Downtrodden Abbey: The Interminable Saga of an Insufferable Family (8 page)

She introduces Marry to Sir Antonio Stallion, the elderly victim of a botched surgery in which his personality was inadvertently removed. As a result, he can only converse about two things: bicycles and cherry cobbler.

“I’ll tell you who makes a great bike,” Sir Stallion tells Marry on their first and only date. “Pashley. Their tyres are of a much higher quality, and they’ve found a way to attach the derailleur in such a manner that when one switches from low gear to high, there is far less likelihood of it jumping the track, and—Lady Marry, am I boring you?”

“What? Hmmnh—sorry, I must have dozed off. Surely you can’t still be discussing bicycles, though.”

“Er, no, not at all. In fact, I was just going to suggest that we head into the village for dessert. Fancy a cherry cobbler?”

“I suppose—”

“—Because I can tell you who makes the best in town. Compton’s is really wonderful. They crisp the top to a golden brown, and carmelise the sugar, and they must use a mixture of cherries. I can usually taste some Bing, but then all of a sudden a Lambert will hit my tongue, or a Rainier, and—Lady Marry! Are you out cold again?”

Though Marry writes off Sir Stallion as a “typical male”—a poor listener who is obsessed with his own interests, in this case two-wheeled vehicles and fruity desserts—at dinner a few nights later, it is the unsightly Enid who takes a fancy to the geriatric dullard. She even goes so far as to consult the
Encyclopaedia Brittanica
for some arcane knowledge to impress him.

“My great-grandfather had a draisine, which you might not know was the first successful, two-wheeled, steerable, human propelled machine, commonly called a velocipede, and nicknamed the ‘dandy horse.’”

“Good Lord,” Stallion gasps to Enid. “Might you be the perfect woman for this liver-spotted romantic?”

“Only if your eyesight and judgement are both completely and utterly compromised,” snaps Countess Vile.

Early bicycles had no seats, and were sold with ointments and salves.

“What’s for dessert?” Lady Enid asks, sliding her veiny hand onto Stallion’s bony knee. “I could seriously go for a cherry cobbler.”

Marry may have rejected the old codger, but that does not stop her from resenting her sister’s actions—this is Downtrodden Abbey, after all. Marry bursts into the kitchen and pulls Mrs. Patmimore aside.

“I implore you not to serve cherry cobbler to Sir Stallion,” says Lady Marry. “Regardless of his blatant wishes.”

“Have you tasted Mrs. Patmimore’s cobbler?” O’Grotten jumps in, between drags on her cigarette. “The true punishment would be to force him to eat it.”

Lady Marry now wonders what course of action to take—to move towards the worn-out, flaccid bicycle-and-dessert-enthusiast Stallion, or to the etiquette-challenged, lunkheaded Atchew.

“What would Jesus do?” she asks the head gardener the next morning, who sadly informs her that, unfortunately, his co-worker Jesus Martinez was fired a week earlier.

That night, Enid composes a letter:

Dear Arabian Embassy,

It may be of interest to you that a certain Camel Hokkypuk was a guest at Downtrodden Abbey last month and soiled the sheets of the bed of my sister, Marry Crawfish.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would spread the word throughout the Middle East and inflict as much damage as possible to my sister’s reputation, as she has been calling me “an ugly twat” since we were small children.

Sincerely,

Enid Crawfish

Lady Supple and Handsom sneak off to the village to attend a protest rally over a woman’s right to attend protest rallies.

“What has got you so impassioned about this issue?” she asks him, over kettle corn, Olde Coke, and cheesesteaks.

“Me mum was an activist,” Handsom explains. “She was a leading voice in the fight against influenza. Perhaps you have heard about the rally she organized in Soho Square.”

“I’m terribly confused, Handsom. Isn’t
everyone
against influenza? I mean, what would a protest accomplish?”

“I didn’t say she was intelligent. By the way, do you know you have the most luscious lips I have ever laid eyes on?”

“No, but if you hum a few bars, I catch on pretty quick.”

*   *   *

Back at the dear Abbey, Tyresom tells Flora that—much like like Lady Marry herself—negative stories have been circulating all across England about Lady Marry. Vile also confronts her daughter-in-law about these scurrilous tales.

“Is it true,” she asks, “That there was a camel in her bed?”

“Not a camel, no,” Flora assures Vile. “An Arab
named
Camel. You met him at breakfast. Remember? That sultry sultan?”

“And did the two of them have it off, then?”

“Nothing like that, Vile. He just … soiled her sheets.”

“Honestly, Flora. How utterly unthinkable. When I was her age, such a thing never could have happened.”

Of course,
Flora thinks.
When Vile was Marry’s age, people were still sleeping in caves.

The business of the stolen vinegar becomes a cause célèbre at Downtrodden, with Laizy confiding to Tomaine and O’Grotten that she would do anything to protect them. Meanwhile, Mr. Brace confides to Nana that even though he’s quite sure that Tomaine filched the vinegar, he would rather be accused than cost the footmasseuse his job.

“Why, I would sooner violently murder my wife before I damaged someone’s ability to earn a living,” says Brace.

“That’s strange,” Nana says. “Isn’t that a bit backwards, from an ethical point of view?”

“I don’t see an issue,” Brace shrugs.

“Anyway, what wife? Don’t tell me you’re married.…”

“Me, married? Where would you ever get that idea? It was just a hypothetical. You’ve never heard the expression, ‘I would sooner violently murder my wife, if I were unhappily married’?”

“No, I haven’t,” says Nana.

“Oh. Well. You should get out more. It’s all the rage, I tell you. People are using it to replace ‘sooner or later,’ and ‘to make a long story short.’”

