The Last True Gentleman On The Planet Earth

Chapter Four

Their father stood in the doorway. Along the ceiling and upper wall, witches on brooms, cats and moons all danced in the light cast by the small lamp on the bedside table. There was the faintest sound of bells. A tiny puddle of spit pooled out of Elizabeth's mouth as she slept, her black hair spilled like ink upon the blank white page of her pillow. Sarah's arms were up above her head as if she'd fallen from a great height and Alice was on her stomach, face buried in the pillow. They were all asleep together, the featherbed entwined in and about and around them like a mischievous cloud.

"See Darling," their mother whispered, "all safe. Our little monsters are safe, no harm has come to them."

"We all live to see another day," he whispered in reply, "with our perfect little monsters." and shut the door.

Their mother kissed their father on the nose, "To bed?"

"Yes Pet, to bed safe in the knowledge that the local aristocracy are not monsters and are indeed capable of returning our children safe from harm."

"She was only a Lady, not the Queen."

"Still."

"Still?"

"Still. Say, is it too late for a nightcap?"

It was Sarah who woke first. She looked around the room. "Oh!" she exclaimed then looked again. "Oh!" she cried out.

"Wot?" said Alice sleepily shaking her head.

"Noooooooo! Noooooo, that would be too cruel, noooooo!" wailed Elizabeth and began rummaging around the featherbed looking for something, uncertain what. "Noooooo!"

"Lord, you sound like a train," Alice said, irritably, then realizing she was somehow back in her own room cried out too. "Noooooooo! But, how?! How! It can't be. How can we be home?"

"We didn't just dream all of that, did we?" asked Sarah. "Oh, that would be too horrible."

The girls sat silent for a moment trying to adjust, feeling as if something had been taken from them.

"It wasn't a dream," said Alice finally, putting on her glasses. "It couldn't have been."

"Of course not, we were there." Sarah paused. "Oh, that magical house. But how did we all get back here and," she looked under the sheets, "in our jammies? I remember we drank that awful flying potion, you remember that?"

"Yes," said Alice, "I remember that."

Elizabeth straightened her top, almost in tears. "I remember it tasted like strawberries gone off."

"Did it? Mine tasted more like a kind of burnt butterscotch," said Sarah.

Alice sighed, "I distinctly remember mine tasting of oranges but then turning odd, salty like olives."

"We were going to fly," sighed Elizabeth. "I honestly thought we were going to fly... I loved having wings."

"Girls," their mother said, putting her head in the door. All three girls screamed.

"Mother! You are home!" shouted Sarah.

"Yes, we got in late last night. Your father had had enough of the dinner and the company and frankly we were worried about you three. We should be cross about you going off to Lady H's but the Pemberton-Pembertons said she is ever so nice, just a tad eccentric. We thought you'd have a nice night of it and be safe in the storm. Did you, were you?"

"Oh mother!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "It was so magical. We met the queerest sorts of people; it was so wonderful! We rode in a sleigh, we played games in an enormous ballroom and, and we were about to be in a play where we flew. . ." She stopped.