The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes, #1)

by Nancy Springer

The stranger, all dressed in black from her hat to her boots, slips from shadow to shadow as if she were no more than a shadow herself, unnoticed. Where she comes from, it is unthinkable for a female to venture out at night without the escort of a husband, father, or brother. But she will do whatever she must in order to search for the one who is lost.

She must keep moving, for not only is she a seeker, but she is sought. The black-veiled hunter is hunted. She must walk far so that the men who are pursuing her cannot find her.

One like her was recently found dead a few streets away, slit

wide open.

Jack the Ripper

I would very much like to know why my mother named me “Enola,” which, backwards, spells alone.

Although cordial enough when we met, Mum and I seldom interfered in one another’s concerns.

Then I exited through the kitchen, telling Mrs. Lane, “I am going to have a look around.” Odd; these were the same words I said nearly every day when I went out to—look for things, though generally I didn’t know what.

Always I felt to blame for—for whatever, for breathing—because I had been born indecently late in Mother’s life, a scandal, a burden, you see.

Being not too far from the city, Ferndell tenants had taken to farming bluebells and pansies and lilies instead of vegetables,

as they could better prosper by delivering fresh blossoms daily to Covent Garden.

LADY EUDORIA VERNET HOLMES MISSING SINCE YESTERDAY STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP ENOLA HOLMES

I directed this wire to Mycroft Holmes, of Pall Mall, in London.

And also, the same message, to Sherlock Holmes, of Baker Street, also i...

knickers /ˈnikərz/ I. plural noun 1. (also knickerbockers) — (N. Amer.) loose-fitting trousers gathered at the knee or calf. 2. (Brit.) a woman's or girl's underpants. II. phrases get one's knickers in a twist (Brit.) ‹informal› become upset or angry. III. derivatives knickered adjective – origin late 19th cent. (sense 1): abbreviation of knickerbockers (see knickerbocker).

pneumatic /n(y)o͞oˈmadik/ I. adjective 1. containing or operated by air or gas under pressure. 2. [Zoology] (chiefly of cavities in the bones of birds) containing air. 3. ‹informal› (of a woman) having large breasts • Lee and his pneumatic wife. 4. of or relating to the spirit. II. noun — (usu. pneumatics) 1. an item of pneumatic equipment. III. derivatives 1. pneumatically /n(y)o͞oˈmadək(ə)lē / adverb 2. pneumaticity /ˌn(y)o͞oməˈtisətē / noun – origin mid 17th cent.: from French pneumatique or Latin pneumaticus, from Greek pneumatikos, from pneuma ‘wind,’ from pnein ‘breathe.’

I knew my mother was criticised for failing properly to drape vulgar surfaces such as coal scuttles, the back of her piano, and me. Shocking child that I was.

Mum was, you see, very much a free thinker, a woman of character, a proponent of female suffrage and dress reform, including the soft, loose, Aesthetic gowns advocated by Ruskin—but also, whether she liked it or not, she was a squire’s widow, with certain obligations.

How odd that my mother should go out with a mannish umbrella, a mannish hat, yet swishing that most flirtatious feminine tail, a bustle.

I wondered whether Father had really expired of mortification due to my existence, as the village children liked to tell me, or whether he had succumbed to fever and pleurisy as Mum said.

Why they had not visited Mother and me, and why we had not visited them, of course I knew: because of the disgrace I had brought upon my family by being born.

“We should have known her; she looks just like you, Sherlock.” The taller, leaner one was indeed Sherlock, then. I liked his bony face, his hawk eyes, his nose like a beak, but I sensed that for me to look like him was no compliment.

“She is, after all, sixty-four years old.”

“Sweet peas and thistles?” I exclaimed. “How odd.”

“And here it’s still the same old story, the same foolish quarrel, they’ve never a kind word for their own mother, and she maybe lying out there

Never could abide a strong-minded woman.”

“The two best thinkers in England ought to be able to reason this out,” Mycroft was saying.

“We are trying to decide,” he said, “whether what is happening now connects to what happened after Father’s dea—er, after our father’s passing away.

All my life I had assumed that my brothers kept

their distance due to my shameful existence, whereas they were saying—a quarrel with my mother?

This cool nook was my secret hideaway, known to no one except me.

A pox

a pox on someone in British English (interjection) archaic an expression of intense disgust or aversion for someone https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/a-pox-on-someone

I wanted my brothers to . . . I did not dare to think in terms of affection, but I wanted them to care for me a little, somehow.

wondered why Mum had put the featherweight cushion upon her dresser, yet

had not worn it inside her bustle.

Hiding something?

Her Rational Dress journals were filled with warnings about their cultivation of the “hourglass” figure.

It feels very queer to think of one’s mother as a person like oneself, not just a mum, so to speak. Yet there it was: She had been weak as well as strong. She had felt as trapped as I did. She had felt the injustice of her situation just as keenly. She had been forced to obey, as I would be forced to obey. She had wanted to rebel,

as I desperately yearned to rebel, without knowing how I ever would or could. But in the end, she had managed it. Glorious rebellion. Confound her, why had she not taken me with her?

ALO NEK OOL NIY MSM UME HTN ASY RHC

ENOLA LOOK IN MY

CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

chrysanthemum. “The bestowing of chrysanthemums indicates familial attachment and, by implication, affection.”

“Good-bye, and thank you for a lovely time. A gift made upon departure.” Departure. Next, I looked up thistles. “Defiance.”

“My” chrysanthemums. Mums that Mum had painted. And framed, and displayed on the wall of her sitting room.

It was a Bank of England note for a hundred pounds. More money than most common folk saw in a year. But money was not what I wanted from my mother.

I knew that she had practised her deceptions for my sake, at least in part. And I knew that the money she had so cleverly slipped to me was meant to give me freedom.

The answer seemed obvious to me: in order to conceal in the dress improver’s place the baggage necessary for running away.

I would disguise myself as a grown woman. And then I would set about finding my mother.

Horses sweat, you know, and men perspire, whereas ladies glow. I am sure I looked all of a glow also. Indeed, I could feel all-of-a-glow trickling down my sides beneath my corset, the steel ribs of which jabbed me under the arms most annoyingly.

Yes, a widow. Head to toe, I wore the black garb of mourning I had taken from my mother’s closet. The costume, by indicating that I had been married, added a decade or more to my age, yet allowed me to wear my comfortable old black boots, which would not be noticed, and my hair in a simple bun, which I could manage. Best of all, it made me nearly unrecognisable.

He made no attempt to sell a match to me, of course, for ladies did not smoke.