Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

“If this is where you come to be alone, Trimmers, I would premise that there are more isolate places than this so obvious trysting spot.”

“Do you judge these people, Antonia?” I retorted in a lightly adversarial tone.

“Absolutely not. When it comes to morality, I’m a neutralist. I judge only my feet. Which hurt.” Quickly checking her querulous demeanour: “I’m sorry, Trimmers. I know that you’re worried about your brother and I am being insensibly petulant. Forgive me.”

I nodded. Mrs. Wang-Wang came to take our orders. Once given, Antonia resumed, “And I cannot quarrel with your reason for bringing us here. Estella Lumbey and I have been like oil and water for so long that I don’t even recall a time when we were ever friends. The last thing I should wish to do is make you uncomfortable by insinuating myself into her presence, knowing what could come of that. Moreover, my own apartments are being painted, so this place is the perfect alternative. Quite discreet. Discretion, in fact, appears to be its hallmark.”

This last statement was made, I have no doubt, to elicit a smile from me, but I could not bring myself to it. It was difficult for me even to concentrate on what Antonia was saying, so plagued with worry was I over Gus’s decision a week ago, apparently fully executed, to go off and look for his son. The fact that he had yet to return augured a tragic outcome, and deeply hampered my ability to think of anything else. It was all that I could do to look at the card that Antonia now slid across the table for my examination.

“What is this?” I asked, picking it up.

“The engraved invitation I was telling you about. I do not recognise the paper upon which it was printed. Notice, as well, that there is gilding along the edge. We do not gild in Dingley Dell. What little gold comes into this valley, as well you know, quickly finds its way into the mouths of our richest citizens as dental fillings. The invitation was most certainly printed in the Outland.”

Here was the invitation:

You are most cordially invited to a Fête champêtre

to celebrate a century of trade

upon the Summit of Exchange

2:00 pm, Tuesday, July 15, 2003

“Now turn over the card and look at the reverse,” instructed Antonia. On the back were several words pencilled by a hasty hand: “portmanteau, bandbox, hatbox.” I stared hard at the scrawled inventory. “Do you suppose this was inscribed by Mrs. Pyegrave herself?”

Antonia nodded. “Because I believe that once received, the card never left her possession — that is, not until Mr. Toddles extracted it with his slobbering canines.”

“It was as if she wished to take it to the very grave with her,” I said.

Now Antonia shook her head. “Or perhaps her true intention was quite the opposite. That if her voice was to be silenced, she would allow the card to speak in her stead, post mortem, as it were.”

“And what does the card mean, Antonia, besides the fact that there is to be a celebratory festival on the Summit on the 15th?”

“I will make a guess, Trimmers, but first let me tell you what I have learnt from a wise little owl who sits upon his perch in Judge Fitz-Marshall’s chambers.”

“Mr. Meagles.”

“That very bird.” Antonia leant forward to convey a confidence through a whisper: “I shewed him the card, and once he had recovered from the shock of seeing it in my own grossly illegitimate hands, he actually became somewhat receptive to my enquiry. The card does indeed in its professed purpose invite the bearer to a fête to be held upon the Summit of Exchange — an exclusive gathering to which only the ruling elite have been summoned, ostensibly to honour and celebrate the long amity between our brokers and the Outland tradesmen. Now I didn’t shew Mr. Meagles the words on the back, not knowing even to this day how much I should trust him, but he did lead me a few steps in the right direction by hinting that there could be some other even more important objective than the stated one.”

“That objective confirmed by Mrs. Pyegrave’s directions to herself of what she could carry with her thither.”

Antonia nodded. “Putting down what she had been told by mouth: ‘portmanteau, bandbox, hatbox.’ When do we use such items, Trimmers?

“In the course of travel,” said I, stating the obvious.

“And where would one travel from the Summit that should require the use of luggage ?”

“Clearly out and away from the Dell and into the Outland.”

“Capital deduction!” Antonia tucked the invitation back into her reticule. “But let us say, rather, permanently into the Outland. For it is quite clear to me now, Trimmers, that the High and Mighty Bashaws of Dingley Dell are flying the coop. The date of their flight is July 15, and the stalking-horse is the fête. And what are we to do about it? Not a blessed thing, Trimmers. Not a blessed thing.”

“And why should we wish to do anything about it?”

“For reason of what may come next. Why would they flee a place, unless that place — with all that they presently gain from their ascendance and dominion here — be one in which things are set to take some sort of very different turn?”

“Perhaps trade is about to be terminated.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps something worse is in the offing. I cannot imagine it. I cannot imagine the reason for it. There is too much that we don’t know, Trimmers. But I surmise that everything we do not know should be regarded as cause for alarm. I wish to invite you to a special meeting—”

“The next gathering of the Fortnightly Poetry League?”

Antonia nodded with a look of amused astonishment. “How have you come to know of our private league?”

“Muntle has told me. And he’s already extended me an invitation. And I now know the identities of two of its four members. If I am lucky, I will learn all of your names even before the meeting convenes.”

“You are actually quite lucky,” said Antonia, turning to send a nodding greeting to the two most recently arrived of that day’s visitors to the WangWang tearoom, Vicar Upwitch and Uriah Graham. “For the gentlemen in question have just entered the room.”

I nodded and they nodded, and then they joined Mr. Chestle and Mr. Glamour, who was adjusting his wristbands to shuffle cards whilst his friend Chestle peeped coquettishly from behind an oriental handfan.

Vincent Muntle stood looking about the Chowser School grounds and shaking his head. “I cannot find it. Is it invisible?”

“Is what invisible?” asked Maggy Finching, who stood next to him, looking not about the grounds but up into the sheriff ’s searching eyes.

“The greenhouse. From which the cabbage sprouts were allegedly stolen.”

Maggy began to giggle. “I must return to the kitchen and begin preparations for the evening meal. We have an extra mouth to feed this night and I want our special guest to be happily sated by evening’s end.”

Muntle grinned. “So I am staying the night, am I?”

“And another night or two as well, if I am to have my way,” chuckled Maggy with a carefree fillip of the finger to Muntle’s nose.

“So there never was a stolen sprout.”

“Nor is there even a greenhouse, you silly puss — only a few cabbageless hotbeds. I brought you here under blatantly false pretenses. Are you cross with me?”

“On the contrary. I commend the ingenuity behind all of your subterfuges — even the one that engineered that chance meeting on Drood Lane.”