Flighty Phyllis E-Book

R. Austin Freeman

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Chronicling the adventures and misadventures of Phyllis Dudley, a charming character always getting into scrapes. From impersonating a man to discovering mysterious trap doors, Flighty Phyllis is an entertaining glimpse at the times and trials of a wayward woman.

Leseprobe

Flighty Phyllis

by R. Austin Freeman

First published in 1928

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

[email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Flighty Phyllis

by

R. Austin Freeman

FLIGHT ONE — THE UNDERSTUDY

I HAVE been the victim of circumstances. That is to be quite clearly understood at the outset. I accept no responsibility whatever. A purely passive agent—if that is not a contradiction in terms—I have been borne unresisting on the stream of events.

Mind! I am not complaining of circumstances. On the whole they have provided quite a high-class entertainment. I am merely disclaiming responsibility for situations that were not of my own choosing.

The first link in the chain of circumstance was forged when old Dr. Lederbogen of Munich had my head shaved. The barbarian! Just think of it! All my beautiful silky hair mown off to make room for a beastly ice-bag. But it won't bear thinking of. Even now, my eyes fill at the recollection of that hideous tragedy.

Of course, I knew nothing about it at the time, being more or less delirious. And even when I recovered my wits, I didn't discover the horror immediately, for my head was enveloped in a German night-cap that looked like a large cutlet-frill; and though a cutlet-frill is not the most becoming head-dress in the world, still, a good deal depends on the cutlet. I wasn't dissatisfied when I looked in the glass. I only wondered how they had tucked my hair away so neatly.

But when that cap came off for the first time! My aunt! Old Lederbogen realized, if he never had before, the rich expressiveness of the English language when combined judiciously with German expletives. The initial explosion fairly shot him out on the landing, and I heard him going down the stairs three at a time.

I won't attempt to say what my head looked like. You can take your choice between a hedgehog and a boot-brush. Mere language—printable language—is unequal to the occasion.

When I was quite recovered I shook off the dust of Munich. My voice, which I had come there to train, was pronounced by the expert—his very appropriate name was Haase—to be "too deep for a woman's and not strong enough for a man's." The rude old pig! He little knew—but I mustn't anticipate. I will only remark that the rich chest notes of my voice constituted circumstance number two.

Old Lederbogen had carefully kept my hair, I will say that for him, and before I left Munich I had it made up into a wig. Very cleverly the man did it, too, with a lot of fluffy, fringey arrangements round the edges to cover the join. It was a perfect success. No one would have suspected for an instant that it was not just ordinary hair. But it felt horrid, and, of course, I knew about the boot-brush underneath, if no one else did.

The next link in the chain of circumstance was forged by my cousin Charlie. I had written to him asking him to look out for a nice quiet bachelor flat for me, for I had just come in to my Uncle Alfred's property—about twelve hundred a year—and I meant to have a good time. Charlie wrote me a long letter in reply from which I quote the passage that bears on this tragic history.

"Concerning the flat that you speak about: I wonder how you would like my chambers in Clifford's Inn. They are a small set, but they are very cosy and exceedingly quiet. The best of the Inn is that you can come and go as you please without being noticed by anybody, and there is a night porter at the Fleet Street gate, so you don't need to trouble about what time you get home. There are plenty of women living in the Inn now, in fact the place is infested with them—that is why I am thinking of giving up my chambers. In any case, you had better try them for a few days and see if you like them. It will be better than going to an hotel. I have asked Mr Larkin, the head porter, to have the rooms got ready for you, and he will give you the key if you call at the lodge."

"I am sending you a ticket for a fancy-dress ball that the Chelsea models are giving to the artists and students. It will be quite in your line—a little bit boisterous but perfectly proper—and you may meet some of the fellows whom you used to see when you and I were working at the Slade School. I shall be there, but not in costume; one can't come up by train from Blackheath dressed as Punchinello or Mephistopheles. I shall wear ordinary evening clothes, but you must come in costume, and I will see you home to the Inn and you can tell me whether you care to take over the chambers from me. So adieu! until we meet at Chelsea."

