that right? An’ who might you be?” she demanded in broad Cockney, with another contemptuous up-and-down scanning. “Look like you’ve been dragged backwards through a mangle, you do.”
“Ah. Yes. Indeed,” I acknowledged, glancing down at my wretched, emaciated form with an embarrassed grin. “Well, you know … got a bit er, you know, getting ashore. From the, er, the ship.” I gestured vaguely back towards the docks.
She waited, still looking suspicious and rather less than co-operative. Clearly, some further reassurance would be needed in order to proceed beyond this obstacle.
“Oh. Ah, I’m Tom,” I blurted. She looked utterly blank at this, and realising that my vague and childish informality would cut no mustard whatsoever with her, I spluttered to correct it: “Er, Thomas … er, Quayle.” I took a deep breath and made another attempt. “Dr Thomas Quayle. The … the new surgeon.”
“Surgeon?” She echoed, and looked me up and down, one corner of her lip curling upward into her dimpled cheek in palpable disbelief. “You’re a doctor?” I grinned sheepishly in confirmation.
“Well,” she pronounced most decidedly, ”you don’t look like one.”
“Well, indeed I am, er, a doctor,” I hastened on, “and not only that, but … er, the.…” But she had already closed the door in my face before I could finish, so that I was forced now to shout through the closed portal: “…the governor’s nephew!”
It was a mere second before the door opened again, just a crack this time, the pink face peering out. “You what?”
“I’m the governor’s …”, I confirmed with a small embarrassed cough, “nephew” (this with a fixed grin).
“Oh.” She appraised me once more, eyes narrowed, considering. Even the slight possibility of such a preposterous claim turning out to be true had clearly changed the state of things; and I must have looked by now as if my patience was wearing rather thin.
Well,” she determined at last, ”you better come in then.”
She opened the door and turned to me. “You wait ’ere.” She marched briskly off down a long hallway. I entered slowly, gazing about at the crude stonework of the small foyer, its clay plastering apparently done in a hodgepodge mixture of rich red-brown and silver-grey, its painting by no means completed.
I stood waiting there for several moments until the maidservant reappeared. “All right,” she said, still with a slight tone of uncertainty, “come wi’ me then.”
She led me along the hall and around a corner, where she stopped and indicated a solid-looking door bearing a large brass plaque carrying the legend “SIR HENRY BLYTHE, Governor”.
“Knock there an’ wait to be called in,” she instructed. And with that, off she marched, pausing to cast one more suspicious look over her shoulder, as if to reassure herself that I was not ducking away to help myself to the best silver.
I drew myself up straight, took a deep breath and knocked, rather more tentatively than I had intended.
“Enter!” came the daunting bark from within.
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