Taking leave of the happy old student, Doctor Syn entered the shop and in a few minutes was handling tenderly the fine copy of Virgil referred to.
‘As I received it, I deliver it,’ explained the bookseller, ‘though I should like to remove these untidy slips of paper which some reader has cluttered it up with. Book-marks, no doubt. But they spoil the appearance of such a beautiful piece of printing. The fellow has undoubtedly torn up an old letter for the purpose. I cannot read the French myself. Used to regret it, having so many fine volumes in my shop that I could not understand. But since they started losing their manners as well as their heads, I have no mind to lose any sleep studying the language of such barbarians.’
Doctor Syn had already examined one of the slips in question, and with a twinkle of satisfaction in his eyes he answered: ‘This reader was at least not barbaric enough to mark the book with his own notes. Do not trouble to remove the markers. I will take them with the book. ’Twill be interesting to see if he has penned any erudite ideas.’
A quarter of an hour later the volume lay on the table beside Doctor Syn as he breakfasted in Haxell’s Coffee Room whose windows looked out upon the busy Strand. His walk had put him in good appetite and he thoroughly enjoyed a generous helping of grilled ham and eggs. But while waiting for the second cover, he picked up the book, and a close observer might well have been surprised to see him paying far more attention to what was written on the book-markers than upon the exquisite volume itself. He would have been more surprised still had he known what was written on those same book-markers. But why should anyone pay the slightest attention to such a normal sight as a scholarly cleric engrossed upon the French translation of a classic while enjoying a typical English breakfast?
And so, at five minutes past ten the warning notes of a coach-horn cleared the traffic in front of Haxell’s, as with a flourish and jingling of harness the Dover coach pulled up, and Doctor Syn stepped inside.
* * * * *
Yet another traveller had been awakened that morning in time to make preparation for the same journey. In the large bedroom of the best suite that the ‘Golden Keys’ could offer, propped up by pillows in a gigantic four-poster, sat a little old lady. From beneath the frills of a modish night-cap twinkled a pair of intelligent bird-like eyes, while over the rim of a tankard of small ale her aristocratic nose made her look like the proverbial early bird in search of the worm.
The small, shapely hands holding the tankard seemed to be weighed down by the vast collection of rings that she wore on almost every finger, while at her wrists innumerable bracelets jingled and flashed, as she gave orders to a French lady’s-maid. Beside the bed was perched an enormous white wig in the style that had been favoured by the ladies of the French Court, and which at the moment the maid was dressing. Upon the bed, curled up on the old lady’s feet, brushed and beribboned, looking like another wig, lay a white poodle, sleepily regarding his mistress out of one eye and paying not the slightest attention to the open jewel-case under his nose, for indeed he knew he was wearing his own jewellery — golden bracelets hung with little bells that tinkled merrily when he moved his two front paws.
Finishing her small ale with a gusto slightly incongruous for so frail a lady she put down the tankard and gave the tapestry bell-pull a vigorous jerk, which brought scurrying feet along the corridor, and an answering tap upon the door. The old lady raised herself and prodded the white dog with a playful bejewelled finger. ‘Come now, Mister Pitt. ’Tis time for your morning perambulation.’ Then, speaking to the maid: ‘Lisette, open the door for Mister Pitt, and tell the chambermaid to take him downstairs and see that he amuses himself in the yard. And see that he really amuses himself, for the poor gentleman will be cooped up in a stuffy old coach all day, and you know what happened on the journey to Aberdeen on my best tartan travelling-rug.’
With a disapproving sniff, Lisette swept the dog from the bed and handed him over to the chambermaid, returning to her work at the wig-stand and punctuating the rolling of each curl with a fresh sniff.
‘Whatever is the matter, woman?’ snapped the old lady. ‘Have you caught a cold? Can you not use your pocket handkerchief?’
To which Lisette — a solid, angular woman with the nimblest fingers and the slowest brain — replied with spirit: ‘Oh, madame, ’tis this ’orrid journey. Already we travel the week and no sooner do we arrive in a nice city like London than we must on again to this terrible place called Marsh. I talk ’ere with a serving-wench who say she will not visit Marsh for all the tea in China. Do you know, madame, that there they ’as terrible ’appenings. There are apparitions on horse-backs and they do say the sea is higher than the land, and I cannot see how that can be. Oh, madame, we shall drown!’
‘Fiddlesticks, woman!’ cried the old lady. ‘Serve you right if you did drown for listening to postboys’ tales. There’s a perfectly good sea wall that will keep you from paddling. Get on with my packing and give me my hand-mirror and the patch-box.’
Lisette did as she was told but continued protesting. ‘Madame is not of the nervous disposition, but after these tales I have the horrible nightmares. I do not want to go to this Marsh where the peoples are made crazy by living Scarecrows.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ retorted the old lady, snapping the lid of the patch-box, and sticking the latest fashion in patches on her powdered cheek, which, curiously enough, happened to be a tiny figure of a Scarecrow. ‘You know as well as I do that Romney Marsh is ruled by my own niece’s husband, Sir Antony Cobtree, whose house is within sight of your French coast. So if you don’t like the Marsh, you can paddle to Calais, where I warrant you’d have worse nightmares, if they were good enough to leave you a head to dream with.’ So saying, the old lady got out of bed, her frills and flounces quivering angrily as, no higher than the mattress she had just slid from, she announced, ‘For my part, I should rather like to meet this Scarecrow. I’d scare him.’
Which remark appeared to scare Lisette, who began to think that the horrors of her native France might be worse than the outlandish place she was about to visit. So she stopped grumbling, and knowing the old lady was ready for her breakfast did her best to hasten her mistress’s toilet, which was successfully accomplished by the time Mister Pitt returned from his amusement.
For so small a lady she partook of the largest breakfast served in the coffee room, criticising the abominable method of cooking porridge south of the Border, and praising the quality of the grilled steak, and the excellence of the cold game pie.
Allowing herself a glass of Madeira, she was, therefore, in the best of humours when the proprietor, anxious to please so distinguished a guest, personally escorted her to the coach. So despite her seventy-odd years, which she defied in a gay velvet travelling-dress, her face more bird-like than ever beneath the enormous white wig, and resembling from behind a miniature snowman wrapped in a white ermine cloak, Miss Agatha Gordon, of Beldorney and Kildrummy, stepped into the Dover coach, followed by Lisette and the barking Mister Pitt.