Wednesday's Word: Droop. An excerpt from The Invisible Maid, chapter 2

 Welcome to Wednesdays where I share a snippet from one of my stories using the previous day's word from the New York Times' game. WORDLE. Yesterday's WORDLE was FLYER. 

I don't have the word FLYER in my books, so I'm going with Monday's word, which was DROOP.

Here's an excerpt from The Invisible Maid:

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 Later that afternoon, Colin Albert blew through the inn door, bringing a swirl of snow with him. "My sakes!" Colin unwrapped the scarf around his neck and bustled toward the fire. His bright green eyes shone above his cheeks, his nose pinkened by the cold. “’Tis terrible weather for thin boots!"

“Let me get you some tea.” I made for the kitchen.

“He’s not here for tea.” Mrs. Hall took the feather duster from my hand. “He’s here to look at the clock.” Waving the duster like a baton, she pointed at the stairs. “I need you to take a tea tray upstairs to our guest.” She flourished the duster at the kitchen and gave me a no-time-for-arguments look.

In the kitchen, I prepared a meal for the stranger upstairs but kept my ear trained on Mrs. Hall’s grousing about the clock.

“Tis going, and it strikes well and hearty, but the hour-hand won't do nuthin' but point at six."

Collin was a junior with the police force, his father being the local constable, but he also sometimes worked as an apprentice in his grandfather’s clock shop. He much preferred learning what made people tick than repairing the workings of a clock, and I’d never before seen him providing house calls.

When I caught up to Collin in the hall, balancing the food tray on my hip, I slid him one of the currant scones he favored. In grammar school, we had often shared our lunches, and I had a fair idea of what suited his fancy.

He snatched the scone and popped it into his mouth before Mrs. Hall could be any the wiser. With his mouth full and his eyes twinkling as if we’d managed great mischief, he reminded me of the laughing boy who had been my favorite chum during our elementary school days.

“Since when are you visiting clocks?” I matched my step to his.

“Grandfather needs help due to his gout, and crime is low,” he said around the crumbs in his mouth.

“You might be the only one in all of Sussex praying for a crime spree.”

“Chasing down villains is more exciting than tinkering clocks, but anything is better than staying at home and helping me mum mop the floors and iron the bedsheets.” He blanched as if he had realized what he said might cause me pain. “Not that mopping and ironing are so bad,” he added.

He was trying to make things better, but instead, he was making it worse. “I don’t hate housekeeping,” I told him because I didn’t want his pity. But did I want to spend the rest of my life swirling a mop and beating rugs? Did I have a choice? I paused beside the great clock in the upstairs hall, a touch stiff and awkward. “Let me know if you need anything.”

I rapped on the stranger in spectacles’ door. Not completely latched, it swung open. The visitor sat in the armchair before the hearth, dozing with his bandaged head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red glow from the fire which lit his spectacles like railway signals but left his downcast face shadowed.

For a second, it seemed to me that the man had a gaping mouth swallowing the whole of the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment: the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and a huge yawn where his chin belonged. Then he stirred, started in his chair, and put up his hand as if in a warning.

I opened the door so the light from the hall lit the room, allowing me to see more clearly the muffler shielding his neck and the whiskers hiding his face. He looked the same as before. The shadows had played tricks on me. Balancing the tray with one hand, I knocked on the door so hard I hurt my knuckles. "I brought your tea, sir.”

He snorted, his eyes flew open, and he stared around in a drowsy manner before training his spectacles on me. "Of course." He waved at the table beside the armchair, rose, and stretched.

I caught a glimpse of Colin, staring not at the hall clock, but at our visitor. His expression spoke of shock and curiosity. Was it the bandages that had him taken aback, or had he also seen the great yawning mouth?

I placed the tray on the table beside the stranger. “I hope I’m not intruding, sir.”

"None whatever," the stranger said. "Though, you understand," he gave Collin a pointed look, "I am not to be disturbed.”

Collin took the hint, turned, and applied an awl to the base of the clock.

"As a rule, I like to be alone.” He eyed Collin’s backside. “You seem like an able-bodied lad.”

Collin spun and faced us, his tool dangling by his side. “Aye, sir.”

“I have packages at the train station waiting to be delivered. Would such a task interest you?”

Collin flushed and straightened his shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

“You will need to employ a wagon. Would that be a problem?”

Collin’s chin jutted out. “It can be arranged, sir.”

"I should explain," he added, "I am an experimental investigator. My packages must be handled with great care."

