WordWench

For one awful moment the couple’s hearts stood still.

They were trapped. The lemur blocked the entrance. In another moment she would be on them. And their guns were outside!

Spencer looked around wildly for another exit. There was none. The back of the library ended in a blank wall.

 But in that frantic glance he caught sight of a narrow bit of wainscoting or perhaps it was a chair-rail that ensquared the room. Hmmmmm, a bit high for a chair rail Spencer mused but I’ve no time to question the whereforall of the thing. “Quick, dear one, follow me!” he shouted to his darling wife Margaret as he grasped the frame of a large portrait of his great-uncle, Colonel Beaumont Abutment of the 45th Infantry. “Climb, climb as if your life depended on it… because it does! That’s a mother lemur and she’s got 4 cubs with her. Secure your toes on the chair-rail and scurry across like a wharf rat coming on board the Ulysses.”

It was like walking on a narrow ledge around the face of an office building, with the exception that this was much more difficult because of the upward slant caused years ago when the manse suffered at the hands of some horrid tremors caused by the blasting of Uncle Frank’s crew clearing boulders away when he built the railroad trestle over the driveway.

The lemur had rushed forward with a snarl toward the intruders, but by the time she reached the foot of the chair-rail they were already beyond her reach. She fondled her babies for a moment, saw that they were uninjured by the cascading torrent of Will and Ariel Durant’s History of  Civilization volumes 1-5. She then turned her attention on the terrified couple scrambling for safety just above her head. Ranging below them uttering hideous growls, she tried to find purchase in the wall but no foothold was to be found so she clawed at the air, trying to untie their shoes.

“Oh, what a boob I was to come into this library,” Margaret lamented as she stretched to take hold of another frame. This one was a John Hoover Sargent portrait of Great-Aunt Ophelia Thie. “Where was the fool killer that he didn’t come and swipe me with his club?”

“Only a few more feet, my darling dearest,” Spencer reassured his charming bride. “If you can make it to the transom and drop through to the hallway and call for Cook. There… just a little farther… a ha! You’ve done it. Now fetch Cook to save me. She’ll call Friendly’s Varmint Service to deliver us from this lemur. Oh… and before you go, can I have another piece of Juicy Fruit? Thanks.”

A brief moment passed before all Spencer saw of Margaret were the soles of her Doc Martens and then… a loud thump, a soft groan and the sound of her footsteps retreating down the stairs. Godspeed… I pray no more lemurs roam the halls.  He sank to his knees, grasping his feet to keep his balance, entirely bereft of speech, he began to whistle.

Margaret entered the vestibule, a smiling landscape of mackintoshes and umbrellas, boots and other gear, without any sign of the monster who for those long minutes had made her taste the bitterness of death. The reaction was so great that it left the woman as limp as a rag. “The blessed vestibule!” she exclaimed, “I never thought I was going to see it again.”