Continues from chapter 2
Chapter 3
Some days later Leslie was paying Charles a social call. She had already found herself a snug corner of the settee and, having kicked off her shoes had her feet tucked up under her. Charles, for once not in one of his maid’s outfits, had automatically wandered off to the kitchen to make coffee for both of them.
“Hey, Charlotte, something funny’s happened to the well,” Leslie called in competition with the hissing espresso machine.
“You know it’s fed from the roof so the water level can drop a bit in the summer, but normally it’s about half a metre down and as it’s been quite wet lately that’s how I would expect it to be now. Well, I was tidying up in the dungeon this morning and went to dip a bucket in to get some water and there wasn’t any.”
“None?” said Charles in surprise as he returned with the steaming cups and put them down on the coffee table, suppressing at the last moment an urge to curtsey.
“Well, practically none. There was a small trickle from the filler pipe. I could hear the drops hitting the water and see ripple on the surface as the light caught them, but it was way, way down, oh, three or four metres at a guess.”
“That’s odd. You say it’s never done anything like it before?”
“Nop.”
“Well, if you reckon water is still getting in the only other thing is it must have sprung a leak. Finish your coffee and we’ll go and have a look if you like?”
“That would be great if you don’t mind. I’m not stopping you doing anything important, am I?”
“No, it’s fine. Have you got a torch so we can see what’s happening?”
“No,” replied Leslie, “Sod’s Law, when I went to get mine to have a look earlier the batteries were flat.”
‘Typical,’ thought Charles then, out loud, “Tell you what, I’ll go and get mine from the car. I’ll meet you down there in five minutes, let me in by the mews door, will you?”
They made their separate ways down to the dungeon. Charles collected his torch from the garage and Leslie let him in via the interlocked doors normally used by her clients. The route that brought back memories to Charles of his first assay at climbing the stairs in fifteen-centimetre heels and how he had ultimately come to grief on the slippery floor. Walking in them was trivially routine now; indeed, anything much lower was beginning to feel unnatural, even uncomfortable.
Charles reached the dungeon proper where Leslie sat on her dais throne, working the door controls.
“Who are you and why are you dressed?” she demanded in a theatrically haughty voice, “I was under the impression that it was a client.”
“If you please ma’am, it’s the plumber,” Charles replied, trying to keep up the act. They laughed together. Charles helped Leslie off the dais and together they clip-clopped past the imposing range of classical dungeon ‘toys.’ Pillory and stocks, a rack with a most impressive capstan for tightening up the ropes and stretching the victim, to the well located in the centre of the room. A low circular wall surrounded it while overhead hung a pulley and chain, suspended from the ceiling. They knelt down and peered over the parapet together.
“See what I mean?” said Leslie pointing.
“We’ll see better in a minute,” replied Charles switching on his hand lamp. “Yes, I see what you mean. You say that it is normally up to about here,” he leaned over and pointed to a line of discoloration.”
“Yes, give or take a bit.”
“Well it ain’t there now ma’am, that’s for sure.”
He panned the spot of light down the wall of the well then round its junction with the water surface.
“Look there, Leslie, there’s a dark patch just at the surface; it looks as though some bricks have fallen out. I bet you anything that’s where all your water’s gone.”
“Mmm, you’re probably right. Could do with a closer look though.”
“We could lower a video camera down on a line, but if it is the bricks we ought to check if any more are loose and, anyway the hole needs bunging up.”
“I’ll go down,” volunteered Leslie. “You can let me down on the rope.”
Charles was horrified.
“I’m not going to have you going down there and that’s final,” he almost shouted. “You know what Ray Browne said. If you ever have to go to him again there will be nothing left to repair. I don’t care if you use a sling and crotch straps or hang by your ankles, you aren’t going down. I will.”
Leslie was about to put her foot down then realised that it was no use. Usually he was content to let her be in the driving seat, concerned perhaps not to let suppressed macho escape. Only once before, when the stables at Saxon Court had been burnt down, had he taken command and she had seen him quite so determined.
“All right,” she conceded, “but it’ll be a tight fit.”
Leslie produced a hooded red latex catsuit from one of the cupboards.
“You’d better change into this Charlotte. I know your objection to wearing trousers and such, but I don’t think it is very practical being pussy-in-the-well in a dress. Not your colour either but it’s the only one I’ve got at the moment that is about the right size. And I know it may seem a bit daft, but I think you might be as well if you wear this pair of heavy ankle chains otherwise, I think your legs will want to float.”
