The Confessions of Thomasina
Mar. 24th, 2005 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonJust for fun.
An exercise in diaryreal fiction.
31st Meckellan, the Year of Our Suffrage, 1882
Dear Diary:
I believe that one should not set out to do a great deal of writing unless one has something to say. That is why I have avoided you these many months, ever since Grandmama gifted me with you on my birthday. The last few days, I confess, have changed that. I find myself driven to scribbling if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity.
Enough of explanations! I shall burst if I do not get to the heart of the matter!
It all started when Grandpapa received a letter written by Uncle Charles from a remote military outpost in the jungle several miles distant from Far Rangunar. The letter, hand-carried by Major Fitzmins-Smytton of Her Majesty's Royal Fusiliers, accompanied a mysterious box and a servant belonging to Uncle Charles, one Oolomo--but more about him later. Apparently, Uncle Charles asked Major Fitzmins-Smytton to transport these items and this personage to us, something of a last will and testament, I am very much afraid.
Upon hearing the news of Uncle Charles's demise, Grandpapa grew gravely flushed in the face and grabbing up his pipe from the mantlepiece, began stuffing it with smokeweed in a kind of fury. He remarked, "I always suspected Charles would die in some humbuggy manner, but it is annoying to have it confirmed like this."
Grandmama, showing the pluck so ingrained in our race, stiffened her spine and said, "Quite." Her voice was perhaps a little paler than usual, her face more strained, but she kept her reserve in place. I, on the other hand, collapsed in a chair, weeping. Charles was quite my favorite uncle, although I had only met him once or twice between his many travels.
Major Fitzmins-Smytton rushed to my side, taking my hand in his and declaiming, "Oh, Miss, Miss, I am most dreadfully sorry to be the bearer of such sad tidings!"
Grandmama said stoutly, "Nonsense. Control your excesses, Thomasina."
I extricated my hand from the major's and tried to straighten my spine, but my bones seemed to have gone all over gelatinous. I fear my pluck was wanting and I slumped a bit. I did manage to scrunch back the tears, although they quivered on the edge of my eyes throughout the rest of what followed in that sitting room. And yes, yes, I admit I shed a few tears surreptitiously when Grandmama's attention turned elsewhere.
Major Fitzmins-Smytton looked uncomfortable under Grandmama's raptor-like regard and got to his feet. He spent the rest of the time staring at the red and gold Ogham carpet on the floor rather than meet her eye again. I could not help remembering that Charles had shipped that rug to us from Ushu Shaiupu, halfway across the world. Grandpapa's remarked upon receiving it: "Typical of Charles's extravagant nature." But no one could deny the quality of the workmanship, its exotic beauty, and so it was forthwith placed in the sitting room where it would be sure to be noticed by visitors.
Grandpapa opened Charles's letter and read it through. Afterwards, he asked if the major would be so kind as to wait for us in the library, as he wished to read the letter to us and it was something of a personal communication. The major graciously agreed and after he left, Grandpapa began to read:
"Dear Mother, Father, and Darling Thomasina:
"By the time you receive this, I will be dead, as I have contracted the dreaded ossobucco fever for which there is no cure. I thought I had better drop a line before the inevitable losing of my senses commences.
"I always suspected I would die one day, but I must say it is annoying to have it confirmed like this. Nothing to be done about it now. I have led a good life and had many wonderful adventures. I do not regret a one, even the encounter with the mingbat from which I contracted this deadly fever.
"What a glorious sight that creature was! Its wings glinted golden in the dying sun, its eyes glowed all sapphiric as it plunged headlong into a mighty cocobar tree. I hurried to it. Oolomo warned me against it, saying something must be wrong with the animal as it was not typical behavior for a mingbat to go crashing into bloody great trees, but I was all a-fluster with excitement and paid no mind. I was only thinking of retrieving the gland sack, you see, for its resinous secretions fetch sumptuous prices in the perfume market.
"Alas, greed was my downfall. Something indeed was wrong with the creature. In its death throes, it bit me and I was soon infected with ossobucco. Oolomo tried some native concoction on me, but it was to no available. The disease had its terrible grip on me. Oolomo thought I might like to communicate with some of my countrymen before dying, but we barely made it back to the jungle outpost where Major Fitzmins-Smytton was stationed before my symptoms began.
