Chapter Thirty-Two

Directory of Humor Blogs

A Succession of Highly Unfortunate Occurrences

Mrs. DaFarge flew through the skies on her Winged Jaunting Cart, and during the flight she took the opportunity (if only because it made her feel superior to mere mortals down on earth) of spying upon the tiny creatures in The Bog through her opera glasses; she decided (not for the first time) that they were to a man (and woman) insignificant, possibly irrelevant, and took up far too much space.

“How small you are,” she commented to the churning masses in general and to no one in particular, “and how tedious is your company.”

She soared along for another three or four minutes along a flight path that took her twice around Miss Havering’s demesne.

“This is more like it,” she declared while flying over The General’s gigantic pile. It then occurred to her that she might as well conceive a brilliant plan. “How much better it is to rule over this superior residence than all the tea shoppes and Women’s Institutes of The Bog!”

It was just after hatching this thought that she happened to spy Miss Havering Ma’am perched upon the topmost branch of a very, very large, ancient and hideous tree. “How delightful life is!” said Mrs. DaFarge to herself. “And how utterly delightful I am!” after which she belched loudly and unbecomingly and peered down at the spot in her belly (a location not to be acknowledged either publicly or privately) where her spleen resided. “And you in there,” she commanded, “You shall desist at once, if not immediately!”

Life truly was bothersome and unnecessarily inconvenient at times such as this. Here she was, contemplating supplanting Miss Havering Ma’am as Lady Of The Manor and Possibly The World (even though she had not as yet broached the subject with her new rival, she fully intended to the minute an introduction could be arranged), and yet her grandeur was being interrupted by the hoi polloi inhabiting her innards. “To The Tea Cosy, to The Tea Cosy, to The Tea Cosy, to The Bank, to The Bank, to The Bank, to The Betting Shop, to The Betting Shop, to The Betting Shop” chanted a troublesome voice from within her spleen, a voice sounding suspiciously like that of Mrs. Begonia Throttle. “To our Honeymoon, to our Honeymoon, to our Honeymoon,” droned her latest husband, the exotic Eastern beggar Mr. Hui Ya Fing (the sometime Ms. Delilah Zonker), from the furthest reaches of her second best liver. Mrs. DaFarge found this second mantra a slight improvement over the first, due to the fact that Mr. Hui Ya Fing’s voice was silkily sweet (unlike that of his doppelganger, Ms. Delilah Zonker, which was scratchy and gratesome, and unlike Mrs. Begonia Throttle’s, which was stridently annoying). Furthermore, in spite of herself, Mrs. DaFarge found her spouse’s dexterity with the ukulele to be sublimely alluring.

Be that as it may, Mrs. DaFarge came to her senses and gave her stomach and lower unmentionables a resounding thwack with her right glove. “I shall not be bullied by those I have eaten and trod upon,” she boomed. “You will be quiet this instant and await your doom!” After which she added in a low voice, “like good little children and ex-husbands.”

“You will never succeed in ridding yourself of my supremacy!” trumpeted Mrs. Begonia Throttle from within the great librarian’s left pancreas. “While you were looking in the other direction, Ms. Delilah Zonker and I (but mostly me with her assistance) succeeded in stealing the three black pearls from the secret compartment of your handbag. You will never find them, not in a million years. As a consequence, you will do our bidding forever and a day.”

“As I heard you once say, ‘Zounds’,” stormed Mrs. DaFarge, “ ‘and zooms and zooks’! You shall never get the best of me, you… common toad! How dare you…”

“Feeling tetchy, are we?” sneered Mrs. Begonia Throttle.

