chalk cliffs of her teeth, a frond of maidenhead fern.
--There you are, Mr. Timothy. You have found me in shocking dishabille. A poor, wretched woman, ready to throw herself at your feet. Tell me! Tell me that your circle of acquaintance numbers at least one professional musician!
It is startling, I own, to be addressed in the same manner as her patrons.
--Musician, Mrs. Sharpe?
--I have just learned--and with the greatest chagrin --that the harpist engaged for our petite soiree de Noel has come down with catarrh. Why this should prevent him from strumming his damned stringbox, I cannot tell you, but our little holiday function teeters, teeters on the precipice, and so I must repeat, Mr. Timothy: Do you know of anyone? With the slightest inclination to carry a tune in any direction?
At such moments, I find it always best to simulate thought: peer at the ground, wrinkle the brow, shut the eyes halfway. This time, against all odds, a thought emerges, actually stamps its feet in my ear.
--I know a young boy. With a fine voice.
Sniffing speculatively, Mrs. Sharpe strokes her temple with the fern frond. The public madam drops away.
--You vouch for him?
--Oh, yes. I have heard him.
--And what would he need by way of accompaniment?
--None, I believe. He prefers to work a cappella.
--So much the better! We won't need to get the piano tuned. Now, he's not one of those beastly little altar boys?
--Very much not.
--I only ask because one of our guests, I won't mention names, has come within a whisker of being defrocked on at least three separate occasions. We don't want to be throwing the wrong kind of temptation his way.
--Of course not.
--Boy singer, eh? He might be charming. Invite him, by all means, and let me know if he's free. We can discuss his fee at today's session. Oh, but I must tell you, Mr. Timothy, I've been all in a stew over Mr. Crusoe ever since he promised to return Friday to his native land. All those dreadful cannibals and bearded Portuguese and whatnot, what can he be thinking? But hush, I'm a foolish old woman, keeping a well-dressed young man from his appointed rounds. Confess, you scoundrel! Which lucky jeune fille will be receiving a caller this afternoon?
--No girl. Just my brother.
This information produces a small puff of surprise in Mrs. Sharpe's cheeks, and I can't say I blame her. All these months behaving as though I had no relation in the world, and now alluding to one as casually as if he were a greengrocer. I think I must be taken in by my own nonchalance, for as I stroll up Great Windmill Street, I feel soft and half-attentive, as though I really were shopping for apples. Or women. Passing the shuttered-down face of the Argyll Rooms, I feel a prick of longing for the gay ladies who will be gathering there tonight: the whispering dresses, the fumes of champagne. And it is with a start that I see the newly erected edifice of St. Peter's Church rearing up before me--its very name a prod and rebuke.
Casting my eyes down, I hurry on towards the other Peter's. Up Poland Street, then a quick left just shy of the Oxford Market...walking at such a clip and dodging so rapidly between carriages and hansoms and growlers and omnibuses that I have to stop myself after a stretch to make sure I haven't gone too far.
And that's how I discover I am just where I need to be. The very block. There's the draper's with the misspelled placard. There's the fruiterer's, its barrels of oranges cursorily inspected by a wandering heifer.
And there's Peter's store. The thyme-coloured awning and the golden scrawl: Cratchit's Salon Photographique.
And there's Father in the window.
No mistake this time. Really him. Glazed and enamelled in a brass frame, frozen a few weeks shy of his forty-ninth birthday. Peter had told him not to move for a good two minutes, and he took this admonition so seriously that his body went quite rigid from the effort--I remember it took us several minutes afterwards to uncoil
--There you are, Mr. Timothy. You have found me in shocking dishabille. A poor, wretched woman, ready to throw herself at your feet. Tell me! Tell me that your circle of acquaintance numbers at least one professional musician!
It is startling, I own, to be addressed in the same manner as her patrons.
--Musician, Mrs. Sharpe?
--I have just learned--and with the greatest chagrin --that the harpist engaged for our petite soiree de Noel has come down with catarrh. Why this should prevent him from strumming his damned stringbox, I cannot tell you, but our little holiday function teeters, teeters on the precipice, and so I must repeat, Mr. Timothy: Do you know of anyone? With the slightest inclination to carry a tune in any direction?
At such moments, I find it always best to simulate thought: peer at the ground, wrinkle the brow, shut the eyes halfway. This time, against all odds, a thought emerges, actually stamps its feet in my ear.
--I know a young boy. With a fine voice.
Sniffing speculatively, Mrs. Sharpe strokes her temple with the fern frond. The public madam drops away.
--You vouch for him?
--Oh, yes. I have heard him.
--And what would he need by way of accompaniment?
--None, I believe. He prefers to work a cappella.
--So much the better! We won't need to get the piano tuned. Now, he's not one of those beastly little altar boys?
--Very much not.
--I only ask because one of our guests, I won't mention names, has come within a whisker of being defrocked on at least three separate occasions. We don't want to be throwing the wrong kind of temptation his way.
--Of course not.
--Boy singer, eh? He might be charming. Invite him, by all means, and let me know if he's free. We can discuss his fee at today's session. Oh, but I must tell you, Mr. Timothy, I've been all in a stew over Mr. Crusoe ever since he promised to return Friday to his native land. All those dreadful cannibals and bearded Portuguese and whatnot, what can he be thinking? But hush, I'm a foolish old woman, keeping a well-dressed young man from his appointed rounds. Confess, you scoundrel! Which lucky jeune fille will be receiving a caller this afternoon?
--No girl. Just my brother.
This information produces a small puff of surprise in Mrs. Sharpe's cheeks, and I can't say I blame her. All these months behaving as though I had no relation in the world, and now alluding to one as casually as if he were a greengrocer. I think I must be taken in by my own nonchalance, for as I stroll up Great Windmill Street, I feel soft and half-attentive, as though I really were shopping for apples. Or women. Passing the shuttered-down face of the Argyll Rooms, I feel a prick of longing for the gay ladies who will be gathering there tonight: the whispering dresses, the fumes of champagne. And it is with a start that I see the newly erected edifice of St. Peter's Church rearing up before me--its very name a prod and rebuke.
Casting my eyes down, I hurry on towards the other Peter's. Up Poland Street, then a quick left just shy of the Oxford Market...walking at such a clip and dodging so rapidly between carriages and hansoms and growlers and omnibuses that I have to stop myself after a stretch to make sure I haven't gone too far.
And that's how I discover I am just where I need to be. The very block. There's the draper's with the misspelled placard. There's the fruiterer's, its barrels of oranges cursorily inspected by a wandering heifer.
And there's Peter's store. The thyme-coloured awning and the golden scrawl: Cratchit's Salon Photographique.
And there's Father in the window.
No mistake this time. Really him. Glazed and enamelled in a brass frame, frozen a few weeks shy of his forty-ninth birthday. Peter had told him not to move for a good two minutes, and he took this admonition so seriously that his body went quite rigid from the effort--I remember it took us several minutes afterwards to uncoil
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