Thessela
Beloved slavegirl
Hmm, are these the tremors of the nervous wreck stricken with fear, or rather those familiar shivers of anticipation, at the thought of ... large brutes ... breaking ... and taking
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Venus Verticordia
- Thread starter Wragg
- Start date
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
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In those days I could even tell the year of the car!!!In those days I could tell at a glance what make the car was without having to check out the insignia.
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
Brilliant, Repertor!
Now everyone can see why we Brits love our capital city so dearly!
RacingRodent
Consul
Brilliant, Repertor!
Now everyone can see why we Brits love our capital city so dearly!
We must love it, the way we all cram shoulder to shoulder or bumper to bumper to all fit in
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
They try to do something about it.We all cram shoulder to shoulder or bumper to bumper to all fit in
Awww, Repertor!
You have to admit London has been more fun with the Racing Rodent in it!
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
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I needed a bit of help from Phlebas for the next episode.
Watch this space!
Well, I've been tasked with posting the next bit, story by Wragg, pic a collaboration to get a painted in oils look.
If we are really lucky we may yet get to see the inside of Mr Rosetti's studio.
__________
‘RACING RODENT ESCAPES! Manhunt after Tree disappears with policemen.’
Even the normally unsensational ‘Times’ was overtaken by this story. Just when the editors had thought it was coming to a conclusion, another unexpected development had used up further countless gallons of newsprint.
The Countess of Cruxton looked from the Earl’s newspaper to the passing Suffolk countryside. The Earl had read the whole story to her on the journey from Liverpool Street in the first class compartment of the Great Eastern Railway train to Cambridge via Cruxton. The miles had melted away under the clickety-clack of the wheels as the Earl read out the accounts of witnesses telling how the prison carriage had lurched off the road and then simply disappeared before their astonished eyes. Albert Longbarrow, a greengrocer, pushing his trolley along the pavement, was all but flattened by it. Enid Parker, described as a ‘woman-that-does’, swore that she’d heard a woman’s voice urging the right turn, a claim that filled many more column inches with speculation about a ‘mystery woman’ riding in the carriage.
Mildred Slave, wife of the missing Inspector George Slave, had sobbed to reporters as she expounded her distress at being left to cope with five small children, three cats, a budgerigar, a small but rather noisy terrier, and her exceptionally demanding mother-in-law.
Barb was so enthralled that she was amazed to find that they were already at their destination.
“CRU-UXTON! CRUXTON STATION!” bawled the stationmaster. “This train is for Cambridge only! Change here for intermediate stations!” Barb and Wragg alighted, and the porter wheezed nearly as much as the engine as he staggered beneath the results of Barb’s latest shopping spree in Oxford Street.
“Right away, Mr Mitchell!”
“Thank you, Mr Perks!” Barb jumped as the guard blasted on his whistle and waved his flag, and the train puffed and clanked on its way towards the greatest university city in the world.
The Cruxton Abbey carriage was waiting outside the station. A much relieved porter deposited Barb’s shopping, receiving a shilling from the Earl by way of reward.
As Wragg settled into the leather seat, he said, “You know, Barb, old girl, it’s a dashed shame.”
“What is, darling?”
“That vagabond Tree had commissioned a nice painting of a crucified girl. Possibly that lovely filly Eulalia Wilding that models for him. Now it’ll never be painted. A pity, don’t you think?”
“Oh, sure. A great shame. But, you wouldn’t want a thing like that. It would be grotesque.”
“Grotesque? You didn’t mention grotesque the other day when you climaxed on your cross, dear girl. And I have to say that you looked anything but grotesque. You’re a top notch specimen of the female of the species. Jolly glad to have you about. Very fond of you. What?”
She leaned across and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Very fond of you, too.” She was even fonder of having a title, a big house, eighteen servants, and three hundred acres of English countryside, but she didn’t mention that.
Wragg yawned. “It’s been a long day. What do you say to an early night?”
“An early night? We’ll see…” she said, noncommittally.
The carriage reached the house. The butler greeted them. “Welcome home, your Lordship…your ladyship. Your guests are in the drawing room.”
“Guests? What guests?” Wragg was puzzled.
“Well, you’d better go and look, then! I seem to remember it’s your birthday tomorrow, so I thought we’d have a few friends round!”
