Unseemly Pursuits

Chapter 4-2

“I’m worried,” Gertrude Pomeroy had said, pulling Concordia aside after the morning’s faculty meeting. She took off her spectacles and polished them distractedly on her sleeve, returning them to her face slightly askew.

Concordia resisted the impulse to straighten them upon the language professor’s nose. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s about Madame Durand,” Miss Pomeroy said. “I understand that she’s of some European background. At least, she’s supposed to be, but –”

“You mean she isn’t?” Concordia interrupted.

Miss Pomeroy grimaced in dismay. “I don’t want to say that, but her accented English is not consistent with a non-native speaker. Yesterday—she had just come out of Dean Pierce’s office, you see, probably finalizing arrangements for tonight’s meeting—and she was speaking to him through the open doorway. Her accent was nonsensical: sometimes Slavic-toned, sometimes the inverted noun-adjective order of a Romance language speaker…to my ear, at least.”

If anyone would recognize an inconsistent accent, Concordia thought, it would be expert linguist Gertrude Pomeroy, who was fluent in six languages.

So, who was Madame Durand really, and what was she up to? If she was a charlatan, which certainly wasn’t a shocking thought, why focus her energies on the school? She wasn’t getting paid for her involvement with the college. On the other hand, should her deceits be exposed, the college’s reputation could be blemished, and all of them appear to be simpletons. They were playing with fire.

“Did you say anything to the dean?” Concordia asked.

Miss Pomeroy shook her head and pushed back a lock of frizzy brown hair. “I’m not sure I should say something. She could have her own harmless reasons for the pretense. These clairvoyants are quirky, I hear.”

Now that was the pot calling the kettle black, Concordia thought. She wondered if Miss Pomeroy had wandered through any mis-marked doors today.

“I was hoping you would attend the spiritualist meeting with me this evening,” Miss Pomeroy continued. “You could see for yourself, and give me your opinion.”