Baby (7)

Summary: Henry dresses up like a fool. Something important goes missing.

7: The Fool's Motley

Catherine didn't want to upset her aunt by giving Henry anything to wear that was of special sentimental value so she went down to the kitchen to ask about spare clothes. Susan pointed out that Catherine's brother had left some clothes behind the last time he had spent the night and offered to take Henry's clothes to the cleaners in town if Catherine would bring them down.

The maid also shared that Aunt Bess had telephoned earlier to say that she would be home for dinner and was bringing a guest from Boston. Susan was currently preparing their dinner but was not so far along as she couldn't add another place setting or two if Catherine and Henry wanted to join them.

Too pleased with the idea, Catherine agreed without even checking with Henry. She then dashed about, gathering the outfit Henry had placed on the bed to bring down to Susan before flitting about other rooms, upending drawers and disemboweling trunks until she found a costume that James must have worn to the Halloween party last year. It wasn't very professional but at least the jester's motley was clean.

Catherine was laying out James' abandoned costume when she heard the shower turn off. "Henry!" she called out before he could do something impulsive like walk out of the bathroom while she was standing right there.

"Catherine?" he replied, his voice muffled by a door and possibly a towel.

"Susan is taking your suit to be dry cleaned," she told him through all the layers preserving his modesty. "I don't want to borrow anything of Uncle Edgar's -- Susan doesn't think Aunt Bess would like it -- but my brother left a Halloween costume behind that should fit you much better."

"Halloween?" he repeated, poking his head out of the door.

Catherine averted her gaze lest she catch sight of something swoonworthy. After a moment's hesitation, he came into the room clad in a towel and robe.

"It's a costume!" he discovered. The comfort from washing away the dirt in a hot shower was replaced too quickly by the distress of realizing there were many more obstacles to surmount. "I want my clothes back, my real clothes. I can't meet Mr. Sherman dressed like a fool." While his suit was probably ruined, it was still a suit.

"I'm afraid Susan has already taken them to town," she began to apologize.

But something about the bed worried Henry even more than his missing clothes. "Where's my clavicle?"

Catherine tried very hard not to look at the man, because she was certain his clavicle was easy to spot if the robe gaped a little at the neck.

"Where is the intercostal clavicle?" he continued and Catherine's brain caught up with him. "I put it on the bed near my dirty clothes. Do you think the maid has it?"

Now that she knew what he was talking about, Catherine put her blush aside. She was quite confident that she had not gathered up the fossil with Henry's suit. But if she hadn't taken it, and Henry hadn't moved it, where could it have gone?

Through the window, George started barking in the yard.

"The dog must have taken it!" she realized. "This is my fault. I must have left the door open when I gathered up your clothes. He must have snuck in here after that. Oh, he's surely buried it by now."

Henry wanted to scream but when he asked, "Why would a dog bury a bone!" he sounded stressed rather than maniacal.

"George is always burying anything he can carry. Don't worry. We know he took it -- I guess -- we just need to find where he put it," reasoned Catherine.

Henry didn't wait for more. His intercostal clavicle needed him now, and with the maid gone, there was no one else to see him looking so ridiculous. He left the room and chased after the barking noise. A few steps behind, Catherine followed him.

.o8o.

Henry found the dog easily and knelt in front of it. "His paws were covered in dirt," Henry declared in dismay. "How did he even get outside to bury it?"

"There's a dog door in the kitchen," explained Catherine. "We'll have to look for a freshly dug hole."

"Dressed like this?" Henry said, the robe fluttering in agitation.

"Go upstairs and put on my brother's costume," Catherine took charge. "I'll stay with George now and see if he can lead me to your fossil, and you join us as soon as you can."

Henry agreed for lack of a better plan and they temporarily parted ways.

He went back into the house and got dressed in the jester's motley, feeling more foolish than he looked. As a man of science, the costume was demeaning. Why couldn't Catherine's brother have dressed as a wizard or someone wise?

He flew down the stairs, jingling and jangling with each step, and went out the front door just as a car pulled up and two strangers got out. One was a man about Henry's age and the other was an older woman who looked at Henry like he was the worst sort of criminal.

"Who are you and where is Susan?" she demanded.

Henry, forgetting briefly that Susan was the maid's name, shot back, "I was here first. The question we need to ask is, Who are you?"

"I am Elizabeth Allen and this is my home. And I should very much like to know what you are doing in it," she told him with dignity.

"Elizabeth Allen," Henry repeated the name, his brain making connections. "Elizabeth Allen of the Allen Foundation? That Elizabeth Allen? The famous philanthropist Elizabeth Allen? Whose Allen Foundation is responsible for giving millions of dollars to deserving organizations like schools and hospitals and museums?" Of course Catherine Morland was on a first-name basis with Alexander Sherman if her Aunt Bess was Mrs. Allen!

The younger man offered to detain Henry forcibly while the woman no doubt went inside and called the police but Catherine ran up to them, the dog yapping at her heels.

“Aunt Bess!” she cried, pleasantly surprised. She threw her arms briefly around the older woman's neck. “What are you doing back so early? Susan expected you in time for dinner.”