‘A few friends’ turned out to be quite a crowd. Lord Jollyrei and Lady Thessela, Count Loxuru, Siss, Roland Rattington, Roland’s French lady-friend, who he introduced as ‘Messaline’, Donald Primus, the Australian ambassador, Joseph Madiosi and his gorgeous wife Malins, R.B. Barrington-Smyth and his equally gorgeous wife Roxie. Lord Justice Fife was there. And also, to Wragg’s delight, were Dante Phlebas Rossetti and Eulalia Wilding.
A few ‘snifters’ got the evening off to a great start, and then they went through for dinner. And, despite the conviviality of the company, despite the fact that the Cruxton Abbey cook had excelled herself, Wragg had eyes only for an object, concealed by a sheet.
An object that could only be a painting.
Fortunately, all the talk was about the Racing Rodent, a subject upon which the Earl could discourse with only half his brain, while the other half speculated about the painting beneath that cover…
There are occasions when the ritual that is an English dinner party seems interminable. This was one of those occasions. Course followed course, but it was as ashes in the Earl’s mouth. The ‘main course’ for him was beneath that drape.
At long, long last, Jollyrei stood up. “Wragg, old chap, your lovely wife tells me it’s your birthday tomorrow! I couldn’t believe it. You don’t look a day older than when we were at school. A couple of centuries, maybe, but not a day.”
“You’re as young as the woman you feel, Jollyrei!” Wragg shot back, with one arm around Barb’s waist, while gazing at Thessela.
“Twenty-one, then, is it, Wragg?” smiled Jollyrei. Barb blew him a kiss.
“Anyway, look here, Wragg. We couldn’t let your birthday pass unmarked, that would be criminal, and with all these judges and lawyers around we’d be in the slammer before you could say ‘what-ho’. Mr Rossetti has been busy, haven’t you, Phlebas, old man?”
Phlebas stood up. “Indeed I have. Your Lordship, in honour of your birthday, and of your recent marriage to the beautiful Barbara, Countess of Cruxton, it is my honour to present you with…” he pulled off the drape.
Image
“…The Thousand Yard Stare!”
There was a moment of silence. Wragg gazed at it in delighted astonishment. Eventually, he found his voice.
“My dear Rossetti, thank you. It is truly wonderful. You have truly excelled yourself!” He kissed Barb. “Thank you, darling. Thank you all! I am absolutely delighted!”
Jollyrei led the applause, and Phlebas, lapping it up, bowed graciously.
“It was, truly, my pleasure!”
S
shannonb100
Guest
i've heard it said that a squirrel is only a rat with a very good press agent.......
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
""Very fond of you, too.” She was even fonder of having a title, a big house, eighteen servants, and three hundred acres of English countryside, but she didn’t mention that."
When it comes right down to it .... it's all about the money, isn't it?
It was truly my pleasure ... many more Wraggie!
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Pkindenhaag may have something to say about that
I'm strictly neutral, happy to have a foot in both camps -
but in 1874 the (original) Cavendish Laboratory was opened in Cambridge
(under the direction of James Clerk Maxwell,
one of my home region Galloway's greatest sons
)
malins
Stumbling Seeker
Ah, it's nice to have all these people together at such a sociable event.
Our husbands sometimes take things a bit too seriously but well, here we can leave the matters of the courtroom behind us.
The last thing to say about that Racing Rodent. Let us just say that it was a phantasm.
A spectre, a miasma, perhaps something spiritistic, because reputable people saw him vanish with their own two eyes.
And not vanish like a squirrel darts up a tree -- but dissolve into thin air!
So it seems he sifted into our world from from the ether and has slipped back there.
Perhaps some occult medium or some mesmerist could still trace him, or perhaps even it is true that he was a thief out of future time?
...but if we worried of him being still at large we could hardly rest, we might even imagine him ... to be hiding among us, ... in our very company!
That way lies madness.
And it's good that we now have paintings appearing instead of disappearing!
Oh, this painting!
Someone said something, about a certain liking being as common as a certain size of shoes?
Now, don't you dare call such likings 'common!'
This certainly, is a distinguished interest.
Perhaps one for closed circles of the highest esteem.
“…The Thousand Yard Stare!”, it seems to me I remember a work of the same title, depicting the path to... the same process, I must ask my Madiosi, he has such a perfect memory for these things!
"21 then...", eh? Good lord, I'm the soul of tact.
And that is a fantastic painting, Rosetti, old boy!
Absolutely!
