Byrd's-Eye View by Chautona Havig

Author:Chautona Havig [Havig, Chautona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Havilah Press Publications
Published: 2020-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

With her hat on and coat in hand, Madeline hurried through the dining room, fumbling for a sleeve. Her father called after her, “Going out?”

“Just grabbing cookies for the trolley…”

His next question as she dashed back through, certain she’d miss the trolley, stopped her in her tracks. “I thought you had a meeting here this morning? Louisa said something about a ‘Sherlock Society?’”

Her heart sank. “Oh, dear. I forgot all about it. Aunt Louisa asked me if I’d do it, and since it was an obvious attempt for something we could do together that I would enjoy, I agreed. Ugh.”

“I take it you haven’t requested Cook make refreshments, then?”

“Oh, double ugh!” When that didn’t sound irritated enough, Madeline tried again. “Ugh cubed! To the tenth power!”

Her father rose from his place at the table and took her coat from her. “You let Cook know you’ll need tea and cocoa. I’ll send Werner’s boy around with tea cakes and ask Louisa to bring some sandwiches.”

She would have agreed, but two things redirected her thoughts. “Don’t do that, Papa. I’ll see if Mary is willing to fetch some from the tearoom on Parkview. Their tea is dreadful, but the sandwiches are wonderful. I don’t think Aunt Louisa can afford many extravagances right now.”

After a moment’s thought, her father nodded. “I’ve noticed that myself. I had to beg her to take my money and buy you a new hat just to get her to go shopping the other day.”

“And I thought you loved me.”

“She picked out a beautiful one!” He winked. “Once…”

Before she could be sidetracked by his teasing, Madeline pointed to his cuffs. “That link is missing its stone. Isn’t it onyx?” She peered around to the other side. “Yes. Here. Let me have those. I’ll take them in to be fixed after the meeting adjourns.”

She took the links and set them in the small dish on the entry table used for keeping spare change for messengers, hat pins, and at times like this, cuff links. “I’ll dash up to get your blue agate? The gold?” Still, her father didn’t respond. “Marcasite?”

“Those will do well. Thank you.”

Feeling rather formal today, are you?

The next hour passed in a tizzy of activity, none of which actually accomplished anything of substance. Madeline rearranged her hair into something less serviceable and more to Charles Gibson’s poufy preference. Her blue serge skirt and shirtwaist had been swapped out for a day dress she’d only worn a couple of times. The dusty robin’s egg blue and dark chocolate brown accents added the sort of chic to the ensemble that would please Aunt Louisa greatly.

That woman bustled into the house twenty minutes early and with a large silver tray of canapes in her arms. “It’s ghastly out there,” she exclaimed as the wind sucked the door shut behind her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if no one came today!”

However, come they did. A whole gaggle of giggling young ladies carrying copies of The Strand or The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Esther Grueber even wore a sort of Ulster coat complete with a hat with tied up earflaps.

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