Meanwhile, far below the airborne Mrs. DaFarge and her intestinal residents, Miss Havering Ma’am, squatting as she was on the upper branches of the ancient tree, was becoming evermore distracted by what sounded like severe flatulence coming from (of all places) Heaven. “Perhaps as a child we should have listened to the lessons in church,” she whispered to herself. “These rumbles are highly ominous, as well as inauspicious, and could be amazingly holy (although we should be inclined to be sceptical were we not God, and therefore, the maker of all rumbles).” She peered down and spied Mortimer, a tiny figure standing at the base of the tree, a tiny figure who was looking up at her with what could only be described piteous adoration. “Unless Mortimer pulls herself together,” muttered Miss Havering with a sigh of inevitability, “she will have to be put down, just like Grandmama’s insipid Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Blancmange. Not that he was actually taken out and shot, but one did so feel like it whenever he came into the room. Poor Mortimer. Should we have had her put to sleep when she complained of chilblains in the winter of 1845? One must consult The General…” and she continued with various and sundry ruminations for a few minutes until fresh celestial rumbles over her head, crashing suddenly and taking her unawares, caused her to lose her balance. She fell down on to the branch directly underneath and swayed precariously to and fro until she managed to steady herself. “Oooof”, she grunted in an unladylike manner, “ooooof!” There followed the mighty skreek and groan of timber being rent in twain as, underneath her, the branch, far too frail to sustain her indubitable avoirdupois, was torn asunder. Miss Havering Ma’am sailed outwards and downwards in an anti-clockwise spiral towards the next (and hopefully stouter) branch, and it occurred to her once again that she ought to contemplate her immortal soul. “We very much fear we may have offended possibly the wrong entity or deity,” she sighed. “Oh, dear, we do wish we knew what one should do at a time like this,” at which point she felt a vague prompting from within her abdominal floor, and smiled in a vastly superior manner. “Are we burdened?” she said with a smile suitable for her station. “Is one weighed down with Heavenly affairs?” And without waiting for a reply, she answered herself with a stout bellow. “Of course one is! Has one forgotten? We are God (or a Deity equally bountiful). Naturally we are endowed with magnificent scruples! It goes without saying that one’s mind is enchanted with Celestial celestialisms! One is being tested by The Gods and, to my mind, one has passed with flying colours. But enough of this! One must disembark from this noisome tree at once and tend to Our Holy Office!” And it was then, for no particular reason other than the fact that she determined it to be her duty, Miss Havering Ma’am filled her lungs with peatish air and boomed an autocratic bellow. “Sturdge! You shall awaken at once! Come here immediately! This is God speaking! We are God, and you must attendeth to us!”

Coinciding with Miss Havering’s celestial command, the roiling thunders from above sounded once again, and once again The Great Lady lost her grip on the branch upon which she was balanced so precariously, and once again her vast bulk spilled downwards and spraddled upon the nearest branch. Although somewhat shorter than the last, this twig was supremely stout and might have made a stalwart tree house for unruly urchins had it been asked politely. As it was, the branch bitterly resented the unannounced intrusion upon its person, and shook itself violently in the manner of a large dog. However, Miss Havering Ma’am, who had at one time been a brilliant amateur equestrienne, held fast and retained her seat. Not missing a single beat, she repeated her command. “Sturdge!” she bellowed. “God is addressing you. You are being summoned!”

Within a nonce there came a mighty yawning whine from within the leaded coffer upon The General’s Crumbling Castle, beneath the spire and not a dozen yards from where the White and Silken Lozenge hung impaled. A second yawn followed, and immediately following that, another. A ghostly rattle ensued, in tandem with a voice, a voice as deep and gruesome as a soul long dead and in its grave twelve dozen years (or more). “Is that really Thou, God?” it rattled. “Thou soundeth more like my young mistress when she suffered from dyspepsia back in 1828.”

“You may think upon us as God, O! Base and Non-biodegradable Sturdge,” commanded Miss Havering Ma’am, “but do not waste our time in petty worship or trivial memories. Our time is all and the world is in need of it! Come to us at once!”

From with his leaded sarcophagus, Sturdge groaned a mighty groan. “Alas alack, O! Miserable Day! A thousand thousand commands from The General hisself could not budge me, O! Worshipful Fragrance, for I have been entombed for a century or more and have the rheumatics as bad as any man dead or alive. I fear I cannot rise or stand, let alone fly across the sky as Thou hast ordainethest.”

Just as Miss Havering Ma’am was about to launch into a tirade against the long-departed and imprisoned Sturdge, The Flying Jaunting Car containing Mrs. DaFarge lost altitude and plunged into the branch directly underneath the Exalted Lady of The Manor. “Piffle!” said Mrs. DaFarge, whose inner travellers (Mrs. Begonia Throttle and Mr. Hui Ya Fing/Ms. Bedelia Zonker) simultaneously whooped and screamed and made an awful fuss.

