The Scuttletongues of Midgely Manor

FinsburyParkCarrots

Lady Maybeline Scuttletongue pinched pensively the puce gathering bulbs of skinflap on the sole of her poodle Reginald's front paw, watching them turn white as a Cawnpore bridge club. She hunched scrunchedly in her William Morris chaises longues, phlegm clutching inside her chinhidden throat as she wished for her husband Sir Tarquin to stop ogling through his pier glass Beryl the scullery skivvy out the loading bay window. She sighed hoooooo, as a-hoooo hoooo-ingly as a hoeing ho in a holey hose at holy hour.

"Sorry darling, I was just observing the garb of these confounded liveries. Too dashed liberal these days. Hem not regulation, far too high. Ahem."

Continue...

justam

Charming!

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Charming!", thought Maybeline, remembering that morning back at Boneridge Towers before the war when they met, skippily gallanting amid the heliotrope hollyhocks and bee busy daisies with cousin Gaylord and his admirable chum Ralph. Such delights of golden Chardonnay, splashing cricket sweaters;such hot exquisite pantings of runs of six about the sundrunk honeybees and loftyshining boughs of rippled oak . Such ribald brazen fumbling shades, naughtily caressing kissers under the Tudor eaves before high tea and Tarquin's father's daily boring story of elephant baiting over crumblings of Shortbread and the vestiges of Empire.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Er, your turn...

justam

Just then she smiled because she remembered one of her first teachers taught her that if you receive a gift you don't like, the most mysterious and vaguely positive exclamation is "Isn't this charming?!" but she didn't mean it to substitute for "What do you expect me to do with this?" on this occasion.

This time she was truly charmed or infatutated with the situation and this comment slipped out. She realized she'd been wasting the word all this time.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Just then Maybeline was shocked from her Bloomsburyesque reverie of streamofconsciousness indulgence - that would have ended with golden dappling tales of sapphic ecstacy with Rita Vita Bagge, the bearded feminist sister of young Ralph, inside the bee hive - by a loud explosion coming from the fireplace.

justam

Reginald wimpered and jumped up from his nap by the fire.
Maybeline said "Don't worry dear, it's time for our walk now anyway!"

FinsburyParkCarrots

"I'll walk him!" hollered the strapping, handlebar moustachioed barechested pilot who dropped through the fireplace into the drawing room to land at Maybeline's blushing toes. "Hellaiiiiiiiiiirrrrgh there! Hope you don't mind me dropping in like this. Dashed Spitfire took a bit of a funny turn looping the loop and had no bally well choice but to jetison. Lucky I landed on your chimney, eh?"

Maybeline's ear's prickled. Her nose twitched. Her elbows rattled. Her chest heaved. Her hips expanded. Her leg hair contracted. Her knicker elastic jangled, her heart fluttered, her false teeth played the maracas and her soul surged in torrid oceanic waves of unbridled atlantic yesssssssnesses. She stammered. "Er... er... yes. You have a lot of soot on your chest."

justam

The maids peeking through the crack in the door had a good laugh and ran to get the master.

FinsburyParkCarrots

"The Master" as they called it was a large virile potbellied pig who lived in the servant quarters, lounging about the place and farting while it amassed the corpulence that would supply the banquet when the King came to dinner the following Tuesday.

Ms. Haiku

I haven't read the post yet, but I have to tell you, just reading the title, and I knew it was you, Mr. Carrots, you funny man.

Ms. Haiku

Just read it. So, you read "Tom Jones" lately? It reminds me of the ridiculous characters in that book. That's a great book.

FinsburyParkCarrots

The prize porker pushed politely past Bella's thigh as she stood by the hallway bookcase sipping Latte and reading Fielding: He charged headlong into the drawing room where he proceeded to chase Reginald around the piano legs in a state of protracted arousal. "Hell's festering toilet paper! Who let that creature in here?", yelled Sir Tarquin. "I bet it was that Beryl. I'll have to take her down into the scullery and give her a jolly good seeing to! Excuse me!" With that, Sir Tarquin, caressing his waistcoat watch fob and striding long legged across the shag pile, left the room promptly, banging the door behind him.

Maybeline and the young pilot were alone. In the room. Together.

Ms. Haiku

Bella strolled into the room unannounced sipping her latte and reading Tom Jones, eyes too consumed by the written pages to see what lay before her. . .

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Swathes of unbounded joy pulse through me ... I am the burbling bubbling brook of bountiful brown brimming beauty blubbing from the beginnings of all beginnings ...", intoned Maybeline. "I am a winged fluttering dove cloudhovering above the windbeat heat of love .... I am so alive! So vibrant in your vision! My revelation! Your tight jodphurs enthraaaalllllll me! They are jodphurs, aren't they?"