"The Royal Fusiliers were most gracious, as ossobucco can only be transmitted through the bite of the mingbat and no one else was in danger of catching the disease. Still, Oolomo was the only one who has stayed by my side during my sickness. No blaming the Royal Fusiliers--they are all good chaps and frightfully busy doing whatever one does when stationed in a remote jungle outpost. Alas, I wished to rest in the tomb of my fathers, but the transport of my body out of the jungle and many miles upriver to Rangunar and thence many months by ship to the Homeland was not an undertaking anyone wished to examine too closely. I have requested to be cremated and scattered to the winds so that I might go on traveling as I have always loved to do.
"But enough about me! Let me get to the heart of why I am writing—other than to say my fondest farewells, of course.
"Oolomo has been a faithful servant ever since I hired him in Rangunar. We have traveled together for many miles and many years, since he was little more than a lad. If he was not of a servant class, I might even call him friend. Certainly, we have been as close as any two men can be. Therefore, I have entrusted to him the safekeeping of the Key of Providence. I knew he would guard it with his life, and if anyone could deliver it to you unmolested, it would be Oolomo.
"I daresay I trust him more than any officer of the Royal Army and would have sent him without the aid of Major Fitzmins-Smytton (although that individual is a worthy officer and I have complete faith in him). It is just that Oolomo has made the most sacred of pledges to me for the welfare of the Key and its delivery unto the bosom of my family. He will not go back on that pledge for he fears that otherwise his life will be forfeit to powerful supernatural forces that we called into being while making this pledge. Unfortunately, Oolomo can neither read nor write, which makes it deucedly difficult for him to book passage to our beloved Homeland.
"The good Major has no idea about any of this, of course. Please show him courtesy, but I beg you not to confide the contents of this letter or the box to him. I have no reason to doubt his honor, but where the Key is concerned, it is better to keep matters in strictest confidence.
"You may discuss any of this freely with Oolomo and I will leave it to him to explain the meaning of the Key. Not only have I instructed him over many years acquaintance in our native tongue—indeed, he is quite talented in any tongue he endeavors to learn—but he has my utter and complete trust. Besides, he knows more about the Key than I could hope to explain in these pages, which alas will be the last I ever compose.
"I am weary now and must close. I fear the end cannot be far away. I send you all my very best love."
Charles concluded his letter with "Er...argh...ahhhhhhh....." trailing off the page. Grandpapa held it up so that Grandmama and I might see. I must say, it does seem odd that Uncle Charles would take the time to write that out while he was in the actual process of dying, but Uncle Charles was a thorough man.
Oh! There is the dinner bell. I must conclude for now. More later.
Yours,
Thomasina
*****
32nd Meckellan, the Year of Our Suffrage, 1882
Dear Diary:
Well, here it is again: All Chuckles Eve, the night when the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Or-Else Trickster God is in His Ascendancy. I do not know if I will be allowed to write in you tomorrow, 1st Luminor, All Solemn Day, when we must sit quietly contemplating the mischief we did throughout the year—especially on All Chuckles Eve—and feeling solemnly guilty for it, followed by the Ritual of Saving Our Skins wherein we ask the forgiveness of Her Majesty and of the Great Goddess Grimas.
Rather a ridiculous exercise, if you ask me. It is not as if we shall have a proper All Chuckles Eve at all, since we are in a formal state of mourning for Uncle Charles. Not that I object to being in mourning for Uncle Charles—he was such a jolly fellow—but we will not have any fun at all on All Chuckles Eve. No lighting of the Bonny Fires, wherein caricatures of all the handsomest lads and comeliest lasses are thrown into the inferno during the Ritual of Spite and Envy; no chucking of firebrands onto the porches of wealthy houses that will not pay the sweet tax to the poor children of the parish; no buckets of water poured over the heads of the unsuspecting constabulary and dusting them with Trickster Flour (even though Cook makes the most wondrous itchy flour with the perfect blend of hot spices); no sneaking off to the shire's giant aphrodi bush maze to get horribly lost and infatuated and act riotously.
All right, I will admit that Grandmama and Grandpapa have not yet let me sneak off to the shire's maze. They guard me like Tarmagan Banshees on All Chuckle's Eve and place locks upon my windows and my bedroom door. I am happy to report I am not held prisoner in such a manner for most of the year, just for the high riotous holidays.
