Posted June 4, 2021
Warning! Post #8900 contains a moving image (gif).
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Word had been sent to Miss Arabella Mudd to make her aware of her appointment in the morning, and she'd sent word back that she would be there. Jonah had made sure that there was a room set aside at the rear of the building, where it would be quieter. The windows were covered to block most of the light, and candles were providing flickering light.
The aroma of fresh baking bread wafted from the kitchen, and Mrs. Towberman had some small cakes and cookies set out.
Now it was a matter of awaiting the other players in the drama!
"Where are the snows of yesterday" - Villon
Worchester Pettigrew prided himself on his promptitude and at 8:55am precisely rapped on the good doctor's front door with his walking cane. The young nurse that answered it, he gave the usual once over. He was really looking for some good, properly plump, curvaceous models to show off his latest creations: but all the young women around here were positively emaciated looking. Unfortunately this one was was cut from the same meagre pattern as the rest.
"Mr. Pettigrew, Doctor Danforth is expecting me!" he announced himself tersely. He wanted to get in and settled to this operation so he could put down the heavy carpet bag he held in his other hand.
Her clothes, he noted, were neat and adequately hand sewn; she was probably too poor to buy a dress from his store.
Retired Characters and NPC Writer.
If there was ever so unsettling a sensation as that of being regarded by an almost-stranger, Aoife had yet to discover what it could possibly have been. Worchester Pettigrew, the town's authority on the arcane would have not ordinarily have had a place within the Kalispell Doctor's Office, but she had been informed that these were not ordinary circumstances. The whole Arabella affair seemed so far removed from medical practice that she found herself beginning to wonder if it might be a more spiritual than physical ailment.
Ah well, don't ask, don't tell.
"Mr. Pettigrew, Doctor Danforth is expecting me!" announced the stumpy man after an excruciating few moments of ogling, during which time Aoife leaned against the doorframe in exasperation. She had grown used to the overtly sexual nature of the male gaze, especially sharing the same four walls with Hector Wigfall, but Mr. Pettigrew's wandering eyes seemed almost mercenary. Somehow, it was worse.
"Of course. This way please." she replied politely, as she pushed the door wide for him to enter. "The doctor is just in the back, if you'll follow me..."
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
Less than five minutes later, there was a less strident, weedy little knock at the door: perhaps Aoife should have swapped her Nurse’s garb for that of a Doorman! Outside was Arabella, dressed in her usual black, although the once perfect dress was starting to become a little worn. It was supposed to be just for her funerary photography work, but the Clinch Mountain girl now wore it every time she went out, having decided that the colour, or rather tone suited her. It didn’t: it made her pale skin look even more corpse-like than usual. But when your fashion advisers were Bridget Monahan and Jemima Wigfall, well, God help you!
If Arabella had been standoffish toward Aoife yesterday, when she had virtually ignored the Irish girl as she hurried into and out of Doctor Danforth’s office, today she was more effusive, even going so far as to apologise for her previous rude behaviour.
“Hello, it’s me. I’m here for my operation. Sorry if I was rude and didn’t say much yesterday, I was just worried out of my mind with something, but I’m going to get it fixed today with Doctor Danforth’s help, and then I’ll be all right. Say, you live at the Wigfall’s don’t you? I’m pals with Jemima Wigfall.” She seemed much cheerier than yesterday, even if dark circles around her eyes indicated that she had either been too excited or too worried about this ‘operation’ to get much sleep last night.
Jonah was waiting in the room, and thanked Aoife for her help. He knew the young woman was curious, but also that she'd not intrude or mention anything, even as much as he was itching to talk about it to someone!
"Mr. Pettigrew, thank you for coming." Jonah smiled as he let the man into the room, quietly closing the door behind them. "I have everything ready, the young lady should be here shortly." Letting out a breath, he added, "If I can help..?" He wouldn't mind seeing what the process was all about, but he wasn't sure the man would want to reveal his secrets.
Retired Characters and NPC Writer.
No sooner had Aoife returned to the frontmost rooms of the practice than the second knock sounded at the door. She opened it with her usual propensity, to reveal little Miss Mudd; dressed in the trappings of a widow.
“Hello, it’s me. I’m here for my operation. Sorry if I was rude and didn’t say much yesterday, I was just worried out of my mind with something, but I’m going to get it fixed today with Doctor Danforth’s help, and then I’ll be all right."
Aoife begun to say something dismissive like 'don't worry about it' but Arabella continued on, with that unending run-on-sentence in which she spoke.
"Say, you live at the Wigfall’s don’t you? I’m pals with Jemima Wigfall.”
"Oh?" Aoife said, coercing a look of fraternity onto her face. "She's... a character."
She might have had more to say on the matter, but decided to let it lie, given that Arabella was in fact here to have an operation of some kind. It wouldn't have been very professional to chase her away at the door with commentary on her cohorts.
"Mr. Pettigrew and Doctor Danforth are waiting for you in the back." she told Arabella quickly, so as not to elaborate any further on the exact characteristics of Jemima Wigfall. Once more she opened the door wide and led the girl inside, to where a procedure of some unknown importance awaited.
"Where are the snows of yesterday" - Villon
Pettigrew was affable enough with Dr. Danforth but somewhat dismissive of his well meaning efforts at providing a suitable ambience in the room. He immediately threw open the drapes and pinched out the candles with his bare fingers: an easy enough feat for the resolute.
“Oh, we shall not require the mummeries of the Séance, Doctor, no indeed. The pure light of science will illuminate our operations this morning.” He declaimed “And please do stay, I hope you will find the procedure interesting, if we are successful. In fact, if she is willing…”
The Door opened and a slightly frightened looking Arabella entered, clutching her purse for dear life, followed by nurse Leane.
