The Curious Tale of Lady Priscilla - A Blackwood Article

This is a Blackwood article, as defined by Edgar Allan Poe in his satirical stories 'How to Write a Blackwood Article' and 'A Predicament'. It follows three strict and silly rules arrived at by Poe.

1. If you mean 'bread and butter', do not by any means say it outright. You may say anything and everything leading up to and around it. But, if 'bread and butter' be your real meaning, be cautious, and never say it.
2. Every article must include a misquoted French, Latin or Greek saying, such as the use of 'cul - de - sac' in the article 'The Spanish Fly who Never Stopped Dancing': "I put down my good dancing ability, due to being born with a certain cul-de-sac...."
3. The article must be, objectively and positively, absolute nonsense!

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Last week, a most odd event occurred and one which has led to my current poor health and precarious state of mind. I only have Lord Slaversham to blame. If it were not for him, I would be going about my daily business without any to-do at all.

It all started when he summoned me to his opulent residence last Thursday. I have had dealings on and off with this most aristocratic of scoundrels for the past decade so it was no surprise to me to receive his memo, jotted elegantly on a piece of 11th century parchment (for he used nothing else) requesting that I attend him at home as a matter of urgency. So accordingly and in good spirits, I trotted off to Milford House. What followed is highly confidential but as I am now beyond all help and redemption, I care not who knows. Hey, crème brûlée.

You must know something before I continue with my tale. I am a purloiner of items, an upper-crust bandit, no less. I think of myself as an artiste in this field and until the mission which Lord Slaversham bade me do, I was deliciously incorrigible, astonishingly elusive and fiendishly conniving. Lord Slaversham on the other hand was a nebbish, a numskull and overly avaricious but he paid me well and I was only too happy to help the pompous prat out to both our advantages.

What was said at that most significant of meetings, I shall not repeat again. What ensued three days later is all I wish to tell. So it was on Saturday night that I snuck my way to the extravagant abode of one Admiral Binchy-Fordingham. A long-time enemy of Lord Slaversham, this man had, in his time, led troops to formidable victories but equally headed them into treacherous waters from which few returned. In his retirement, he had invested heavily in beauty in many forms and his assets were widely know as he was oft found in the King's College Gentlemen's Club boasting about which objet he had acquired recently, be it an exquisitely carved armchair from China, an original manuscript for some iconic piece of classical music or, as had been his passion of late, busty young blondes from Scandinavia.

None of it was fictitious either, I can report back. As I eased my way sans effort through his pantry window and then tiptoed my way through the ground floor, I encountered a gallimaufry of exquisite pieces that bedazzled me with their finery and magnificence and, more appealingly, their evident value, including a young lady called Olga, who I discovered lying most seductively asleep upon a chaise-longue in the parlour. Resisting the urge to pocket a gold Fabergé egg that crowned the bottom of the bannister, I went henceforth to the study where my prize awaited me.

As I passed through the doorway arch, an enormous gasp escaped me. There she was, in all her glorious splendour, beaming down at me, the one and only Lady Priscilla Windsor. She was the most notable of the Queen's distant cousins, the most raucous and, dare I say it, the most 'trendy' for indeed, in the style of the modern youth, she bore a gold front tooth inset with a ginormous pink diamond. With some difficulty, I managed to hoist her down on to the deep-pile shag carpet upon which I stood. I do not mean to offend her here, but hoist is the only appropriate word in my vernacular as she was a somewhat large lady. As I held her at arms' length, admiring her formidable shape and sensuous curves and, of course, the priceless gem in her mouth, I was startled to see her open her heavily made-up eyes and gaze right back at me unblinkingly. Oh, it was a surprise and quite unnerving to say the least.

And what did the bold flibbertigibbet do next? Why, dear sirs, she only stretched out her plump but manicured hands and grabbed me by my green, velveteen lapels. With astonishing dexterity (which to this day, I still cannot believe), she hauled my dumbfounded self on to the couch where she sat, then slapped me. Yes, slapped, I say! And not just once but thrice; my poor left cheek came off worse, which was truly disastrous for it had always been my better side. Now I not only feared for my life which was currently in the hands of this crazed harlot, but also for my looks and my future prospects with the opposite sex. Oh woe, was me.

I sat there, shaking in outrage and apprehension for some moments before I realised that Lady Priscilla was now actually smiling at me, in what she must have thought was a seductive manner although was actually more of a gurn. Such confusion! She sat there primly by my side with the most beseeching of looks upon her face as I contemplated how to handle this rather odd situation. Then suddenly, without warning or announcement, I felt her shuffle up closer to me and before I knew what was happening, she had pushed me on to my back, clambered on top of me and then begun to ravish me in the most disconcerting, yet oddly arousing, way.

What transpired in the next few minutes, I can only hazard a guess at. All I know is that this femme fatale occupied herself busily and with utter gusto with my poor but compliant body: she mauled me, savaged me and devoured me. The strange squeaky noises that emanated from her petite mouth gave me some indication that perhaps she had been longing for male company for some time. As for me, well, afterwards I felt quite giddy but disturbingly content. I was all for a bit of post-coital spooning but unfortunately Lady P ended proceedings quite abruptly. She unceremoniously flung me from whence I came. As I stood once more on the deep-pile shag, gazing at her divine form and now-closed almond eyes, I felt like a chicken carcass discarded by Henry VIII after he has taken his fill. With my trousers around my ankles and looking atrociously dishevelled, I fell asleep on the shag, not caring one jot about my mission for Lord Slaversham.

And like thus it was, in this state of dishabille, that the portly housekeeper, Mrs Tanner, found me; legs akimbo, clothes awry. Later at the police station, I could not explain the course of events. How could I? They would have sounded simply quite ridiculous! Lord Slaversham never did get his hands on the Lady Priscilla Windsor but I was certainly glad I had. She had been a treasure in more ways than one!