Chapter 2: In Which Emmeline & Jack Meet Again and Dr. Parsons Reveals A Fascinating Surprise & Proposes A Conundrum
A beautiful December evening for star gazing and meteor watching, thought Emmeline as she pulled her quilt closer about her and took a sip of hot cocoa. Well, if she must be honest, cocoa laced with just a wee bit of brandy, for added warmth of liquid fire. But it was nearing zero outside...Em had been enjoying the Geminid meteor showers, but it was an early day tomorrow, albeit a Friday and the end of the work week, for her. And she may as well admit, it was now time to turn in, as she was already freezing.
Later that day, Emmeline was dreading closing time, and certainly not because it heralded the weekend. No, it was the blasted tournament scheduled for this evening.It was nothing more than preparing these lads for conscription soon to come. Em felt sick at heart to have to leave through the picket lines, but the director hadn't proscribed her rights to her own opinions. Yet.
'War For Profits! Not For People!' Em heard the chanting as she left the building. That's a good one, she thought. The protesters had moved onto the playing field. She was on her way past the greensward that had been marked off on the esplanade for war games, and was dismayed to see how many young men and boys had signed on for the tournament. Thinking she didn't want to watch the 'carnage' as she so termed it to herself, she continued on to the trolley, as she heard the whistle blow and the rush and clash as teams hurled themselves into the fray of battle. Suddenly she heard agonizing yells from some of the combatants. Whirling about,she headed back at a trot to the playing field, where she saw some boys go down, but without anyone touching them, they began to writhe and scream, some even to bleed from wounds that no one had touched..
'Whatever could this be!?' Emmeline was momentarily aghast.Getting a grip on herself she ran to the library to get help, when she heard a familiar voice - 'Miss Page! May I assist you?' It was Mr. Van Horn. Jack!
'Jack!' Emmeline forgot all decorum in the urgency of the situation. 'I must find a doctor! Something terrible has happened at the tournament!'
'My friend, Dr. Parsons is here, somewhere, yes! Aleister! Over here! Hurry! Yalla, yalla!'Jack began to sprint toward the field when he'd caught the eye of his friend.
'What is it, then?' asked Dr. Parsons as he came running , 'Oh, I see. Would you look at that--' and off he ran with Jack before him, over to the stricken boys.
Meanwhile Emmeline had found a woman she knew who worked as a nurse for a local pediatrician and had brought her onto the field to find Jack and Dr. Parsons examining the boys. Fortunately ambulances weren't far from the park,and soon the lads were hauled on board and taken to the hospital, along with, she noted curiously, Director Dickman and some city council and gun club members..
Em was left alone with Jack and Dr. Parsons, as her nurse friend had gone with the ambulance. Em ran her hand through her stray wisps of escaping hair, feeling utterly baffled and distraught over this sudden turn of events which had changed a precarious situation into the tragedy she had feared...though she certainly had not expected such an immediate and bizaare twist to things as that which had just transpired. Which was, just what ...exactly?
"What appears to be the matter with these boys?" she enquired as Dr. Parsons stood, his grave countenance not entirely without a slightly puzzled look.
It was then that Jack stepped in, "Miss Page, this is my friend and colleague, Dr. Parsons,"
"How do you do, Doctor?" Emmeline offered her hand, " I regret our meeting is not under more favorable circumstances."
"Quite," agreed Dr. Parsons, who shook her hand brusquely, after wiping the blood and grime on his handkerchief."I wish I could tell you straightaway, Miss Page,
but I must confess to some difficulty with this particular diagnosis just now. Jack, we've done all we can here. Did you get some samples from the other team as well?"
"I did," Jack answered, holding up ragged bits of torn and bloodstained cloth, presumably from the injured players. "Back to the lab with this, then?" Dr. Parsons nodded. "Why don't you join us, Miss Page?"
"Oh, I really mustn't...I..."began Em.
"Miss Page," Dr. Parsons took her elbow and escorted her from the field and back onto the boulevard, with Jack in tow, smiling slightly. "I must insist you come with us to my humble abode where you will have some excellent Oolong and restore your spirits. It has been rather a trying afternoon, yes?' As he raised an arm and hailed a carriage, Jack added his enticement, "Please do acquiesce, Miss Page, I would feel remiss to let you go off alone without the offer of tea at the very least.'