Charles held up the garment that she had handed him. It seemed very small to him.
“If that’s my size I don’t believe you. Anyway, beggars and choosers…” and began to strip off.
While he was changing Leslie rigged up a sling and soon Charles found himself being threaded down the narrow tube that was the well. Little more than shoulder width, he fended himself off the walls as best he could.
“You were right about it being a tight fit,” he called up.
“That’s what clients like about it. I lower them in with their arms by their sides and they’ve hardly any room to move even their hands. Shall I pull up the lamp and leave you down there for a bit to try the effect?”
“No, thank you very much. It’s not a question of liking it, it’s I’m not sure how much I’m going to be able to do in the confined space.”
“I told you I should have gone down, I’m thinner than you are.”
“We’ve already been over that. Hey, stop lowering; my feet have reached the water. Now very slowly and stop the moment I shout. I want to get my head and shoulders just above the water so I can see what is happening and, with luck, reach it as well.”
Slowly Charles body sank in the water. It was an odd sensation, the suit pressing against him as he sank lower and lower.
‘It’s strange,’ he thought. ‘When you are swimming you don’t notice the pressure. It must be something to do with the air trapped in the suit being compressed and wrinkles being squashed out.’ He recalled a similar effect when wearing waders while clearing out a deep garden pond at the house back north. How long ago that seemed. Was it only a year ago? His life had changed so radically it seemed hardly more real than something out of a story.
As predicted by Leslie, the chains helped to keep his feet under him. The well must have been very deep for his feet never found bottom before his chin got to within five centimetres of the water. He snapped out of his reverie.
“Stop,” he shouted, “Now, turn me round slowly. Okay, stop again.”
In front of him at water level was a hole the size of five bricks. Nudging the lamp with his head, Charles directed the beam into the hole.
“Crikey,” he let out a cry, startling Leslie.
“What’s the matter are you all right, shall I pull you up?
“No, it's alright. There is a hole, but there’s a box of some sort in it. Just pull me up twenty centimetres so I can try to get a hand into it.
Charles struggled for a few minutes but it was no use.
“No, it’s no good,” he eventually conceded. “I just can’t get a purchase. We’ll have to think of a different way, pull me up please.”
Leslie found Charles a towelling bath robe then went off for more coffees, while he thought about the problem of recovering the box.
“What I think,” he said when she returned, “is that those bricks have actually been missing for years. There are whitish marks round the edge of the hole. I think someone made the hole, put the box in and then plastered it over. The well filled up to its normal level so the hole was two metres or so down. Over years the mortar was kept wet and eventually dropped out, letting the water fall to the level of the hole.”
“But why now?”
“Oh, we’ll never know, will we? Traffic vibration, tube trains, just the lapse of time. Anyway, inside the hole is this box, a bit like an old deposit box. It seemed to be stuck in lengthways with a handle facing me. I could touch it, but I couldn’t work my arms inside the confines of the well to get a pull at it.”
“What are we going to do? Shall I go down?”
“No, Leslie, not unless you want me to leave you there to get your fussy out. I haven’t discovered your turn-on, have I?”
“No, you haven’t. Maybe one day you will, but that’s not it. No, I just thought…”
“Apart from all the reasons we discussed before, I don’t think you would do much better than I could that way round. Anyway, I had another idea while you were out.”
He took a sip of his coffee.
“What I want you to do is to fasten my ankles to the hoist then lower me down, head first. That will give me a lot more freedom of arm movement so if I take a length of rope with me, I can tie it to the box handle. I should be able to ease it out then you pull it and me out and hey presto!”
Again, Charles found himself descending the well, this time head first and an order of magnitude more unpleasant. At least he could use his hands. Leslie manoeuvred him in front of the hole and he tied the end of a trailing rope to the handle of the box. Gingerly he started to coax it out. Half, three-quarters, till just its end was resting on the wall of the well, with the weight shared by Charles and the lifting rope.
“Pull gently on the box rope,” Charles shouted.
Leslie did as she was bidden then, just as the rope began to take the strain there was a snap and something flew past Charles, narrowly missing his face.
“What the!”
“What’s happened,” Leslie shouted.
