The Lady Snottingham
I think I have a royal bloodline. I can't be sure but my instincts tell me it is so. While running in the woods
I sometimes imagine who my progenitor may have been...
I am the Duchess of Snottingham. I live in beautiful Snottingham Manor in rural Magillacutty Shire.
I am known by my closest friends as Snotter. All others use the honorific Lady Snottingham.
I live a life of privilege and bountitude, for which I am grateful. I owe much to my predecessors,
the late Duke of Bone and Monsignor Pembroke who have guided me and instilled within me
the rectitude of royalty along with an appreciation of the hoi polloi.
My faithful servant Mrs. Balderdash attends to all of my needs. She is efficient, discreet, and reptilian. I don't know what I would do without her. A joy to my life are my two pet hedgehogs, Pen and Quill. They roam Snottingham Manor as though they were Peruvian Pasos. They especially like to sit in front of the great fireplace and play pinochle.
My chef, Shri Akshat Chatterjee, enlivens my deciduous taste buds with the pinnacle of Indian cuisine, from Punjabi brisket to chicken Hariyali. He also makes a damn good burger. He is a modest little man, polite to a fault, and yet maestrolic in the kitchen.
My gardener, James Stubbs, is a burly, hirsute man seen only in hip boots and a floppy hat. His mostly nakedness has at times caused a stir when outsiders have wandered onto the grounds. He is a very private man who lives alone in a small cottage beyond the wildebeest trees. He keeps my hedge rows hedgey, my buckthorns thorned, and my willows willowy.
However, not all of my hired help has been so fortuitous. I recently had to let go my maid servant, Fiona Abercrombie, after it came to my attention that some of my finest linens, cutlery, and even a tapestry were missing. Only then did I realize Fiona's penchant for petty thievery. With great reluctance I have referred the matter to Constable Higgenbotham for legal persecution.
My best friend, Blanche Woodmore, provides me with her company, truffles, and the latest gossip in our shire. Though she is a commoner and is quite homely, she has a heart of gold and a penchant for profanity and ribald jokes that is most delightful. I fear, however, that she always will be a spinster since her face looks like a mandrill's buttocks and her thighs are very thick.
I have had many suitors over the years, but my loins remain unstirred. Of late there is Sir Edwin Hogg. He is a diligent inamorato, and he is quite rich, but he is much older than me and, well, he is a hog. I must admit, however, that I enjoy our afternoon tete-a-tetes since he is my intellectual equal and is abreast of the latest news and literary chicanery.
There also is the Duke of Earl. He has persistently pursued an intimate liaison with me for quite some time, but while I have enjoyed his red suspenders and gifts of chocolate, I have never allowed our relationship to consummate. He is too much of a dandy for me. I call him Duke Duke, which he likes immensely. We continue to enjoy a rousing game of ping pong on Saturdays followed by jovial conversation over a black burgundy and sardines.
There once was someone, however, who twinkled my eye. Lord Aleister Farington he was. But alas he was killed during the Zulu War when a spear pierced his aortic collar while he was defending Rorke's Drift. No one else could make me feel so alive and thrombiotic. His knack for peachiness and joviality lifted my spirits even on the darkest winter day. He will always have a special place in my heart.
In my present circumstance I tend to my mandrake garden, infest the manor with melodious sounds from my dulcimer, foment my estate, and entertain prodigious literary lions and other notables. I am limousine black and ultra sheik. I aspire to literary greatness, but my sharptitude with the pen is limited. Thus I unashamedly cut and paste from other authors works in the hope that the miscellany I create will have some literary significance. So far all of my 438 manuscripts have been rejected by publishers.
While my life as a Duchess is tremendously rewarding, I sense something is missing. I think some greater mission awaits me. I do not aspire to become immensely well known or powerful, but rather to be known as someone who has a profound influence on our world. Someone who is in the vanguard of cultural awakening. How to accomplish this thus far has eluded me.
Perhaps I am not meant to achieve greatness. Perhaps my onspring will inherit my refined taste, intellectual acumen, and love of literature and succeed where I have failed. I can only imagine who she will be and what greatness she will achieve.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
~ Maya Angelou