The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [70]
One thing alone kept me from total bleak despair, and that was the awareness that this was a temporary state. I hugged to myself the knowledge that tomorrow I should be far away from it all, that tomor-row evening at this hour I should be seated before an immense stone fireplace with a glass of something warming in one hand and a large and expertly prepared meal about to find its way to the table, with good company, good music, good cheer. To say nothing of Veronica Beaconsfield’s darkly good-looking older brother, home on Christmas leave.
Best of all—oh joy, oh bliss—no Christmas with my aunt: I was go-ing to Ronnie’s country house in Berkshire for two weeks, beginning tomorrow. Indeed I might have been there already, for I had intended to leave with her three days ago, but for the unreasonable and unex-pected demand for a final, late essay from one of my more capricious and demanding tutors.
But it was now over: The essay had been presented and the three points that had been raised in the presentation had been beaten into place by six hours in Bodley; the essay and its annotations I had left (damp, but legible) at the tutor’s college. I was free now of responsibil-ity. The tiny glow of what tomorrow meant protected me from the worst of the cold and, as it warmed and grew, even nudged me into a dash of mordant humour.
I felt very like the proverbial drowned rat when I reached the lodg-ings house. Stopping in the portico I peeled off several outer layers and left them on a nail, dripping morosely onto the stones. I could then dig an almost dry handkerchief from a pocket to clean my spec-tacles while I let myself into the porter’s lodge.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas.”
“Evening is more like it, Miss Russell. Real nice out, I see.”
“Oh, it’s a perfectly lovely evening for a stroll, Mr. Thomas. Why don’t you take the Missus out for a picnic on a punt? Oh, I like that. Did Mrs. Thomas do it?” I put on my glasses, which promptly fogged up, and peered at the tiny Christmas tree that stood bravely on one end of the long counter.
“That she did. Looks pretty, don’t it? Oh yes, there’s a couple things in your box. Let me get them for you.” The old man turned to the series of pigeonholes behind him, which were arranged by the lo-cation of each person’s rooms. The top, third row, far left box was for my own top floor, far back room. “Here they are. One from the late post, the other from an old, er, elderly woman. She was by, asking for you.”
The post was the weekly letter from Mrs. Hudson, which invari-ably arrived on a Tuesday. Holmes wrote rarely, though I occasionally received a spate of cryptic telegrams, and Dr. Watson (now Uncle John) wrote from time to time as well. I looked at the other offering.
“A lady? What did she want?”
“I don’t rightly know, Miss. She said she needed to talk to you, and when I said you weren’t in until later, she left that note for you.”
I took up the indicated envelope curiously. It was a cheap one, such as can be bought at any news agent’s or the railway station, bulky and grubby, with my name written on it in a precise copperplate script.
“This is your writing, isn’t it, Mr. Thomas?”
“Yes, Miss. It was blank when she handed it to me, so I put your name on it.”
Carefully avoiding the smudged thumbprint on one corner, I opened it with Mr. Thomas’s letter opener and took out its tightly folded contents. With difficulty, as it seemed to be glued damply to-gether, I undid it. To my astonishment the contents were no more than an advertisement for a window manufacturer on the Banbury Road, such as I had seen posted up at various places around town. This specimen had the remnants of paste on the back, but as it was still damp it was not permanently attached to itself. A partial bootprint in one corner and the mark of a large dog’s paw in the centre indicated that it had lain in the street before being inserted in the envelope. I turned it over, wondering what it meant. Mr. Thomas was watching me, obviously itching to ask the same thing, but