2004-11-01 - 17:47 EST
Happy All Saints' Day, et cetera.
I'm a bit sick, so I'll leave you with something I wrote last night, based off the OED WOTD. It's very horrible. It's unpolished, nonsensical, pointless, and a bit longer than anything I would normally post to here, but whatever. Enjoy!
It was on a Sunday deep into the Autumn of 1749 when I made my way through the thick blanket of fallen leaves to the Countess Illarafula’s house. Red and yellow and orange and gold, swept up into a dance by the cool wind.
I was weary from Church, but I regained my quick image by smoothing my coat as I approached the gate, and by the way the wind and cold had brought a fresh pinkness to my cheeks. I could dimly hear the music and the chatter from the windows, slightly ajar, of the estate, and the thought of the company I was about to join lifted my spirits to match my gay appearance.
The man at the door, dressed to the nines, welcomed me with a bow and took my coat. “The Countess wishes the warmest of welcomes for you, sith this is your inaugural attendance at one of the gatherings here.”
I didn’t notice anything particularly warm that separated this welcome from any other I’d received, except maybe that the butler had said more than three words to me.
My attention turned to the architecture and decor I was ushered in. The hall I stepped into reached a fantastic height, the whitewashed ribs of the ceiling left austerely bare above the marble floor. Portraits and tapestries hung on the walls, accenting the pottery and china sets displayed in cabinets and on grand dressers. The whole effect was one of great wealth and luxury.
I followed a second servant down the hall to the drawing room, where the main body of the rout gathered. Ladies and lords dressed in their best apparel, laughing and talking while a quartet of musicians filled the room with their sweet sounds. The noise was overwhelming, and I knew this to be only the beginning.
I filched some hors d' uvres from one of the servants, then slipped out of the drawing room and made my way through the other rooms of the house, all of which were filled with people. Finding I liked the company in the drawing room the best, I returned to that place and mingled.
“Now, my dear,” a shrill voice declared, “surely you don’t believe the brutes could actually formulate such a sophisticated idea!”
I joined this particular circle as Madame Edna Maçon made this announcement. The young man directly to my left shook his head, disgusted. “They’re not brutes,” he said. “They came from us, and, although they’ve lost some of our higher culture, they have still inherited the refined faculties of the mind.”
“Nonsense!” Mdme. Maçon rejoined. “They’ve lost their wits in that wilderness, mark my words.”
“That’s ridiculous,” the young man argued. “They produce literature–”
“As if that slop can be called ‘literature!’” an older man exclaimed. I recognized him as Benjamin Kennson, an Earl of some sort. “It’s downright pornographic, it is.”
“–and they still have the firm guidance of British governors,” the young man went on, ignoring the outburst from Kennson. “They have newspapers just as we have, and people submit well-written editorials that–”
“Novels aren’t pornographic!” a young lady to my right protested. “They are pleasant pastimes.”
“–shine with intelligence and mental integrity. It is people like you, Madame, who perpetuate the false–”
“Pornographic!” Kennson repeated. “Miss Leigh, I beg of you to leave off the habit of reading such horrible publications. Novels are corrupting the minds of the fairer sex, insinuating all kinds of nasty habits into their defenseless brains.”
“–rumors of the colonists’ purported savagery. For shame, Madame!”
“Defenseless?” Miss Leigh snapped. “Defenseless? How dare you insult my intelligence like that! I have a brain as good as yours, Mister Kennson, perhaps even better! I am perfectly capable of protecting myself from the negative influences of trash. I do not read trash!”
“I’ll have you know, my husband has been to America,” Mdme. Maçon said hotly, “and he reported to me that he had never seen a more barbarous group of people!”
“Being a woman,” Mister Kennson rebuked, “you would have no way of telling what is trash and what isn’t.”
Miss Leigh gasped. “I have never been so insulted in my life!”
“Your husband,” the young man said disparagingly, “is the most uptight man I have ever met, and most likely thinks that I am a savage.”
“And he would be quite right!” Mdme. Maçon exclaimed.
“I agree with Henry,” the man standing beside Mdme. Maçon cut in. “I can’t imagine that we English could lose our higher mental faculties over so short a time. That sort of thing is imperatively passed on to the youth.”
“Do shut up, Mister Locke!” Mdme. Maçon snapped. “You are all of such low culture. I don’t know why I put up with this disgusting filth!” With that, she daintily stomped away the group. Locke stepped a bit closer to Kennson to cover the gap created.
“You’ve been insulted worse, Miss Leigh, though you know it not,” Kennson was saying. “I’ve heard your own father call you a whore!”
