Perdita Read Free Page B

handing me a white folded paper.
    “Thank you,” I replied, wondering who it could be from. Mr. Daugherty popped into my head. Before I read a word, I recognized Perdita’s peculiar penmanship. Her somewhat childishly-formed letters were always ornamented with swirls and curlicues, while her i’s were dotted with v’s. And still, fool that I am, I thought only how considerate she was to have left me word in what direction she was walking, in case I wished to join her.
    It was nothing of the sort. She started right off her epistle with a melodramatic outburst of how she could not endure this cruel life that was before her, and to free her soul of the fetters of constraint, she was fleeing ‘while still Time Remayned.’ Spelling was never her forte. Any word that was not given a capital was underlined to add force to her persuasions. No destination was named, but it hardly took a wizard to conclude she had run to Tuck’s Traveling Theater. I darted out the door to see if the carriage were still standing by. The roadway was empty.
    I had to screw up my courage to enter the disreputable Red Lion alone to inquire when they had left. “The actors went last night, miss,” the proprietor told me. “It’s their custom to leave at night. In that way they can sleep in their carriages, and save a night’s lodging. Their regular way of carrying on,” he added in a disparaging, gypped tone.
    “But they were here late last night. I heard them.”
    “Aye, so did the whole town. They stayed drinking and hollering till past midnight, but they didn’t sleep over. I’m not sorry to see the backs of them.”
    I asked, pink with shame, if a young lady had joined them, but he had no knowledge of my charge. While I had the ear of a local, I asked for the hours of the coach, only to learn I had missed one by fifteen minutes. Another would not be past till noon. He was kind enough to direct me to a hostelry that rented carriages.
    I darted back to the George first to get my money, and have our trunks brought down for loading on a hired carriage. That was when the day’s second calamity struck. I was painfully aware too that mishaps generally occur in three’s. The maid had been in our room and made it up. I went rooting through the trunk for the precious stocking holding our money, to find our things had been thoroughly rifled. The money was gone, likewise a few small items of wearing apparel. I needed that money too desperately to do without it.
    I stormed down to the desk, demanded the manager, made a great thundering brouhaha. Maids were called into his office, a search of their persons and rooms carried out, the whole of it using up a great deal of precious time and patience.
    "Nothing for it, ma’am, we’ll have to call in a constable,” the manager said apologetically.
    "I am in a great hurry. Could you not forward me some money? I don’t need the whole twenty-three pounds. Five or ten will do.”
    The fisheye he raked me with was a revelation. He did not believe a word of my story. Suggesting less than the whole sum convinced him I was shamming it. "Afraid that is impossible. Go to the constable—if you dare,” he said, with a brazen look.
    Before I left, he added one dim ray of hope. “Maybe your cohort took the blunt with her when she ran,” he said, in an odiously offending manner.
    I hoped and prayed she had, but could not believe it. Perdita had not bothered to take her own things; why would she have taken my tippet with the mink tails, or my best lace collar, which items were also missing?
    My next stop was the hiring stable. Having left it so late, there was nothing to be had but a whiskey. It hardly mattered. I could not have afforded a regular carriage, team and groom in any case. In fact, I had to leave my obligation at the inn unfulfilled, as I had less than two pounds to see Perdita and myself to safety. Our trunks were left behind as hostages. I would go after Perdita, come back to the George and sit