James liked to draw. He sketched portly men in towering top hats that gave him nasty looks as they walked by. The ladies were more interesting with their towering dresses that trailed behind them like wilting flowers. On the Leas everybody seemed brighter and more colourful; better fed and gleaming with confidence. It was a wonderfully long, smooth path that stretched out besides the sea. James wandered out here whenever mum wasn’t looking to sketch the people and the trees and the glistening sails off the English coast. With so many siblings it was easy to slip away.
Yet James was surprised to discover that he was not the only member of his family that liked to escape here. One slow summer morning he was quietly doodling passers-by when James spotted his sister Mary shuffling her way along the Leas. She was a tall and growing girl with a perpetual scowl, at least when looking at James. He had to look twice but yes - she was clad from head to foot in the garb of a gentleman despite the stifling heat. Goodness knows where she had got it from. Probably Uncle Frederick’s. From a distance she could have been mistaken for a young well-to-do man, but James had an eye for detail.
Recognising his sister with a jolt of panic he slid into the shadows of a nearby Gentlemen's Club; The Smoking Bishop. It was a lurking place nestled within the stonework and guarded by a posh-looking, bird-faced man in a finely cut tailcoat. Above the door was emblazoned in golden, flowing font: Ladrick and Sons, est 1897. Mary was making a beeline for it but suddenly froze, glancing in James’ direction. Had she seen him? It looked like it. The small boy tried to shrink into the shadows but it was no use - his sister was already on him.
“What are you doing here?” She demanded, looking James up and down as if he was the one dressed unusually, “You’ll mess up my whole plan.”
Feigning meekness, James held up his sketchbook. “Just… just drawing.”
His sister let out an unsatisfied sigh before peering around the corner at the club and its oblivious guardian. There was something odd about her that went beyond clothing - Mary seemed more assured; walking with more confidence. It was almost unnerving.
“Why are you dressed as a gentleman?” James asked his older sibling. She glanced down at him as if the question was entirely ridiculous.
“Because,” Mary sighed and nodded her head towards the Gentleman’s Club, “Mr Daedalus is always in there on a Saturday afternoon, and so is Mr Chester and Mr Prufrock and too many dull, well-connected men to mention who I need to get in the good graces of if I’m ever going to get a job in London and make something of myself.”
James pondered this. It was hardly the first time Mary had insisted on her ambitions to get a job in the big city; a new and unfamiliar concept. Mother was having none of it but her daughter was adamant. He would never say it out loud but James admired his sister for that.
“Oh… all right. But why the suit?”
Mary cleared her throat and put on her best posh accent. “Gentlemen will only talk to people who look and sound like them, that’s why.”
Her brother could not help but giggle at this and she allowed the faintest hint of a smile to creep onto her face. For a bright moment James felt the need to draw his sister in all her splendid glory.
“So are you a man now?”
Mary frowned. “What? No, of course not.”
“But you dress like a man and walk like a man and talk like a man -”
“I’m not a man, James. This is just a disguise.”
The concept puzzled her brother but he knew better than to push the point.
“If you say so,” James conceded, “but how will you get past the door?”
The two peered around the corner where the gatekeeper remained. He had procured a spindly cane seemingly from the ether and was twirling it fashionably in his hands. Come to think of it, the boy had seen him walking along the Leas before. James was forgetting something about the bird-faced gentleman but he couldn’t place what.
“Stay here,” Mary commanded before stepping back out into the road and making her way in an elaborate step towards the gatekeeper, who immediately stopped playing with his stick when she approached. James craned his neck around the corner; listening in.
“Good day,” birdface squinted against the sunlight as Mary strutted up to the door. When she replied it was with a surprisingly low voice.
“Apologies, old fellow. I’m Steephill’s son here with a message for my father. Mind if I come through?”
Even as his sister said it James could hear that rolling hint of a Kentish accent behind her words. It seemed birdface heard it too. Getting a proper look at Mary for the first time he squinted intently before releasing a barking guffaw.
“What do you think this is, a circus? Be gone with you woman.”
For a moment Mary seemed about to argue before realising that the game was up. She lowered her head and began shuffling away from the steps just as something clicked in her brother’s head. Of course, that was where James had seen him. He plodded up to the gate just as Mary retreated.
“Is this you?” the little boy asked innocently enough, holding up a page in his sketchbook. Mary could not quite see what was on the paper but whatever it was made the gatekeeper turn very pale.
“Nonsense -” he began to protest before the boy cut him off.
“But it’s you. Anyone could tell. Want me to show the others?”
James nodded towards the club’s interior where a few scattered patrons were beginning to look in their direction. The gentleman muttered a quick string of curses under his breath and looked the little boy over before his seething eyes shifted to Mary, cold and calculating. Eventually he let out a long sigh and forced his face into a smile.
“My apologies, I did not recognise you,” he told Mary in a low tone, “Steephill should be just inside.”
She returned the smile, straightened her suit and strode with purpose into the Smoking Bishop. As soon as she was inside, birdface snapped the door shut and turned to James.
“Now, give me that page.” Simply nodding, the boy tore out the offending drawing and handed it to the gentleman. Before the paper left his hands James snuck one last look. It was an elegant sketch of the bird-faced gentleman ambling along the Leas in a flowing blue and teal dress that stretched down to his ankles. James remembered the afternoon well - birdface had been a far more convincing woman than Mary had been a man.
The gentleman nodded briskly before slipping the parchment into his waistcoat.
“It was a very pretty dress,” James said after a moment, his voice innocent. The gentleman looked around skittishly for a moment.
“Thanks.”