Perhaps I could be employed asDora’scompanion!
Her heart sped up at the prospect as she led her friend down the gravel pathway.
Surely even her mother could see the benefits of such an arrangement. She said herself that Dora’s governess was proved useful in her own way.
Stepping up to the parrot enclosure, Lindy wondered if the formerly mentioned Miss Harp had been dismissed, or had left of her own accord.
“Oh!” Dora gasped, her faulty eyes flitting over the colorful flock. “Such blues and yellows!
Though smiling at her friend’s delight, Belinda felt her ears were being assaulted. Covering them against the parrots’ screeches, she thought through the ways she might assist Dora while out in society, as well as at home, and became ever more convinced of the idea.
When at last Mrs Hartley had tired of the cacophony, she set off again, eager to see another American creature. Arriving at a paddock together, the ladies beheld a small, gangly herd. Thesellamas,as they were called, appeared to have actual smiles on their furry faces. Dora beamed, hearing Belinda describe how their lower jaws looped around comically whilst they chewed their cud.
When a workman entered the pen to fill a water trough, the largest llama flattened its ears at him. As Lindy narrated this, she was not expecting the beast to then draw back its lips, and spatter the keeper with a spray of stinking slime from its mouth. The girls had hardly recovered from their fit of horrified giggles before the fidgeting Mrs Hartley was ready to move on again.
Making their way down a narrower path, they found an odd, towering stable. Built out of red brick, its most distinctive feature was a trio of unusually tall doors, one of which was ajar.
“What is housed here?” Miss Hartley asked, but there was no sign posted to give them an answer, nor any trace of a beast in the paddock out front.
Her mother leaned over the railing, calling, “Hallooooo!”
Lindy barely curbed her urge to shush her.
“Please excuse Mamma,” Dora murmured. “At times, she simply cannot contain herself.”
The older woman’s cries continued, but still, nothing stirred.
“Well, it must be a rather dull creature,” she groused, “if it can’t be bothered to come outside to see us.”
“Their stable is a snug alternative to the paddock on days like today,” said a finely dressed woman who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. She looked up at the overcast skies. “Especially to those who were born for a much warmer climate.”
Lindy found the stranger’s forthrightness, as well as the fact that she was carrying two carrots, quite intriguing.
“And what exactly arethey?” Dora asked.
“Perhaps you would like to see for yourselves,” came the woman’s reply, a glint of mischief in her smile. “But first, allow me to introduce myself. I am Sophia Raffles – a fellow here at the Zoological Society.”
What?Belinda was certain she had misheard as she murmured her own name in response.Women cannot belong to scientific societies!
She studied the woman carefully. Likely pretty and delicate once, there were lines of hard-living etched into her face. Her hooded eyes were widely set, and her mouth and chin had a narrowness to them that made her look a bit hawkish, though it did not dampen the warm kindness that Lindy detected.
“Please, follow me,” their new acquaintance said, then started off towards the stable. When she glanced back and saw them all rooted in place, she urged, “Oh, come along — never allow fear to hold you back!”
This got the party’s feet moving. When they reached the door, it was swung open from the inside by a man with a muck rake in his hand.
“Ah mornin’, Lady Raffles!” he said, cheerfully. “I shoulda known you’d be ‘ere any moment!”
“Good morning, Tom.”
She’s a societal fellow as well as a lady?Belinda couldn’t help but press Miss Hartley’s arm at the realization. Dora replied with a squeeze of her own.
“I’ll tend the pens later, so as not to bother you and yer friends.” The man leaned the rake against the wall and went off to busy himself elsewhere as the four women entered the building.
Though Lindy was pleased to be out of the chilly breeze, it was quite dark inside and the air smelled of hay and dung. She tightened the loop of her arm through Miss Hartley’s, and led her to a split-board railing where Lady Raffles was waiting. Quite suddenly, something bulky swung down out of the semi-darkness, causing Mrs Hartley to shriek, and Belinda to jump backwards, yanking Dora along with her.
“Do not be frightened,” Lady Raffles said, reaching out to pet the bobbing head of a very large animal. “They are quite docile.”
Belinda watched, her heart thrumming madly. Further back in the shadowy recesses of the large stall, she saw that a second, similar beast was reclining there. When her eyes had adjusted fully to the gloom, she recognized them.