Directly above, Miss Havering Ma’am blanched white as white could be. “One is doomed,” she wailed, quite forgetting Her Precious Divinity “as doomed as doomed could be.” She henceforth called out in ecstasy, “We shall be arriving Grandpapa! Open your pearly gates!” Whereupon she had occasion to think, remembered that she was God (or at least a reasonable facsimile) and that it was in nobody’s best interest to either doom or antagonise her, either for the better or for the worse. “Go back to sleep, Grandpapa, one shall open one’s own gates when the time comes, and what is more,” she added in an off-hand manner though determined manner, “one very much prefers emeralds and star rubies to pearls, if you don’t mind awfully.”

From her outpost on the tree, Miss Havering Ma’am (or was it God?) sat and thought and reasoned, and decided that sitting upon a tree was not the worst thing one could do, at least for the time being. If only that other dreadful creature hadn’t insisted in joining her. “You!” she bellowed down to Mrs. DaFarge, who was at that moment clinging to her branch with all her might and wishing she had remained closeted with her duties in The Bog. “You!” repeated Miss Havering Ma’am, “Answer us at once! You may address us as God!”

Unfortunately for Mrs. DaFarge, so sudden and calamitous had been her collision with the tree branch, that both Mrs. Begonia Throttle and Mr. Hui Ya Fing/Ms. Bedelia Zonker had been dislodged from their places of concealment in her nether regions and were now residing inside her eardrums and nasal compartments. She was, as a consequence, as deaf as a newt (and had completely lost the ability to pronounce her ‘ms’ and ‘ns’).

“Why ab I so dizzy?” she asked herself, “I bust hab a codcussiod from by collisiod. I thig I deed a doctor.”

“You, down there!” bellowed Miss Havering Ma’am, “We demand you answer us at once, and while you are about it, kindly vacate the premises! This tree is private property and not for pretentious and matronly preying mantii attired in dowdy hats and gardening gloves.”

“I’b dot a badtii, I ab a Head Librariad!” declared Mrs. DaFarge with a sniff. “I asso habbed do be presidedt ob da Wibin’s Idstidoot ad a Depudy Bayor…” at which point she sneezed violently and caused Mrs. Begonia Throttle and Mr. Hui Ya Fing/Ms. Delilah Zonker to be hurtled head over heals from her nose (covered in a variety of slimy droplets and obnoxious substances) and to splat headlong into Miss Havering Ma’am’s vast purple bonnet. The sneeze also blew the sneezer backwards round and round the branch, into the air and on to the tail of a passing seagull, a bird not known either for its good humour or generosity.

“Passengers are not permitted to board mid-air or between stops,” drawled the Seagull in a curt tone of voice.

“Helllp!” screamed Mrs. DaFarge unnecessarily, though completely improvisationally, as she frantically clung to The Seagull’s tail feathers and struggled to pull herself on to his back. “Helllp, someone helllp!”

“Modom,” snarled the bird with a shake of its head, “remove yourself from my person!”

“Helllp,” repeated Mrs. DaFarge as The Demented Seagull continued to flap wildly and fly in unfortunate spirals. “Helllllp!” But then, just as she thought she was about to lose hold of the bird’s tail feathers and plunge to the hard, cold earth far below, she had a thought. “Oh, Mister Bird,” she twittered seductively, “Mister Bir-ird.”

The Seagull stopped flailing away and glowered at his passenger.

“I am not Mister Bir-ird,” he snapped with masterful dignity. “I am The Honourable Dr. Hui Bo Bing of Wilton Crescent, London, SW1, and I am an eminent apothecary by trade,” adding in confidential tones, “a very discreet apothecary, if you get my meaning.”

“Did you say Dr. Hui Bo Bing?” asked Mrs. DaFarge in amazement.

“The Honourable Dr. Hui Bo Bing, yes,” replied The Seagull immodestly. “Have you perchance heard of me and, if you have, should I have heard of you?”

