Julia Billera's Modern Myth: VJCL Best-In-Show Winner
Whiston, Merseyside 1840
“Ma’am!” screeched the cook, hurtling into the morning room.
“What is it, Hannah?” asked Mrs. Linton, looking up from her letter-desk.
“’Ere’s proper folk moving in at Lancaster ’Ouse again! Lord and Lady Oswald, the greengrocer says, Earl and Countess!”
“Ah,” replied Mrs. Linton, returning to her epistolary pursuits. Hannah was rather given
to such fits of enthusiasm about the “proper folk” in their village. She had been entirely distraught when the previous viscount had moved out and sold the estate last year. Mr. and Mrs. Linton, while not poor, were not exactly of the caliber of household that qualified one to attend or receive the inhabitants of Lancaster House, no matter who they should be. They had had very little contact with the Viscount (except perhaps if he sent down cuts of veal to all the neighborhood at Christmas) and could expect to have about as much with the Earl and Countess.
“Ma’am!” Hannah had apparently not reached the end of her paroxysm.
“Yes, Hannah?”
“They’re making a tour of the village! Arrived down south by the turnpike, taking their ’ack all through the neighborhood to arrive at the ’Ouse before tea! Outfitted very fine, Johnny says. ’Is wife says the Lady is quite becoming, wiv a blue carriage-dress and...”
Mrs. Linton did not need to hear the end of Hannah’s tirade to realize the situation: all the wives in the neighborhood had stood out to greet the arriving nobility, “my Lady”-ing left and right, complimenting the Earl’s chaise, assuring them that Lancaster would please them very well, and without doubt extending endless invitations to dinner. Mrs. Linton’s own house was on the far northern end of the town’s main thoroughfare, just a quarter of a mile from the wide gates of Lancaster House, and she would now be expected to primp and fawn in kind.
VJCL SPRING FORUM PAGE 15
continued on following page