So here I am locked in my room, gazing wistfully at the fires burning in the nighttime distance, hearing the occasional piercing scream or low, repetitive moan. I feel completely left out. Although everyone on the estate is supposed to be in mourning, I suspect some of the servants have gotten up to High Chuckling. Otherwise, how would I be able to hear the screams and moans? Our estate house is quite a distance from the shire road. At least because of the state of mourning, with the black acadia vines strung across the gate and the ritual skull with the arrow through it as signs of our grief, we have little worry of our porch being torched by the poor children of the parish.
Listening to the moaning down below (I really do believe it is coming from that selfsame porch!) puts me in an oddly petulant state. I must distract myself. Therefore, I shall describe the remarkable person who arrived with Uncle Charles's letter yesterday. Not Major Fitzmins-Smytton, but the man Oolomo.
Mr. Oolomo is not a tallish sort of person. His stature is no more than a few inches greater than my own. He appears, however, to be quite strong. I cannot quite determine his age. He could be twenty, he could be thirty... I do not like to think of him as overmuch above thirty as it would be nice to have someone around the estate closer to my own age of eighteen.
Mr. Oolomo attires himself all over in green silk, and one cannot help but notice the stretch of muscles across his back when he hefts heavy objects—such as the box Uncle Charles sent—and the tautness of his, uh, other back muscles when he bends over to pick objects up. One should, of course, have looked away rather than subjecting oneself to such an inappropriate physical display, but one may have peeked between the lacework of one's fan. His skin is beautiful and smooth, a creamy brown, his hair as silky as his wardrobe although black in color, and he has quite remarkable eyes: large, luminous, and a compelling brown. Indeed, being unaware of the formalities of society, he looked quite openly and forcefully into my own eyes. I experienced a sensation . . .
I have no words for it. I have felt nothing like it before. It seemed to move through my body in most peculiar ways, as if some of my lower extremities might be melting. And yet my tummy held the most extraordinary tension.
I am afraid that when he looked at me thus I blushed furiously and hid behind my fan before Grandpapa took Mr. Oolomo by the elbow and said, "There, there, chappy, one mustn't stare at the ladies so. Bad form, you know."
Mr. Oolomo blinked at Grandpapa in incomprehension, then nodded once and dropped his eyes. One may have peeked often at him from behind one's fan. And every time one did, Mr. Oolomo was looking one's way from beneath hooded lids. It had a most disturbing effect on one's composure.
All of this came to pass while Grandpapa was questioning Mr. Oolomo about his travels with Uncle Charles.
"So," Grandpapa said, "you are from Rangunar?"
"I am not from Rangunar, Sir," Mr. Oolomo said. Did I mention his voice is like the low note of a chetchinar, the bow drawn slowly across the bass string? As Charles said, he speaks our tongue in quite an agile manner.
"But I say," said Grandpapa, "my son said in his letter that you were with him in Rangunar."
"Indeed, Sir, that is where he found me, but I came there from Calcuna."
"Ah, so you are Calcuni?"
"No, I am not Calcuni."
"Then where the deuce are you from?"
Mr. Oolomo smiled and bowed from the waist. "I am from many places, Sir. Many, many places."
Since Mr. Oolomo would say nothing further on the subject except other like riddleistic phrases, Grandpapa pretended to lose interest in order to maintain his dignity.
"Well," he huffed, "shall we get about the business of examining this Key of Providence?"
I would dearly have loved to stay in the sitting room for that revelation! Alas, Grandpapa said it was men's business and asked Grandmama and I to leave. The raptor-like stare she gave Grandpapa would have made a lesser man turn to goosey pudding, but Grandpapa has had much practice standing up to Grandmama's stare. She was forced to withdraw to the drawing room, as was I.
When Grandpapa and Mr. Oolomo exited from the sitting room and emerged into the drawing room, Grandpapa looked pale and tight-lipped, but he would tell us nothing about the Key. Most vexing!
Good gods! You will scarcely credit what I have just glimpsed beneath my locked window. Green silk caught in the torchlight! And if I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Oolomo hand in hand with Molly the scullery maid, sneaking off in the direction of the shire's maze!
I am in such a state of peak I can write no more!
Yours,
Thomasina
******
2nd 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
© Pamela J. Thompson 2005
An exercise in diaryreal fiction.
31st Meckellan, the Year of Our Suffrage, 1882
Dear Diary:
I believe that one should not set out to do a great deal of writing unless one has something to say. That is why I have avoided you these many months, ever since Grandmama gifted me with you on my birthday. The last few days, I confess, have changed that. I find myself driven to scribbling if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity.
Enough of explanations! I shall burst if I do not get to the heart of the matter!
