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Authors: Nancy Springer
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for instance.
Exiting the parlour, I found myself facing the library, where the smiling yet redoubtable Mrs. Crowley held sway behind her desk.
It could do no harm, I realised, to have another go at Florence Nightingale, asking to speak with her. Indeed, I saw no other course of action before me. Yet I felt defeated in advance, as if no possible eloquence of mine could wring the favour of an interview from the Lady with the Lamp on high, and I experienced a leaden reluctance as I walked into the library in order to speak with Mrs. Crowley, compose a note, have it sent upstairs—
Blast and confound everything! Confound especially Florence Nightingale! What an utterly coddled, perverse, and cantankerous bossy-boots she must be! Her cumbersome procedure of communicating via the passing of notes was a culpable waste of time. If the woman had the means she seemed to possess, and if she insisted on being such a stubborn invalid that she could not be spoken with, yet kept her fingers inserted into so many reform-political pies, why, then, she should jolly well arrange to have notes whisked upstairs on little wires—or, no, she should make use of pneumatic tubes like the ones in shopping emporiums. Or, better yet—the absurdity of this thought offered me dark amusement—she should have a telegraph system installed. If Florence Nightingale insisted on lolling in her bed and sending messages downstairs as if from a great distance, why then, she should tap them out for a teletype machine, dit dit dah dah dit—
A shock of revelation appropriately electric in nature coursed through me, jolting me to a halt. “Ye gods in holey stockings,” I cried out loud. “Morse code!”
CHAPTER THE NINTH
UNDERSTANDABLY, NUMEROUS HEADS TURNED. Doing my best to ignore them, with feverish haste, as befit the heat in my cheeks, I made towards the opposite wall of the library, where I spied upon the shelves the unmistakable stately ranks of the Encyclopaedia Britannica . Seizing volume M, I seated myself at the nearest table—the people already there edged away from me, giving me plenty of room. With trembling hands I found the page:
“International Morse Code uses short and long sounds, which are written out as dots and dashes.”
Yes! Already, instinctively, I thought of the miniature roses as dots. The daisies—very rudimentary blossoms of five petals; starflowers—had to be the dashes. Grabbing . . . . / . * / . . . * / . V et cetera from my satchel and referring to the chart in the encyclopaedia (which the gentle reader will find reproduced at the end of this book for the sake of education and amusement), I began to decode—no simple process, as I had to scan the entire alphabet in search of each letter.
Four dots—H. A leaf to divide it from the next letter. Dot, dash—A. Another leaf. Dot, dot, dot, dash—V. Leaf. Single dot—E. Two leaves?
End of word!
HAVE. Have!
Quite a while later I had decoded the first five words—HAVE PROOF WREFORD SELLING SUPPLIES—but the bulk of the message remained before me, and I faced a decision: to sit here spending more hours doing this, while Heaven only knew what might be happening to Mrs. Tupper, or to speak with Florence Nightingale at once? For I considered that I now knew how to achieve this seemingly impossible feat.
Deciding on the latter, then, I returned my papers and pencil to their satchel and approached the formidable Mrs. Crowley at her desk. This time, when I asked to speak with Florence Nightingale and she handed me the portable desk with its creamy paper and dark blue ink, I smiled and accepted it without demur.
It cannot with accuracy be said that I wrote upon the paper; rather, I penned. Or drew. Quite quickly and simply I traced:
Blotting, then folding this short and unsigned missive, I handed it over, and, as the young fellow in knickerbockers took it up, I went and stood at the bottom of the stairs.
In less than a minute, Jackanapes (as I had come to think of
Exiting the parlour, I found myself facing the library, where the smiling yet redoubtable Mrs. Crowley held sway behind her desk.
It could do no harm, I realised, to have another go at Florence Nightingale, asking to speak with her. Indeed, I saw no other course of action before me. Yet I felt defeated in advance, as if no possible eloquence of mine could wring the favour of an interview from the Lady with the Lamp on high, and I experienced a leaden reluctance as I walked into the library in order to speak with Mrs. Crowley, compose a note, have it sent upstairs—
Blast and confound everything! Confound especially Florence Nightingale! What an utterly coddled, perverse, and cantankerous bossy-boots she must be! Her cumbersome procedure of communicating via the passing of notes was a culpable waste of time. If the woman had the means she seemed to possess, and if she insisted on being such a stubborn invalid that she could not be spoken with, yet kept her fingers inserted into so many reform-political pies, why, then, she should jolly well arrange to have notes whisked upstairs on little wires—or, no, she should make use of pneumatic tubes like the ones in shopping emporiums. Or, better yet—the absurdity of this thought offered me dark amusement—she should have a telegraph system installed. If Florence Nightingale insisted on lolling in her bed and sending messages downstairs as if from a great distance, why then, she should tap them out for a teletype machine, dit dit dah dah dit—
A shock of revelation appropriately electric in nature coursed through me, jolting me to a halt. “Ye gods in holey stockings,” I cried out loud. “Morse code!”
CHAPTER THE NINTH
UNDERSTANDABLY, NUMEROUS HEADS TURNED. Doing my best to ignore them, with feverish haste, as befit the heat in my cheeks, I made towards the opposite wall of the library, where I spied upon the shelves the unmistakable stately ranks of the Encyclopaedia Britannica . Seizing volume M, I seated myself at the nearest table—the people already there edged away from me, giving me plenty of room. With trembling hands I found the page:
“International Morse Code uses short and long sounds, which are written out as dots and dashes.”
Yes! Already, instinctively, I thought of the miniature roses as dots. The daisies—very rudimentary blossoms of five petals; starflowers—had to be the dashes. Grabbing . . . . / . * / . . . * / . V et cetera from my satchel and referring to the chart in the encyclopaedia (which the gentle reader will find reproduced at the end of this book for the sake of education and amusement), I began to decode—no simple process, as I had to scan the entire alphabet in search of each letter.
Four dots—H. A leaf to divide it from the next letter. Dot, dash—A. Another leaf. Dot, dot, dot, dash—V. Leaf. Single dot—E. Two leaves?
End of word!
HAVE. Have!
Quite a while later I had decoded the first five words—HAVE PROOF WREFORD SELLING SUPPLIES—but the bulk of the message remained before me, and I faced a decision: to sit here spending more hours doing this, while Heaven only knew what might be happening to Mrs. Tupper, or to speak with Florence Nightingale at once? For I considered that I now knew how to achieve this seemingly impossible feat.
Deciding on the latter, then, I returned my papers and pencil to their satchel and approached the formidable Mrs. Crowley at her desk. This time, when I asked to speak with Florence Nightingale and she handed me the portable desk with its creamy paper and dark blue ink, I smiled and accepted it without demur.
It cannot with accuracy be said that I wrote upon the paper; rather, I penned. Or drew. Quite quickly and simply I traced:
Blotting, then folding this short and unsigned missive, I handed it over, and, as the young fellow in knickerbockers took it up, I went and stood at the bottom of the stairs.
In less than a minute, Jackanapes (as I had come to think of
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