Chapter 12 #2
Mrs. Chrysler smiled. “He was.” Katherine nodded in agreement and drew several peppermints out of her pocket, offering them to her companions and popping one herself.
Mrs. Chrysler took a mint and absently crinkled its wrapper.
“He was the only man I ever brought home,” she went on.
Ruben’s eyebrows lifted. “Hardly anyone in those days knew where Katty and I lived, apart from my family. But Charlie… I let him learn.”
“Love at first sight, was it?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Chrysler said, warming to her subject.
“Not at all. Our paths crossed for almost a whole year before there was anything more than a spark of friendship between us. He was apprenticed to a traveling apothecary, and we just sort of bumped into him occasionally on the road.” Katherine again nodded and quietly munched her peppermint, recalling the gangly young man they’d often met, and the large, pea-green dragon always by his side.
“But he always had a kind word, a kind smile, and I… well, I began to look forward to seeing him, started getting excited whenever I’d spot his wagon parked in some town square or another.
He was a warm man. Just… decent, you know? ”
Katherine thought of all the young men the young Miss Dodge had known, and it was true, none of them could hold a candle to Charlie Chrysler. A bit absentminded for Katherine’s own personal taste, but, yes, a very decent man.
“It wasn’t until I danced with him, though,” her friend went on, “that I really knew he was something special. You remember that night, Katty? At the corn festival?”
Katherine snorted, nearly inhaling her peppermint.
“Yes, Imogene, I remember.” She herself had spent practically that whole night dodging the attentions of a moon-eyed bookkeeper who apparently hadn’t been told that persistence can be overdone.
She’d never had much interest in courting to begin with, and his misguided overtures were positively repulsive.
Company of the feline variety had always been vastly more satisfying to her anyway, and none of her dates had been enthused about her cats joining them for dinner…
If one of them had, well, things might have turned out differently.
Katherine noticed that Ruben was still gently stroking the dozing Ember as he listened, with Mouser draped over his shoulders.
“Good dancer, was he?” Ruben asked.
“Terrible!” Mrs. Chrysler guffawed and slapped her knee.
“Couldn’t hold a rhythm if it had handles!
” She wiped a tear from her eye as she laughed.
“Oh dear. But I discovered I didn’t mind.
We danced all night. He had something, just a warmth about him, you know?
Something that said you’d never have to be anyone but yourself with him.
No pretense. Well. I’d never found that before. You know what men are like.”
Ruben squinted, apparently stumped.
Mrs. Chrysler looked him squarely in the eye. “Not one person in a million can make you realize you’d found something you didn’t know you were looking for.” She jerked her chin sharply to underscore the point. “That is something special.”
Ruben nodded slowly, perhaps only pretending to understand. “And he wanted you to give up the adventuring?”
“Oh, gods, no. We were both travelers, and he knew what I was. But, well, our career was dangerous”—Katherine nodded some more—“no matter how good we were. I realized… I’d rather build a new life with him than go on with the one I had and perhaps someday never come back to him.
I didn’t want to break his heart, put what we had at risk, leave him all alone in the world.
And…” Mrs. Chrysler reverted her gaze to the window.
“He understood. He was willing to put down roots too. So, that’s what we did.
” Katherine gave her friend a sympathetic glance, and Mrs. Chrysler took a deep breath before she continued.
“We had twenty-two beautiful years together… before his illness. More than some people ever get.” She pursed her lips, gave a curt nod, and didn’t go on.
Katherine patted her knee kindly, while Mrs. Chrysler stared fixedly across the street.
“And how about you?” Ruben asked, turning to Katherine. “You could have gone on even if Mrs. C. didn’t. Why didn’t you?”
“Well, we discussed it, certainly,” Katherine said. “I wanted to be sure Imogene was sure. But, Hornsboggle and Dodge was a two-person team. Hornsboggle alone wouldn’t have amounted to much.”
“That’s nice of you to say, Katty. But you could’ve gotten a new partner.”
“She wouldn’t have been my best friend, though.
” Katherine took the warm hand Mrs. Chrysler offered her and gave it a tight squeeze.
“And in return for settling down too, I got to live a stone’s throw from my best friend and her family.
I discovered I could make a decent living from my cottage, and I got to be an auntie.
” She smiled warmly as her memory replayed highlights of Pip’s upbringing and she recalled that he still called her “Auntie Kat,” even at age forty-one.
“Not a bad life when all is said and done.” And, that was it, really.
Despite all the “what-ifs” in the world, she wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Ruben nodded thoughtfully, and Katherine saw him open his mouth to speak again, when a flash of sunlight on brass caught her eye, and the door of 1402A began to open slowly.
“Someone’s coming out,” she whispered urgently to Mrs. Chrysler, and the pair peered ever closer, their noses practically touching the black shutters.
A thin man with angular features could now be seen wheedling a pack of underlings out of the entryway and into the street as the stroke of noon began to chime nearby.
“Hmm,” Katherine said. “He kind of looks familiar, doesn’t he?”