It all started when Grandpapa received a letter written by Uncle Charles from a remote military outpost in the jungle several miles distant from Far Rangunar. The letter, hand-carried by Major Fitzmins-Smytton of Her Majesty's Royal Fusiliers, accompanied a mysterious box and a servant belonging to Uncle Charles, one Oolomo--but more about him later. Apparently, Uncle Charles asked Major Fitzmins-Smytton to transport these items and this personage to us, something of a last will and testament, I am very much afraid.
Upon hearing the news of Uncle Charles's demise, Grandpapa grew gravely flushed in the face and grabbing up his pipe from the mantlepiece, began stuffing it with smokeweed in a kind of fury. He remarked, "I always suspected Charles would die in some humbuggy manner, but it is annoying to have it confirmed like this."
Grandmama, showing the pluck so ingrained in our race, stiffened her spine and said, "Quite." Her voice was perhaps a little paler than usual, her face more strained, but she kept her reserve in place. I, on the other hand, collapsed in a chair, weeping. Charles was quite my favorite uncle, although I had only met him once or twice between his many travels.
Major Fitzmins-Smytton rushed to my side, taking my hand in his and declaiming, "Oh, Miss, Miss, I am most dreadfully sorry to be the bearer of such sad tidings!"
Grandmama said stoutly, "Nonsense. Control your excesses, Thomasina."
I extricated my hand from the major's and tried to straighten my spine, but my bones seemed to have gone all over gelatinous. I fear my pluck was wanting and I slumped a bit. I did manage to scrunch back the tears, although they quivered on the edge of my eyes throughout the rest of what followed in that sitting room. And yes, yes, I admit I shed a few tears surreptitiously when Grandmama's attention turned elsewhere.
Major Fitzmins-Smytton looked uncomfortable under Grandmama's raptor-like regard and got to his feet. He spent the rest of the time staring at the red and gold Ogham carpet on the floor rather than meet her eye again. I could not help remembering that Charles had shipped that rug to us from Ushu Shaiupu, halfway across the world. Grandpapa's remarked upon receiving it: "Typical of Charles's extravagant nature." But no one could deny the quality of the workmanship, its exotic beauty, and so it was forthwith placed in the sitting room where it would be sure to be noticed by visitors.
Grandpapa opened Charles's letter and read it through. Afterwards, he asked if the major would be so kind as to wait for us in the library, as he wished to read the letter to us and it was something of a personal communication. The major graciously agreed and after he left, Grandpapa began to read:
"Dear Mother, Father, and Darling Thomasina:
"By the time you receive this, I will be dead, as I have contracted the dreaded ossobucco fever for which there is no cure. I thought I had better drop a line before the inevitable losing of my senses commences.
"I always suspected I would die one day, but I must say it is annoying to have it confirmed like this. Nothing to be done about it now. I have led a good life and had many wonderful adventures. I do not regret a one, even the encounter with the mingbat from which I contracted this deadly fever.
"What a glorious sight that creature was! Its wings glinted golden in the dying sun, its eyes glowed all sapphiric as it plunged headlong into a mighty cocobar tree. I hurried to it. Oolomo warned me against it, saying something must be wrong with the animal as it was not typical behavior for a mingbat to go crashing into bloody great trees, but I was all a-fluster with excitement and paid no mind. I was only thinking of retrieving the gland sack, you see, for its resinous secretions fetch sumptuous prices in the perfume market.
"Alas, greed was my downfall. Something indeed was wrong with the creature. In its death throes, it bit me and I was soon infected with ossobucco. Oolomo tried some native concoction on me, but it was to no available. The disease had its terrible grip on me. Oolomo thought I might like to communicate with some of my countrymen before dying, but we barely made it back to the jungle outpost where Major Fitzmins-Smytton was stationed before my symptoms began.
"The Royal Fusiliers were most gracious, as ossobucco can only be transmitted through the bite of the mingbat and no one else was in danger of catching the disease. Still, Oolomo was the only one who has stayed by my side during my sickness. No blaming the Royal Fusiliers--they are all good chaps and frightfully busy doing whatever one does when stationed in a remote jungle outpost. Alas, I wished to rest in the tomb of my fathers, but the transport of my body out of the jungle and many miles upriver to Rangunar and thence many months by ship to the Homeland was not an undertaking anyone wished to examine too closely. I have requested to be cremated and scattered to the winds so that I might go on traveling as I have always loved to do.
