Mrs Darcy vs The Aliens

The dirigible floated on through the night air towards Bath. The only sounds apart from the soft chugging of the engine were the snores of Colonel Sutherland as he lay dozing in the rear of the gondola and occasional groans from Mr Darcy. Mrs Darcy was asleep too, but she maintained a ladylike silence. Keeping watch at the prow, Wickham had plenty of time to think. What he was mainly wondering about was how on earth they had managed to escape from the Mission. They had surely all been doomed to certain death until that poltergeist had appeared.

Or was it a poltergeist? Maybe it was simply a ghost with a bad attitude? How could you tell? Of course! Abandoning his post for a moment, he went to the middle of the ship and found H, busy checking the course to Bath.

“How much do you know about ghosts, H?” he said.

H narrowed his eyes. “You’ve heard it too, haven’t you?”

“Heard what?”

“The rustling.” H twitched slightly.

Wickham frowned. “Er … no, I haven’t heard anything. I was just wondering how we managed to evade Lady Catherine.”

“Yes, I was wondering about that. Queer business and no mistake.” H suddenly stiffened. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“Hear what?”

“Listen! There it goes again!”

This time, Wickham heard it – a definite rustle of skirts. And was he imagining it, or was there a whiff of cheap gin in the air?

“H?” he said. H put a finger to his lips and opened up a panel in the bulkhead. He motioned to Wickham to hold the wheel and started rummaging. Eventually he emerged, triumphantly clutching a device that Wickham recognised: the funnel at the end of H’s ghost detection engine.

“Good Lord!” he whispered. “What else do you have stashed away on board, H?”

H tapped his nose. “You’d be surprised, young man. Never underestimate Sir Humphry Davy.”

“I most certainly won’t.”

The conspiratorial silence was rudely broken by H starting up the engine. Sutherland sat up briefly, scratched his head and then lay down again, muttering. The Darcys slept peacefully on, undisturbed.

“So what’s the plan?” said Wickham.

“First of all, keep your hands on the wheel and your eye on the sky ahead. For my part, I will carry out a sweep of this vessel to see if we are harbouring any spectral stowaways.” H pulled out a length of hose from the machine and began to wave the funnel from side to side, moving slowly forwards, until all of a sudden a pair of female feet appeared. Unexpectedly, a second pair of female feet then appeared next to the first pair, followed by a third and a fourth.

H tilted the funnel upwards, revealing four women, each of whom was regarding Wickham and himself with some interest.

“Evening, Mr Wickham,” said Annie Chapman. “Nice to see you again.”

Wickham found himself unable to speak.

“Wickham?” said H. “Do you know this … person?”

“I … I … yes, that is to say – ”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mister,” said Annie Chapman, “’e don’t know me in the biblical sense.” She paused. “Even if ’e did ask if I did Prussian.”

“’e did what?” said the girl on her left.

“Filthy bugger,” said the one next to her.

“But ’e is ’andsome, like you said,” remarked the fourth one. “So I might – ”

“Now listen to me, Mary Jane Kelly,” said Annie Chapman. “You wanna be careful, my young lady. You don’t let no-one ask you for Prussian. More’n your life’s worth.”

“Even if I’m dead?” said the other.

“Well, that’s as maybe. I still say – ”

“Annie’s right, Mary Jane,” said the one to Annie Chapman’s left. “You wanna look after yerself.”

H held up his hand. “Ladies!” he said. “Please calm down. I’m sure that my colleague’s enquiry was entirely innocent – ”

“Yeah, right – ”

“But be that as it may, I would be very interested to know what you’re doing here. I’m not altogether certain if this vessel can cope with four extra passengers.”

“Us?” said Annie Chapman, with a hint of indignation. “We only went and saved Mr Wickham ’ere’s life. Not so say those other geezers what were with ’im. Although we still don’t know what’s up with that Mr Darcy – ”

“I can explain that,” said Wickham. “But who are you all?”

“Just four ’onest ’ores what got caught up in bad business, Mr Wickham,” said the one on Annie Chapman’s left. “Elizabeth Stride, at yer service,” she added, with a curtsey, “An’ that there is Catherine Eddowes. An’ the cheeky one on the end is Mary Jane Kelly. An’ us four ain’t goin’ anywhere right now, Mister.”