Emmeline, feeling rather shaken, had to admit that tea sounded well indeed, and she also allowed that she was very curious about the Doctor, who she now recognized as the gentleman who had bumped into her at the tea shop where she had first met Jack.
Their conveyance headed out of town, down Crowley Lane and ended up, astonishingly, at the old Crowley pile, a long-deserted Victorian manor house at the dead end of the lane. Workmen however had recently been in evidence, and restoration begun upon the place. Em's curiosity was twice-peaked now, having had more than a passing interest in the old house.There was rumor that the Page family was distant cousins of the old Crowley clan. She recalled Hallow's Eves of her childhood when she and the neighborhood children would steal away 'neath pallid moonlight and dare each other closer to the haunted mansion...invariably, no one would come any nearer than the bars of the iron fence pikes that bordered the Crowley demesne.
The iron fence was still in evidence, none the worse for wear. The craggy towers loomed darkly overhead still. Em had often wondered about what was inside the
topmost turret rooms, and had ever been strangely drawn to them. What scenes of Pankhurst's past had these old windows looked out upon?
'Oh, but this is wonderful! Dr. Parsons, I'd no idea anyone was fixing up the old
house! It has been a personal favorite of mine. I've longed for someone to see
the worthy structure beneath the desuetude of time's heavy hand...'
At this, the Doctor turned to Em and beamed, "Indeed, fair lady, I am just that Someone! You see, Jack! Not all find our cozy hideaway so distressed as do some!
Come, my dear, and I assure you we have restored the parlor remarkably well.'
Together the trio ascended the stairway leading to the front porch,now shored up with sturdy new timbers.Passing beneath the old lion's head carved above the front vestibule they divested themselves of heavy coats and hats in the darkened hallway, and entered into the parlor which, as the doctor intimated,was quite nicely turned out with comfortable chairs and sofas, and some rather fine thick Turkish rugs.The only addition to the room's decor besides several low lamps was a pair of swords upon the wall over the hearth in which Emmeline was immensely grateful to find a robust and cheery fire burning.
"Do be seated, won't you,I'll just see to the tea. Where the devvil--? Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Page, I'm but an old country doctor you know, but I can't imagine the confounded whereabouts of Yeats?' and off stormed the doctor into what Em presumed must be the kitchen.
'Hmmm...the fire is burning well, he must not be far. Do have a seat here near the hearth,' said Jack, bringing round a chair to face the fireside, into which
Emmeline gratefully sank and smoothed her skirts, which she now realized were
rather soiled with the grime of the playing field. 'Oh, dear, I am trailing
sod onto your fine carpets, I fear...'
'Not a bother,' Jack assurred her, grabbing a firepan and wire broom and making a quick job of sweeping up the dirt they all had tracked in. He then sat opposite her in another hearthside chair and stretching his long legs before him,
reclined and sighed, his hand raking back his rather longish black hair which
Em wished hadn't made her think how well it looked on him.
'It has been rather a strange day,' she confessed. 'I cannot begin to imagine what has come over the lads at the tournament! I am hoping that's an end to the whole misbegotten games, but at what cost, I wonder?'
'I assure you, if anyone can discover the reason behind their mysterious affliction, it is Dr. Parsons,' Jack said, looking up at her. 'He is well acquainted with cases on the periphery of scientific knowledge from many years spent in India, China, Afrika, Arabia and the South Seas. In addition, he has a veritable alchemist's laboratory here in the basement of Crowley House.'
At this revelation, Emmeline cocked an eyebrow, but was distracted by the rattle of a tea-tray being wheeled toward them by a rather formidable personage who she assumed, must be the hitherto invisible valet, Yeats. With a grace that his broad physical proportions initially belied, he expertly poured tea and offered lemon biscuits, along with the news that the doctor sends his apologies for not joining them directly, but wished to take the specimens immediately to the lab and begin his studies.
'Quite understandable.Thank you very much, Yeats.' answered Jack, and asked Em if the tea was to her liking. 'It is divine!' Emmeline enthused. 'No, truly! How is it that one appreciates a simple hot cup of good tea so much more, after being out in the cold, and... adversity,' she ended, unsure of exactly what she meant, but wishing to convey her appreciation of being with like-minded folk who were all concerned with the same troubles at the moment, and who were taking a chance respite together from same.