At another chaotic rally with Handsom, Supple—not the most accurate golf club in the bag—mistakenly protests women’s “suffrage,” thinking that it means “suffering.” As a result, she is hit in the head with a flying frozen chicken and knocked unconscious. Later she must face her father, who was not privy to her plans to attend the event, and most certainly would have balked at the notion.

“Hey, Pops,” Supple says at dinner. “Like, what’s the haps?”

“Supple, you look dazed,” says Lord Crawfish. “And since when do you address me as ‘Pops’? Oh, and you quite smell like poultry.”

“Ah, that?” says Supple, thinking quickly. “I didn’t tell you? I have been, um, using chicken fat on my skin lately. Really opens up the pores.”

“Chicken fat, you say? I’ll have to try that. My face has been quite dry in the past few decades.”

Later, Lord Crawfish sticks his head into the kitchen and asks Laizy to set aside some chicken fat for him.

“Why, of course, sir.”

“And will you see that it’s delivered to my quarters before I retire?”

Laizy nods in compliance. “I’d just as soon poison my wife,” she says. “As the expression goes.”

“Never heard that one. Just out of curiosity—how much sleep do you get, Laizy?” asks Lord Crawfish, raising a concerned brow as the drudge walks into a wall.

“Oh, more than enough, Milord,” says the kitchen maid. “Got me a full ninety minutes last night, I did.”

*   *   *

In the parlour, Atchew waits for an opportune moment, approaches Lady Marry, and gets down on bended knee.

“Marry, do you know what this means?”

“If you’ve dropped a cufflink, you’re on your own, Atchew. I’m blind as a bat—”

“Silly thing. I’d like your hand in marriage.”

“I’m afraid it’s an all-or-nothing deal. I mean, yes, I have lovely hands, but you should see the rest of me.”

Atchew’s back begins to hurt, so he stands, knowing that this is going to take awhile.

“Marry, ‘wanting one’s hand’ is merely an expression. Of course I want you in your entirety. What, did you get brained with a frozen chicken as well?”

Marry paces, so excited she can barely speak.

“Wake up, darling. I’m not finished proposing.”

“But what about my reputation, Atchew? Have you read
The Mail
? They’ll not only claim that my sheets were soiled, but have me attending social events with the entire Manchester United football team, and indulging in some drinking game called ‘Ale Table Tennis.’”

Marry tells Atchew that she’s just anxious, and that she must discuss his proposal with her mother, who—being an American—tends to display good judgement (although she drinks far too many sugary beverages and favours foods laden with carbohydrates).

Flora explains to Marry that what she is experiencing with Atchew is what is known as a “cliffhanger.”

“But mother,” Marry pleads, “Isn’t that a theatrical term?”

“It can be, darling,” says Flora. “But we are a theatrical lot. I mean, imagine if we were all in some kind of continuing production, like a film series. All we do is wear fancy clothes and chatter about. There simply must be something that a viewer can latch onto and become invested in emotionally. The possibility of you and Atchew becoming man and wife is just perfect.”

“Mother, you’re frightening me,” Marry says. “I know that there is a rumour that Mr. Tyresom once toiled as a screenwriter. Is it he who poisoned your mind with such terminology?”

“Actually, Marry,” Flora says. “Just between you, me, and the flocking, I’ve been noodling around with an idea myself. May I pitch it to you?”

Marry goes to bed that evening devastated by the news that her mother, too, is secretly writing a story for the screen. Isn’t she aware that screenwriters are the butt of every joke made about the fledgling picture industry?

Oh, and she needs to figure out that whole business about getting married, too.

VII

Rumblings and Grumblings

Spring arrives, indicating that “the Season” in London is over (whatever that means), and the Crawfish family returns to Downtrodden Abbey.

Flora feels some rumblings in her stomach and on several mornings she regurgitates. Mrs. Patmimore, the cook, is questioned, as usual, for her eyesight has been failing, and she tends to get ingredients confused, although her flounder ice cream has proven to be surprisingly popular.

Finally, Flora can take her indigestion no longer and visits a psychic, who presents a wooden ice cream stick and asks Lady Grandsun to urinate on it.

“What kind of foolishness is this?” Flora asks.

“Trust me,” the psychic says.

Flora complies, and the stick turns blue.

“You’re preggers.”

Flora is bewildered. How could she be with child at her age? And isn’t she just in for all sorts of conflict with Lord Crawfish? For starters, whether to raise the child British or American?

Flora’s waistline spreads, as do rumours of her pregnancy. However, the fashions of the times do make the disguising of the so-called “infant bump” quite easy. In fact, there was a report just a few years earlier of a woman, Eleanor Hanbaskett, who was able to not only keep her out-of-wedlock pregnancies a secret, but to hide three children under her hoop skirt for most of their formative years. This was the inspiration for a music hall tune, “Mother’s Special Hiding Place,” which was popularized by Harry Nutzak:

Chester’s on the left leg;

Dorothy’s on the right.

Mama’s feeling like her belt is getting way too tight!

She’s due to have another;

Can’t wait to see its face,

Then stick it with the others

In mother’s special hiding place.

Mother’s special hiding place,

Her special hiding place.

You can try to find her babies,

But you’ll never see a trace!

Roderick is thrilled to hear the news of the impending blessed event, while Vile evidences complete and utter shock, as she believed Flora, at her age, to be “as barren as the Kalahari Desert.” Of course, the question on everyone’s mind is what the gender of the child will be. God forbid the fortune-teller would tell me
that,
Flora thinks. Evidently, five shillings gets you
nothing
these days.