Scandalum Magnatum

“Tally ho! Tally ho! To hounds! To hounds!” the roar of the huntsman’s bugle echoes off the ancient walls of Westminster Hall, whilst the hunters careen, wheel, and gallop after the fox who having leapt down the stairs ahead of them is now bounding frantically towards the Member’s Lobby. “To hounds!” Lords Ruckle-Smoot, Clare and Elderberry rear resplendent in the saddle folllowed closely by the Reverend Unctuous of St Paul’s and his esteemed pater, Sir William Unctuous of Bacchanalia . Their highly polished boots reflect the terrified faces of anxious civil servants and outraged porters, “What does they thinks they is doing?” complains one, “What they always does” murmurs another pausing to dive behind the statue of Lord Gordon of Umbongo Bongo, “Flaunting the rules and trampling on us wot wants merely to be of service! Well this time I ain’t avin it, fetch the gentleman Black Rod!”

The cobble stones tremble beneath the spark and clatter of iron hooves and the Hunt Master’s eyes gleam psychotically as he scents the earthy smell of terrified fox close by. “Is he near Master Brandt?”  hisses Lord Unctuous, Master Brandt raises himself up in the saddle and sniffs the air, his muscular thighs tightly gripping the taut flanks of his hysterical stallion, “Ja, e’ is near, veree near! The bugger is be ‘aynd them curtains!” the roaring gallop slows to a sneaky canter through the member’s lobby as the feral peers sniff out their prey. Little do they know it but they have been out foxed for their terrified victim has bounded into the arms of a little house maid, a country girl widely renowned for her fierce defense of woodland creatures and she in turn has indignantly approached Black Rod (fox in arms). The venerable Black Rod, (Usher-in-Chief, Personal Attendant of the Sovereign and Representative of the Administration and Works committee), lends a sympathetic ear and then, with mace in hand, gleefully strides forth to encounter the galloping lords as they canter through the sacred realm of the Members’ Lobby.

“A good day to you gentlemen! Pray tell, what misguided practice is this? What dearth of industriousness prompted you to desport yourselves here? My Lords have you forgotten where it is you ride? T’is mean’t to be the very seat of democracy, t’is the place from which her majesty extends her scepter toward the entire empire! T’is a disgrace! Nay an outrage to see you attired thus! T’is a scandal gentlemen!” Monsieur Black Rod is exultant for as the overseer of all security pertaining to the Palace of the Westminster, he knows that this breach of ettiquette is a grievous one. Long has he dreamt of the departure of Lord Elderberry, but he will settle for a suspension next term of the entire hunt (Chief Whip permitting). “What does e say?” asks Brandt the Hunt-Master casting a crazed look upon the gentleman Rod,

“We can’t hunt here is what I think he’s saying” replies Lord Elderberry. His bottom lip is trembling and his face has taken on a petulant look, such as was apt to give his Mama disabling migraines many a time and led to her confinement within St Bacchanalia’s asylum (eventually).”I’ll do whatever I ruddy likes Black Rod! Tally Ho!” but Black Rod is not to be nay sayed,”Westminster Porters to me!” as if from nowhere a legion of servants of the palace step forward, taking up position with the various implements of service used by them to maintain the house. A more muscular, purposeful, eagle eyed set of men have yet to be found in any other place in the realm, it is an impressive display and to anyone with half a whit’s worth of sense it would signal an end to the festivities.

But, a’las, his Lordships labour in their delusions of profligate entitlement, and incensed by this plebeian interference in their fun, they attempt to ride down the opposition laying about them with unfurled bull whips as they do so. Black Rod smiles grimly, for the stories of Lord Elderberry’s fondness for the whip have reached him and with mace aloft in one hand he strides forward, a porter who last worked as an Ostler by his side,”You shall not pass!” he shrieks black breeched legs akimbo. Distracted, indignant, outraged, Lord Elderberry raises his whip once more for he is determined to flay the hide of the Brigand Rod, but his act is pre-empted by his swift unseating. One by one the porters stride forward and one by one they unseat the profligate peers, determined as they are to exercise their right to keep the sacred corridors of Westminster pure from debauched entitlement.

“To your feet gentlemen! Porters escort them to the doors!” His glittering eyes seem  closely to resemble those of a rattlesnake as his gaze moves swiftly from one reddened face to another,”The Chief Whip shall here of this! Yes! Indeed he shall! And he will not be pleased!Five peers and six commoners treating the most esteemed, the most revered seat of the realm as if it were a bawd’s establishment! What the emminent politician will have to say I can only conjecture” Black Rod smiles thinly, for it has now become common knowledge that said gentleman is desperately ill and is to be replaced by the more severe Lord Smarsby, a porter coughs politely,

“Begging your pardon sir, which set of doors should we escort them out of?” a sweet smile graces the thin, severe lips of Black Rod and striding to and fro with one thin finger pressed upon them he ponders and makes his decision. “The rear ones! As well away from the front of house as possible, I will not have them defame this house with their profligate dress! Fox hunting in the palace! Whsst!” Striding off briskly a spring in his step and without so much as a backward glance, the gentleman Black Rod is gone. For there are other more pressing affairs to attend, to such as the need to notify her majesty of the debauchery of five of her lords.

