Amanderellaand the Punctual Ghost Chapter 2.

Chapter 2.

Amanderella gets ready.

Lady Amanderella Gottsnobbler had been giving lectures in all sorts of places from dusty schoolrooms to draughty Parish halls. Some of her audience even understood what she told them. Sadly, though many just went for the tea and biscuits that she provided.

They marvelled at her description of the Whistling Blue monkeys in Brazil. They thrilled at her adventures when finding the Bangolin tree and its fruit. They shuddered at her description of the Haunted Mill in Lower Widdersham and clapped whole‑heartedly when she described the Ppuckingford treasure.

Now though, she felt that it was time to sit back and engage in the dangerous pursuit of doing absolutely nothing. Her lodgings were at Number 9 Wimple Terrace, a quiet street in a quiet part of the capital. The house was owned by Mrs Gaffletter, a very respectable lady. Her boarding house ran on four principles: clean floors, clean consciences, clean lodgers, and no gentlemen callers. Amanderella approved of all four.

For two days she attempted idleness with the same conscientiousness she applied to everything else, but it refused to take. The weather was too fine, the house too quiet, and her mind too accustomed to movement. By the third morning she found herself standing at her window, watching the sunshine fall across the pavement and feeling an unmistakable itch to be elsewhere. She had no lectures planned, no obligations to meet, and no desire to visit her parents at Gottsnobbler Hall where everything would be exactly as she had left it. And, despite her strict instructions about the introduction of possible marriage contenders, she would be encouraged to choose one of the many eligible bachelors of her parent’s acquaintance.

Her motor‑bicycle, polished to a careful shine, waited in the yard.

She had just decided that a short ride might be the cure for her restlessness when Mrs Gaffletter appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a cloth with the air of someone who disapproved of dust on principle.

“Going out, Lady Amanderella?” she asked, in the tone of a woman who already knew the answer and was prepared to judge it.

“I thought I might take the motor‑bicycle for a turn,” Amanderella said.

Mrs Gaffletter regarded her steadily. “Well, if you must. The weather is fair, and I have just washed the hall floor, so it is as good a time as any.” She paused, then added, “You will not be back for luncheon.”

It was not a question.

“Possibly not,” Amanderella admitted.

Mrs Gaffletter gave a small, dignified nod, the kind that suggested she had already adjusted the household arrangements accordingly. “Very well. I shall keep your portion warm until two o’clock. After that, it will be considered abandoned.”

“Quite understood.”

“And if the machine begins making any of its peculiar noises,” Mrs Gaffletter went on, “you will not bring it into the yard. The last time it did so, the smell lingered for days.”

“I shall keep it well away,” Amanderella promised.

Satisfied, Mrs Gaffletter stepped aside with the quiet authority of a woman who had never once allowed chaos to cross her threshold. “Then enjoy your outing, Lady Amanderella. But do not go too far. These things have a way of leading one astray.”

Amanderella smiled. “I’ll be careful.”

She collected her gloves and goggles, and as she stepped out into the bright morning, she felt the pleasant lift of freedom, the sort that comes only when one has escaped a freshly scrubbed hall floor with permission.

Lady Amanderella adjusted her goggles, which rested atop her formidable travelling hat, and felt the familiar weight of her map case against her hip. If she stayed at Number 9 Wimple Terrace a moment longer, she feared she might actually succumb to Mrs Gaffletter’s fourth principle through sheer, mind-numbing boredom, not that she wanted a gentleman caller, but the lack of even a minor catastrophe was beginning to grate.

She checked her pockets: compass, notebook, and emergency biscuits, all present and correct. The quiet of the street was abruptly shattered as the motor‑bicycle roared to life, a sound sent the local pigeons clattering into the air like a handful of thrown gravel. Mrs Gaffletter appeared at the parlour window, her expression a mixture of respect for Amanderella’s independence and deep concern for the state of the flowerbeds.

Lady Amanderella offered a crisp, gloved wave and engaged the gears. She had no destination in mind, which was precisely why it was so dangerous. In her experience, “nothing” rarely stayed empty for long; it was usually filled by the first person who looked as though they were in possession of a secret or a very large map.

She had told Mrs Gaffletter she was going out for a ride, which was true. She had simply not specified the length of it. In fact, she had packed a small valise the night before, on the sensible grounds that if one intended to do absolutely nothing, one might as well do it somewhere new. The weather had been fine for days, the roads were dry, and London had begun to feel like a place where nothing unexpected would ever happen again.

By the time she had left the city behind and spent a comfortable night at a modest inn in the suburbs, the notion of turning back seemed unnecessarily dutiful. The next morning was bright, the countryside inviting, and the motor‑bicycle, behaved with a level of enthusiasm that suggested it approved of her aimlessness.

Amanderella set off again with no more plan than to follow whichever road looked most agreeable. It was a method she had used before with reasonable success, though it had occasionally resulted in encounters with people who owned suspiciously large maps.

The miles slipped by in that agreeable way they sometimes did when she had no timetable to keep. By late afternoon she found herself somewhere in the Midlands, pleasantly tired and faintly surprised at how far she had come. A modest inn presented itself at the roadside, the sort of place with a signboard that creaked in the breeze and a landlady who believed firmly in the restorative powers of a hot supper.

Amanderella took a room without hesitation. The bed was narrow, the wallpaper looking as though the flowers on it were trying to climb off the walls., and the washstand wobbled if breathed upon, but the sheets were clean and the tea was strong. She slept soundly, lulled by the distant rumble of carts and the occasional clatter from the yard.

In the morning, the weather was still obliging, and the road north looked as though it had been swept clear for her benefit. After a sensible breakfast and a brief consultation with her map, which offered no objections, she set off again, feeling that she might as well see where the day took her.

By midday she had crossed into country that grew steadily wilder, the hedgerows giving way to stone walls and the air taking on that brisk, upland quality that suggested Yorkshire was not far ahead.

It was, she reflected, a perfectly good day for aimlessness. The road had narrowed to a ribbon between stone walls, the moor rising in slow, steady folds on either side. Amanderella was thinking about lunch, or the lack of it, when the motor‑bicycle gave a small, apologetic cough.

She frowned, eased back the throttle, and listened.

Another cough.

A faint, traitorous whine.

Then a sudden, limp silence.

Amanderella coasted to the verge with the calm resignation of someone who had broken down before. She dismounted, removed her gloves, and inspected the machine with the brisk competence of a woman who knew her way around a spanner.

It took her less than a minute to find the culprit.

The accelerator cable hung loose, snapped cleanly near the lever.

“Bother,” she said aloud, “that’s inconvenient.”

It was the sort of failure that could not be mended with string, optimism, or emergency biscuits. She could fix it, of course she could, but only if she had a spare cable, which she did not. And even if she had, the angle required three hands and a workshop bench.

She straightened, dusted off her skirt, and looked around. The landscape was empty except for a distant cluster of roofs and a signpost leaning at an unhelpful angle.

A small wooden board beneath it read:

NETHER BRAMBLEWICK, ¾ mile

Amanderella sighed, folded her map with dignity, “Right then,” she said to the empty road, “that’s that.” And she began to push.