“My father is a drunkard, Mister Kennson,” Miss Leigh replied frostily. “That you give credit to anything he says astounds me.”
“A drunk man has still more wit than a woman,” Kennson replied.
“Kennson, what do you think of the colonists?” Henry asked.
“Purcell, I’m in the middle of a discussion.”
“A discussion! With your idea of a woman, I should think you thought yourself talking to a bedpost!” Miss Leigh said vehemently.
“I haven’t see you here before, madam,” Locke said to me.
“It is my first time at the Countess’ estate.”
“Ah,” he replied, nodding. “The Contessa is a very selective woman. You should feel honored to be invited.”
“I do,” I answered, puzzled by the statement. It seemed all of London was here!
“Speaking to most women is the equivalent of speaking to a bedpost,” Kennson said. “You, Miss Leigh, do have some learning–your father saw to that ,at least–so I would count you perhaps as high as a dog.”
“A dog!” Miss Leigh echoed, shocked.
“Kennson, do calm down. Saying such things will only–”
“Hold your tongue, Purcell!”
“I will not stand by while a lady is so grievously insulted!” Purcell exclaimed, standing his ground.
“Thank you, Purcell,” Miss Leigh said. “It heartens me to know that some men have a better opinion of the other sex.”
“You hold such a low opinion of me?” Locke said, affecting to be wounded.
“Oh, of course I know that you are a fair man, Mister Locke,” Miss Leigh said. “Kennson here, however, is no better than common dirt!”
“Like a bitch in heat!” Kennson growled.
“Kennson!” Purcell exclaimed.
Miss Leigh slapped Kennson.
“They’re usually much more civil than this, really,” Locke addressed me.
I raised an eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe.”
Locke smiled. “You’ve caught me: I lied.”
I smiled warmly, charmed by him.
Both Kennson and Miss Leigh left the group, fuming.
Purcell turned to me. “What do you think of the colonists?” he asked.
“Oh, I agree with Mister Locke and yourself.”
“Good!” he ejaculated. “I can’t stand the false impressions some people have of our American counterparts. But the real question is, do you think there will be a rebellion?”
I looked at him with wide eyes. “A rebellion? Do you really think they’d go that far?”
“I do. I think they’ll lose patience very soon.”
“I think they’d need something drastic to set it off,” Locke said.
“That may be,” Purcell allowed, “but I think it’ll happen. With the English attitude towards the colonists, it shan’t be long until we do something that’ll really rile them up.”
“In what way?” Locke inquired.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Purcell answered. “It’ll happen, though.”
At that moment the doors leading to the balcony flew open. I, like everyone else in the room turned to look, but no one was there. A few servants started to make for the doors to close them, but then the music broke off as a sudden scream pierced through the air. I recognized the high pitch of it to be Mdme. Maçon’s voice, and turned towards where I had last seen her headed for.
To my great surprise, there stood the Countess Illarafula at the entrance from the hall, pale as a winding sheet, her eyes large and surrounded by a line of black, her golden gown seeming to glow faintly, her lips as red as her bloodshot eyes–floating some feet off the ground!
The room was completely silent; the only sounds were that of the distant voices, music, and preparations that drifted in from other parts of the house. In that bizarre quasi-silence, I noticed a length of red material wrapped about the bottom of the Countess’ golden boot, just visible beneath the gown.
I reached out in my surprise, I know not to what, and felt Locke’s arm settle itself around my back to support me. I did not look at him, but I could see out of the corner of my eye that Purcell was slack-jawed.
There was a flurry as Mdme. Maçon fainted, and then the vision of the Countess Illarafula quickly faded from view, dissipating into a thousand tiny specks that e’en dissipated themselves.
Ere I could speak again, there was a great clatter from the steps outside the room. We heard the Countess Illarafula scream, her voice broken by something, and then a final sickeningly solid sound.
Locke entrusted me to Purcell’s care and rushed out to see what had happened. Purcell put his arm about my waist, holding me close as much for his own comfort as for mine.
Locke soon returned to relate the happening, much to our horror.
The sound had been her body hitting the floor at the conclusion of her tumble down the stairs near the end of the hall, incredibly close to the drawing room, after she had tripped over a folded-up corner of the red carpet leading to the steps.
When the attendants of that fateful hurricane tell the story now, they, and even Locke, say they saw the apparition after they heard the Countess Illarafula fall.
But Henry and I, we still cling to the truth: the vision was no ghost at all, but rather the doppelganger of the Countess Illarafula!
Mrs. Millicent Acton Purcell, 1763
c.i.,p.i.q.e.
