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Post By The Hooded Hood continues the home-front frolics as our harried heroine takes centre stage Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 08:56:27 am EDT |
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Miss Canterbury and the Lost City of Mystery - Part the Sixteenth: Frampton Parva and the Abandoned Life | |
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| Part the Sixteenth: Frampton Parva and the Abandoned Life The vicarage was empty now, in more ways than one. The London Missionary Society had carefully packed up the late Septimus Canterbury’s books and clothing, his personal effects, all the collected clutter of a nomadic lifetime and had forwarded them to his sister in Southampton. The house would be needed soon for another clergyman. But it was empty as well because Miss Canterbury’s father was no longer there. No longer alive. The vicar’s daughter walked through the rooms one last time, saying her goodbyes. This was the place she had always come back to with her father, after the long marvellous journeys. That was the fireplace where he had read to her from thick leather books, teaching her history and philosophy and geography and so many wonderful things. There was the mantelshelf where the picture of her late mother had sat in its silver frame. And beyond the window, the cottage garden filled with strange cuttings she had brought back from India and Africa and the Middle East. Everyone was being very kind. “No hurry to move,” the Missionary Society assured her. “Sorry to hear about your father. A great man.” “Poor lamb,” Mrs Bantery had coddled over the garden gate, “All alone in the world and nearly murdered in your bed in foreign parts I shouldn’t wonder.” “A great shock,” Aunt Sophia had agreed, “Of course you must come and stay in Southampton with me and Pookings. We don’t have much space but I could clear the spare bedroom…” Miss Canterbury checked through the bureau to make sure she hadn’t left any personal papers. There were a lot of forms to fill in and letters to write, and she didn’t want to let her father down by doing it badly. She made another quick calculation about her assets. When the war began Reverend Canterbury’s private income had been severely diminished when his European stocks became valueless. Miss Canterbury had enough to live on for now, especially if she stayed with Aunt Sophia as expected, but she would have to look for some kind of job. “And why not?” she challenged herself. “I speak six languages, and I can type, and I can… survive crashing aeroplanes and sneak into foreign countries and fight vampires.” She imagined writing that on a résumé and her frown lessened a little. But back here in Frampton Parva, in the quiet English summertime, all of that seemed like a strange dream, her father’s death like a passing nightmare. Except the house was empty, and her life here was finished. “So what am I going to do?” she asked herself out loud. Her future had seemed so clear a few weeks ago. Father was finishing his great trip around the ancient sites of Persia and Babylon, and then back home to write his long-planned book on Sumerian artefacts. And then perhaps a wedding, as Miss Canterbury became Mrs Rodney Farharquar-Phelps. Rodney’s father was rich, a munitions maker, and money would not have been a problem ever again. Rodney was excused military service on medical grounds (he said), and in three months they would have been married. Miss Canterbury shuddered at that. How could she ever have thought she was attracted to that coward? He had collapsed into tears when the Nazis had threatened them, had betrayed her secrets to the very men who had murdered her father. He hadn’t even tried to punch Herr Wertham, or stood up to him under hours of torture, or protected her from Graf Hertzog, or… “Oh,” the vicar’s daughter breathed. So when had valour and daring become the criteria by which she judged her men? “He’s not for you,” she told herself, looking away from the mirror because she was blushing. “He’s too old for you. You must seem like a silly little girl to him. He’s had dozens of women in his lifetime, maybe hundreds, and you would just be one more. It could never go anywhere.” But she remembered a dance under the stars in Paradopolis, and a kiss in Casablanca that still seared her lips, and how right it felt to cradle him in her arms when he was hurt in Seville. “Stop it,” she told herself. “What would father say?” Father would have rather liked Sir Mumphrey Wilton, a subversive part of her suspected. “Say about what?” asked a voice from the doorway. Miss Canterbury swung round to see Rodney Farharquar-Phelps himself standing in the doorway. “Mrs Bantery told me you were back, sweetheart,” he said, rushing forward and grabbing the lady’s hand. “I was so terrible worried.” “Worried about the Nazis you left me being tortured by?” Miss Canterbury asked coldly, snatching back her fingers. “I ran straight to the British Embassy!” Rodney protested. “I had them wake up the Assistant Ambassador.” “Maybe you were screaming too loudly to hear me break off our engagement?” Farharquar-Phelps shook his head and gave an oily smile. “We were both upset, darling, said things we perhaps didn’t mean…” “I meant it,” Miss Canterbury assured him. “I could never marry a spineless rabbit who betrays his country out of cowardice!” “Oh, you silly girl!” chided her ex-fiancée condescendingly. “You know so little of the world.” He shook his head and added slyly, “I asked around about that Mumphrey Wilton character, you know.” “Sir Mumphrey?” asked Miss Canterbury, trying to sound casual. “What of him?” “He’s not for you, my dearest. He’s a rake, a playboy. International dilettante.” “Really? Because I was under the impression that he actually did something for the war effort. Perhaps his father wasn’t a munitions tycoon who could get him a medical discharge?” Farharquar-Phelps’ face coloured. “You’re nothing to him. Just another silly girl, a cheap conquest.” “Oh, so you think he’s ‘conquered’ me, do you?” Miss Canterbury flared. “Is that what you imagine?” “Of course not!” protested her suitor. “I know you’re a nice girl, my sweet heart. You don’t imagine I’d still want to marry you if you were… well, if you’d been with a man, do you?” Miss Canterbury had never before been tempted to lie about her virtue. “I’m so pleased you have a good opinion of me, Rodney. But Mumphrey has nothing to do with me breaking off my engagement with you. It’s more to do with you having a complete lack of spine or character, and with you making me sick to look at.” Farharquar-Phelps grabbed her wrist quite hard. “Stop saying that. Besides, what future does a penniless vicar’s daughter have without me? As a shop girl or ladies’ companion, fading away into tedious old age? Or as Wilton’s mistress? I doubt you’d last long there, my sweet.” Miss Canterbury tried to wrench her arm free again. A flash of anger surged through her. The Expediter was going to sell me as a white slave, she told herself, and I’d have fetched a damned good price. It was a strange thing to give her courage now. “Let go of me, Rodney, before I hurt you. It’s over, and I don’t want to see you again. And I’d prefer to be a shop girl or a ladies companion – or with Sir Mumphrey Wilton – than to be with you for a single day!” The man’s face went white as a sheet with livid anger. “I see,” he said coldly, still not releasing his ex-fiancée. “Then we will have to do this the hard way, my darling.” And he pulled the revolver from his pocket. In our next exciting episode:While Miss Canterbury faces rotten Rodney, Mumph chases the evil Expediter – and the dead men of Dartmoor. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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