I had been right all along. They were superfluous and dangerous - they could get you thrown into prison!
The bobby escorted me to the door of the police station, obviously wanting to make sure he would be rid of the madwoman, now that she was out of the cell and could start climbing up the walls or spouting feminist nonsense again at any moment. I was more than happy to oblige him and stepped out of the brick building into a glorious Saturday morning. The sun was shining and the fog was only slight today, the wind blowing in the opposite direction from the River Thames, making the morning air comparatively clear by London standards.
I immediately set out towards home. I wasn’t sure what my aunt had made of my overnight absence. She might not even have noticed it. With six of us in the house, and ninety per cent of her brain cells occupied with saving housekeeping money, she sometimes forgot one or another of her nieces. Sometimes I got lucky and it was my turn. Maybe, if I was really lucky, that had been the case last night.
At least I knew she hadn’t completely run haywire and contacted the police, fearing I had been abducted or some such nonsense. If she had, the police would have informed her that her dear niece was perfectly safe, though a bit bedraggled and sitting, dressed in men’s clothes, in one of their cells. If she had heard that, my aunt would have come to get me. And I don't know whether I would have survived the encounter. As it was, I had hopes of escaping relatively unscathed.
As if in answer to my hopeful attitude, the rows of dark houses parted before me and granted me a beautiful view of Green Park. In the warm glow of the sunrise, the small park looked like a fairy kingdom planted between the strict, orderly houses of middle-class London. A few birds were hopping on the grass, and the wind rippled the surface of a little pond surrounded by wildflowers. Through a clump of trees on the opposite side of the park, I could see the houses of St. James’s Street.
My Uncle Bufford had lived on St. James’s Street ever since I could remember, and we had lived with him and his wife ever since I could walk. We - that is my five sisters and I - had had to quit our family’s country estate years ago, after our mother and father died and the estate went to the next male heir of the line. If you believed the stories of my older siblings, who could still remember the place, it had been a veritable palace with hundreds of servants and doorknobs made of gold. I didn’t. Believe their stories, I mean. But I did somewhat resent the thing about this supposedly ‘rightful heir’ snatching away our family’s estate just because he was a dratted man!
Oh well, to tell the truth, I didn’t remember our childhood home in the country well, and I didn’t want to. I was a city girl, and the few trees and lawns of Green Park were as much country as I could deal with at any given time.
Squaring my shoulders, I made my way through the park, enjoying the songs of the birds in the trees and the fresh morning breeze. The country was a nice thing, as long as it was in the middle of town and you could reach a civilized place with shops, libraries and newspapers within five minutes or so.
Five minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, I had reached the wall that encircled our little garden, a rare thing in the city of London. Over the wall, I could see the plain, orderly brick house with its plain, orderly windows, plain, orderly curtains and plain, orderly smoke curling out the chimney in a discreet and economical manner. The flowerbeds around the house were well-kept, but strict and simple. Everything was rectangular and neat. There wasn’t a piece of decoration in sight. Sometimes, when I looked at this house I had been living in for years now, I thought it should have a sign over the door saying, ‘Fortress of the Bourgeoisie, centre of the realm of hard work and stinginess. Beware of the aunt. She bites!’
There was only one bright spot among all the neat tediousness: the window of a first floor room. It afforded a wonderful view over Green Park - which was why, when