The Scuttletongues of Midgely Manor

FinsburyParkCarrots
FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
edited June 2005 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
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."

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Comments

  • justam
    justam Posts: 21,415
    :D Charming!
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  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    "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
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Er, your turn...
  • justam
    justam Posts: 21,415
    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.
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  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    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
    justam Posts: 21,415
    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!"
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  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    "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
    justam Posts: 21,415
    The maids peeking through the crack in the door had a good laugh and ran to get the master.
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  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    "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
    Ms. Haiku Washington DC Posts: 7,390
    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.
    There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
    The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
  • Ms. Haiku
    Ms. Haiku Washington DC Posts: 7,390
    Just read it. So, you read "Tom Jones" lately? It reminds me of the ridiculous characters in that book. That's a great book.
    There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
    The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    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
    Ms. Haiku Washington DC Posts: 7,390
    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. . .
    There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
    The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    "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
    Ms. Haiku Washington DC Posts: 7,390
    I'm laughing, Mr. Carrots. I'm also reminded of Sir Percival Blakeney in the Scarlet Pimpernel, what?
    There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
    The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    The tension mounted and, judging by the yelps and skirting board scratches outside the door, so did The Master.
  • dyaogirl
    dyaogirl Posts: 138
    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!
    '..... Ah! A perfect illustration of the poststructuralist paradox. Does the signifier "Merlot" correspond with the 'truth' of the bottle I polished off last night, or do we hold in our thoughts a different "signified" of bottle-of-Merlot-ness? Perhaps we're dreaming of the same bottle!" -FinsburyParkCarrots

  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    "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
    dyaogirl Posts: 138
    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
    '..... Ah! A perfect illustration of the poststructuralist paradox. Does the signifier "Merlot" correspond with the 'truth' of the bottle I polished off last night, or do we hold in our thoughts a different "signified" of bottle-of-Merlot-ness? Perhaps we're dreaming of the same bottle!" -FinsburyParkCarrots

  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    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?"

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