It Was a Snowy Evening in London

It was a snowy evening in London, the merriest snow of all December. Golden triangles of light from the windows of the houses along the boulevard fell upon the white surface like patterns upon the back of playing cards.

The fireplace in the library of John Harbridge -- John Harbridge the solicitor and, some said, confidential advisor to the royal family -- proved a welcome refuge from the storm.

Sparks flew up as Harbridge stirred the glowing logs with a poker.

“A funny business,” he said, “altogether rum. I don’t relish telling it, and I wouldn’t, if it wasn’t for the fact that someone needs to hear it…just in case.”

Gregor Strayhorn, he of the British Academy of Science, and most recently discoverer of a new star on the outer dim edges of the Alpha Centauri, leaned into the circle of light. What drew his intense interest? One wouldn’t think a unexplainable phenomenon in the trackless deserts of Mongolia fell within his purview.

Frayherne was there too, the Arctic explorer, who was warming his hands as if to thaw the ice of his twelve polar expeditions. He nodded to Harbridge in a gesture of trustworthiness, as though to convey, “whatever you have to say, it is safe with me.’

So did Mangreave, of Scotland Yard, give the same nod, the same look. He didn’t always see eye to eye with Harbridge, or with Frayherne for that matter, but there are some times in a man’s life where you set aside petty differences. This gave every indication of being such a time.

Close at his elbow, Mangreave’s elbow I mean, the cut glass tumbler of aged premium scotch seemingly forgotten in his left hand, stood Ulysses Standish, taking it all in, not saying much…but did he ever? Was there anywhere such a man for seeing through the thickets of extraneous material to the ultimate reality of a situation? Spending a life in the French Foreign Legion will do that to a soul.

You would get no argument on that account from the man just to the left and behind Standish, oh, say two feet or so; this was Hotchkiss, head curator of ancient exhibits at the London Museum, one of those public figures who has a list of titles and honors trailing his name, but who carries himself with the stolid humility of the town carpenter.

No, maybe it was more like three feet, this closeness to Standish that I talk of.

Call it two feet, ten inches.

Not so Jaspar Cruishank – I’m referring back to how humble this guy Hotchkiss is, which this new fellow Cruishank most definitely is not, humble I mean -- a little further back and to the right, who was known for his quick temper and inordinate pride in his titled birth in the Hapsburg Empire, now lost. The Hapsburg Empire I mean is now lost, not Cruishank. He found his way here, didn’t he? Does that seem like he’s ‘lost’ to you? Look, can I just say that as a reader sometimes you are paying too much attention, and at other times not enough? -- Anyway, some said that underneath the fiery demeanor beat a sensitive and loyal heart.

OK, that’s enough about Cruishank.

Do you think? Jeez.

Now that I think about it, let’s go back to three foot even, that’s good enough, I’m back on this business of the distance between Cruishank and Standish. Three feet, there, it’s decided, you won’t hear anything more from me on the matter.

Three feet.

Close to the window was Brinkwater, chief correspondent for The Times. He looked out and watched the snow tumble down, lost in his own thoughts, or so you would surmise, until he interjected a sharp question – “this tiger you speak of, Siberian or African?” – to show that he had been listening closely all along, very closely indeed.

Where you saw Brinkwater you ordinarily saw Chatworth, this would be Charles Chatworth, not his older brother Neville, and indeed, he was close at hand tonight, there’s old Charles Chatworth himself. Told you. You see the one, you see the other. My very words.

You have to wonder if Brinkwater ever says to himself, “good God, is there any way to get rid of this damned Chatworth? Charles, not Neville, I mean. Neville I can take or leave. But Charles, he's an absolute barnacle.”

Darker altogether in tone and response, now I’m talking about Charles Chatworth, it was always assumed that he did some of the digging for Brinkwater in the, shall we say, less savory parts of the city. Charles, Charles, Charles is the brother I’m talking about! Neville isn’t here at all at this shindig, never was, probably miles away. Get it through your head.

To his right and a few feet further back still, three feet-two inches I would say, I don’t know what it would be in the metric system, stood Henry Slocum; now here was a puzzle indeed. A close one, Slocum was, kept to himself. It was well known that he was heir to the Slocum manganese fortune…but then why was there whispering that he was loading cargo into the hold of the tramp steamer Jean Marie just the other night? That one bears watching…for all the good it will do you. Trust me, his expression doesn’t give much away. No brother that I know of.

The only woman in the room, Jonquil Steadfast, stood further back, well, not in the room proper I suppose, we’re out into the hallway now actually, her steady gaze ceding no ground to whomsoever’s eye she met. Orphaned at six, married to an American tycoon at nineteen, and now a widow, she had seen more of life in her thirty odd years than most men experience in their entire lifetime. Know her by her flashing eyes and flaming red hair. Well, you could go up to her and ask her her name, too. Or if you’re shy, just ask someone standing around you.

