A Tale of Two Biddies by Kylie Logan Page A

right establishment, so I presume one of you must surely be the Miss Cartwright I am seeking.”
    If nothing else, the sound of my name snapped me out of my daze. I stuck out a hand. “I’m Bea. And this is my neighbor, Chandra Morrisey. You’ll have to forgive the way I look, it’s early and—”
    “Nonsense!” The man stepped into the house and, eager to start the woo-woo mojo going, Chandra took the opportunity to leave. “You are the very picture of loveliness,” the man said, “and I . . .” Since his back was to the open doorway, it was hard to say, but I’m pretty sure he blushed when he bowed from the waist. “I offer my deepest regrets again for discommoding you so. Ah!” He looked around the entryway of the house, at the chandelier that hung above the stairway directly behind me and the stained glass window on the wall above the door. “This will do nicely.”
    Really, I had an excuse; I hadn’t finished my first cup of coffee. “Do what?”
    He thought I was kidding. That’s why he laughed. “Forgive me.” Again, he bowed. “I have not introduced myself. I am Charles John Huffam Dickens.”
    “Charles . . .” It took a moment for the words to sink in, and another for me to put them together into some sort of thought that actually made sense. “Charles Dickens. Of course! There’s the Charles Dickens impersonator contest this weekend and the Dickens trivia event on Sunday. You’re one of the contestants.” In my head, I went over the list of the guests I knew were scheduled to check in that day. Only one said he might be arriving early. “You must be Gregory Ashburn.”
    He tipped his head to acknowledge the fact. “Gregory Ashburn, professor of nineteenth-century British literature, Columbia University. BA, Stanford. MA, University of Chicago. PhD, University of Pennsylvania. Yes, madam, there are those who know me by that name, though I would prefer if, for the weekend, you would call me Mr. Dickens. Or Charles. Or even Boz, if you feel inclined to such familiarity. It is a family nickname and a pseudonym I used early in my career. Authenticity. I am striving for authenticity. And I am sure there isn’t another contestant who—”
    “I do beg your pardon.”
    I had been so fixated on my conversation with Ashburn/Dickens, I hadn’t realized another man had arrived on my front porch, and I turned to greet him and stopped dead.
    Middle height, middle weight. Long frock coat, narrow trousers, plaid, double-breasted vest with shiny metal buttons. Stiff, two-inch-wide cravat, tied into a wide horizontal bow. High forehead, poofs of hair over each ear, bushy mustache, and unruly goatee. Need I even mention that it was squared off at the bottom?
    “Oh!” I looked from one man to the other. “You must be—”
    “Charles Dickens.” The man stepped forward and extended his hand, and when I reached out to shake it, he took mine in his, bowed low, and brushed the briefest of kisses over my fingers. “I do hope I’m not interrupting,” he said in an accent slightly less phony than my first guest’s, and finally he took a moment to look at the other man who stood in my foyer.
    The second Dickens’s face paled. “Ashburn! You! How dare you—”
    “Surely, sir, you must have me confused with someone else. My name is not Ashburn, it is Dickens,” the first man told him. “And since I am that man, I hardly think you can claim that same celebrity. I was here first.”
    The second man’s eyes narrowed and he cast a look over Ashburn. “First in terms of time, perhaps, but not in terms of perfection. The shoes . . .” The second man’s gaze traveled up from those apparently offending accessories. “The shoes are all wrong.”
    “Wrong?” Ashburn lifted one foot, the better to show off his short ankle boots with the pointy toes. “Black, one-inch heel, laced closed. Perfectly acceptable.”
    “Black, one-inch heel, elastic sided.” The second man showed off the shoes he