Bunbury, Quincunx and Quatrefoil

Tags

anaphoric reference, Cafe Moroc, Camelot, codicil, Deus quem punire.., Fusion food, Guenevere and Lancelot, Japanese oak, kelim, kofte, Kundry, Latin Verse Speaking Competition, meze, Morgan Le Fey, Parsifal, Pele Tower, Pit Bull, Pliny, quatrefoil, Quincunx, Ridebis et, Simon Bolivar, Vickers machine gun, Wagner

Sitting in the offices of Bunbury, Quincunx and Quatrefoil Solicitors

in Rochester, Dru was digging her metal-tipped heel into the Japanese

oak parquet, which was irritating Mr Bunbury Junior considerably, though

he tried to remain professionally impassive, only occasionally clearing his

throat, like a Pit Bull on a restraint lead.

With his monogrammed handkerchief – BQ&Q- he mopped at

excessive saliva, which her small time act of vandalism was

provoking...so the stirrup cups are endowed to the museum, but

I have some personal papers for you.  He handed over a brown

envelope to Gus.  Can you initial for receipt, please?  He then

reached down and lifted a few school magazines bound with a

perished rubber band from the floor.

Gus immediately recognised back numbers of St

Birinus Middle‘s annual publication, from the 60s.

They seem to cover 1955-62, Mr Bunbury explained.  Your father

apparently treasured your team photos.  He asterisked the year when

you captained the 1st XI.  He has annotated the Prize-giving List for

1961, when you took the Classics Cup for Latin Public Speaking.

I remember that, said Snod, flicking through the yellowed pages.

I had to memorise and deliver some Pliny.  Something along the

lines of Ridebis et licet..

..rideat, supplied Bunbury Junior, who had come second in his prep

school’s Latin Verse Speaking Competition with the very same passage

and had his defeat bitterly imprinted on his memory forever.  Pliny the

Elder.

You will notice a communication from Lady Wivern, your mother,

which outlines the financial arrangements she made with Miss

Snodbury over your welfare and protection, when she released you into

her care.

Mehercule! Snod ejaculated. Deus quem punire uit demerat.

What? said Dru, digging her heel into the floor even more deeply.

Whom God will destroy He first makes mad, supplied Mr Bunbury,

eager to show his linguistic prowess.

Pliny the Younger, Snod stated firmly with an anaphoric reference

which Bunbury was incapable of tracing.

Instead the solicitor cleared his throat, glared at Dru’s foot and

continued, The codicil clarifies her wishes and we have drawn up

instructions as to how you may gain access to the bank vault and its

contents. We will send you further details along with your-ahem!–

(here a further glare at Dru’s heel).. with a note of our charges.

And a bill for repairs to the floor, he wanted to add.

He burbled on in a factual manner for a few more minutes.

Snod and Drusilla retired to The Cafe Moroc– a ‘fusion of Regency

decadence and Moroccan chic’, according to its advertising blurb.

Gus had had enough decadence for one day, so they concentrated

on twelve different meze dishes (to share) and a lamb kofte.

I don’t understand, whispered Dru.  What’s been going on?

Snod was in deep shock, but it didn’t prevent him from demolishing

eight out of the twelve dishes, which Dru thought was somewhat

unfair, especially as he went for her favourites with a vengeance,

adding yet another stain to his, thankfully, polka-dotted tie.

Berenice was not his mother; Hugo de Sousa was not his half-brother;

Aunt Augusta was not his aunt, nor Dru’s great-aunt.  The other

Augusta who had run wild in the Bosphorous was not his grandmother,

nor Dru’s great-grandmother, though the sale of the inherited kelims

had paid for his music lessons and ‘extras’..

Dru could see the carrot of being Aunt Augusta’s sole legatee

vanishing as rapidly as the meze.

So, she slowly worked it out, Anthony Revelly, the toy boy tutor, had

an affair with the widowed Lady Wivern.  The Vickers machine gun accident

didn’t knock the balls off his potential coronet then.

Coronet?

Okay, I suppose it was Lord Wivern’s then.  Or was the title in her family?

I don’t know, Snod said wearily.  They clearly did not marry.  Mmm.. I

suppose Lionel and Peregrine were my half-brothers.  I may be entitled to

pre-fix ‘The Honourable’  to my name.

