Maggie MacKeever (6 page)

Chapter Five

As Rosemary was encountering nemesis in the guise of Madame Eugénie, and Fennel was striking up a fateful acquaintance with Phoebe Holloway, their sister Angelica was taking the first step upon the pathway toward her own unwitting destiny. Her emotions, at this most important of moments, were distinctly mundane: she was cold and cross, nervous at her imminent interview with the hard-to-please Sir Randall Brisbane, and fagged half to death by worry about her addlepated siblings. So very low were Angelica’s spirits, as she descended from the hackney-coach and warily approached Sir Randall’s residence, that she entertained an uncharitable wish to have been born an only child.

Sir Randall Brisbane dwelt on the outskirts of London in a rambling brick structure surrounded by extensive grounds. All appeared in good order, Angelica decided, as she peered cautiously into the thick fog. Valerian’s remarks about Sir Randall’s eccentricities struck her in retrospect as ominous. Angelica inhaled deeply, then raised a gloved hand to rap sharply at the door.

Before she could do so, the door swung open. Angelica stared at the butler, discomposed.

“You’ll be the young lady Sir Randall is expecting,” said that worthy, in a manner so genial as must have seen him immediately condemned by his fellows, butlers being as a rule even more starched-up than their masters, experts in the art of chilling with a glance. “If you will follow me, miss?”

Angelica did so. The butler led her, not as she had expected into the entryway, but around the side of the red brick house to a garden. He indicated a doorway in one of the high walls. “If you will enter, miss?” And then, to Angelica’s utter stupefaction, he tipped her a wink.

Warily, she set her hand upon the door latch; cautiously, she pushed. Had Angelica at that moment followed her own inclination, she would have taken to her heels. Eccentric, was Sir Randall? If he made it a habit to interview prospective employees in the garden on cold and bitter days, he was more than eccentric. But Rosemary’s future hung in the balance. Angelica must persevere.

She stepped into the garden; behind her the door swung shut. Before her spread a vista so staggeringly bizarre that all powers of reflection escaped Angelica—though, had she been capable of reflection, she would have decided without hesitation that Sir Randall was definitely beyond the bounds of everyday eccentricity, was, in fact, distinctly queer.

The garden covered perhaps two acres and included all the sorts of vegetation ordinary to such spots. The weather being unfavorable to such vegetation, the garden at the present predominated with bare branches and twigs that protruded in a grotesque manner through the fog. But this fact did not account for Angelica’s befuddlement, nor should it: not a garden in all of London did not suffer a similar plight. Among the barren vegetation wandered a menagerie the likes of which Angelica had never viewed, and had never hoped to view. Some she recognized—a zebra, two panthers, some sheep and a ram. All appeared to coexist most amicably.

“Gracious!” she said faintly, then gasped as a huge and shaggy shape emerged from the fog. Feeling rather foolish, and very much relieved, Angelica discovered that the ominous figure was not her prospective employer but a buffalo.

“Don’t let them frighten you, girl!” came a pleasantly gruff voice, from the vicinity of a marble bench. “They’re only curious. For that matter, so am I! Come closer and let us have a look at you.”

Gingerly, Angelica threaded her way through the wildlife which, she was relieved to discover, were not so friendly as to force unwelcome attentions on her. On the far end of the marble bench was perched an elderly gentleman, muffled to his bewhiskered chin in outdoor attire. From beneath his disreputable hat, which was pulled well down over his ears, protruded sparse snow-white hair. On his nose sat a pair of spectacles. “Sir Randall?” Angelica inquired, timidly.

“Can’t see a curst thing in this murk!” replied the gentleman, irritably. “Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not a wretched nuisance to grow old. Although I daresay the beasts are glad enough of my infirmities! I meant to dissect the brutes, but neither my hands nor my eyes are what they used to be. Don’t stand there gawking, girl; that much I
can
see! Sit down! I have quite enough people hovering over me.”

Abruptly Angelica sat, unsure whether to be horrified or amused. Stunned, she watched a very queer-looking animal approach Sir Randall, drop awkwardly to its knees, and place its head in the doctor’s lap. “This is a shawl goat from the East Indies,” said he. “Those sheep you see are from Turkey. I had wanted a whale but, alas! It was not to be.”