That was the gist of Charlie's letter, and I may say at once that I was charmed with his proposal. I had once been to tea with him at his chambers in the quaint old Inn, and the idea of actually owning and living in those picturesque cosy rooms simply delighted me. The other women who "infested the place"—what a disgusting expression to use!—I could have done without, not being at all thin-skinned or conventional, but they wouldn't be in my way. And the idea of the night porter was delicious. I could stroll in, if I pleased, at three o'clock in the morning and there would be no one there to say: "My goodness, Phyllis! Where have you been?" Yes, Clifford's Inn would suit me to a capital T.

As soon as I arrived in London, I made a bee-line for the little passage by St Dunstan's church and introduced myself. Mr Larkin was a duck—if you can imagine a duck in a frock coat and a chimney-pot hat. For that was what he wore. He wasn't a bit like a porter. On the contrary, he was a reverend and fatherly person of quite a superior class and most kind and sympathetic. I suspect that he secretly disapproved of me, as another "infester," but he didn't show it. And when he introduced me to Charlie's "set"—number twenty-four, second pair—I found that he had not only had the rooms swept and garnished but had even laid in a little store of provisions. So I took the key from him gratefully and forthwith entered into residence as a full-blown bachelor girl.

The models' ball was to come off in about a week's time, and many an anxious hour I spent considering what costume I should wear. I went over all the usual characters: Queen Elizabeth, Pierrette, Cleopatra and so forth. But, besides being stale and hackneyed, they all offered the same very serious objection. They all required a special wig. But I was, as the schoolboys say, "fed up" with wigs. Besides, no one in England knew about my wig, and I didn't mean that they should until my hair had grown. So wig characters were off. As to going as a pillar-box or a milk-churn, that would never do, for the guests would be mostly artists and they would hoot any trash of that kind from the room.

It was by the merest chance that the difficulty was solved, and solved in a most startling manner. I happened to be clearing out Charlie's wardrobe to make room for my own things, and a pretty business it was, for Charles was a bit of a dandy and decidedly extravagant in the matter of clothes. Now, I had shaken out and refolded four suits when it suddenly occurred to me to try one on and see what sort of man I should have made. And a mighty surprise I got from the experiment, for as Charlie is a rather small man whereas I am decidedly tall though slight—what dressmakers call a "smart figure"—I expected that I should hardly be able to get into his clothes. Imagine my astonishment, then, when I found them not only an easy fit but actually rather long in—well, in the ankles. Evidently the standard of size is not the same in men as in women.

But when I looked into the glass, I got quite a shock. It was a long glass—the door of the wardrobe, in fact—and showed the whole figure; and the figure was simply that of a young man. I hadn't my wig on, of course; I didn't usually wear it indoors when I was alone, so there was absolutely no hint of anything feminine in the figure that looked out at me from the glass. But it wasn't that which gave me such a shock. What really staggered me was my extraordinary resemblance to Charlie. It was perfectly astounding. I had always understood that Charlie and I were very alike (he was my father's sister's son), but this was a revelation. It wasn't mere likeness; the figure in the glass was Charlie himself.

I was still staring like a gaby at my reflection when the idea, the momentous idea, presented itself; being introduced to my mind, no doubt, by the unmentionable person who invents ideas of that kind. Of course you've guessed what it was. 'It was obvious enough. One of the suits that I had just turned out was a dress suit. Goodness knows how many of them that scallywag cousin of mine possessed. But here was one. Very well. Then I wouldn't go to the models' ball as Ashtoreth or Nell Gwynn or Joan of Arc; I would just go as Mr Charles Sidley in the ordinary evening dress of an English gentleman. And I would take care to get there early.

What a lark it would be! Imagine Charlie's astonishment when he turned up and found that he had arrived ten minutes after himself. And what a state of befoozlement the other fellows would be in. For there was my unfortunate deep voice which the Munich gentleman had objected to: it was exactly like Charlie's voice. If I only played my part properly they would be hard put to it to tell which of the two Dromios was the genuine article.

