ordered, privately pleased with herself.

“Froggie!” The servant’s head snapped back with the insult, as if he had been slapped.

They stood there, the pair of them frozen in their aggressive stances for several seconds, then Duvall opened his mouth to speak. Fortunately for his opponent, something else took his attention just as he was about to begin, for his response to her name-calling was sure to be terrible, if unintelligible to anyone not familiar with gutter French.

“I say, Duvall, must I do everything for you?” asked a weary voice from somewhere behind them, and both of them turned to see Pierre Standish coming down the pathway, Jeremy Holloway’s left earlobe firmly inched between his thumb and forefinger. “I set you a simple chore, and now, more than four and twenty hours later, the evidence of your failure has barreled into me as I attempted to take the afternoon air. I cannot adequately express my disappointment, Duvall, truly I cannot. Ah, good afternoon, Miss Penance. You’re looking well. My congratulations on your rapid recovery since this morning. One can only hope your disposition is now as sunny as your appearance.”

She placed her fists on her hips. “You let go of that poor, innocent boy this instant, you monster!”

Pierre’s social smile remained intact. “Oh dear, I deduce that I have once again raised myself up only to open myself to a fall. Obviously you are to be perpetually tiresome, Miss Penance. But it is of no matter if you are quite set on such a course, as you are not my problem. This urchin, however, is my concern. Be still, Master Holloway, if you please,” he asked of the squirming Jeremy, “as it would pain me to box your ears. Duvall, are you going to allow me to be thwarted in my zeal to accomplish a good deed? If nothing else, please consider the fate of my immortal soul.”

Duvall began to wring his hands, his entire posture one of pitiable subservience. “Ask of me to cut off my two hands, good sir, and I will gladly make them a gift to you. Have my tongue to be ripped out with the pincers and served up to the dogs for dinner—order hot spikes to be driven under my fingernails. Anything, dear sir! Anything but, but”—he gestured toward Jeremy—“but this!”

“Come, come, Duvall,” Pierre scolded, advancing another step. “Don’t be so bashful. How often have I begged you to consider yourself free to express your innermost thoughts? Tell me how you really feel. Help him, Miss Penance. Explain to my dear Duvall that he shouldn’t keep such a tight rein on his emotions.”

Miss Penance, as even she had begun to think of herself, narrowed her eyes as she ran her gaze assessingly up and down the elegantly clad Pierre Standish. “You look better dressed,” she said at last, although the tone of her voice did not hint at any great improvement over his banyan and bare, hairy legs. “The only thing remaining to be done to make you passably bearable would be to put a gag in your mouth. You are, Mr. Standish, by and large, the most insufferable, arrogant, nasty creature it has ever been my misfortune to encounter! How dare you maul that poor child that way? How dare you insult this man, who is obviously your slave?”

Ignoring her insults, Pierre honed in on one thing she had said. “Of all the creatures you have met, Miss Penance? May I deduce from this that you have regained your memory? Shall I have Duvall order a celebratory feast?”