With all her might, Angelica strove to restrain an inclination to laugh out loud. She diffidently suggested that, were Sir Randall to wipe the moisture from his spectacles, he might find his vision a trifle more clear.

Sir Randall did so, in the process revealing a round and cherubic countenance. He replaced the glasses and regarded Angelica. “You don’t want for sense.” The admission was made grudgingly. “Nor did you go all mawkish at the notion of dissection, which is a point in your favor. Why not, eh?” Sir Randall scratched the goat’s neck. The goat looked blissful and made noises strongly suggestive of a wish to purr. “Are you one of those newfangled females who think it is modern to be thick-skinned?”

Considering the temperature of the foggy garden, Angelica would not have been regretful were that indeed the case. “My father was a doctor, sir,” she replied. “He made a lifelong study of pathological anatomy, believing that the examination of diseased tissues and organs might lead to a clearer conception of the symptoms and appearances of disease in living patients. I was used to help him prepare his anatomical specimens.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Sir Randall. “A strange pastime for a female.”

“So my mother believed, sir.” Surreptitiously, Angelica chafed her frozen hands. “It all came about when Papa chose to operate on my cat. I insisted on being present—Papa, when engaged in experimentation, was not entirely trustworthy. He was so pleased when I did not, er, cast up my accounts that he immediately determined to make me his assistant.”

“And the cat?” inquired Sir Randall.

“The cat lived for many years, sir.” Angelica gently strove to guide the conversation into more practical channels. How much had Valerian told Sir Randall of the circumstances surrounding her application for this post? “As did Papa, but now he is gone, and I must make my own way in the world.”

“Dear me!” murmured Sir Randall, still scratching the goat. “How very tiresome.”

“I am not without some knowledge,” Angelica persevered. “In addition to assisting Papa, I have read Mr. Matthew Baillie’s
Morbid Anatomy,
and Mr. William Wethering’s
An Account of the Foxglove,
and Mr. Jenner’s work on the causes and effects of the variola vaccine. Unfortunately, I have been unable to keep abreast of such studies since Papa’s death.”

“Jenner, eh?” By this admitted lapse of diligence, Sir Randall did not appear especially disturbed. “Injections of cowpox to inoculate against smallpox. What did you think?”

Angelica briefly forgot her adopted humility. “I think, sir, that for the Royal College of Physicians to refuse to admit Jenner unless he passed the usual examinations in Latin was a great piece of nonsense! And I further applaud him for refusing to take their silly tests.” It occurred to her, tardily, that Sir Randall was undoubtedly a member of that august body. Would he dismiss her without further ado? Angelica eyed a panther that was similarly eyeing her, and hoped Sir Randall would.

He did not. “So I told them at the time,” he said, as he intimated to the goat that it should remove itself from his lap. “That examination is so much poppycock. Membership to the college can be obtained for a down payment of fifty guineas after passing three examinations of twenty minutes each. Any man who is a good classical scholar may pass, yet know nothing of chemistry, medical jurisprudence, surgery and anatomy—as is all too often the case. To that unhappy situation, your brother is one of the rare exceptions.”

Angelica flushed. “He told you.”

“You need not fear that
I
shall blazon about your family difficulties.” Sir Randall inched about on the bench, the better to contemplate his guest. “I give you my word that I shall be silent as the grave. Though with the busy sack-’em-ups, the grave is none too silent these days! Medical instructors are at the mercy of the rascals—but without cadavers the teaching of medicine would come to a halt. One can hardly learn to perform surgery without a subject on which to operate! I myself am a member of a committee formed to impress on the government the necessity for an alteration in the law— but that’s neither here nor there. You may not be aware that my dear wife passed away some years ago, Miss—er. I think we should bestow upon you another name, since all of my household is not so discreet as myself. Smith, I daresay, is innocuous enough. To continue: mine is a bachelor household, Miss Smith. The presence of a young lady, even for a few hours each weekday afternoon, may give rise to gossip.”

Angelica elevated her gaze from the panther to Sir Randall, who was regarding her no less keenly. “It is good of you to concern yourself,” she replied, smiling. “But I cannot imagine who would suspect a female of my appearance of behaving improperly! My family might load me with reproaches were they to learn of it, but my family—excepting Valerian!—are all feather-heads. And since they
won’t
know, it doesn’t signify a straw.”