The more I thought over my precious scheme the more delighted I was with it, and I nearly laughed myself into hysterics over the various little extra turns of "business" that I proposed to introduce into my rendering of the character of Mr Charles Sidley. To my impatience it seemed as if the week would never end. But it did at last, and the fateful day arrived.

I began my preparations absurdly early and was fully figged out three-quarters of an hour before it was time to start. I had hunted out an opera hat of Charlie's—it was decidedly too big but was quite possible if you didn't jam it on too hard—and had got myself a suitable pair of shoes and gloves; and in these and a light overcoat of Charlie's and a muffler, I fidgeted about the room in an agony of fear lest somebody should come to the door and prevent me from escaping. At last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, I popped out, shut the door after me very quietly, and sneaked down the stairs in a frightful state of self-consciousness.

My misfortunes began on the first-floor landing. I was just turning the corner when a shadowy form arose from the next flight below, and developed into a coarse-looking man.

"Hallo!" said he; "here you are, then."

It sounded like a truism, but, of course, it wasn't. More to the point was his next remark.

"Caught yer on the 'op this time, I 'ave."

The vulgar familiarity of his tone was intolerable. I covered him with a haughty stare and demanded coldly: "And, pray, who might you be?"

His eyes opened until I felt quite nervous. They looked as if they really must drop right out.

"Oo might I be?" he repeated slowly. "Well, I might be the Lord Mayor or the Dook o' York. But I ain't."

"I didn't ask who you were not. The question is who you are?"

He stared at me silently for some seconds and then exclaimed with deep conviction: "Well, I'm jiggered."

"Are you, indeed?" said I. "But I don't think I remember anyone of that name."

This seemed to nettle him, for he advanced in a threatening manner and exclaimed: "Look 'ere, Mister Blooming Sidley, I don't want none of your sauce. I want my money, that's what I want. Gimme any more back answers and I'll set abaat yer."

I haven't the least idea what the creature meant; but at this moment the door of the first-floor set opened about three-quarters of an inch and an inquisitive eye appeared in the chink. It was really most uncomfortable.

"How much do you want?" I asked.

"Two pounds eleven and four-pence is what I want," he replied, with suspicious readiness, adding: "You ought to know the amount by this time, I should think."

Now, I had dropped some five or six pounds into my—or rather Charlie's—trousers pocket in case of emergencies, so I decided to pay this insolent wretch and get rid of him. Accordingly I handed him three pounds, and, having received the change, together with a greasy-looking receipt and a very surly "good evening," I waited on the landing for him to clear off and watched from the window his departure towards Fetter Lane. Then I followed—and the door on the landing closed softly.

I went out through the Fetter Lane gate myself to avoid passing the lodge and possibly encountering Mr Larkin. In Fleet Street I hailed a hansom and breathed more freely when once I was inside it and safe from any further chance meetings with embarrassing strangers. But that encounter with Charlie's creditor—his name was Jacob Blunt according to the receipt, which, however, gave no further particulars beyond "account rendered"—had produced a most pernicious effect; it had shattered my confidence at a blow and taken all the fizzle out of the adventure.

However, when we drew up at the hall where the dance was taking place, I pulled myself together, and, having hopped out of the cab and paid the driver, sprang up the stone steps, three at a time in the finest athletic style. Unfortunately, I missed a step near the top and came down on all fours; and my hat fell off and bounced all the way down the steps, so that I had to go back and fetch it; and the cabman, whom I had lavishly overpaid, actually laughed—laughed out quite loud, the vulgar, impertinent creature!

I was in rather a quandary as to which cloak-room I ought to leave my things in. Was I a lady or a gentleman? I really couldn't say under the peculiar circumstances, but, fortunately, as it turned out, I decided to leave my hat and coat among the others of their kind in the gentlemen's cloak-room.