“Catherine, what is going on? Do you know this man? What was he doing inside my home?"

“Oh, good heavens, where are my manners,” Catherine excused herself. “Aunt Bess, this is Mister Henry --”

“No!” Henry shouted. The last thing he wanted was for Mrs. Allen to know exactly who he was. Even if she had never heard of a Henry Tilney before now, she might have heard of Director Errol Tilney of the Museum of Natural Sciences and History which was currently petitioning the Allen Foundation for a donation. It was pointless to make a good impression with Mr. Sherman if Henry ruined the museum's reputation with the titular head of the Allen Foundation.

“No,” he repeated, trying to sound less desperate while Catherine looked on in confusion. “Henry Noh. That’s Noh with an ‘h’. The ‘h’ is silent.”

"A most unusual name,” Aunt Bess observed.

"I've never heard that said before," he replied while looking pointedly back at Catherine, willing her to understand him and not to expose his true identity.

“Be that as it may, Mr. Noh, what were you doing in my home?” Mrs. Allen returned to the matter at hand.

"I can explain that," Catherine offered. "We -- Henry and I -- were talking at your club yesterday and he mentioned that he has business with Sacha, but he couldn't meet with him because… well, because I got in the way. And I know what Mother would say if she knew I was getting underfoot, so I decided to try to fix it. And since I know Sacha and Aunt Lily came out here today, I decided… we decided," she corrected as she looked at her aunt's guest, "that Henry should drive me home and talk with Sacha in the country."

"Mr. Noh drove all the way from New York City to meet with Sacha dressed like that?" Mrs. Allen asked incredulously.

"Not like this, no," Henry conceded the point, "but my suit got dirty. I couldn't very well present myself to Mr. Sherman while so disheveled."

"Yes, exactly," Catherine jumped back in. "He was quite presentable at the start, and all through the drive really. It was just at the end when we were parking in the carriage house that his suit was ruined. Here!" she said, holding up her arm as evidence. "You can see some of the dirt on my sleeve; just imagine it ten times worse for Henry. And Susan told us he could take a shower in one of the spare rooms to wash up while she took his clothes to the cleaners in town, and maybe stay for dinner since we're here."

"Then why is he dressed like a fool?"

"Because Susan took all his clothes. I tried to find something else for him to wear but the only thing I came across was an old Halloween costume. Oh! And then George got into the spare room and took something of Henry's: the intercontinental --"

"Intercostal," Henry corrected her quietly.

"The intercostal clavicle," she said without missing a beat. "And George must have buried it outside; you know how he is. Henry desperately needs to show it to Sacha so we rushed out to search for it without trying to find more appropriate attire first. And then you came home," concluded Catherine, rather anticlimactically. "And now we're all caught up."

"Yes," mused Mrs. Allen, "I suppose that explains it all, except why you come here instead of going home to your parents at the parsonage?"

Catherine opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She knew that Baby was a big surprise -- potentially a terribly unwelcome one -- and didn't want to spring it on her aunt just yet, certainly not in front of a stranger. However she couldn't come up with some other way to explain it at the moment. "I can't say," she said, downcast.

"And what did your brother send to you that you needed to pick up in New York?"

"I can't say," she answered again, far more quickly the second time.

"I suppose your two secrets are related," the older woman deduced. "Well, just make sure your mother finds out before I regret letting you get away with this. And I suppose I should let George show you and Mr. Noh where he's hidden this thing for Sacha." She then turned to her traveling companion. "Mr. Thorpe, can I press you to park the car in the carriage house around back and then join me inside while these two play with the dog for a bit?"

"No!" Catherine leapt forward a little, thinking of this stranger traumatized by the discovery of Baby in his stall. "No, let me. You've driven all the way from Boston; surely you deserve to relax. I can take care of the cat -- I mean, the car! -- after we're done with George."

"You're hiding something, my dear girl," Mrs. Allen huffed.

Catherine fidgeted, caught. "It's just that we left an awful mess in the garage. I don't want your guest to see it before I've had a chance to clean it up."

Mrs. Allen tsked fondly, used to spoiling Catherine when her parents were unable to do so. "Come inside, Mr. Thorpe. My niece and her friend will join us soon enough."

The guest went inside with his hostess, leaving Catherine and Henry and George. The trio spent the next half-hour tromping over the property. George would find a spot with soft, recently turned earth and start digging. Catherine or Henry would often join him.

They uncovered a boot and a pair of slippers, a glove and a cap, a gold pen and six sticks, but no intercostal clavicle. Henry's spirits were flagging and Catherine was trying to get him to buck up when Susan's car swung up the drive and George abandoned the game for whatever the maid might have for him.

"We might as well tidy up the garage," Catherine suggested. "George won't shift until he figures out that Susan doesn't have any treats for him."

Glum, Henry went to open the carriage house doors while she brought the car to it.

When he opened the doors, he could see immediately that something was wrong. The mess was still there, as expected, but the door to the leopard's stall had swung open. Without a thought for his own safety, Henry rushed into the stall. But there was no danger there; Baby was gone.

---

Note: the clavicle, anyone?