The Confessions of Thomasina No. 3
Apr. 18th, 2005 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompson2nd Luminor, the Year of Our Suffrage 1882
Dear Diary:
Having been solemn all of yesterday, and having repeatedly asked forgiveness for mischief neither Grandpapa nor Grandmama would allow me to commit, I have been dying to return to these pages.
Mr. Oolomo was not to be found all of yesterday. The scullery maid, Molly, appeared haggard and red-eyed at her duty station at five-of-the-clock. If she had not, our butler, Mr. Jekycle, would have dismissed her. I do not wish to see anyone lose their living, sacked without references and ruined for life, even if Molly did sneak off to the shire's maze instead of showing proper mourning for Uncle Charles. So I said nothing of what I glimpsed last night.
Mr. Oolomo finally returned to Hogham House just before twenty-one-of-the-clock looking quite the worse for wear. I, of course, was supposed to be entrenched in my room, but having glimpsed Mr. Oolomo stagger through the trees towards the house, I secreted myself on the upstairs landing to watch his entrance into the foyer. His green silk was soiled with mud and other mysterious stains, his hair full of aphrodi leaves, and he would not stop grinning no matter how Grandpapa upbraided him. He explained through his grin that he had been participating in an ancient grief ritual of his people, the Propitiation of the Life Force. He said he was confident Uncle Charles would have wanted things that way, as Charles propitiated the life force any chance he got.
Grandpapa sputtered, looked quite red in the face, and said, "Well, well. Yes. Hmm. Good show, old chap."
Mr. Oolomo, still grinning, bowed deeply and staggered upstairs to his room while I scampered back to mine. I had hoped to have an earnest conversation with that gentleman this morning about corrupting the morals of the underclass, but it is now sixteen-of-the-clock and he has not yet made an appearance downstairs. I believe Mr. Jekycle had a tray delivered to his room earlier and said Mr. Oolomo was somewhat indisposed.
Unfortunately, Major Fitzsims-Smytton arrived this morning promptly at eleven-of-the-clock, the earliest socially acceptable hour for visitations. Apparently, he is a resident of the next shire over and has invalided out of the Army, although what infirmity he suffered in service he will not state. Grandmama has that "prospective husband" look in her eyes when she regards his personage, but I am having none of it. I have never cared for extravagant ginger mustaches such as the major sports. They make a man look as if he has swallowed a furry woodland creature all except the tail. And for the life of me, I cannot comprehend how a man can spend three years in the Tropics and come back as pale as any young chap who never left our cloudy Homeland. Anyone else of our class would have come home from the Tropics a rich midnight blue, but not our major. I daresay he must have spent the whole time cavorting around the Tropical countryside carrying a parasol. Not a particularly manly image to have lodged in one's mind's eye, yet there it is lodged.
None of these things would have been insurmountable, I suppose, if the major was an interesting conversationalist. I find his conversation disagreeable in the extreme, all about keeping the "damned willywogs" (his objectionable term for the underclass) in their place; about holding up the standards of the Empire and bringing civilization to "damned backward poltroons." I had to plead a migraine two hours later in order to be freed of his company.
I am surprised Grandmama would even consider Major Fitzsims-Smytton as a prospective husband. She must be getting desperate. You see, the major is not a true Blue Blood and always before Grandmama has insisted I be aligned to one of undiluted pedigree. I do not care a fig for such things—Mr. Oolomo is not a Blue Blood and I like him fine. And the greatest hypocrisy is that I well know that I myself am not a true Blue Blood. The major and I at least share that. Our skin is not the full, rich blue of a summer's sky one expects of the true blood. Rather, it is pale, tending to a powdery blue-white. Just between you and me, dear Diary, the major's gills are not impressively developed, as one would hope for in a male personage. I suppose I should not denigrate his gill size since mine are underdeveloped as well--another sign of diluted blood. But it is not considered such a critical matter for female personages to have undersized gills.
Regardless, our lack of pigmentation and unimpressive gillage show that there is an Abominable Mixture in our blood, some diluting of the true Muvian strain that the priestfrocks always harangue on about. Grandmama and Grandpapa will not allow it to be spoken of in my presence, but I am not unaware of my condition.
My mother, I suspect, was of the underclass, though she is little spoken of in my presence either by Grandmama or Grandpapa. Once ,when he did not know I hid behind the door of the sun room, I heard Grandpapa call my mother "the daughter of a jumped up money-grubbing merchant." He went on to say that if her extravagant dowry had not been absolutely necessary for paying off Papa's gambling debts he would never have endured her as a daughter-in-law.
Mama died giving birth to me and there is not even a family portrait to give a hint of her appearance. My hair is black, not the customary platinum or opaline of the Blue Bloods. Nanny Bartum says I favor Mama greatly, so I presume her hair was also black.
