“Emily, I say, are you alright? You’re looking terribly peaked, didn’t you sleep well?” Professor Molly P’ohlig looked at Professor Emilia DeBusque with no small measure of alarm, for Emily was well known for her reliable circadian rhythms.
“I don’t think I slept at all, actually. Oh, thank you,” Emily smiled weakly as Molly slid a piping hot bowl of oatmeal just under where Emily’s wan visage was drooping over the kitchen table. “It’s the strangest thing, I know, and I would think I was dreaming, but I was most decidedly awake. All night it sounded like, and I know this is ridiculous, but it sounded like there was an elderly man in my closet singing “La Marseillaise”.”
Molly very nearly choked on a raspberry.
“I know, it’s ridiculous, but the fact is that that is what it sounded like.” Emily glumly poured an extra helping of maple syrup which Mr. Periwinkle had brought with the morning post, direct from John Irving’s Vermont farm, hand-tapped by Mr. Irving himself. Normally, Emily would have noticed the addition. Normally, Emily would have gotten up before noon. “Where’s Maude?”
“Here, I think,” Maude shuffled in with uncustomary slowness, her fuzzy bunny slippers, a gift for helping with Rupert Everett’s first play, positively dragging their ears. As Molly ladled up some more oatmeal, Maude said, “You’ll never believe why I couldn’t sleep last night.”
Molly and Emily simultaneously said “An elderly man singing “La Marseillaise” in your closet?”
Maude’s puffy eyes widened considerably.
“Emily heard it too, you see, and I, well, I thought it was just one of my dreams. And I’m always tired when I wake up anyway, so I generally feel just the same as if I didn’t sleep at all.” Molly skittered about the kitchen finding the biggest coffee mugs available. “Something very peculiar is afoot. Listen, I think I can actually sing “La Marseillaise” – A…Allons enfants de la Patrie,…le….Le jour de gloire est arrivé !”
Emily raised her eyebrows as Molly looked about triumphantly. “That’s true, you never could do that before.”
“Do we even know any elderly men?” Maude said off-hand, more intent on rubbing her bloodshot eyes.
“Maudie, we hardly know anyone who ISN’T an elderly man. But how did this chap get into our house? And even if he did, how could he have been in all of our closets at once?” A sticky silence fell over the kitchen, followed by a cartoonishly loud thunderclap. The girls looked at each other ominously.
“Ladies,” Molly said theatrically, “I believe Poppycock is being haunted.”
* * *
Quite an industrious day began for the three young ladies who had only lately risen. They dispatched Mr. Periwinkle to the Poppycock offices with a sign that read CLOSED TO DUE PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES, PLEASE CALL AGAIN. He also had the excellent foresight to bring back take-away from the Indian restaurant on the corner that always gave them free naan bread, the proprietor being helplessly in love with Maude. The girls threw themselves into a tizzy of research as to how to best lure a ghost from one’s rafters, the better to exorcise any unfriendly spirits. Well, at least that was the aim when they entered Poppycock’s well-established library.
Emily struggled through at least ten pages of an early 19th century ‘academic’ work on the spirit world, but soon abandoned it in favor of a small book of Poe. Maude went for roughly the same era, and ended up poring over a collection of ethereal Julia Cameron photographs. Molly didn’t even pretend to be researching, she just cozied up with a copy of “The Shining” and quickly dropped off to sleep. After two hours of reading, Emily did the same. Thoughtful Maude decided to look up more on Julia Cameron on her laptop (the only computer allowed in Poppycock, although Maude was strictly forbidden to have a Facebook page), and, as one thing often leads to another, soon made an enlightening discovery….
“I know who it is!” Maude shouted, causing Molly and Emily to wake with tiny shrieks. “I know who our elderly gentleman is! Look, I’ve just read that Edward Gorey’s mother had a bit part in “Casablanca”, playing the guitar and singing ‘La Marseillaise’!”
All shrieks of being woken in fright turned into shrieks of delight as the girls celebrated Maude’s excellent discovery, climbing over the comfortably overstuffed leather chairs (from the gentlemen’s club frequented by one Mr. Charles Dickens, bought specifically for Poppycock at auction by one Mr. Simon Callow), marching up and down on top of the stately library table (given to them by the Board of the British Museum for, as they said, ‘admiration’), and participating in a general air of merriment until Emily shouted,
“But how do we get him out of our closets?” The large handful of library cards that Molly had just flung skywards from the card catalog drawer tumbled awkwardly over her head and shoulders.
“Well….he always drew very fancy but very small parties,” Maude offered hopefully, and was rewarded with grins from both professors, and before another word could be said, all three were racing towards their rooms to find the most appropriate apparel available for an “Edward Gorey Outing”.
* * *
It was three hours later and approaching late evening before anyone emerged from their rooms. Professor DeBusque was resplendent in a dress of dark green crushed velvet that threatened to fall from her alabaster shoulders at any minute. It had once belonged to Dorothy Parker, and she accessorized it with a headband made from albino peacock feathers. She also had on a great deal of diamonds.
Molly slunk out of her room in a slinky white gown that threatened to trip her up at every step, especially since her stiletto heels were made of actual stiletto daggers, rumored to have once belonged to a Templar knight. Her short hair was tightly slicked back, the better to see the lashings of velvety black kohl liner around her eyes.
Mr. Periwinkle had popped in to do Maude’s hair (he was a man of many hidden talents) and her luxuriant black tresses were elaborately curled and pinned. Since it was a special occasion, she was allowed, just this once, to wear three petticoats under her pale pink party dress.
Everyone looked just like they’d stepped out of an Edward Gorey lithograph. The evening was lit only by a variety of antique wall sconces, they dined entirely on cucumber sandwiches, and drank from the most delicate chinoiserie teacups, which had been purchased from the estate of a Russian nobleman who had murdered his wife in 1927. Maude had tea, the professors drank champagne cocktails. It should be noted, no one spilled a drop.
Even though the party was small, they had a simply marvelous evening after Mr. Periwinkle had locked up for the night and gone home. They sang every gloomy song they could think of, they took turns tying each other’s hands with silk handkerchiefs and trying to undo them, they spoke in rhyme, and they practiced sounding distressed in a manner most befitting a Gorey maiden. Indeed, they were having such a jolly evening that not one of them noticed a tall, older man in a floor length fur coat and white Converse at the doorway of the dining room. If they had, they would have seen a wistful smile play about his faded features before he drifted slowly out of sight.
Since that night, the inhabitants of Poppycock Manor have slept exceedingly well, although it is said that on those famous nights when a dazzling literary party is in full swing, if you quietly in an empty bedroom, you can just hear what sounds like an elderly gentleman, sweetly singing ‘La Marseillaise’.
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