Mrs. Chrysler made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Yes, he does, Katty. I thought I never forgot a face. Maybe I am slipping. Where could we have seen him before?”
Ruben pressed his face to the shutters and fogged up the window.
After rubbing the glass clean (or at least cleaner) with his sleeve, he shuddered tremulously.
“Oh my gods,” he wheezed, his eyes wide with fearful recognition.
“That’s her, except for the different clothes, of course…
and the short haircut… and he’s missing the high-and-mighty look that’s always on her face. ”
“What?” Katherine turned again to the window, then back to the stricken Ruben. He’d hauled himself to standing with the help of his cane and was shuffling away.
“Where’s the back door to this place?”
Katherine glanced in the direction of the perplexed shop clerk, whose brows were now deeply furrowed. She smiled weakly at him, then grabbed the old man by the arm.
“Ruben,” Mrs. Chrysler said. “Sit down. Explain yourself.”
“It’s her,” Ruben wailed, collapsing once again on a crate. “Ms. Angela. He’s the spitting image of her.”
The two women took another look out the window.
“Well, I’ll be. That must be the brother,” Mrs. Chrysler said. “After everything you’ve told us, Ruben, I guess it’s only fitting your Ms. Angela’s a Splint. They don’t look a thing like their father, though,” she said, squinting a bit.
“Ms. Angela is a Splint,” Ruben echoed, as if trying to make himself believe it.
“This is why you couldn’t get Ms. Angela fired,” Katherine said, waving a hand at the window. “She inherited the place. She owns it.”
Ruben whimpered softly.
“I wonder if this one’s also a nasty piece of work,” Mrs. Chrysler said, jerking her chin in the direction of the Ms. Angela lookalike across the street. The trio watched him closely as he stepped out into the sunlight.
The young Mr. Splint, dressed in a high collar and tight-fitting trousers, and wearing a harried and sweaty expression, withdrew a pocket watch and could be seen calling after his subordinates as they dispersed up the lane.
“That town clock is slow,” Mrs. Chrysler recited, reading his lips. “Be back before it strikes again.”
While Mrs. Chrysler watched him lock up the door and turn on his heel in the opposite direction, Katherine kept her eyes on the pack of employees who were sniggering behind his back.
One of them drew herself up, adjusted an imaginary collar, and gabbled something with her eyes crossed before erupting in laughter and slapping a compatriot on the back.
Another made a puzzling whinnying sound, like a horse, and this was met with even more uproarious laughter.
Only one of the employees did not seem amused, the recipient of the back slap: She frowned.
Mr. Splint, although many paces away by now, appeared to wilt a bit.
“They’re on lunch break, seems like,” Katherine said. “Ruben, you’re going to keep an eye out for him while Imogene and I scope out the place.”
“You’re going to break in? Now?”
“Why not?” Mrs. Chrysler said. “Yes, Katty, let’s snoop around a bit while everyone’s gone.”
“All right. Kitties?” Katherine made to gather up the two rogue cats that were still skittering after the paper tag on the shop floor.
Tilly trotted obediently over, but Mr. Scruffles flopped on his side to bunny kick a floppy rubber object that he’d knocked off a low shelf in his exertions.
“Er, we’ll take that too,” Katherine called to the clerk, who looked like that morning might have broken him.
“Wait a minute,” Ruben said, his eyes glued to the window at a neck-breaking angle. “Isn’t that him?”
Katherine and Mrs. Chrysler redirected their attention to spy a tiny head bobbing briefly over the roofline of 1402A before disappearing beyond their line of sight. “Ye-e-ss,” Mrs. Chrysler slowly confirmed. “What’s he doing up there?”
They all took their seats on the crates again (the clerk sighed) and waited a little longer.
Presently, a large pigeon shot into view against the cobalt sky and flew speedily northward.
Not long after, Mr. Splint emerged from a narrow alley alongside the building, wiping his hands fastidiously with a handkerchief and plucking several feathers from his shiny suit.
An insect of some kind buzzed about his face, and he flailed at it madly before recovering his composure enough to unlock the office door and re-enter.
“Huh.” Katherine exchanged glances with Mrs. Chrysler. “Messenger pigeon?”
“Sure looks it.”
“I suppose it’s more secure than postmen, after all.”
Mrs. Chrysler smiled fondly.
“Or at least a lot more difficult to corrupt.”
“Well, so much for snooping around,” Ruben said, watching Mr. Splint polish the knocker with his sleeve before closing the door behind him.
“No,” Katherine said. “Now we simply don’t have to break in to do it.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Chrysler said. “He seems a sort of tight-wound fella, doesn’t he?” she asked, looking again out the window. “I think I’d like to meet him,” she added a little unkindly. “Quick, before his clerks come back, wouldn’t it be nice to have a private little chat with Mr. Splint?”
“Yes, Imogene,” Katherine said. “I think it would.”
“And if he doesn’t give us permission to look around… We’ll just have to do it without his permission.”
“You’ve got ideas, Imogene?”
“Yes. Come along, Ruben,” Mrs. Chrysler instructed. “And grab that thing away from the cat, will you?”