Jack seemed to sense her sincerity despite her confusion. He took his own tea and smiled at her. 'And what do you think of Crowley House, now that you have seen the little restoration that we have made thus far?'
Emmeline set her teacup down and gazed about her, unabashedly staring at the
now-junglelike atmosphere she espied through the French doors where the back yard had yet to see the cultivating clip of shears or evem machete'...still, she was secretly thrilled to have at last gained entree into the haunted house of her
former fantasies.
'It's all so... unique! And the parlor is probably now quite a close approximation of it's original state I daresay. Oh, Jack, it will be altogether
a marvellous place when you have it restored to it's former glory!'Emmeline stopped herself, rather abashed at her fulsome evocation, not to mention becoming aghast at her forwardness and calling Jack by his Christian name,having hardly known him well. She hastily sipped some tea.
Jack allowed himself a chuckle.'Ah, so a rickety old house is what it takes to shake the proper librarian out of her reticence enough to call me by my first name, at long last! More tea,....Emmeline?' he ventured.
Em was about to excuse herself and make a hasty retreat, when pounding footsteps
echoed up from the lower floor and Doctor Parsons made his entrance, bursting into the parlor with a testube in one hand and a syringe in the other.
'It is something singular indeed it is! Just what, we shall soon see!' the doctor
flailed about looking for someplace to set down the glass tube which seemed to
be filled with a viscous red fluid.
'Here, Aleister,'Jack offered the doctor another set of testubes resting in a row
in a wooden respository seemingly constructed especially for the viterous vessels, wherein he set the specimen,then opening a drawer, removed some cotton and a small bottle of alcohol.'Roll up your sleeve, Jack, we need another baseline.The specimen is my own blood, but yours and Miss Page's should give us what we need for comparison to the samples from the stricken boys'
'Oh!, I..' escaped from Emmeline as she received this rather flagrant assault upon her social good humor.
'Indeed, Aleister, I say, is it altogether necessary that we presume upon Miss Page so?'Jack looked at her, clearly abashed by the doctor's bombastic effrontery. 'I must apologize for my colleague, Miss Page, he forgets himself in the fever of scientific inquiry.'
As Doctor Parsons expertly drew Jack's blood, Emmeline looked away and went pale.
'I do apologize, again, and probably not for the last time, my dear Miss Page,'he said, 'But I believe I am close to isolating the problem which befell our young gentlemen earlier today. I realize I am presuming upon your charity, to say the least, but I assure you that my needles are sterile and my manner professional in the extreme. Now, Miss Page, if I may...?'
While Parsons changed needles,Jack rolled down his sleeve,'Emmeline, you do not have to do this.' He shot what he hoped was a meaningful look at his friend.
Em had erstwhile gotten a grip on herself and donning her suffragist mien decided to buckle down to the job at hand and do her bit.'If it will help find what is wrong with those poor boys, of course I can spare a drop of blood. Doctor, do your work.' And she proceeded to roll up her sleeve in turn, tucking the lace out of the way.
'That's my girl, then.' the doctor turned to her and quickly dabbed the alcohol on her arm and as Em turned her face away, a quick pinch and the job was done.
. . . . . .
What's all this then? What are we to make of Jack and the good doctor now, or is he indeed a kindly country physician as we first assumed? What of our plucky heroine and her perhaps misguided attempts to render aid to the unfortunate victims of the now infamous war games? Surely as such was sponsored by the library, Emmeline must have felt somewhat responsible, however she differed in her own less than enthusiastic acceptance of her employer's part in that now regrettable debacle. And now to what pass has her good intentions brought her? Alone,with two strange, albeit intriguing men in the old Crowley mansion, the haunted house of her childhood days. Be sure to pick up the next penny installment of the continuing Adventures of Miss Emmeline Page, Revolutionary Librarian!
"Where memories of what never was becomes the Good Old Days."
--from: Steve Martin's the Crow lp --
'Truly wonderful and Just As Advertised'
To be listened to whilst reading the above novelette.One should also be imbibing
a fine strong tea as well. Served perhaps with lemon biscuits. Or lime. Or even
coffee for you patriot types.
In short: To be read in Retro-Audio-Vision-Sip-Dip-&-Flip-O-Scope, (TM)
'
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