"But enough about me! Let me get to the heart of why I am writing—other than to say my fondest farewells, of course.
"Oolomo has been a faithful servant ever since I hired him in Rangunar. We have traveled together for many miles and many years, since he was little more than a lad. If he was not of a servant class, I might even call him friend. Certainly, we have been as close as any two men can be. Therefore, I have entrusted to him the safekeeping of the Key of Providence. I knew he would guard it with his life, and if anyone could deliver it to you unmolested, it would be Oolomo.
"I daresay I trust him more than any officer of the Royal Army and would have sent him without the aid of Major Fitzmins-Smytton (although that individual is a worthy officer and I have complete faith in him). It is just that Oolomo has made the most sacred of pledges to me for the welfare of the Key and its delivery unto the bosom of my family. He will not go back on that pledge for he fears that otherwise his life will be forfeit to powerful supernatural forces that we called into being while making this pledge. Unfortunately, Oolomo can neither read nor write, which makes it deucedly difficult for him to book passage to our beloved Homeland.
"The good Major has no idea about any of this, of course. Please show him courtesy, but I beg you not to confide the contents of this letter or the box to him. I have no reason to doubt his honor, but where the Key is concerned, it is better to keep matters in strictest confidence.
"You may discuss any of this freely with Oolomo and I will leave it to him to explain the meaning of the Key. Not only have I instructed him over many years acquaintance in our native tongue—indeed, he is quite talented in any tongue he endeavors to learn—but he has my utter and complete trust. Besides, he knows more about the Key than I could hope to explain in these pages, which alas will be the last I ever compose.
"I am weary now and must close. I fear the end cannot be far away. I send you all my very best love."
Charles concluded his letter with "Er...argh...ahhhhhhh....." trailing off the page. Grandpapa held it up so that Grandmama and I might see. I must say, it does seem odd that Uncle Charles would take the time to write that out while he was in the actual process of dying, but Uncle Charles was a thorough man.
Oh! There is the dinner bell. I must conclude for now. More later.
Yours,
Thomasina
*****
32nd Meckellan, the Year of Our Suffrage, 1882
Dear Diary:
Well, here it is again: All Chuckles Eve, the night when the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Or-Else Trickster God is in His Ascendancy. I do not know if I will be allowed to write in you tomorrow, 1st Luminor, All Solemn Day, when we must sit quietly contemplating the mischief we did throughout the year—especially on All Chuckles Eve—and feeling solemnly guilty for it, followed by the Ritual of Saving Our Skins wherein we ask the forgiveness of Her Majesty and of the Great Goddess Grimas.
Rather a ridiculous exercise, if you ask me. It is not as if we shall have a proper All Chuckles Eve at all, since we are in a formal state of mourning for Uncle Charles. Not that I object to being in mourning for Uncle Charles—he was such a jolly fellow—but we will not have any fun at all on All Chuckles Eve. No lighting of the Bonny Fires, wherein caricatures of all the handsomest lads and comeliest lasses are thrown into the inferno during the Ritual of Spite and Envy; no chucking of firebrands onto the porches of wealthy houses that will not pay the sweet tax to the poor children of the parish; no buckets of water poured over the heads of the unsuspecting constabulary and dusting them with Trickster Flour (even though Cook makes the most wondrous itchy flour with the perfect blend of hot spices); no sneaking off to the shire's giant aphrodi bush maze to get horribly lost and infatuated and act riotously.
All right, I will admit that Grandmama and Grandpapa have not yet let me sneak off to the shire's maze. They guard me like Tarmagan Banshees on All Chuckle's Eve and place locks upon my windows and my bedroom door. I am happy to report I am not held prisoner in such a manner for most of the year, just for the high riotous holidays.
So here I am locked in my room, gazing wistfully at the fires burning in the nighttime distance, hearing the occasional piercing scream or low, repetitive moan. I feel completely left out. Although everyone on the estate is supposed to be in mourning, I suspect some of the servants have gotten up to High Chuckling. Otherwise, how would I be able to hear the screams and moans? Our estate house is quite a distance from the shire road. At least because of the state of mourning, with the black acadia vines strung across the gate and the ritual skull with the arrow through it as signs of our grief, we have little worry of our porch being torched by the poor children of the parish.
Listening to the moaning down below (I really do believe it is coming from that selfsame porch!) puts me in an oddly petulant state. I must distract myself. Therefore, I shall describe the remarkable person who arrived with Uncle Charles's letter yesterday. Not Major Fitzmins-Smytton, but the man Oolomo.
