“I…” Mrs. Mering said, and Tossie and the curate both turned to look at her. She was looking at the bishop’s bird stump, and she had an odd, tentative look on her face.
“What is it, Mama?” Tossie said.
Mrs. Mering put her hand uncertainly to her bosom and frowned slightly, the way people do when they are trying to decide whether they have chipped a tooth.
“Are you ill?” Terence said, taking hold of her arm.
“No,” she said. “I’ve just had the oddest feeling… it…” She frowned. “I was looking at the…” she waved the hand that had been on her bosom at the bishop’s bird stump, “…and all at once, I…”
“You received a spirit message?” Tossie said.
“No, not a message,” Mrs. Mering said, probing at the tooth. “It… I had the oddest feeling…”
“A premonition?” Tossie prompted.
“Yes,” Mrs. Mering said thoughtfully. “You…” She frowned, as if trying to remember a dream, and then turned and stared at the bishop’s bird stump. “It had… We must go home at once.”
“Oh, but you can’t go yet,” Verity said.
“I so wanted to discuss the Treasure Hunt with you,” the curate said, looking disappointedly at Tossie. “And the arrangement of the fancy goods tables. Can’t you at least stay to tea?”
“Baine!” Mrs. Mering said, ignoring both of them.
“Yes, madam,” Baine, who had gone back over by the south door, said.
“Baine, we must return home at once,” Mrs. Mering said, and started across the nave toward him.
Baine hurried to meet her, bringing an umbrella. “Has something happened?” he said.
“I have had a Warning,” Mrs. Mering said, looking much more like herself. “When is the next train?”
“In eleven minutes,” he said immediately. “But it is a local train. The next express to Reading isn’t till 4:18.”
“Bring the carriage round,” she said. “Then run ahead to the station and tell them to hold the train for us. And take down that umbrella. It’s bad luck to have an open umbrella indoors. Bad luck!” She clutched her heart. “Oh, what if we are too late?”
Baine was struggling to get the umbrella furled. I took it from him, and he nodded gratefully and took off for the station, running.
“Wouldn’t you like to sit down, Aunt Malvinia?” Verity asked.
“No, no,” Mrs. Mering said, shaking off her hand. “Go and see if the carriage is here yet. Is it still raining?”
It was, and the carriage was. Terence and the driver helped her down the steps and bundled her and her travelling skirts into it.
I took advantage of the momentary delay to shake the curate’s hand. “Thank you so much for showing us the church, Mr.—?” I said.
“Mr. Henry!” Mrs. Mering called from the carriage. “We shall miss our train.”
The south door banged open, and Miss Sharpe emerged and walked rapidly down the steps past us and up Bayley Street. The curate looked after her.
“Goodbye,” Tossie said, leaning out the window. “I should so love to see St. Pancras.”
I tried again, my foot on the carriage step. “Good luck with your church bazaar, Mr.—?”
“Thank you,” he said absently. “Goodbye, Mrs. Mering, Miss Mering. If you will excuse me—” He hurried after Miss Sharpe. “Miss Sharpe!” he called. “Wait! Delphinium! Dellie!”
“I don’t believe I caught your name—” I said, leaning out the window.
“Mr. Henry!” Mrs. Mering snapped. “Driver!” And we rattled off.
“Every man meets his Waterloo at last.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The trip home closely resembled Napoleon’s retreat from Waterloo: a great deal of panic, hurry, and confusion, followed by inaction and despair. Jane nearly got left behind in the scramble for the station, Mrs. Mering threatened to faint again, and there was another cloudburst just as we rolled up. Terence nearly poked Tossie in the eye trying to get the umbrellas up.
Baine was holding the train by brute force. “Hurry,” I said to Mrs. Mering, helping her out of the hansom cab, “the train’s pulling out.”
“No, no, it mustn’t leave without us,” she said, sounding genuinely urgent. “My premonition—”
“Then we must hurry,” Verity said, taking her other arm, and we propelled her across the platform to first-class.
The station guard, still arguing with Baine, gave up at the sight of Tossie struggling with her skirts and her ruffled parasol and helped her board, tipping his hat gallantly. “I know,” I muttered. “Get his name.”
There was no time to find a porter. Terence and I, ignoring the conventions of class, grabbed the hampers, satchel, parcels, rugs, and Jane out of the hansom cab and flung them willy-nilly into the second-class carriage.
I ran back to pay the driver, who tore off as soon as the money was in his hands as if Blücher's Prussians were after him, and ran back onto the platform. The train had started to move, its heavy wheels turning in a slow but mounting acceleration. The station guard stepped back from the edge of the platform, his hands clasped behind his back. “What’s your name?” I gasped, running up.
Whatever he answered, the train’s whistle drowned it out completely. The train began to pick up speed.
“What?” I shouted. The whistle blew again.
“What?” he shouted.
“Your name,” I said.
“Ned!” Terence shouted from the first-class platform. “Come on then!”
“I’m coming. What’s your name?” I shouted to the guard and jumped for it.
I missed. My right hand caught the brass railing and I hung there for an instant. Terence grabbed my left arm and hauled me up onto the step. I grasped the railing and turned around. The station guard was trotting toward the station, his head ducked into his pulled-up collar.
“Your name!” I shouted into the rain, but he had already disappeared into the station.
“What was that all about?” Terence said. “You very nearly ended up like Anna Karenina.”
“Nothing,” I said. “Which is our compartment?”
“Third back,” he said and started down the corridor to where Verity stood, looking back at the platform, which was now rapidly receding from us. Rain poured down on its empty boards.
“ ‘Thy fate is the common fate of all,’ ” Terence quoted. “ ‘Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary,’ ” and opened the compartment door. Mrs. Mering sat slumped against the cushions in a state of semicollapse, holding a lace-edged handkerchief to her nose.
“Are you certain Tossie’s mother wasn’t the one who had the life-changing experience?” I whispered to Verity.
“Mr. Henry, Verity, do come in and sit down,” Mrs. Mering said, waving the handkerchief. I caught a blast of Parma violets. “And shut the door. You’re causing a draft.”
We came in. I shut the door. We sat down.
“ ‘And homeward bound we wend our merry way,’ ” Terence quoted, smiling at everyone.
No one smiled back. Mrs. Mering sniffed at her handkerchief, Verity looked worried, and Tossie, huddled in the corner, positively glared at him.
If she had had a life-altering experience, she certainly didn’t look it. She looked tired and sulky and damp. Her ruffled organdy was limp and non-fluttering, and her golden curls had begun to frizz.
“We might at least have stayed for tea, Mama,” she said fretfully. “The curate intended to ask us, I’m sure of it. It isn’t as if this were the only train. If we’d taken the 5:36, we’d have had plenty of time for tea.”
“When one has a dreadful premonition,” Mrs. Mering said, obviously feeling better, “one does not stop for tea.” She waved the handkerchief, and I got another staggering whiff of violets. “I tried to tell Mesiel he should come with us.”