Free Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck Page B

faces. None of this was easy in these skirts. The Duchess carried her walking stick in her teeth. She was a game old thing.
    We were no sooner at the cluttered top than she got busy, hobbling over the blotter, swerving around the inkstand. “Now, where is that guest list?” she wondered aloud. “I know Lady Augusta was working on it only this afternoon. Ah!”
    She nosed a sheet of cream-laid paper our way. The names on it were written in a flowing script.
    â€œI will explain. Her Royal Highness the Princess Louise will honor a very few of her fellow passengers at an evening reception in the near future. A little music and light refreshment.”
    We stared, mystified.
    â€œOne of our several talents is that we can copy the Princess’s handwriting,” she said. “Being artistic, she writes in a beautiful script. So do we.”
    â€œOh for pity’s sake,” Louise blurted. “She’s going to invite the Upstairs Cranstons to the Princess’s reception!”
    We gasped and goggled. The Duchess nearly smiled. We glimpsed her terrible teeth. “Ink,” she ordered, “and a pen.”
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    EVEN GETTING THE lid off the inkstand was a job. And you should have seen the pen in the Duchess’s hand. It was like writing names with a telephone pole.
    But, oh, she was deft. With her old bent back crouched over the page, she wrote an artistic hand. Her letters had loopier tails than her own. Each time we three carried the pen back to be dipped in ink, she ran a hand down the arch of her aching back.

    Oh, she was deft.
    But the names emerged, drying upon the page:
    Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Cranston
Miss Olive Cransten
Miss Camilla Cranston
    It was not the work of a minute, and time was running out. Handing the Duchess back down from one drawer pull to another was no picnic either. And her breath like to take the finish off the desk.
    But we were at last once more before the fire, shaking out our skirts. In the crackling quiet, music still welled up from the Winter Garden. Yet it was time to go. The whole business had taken a lot out of the Duchess. She was sadly bent. “I have done what I can. The rest is up to you.” She stroked a tangled whisker.
    But how?
    â€œYou are their mice. Your fates are intertwined with theirs.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI can only get your humans to the reception. I am myself never up at that hour. You must take charge. You cannot leave important decisions to humans. Times come when mice must pay their way. Your time draws nigh.”
    She dismissed us with a small nod. The firelight caught in her rusty tiara. We dropped three numb little curtsies, and turned to go.
    And there stood . . . Lamont. Johnny-on-the-spot.
    We supposed he had come for us, but he cleared his throat importantly and kept his tail well out of sight. “Lord Peter ’Enslowe!” he announced, stepping aside.
    And there was the best-looking mouse you ever laid your eyes on, bowing past us to the Duchess.

    The best-looking mouse you ever laid your eyes on.
    Wonderfully trimmed whiskers. Very aristocratic ears. A tail that was pure poetry. I try to be sensible, but I was much moved. Louise’s eyes bulged out of her head. Beatrice quivered. Who wouldn’t?
    â€œAh, Lord Peter, how good of you to call,” sang out the Duchess, rallying behind us. “Allow me to present the sisters Cranston. Helena.”
    I inclined my head in a genteel manner.
    â€œLouise,” said the Duchess.
    Louise did the same.
    â€œAnd Beatrice,” the Duchess concluded.
    Beatrice curtsied all the way to the carpet in a froth of flustered skirts. I thought we’d have to help her back up.
    Lord Peter, Mouse-in-Waiting—no, that’s not the term—Mouse Equerry to the human Lord Peter Henslowe, and even better looking.
    But now Lamont was peering around this splendid titled mouse. “You three,” he piped at us. “It’s time you