“Handle’s come off. Must have rusted. No, Hell, don’t pull on me I’ve got the whole weight of this damned box in one hand. If I drop it now, we’ll never get it back. I’m going to try to push it back in the hole for a bit.”
With an effort Charles inched the box back into the hole. When Leslie finally lifted him out, he was exhausted. Despite the chill in the well he was sweating inside his suit while his legs were not sure whether they wanted to have the cramps or just go numb as a result of being motionless in tension for so long.
Yet more coffee and a vigorous rub brought the circulation back.
“Now what?” asked Leslie when he had downed a cup?
“First thing is, I need a pee.” Charles shivered, he suddenly felt cold. “Then we need to think. You’ve got an engineering degree; I’m only a humble mathematician. It’s your turn and it had better work ‘cause I don’t think the job will stand another failure.”
Charles returned from the bathroom feeling much better to find Leslie surrounded by a pile of ropes and straps.
“How about this?” she asked. “We use two ropes to lift the box. If we put a karabiner on the end of each rope you ought to be able to pass them round under the box then clip the karabiner back round it. That should be easier than trying to tie knots and the like. If you can do one, then pull the box out, and do the other near the back, the box should be supported. Then I can pull you out first so that we have a clear run at lifting the box.”
Charles thought for a moment, yes even head first he should have no real problems.
“Okay, but one modification, since rope supply doesn’t seem to be a problem in this establishment, let’s use four!”
Soon Charles again found himself dangling headfirst over the well.
“Don’t forget the diver, going down,” he called as Leslie worked the windlass.
“Didn’t think you were old enough to know that catch phrase,” she answered back.
“Doing this puts years on you,” was his muffled retort as the walls of the well closed about him for the third time.
Leslie’s plan worked well. Having lost its handle, starting the box out of its hole was difficult, but once Charles had wriggled it a forward a few centimetres and was able to attach the first rope things got distinctly easier. After ten minutes he was back on the surface again and together they were pulling the box up the well shaft. This proved not to be quite such a trivial operation as they had hoped. It swung uncontrollably from side to side like a pendulum. After a particularly heavy bump one of the lines came adrift.
“Thank goodness for redundant design,” growled Charles as Leslie looked sheepishly at the slack rope in her hand.
Eventually the box rested between them on the well’s parapet. As Charles had first thought, it was a metal deed box sixty centimetres long, thirty wide and twenty high. A lot of the original lacquer work had got scraped off in its bumpy ascent, but enough of the original florid gold and red scrolling decoration remained to suggest that the box, anyway, dated from not later than the very beginning of the twentieth century. The surprise was the lid. It had been soldered on and the keyhole filled.
They took the box along the corridor past the prison cells that had been coal cellars and the like when the house was built, to Leslie’s workshop at the end. Charles was struck again by how well equipped it was, but remembered Leslie’s remark when he had first been shown round the house, that she preferred to make as much equipment as possible herself because it was more discreet that way.
“I don’t think we should try unsoldering it,” Charles mused turning the box round and round on the bench looking for inspiration. “We’ve no idea what’s inside.”
“Well, whatever it is whoever it was who put it there soldered it up.”
“Yes, I know, but doing it up is one thing, you can work a bit at a time. To get the lid off we would have to melt most of the solder first and that would involve a lot of heat.”
“Agreed. How about the angle grinder?” Leslie proffered the tool.
“Dodgy. I reckon it’s a cold steel job. Pass me a hacksaw, will you? It’s a pity to have to damage the box, but I can’t see any other way”
Gingerly Charles cut down one of the ends, finally bending the metal down in a flap. Standing the box on its good end he offered it to Leslie.
“Your luck dip. Careful of the jaggies,” he said.
Leslie shut her eyes, put in a hand and drew out a cloth bag. Inside each individually wrapped in more soft fabric were a number of small chamois leather bags. Loosening the drawstring of one she tipped its contents into the palm of her hand.
“Grandfather’s treasure,” Leslie let out with a gasp.
Charles hesitated, then picked up one of the red crystals. Tentatively he tried to scratch it with a fingernail, then with equal lack of success with the hacksaw.
“Rubies!” he said.
Leslie stared at the stones.
“Dad told me that granddad had hidden his stuff at the beginning of the war in case the Germans had got here. Dad was away on service at the time and by the time he got back on leave granddad had died and no one knew where he had put it.”
