A Very Unusual Pursuit Read Online Free Page B

modest bustle, no flounces, and the plainest of hairstyles. Her pale face was shaped like a cat’s, wide at the cheekbones but tapering off to a pointed chin. She had clear hazel eyes under straight, black brows, and there were lines around her eyes.
    ‘You must be Mr Bunce,’ she said briskly, extending a hand to Alfred, who was still standing in the street. Then she caught sight of Birdie. ‘And who is this?’ she asked.
    ‘He wouldn’t come without her, miss,’ Mary complained. And since Alfred seemed to be momentarily speechless, Birdie answered for him.
    ‘I’m the ’prentice,’ she announced.
    ‘I see.’ After a moment’s startled silence, the lady murmured, ‘And what is your name, dear?’
    ‘Birdie.’
    ‘So nice to meet you, Birdie. My name is Edith Eames, and if you’d both step inside, I’ll give you a full account of why I sent for you. Rest assured, I shan’t keep you long.’ To her housemaid, who was already bound for the kitchen, Miss Eames said, ‘Could you bring us some tea, Mary? In the drawing room, I think.’
    ‘In the drawing room?’ Mary looked askance at Alfred and Birdie. ‘But—’ ‘In the drawing room , Mary,’ Miss Eames repeated, her voice stern. ‘And bring a little cake, if you please.’
    Birdie grinned. Tea was a rare luxury. Though she didn’t like it much, she would enjoy boasting about it to her friends. But it was the prospect of cake that made her heart pound.
    Birdie loved cake.
    She scurried after Miss Eames and soon found herself in a hall that wasn’t quite as grand as Mrs Plumeridge’s, though still very handsome. The drawing room that opened off it was so pretty that Birdie didn’t know where to look first. It had flowered wallpaper and tasselled curtains and embroidered firescreens. There were stuffed birds and gilt-framed pictures, books and cushions, a workbox, a piano, a red marble clock and a white marble statue. The grate was full of fresh roses, and the carpet was so beautiful that Birdie was afraid to tread on it.
    ‘Please sit down,’ Miss Eames said to Alfred, who was peering nervously at all the chairs on offer. They were spindly things, covered in damask.
    ‘Mebbe I oughter stand,’ he replied, ‘else I dirty ’em.’
    But Miss Eames wouldn’t let him stand. Instead she draped the sturdiest chair in crocheted antimacassars, which she gathered from some of the other chairs in the room. Once he’d settled himself into a nest of white frills, with his sack on his knee and his hat on his sack, Miss Eames put Birdie on a footstool, arranged herself on an elegant fainting-couch, and began to speak.
    ‘Mr Bunce, I have made a long and scientific study of English folklore. My main interest is in the faerie realm – those inhabitants of the spirit world that some call Elementals. It was always my understanding that belief in elfin peoples had been driven from our cities, and that it existed only among country dwellers steeped in the ancient traditions of our race. But when my housemaid told me about your occupation, I realised that I was wrong!’
    Alfred stared at her blankly. So she cleared her throat and tried again.
    ‘I’m told that you were recently hired to banish a child-eating beast from a house in Paddington. Is that correct?’ she asked.
    Alfred nodded mutely. It was Birdie who said, ‘A chimney-bogle.’
    ‘A chimney-bogle!’ Miss Eames repeated, rolling the words around on her tongue with obvious delight. ‘How extraordinary. And did you actually see this creature?’
    ‘Of course!’ Birdie exclaimed. ‘You can’t kill a bogle if you can’t see it!’
    ‘Ah! So you killed it, did you?’ Before Birdie could answer, Miss Eames reached over to retrieve a book and pencil from a little table nearby. ‘What did it look like, this “chimney-bogle”?’
    ‘Oh, it were big. And black.’ As Miss Eames began to scribble in her book, Birdie added, ‘We ain’t never caught more’n a glimpse of any bogle, on