My Little Pony

“Will Scroggins cough up?” Emile asked with a smirk, they’d had no problem setting the fire, since old man Scroggins hadn’t fixed the roof. But he’d been thoroughly suspicious of the miraculous appearance of Boodoo and his fire cart, the instant the conflagration really got going.

“E’ will if he wants ‘is fires putting out” Bert replied, “What’s ‘e taking us for? Clambering up them ladders requires a great deal of expertise, if ‘e don’t like fires ‘e should fix ‘is roof, fancy a beer?”

“Nah, but I will take a glass of sherry, where’s Boodoo?”

“Behind you”

Emile turned round to see Boodo delivering a swift kick to a pitiful looking young lad who’d crept quietly up behind him,

“Dig your sly fingers into my back pocket will you?! Hook it Milty!”

“But I was only thinking to ask you something”

“Oh was you? Thinking to ask me the way to New South Wales was you? You’d better HOOK IT!”

Milty slunk away his arms hanging temporarily by his sides as he wriggled his way through the crowded pub and out the door.

“You didn’t need to be doing that, Milty’s mum’s took bad, been laid up in bed with the cholera for the past week ”

“I bet. The water round ‘ere is minging and she has more than a fleeting acquaintance with gin laced beer that one”

“That’ll be the reduction in beer duty, Mrs Hayes ‘as been talking on it something rotten, ‘er custom has dropped at the nunnery.”

Boodoo chuckled, “Reckon she’ll lower ‘er prices?”

Emile shook his head, “Birch rods she uses, soaked in tubs of fresh cold water, to keep ’em pliant, costs a deal of money to do that. It’s a gent’s nunnery, cost-price ain’t in it; how’s your sister I ‘ere she’s gone into service”

Boodo shrugged, ” She’s cut me off. She says she has no liking for the company I keep and then of course there was the fire”

Emile’s blue eyes twinkled, he stroked his moustache pensively,”What? St Bacchanalia’s asylum? How much did you make on that one?”

Boodo frowned, he rubbed both his hands over the stubble on his head and considered,

” T’was a mere trifle…forty shillings”

Emile whistled, “forty shillings, well I never, there’s a great deal to be said for fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining, particularly when it comes to setting fires”

Boodoo shrugged, “Fancy a glass of sherry?”

Emile nodded “I’ve got a job for you which requires an increased skill set and a certain degree of expertise, if you’ve a mind to do it, we can discuss it over a glass”

Wading carefully through the crowded pub they made their way over to the bar where Boodo’s associate, Bert Marsh, was already seated with a glass of sherry. Sitting down alongside him they looked the pub over, business was booming without a doubt, though Emile couldn’t help but to note that few were drinking beer. For it was taken as a given, that if Lord Aberdeen’s government was giving anything away to the poor, he had to want something for it. And so here they all sat drinking sherry and gin paying twice over the odds what they would have on beer.

” Well, well my boys!” said Bert, his face all rosy and flushed after five glasses of sherry “You’ll never guess what Donny Doyle’s gone and done now! He’s definitely for the rope this time!They found his landlady laid up in the cellar…in pieces ”

“Will you keep it down?” Boodoo hissed, he glanced around “There might be beaks in ‘ere there’s no telling”

Bert nearly fell off his stool with laughing, “It’s a beak what told me! What’s you done with ‘er? They asks him, and you know what he replies? I was merely painting her miniature, if it’s anything to do with you” Bert looked fit to die from laughing, though it certainly wouldn’t have been a laughing matter for Danny’s landlady.

Emile and Boodoo looked at each other, Danny Doyle, coerced supplicant at the altar of Gove, ex-member of the Rouge Bull Posse and currently a miniature painter extraordinaire. If ever there was a man with a speedily increasing skill set it was him.

The Marquess of Muck Lane

“What’s the good of ‘avin work as a scullery and kitchen maid for six years if you’re going to change you’re profession now? What’s wrong with you girl? Ain’t mucking out them grates good enough for you no more?!”

Emily LeFevre sighed, it had taken all of her nerve to apply for the job of Chef Patissiere, at the establishment of the Right Honourable Lord Tobias Grid-Iron, but she had done it, the job was hers. Nothing and no one was going to stop her from arising like a phoenix from the ashes of the St Bacchanalia Asylum, nothing.