“Well, you do now. It’s been hiding under three metres of water for the last sixty years.”
They opened the other bags. One again contained precious stones, emeralds this time. Two contained several hundred gold sovereigns each. There was a lot of gold, but it was out-valued many times over by the little mountains of precious stones. The two largest bags they kept till last. It was a bit like Christmas, Charles couldn’t help feeling, as he tried to decide from its shape what was inside of one of the bags; trying to guess what might be there. It was hard, like a small box.
“Here, you’d better open this,” he said passing to Leslie. “Feels like a box of some sort to me.”
“This one too,” she handed the bag back. “Come on, let’s open them together. One, two…”
They each drew out a shagreen covered box, one dark red the other blue, of the kind favoured by the more upmarket kind of jeweller. Together they pressed the little buttons to open the lids. Even after what they had already found, what greeted their eye was beyond their wildest exceptions. Each contained a tiara, massively encrusted with diamonds. Lying at the side of each was a pair of matching, shoulder-brushing, diamond drop earrings.
Charles was the first to get his breath back.
“Well, you won’t have to worry about paying the milkman now, will you? Are you going to retire and live a life of ease in the country?”
“Me retire!” snorted Leslie. “I’d die of boredom.”
“Only joking.”
“Well, I still don’t feel much up to it. No, but later, I shall quadruple my fees and dress my maids in gold chains and diamond tiaras.” She picked one up and pushed it into Charles’s hair. “Voilà!
He unplugged the jewel.
“Seriously, Charles, what should I do with all this?”
“For a start, put it somewhere safe. Back down the well would be best, but I don’t much fancy another trip and we’d have to seal it up somehow ‘cause the hole’s mostly underwater. Sleep with it under your bed tonight I reckon. Do you have a bank deposit box?”
“Only an ordinary sort of thing, not for this much,” she waved her hand over the pile. How much do you think it’s worth?”
“Oh, I don’t know it’s not my field £50 million, could be a lot more, don’t know. Whatever you were before you are now a very, very wealthy woman.”
“£50 million,” Leslie gasped.
Charles picked up the bags and replaced them in the box.
“Come on my gel, let’s get this lot back upstairs,” adding with a laugh, “It’s only like being a Formula One driver for five years.”
Normally no one called Leslie, “gel,” and got away with it. On that day she followed meekly behind, dazed by the discovery.
Chapter 4
The week before Christmas 1999 Charles and Amber had finally persuaded Leslie to take a short holiday at Saxon Court, Gwyneth’s training stables in the country. Leslie was convinced that they were up to no good, but that constant drip feed of suggestions that she was still looking a little off colour and that a breath of country air would do her the world of good had its effect. She had finally decided to go when Gwyneth rang to say that she had had a special request form a particular client and would Leslie go and help her sort out one of the loose boxes and advise on suitable equipment.
No sooner was she out of the house than Amber set to work putting up Christmas decorations. Charles had found a great cache of them when exploring the loft space above his flat. Many were clearly quite old, in all likelihood going back to pre-war days. He had been particularly intrigued by some of the fairy light bulbs, the glass of which was moulded into shapes ranging from crude Santa Clauses to miniature airships. They must have been made in Germany or Bohemia in the ‘30s, he concluded. Presumably they had been put away when the family last employed a nanny; then forgotten.
The main entrance hall with its black and white marble floor and grand staircase was ideal. Pride of place was given to a tree, the fairy on the top of which had to be pushed down firmly to prevent her crown rubbing on the lofty ceiling. While Amber dealt with baubles and tinsel, Charles concentrated on festooning everywhere with the myriad of tiny lights. The decorations extended out of the hall, up the stairs and into Leslie’s first floor lounge where they placed a smaller tree in the window.
How to decorate the dungeon was a problem. They both agreed that something should be done with it, as it was a certainty that some or all of them would be spending part of the holiday there. But what? Tinsel and angles, unless perhaps black ones, Charles speculated, didn’t seem right. And certainly not a nativity crib. In the end they opted for a lot of holly and mistletoe hung between red garlands as suitable tribute to the pagan origins of the winter festival.
On the 23rd Charles was still acting as electrician when the doorbell rang. Please that, for once, he had not opted for one of his French Maid outfits, he crossed the hall and opened the door to find a man standing chip-board in hand.
