foreign hicksville hellhole?
Aunt Grace pursed her lips. Under the circumstances, perhaps an interview in her front parlour could be arranged. So, if he’d excuse her, she’d best be getting the place in order — by which she meant scrubbing the floors, dusting the knick-knacks, waxing the woodwork, wiping the walls, airing the closets, cleaning the stove, tending the icebox, doing a wash, and beating the rugs till they screamed for mercy; for if cleanliness was next to godliness, Aunt Grace was bound and determined the world would see that she lived in the lap of the Lord.
D oyle still had to ferret out Mary Mabel. Here, he had a break. On returning to The Ceeps, he was handed a letter by the desk clerk, the ink barely dry on the envelope.
Greetings and salutations in the Lord,
Pray forgive our reticence on the matter of Sister Mary Mabel. She has been on a spiritual retreat. At sunrise prayers, I put in a word on your behalf. She has agreed to meet you at 9 a.m. at the Twins B&B, 495 Wharncliffe Road.
Yours in Christ,
Brother Floyd Cruickshank
P.S. As for that lassie in the park, after pastoral counselling she has welcomed Jesus into her heart, abjured the Devil, and is presently on a bus to the country, there to repair her soul in the care of her belovèd granny. To God be the glory.
Floyd had deposited similar invitations for Scoop Jones and Scratch Micallef. To Perce, however, nothing. In fact, before scampering back to the Twins, he hadn’t even popped upstairs to tell his partner where he’d been nor what he was up to.
If this was rude, it was also business. Floyd’s first thought had been to incorporate Mary Mabel into the existing act, her hope a balance to Percy’s hellfire. Yet the more he chewed on the idea, the tougher it became to swallow. The Great Unwashed, out to see a fetching curiosity, would have no time for the ravings of some distempered preacher.
At the same time, he couldn’t cut Perce loose. The reverend had an imagination and a mouth. Floyd shuddered at the whole-cloth tales he’d spin from the yarn of a middle-aged man and a teenage girl traipsing about the land unchaperoned “with a suitcase full of rubbers!” It would be a cross Floyd couldn’t bridge, a scandal repelling the public, with denials fanning the flames.
The showman was stymied, but short-term, one thing was clear: the less Perce knew, the less he’d have to bugger up.
D oyle skimmed Floyd’s invitation and pocketed it, along with those left for Scratch and Scoop. “I’ll deliver them personally,” he told the desk clerk, a dollar bill putting paid to silence awkward questions. “By the way, I’ve traced that miracle girl, Miss McTavish. She’s holed up at the Salvation Army in Toronto.” He tapped his nose and headed off to the Twins, secure in the knowledge his rivals would shortly be bribing themselves into a wild goose chase to the provincial capital one hundred miles away.
Transfiguration
F ollowing her late-night conversation with Floyd, Mary Mabel had been treated to a hot bath spiced with a tincture of rosemary, then given a nightdress and taken by Miss Tillie up the narrow circular staircase to the sewing room at the back east corner of the third floor. It was a cramped, airless affair, filled to the brim with old hat boxes, ends of quaint fabric, and baskets of appliqués, thread, scissors, and yarn, variously stacked and draped over a junk shop of disused furniture as awkward as it was antique.
“You’d not get a moment’s rest below,” her hostess explained, as she moved piles of dusty dress patterns from the fainting couch to the sewing table by the window. “Me and my sister, we snore something terrible.”
Miss Tillie paused to catch her breath, looking through the turret window at the moon. “This used to be my favourite room,” she said. “Father kept us hopping, but given his game leg, he couldn’t navigate the servants’ stairs. So here’s where we’d come to escape. It
Aunt Grace pursed her lips. Under the circumstances, perhaps an interview in her front parlour could be arranged. So, if he’d excuse her, she’d best be getting the place in order — by which she meant scrubbing the floors, dusting the knick-knacks, waxing the woodwork, wiping the walls, airing the closets, cleaning the stove, tending the icebox, doing a wash, and beating the rugs till they screamed for mercy; for if cleanliness was next to godliness, Aunt Grace was bound and determined the world would see that she lived in the lap of the Lord.
D oyle still had to ferret out Mary Mabel. Here, he had a break. On returning to The Ceeps, he was handed a letter by the desk clerk, the ink barely dry on the envelope.
Greetings and salutations in the Lord,
Pray forgive our reticence on the matter of Sister Mary Mabel. She has been on a spiritual retreat. At sunrise prayers, I put in a word on your behalf. She has agreed to meet you at 9 a.m. at the Twins B&B, 495 Wharncliffe Road.
Yours in Christ,
Brother Floyd Cruickshank
P.S. As for that lassie in the park, after pastoral counselling she has welcomed Jesus into her heart, abjured the Devil, and is presently on a bus to the country, there to repair her soul in the care of her belovèd granny. To God be the glory.
Floyd had deposited similar invitations for Scoop Jones and Scratch Micallef. To Perce, however, nothing. In fact, before scampering back to the Twins, he hadn’t even popped upstairs to tell his partner where he’d been nor what he was up to.
If this was rude, it was also business. Floyd’s first thought had been to incorporate Mary Mabel into the existing act, her hope a balance to Percy’s hellfire. Yet the more he chewed on the idea, the tougher it became to swallow. The Great Unwashed, out to see a fetching curiosity, would have no time for the ravings of some distempered preacher.
At the same time, he couldn’t cut Perce loose. The reverend had an imagination and a mouth. Floyd shuddered at the whole-cloth tales he’d spin from the yarn of a middle-aged man and a teenage girl traipsing about the land unchaperoned “with a suitcase full of rubbers!” It would be a cross Floyd couldn’t bridge, a scandal repelling the public, with denials fanning the flames.
The showman was stymied, but short-term, one thing was clear: the less Perce knew, the less he’d have to bugger up.
D oyle skimmed Floyd’s invitation and pocketed it, along with those left for Scratch and Scoop. “I’ll deliver them personally,” he told the desk clerk, a dollar bill putting paid to silence awkward questions. “By the way, I’ve traced that miracle girl, Miss McTavish. She’s holed up at the Salvation Army in Toronto.” He tapped his nose and headed off to the Twins, secure in the knowledge his rivals would shortly be bribing themselves into a wild goose chase to the provincial capital one hundred miles away.
Transfiguration
F ollowing her late-night conversation with Floyd, Mary Mabel had been treated to a hot bath spiced with a tincture of rosemary, then given a nightdress and taken by Miss Tillie up the narrow circular staircase to the sewing room at the back east corner of the third floor. It was a cramped, airless affair, filled to the brim with old hat boxes, ends of quaint fabric, and baskets of appliqués, thread, scissors, and yarn, variously stacked and draped over a junk shop of disused furniture as awkward as it was antique.
“You’d not get a moment’s rest below,” her hostess explained, as she moved piles of dusty dress patterns from the fainting couch to the sewing table by the window. “Me and my sister, we snore something terrible.”
Miss Tillie paused to catch her breath, looking through the turret window at the moon. “This used to be my favourite room,” she said. “Father kept us hopping, but given his game leg, he couldn’t navigate the servants’ stairs. So here’s where we’d come to escape. It
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