The adventure fell flatter and flatter. In my anxiety to forestall Charlie, I had arrived much too soon, and, when I entered the great bare hall, less than a dozen people were there. All of them were strangers to me, and all but two were women. And not a fancy dress among them. Up in the refreshment gallery a man was cutting sandwiches and whistling, and the four members of the orchestra were reading newspapers. It was a dreary beginning. I hung about in corners watching the guests arrive in twos and threes and wishing that Charlie would come. Of course, as soon as he turned up the fun would begin; in fact, I ought to have arrived after him instead of before.

I was standing some half-way up the stairs that led to the gallery, leaning over the balustrade with a wistful eye on the entrance when someone behind me said, "Hal-lo!" and gave me a most awful spank with the open hand. I spun round, crimson with fury—for it hurt most abominably, to say nothing of the indignity—and confronted a round-faced massive young man who was regarding me with a genial grin. But the grin faded instantly when he saw my face.

"How dare you!" I spluttered, "you—you—"

"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," he exclaimed, "Mistook you for another man. Frightfully sorry, I am, indeed. Beastly sorry!"

"What's the use of being sorry?" I demanded fiercely. And what use was it? Poppy and camomile fomentations would have been more to the point.

"Now, Timothy White!" said a feminine voice, "don't be cross and give way to angry passions. He didn't mean any harm."

I looked round. The remark proceeded from a brazen creature in pea-green stockings—and other things, of course—who was coming down the stairs with a man.

"Excuse me," I replied stiffly; "my name is Sidley."

"Well, of course, we know that, Silly Billy," the girl rejoined. "But you're Timothy White, too, and very cross you look. Now, why don't you try to look pleasant as you usually do?"

"Yes, don't be a fool, Sidley," said her companion. "Let me introduce you to Chaffers."

With an uneasy suspicion that I had been making a donkey of myself, I held out my hand to Chaffers, who gave it a friendly squeeze that nearly reduced it to jelly and me to tears.

"That's better, Timothy," said Miss Green-stockings; "If you're a good boy I'll give you a dance presently. Come along, Bernardo; they're just going to begin."

To my intense relief the pair moved off. Evidently they were intimate friends of Charlie's, and, as I had not even gathered their names, I should have had to let the cat out of the bag if they had stayed.

"Rum girl, Becky," remarked Chaffers, apparently alluding to Green-stockings. "Good sort, though. Works hard, keeps her sister's kids. Sister's a widow, you know."

I didn't know, but I made some vaguely appropriate reply. And Chaffers and I stood looking over the balustrade, conversing jerkily and each anxious to get rid of the other.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Chaffers, "there's Barker. Know him? Chap I took you for. I'll go and spank him now," and away he went, leaving me to slink away to an obscure corner where I could watch the entrance.

A quarter of an hour passed, and still there was no sign of Charlie. And then came the catastrophe.

I was staring hopelessly downwards through the gathering crowd when I noticed the companion of Green-stockings looking about anxiously as if seeking someone.

Suddenly he caught my eve and approached quickly, followed by a man with flat feet and an alpaca jacket, evidently an attendant.

"I say, Sidley," said my unknown friend, "there's something in the wind. A man has been asking for you in the cloakroom, and Spooner says he looks like a plain-clothes bobby."

"He's a plain-clothes man right enough, sir," said Spooner. "I spotted him directly. You see, I've been in the Force myself."

My heart sank. I felt as if I were going to faint. The whole horror of the situation burst on me in a flash. Of course my explanations would be scouted. Who would believe that I was a woman, with my short hair? Alas! the make-up was fatally perfect. For better or worse—especially worse—I was Charles Sidley. There was no escape from the borrowed identity. I should be haled off to prison and there would be a most hideous scandal. Oh! Why did I ever embark on this fool's enterprise?

"There's no need to upset yourself, old man," my friend said encouragingly. "We'll see you through. You just give me your cloak-room ticket and I'll get your hat and coat and put 'em on. Then I'll go out at the front and nip round into Mogle Street and meet you at the back entrance. Spooner will show you the way."

"It's most awfully good of you!" I exclaimed, ready to fall on his neck and weep. But he was perfectly stolid, taking my ticket without a word and slipping away through the crowd on his mission of mercy.