“Miss Weston?” he asked.
“No,” said Charles. “Why?”
“Got some parcels for ‘er in the van,” he pointed to the street.
“Oh, well, she lives her. I can take them in for her.”
“Right, sign here. Can you give us a hand? Some of um’s a bit on the ‘eavy side for me an’ mi mate to get up all them steps.”
Charles gingerly followed him down the steps. Okay, no maid’s dress but he did have a pair of his locked-on fifteen-centimetre heels. Not ideal for furniture removal he already knew.
“Can I help too?” Amber, never a one to be left out of anything, called from the door
“Sure,” said the driver, already half was to his van. Then he looked back and stopped in his tracks.
Amber had decided that, if she was to be one of Santa’s little helper she might as well look the part so she had dressed in a polo-necked, long sleeved, red latex catsuit and a little tutu of a skirt, also in red latex, the edge trimmed in fluffy white, the whole topped off with a matching bobble hat. What she had forgotten was that the suit had holes cut out at the bust from which her ample boobs protruded. With a squeal she crossed her arms in front of her and ran back inside. The van driver recovered his composure and together with his mate, he and Charles carried five boxes, three large, two rather smaller, inside. From the manifest he knew that they had come from the factory where Nigel had fibreglass shapes made from his plaster casts. But there should be only four pieces for Barry’s present. So why five boxes?
Leslie, accompanied by Gwyneth, returned home on Christmas Eve. Charles had secretly liaised with Gwyneth so that it was dusk when they arrived. All the fairy lights were lit and, with the main lights off, the flicker from the open flame gas fire in the lounge completed the Christmas card effect. Leslie had seen nothing like since she was little. For half an hour she just wandered round in a reverie, touching a piece here and there and saying to herself, “I remember you, I remember you,” as memories came flooding back; some happy, but many sad. She was on the verge of tears when she finally came back to where the others were still standing, unsure what they should say or do.
“Where did you find all this?” she just managed to ask.
Charles explained.
“Is it all right?” he asked, much concerned.
Leslie gave him a hug.
“Oh Charlotte, you can’t know how ‘all right’ it is. The house hasn’t been like this for; oh, I don’t know how long, forty years may be, not since…” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m so glad you found all these decorations again. I’d forgotten all about them. They bring back such happy memories; I just can’t tell you.”
‘And such sad ones too.’ decided Charles as Leslie excused herself and disappeared into her bedroom to be alone with her thoughts. Through the half open door, the sound of sobbing could be heard.
“I wonder just what really went wrong and what it is that she is forever blocking out?”
On Christmas morning, they all rushed into the hall like a pack of children desperate to find what Santa had left for them under the tree. The ghosts of the previous evening had been laid because overnight Leslie had managed to cover all the boxes delivered two days before in identical paper and ribbons. Each carried a little label. The biggest box had Amber’s name on it.
“Can I open mine first? Please, please, let me open mine first,” she pleaded.
“I’m not sure about that,” Leslie teased. “I think you ought to wait till after everybody else so as to make it last.”
“Oh, go on, I can’t, I can’t” said Amber, clutching the box that was taller than herself and shaking it in an attempt to guess what was inside.
“You might not like it,” said Leslie continuing to tease.
“Yes I will, yes I will, yes I will,” shouted Amber, growing more excited by the moment.
“Oh, okay then, but I warned you.”
Amber started to tear off the paper.
“But on one condition.”
Amber stopped her destruction of the parcel. She had detected a note of mischief in Leslie’s voice.
“Ye-es,” she said slowly.
“When you get out whatever’s in the box you’ve got to use it right away ‘til I say.”
Okay, that sounded all right. After several more minutes of furious activity Amber was down to the last layer. Finally, it was revealed. Inside that box was a startlingly lifelike statue of Amber herself derived, quite clearly, from one of the casting she had made for Nigel.
“Well, is very nice,” she said her voice betraying her disappointment that it was just a boring marble-look statue. “Thank you.”
Leslie gave her a kiss.
“I think you ought to look at it a bit closer,” she suggested.
“You mean that’s not just a boring old statue? Oh, sorry Lesso, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but…”
Before Amber had time to dig herself into a deeper hole, Leslie pressed a set of barely visible buttons on each side. There was a slight pop as each responded. Then, to everyone’s surprise but Leslie’s, after the last pair the statue split down the sides into front and back halves.