Sir Randall had listened to these disclosures with an expression indicative of secret disagreement. Angelica interpreted that expression as arising from displeasure with her disregard for the proprieties. “To be blunt, sir,” she added, on a deep intake of breath, “a female in my position can’t afford delicate principles!”

“I did not mean to question your decision, merely to put you on guard.” Stiffly, Sir Randall rose, displaying a stature deficient in inches and cozily corpulent. “The matter is settled, so far as I am concerned. Shall we retire indoors before you turn to ice?”

Upon this display of belated solicitude, Angelica raised her brows. “My household,” Sir Randall explained simply, as he extended his arm in a courtly manner, “is filled with spies. Therefore, I thought our conversation would best be conducted in relative privacy. Do not look so concerned, Miss Smith! Since my watchdogs are constantly at loggerheads—in particular, my butler and my valet—I occasionally manage to do as I please.” Before Angelica could question these statements, Sir Randall launched into a diverting tale of a zealous surgeon once known personally to him, who had with a single swoop of his knife removed a limb, three of his assistant’s fingers, and a spectator’s coat-tails.

This digression saw them into Sir Randall’s study, where he seated Angelica before a blazing fire. Sir Randall, now that she could clearly study him, bore no resemblance to the ogre she had first thought him to be. Instead, engaged in divesting himself of myriad outdoor garments, Sir Randall looked very much like a plump little leprechaun. What hair adorned his round head was confined largely to his jowls; and the eyes behind their spectacles twinkled merrily. “Gave you quite a start, did I?” inquired Sir Randall, acutely. “My apologies, but I had to discover if you would truly do. And I have decided that you will, Miss Smith. Why is it that you’re unmarried? Surely all the gentlemen cannot be so deficient in good taste!”

Wryly, Angelica admitted that all the gentlemen seemed to be. “I do not consider marriage the be-all and end-all,” she continued. “Shocking as it may be of me! I have always thought a female should be allowed the option of doing other with her life than raising a family. Alas, there are few such other options, but perhaps someday… Now you will think me a bluestocking! It is all your fault, sir, for tempting me to ride my favorite hobby-horse.”

“A bluestocking?” Sir Randall’s cherubic face was creased with thought. “What’s wrong with that, pray? My blessed wife was a bluestocking, rest her soul, and though she may have sometimes taken hold of the wrong end of the cow, her views were infinitely curious and interesting. Surely there’s room in this vast world of ours for different points of view?” He eyed the doorway. “Apropos of which, here’s Williams with our tea.”

Indeed it was the butler, gazing upon his employer with a paternal eye. Behind him followed a footman, laden with a heavy tray. “This is Miss Smith, Williams,” offered Sir Randall. “She is about to become one of our happy little family.”

“Very good, sir,” responded the butler, regarding Angelica with an expression that she thought oddly triumphant. “May I say that it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Smith?” So saying he nudged the goggling footman and indicated the door. They exited.

Why triumph? mused Angelica. Had it been her imagination or had Sir Randall spoken of his happy family with a certain irony? But first things first, and Angelica was not certain of what her duties as amanuensis would involve. Delicately, she put forth an inquiry.

“My memoirs?” Sir Randall echoed blankly, around a mouthful of watercress.

“Yes, sir.” Angelica’s new employer was not only eccentric, but exasperating. “Valerian told me you were engaged in writing them. Am I mistaken, sir? It was my impression that you required assistance in that endeavor.”

“Oh,
that.”
Sir Randall swallowed and applied a linen handkerchief to his lips. “To be sure I do—more than you can imagine, Miss Smith! My papers are in such a tangle that I daresay we shall have to start over from scratch.” Balefully, he glanced around the room. “If you will take my advice, you will not mention your, er, friend or our little conversation unless assured of our privacy. In this house, the very walls have ears.”

Considerably taken aback, Angelica followed his gaze. Due to her sister Lily’s rampant curiosity, Angelica was acquainted with the hazards imposed on privacy by eavesdroppers—but she saw only a comfortable, slightly shabby study, which offered no lurking listener an adequate hiding-place.