“… ah yes, if your charming nurse would stay also, for reasons of propriety. Miss Mudd, if we succeed, will be quite insensible for much of the time; with two gentlemen present I believe the presence of a chaperone would be meet.” Said the man who spent a great deal of his working life alone with his hands all over half naked women!
“Hello Mr Pettigrew, is you the feller that knows how to do the mesmerizin’?” Arabella asked amazed.
“I have that honour, Miss Mudd.” Replied Pettigrew in his light Louisiana accent “And have no fear, the process will not impair your remarkable abilities on the pianoforte and neither shall I implant any notions in your head to spend more than your customary few cents a week in my store!” he jested lightly, in order to put her at ease.
“Oooh, what’s that?” she asked nervously, pointing at the Zoescope on the table.
“Oh, just a little toy to amuse you and make you feel at ease before we get down to business.” Worchester explained gently. “Do take a seat here next to me and I shall show the thing, it really is quite amusing.”
As Arabella sat, he shot Danforth and Aoife a look which said, in no uncertain terms, Don’t believe a word of it, the game is now officially ON.
"Miss Mudd, I hope you are feeling well." Jonah smiled to the young girl, sincerely hoping that when she left today, she would be free of her affliction. He held a chair for her, then one for Aoife, near the table where the contraption was sitting, but at as discrete a distance as could be achieved in the small room, and finally he sank into the chair next to his nurse.
This was no doubt going to be very interesting, if not educational, and he was curious to see what part the Zoescope had to play in it .
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
"Miss Mudd, I hope you are feeling well." Jonah smiled to the young girl, sincerely hoping that when she left today, she would be free of her affliction.
Arabella gave him the quickest of nervous smiles and then was all eyes for the odd squat cylinder with the slits in the side and little pictures within, all similar but each one just a little bit different from the last.
“Now, you just look through that lil’ peephole in the side there, Miss Mudd and tell me what you see.” She did as she was bidden and Worchester started to turn a little handle at the side of the contraption which made the thing start to turn around like a carousel. Arabella gasped!
“What the Dickens! The little man and horse inside’s all come alive!!” she yelped delightedly and jumped up to peer into the thing from above, expecting to see a tiny little horse and rider in there. “Now it’s just pictures again!” she said, more intrigued than disappointed. “Well, ain’t this the darndest thing?! You seen this?” she asked Danforth and Nurse Leane. “I never seen nuthin’ like this in my entire life and I’ve lived some!” she chattered on in her usual garrulous way.
Pettigrew got her sitting down again and looking back through the little gap in the metal.
“Let’s try it again, Miss, and this time I want you to count how many times the man jumps his horse over the fence, can you do that for me?” Arabella nodded and Pettigrew started the machine spinning again.
“One, Two, three…” as she counted quietly to herself, Pettigrew stretched and yawned (as you, gentle reader, are no doubt yawning now) and spoke.
“Oh, watching that man jumping that horse makes a body so tired and sleepy… yawn … oh, I imagine you’re feeling sleepy too, Arabella, watching him jump and jump and jump…. When he makes jump number twenty, you’re going to fall asleep, quite asleep, and when I snap my fingers you will wake up and listen to me … only to me … eighteen, nineteen, twenty!” his voice joined in with Arabella’s on the last few numbers, as he let the machine trickle to a halt.
Arabella’s eyes had closed but opened again when he snapped his fingers.
“What’s your name?” asked Pettigrew.
The girl turned in her seat and looked at him quite normally, just not her usual excitable self. “Arabella Mudd.” She replied. Again, there was no fake stage trance or staring into space. But there was also no ‘Arabellaisms’ she failed to give her middle name or ramble on gregariously about the history of the illustrious Mudd family in Virginia.
“And where are we?” he asked, evidently trying to gauge whether she was in a trance or just pretending.
“Doctor Danforth’s” she replied, quite normally, but probably more tersely and to the point than she had ever spoken in her entire life. Pettigrew looked satisfied, but glanced down nervously at an open hunter watch, as if he needed to keep an eye on the time, perhaps the mesmerised state could only last so long.
Retired Characters and NPC Writer.
“… ah yes, if your charming nurse would stay also, for reasons of propriety. Miss Mudd, if we succeed, will be quite insensible for much of the time; with two gentlemen present I believe the presence of a chaperone would be meet.”
Aoife nodded confirmation at Mr. Pettigrew's suggestion, if only out of curiosity. She didn't imagine that Doctor Danforth was capable of such advances, but at the same time, she could hardly presume that an undergarment salesman knew even the first thing about the medical profession. It would probably be good to remain present and able to intervene, lest he begin waving snake oil under her nose or some other such nonsense.
The doctor offered a chair and she sat, tucking her skirt beneath her and crossing her arms over her chest. With no idea as to what ailed Miss Mudd or what was going to be attempted here today, she could do nothing but look on with a skeptic's eye.
“Do take a seat here next to me and I shall show the thing, it really is quite amusing.” Pettigrew told the girl, and the look that he subsequently sent in the direction of the doctor and herself was enough to contemplate an outward roll of the eyes. It was all she could manage, to hold her tongue for Jonah's sake.
The following performance stank so heavily of a charlatan's magic show that any open-mindedness that she might have harbored was diminishing by the second. That was, until the Mudd girl - a walking paragraph - was suddenly quiet.
“What’s your name?” asked Mr. Pettigrew.
“Arabella Mudd.” she replied.
The nurse sat forward in her chair, suddenly all eyes and ears.
“And where are we?”
“Doctor Danforth’s”
Aoife turned her head to shoot a look at Jonah, one that seemed to ask; 'Is this really happening?'