” I wants to work in a refined establishment what has oil lamps, shiny bed pans and flushable toilets. I wants to wear a linen bustle under me petticoats and  button up boots on me feet, most of all I wants me own bed”

Madame LeFevre frowned, her eyes lit upon the black, leather bound testament of St. Gove which lay on a small table beside her bed, “I recall your Aunt Maggie wanting ‘er little girl to go into service, but she would ‘ave none of it! And now look at her! Swishing her skirts out of doors past midnight and knocking back laudunum like it was pump water.”

“The Grid-Irons are a refined and respected household, Lord Grid-Iron is a man of the people, be ‘appy for me mother, finally, this is a chance for me to improve myself.”

“Lord Grid-Iron..that wouldn’t be the man who reduced beer duty would it? Your Uncle Jim near drove his whole family to penury because of it, his wife is in the poor house still.”

Emily snapped the clasp shut on her carpet bag, she brushed the lint off her dress and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and bosom tightly.” I wants to earn my keep by working for the best people there is, rich people, like the Tobias Grid-Irons, you know what they say, rub against gold a bit might stick to you.”

“Grid-Irons, that’s a familiar name that is, I think your father knows an Emile Grid-Iron, works as an Ostler down at the The Bunch O’ Keys, they say ‘is mother was in the buttock & twang game, a terrible woman of ill-repute” Mrs LeFevre looked troubled, “She never did tell who ‘is father was. Ow’ much are they payin you?”

“The hours is flexible Ma, it’s what they calls a zero-hour contract, it’s all the rage nowadays, I’ll dare say as I’ll manage.”

Mrs LeFevre smiled gently at her little girl, now a grown woman of eighteen years, it was a miracle she hadn’t died of Cholera, Typhoid or Scarlet Fever, she had even survived her brother. “Well girl if this is what you want to do I can’t see as anything I might say will stop you”

Emily LeFevre choked back a tear “Ma” she said, “Before I go, may we ask aid & succour of St. Gove?”

Kneeling alongside the family bed mother and daughter prayed.

Quoth The Raven Never More (Part 2)

T’was a terrible day at Raven’s Industrial Academy, for indeed it had been a terrible night, t’was a night and a day of progressive betrayal.”Will the Headmaster be okay?” asked little Emily LeFevre her large brown eyes brimming with tears, her little nose all smeared with soot from cleaning the kitchen grate. Master Farquar eyed her sympathetically, “I shouldn’t wonder but he’ll recover eventually, they always do” as for the rest of them that remained to be seen. Discovered as they had been, attempting to fake year four’s mole skin trouser assemblage course work. But then who could have foreseen the reckless dedication to duty of the Slop Work Exams’ Inspector, who having clambered five floors up towards the Leather-Work Department (with the help of the infamous Boodo), using naught but a climbing rope from his expeditionary days,proceeded to break through the fifth floor leaden casement window.

They had all been thoroughly scared out of their wits by this sodden apparition clad in black, none more so than the Headmaster, who with an ear puncturing shriek and his hands outstretched, attempted to throw himself upon the recalcitrant Boodo. Alas the Exams’ Inspector got the better of him, thrusting Boodo behind his back with one hand and the Headmaster to the floor with the other. The Headmaster, reaching out to steady himself with one hand, knocked over a table on which had been placed a gas lamp, which in turn shattered, creating a sudden conflagration of gas &  flammable liquids which had been carelessly strewn on the floor earlier that night. The resultant bonfire would have done for them all had it not been for Boodoo, and the Exams’ Inspector.

Hefting the Headmaster onto one of his soaking wet shoulders, the Exams’ Inspector descended the rope. Boodoo meanwhile, made for the back office whereupon he clasped hold of Master Parnham, dragging and yanking him ferociously away from the course work he was attempting to fabricate, and towards the exit,followed closely by Arthur Farquar. Master Farquar had little time for Boodoo, but that night Boodoo displayed such mettle, such steely character, that Arthur’s estimation of him rose, and he determined to do all in his power, to see to it that Boodoo was successfully apprenticed.

St Bacchanalia’s Fire Service arrived in no time at all, however, there was no little confusion as to exactly when they would be permitted to put the fire out; being as they were on strike and all. “Should we put the fire out?” asked the Chief Fireman, “You asking me?” said the Union Rep, his yellow souwester dripping with rain water, “I’m asking you. Though from what I can see there is no fire as such, just a gradual smoking deterioration of the external fabric of the building, accompanied by the occasional flaring spark” he glanced at the Union Rep who nodded, “Brother” said he “I am in perfect agreement” and so it was that Raven’s Industrial Academy burned ever so slowly to the ground, in a sputtering series of occasional flaring sparks.