CHAPTER SIX

I know, I had said the naiad was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, but she had been wet and dirty, and, even though she looked like she’d risen out of a Pre-Raphaelite pond, unmistakably Twenty-First Century.

Just as the creature on the bridge was unmistakably Nineteenth. No historian, no matter how casually she caught up her trailing white skirts with a kid-gloved hand, no matter how erect she held her head on her aristocratic neck, could hope to capture the quality of stillness, of clear-eyed innocence of the girl on the bridge. She was like a delicate blossom, capable of growing only in a single time, adapted only to the select hothouse environment of the late Victorian era: the untouched flower, the blooming English rose, the angel in the house. She would be extinct in only a handful of years, replaced by the bicycling bloomer girl, the cigarette-smoking flapper and the suffragette.

A terrible melancholy swept over me. I could never have her. Standing there with her white parasol and her clear greenish-brown-eyed gaze, the image of youth and beauty, she was long since married to Terence, long since dead and buried in a churchyard like the one at the top of the hill.

“To port,” Terence said. “No, to port!” He rowed rapidly toward the side of the bridge, where there were several stakes, presumably for tying the boat up.

I grabbed the rope, jumped out into squishy mud, and looped the rope.

Terence and Cyril were already out of the boat and climbing the steep bank up to the bridge.

I tied a very lumpish-looking knot, wishing Finch had included a subliminal tape on half-hitches and sheepshanks, and that there were some way to lock the boat.

This is the Victorian era, I reminded myself, when people could trust each other and the earnest young man gets the girl and is probably already kissing her on the bridge.

He wasn’t. He was standing on the muddy bank, looking vaguely round. “I don’t see her,” he said, looking directly at the vision, “but her cousin’s here, and there’s the landau,” he pointed at an open carriage standing on the hill next to the church, “so she must still be here. What time is it?” He pulled out his pocket watch to look at it. “You don’t suppose they’ve sent her cousin to tell me she’s not to see me. If she—” he said, and broke into a wide smile.

A girl in ruffles appeared on the bank above us. Her white dress had ruffles on the skirt and ruffles on the yoke and ruffles on the sleeves. Her parasol had ruffles round the edges, too, and her short white gloves, and all of the ruffles were in motion, like flags being carried into battle. There weren’t any ruffles on her hat, but, to compensate it had a large batch of fluttering pink ribbons, and her blonde hair under the hat curled and bounced with every stray breeze.

“Look, Cousin, it’s Mr. St. Trewes,” she said, and started down the slope, which set everything into a flurry of motion. “I told you he would come!”

“Tossie,” the vision in white said reprovingly, but Tossie was already running toward the towpath, catching her flounced skirts up just enough to reveal the toes of very small feet in white boots, and taking dainty little steps.

She reached the edge of the riverbank and stopped — comparatively, that is — fluttered her eyelashes at us, and addressed Cyril. “Did the dearie doggums come to see his Tossie? Did he know his Tossie missed her sweetums Cyril?”

Cyril looked appalled.

“He’s been goodums, hasn’t he?” Tossie cooed. “But his master’s been a naughty bad boy. He didn’t come and didn’t come.”

“We were delayed,” Terence interjected. “Professor Peddick—”

“Tossie was afwaid her tardy boy’d forgotten all about her, wasn’t her, Cywil?”

Cyril gave Terence a look of resignation and ambled forward to have his head petted.

“O! O!” Tossie said, and somehow managed to make it sound exactly like I’d seen it written in Victorian novels. “O!”

Cyril stopped, confused, and looked at Terence, and then started forward again.

“Bad, bad dog!” Tossie said, and pursed her lips into a series of tiny screams. “The horrid creature will muss my dress. It’s silk muslin.” She fluttered her skirts away from him. “Papa had it made for me in Paris.”

Terence lunged forward and grabbed Cyril, who had already backed away, by his collar. “You frightened Miss Mering,” he said sternly, and shook his finger at him. “I apologize for Cyril’s behavior,” he said, “and for my tardiness. There was a near-drowning, and we had to save my tutor.”

The cousin came up. “Hello, Cyril,” she said kindly and bent to scratch him behind the ears. “Hello, Mr. St. Trewes. How nice to meet you again.” Her voice was quiet and cultured, without a hint of baby-talk. “Does your being here mean you’ve found Princess Arjumand?”

“Yes, do tell us,” Tossie said belatedly. “Have you found my poor lost Juju?”

“Alas, no,” Terence said, “but we intend to continue the search. This is Mr. Henry. Mr. Henry, Miss Mering and Miss Brown.”

“How do you do, Miss Mering, Miss Brown,” I said, tipping my straw boater as the subliminals had instructed.

“Mr. Henry and I have hired a boat,” he gestured toward the foot of the bridge, where the nose of the boat was just visible, “and we intend to explore every inch of the Thames.”

“That’s very good of you,” Miss Brown said, “but I have no doubt that when we return home this evening, we shall find she has returned safe and sound.”

“Home?” Terence said, dismayed.

“Yes!” Tossie said. “We’re to return to Muchings End tonight. Mama has had a message that we are needed there.”

“I hope nothing unfortunate has happened to call you home,” Terence said.

“Oh, no,” Tossie said, “it wasn’t a message like that. It was from the Other Side. It said, ‘Return to Muching’s End to await your happy Fate,’ so Mama is determined to go at once. We’re taking the train this evening.”

“Yes,” Miss Brown said. “We should be returning to Madame Iritosky’s.” She extended a kid-gloved hand. “Thank you for your kindness in looking for Princess Arjumand. So nice to have met you, Mr. Henry.”

“Oh, but we mustn’t go back now, Cousin Verity,” Tossie said. “Our train isn’t till half-past six. And Mr. St. Trewes and Mr. Henry haven’t seen the church.”

“It is a long way to Madame Iritosky’s home,” Cousin Verity protested, “and your mother particularly said we were to be back for tea.”

“We’ve plenty of time,” Tossie said. “We’ll tell Baine to drive very fast. Wouldn’t you like to see the church, Mr. St. Trewes?”

“I’d love to,” Terence said fervently. Cyril trotted happily up between them.

Tossie hesitated prettily. “Shouldn’t Cyril stay by the boat?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Terence said. “Cyril, you must stay.”

“He could wait outside the lychgate,” I offered, but it was no use. Terence was too far gone.

“Stay, Cyril,” he commanded.

Cyril gave him the look Julius Caesar must have given Brutus, and lay down on the shadeless bank, his head on his paws.

“Don’t let any bad, bad mans steal the boat,” Tossie said. “You must be a brave, brave doggums.” She unfurled her parasol and started up the path. “It’s the cunningest little church. So quaint and old-fashioned. People come from miles about to see it. I do love sights, don’t you? Mama has promised to take us to Hampton Court next week.” She led the way up the hill, chattering to Terence, and the vision and I followed.

Tossie was correct about the church, and people did “come from miles about to see it,” if the signs posted were any indication. They began at the foot of the hill with a hand-lettered placard that said, “Keep to path.” This was followed by, “No tours during church services,” “Keep off grass,” and “Picking flowers forbidden.”