Bonus ‘Oy, Rodney’ Episode

In Chapter CVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Lord Jeremy Coldsore requests an audience with the Queen so he can invite her to stay the night at Coldsore Hall. Currently the Queen and her entourage have taken rooms at Scurveyshire’s most popular inn, The Lying Tart.

The most Lord Jeremy can get from the Queen is a bored “We’ll see,” and he is too nervous to invite Her Majesty to his wedding, and his friend Willis Twombley’s, to Lady Margo Cargo. On his way out of the inn, the discouraged young baron, or whatever he is, is buttonholed by the vicar.

“Lord Jeremy! A word, sir, a word!” He looks like he is about to relapse into conniptions, so Jeremy must hear him out.

“That woman, sir–that, my lord, is not the Queen of England! She is an imposter!”

“Not Queen Victoria?” Jeremy wonders. He looked it up yesterday: Victoria is presently Queen of England. Not Suzie, as he’d thought. “Go to, Reverend! She is the spitting image of the Queen. Why would you say different?”

Distraught, the vicar lapses into dialect. “Why, firmy man, yen jingly fleem be all ye throcken simbly–!” Lord Jeremy has to slap him. The vicar responds with a kick to the shin. In between agonized hops on one foot while holding his shin, Jeremy demands the vicar explain his allegation.

“Sir, I know the Queen like she were my own sister! We are lifelong friends–why, it was I who introduced her to Prince Albert, and got him to come out of the can!” Lord Jeremy stares. “I guess I ought to know her when I see her, sir–and that woman is not the Queen of England! There is devilry afoot, sir–devilry and danger, no doubt to the entire realm!”

The remaining paragraphs of the chapter are devoted to a description of Ms. Crepuscular’s hamster, Nestor.