“It’s not so much a statue of you as a chrysalis for you, Amber. Your body’s too curvy to make hinges possible so there are these little latches down each side. The edges are made with tongue-and-groove construction, and neoprene gasket runs around the entire perimeter, making a watertight, and for all practical purposes, airtight seal, apart from the mouth and nose openings. It is supposed to be more or less soundproof too. So, my dear, once you are in, you are in. And you did promise to use your present straight away after you opened it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, she did,” chorused Gwyneth and Charles, as Leslie pounced on Amber with a view to stripping her and fitting her in to the fibreglass case.
Amber put up only token resistance. This was the sort of thing she really loved. What a wonderful present. She would have liked to kiss and hug Leslie to thank her. But that would have to wait for now because she was already lying face down in the perfectly fitting front shape, while the rear portion of the chrysalis was being fastened, squeezing her ever so gently, ever so firmly so that she was totally immobilised inside the unyielding centimetre thick shell. It wasn’t severe at all. Quite comfortable really, as it exactly conformed to her body.
“It’s typical of Amber,” Leslie observed in her most didactic tone after they had completed the closure and heaved the chrysalis upright, “that in her excitement she failed to notice the additional small packets of accessories. Perhaps, as it might be a little inconvenient for her to deal with the sticky tape at the moment, we should undo them for her so that she might enjoy having everything together, don’t you think?”
Leslie, of course, knew exactly what lay in store. The others, full of curiosity, started to open the rest. Charles chose the smallest packet. Gwyneth waited while he opened it. To both their surprise and disappointment it contained just two Allan keys. Leslie grinned.
“Try the other one,” she suggested to Gwyneth.
The second packet contained a piece of curved plastic material matching that of the statue. There was also a selection of devices that were obviously dildos and butt plugs ranging in size from the fairly small to one dildo that looked as though it might not have been altogether out of place as an appendage of one of Gwyneth’s colts.
“Gosh,” was all Gwyneth could say as she picked it up out of the collection spread on the floor where she knelt.
Leslie grinned.
“As I was saying,” she went on, “there are a few features that I think Amber will find interesting. You see the crotch piece is detachable. The one that came fitted is the plain vanilla version. Smooth inside, except for a few little bumps around the area of her clit that the maker carelessly forgot to smooth off, or something like that any way. I hope,” she added with a laugh, “that she does not find them too much of a distraction. Especially as I noticed a similar ‘defect’ around the nipples. What you’ve got there, Gwyneth, is an alternative crotch piece that takes optional attachments. Knowing our Amber, I expect that she will be pretty wet already so what say you we do a swap and give her a bit more to think about? Boring old statue, indeed.”
She took the plate from Gwyneth and after turning the pieces over in her hands selected a vibrating dildo and a butt plug that, Charles thought altogether too big considering how little space Amber would have to expand inside her shell. Leslie must have read his thoughts, but had prepared in anticipation of the turn of events. Fumbling between the branches of the Christmas tree she retrieved a tube of lubricating jelly and began to apply a liberal coating to the probes.
“Charlotte, as you have the key, please would you be so kind as to make yourself useful and remove the panel. The keyhole is the navel. A nice touch, don’t you think?”
Unless one were deliberately looking for them the seams were so finely matched as to be almost invisible when the panel was closed. Charles inserted the key, turned it and a narrow-curved section, extending from just below the navel to the bottom of the buttocks, came away in his hands to give unrestricted access to Amber’s genitals. Though rigidly confined inside her mould, Amber still seemed to give a little shudder as it was removed, though whether due to the change to the mild stimulation she had been receiving or the sudden rush of cold air was not clear. Leslie gently worked in the plugs. At first Amber tried to resist the intrusions, but eventually she had no choice but to let them slide in till she was once more fully enclosed with the crotch plate reattached. Apart from a faint intermittent hum emanating from the statue all was quiet.
“How long are you going to leave her?” Charles eventually asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Leslie casually replied. “Tea time or a bit longer. The batteries should last four hours or so on the cycle I set and it would be a pity not to use them up. Don’t want half used batteries about the place, do we? Far too confusing for next time. Now don’t protest unless you want to change places with her. Go and get us some drinks then we can have the other presents.”
Continues in chapter 5