To recap… For some years Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man, and Philomena Bucket, the barmaid at The Squid and Teapot, had conducted a loving, but necessarily platonic, relationship from a certain distance.
Anyone, with only a passing knowledge of the private life of a Night-Soil Man, will be aware that the malodorous nature of his work causes all living things (and, indeed, some non-living things also) to keep well away from him. This is a definite advantage when moving about the island of Hopeless, Maine, at night, but does not commend itself greatly to romance. Driven by love, almost uniquely Rhys resigned from his calling and married his beloved Philomena at Christmas. The ceremonial bucket and shovel was passed on to young Winston Oldspot, the burly sixteen year old who had served as Rhys’ apprentice for the past two years.
Although young for a fully-trained Night-Soil Man, Winston was by no means the youngest to heft the lidded bucket on to juvenile shoulders. That accolade goes to Randall Middlestreet, a century earlier, who took up the job at the age of fourteen, after only two months apprenticeship, when his master was unfortunately torn limb from limb and eaten by a monster that paid no heed to his smell (Randall – when still an orphan at Pallid Rock – first appeared in ‘The Vendetta’ in the tale ‘Cricket’, and was, many years later, the only other Night-Soil Man to resign his post).
In the ensuing month since Rhys’ and Philomena’s wedding, the island has witnessed several changes. Bartholomew Middlestreet (grandson of the aforementioned Randall) and his wife Ariadne gave up managing The Squid and Teapot, and moved into a cottage previously occupied by one Mr Blomqvist. While Mr Blomqvist has long departed the property, its helpful guardian, the gnome-like Swedish tomte, chose to remain, for which the Middlestreets, so far, seem grateful. The occupancy of the inn, and everything in it (including the resident flaneur, Reggie Upton), was bequeathed to Rhys and Philomena. News of this soon reached the spectral ears of Philomena’s long-dead grandmother, who immediately invited herself to stay and ‘help out’.
While very fond of Granny, Philomena was less than thrilled with her taking an extended residency, as were the ghosts who haunted the flushing privy, Father Ignatius Stamage and Lady Margaret D’Avening (also known as The Headless White Lady). Father Stamage incurred Philomena’s displeasure by having a mild hissy-fit and demanding that the notoriously witchy Granny Bucket keep well away from both him and Lady Margaret, and not practise her particular brand of ‘Old Time Religion’ anywhere near the privy… … and now you are up to date.
No one had seen Father Stamage or Lady Margaret for a week, or more. This was unsurprising as the phantom priest had gone into a sulk and disappeared into his hat, as he often did when out of sorts. As I have mentioned before, this is no exile into a dark, felt hole reeking of old incense and cheap brilliantine. The hat takes him back to wander the venerable corridors of his old alma mater, the Jesuit college Campion Hall, in Oxford. Lady Margaret, on the other hand, now bereft of her father confessor, quietly disappeared into the stones of the privy, which once formed part of her bed-chamber in Oxlynch Hall, the scene of her final adulterous affair and subsequent beheading at the hands of the Reverend Obadiah Hyde, who, coincidentally, also ended up as a ghost on Hopeless, and is known these days as The Mad Parson of Chapel Rock.
To the surprise of everyone, Granny had not been seen all week either. There was no great mystery here, however. Granny had made claim to one of the attics, and was exploring her new haunt with interest. Readers may recall that Philomena had once found a secret passage, up in the attics. Cleverly disguised as a heavy travelling trunk, the passage descended vertically through the walls of the inn, eventually taking the unwary explorer deep beneath the island, and on to the pathways which led to the mysterious Underland, where, quite frankly anything could, and did, happen. It was following the alarming disappearance of Marigold Burleigh, as described in the series of tales culminating in ‘The Halloween Party’, that a grief-stricken Philomena sealed the pathways in order that no one else be drawn into the glamour of the Underland.
It will come as no great revelation that Granny quickly found the faux travelling trunk and wasted no time in making her way down to the pathways. Hundreds of tons of fallen rock was nothing to Granny, whose spectral form could slip through any obstacle. She was very soon making her way to the crystal cave, which lay at its end. For any unsuspecting mortal wandering in, the cave liked to display its capricious nature, sending them anywhere through time and space that it chose. For Granny, however, mortality was a distant memory. She was putting up with none of those shenanigans, thank you very much!
“John Dee, are you still there?” she called. The crystals flickered with a cold, pale blue luminescence, then with a sigh and a shudder, the scene changed to a dark, chilly room filled with an assortment of strange instruments and specimens covering every available surface. Granny recognised an astrolabe and sextant, an alchemical chart and what appeared to be a glass jar containing a badly deformed foetus, but much of the other paraphernalia was unfamiliar.
A figure sat hunched over a writing desk on the far side of the room. Granny drifted silently across, thinking to give her old friend a small, but good-natured fright. Suddenly the figure looked up. It was definitely not Doctor Dee.
“Why, if it isn’t dear old Granny Bucket,” said a familiar voice. “What the devil are you doing here?”
If Granny was surprised, she did not show it. “I could ask you the same question, Durosimi O’Stoat,” she said.
