As we learn in Chapter CLXXIII of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, the course of true love never did run smooth. “Everybody thinks Shakespeare said that,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, “but I am sure this observation is original with me.”
Lady Margo Cargo, the richest widow in Scurveyshire, has consented to marry Lord Jeremy Coldsore of Coldsore Hall. She has also consented to marry Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who think he’s Sargon of Akkad. They have convinced her that they are one and the same person. And the vicar, having emerged from his conniptions with no memory of how he came to have them, is eager to perform the rites.
But the problem is, where to have the wedding. Lady Margo’s vast country house is being thoroughly re-upholstered, so they can’t go there. Coldsore Hall, because Twombley has concealed there the bodies of so many of Lord Jeremy’s creditors, now has a rather unpleasant smell to it. And The Lying Tart is out because everyone is afraid that the ancient sorceror, Black Rodney, will turn up as an uninvited guest and put a curse on the lot of them.
“I know the ideal place!” says the vicar. “Right here in my back yard, beside the wading pool. With nice weather, it’ll be perfect–an outdoor wedding.”
But Constable Chumley says the wading pool, scene of so many inexplicable tragedies, is off limits. “Thain a bickle maunty, goin’ by shimbly more!” is his ominous warning.
A mysterious stranger arrives with a cart purporting to contain the frozen body of a Pithecanthropus. He looks much like a Pithecanthropus himself. He sets up in the common without a word to anybody.
“Betcha he’s Black Rodney,” Twombley says. “We had a few of those Pitha-whatchamacallums back in Babylonia, and they was all fake. Yer the Justice of the Peace around here, Germy. Why don’t you have him thrown in jail?”
“Because I need this wedding, and I need it now!” growls Jeremy. “More creditors are coming out of the woodwork, and if I don’t marry into Lady Margo’s money, I’ll lose my ancestral home. My grandfather never should have invested all his money in that disastrous polar expedition in which everybody died and the ship wound up in Aruba!”
The chapter concludes with a recipe for boiled grass.
It would be very interesting to see Lady Margo Cargo’s upholstered leg all finished. Will they be allowing photographs?
First they have to solve the problem of it falling off, as it does at inconvenient moments.
A polar expedition which mysteriously is diverted to Aruba? How could something like that happen? 🙂
Gyroscope error lol
Don’t laugh. I know someone who gets lost all the time because he holds a road map upside-down.
Well, I told you it was a bad investment.
I had a feeling the wedding might end up by the wading pool. And it is about time that Rodney made an appearance. I think Violet Crepuscular stole the recipe for boiled grass from Willie Nelson’s autobiography.
I think he may have had another kind of grass in mind.