"This is the way, sir," said Spooner, opening a door and letting me through into a passage; and as we made our way to the back of the premises, he continued: "'Tis lucky for you, sir, that I spotted that man waiting for you like a cat at a mouse-hole. He'd have had you to a certainty if I hadn't."

I expressed—sincerely enough, Heaven knows!—my heartfelt gratitude, and Mr Spooner conducted me down some stairs to a door, which he opened with a great show of caution. As he looked out, I noticed that he held his hand in a peculiar position as if he were trying whether it was raining, and I took the opportunity to drop a half-sovereign into it, on which the hand closed automatically.

"Here comes Mr 'Adley, sir," he said, as footsteps were heard approaching. "You'd best put on your coat inside there and then cross the road to the turning oppersight and make for the King's Road."

Here Hadley—my new and most dear friend—came running in, peeling off my overcoat, which he helped me to put on.

"The plain-clothes chappie looked rather hard at me," he said, as he clapped my hat on my head, "but I don't think he tumbled to anything. Still, you'd better look alive. There, that'll do, old chap,"—for I had seized both his hands and could have hugged him—"don't waste time. You go up that street opposite and leg it like the devil. Bobby may have smelt a rat, you know. So long." He pushed me out on the pavement and I at once crossed the road and darted up the narrow street, not only following his advice to "leg it," but, as an extra precaution, shooting round the first corner that I came to, and thereafter turning up every side-street that I encountered. My progress was thus an elaborate zig-zag, like that of a fugitive hare, and, at the end of ten minutes I reckoned that I had so far placed myself beyond pursuit that I ventured to moderate my pace. In fact I should have been quite easy in my mind if I had only had the faintest idea where I was.

Unfortunately I had not. The only thing that was quite clear was that I had got into a very undesirable neighbourhood, and I was just considering the desirability of asking my way when I was startled by a series of shrieks. I hurried forward, and turning a corner, beheld a strange and terrible sight. In the middle of the road a man and a woman were gyrating madly. The man grasped the woman by the hair and pounded her with his free fist, and at each thump the woman screeched and clawed at the man's face. A few men and boys looked on unconcernedly from doorways and a number of women stood along the kerb and gave technical advice to the woman.

I was petrified with horror. Never before had I seen a man strike a woman. My blood boiled at the sight, and, totally forgetting my peculiar circumstances, I pushed through the crowd and strode up to the ruffian.

"Let that poor woman go, you brute!" I exclaimed fiercely.

He did not let go but he stopped punching to stare at me.

"Do you hear me?" I demanded. "How dare you strike a woman, you miserable, cowardly wretch?"

He let go then, and the liberated woman ran towards me, for protection, as I supposed. But no such thing, for the first news that I had of her arrival was a bang at the crown of my hat that drove it down over my eyes like an extinguisher. Frantically I wrenched it off just in time to see the man advancing on me with the action of a dancing bear and flourishing a pair of the dirtiest and most enormous fists that I have ever seen. I backed away hurriedly—on to the woman, who immediately grabbed my collar and pulled it over my ear; and as I wriggled myself free, that horrid ruffian struck me a most fearful blow just under my left arm.

I gave a scream of agony—at which the women laughed joyously—and sprang back. Then the woman came at me with her fingers hooked like talons and the man advanced once more in the dancing bear style. It was an awful moment. I gazed in terror from one assailant to the other, and then—I turned and flew down the street like an antelope. A yell of mingled laughter and execration arose behind me, but I heeded it not. A female voice—that of the rescued woman, I fear—bawled "Yah! Cow—WURD!" But I didn't care. I had no false pride. The vital necessity was to put as great a distance as possible between me and those terrible fists.

At first I had a small attendant procession of boys and men, but they soon dropped behind. Either I outdistanced them or they went back to witness the sequel. But I still ran on, up one street and down another, until I reached a quieter neighbourhood, and here I paused to get my breath and wipe my eyes—not that I was crying, you know, only that awful thump had made my eyes run a little.