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The Rossetti Chronicles I

• LizzieRossetti 1,545 Posts

  Sun, Mar 4 2012 8:38 AM

  During my Mothers confinement my Father had suggested to Lambert, our retainer of unfathomable and indistinct age ( and provenance ) that he should think it well, were the village midwife be brought to Mothers bedside and to come prepared with heaps of white linens, a hot water dispenser and a good deal of womanly fortitude so that she, the midwife would be properly prepared for the "berthing of the expected infant"

  According to family records, those were my Fathers exact words. One can only surmise that the confusion over birthing and berthing can be attributed to Fathers penchant for yachting, which he later passed on to me. Three days later to be precise. As to my being an "expected infant", well this I put down to Fathers objure reluctance to accept that I could be anything else or less and to this I am like minded with a wholeness of heart.

  Now whilst no doubt, Lambert set about this simple task with hale and cheer, one must draw attention to his modus operandi in all tasks that involve contact with an outside world, and this is that Lambert could never achieve this without first arriving at the Rogered Lass, the local tavern of extremely ill repute. We are given to understand, understandably so, that Lambert would no sooner have a clue what or where a midwife was, as he would the whereabouts of his own Mother, and as such, may forgive him his drunken announcement that the old witch was dropping a sprog up to the Manor, and the old man was after some kind of woman to see to the unwholesome task of getting it done. This being too fine an opportunity for the peasantry to pass up, he was duly directed to Bottoms Hollow, where he was to find a run down and smoke grimed shack among the twisted and gnarled boles of the ancient dwarfed Oaks that stood there, and had done so since carboniferous times. Passing on his way the St.Johns Wort and various Hemlock allotments, he would have had a fine view down the narrow valley to Smugglers cove. At the door of this shack, he was to find the twisted and gnarled figure with the hooded brow and pointed chin known as Nancy Bottom, also known as the Witch of Bottoms Hollow in a cruel twist of fate.

  This then, is how I came into this world, my world, into the gnarled and twisted hands of Nancy Bottom. Nancy was to remain a lifelong friend and accomplice and it is to her that Lambert attributes so many of what he mistakenly sees as his misfortunes at the hands of the mistress of the manor.

   

  Lizzie xx

  ( Excerpts from the book only available at WGT .com )

   

• MioKontic 4,654 Posts

  Sun, Mar 4 2012 10:49 AM

  That is simply... simply... simply... well, actually, it's not simple at all.

  But the excerpt, as you succinctly put it, raises two questions:

  1) If Father said "berthing of the expected infant", then how do you know he didn't actually say "birthing of the expected infant", because in speech one would not be able to determine which was said, and in the written form it may have simply been an erroneous spelling.

  2)  Nancy Bottom... your accomplice... in your speriments, or more devious... no, forget I said anything.

  I await, with trepidation, lashings for my disobedience and questioning of what is so clearly clear.  That is if you can find me!

• MioKontic 4,654 Posts

  Sun, Mar 4 2012 11:28 AM

  Might I add that I would prefer if the 'lashings' referred to ginger beer.

• SgtDoodles 3,112 Posts

  Sun, Mar 4 2012 11:47 AM

  MioKontic:

  Wow Lizzie, you must be hanging around SgtDoodles too much to have unearthed this little gem from close on a year ago, and probably 100 pages afore.

  No no no, I am like a fish out of water when on the water. Navalness is not my cup of tea at all.

• LizzieRossetti 1,545 Posts

  Fri, Mar 16 2012 4:33 AM

  And so I discovered the doings of Sally the strumpet, which I wouldn't mind, but when ones own stable lad gets dragged into things, well, something must be done.

  "Can you swim?" I asked her on our next not-so-casual meeting at the Norton Manor Polo trials. Under her overly lush bonnet of fresh dahlias, I saw her eyes lower in what I suppose she thought was a coquettish demurement, mostly because we were then in the company of the Fothergills and her next victim to be, Kingsley, the youngest of three inbred Fothergills, all of whom common knowledge espoused to be from different fathers.

  "ahm, no, not frightfully well in any case, Daddy always said swimming was for the working class"

  Well we all know what her "Daddy" said, especially about the benefits of the working class when it came to invoking his perceived rights over their daughters, and I am certain it never once included notes about swimming, unless you include breast stroking.

  And this is how Sally (the strumpet) and I came to be "adrift" without a motor one sunny day aboard the redoubtable Sweet Jane. I didn't really have to worry about Sally (the strumpet) noticing that the dead mans pull was not even attached, Sally doesn't "do" engineering, even in its' most basic form. Having already set the course for some dangerous looking rocks and in incoming tide, it remained only to coerce the poor gel into the water, an act I assured her required the stoutest of hearts and the very minimum of clothing, which she happily took to mean complete nakedness.

  After explaining that all she need do once a braided lanyard was attached to her right hind leg, was to make for the sandy inlet not a hundred meters away, and at the same time keep her head above the waves, whilst I took on the more demanding and engineering wise, technical task of steering the vessel safe once she made the shore, poor Sally (the strumpet), entered by the transom ladder and tentatively slipped into a warm summer sea.

  Well she was entirely correct in her assertion that she did not swim frightfully well. Now this could have been due to an inherent lack of belief in herself, or it might, but only might, mark you, have had something to do with the preponderance of Jelly fish that had been infesting the local waters for some three or four days already. Now being a mariner of some experience, I was to know that the sting from such beasties rarely had much effect, and the discomfort lasted only a few hours in any case, and certainly it was nothing that a glass or two of Pimms would not easily, almost pleasantly, negate.

  Sally (the strumpet) however had no such knowledge and began a frenzied thrashing towards an ever unreachable shore. I ought to mention that the only reason the shore was unreachable, was due entirely to my negligence in having selected only the shortest of braided lanyards for tethering her ( for her own safety ) to Sweet Jane. I have to suppose also that my having now managed a miraculous turn about in the way of engine starting, and therefore our own rescue from dangerous rocks, did little to enthuse Sally (the strumpet) in her panicked efforts as she realised that all forward motion was now but an inept and moribund hope, as she was dragged slowly, but actually quite satisfyingly, backwards through a flotilla of wobbly Jelly fish, stirred up and quite possibly agitated by Sweet Janes propellor.

  It was the work of mere moments to retrieve a now quite bedraggled and inexplicably tearful Sally strumpet and lay her incautiously on the foredeck so that she might explore the various and blue tinted welts that now festooned polka fashion about her form. I expect ones stable lad will find other entertainment for a few days in the very near future.

   

  Lizzie xx

• MioKontic 4,654 Posts

  Fri, Mar 16 2012 4:47 AM

  

   

  You're mean!