“Indeed, sir,” Collin said, sounding much impressed, although I doubted he had anymore of an idea than myself of what an experimental investigator actually investigated.

The stranger tucked his thumbs into his belt buckle and puffed out his chest. “My baggage contains many fragile apparatus and intricate appliances.”

“I will be most careful, sir,” Collin assured him.

“Naturally, I’m anxious to get on with my work.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll see if my father’s wagon is available as soon as the clock works straight.”

The stranger seemed pleased with this pronouncement and trained his spectacles in my direction. “My reason for coming to Darien Dales,” he spoke in a confidential manner as if he depended on my aid, “is a desire for solitude. I do not wish to be disturbed or distracted from my investigations. Because of the accident, my condition necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes are sometimes so weak and painful I have to shut myself up in the dark for hours at a time. Not at present, certainly. But at such times, the slightest disturbance, the entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating annoyance to me—it is well these things should be understood."

“Certainly, sir,” I said.

“I have said as much to your mistress, but if you could impress upon her the seriousness of my request, I would be most grateful.”

“Of course, sir.”

"That, I think, is all.” The stranger dismissed me.

I closed the door and joined Collin in the hall.

“Looks like a lobster in those spectacles,” Collin murmured.

I shushed him. “He may hear you. You mustn’t mock another’s misfortune.”

Collin took my chastisement with a grin. “Who’s to say it’s a misfortune that makes him hide beneath those bandages? Could be something else, altogether.”

Collin applied himself to his task, taking off the clock’s face and hands and extracting the works. He moved as if wading through water, and I guessed he was stalling and putting off the time he would have to return to his own home and help his mum with her chores.

Feeling unreasonably defensive of the guest, I folded my arms. “He said an accident caused his condition. What else could it be?”

“A pig snout, perhaps.”

“I’ve seen his nose.” I didn’t mention that it looked too small for his face. “As have you.”

“I didn’t notice it.” Collin used a rag to clean the clockworks and lined them up like soldiers in a battle formation.

“How is that possible? It’s shiny and pink.” And looks like a miniature shark dorsal fin. “Both Mr. and Mrs. Hall have peppered him with questions without getting satisfactory answers,” I continued. “I doubt he’ll be more forthcoming with either of us.”

I froze when the stranger opened the door, making me wonder if he’d been listening to our conversation.

“Why don't you finish and go?” He addressed Collin in a state of suppressed rage. "All you've got to do is to fix the hour-hand on its axle. You're simply humbugging!"

I bustled down the hall.

Behind me, I overheard Collin say, "As you wish, sir— one minute more.” The sound of the whirring clockworks followed soon after.

A bit later, Collin met up with me in the kitchen. "Could be he’s hiding from the law.” He continued our conversation as if we hadn’t been interrupted.

I lifted my eyebrow because everything was police work to Collin. “Perhaps you should mention him to your father.”

“Mind you, I will. If he were hiding from the police, he wouldn’t be more wrapped and bandaged. ‘Tis a great disguise.”

I laughed. “You’ve been reading too much Mr. Doyle.”

Collin dropped his voice to a whispered vow. “I’m determined to get a glimpse at what’s beneath those bandages. Have you seen him undone?”

“Of course not.” How would that ever happen? I shuddered, just thinking of it.

“I’m going to manage it,” Collin promised.

“How, pray tell?”

“He has to take them bandages off sometime, doesn’t he?” Collin scratched his chin. “I assume you’ll be drawing his bath?”

Completely outraged, I called out his name, making me sound a lot like his mum. I swatted him with my dishtowel for added measure.

He flinched away from my useless weapon. “Ah, come on, Ivy, all you have to do is let me know when he requests a tub.” He gave me a winning smile.

“And you’re going to spy on him?”

“Better me than you. Don’t want to shock your female sensibilities and all that.”

I shook my head, laughing at the thought of Collin scaling the wall to peek in the stranger’s room to watch his bath. “What would your father say? Surely, there must be a law against spying?”

“Perhaps I’ll be catching a criminal.”

“You’d just be playing Peeping Tom.”

Collin wrapped up his head with his scarf in a fair imitation of the stranger’s bandages, slipped on his jacket, and did up his buttons. “Fare thee well, Miss Ivy. I’m off to borrow my father’s wagon and secure the stranger’s fragile apparatus and indelicate appliances.”

“That’s intricate,” I murmured the correction at the door Collin had passed through.