"I should bally well say so, ma'am, what ho! They got a bit torn coming down the chimney but you know, it's dashed good sport and all that, what?"

"You could always take them off."

"Hawhawhaw. That'd be a bally riot! Hawhawhaw!... Well, hellairrrrrghhhh!!! Who's this sweet interloper come into our lives? Bella, eh? 'Tom Jones', what? Jolly good. Must admit I haven't bally well time for books, though Biggles is spiffing fun. Anyway. Must go. Thanks for letting me stop by! Toodle pip!" And with that, the moustachioed airman clambered up the chimney again in a blast of soot that sent Maybeline sneezing between her blackened tears.

"Latte, Maybeline?", asked Bella, our heroine.

Ms. Haiku

I'm laughing, Mr. Carrots. I'm also reminded of Sir Percival Blakeney in the Scarlet Pimpernel, what?

FinsburyParkCarrots

The tension mounted and, judging by the yelps and skirting board scratches outside the door, so did The Master.

dyaogirl

All of a sudden a mighty screeching yelp came from the kitchen. "The Masters" was channeling his obsessive virile drive on object of his desires and Reginald wasn't at all amused. Maybelline had her hands full subduing that pot belly pig! Her beloved Reginald needed rescuing and she flew into the kitchen!

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Excoooose me ma'am, me lady Scuttletongue, beggin' yer pardon sir", said Slackpole the limp butler, slipping over Beryl's impromptu mopping up in the hallway. "The Reverend Fffortesque Smythe-Smythe is in the hall with Sir Tarquin and they request your attendance on a matter of some particular importance, me lady, ma'am, sir."

dyaogirl

Two small white eyes shone from her swollen tear-streaked soot covered face as she tried to wipe it with her dress. She went in to great the visitor only to have the cook burst in screaming “They’re stuck ma’am! They’re stuck! As sure as I am standing here ma’am!!! Ohhh and dinner is late! What am I to do now ma’am!!”, she said wringing her hands

FinsburyParkCarrots

Banjaxed and befuddled, Maybeline rearranged her hair, flaxen and waxen and sassily Saxon though it was to a neat conservative dough piled upon her granium, er I mean cranium, and, practicing her archest trot entered through the hallway and an ante room and a second drawing room and at last to the great library, where her husband, a little flushfaced for her liking with buttons done up to the wrong holes and scullery butter on his cufflinks, was engaged in serious discussion with the Reverend. The Reverend upped and kowtowed creakily in Maybeline's vaguest direction, with a "high deee yeeee deeee?" for a how do you do.

"Darling, the Reverend was suggesting that Midgely Manor would be a superb venue for the village fete this year and, given the opening of the new aerodrome on Staines' Heath nearby, we thought we could ask that pilot chappy who was here earlier to come back and do some loop the looping over the fields for the proles and we could charge them all for attendance! Put on a bit of cheese and sherry for the gentry. A bit of a raffle and pin the tail on the big bad donkey for some fun on the side. What say you, dearest? Dearest? Are you feeling well, dearest?"

dyaogirl

Hearing mention of the pilot she recovered her thoughts quickly. “Grand idea” she said. “How about a inviting some of the local performers we saw on boardwalk last week when that heathen was being hung for stealing that precious apple from Libby’s lunch basket the day she ventured out to the countryside with her new baby for a picnic? There were some very lively and upbeat performances during that execution!” Sir Tarquin looked downcast on his wife. Didn’t she remember not to bring up Libby’s name in front of the Reverend?

FinsburyParkCarrots

Sir Tarquin's brute slab of cheek, normally stone-inpregnable, began to twitch and pulsate in irritation, until Maybeline thought with some mixture of alarm and fascination that his glass eye was going to pop out and land in a bowl of pickled onions on the tea table by the Reverend's elbow.

"Yes, Charles Hardy-Banger's one of the best bomber pilots that Z Division has, the Major was telling me the other day", hawked the Reverend. "Real spunk, he has, so they say. He's stationed in McBorrock's Barracks. Very obliging he is to the villagers. He even escorted my wife through Shagge Valley when she got caught coming back from choir practice the morning of the landslide. The exercise did her good because I say, she came back with a positive glow in her cheeks."

"Oh, I have occasion to visit Shagge Valley!", piped Maybeline bloombreastedly. "That's where Lib - er, my sis - - er, I have occasion to visit Shagge Valley! Very treacherous it is, unless you know the secluded woodland paths, yes."

Sir Tarquin's glass eye popped out noisily, ricochetting off the window and flying through the air before landing in the hot bowl of broth Staggers the head charlady was bringing into the library for Reverend.