I never actually met Papa, either. Papa died some few years after Mama. Grandmama said he suffered from chronic catarrh, but Nanny Bartum said more like he suffered from chronic dipsomania. I was too young when he passed beyond the Vale of Asmonis, so I cannot say. If the family portrait of him can be trusted, his blood was of the bluest, as blue as the paintings depicting the Great Liberator, Lord Kashkitar. Sometimes I picture Papa dressed in the heroic old-fashioned way of Lord Kashkitar, when the Great Liberator swept up from the Muvian ocean home.
That first year of Our Suffrage sprang out of Kashkitar's beneficence, they say, his desire to save the surface dwelling peoples from the sin and corruption their foul air-only breathing ways had led them to. It was an easy conquest, if the history books can be believed, because we Muvians possessed the virtue of Technology and a Proper Sense of Governance, while the surface dwellers were earth-grubbing savages. Life, they say, was perfect under the waves of the Muvian home, but it was our duty to conquer these savages, bring them the benefits of civilization, and liberate them from their self-oppression.
Thus began Our Suffrage, but I must say, we Blue Bloods do not seem to suffer much these days. We seem to be rather on top of the world, if you ask me. I suppose I am naught but an ignorant girl. I know so little of the world, only what I am told and what I read in the books I am allowed. Hogham House is isolated even by our shire's standards and I believe, if the geography books I am permitted can be trusted, that the shire of Demona is very rural indeed.
I do not know why Grandpapa and Grandmama insist on such isolation and care for my innocence. I do not have a freakish appearance. In fact, I have been told my looks are rather pleasant, if inordinately unblue. Certainly I am well-formed enough that I might have hope of marriage. Perhaps not into the highest Blue Blood caste, but I should not think I would like that anyway. They strike me as quite a boring lot.
We do have the occasional soiree. When I turned fifteen, Grandmama said we must have a party to introduce me to the suitable young men of the shire so that I might be permitted to fulfill my duty to Her Majesty by becoming a wife and mother. And so I was trotted out in my first real adult dress: a surfeit of lacy flounces, to be sure, but the first low bodice I had ever been permitted, and a corset that made my waist very slim and pushed my bosom up to an alarming degree. I was terrified the entire evening that my bosom would pop out of that bodice, rather like piglets which had been overmuch greased.
I danced many dances that night, with many young gentlemen. Most of them crashing bores, talking only of hunting (though never any of the more interest details of the actual capture or kill), or which party they had attended last, who was the finer rider amongst them. The young ladies were even worse—it was all parties and fashion and high-pitched giggles over the young men. I was heartily glad to see them all leave.
Unfortunately, a number of the young gentlemen took to calling round on a regular basis, asking me to go with them on chaperoned walks through the garden, or chaperoned carriage rides through the countryside, or whatnot. I am certain my governess, Miss Mina, grew as bored with them as I. Three of them even offered marriage and Grandmama was set to accept the richest of them on my behalf, but he was the biggest bore of all. I refused him, and all the others since. I will not marry a crashing bore even to escape the confines of this estate. I had rather stay in my room reading a book or writing in my diary than living with such a creature.
Now, at eighteen, Grandmama says I have so willfully refused my many generous offers that I am an old maid. I have exhausted the patience of every suitable young man in the shire and acquired a reputation of being difficult. I shall probably never marry now. It is as well with me. Still they keep me here, away from society for the most part.
I begin to feel rather like Sir Parsidun, kept by his over-protective (and one must say, rather odd) Mama away from all and everyone. His servants, on pain of death, were not even allowed to discuss what lay beyond the borders of his lands, so that he grew up in perfect unawareness of the world's ways. Except, of course, that I have been allowed books—many, many books—and, of course, I am not a male personage like Sir Parsidun, and never was one of the Knights of the Oval Trencher, nor did I ever seek the Holy Grimalkin, nor ever meet King Ardnoe.
Our servants, although rather reticent to discuss matters thought improper by Grandmama and Grandpapa, are not absolutely forbidden to talk to me of the world. At least, not on pain of death—although it is said when Grandmama fixes one of them with her raptor-like stare, they sometimes wish they were dead.
Ah! I see Mr. Oolomo is finally about, walking in the garden below my window. I am heartened to see his green silks are in more reputable shape than last night. What a cheeky devil he is. He actually looked up, saw me in the window, and winked. He has a habit of winking at me, or grinning and waggling his eyebrows up and down. I suppose I must go downstairs and earnestly explain why it is inappropriate behavior and that if Grandpapa catches him at it, he might well get a thrashing.
Yours,
Thomasina
To be continued...