A little way down that hallway I was speaking of, but close enough to touch if one had so desired and if one was willing to risk it, was Francois DeBris, bearing the most pronounced accent in the room, Gah, I mean, like come on, OK, you’re French! You talk funny. We just about get it.

It was said that he had had a bad war, a very bad war, but you wouldn’t know it for the look of perpetual merriment you saw on his face. Perhaps a case of the tears of the clown, or perhaps he really had put it all behind him. Or maybe he’s just, you know, drunk, or off his rocker.

To his left, really in what I suppose you would call an adjoining drawing room to the library, was Malcolm Dearpoint, race car legend and national hero to the working class. He had come up from nothing and had clawed his way to the top of the racing world with only a terrifying bravery and a mischievous grin going for him. Unusually, he hung on Harbridge’s words in the way one does when one has a personal stake in the matter.

Of course by this time Harbridge is like two-and-a-half miles away, all the way back to that fireplace that I spoke of, seems like a month-and-a-half ago now doesn’t it, which gives evidence of sputtering out, the fireplace I mean, not Harbridge, simply from the unbelievable passage of the time it takes to get all these damned people described.

In fact, call it two-and-three-quarters miles.

Jeremy Grant, head scientist at The Greater London Laboratory of the Royal Academy, he’s right around there somewhere, getting squashed against the wall if you want to know the truth, a bit flattened out like a sardine in a tin can if the sardine was standing upright for some reason. Squished upright right like that I’d put him at 5’-11”.

For his part, he placed his fingertips together and put them to his lips in a thoughtful pose. He stirred and looked as though he was going to speak.

Well he may or might not, speak I mean, but we gotta get a move on, let’s just slide on by ol’ Jeremy and maybe pick up on him later, or maybe not, too, at the end of the day, you know, who cares? I still have a lot of people to tell you about in this damn room! What is this place, anyway, aircraft hangar size? Train station size? And where did all these damned people come from? Don’t they have anything better to do on a Saturday night?

Man, I love a snowy weekend night in a pub, don’t you? The fire so warm, the beer so cold, snow bashing against the windows. Man, what I wouldn’t give.

Stephens, the boisterous man of letters, rival to H. G. Wells, was there, taking it all in, taking it all in, as was his way. It was said of him that even his most speculative fiction had a kernel of reality at its base, and if you asked him so directly he wouldn’t say no.

Rival or not, at least H. G. Wells had sense enough to not be in this damned room. Probably in a nice warm pub somewhere.

James and John Carlyle were there; I don’t know what their interest was – they’re badminton champions for Pete’s sake – but there they were. There they were. We’ve been talking about brothers this whole time haven’t we, and then there are these two brothers right in front of us. What a deal. Goodness me. I suppose they had their reasons to be there. We’re lucky I guess they don’t start batting around a birdie right then and there, whacking people in the head.

I think we’re done with the whole brother thing.

The archeologist Payton leaned languidly against a wall, but I will say that he had his notebook out as though he knew something of the matter that was before us.

Chauncey was there, of the East India Company, looking as if he had come fresh off the boat from Ceylon. Now why, I ask you, why was the East India Company so interested in what Harbridge was going to say?  And as I seem to be saying more and more, who cares? The universe will essentially sputter out, give it a few billion years, entropic heat death of the universe they call it, just like this guy’s fireplace is going to sputter out, forgot his name though, the fireplace guy, I’ll bet you have too, it’s been so long.

After that then, after these first few guys, it gets a little weird.

There seems to be some big dog running around. Or he may be a werewolf. Or a vampire in the shape of a wolf, or that other thing, starts with a G, golem. That’s it, a golem. Do golems look like big dogs? Couldn’t say, just couldn’t say.

Professor Harry Hoofer, the Counting Mule, was just behind this big dog thing, and behind him, Professor Harry I mean, was a flock of trained pigeons that spelled out certain words in the air.

That reminds me of a talking parrot I once heard off that this fellow bought from the pet store, but you know what? You know who the previous owner of this talking parrot was? A mime. Yes, a mime. The parrot had never heard a spoken word in his life, so naturally he couldn’t say one. This dammed parrot just sat on its perch all day trying to convey these complex emotional situations or maybe even wisecracks, or perhaps just observations on the scene unfolding before him, using only his crazy beaked head and his clumsy clawed feet. It must have been frustrating for him. Dammed frustrating, I imagine.

Oh, and a bunch of other people and stuff. There’s the guy who played the 77th trombone, how do you think he feels, no jaunty songs for him, right? A a couple of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are playing rock, paper, scissors over in the corner, let’s see, just past them ten lords a-leaping, good God, what a way to make a living, leaping around, and what a drag of a job it must be to do, you’d think being a lord would convey a little more dignity on you. It goes on from there. Let’s just say it goes on from there, and leave it at that, but we are sure a long way from that fireplace now, I’ll give you that. Man. – lsm