Being Enlightened

Bibliobella wrote:

I'm laughing, Mr. Carrots.

Me too! I'm not one to run with these excercises but I do get a kick outta some of them!

dyaogirl

The Reverend looked up hearing soft plop as the eye landed in the bowl of broth intended for him. Sir Tarquin rushed over fumbling through the noodles and broth looking for his eye. “Ah! A round object! I think I have found it!” he thought. He summoned what grace he had to pop his eye back in place. It was the right size but the texture somehow felt odd. He shrugged it off and went back to his guest.

The head charlady looked down in horror at her tray as a glass eyeball stared back at her. She noticed the gourmet extra stout riverbend trout’s head she used to garnish the soup was strangely missing his eye!

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Er, forgive me," coughed the Reverend, "But I think remembering, now, my wife's got a broth waiting for me back at the Parsonage. She uses fine herbs she picks up on her walks with the pilot. She calls her broth a Shagge Valley Romper, and I must say it's rather warming to the old cockles. Now if you excuse me, I must be on my way! I look foward to seeing you next Tuesday when His Majesty will arrive! How are the preparations going for the dinner?"

Ali

"We've cooked the goose and the stuffins seems to begest a rather delightful taste to it.The corn is husked and the yams are prepared.Have the guests aquired into the yard yet?"

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Who said that?", asked the Reverend.

"Oh, just Aunt Marjory who lives in the third storey attic for mad aunts. She has a gramophone horn attached to her ear and hears everything that goes on. We thought of keeping her a secret like they do in Gothic horror stories but the truth is, she's rather entertaining for frightening governesses and the like. Keeps 'em in line to think there's a ghost about the place."

"Oh, yes, yes, I see", stuttered the Reverend backing politely and gradually out of the room, accidentally into a bookcase (at which our heroine Bella was still standing and reading) before making his excuses and escaping through the oak door, only to fall over The Master thus separating him from poor Reginald.

* * * * *

It was Monday, eve of the King's arrival at Midgeley for an eminent supper. The courtyard was regravelled, the scullery polished, the servants' liveries adjusted to proper hem size, the groom's sideburns trimmed, the statues' rude bits covered with fig leaves, the dogs gelded, the cows milked, the chickens plucked, powdered, gutted and stuffed, the chapel bells practiced, the local hoodlums taken out and buried alive and Maybeline delightfully adorned in a new designed outfit befitting Sir Tarquin's eminent wife. Yet she was bored, not apprehensive. It was not the audience of the monarch she craved the following day; it wasn't the esteem and write- up in Country Snob Quarterly that she so desired! It was the delightful fantasy of an impending airshow, and a reunion with Hardy-Banger. Oh, that lucky Reverend's wife! Oh! Oh! Oh! er, oh! Oh, but to devise some pretext for visiting banned Libby in Shagge Valley with darling Charles! Oh! Oh! Oh, rapture!

dyaogirl

A knock at the door startled Maybeline out of her languid day dream and as she hastily smoothed her clothing into place with irritation mounting, she went to see who could be visiting at this hour of the evening. She peered in the foyer at Libby dressed in a low cut scarlet velvet dress looking quite ashen and out of breath!

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Ssssssssshhhh, don't let Bastard Features - sorry, your darling hubbie - know I've arrived. Thought I'd let you know I got your letter via Bella who was in the coffee shop the other day just as I was having a morning cup. Now, yes! I've drawn a blueprint of the area and I've worked out that while Sir Tarquin's meeting the blacksmith to get the King's prize filly shoed tomorrow morning, you and I can scurry off to Shagge Valley on our unicycles - if you don't think unicycles too dashed unwomanly, eh?, hawhaw - and we can be over the wall of McBorrock's Barracks in a jiffy with these soldier's costumes, false moustaches and a bit of rope. How say you?"

"Sounds a jolly wheeze, sis."

"Good-o. Now, don't tell the old Bastard a thing and I'll hurry away through this open window while it's dusking. Got the unicycle parked outside. So, see you at nine, round by the back of the septic tank. Oh, and Rita Vita Bagge sends her love! Right, must dash!! Twenty-three skiddoo!"

olderman

Crazed Jesters laughed aloud as the throng cheered an approval.

"Hooza!!", the mutinous, glutinous crowd did sound, "Hooza", as it was a populous song.

Libby hurried along to bathe as was her custom when finished with her entertainment.

Downstairs the drama unfolds and the skinny Baron pulls his hat over his small head and takes leave of the night.

"I've been set upon a midnight's long lost light," coughed his majestic silliness. "Pray, tell me what is my fate, kind gypsy."

"You'll be well cared for, my bastardness. Fear not the heap of madness that engulfs your relations. This too, shall pass."