© Pamela J. Thompson 2005
Read Thomasina's entries from the beginning here:
http://pjthompson.dreamwidth.org/2005/03/24/
Dear Diary:
Having been solemn all of yesterday, and having repeatedly asked forgiveness for mischief neither Grandpapa nor Grandmama would allow me to commit, I have been dying to return to these pages.
Mr. Oolomo was not to be found all of yesterday. The scullery maid, Molly, appeared haggard and red-eyed at her duty station at five-of-the-clock. If she had not, our butler, Mr. Jekycle, would have dismissed her. I do not wish to see anyone lose their living, sacked without references and ruined for life, even if Molly did sneak off to the shire's maze instead of showing proper mourning for Uncle Charles. So I said nothing of what I glimpsed last night.
Mr. Oolomo finally returned to Hogham House just before twenty-one-of-the-clock looking quite the worse for wear. I, of course, was supposed to be entrenched in my room, but having glimpsed Mr. Oolomo stagger through the trees towards the house, I secreted myself on the upstairs landing to watch his entrance into the foyer. His green silk was soiled with mud and other mysterious stains, his hair full of aphrodi leaves, and he would not stop grinning no matter how Grandpapa upbraided him. He explained through his grin that he had been participating in an ancient grief ritual of his people, the Propitiation of the Life Force. He said he was confident Uncle Charles would have wanted things that way, as Charles propitiated the life force any chance he got.
Grandpapa sputtered, looked quite red in the face, and said, "Well, well. Yes. Hmm. Good show, old chap."
Mr. Oolomo, still grinning, bowed deeply and staggered upstairs to his room while I scampered back to mine. I had hoped to have an earnest conversation with that gentleman this morning about corrupting the morals of the underclass, but it is now sixteen-of-the-clock and he has not yet made an appearance downstairs. I believe Mr. Jekycle had a tray delivered to his room earlier and said Mr. Oolomo was somewhat indisposed.
Unfortunately, Major Fitzsims-Smytton arrived this morning promptly at eleven-of-the-clock, the earliest socially acceptable hour for visitations. Apparently, he is a resident of the next shire over and has invalided out of the Army, although what infirmity he suffered in service he will not state. Grandmama has that "prospective husband" look in her eyes when she regards his personage, but I am having none of it. I have never cared for extravagant ginger mustaches such as the major sports. They make a man look as if he has swallowed a furry woodland creature all except the tail. And for the life of me, I cannot comprehend how a man can spend three years in the Tropics and come back as pale as any young chap who never left our cloudy Homeland. Anyone else of our class would have come home from the Tropics a rich midnight blue, but not our major. I daresay he must have spent the whole time cavorting around the Tropical countryside carrying a parasol. Not a particularly manly image to have lodged in one's mind's eye, yet there it is lodged.
None of these things would have been insurmountable, I suppose, if the major was an interesting conversationalist. I find his conversation disagreeable in the extreme, all about keeping the "damned willywogs" (his objectionable term for the underclass) in their place; about holding up the standards of the Empire and bringing civilization to "damned backward poltroons." I had to plead a migraine two hours later in order to be freed of his company.
I am surprised Grandmama would even consider Major Fitzsims-Smytton as a prospective husband. She must be getting desperate. You see, the major is not a true Blue Blood and always before Grandmama has insisted I be aligned to one of undiluted pedigree. I do not care a fig for such things—Mr. Oolomo is not a Blue Blood and I like him fine. And the greatest hypocrisy is that I well know that I myself am not a true Blue Blood. The major and I at least share that. Our skin is not the full, rich blue of a summer's sky one expects of the true blood. Rather, it is pale, tending to a powdery blue-white. Just between you and me, dear Diary, the major's gills are not impressively developed, as one would hope for in a male personage. I suppose I should not denigrate his gill size since mine are underdeveloped as well--another sign of diluted blood. But it is not considered such a critical matter for female personages to have undersized gills.
Regardless, our lack of pigmentation and unimpressive gillage show that there is an Abominable Mixture in our blood, some diluting of the true Muvian strain that the priestfrocks always harangue on about. Grandmama and Grandpapa will not allow it to be spoken of in my presence, but I am not unaware of my condition.
My mother, I suspect, was of the underclass, though she is little spoken of in my presence either by Grandmama or Grandpapa. Once ,when he did not know I hid behind the door of the sun room, I heard Grandpapa call my mother "the daughter of a jumped up money-grubbing merchant." He went on to say that if her extravagant dowry had not been absolutely necessary for paying off Papa's gambling debts he would never have endured her as a daughter-in-law.
Mama died giving birth to me and there is not even a family portrait to give a hint of her appearance. My hair is black, not the customary platinum or opaline of the Blue Bloods. Nanny Bartum says I favor Mama greatly, so I presume her hair was also black.