Mr. Oolomo is not a tallish sort of person. His stature is no more than a few inches greater than my own. He appears, however, to be quite strong. I cannot quite determine his age. He could be twenty, he could be thirty... I do not like to think of him as overmuch above thirty as it would be nice to have someone around the estate closer to my own age of eighteen.
Mr. Oolomo attires himself all over in green silk, and one cannot help but notice the stretch of muscles across his back when he hefts heavy objects—such as the box Uncle Charles sent—and the tautness of his, uh, other back muscles when he bends over to pick objects up. One should, of course, have looked away rather than subjecting oneself to such an inappropriate physical display, but one may have peeked between the lacework of one's fan. His skin is beautiful and smooth, a creamy brown, his hair as silky as his wardrobe although black in color, and he has quite remarkable eyes: large, luminous, and a compelling brown. Indeed, being unaware of the formalities of society, he looked quite openly and forcefully into my own eyes. I experienced a sensation . . .
I have no words for it. I have felt nothing like it before. It seemed to move through my body in most peculiar ways, as if some of my lower extremities might be melting. And yet my tummy held the most extraordinary tension.
I am afraid that when he looked at me thus I blushed furiously and hid behind my fan before Grandpapa took Mr. Oolomo by the elbow and said, "There, there, chappy, one mustn't stare at the ladies so. Bad form, you know."
Mr. Oolomo blinked at Grandpapa in incomprehension, then nodded once and dropped his eyes. One may have peeked often at him from behind one's fan. And every time one did, Mr. Oolomo was looking one's way from beneath hooded lids. It had a most disturbing effect on one's composure.
All of this came to pass while Grandpapa was questioning Mr. Oolomo about his travels with Uncle Charles.
"So," Grandpapa said, "you are from Rangunar?"
"I am not from Rangunar, Sir," Mr. Oolomo said. Did I mention his voice is like the low note of a chetchinar, the bow drawn slowly across the bass string? As Charles said, he speaks our tongue in quite an agile manner.
"But I say," said Grandpapa, "my son said in his letter that you were with him in Rangunar."
"Indeed, Sir, that is where he found me, but I came there from Calcuna."
"Ah, so you are Calcuni?"
"No, I am not Calcuni."
"Then where the deuce are you from?"
Mr. Oolomo smiled and bowed from the waist. "I am from many places, Sir. Many, many places."
Since Mr. Oolomo would say nothing further on the subject except other like riddleistic phrases, Grandpapa pretended to lose interest in order to maintain his dignity.
"Well," he huffed, "shall we get about the business of examining this Key of Providence?"
I would dearly have loved to stay in the sitting room for that revelation! Alas, Grandpapa said it was men's business and asked Grandmama and I to leave. The raptor-like stare she gave Grandpapa would have made a lesser man turn to goosey pudding, but Grandpapa has had much practice standing up to Grandmama's stare. She was forced to withdraw to the drawing room, as was I.
When Grandpapa and Mr. Oolomo exited from the sitting room and emerged into the drawing room, Grandpapa looked pale and tight-lipped, but he would tell us nothing about the Key. Most vexing!
Good gods! You will scarcely credit what I have just glimpsed beneath my locked window. Green silk caught in the torchlight! And if I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Oolomo hand in hand with Molly the scullery maid, sneaking off in the direction of the shire's maze!
I am in such a state of peak I can write no more!
Yours,
Thomasina
******
2nd 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
© Pamela J. Thompson 2005
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Date: 2005-03-24 09:50 pm (UTC)Maybe he was dictating? ;-)
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Date: 2005-03-25 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 12:05 pm (UTC)Hmmm....maybe.
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Date: 2005-03-25 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 12:33 am (UTC)So what prompted this departure, may I ask?
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Date: 2005-03-26 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 11:48 am (UTC)When I was on Xmas break I didn't feel like doing any real work--I wanted to write something just for fun, without a thought for marketing, posting, etc., ad nauseam. You know, to remember why I liked writing in the first place. ;-)
I'd been reading some of Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody stories which can be delightfully silly in places and do such a splendid parody of Victorian mores, so that voice definitely was inspired from there. But being an sff person, I needed to do something strange with it. So I did. And, of course, much sillier.
I haven't touched it much since, but last weekend when I was having my recuperative drool-a-thon, I noticed it on the harddrive and starting playing again. I decided to share with my friends.