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Acolyte, v. 1, issue 1, Fall 1942
Page 20
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OLD LENA TUPPIT ********************* SAVE THAT it lay in Southwark, somewhere between Southwark Street and Bankside, I can't recall now for the life of me just what street it was where I met her, if indeed I ever bothered to ask. London was in blackout. Tendrils of drenching fog probed at me and caressed me wetly, like phantom fingers, as I made my way almost blindly down the desolate midnight street. I found myself longing frantically for the neoned brightness and raucous clamor of Broadway, thinking "Damn young Randall Kent's Boston aunt anyway." Of course she was worried about him, in her tight-mouthed way, after he'd flown overseas, without her permission of course, to attach himself voluntarily to that branch of the R. A. F. sometimes called the International Squadron. So somehow she'd gotten wind of my business trip to England, and bustled down on one of her rare trips to New York to insist I look up her nephew. More damned nuisance trying to track him down. I hoisted my overcoat more firmly around my chin. Why, if old Rand Kent hadn't been one of my closest friends at Princeton, I... "Would you be giving an old lady tuppence for a cup of something hot?" The sudden request was voiced in a blend of plaintive whining and a curious restraint that hinted at surviving but sadly frayed edges of respectability. I turned. Saw nothing but a dumpy grey blur. "Sure a night like this is one for friends upstairs and downstairs as well." "Not a night for idle strolling," I admitted, wondering how in the devil an old beggar woman expected to maintain herself on a completely deserted and dismal blacked-out street such as this one. Perhaps she has no place to go, I guessed. She agreed voluably, babbling on in a peculiar rasping voice as she walked along beside me. "I'm looking for a tavern they call Duffy Miller's. Do you know if I'm headed right?" I asked. I'd begun to suspect I was lost some time past. "Not far off, sir. I'll show you the way, that is if the Almighty'll keep those devils upstairs from spitting down blood and fir long enough." She seemed eager. Wants a pot of grog when we get there, I thought. Well, she'll have earned it. Something about her voice fascinated yet repelled me; sent little cold frogs hopping up and down my spine. I tried to get a look at her, but all that presented itself was a hunched-over smear -- 21 --
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OLD LENA TUPPIT ********************* SAVE THAT it lay in Southwark, somewhere between Southwark Street and Bankside, I can't recall now for the life of me just what street it was where I met her, if indeed I ever bothered to ask. London was in blackout. Tendrils of drenching fog probed at me and caressed me wetly, like phantom fingers, as I made my way almost blindly down the desolate midnight street. I found myself longing frantically for the neoned brightness and raucous clamor of Broadway, thinking "Damn young Randall Kent's Boston aunt anyway." Of course she was worried about him, in her tight-mouthed way, after he'd flown overseas, without her permission of course, to attach himself voluntarily to that branch of the R. A. F. sometimes called the International Squadron. So somehow she'd gotten wind of my business trip to England, and bustled down on one of her rare trips to New York to insist I look up her nephew. More damned nuisance trying to track him down. I hoisted my overcoat more firmly around my chin. Why, if old Rand Kent hadn't been one of my closest friends at Princeton, I... "Would you be giving an old lady tuppence for a cup of something hot?" The sudden request was voiced in a blend of plaintive whining and a curious restraint that hinted at surviving but sadly frayed edges of respectability. I turned. Saw nothing but a dumpy grey blur. "Sure a night like this is one for friends upstairs and downstairs as well." "Not a night for idle strolling," I admitted, wondering how in the devil an old beggar woman expected to maintain herself on a completely deserted and dismal blacked-out street such as this one. Perhaps she has no place to go, I guessed. She agreed voluably, babbling on in a peculiar rasping voice as she walked along beside me. "I'm looking for a tavern they call Duffy Miller's. Do you know if I'm headed right?" I asked. I'd begun to suspect I was lost some time past. "Not far off, sir. I'll show you the way, that is if the Almighty'll keep those devils upstairs from spitting down blood and fir long enough." She seemed eager. Wants a pot of grog when we get there, I thought. Well, she'll have earned it. Something about her voice fascinated yet repelled me; sent little cold frogs hopping up and down my spine. I tried to get a look at her, but all that presented itself was a hunched-over smear -- 21 --
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