But the boys are both dead, aren’t they?  And they didn’t have any family?

Not as far as I know.  There’s nothing mentioned in the paperwork.  Oh,

really, it’s all too much.

You mentioned your name, Drusilla persisted.  But you may have been

given the Christian name ‘Augustus’ to help to recreate your identity.

She refused to use the PC term ‘forename’.  In that she was her father’s

daughter.

Yes, apparently Lady Wivern called me Arthur Parsifal.  Snod looked

abashed. I’ve never really liked Wagner.  Too narcissistic.

The Honourable Arthur Parsifal Revelly?  Dru choked on a chick pea.

Ah, like Kundry, you are the first to address me by the name my mother

gave me.

Kundry?

In the opera. ‘The wound, the wound, it burns within my heart’

Right.  Dru didn’t know what he was rambling on about. What was Lady

Wivern’s name?

Aurelia Tindall, according to all this bumf.  Of Coquetbrookdale.  Her ancestors

had owned a pele tower in the Borders.

Oh, I’ve always wanted to live in a pele tower, breathed Dru.  Murgatroyd, he

whose name must not be spoken, is renovating one up there, according to

mother.

Well, we won’t be inheriting a domesticated fortification either.  It was in ruins

and so it was unsaleable and couldn’t alleviate her insolvency or save Wyvern

Mote from being left to the nation.

So, Berenice dumped you after she received payment to take you on as her son?

She tried to foist you off on her mother and then her sister took charge of the

whole sorry mess.   All that in spite of having been paid a fair whack,

no doubt.

Enough to cost Aurelia Wyvern Mote; but enough to pave Berenice’s way to

decamping to the land of her hero, Simon Bolivar.

There’s a detail that you’re missing, Dru pointed out, quickly mopping up

some sauce with a torn corner of pita bread.

Only one? Gus sighed.

You are Arthur, King of Camelot.

So, in that case I must forgive Guenevere and Lancelot if life is to go on.

Guenevere?  Lancelot?

Anthony and Aurelia, I suppose, Snod nodded.  Oh, you’ve finished all the

chick peas.

Yes, I have you greedy old.. She checked any outward expression of her

inner turmoil. And Aunt Augusta?  Shall we still take her out?  she asked

instead.

Morgan le Fey!  But at least she didn’t plot against me, so we shouldn’t

punish her, though she’s no water sprite, that’s for sure. No, let the healing

begin!

And he tossed her the envelope and its contents.  Some of this applies to

you.

 

 

Hortus Conclusus

Tags

cellarium, Hortus conclusus, jargonelles, medlars, melon house, quatrefoil, Quincunx, topiary, toxophily

She barricaded her land with hurdles

after the yew tunnel was traumatised

by those encroaching nouveau riche neighbours

with their breeze blocks and concrete pool surround.

They didn’t appreciate her medlars

were medieval and her melon house

was the stairway to a cellarium.

Her quinces failed to impress them, or bless

them with rare quintessence of quietude.

Those meddlers called her eccentric, with her

quatrefoils and quirky quincunx planting.

Jibbering jackdaws in chimneys warned her

that someone was uprooting history;

that eight genus of lilac were being jinxed

and that her jargonelles were jeopardised.

Eight thousand snowdrop bulbs were under siege.

Her newly grafted damson came from roots

in an orchard she’d helped a parent plant

fifty years before.  Her jardinieres

nurtured joyous japonica bushes;

jeroboam-watered jonquils, jasmine,

but nothing was sacred to those next door.

In her tongue and groove conservatory,

she sat on the mouldering chaise longue

she had rescued from a suburban skip,

so wistful about her wisteria;

watchful of the adjacent “For Sale” sign.

Established yew can take a thousand years:

portions of it were folk her father knew.

But no one would abutt her butts again.

Toxophily was the sport for ladies

who set their sights and achieved a bull’s-eye

with every fleched missile they targetted.

“It’s strange thatch spontaneously combusts,”

the loss adjusters said in their report.

“My topiary skills are improving,”

she mused, as their pantechnicon arrived,

to cackles of derision from her cowls.

“Now I’ll think my green thoughts in a green shade,”

she sighed. “Pruning is so satisfying.”             

 

* hortus conclusus: a garden enclosed