I never actually met Papa, either. Papa died some few years after Mama. Grandmama said he suffered from chronic catarrh, but Nanny Bartum said more like he suffered from chronic dipsomania. I was too young when he passed beyond the Vale of Asmonis, so I cannot say. If the family portrait of him can be trusted, his blood was of the bluest, as blue as the paintings depicting the Great Liberator, Lord Kashkitar. Sometimes I picture Papa dressed in the heroic old-fashioned way of Lord Kashkitar, when the Great Liberator swept up from the Muvian ocean home.
That first year of Our Suffrage sprang out of Kashkitar's beneficence, they say, his desire to save the surface dwelling peoples from the sin and corruption their foul air-only breathing ways had led them to. It was an easy conquest, if the history books can be believed, because we Muvians possessed the virtue of Technology and a Proper Sense of Governance, while the surface dwellers were earth-grubbing savages. Life, they say, was perfect under the waves of the Muvian home, but it was our duty to conquer these savages, bring them the benefits of civilization, and liberate them from their self-oppression.
Thus began Our Suffrage, but I must say, we Blue Bloods do not seem to suffer much these days. We seem to be rather on top of the world, if you ask me. I suppose I am naught but an ignorant girl. I know so little of the world, only what I am told and what I read in the books I am allowed. Hogham House is isolated even by our shire's standards and I believe, if the geography books I am permitted can be trusted, that the shire of Demona is very rural indeed.
I do not know why Grandpapa and Grandmama insist on such isolation and care for my innocence. I do not have a freakish appearance. In fact, I have been told my looks are rather pleasant, if inordinately unblue. Certainly I am well-formed enough that I might have hope of marriage. Perhaps not into the highest Blue Blood caste, but I should not think I would like that anyway. They strike me as quite a boring lot.
We do have the occasional soiree. When I turned fifteen, Grandmama said we must have a party to introduce me to the suitable young men of the shire so that I might be permitted to fulfill my duty to Her Majesty by becoming a wife and mother. And so I was trotted out in my first real adult dress: a surfeit of lacy flounces, to be sure, but the first low bodice I had ever been permitted, and a corset that made my waist very slim and pushed my bosom up to an alarming degree. I was terrified the entire evening that my bosom would pop out of that bodice, rather like piglets which had been overmuch greased.
I danced many dances that night, with many young gentlemen. Most of them crashing bores, talking only of hunting (though never any of the more interest details of the actual capture or kill), or which party they had attended last, who was the finer rider amongst them. The young ladies were even worse—it was all parties and fashion and high-pitched giggles over the young men. I was heartily glad to see them all leave.
Unfortunately, a number of the young gentlemen took to calling round on a regular basis, asking me to go with them on chaperoned walks through the garden, or chaperoned carriage rides through the countryside, or whatnot. I am certain my governess, Miss Mina, grew as bored with them as I. Three of them even offered marriage and Grandmama was set to accept the richest of them on my behalf, but he was the biggest bore of all. I refused him, and all the others since. I will not marry a crashing bore even to escape the confines of this estate. I had rather stay in my room reading a book or writing in my diary than living with such a creature.
Now, at eighteen, Grandmama says I have so willfully refused my many generous offers that I am an old maid. I have exhausted the patience of every suitable young man in the shire and acquired a reputation of being difficult. I shall probably never marry now. It is as well with me. Still they keep me here, away from society for the most part.
I begin to feel rather like Sir Parsidun, kept by his over-protective (and one must say, rather odd) Mama away from all and everyone. His servants, on pain of death, were not even allowed to discuss what lay beyond the borders of his lands, so that he grew up in perfect unawareness of the world's ways. Except, of course, that I have been allowed books—many, many books—and, of course, I am not a male personage like Sir Parsidun, and never was one of the Knights of the Oval Trencher, nor did I ever seek the Holy Grimalkin, nor ever meet King Ardnoe.
Our servants, although rather reticent to discuss matters thought improper by Grandmama and Grandpapa, are not absolutely forbidden to talk to me of the world. At least, not on pain of death—although it is said when Grandmama fixes one of them with her raptor-like stare, they sometimes wish they were dead.
Ah! I see Mr. Oolomo is finally about, walking in the garden below my window. I am heartened to see his green silks are in more reputable shape than last night. What a cheeky devil he is. He actually looked up, saw me in the window, and winked. He has a habit of winking at me, or grinning and waggling his eyebrows up and down. I suppose I must go downstairs and earnestly explain why it is inappropriate behavior and that if Grandpapa catches him at it, he might well get a thrashing.
Yours,
Thomasina
To be continued...
© Pamela J. Thompson 2005
Read Thomasina's entries from the beginning here:
http://pjthompson.dreamwidth.org/2005/03/24/