“Oh, my dear Dr. Hui,” Mrs. DaFarge gasped, very much out of breath, “if you will kindly set me down somewhere, preferably on top of that fuzzy white lozenge- shaped article on yonder rooftop, I shall explain.”

“Always a favour,” sighed The Honourable Dr. Hui Bo Bing. “Why is it that no sooner does one introduce oneself to a stranger than a favour is demanded?”

Nonetheless, afraid, perhaps, that his passenger would crave his indulgence a second time (or was it a third?) The Seagull quickly flew to the central tower of Havering Hall and landed on top of the lozenge.

“OW!” barked The Lozenge quite loudly.

“OW yourself,” cawed The Seagull by way of reply.

“Retract your toenails, you rude and uncouth person!” snapped the lozenge, sounding more and more like an exasperated Owld Misther Bucket on a rainy day.

While The Honourable Dr. Hui Bo Bing and The Lozenge argued over landing rights and other weighty matters such as untrimmed toenails and the peculiarities of feet and odd socks (during which time The Seagull had the presence of mind to demand payment of the fare “in exact change, if you don’t mind’), Mrs. DaFarge made her escape, jumping from the by now rumpled tail feather and scuttling down the sides of The Lozenge, which, she noted, twitched its side and giggled and appeared to enjoy her progress. Upon reaching the elaborate Victorian gothic spire directly underneath, she scooted down its length, using her garter as a rope, and came to rest on top of the ornamental chamber which housed the mortal remains of The General, his Memsahib and also the leaden sarcophagus of Sturdge. “I am far too old for such physical exertion,” panted Mrs. DaFarge, as she took a largish flask of brandy from her blazer pocket and removed the stopper. “It is enough to drive a person to drink.” And with that, she swallowed the entire contents of the flask and settled down to catch her breath. Settling herself comfortably against the soft curves of the tomb, she yawned twice, burped discretely and drifted off to sleep. “What a dreadful day,” she murmured softly. “What an unspeakably dreadful…”

While Mrs. DaFarge was snoozing atop The General’s Memorial and The Honourable Dr. Hui Bo Bing was arguing with The Lozenge, Ms. Delilah Zonker found herself the middle of a contra temps with Miss Havering Ma’am’s purple bonnet and, indeed, with The Great Lady herself. In the process, she had somehow got into a fight (including wildly inaccurate fisticuffs) with her alter ego, Mr. Hui Ya Fing and was re-directing her (considerable) wrath at him. “You are nothing but a miserable fraudster,” screeched Ms. Delilah Zonker, as she removed her fist from his brain through a crack in his beautifully domed skull. “Mr. Hui Ya Fing, indeed! You are nothing but a figment of my imagination and not a very good one at that.”

“And you, Ms. Delilah Zonker,” needled Mr. Hui Ya Fing, “are nothing but a lowly assistant librarian who spends her days dusting cobwebs off the upper shelves and scrubbing the lavatories, whereas I am an brilliantly successful apothecary with a residence on Wilton Crescent, SW1. Not only am I a brilliantly successful apothecary, but I am the conjoined twin brother of The Honourable Dr. Hui Bo Bing, apothecary to The Great and Good, as well as purveyor of organic barley pastilles to Her Majesty herself.” Mr. Hui Ya Fing caught his breath for a moment, then refilled his lungs and continued “Furthermore, I am the husband of the notable and highly respected Mrs. Eulilie DaFarge, Head Librarian of Miss Havering’s Bog Lending Library, Deputy Mayoress and President of The Women’s Institute.”

The two selves of Ms. Delilah Zonker continued squabbling loudly and longly, and The Purple Bonnet (whose name was ‘Gardenia-Florence’) shook her draperies violently in hopes of ridding herself of the troublesome and ill-mannered trespassers. Meanwhile, Mrs. Begonia Throttle, forgotten by the others, crawled into a deep crevice of Miss Havering Ma’am’s third double chin, directly below the wide silk ribbon securing the bonnet to The Great Lady’s aristocratic dome. In this soft and furred crevasse, concealed from prying eyes and protected from the worst of the Atlantic gales, she took out a pad and pencil and started to write.

Copyright 2007 JA Weeks