Chapter One – The First of Many Balls. Turn Four.Catch up to yonder humanoid and divulge mine apologies and open my mind to his mellow heart.
"Mr Arbury! Mr Arbury!" called the little dainty ladypigeon Miss Thain, amidst the assembled gentlefolk and pigeons. She clearly had not entirely thought this shocking impertinence through, but a ladypigeon’s body is small, and her blood does not have a great voyage to make to complete a thoroughly engiddying rush to the head.
"Wait! Please wait!"…Mr Arbury did wait. He waited until he had reached the edge of the ballroom and the distracting cover of a particularly ornate chair – one of many in Miss Villar’s renowned ornate chair collection – and then he turned. He did not look terribly pleased to see the young ladypigeon rush at him so with so many to witness what could be a most ungratifying scene, pretty as she was.
”I say, Miss Thain,” he said.
”This is most irregular.”His expression softened, as if Miss Alessa’s naivety had begotten the faint beginnings of fondness in his heart, but his words made clear to the poor girl, and to several people nearby, that her actions were, indeed, most irregular.
Oh, bother! cursed Miss Alessa to herself, with a gentle sigh, before realising the vulgarity of her inaudible words and blushing with shame.
Must one express oneself with only eyebrows and chins in this awful human world? How can this race possibly persist?Her thoughts drifted off into confusion and scarlet blushing as she stood by the chair. She noticed that it was rather ornate, and moderately agreeable to the eye, but to her heart it was but ashes.
Charlotte, pleased with her dance, quickly longs for another one and examines the room for any suitable and available dancing partner.
Gazing ardently about the ballroom, with the warmth of her previous dance heating the large pit of cockles in the depths of her heart, Miss Charlotte Fantail sought out another suitor to smite with her not inconsiderable beauty. Examining the room with as much handsomeness as she could muster, her eyes soon met those of Mr Arcy, who seemed to be looking for a fanciful pleasure to distract him from the recent crushing disappointment of dancing with Lady Rosanne Meyerschmidt-Cripeton.
He looked upon Miss Charlotte; she looked upon Mr Arcy.
He felt a deep stirring at her immense beauty; she felt the beginnings of romance blossom in the seat of her tiny intellect. She blushed as he strode manfully and purposefully through the crowd of dancing richfolk, scattering them about and knocking them aside like a herd of stampeding wildebeest through a well-ordered field of English corn, although this image did not come to the young ladypigeon, for she was ignorant to the ways of wildebeest, and even to their existence.
…He shouldered through the melee, and bowed before Miss Charlotte, who began to breathe heavily with extreme emotion, accentuating the rather restricting effect of her pigeoncorset.
”I say, Miss Fantail,” he said.
”I… Would you do me the honour of a dance?”Mr Arcy likes you slightly more!Miss Villar likes you slightly less!Miss Feckerby likes you slightly less!Miss Arcy likes you slightly less!imploringly batting her beautiful ladypigeon eyes
"Oh, Miss Villar, I do hope you will forgive me for taking it upon myself to discipline your serving men. It was most rude of me to rob you of the privilege of beating the commoner yourself."”Lady Katherine,” replied Miss Villar,
”Fret not. I shall give the commoner the honour of an extra beating myself. Please, should another of these fiends disgrace me by misplacing a canapé, do not restrain yourself a second time: beat him within an inch of his life without a second thought.”"Oh, Miss Villar, you are so delightfully understanding," cooed Lady Montagu. The well-bred ladypigeon then turned to the gentleman admiring her form and verve and fish-wielding technique.
"And I do hope you will forgive me as well, Mr. Pinkerton-Smythe, for it was certainly rude of me to further interrupt our lovely dance; it is just that my passions sometimes run wild, especially when provoked by presumptuous peasants such as that poor fellow. Oh, do say you'll forgive me?"…”I say, Lady Montagu,” he said.
”I… I say. One can only dream of witnessing such a fine peasant-beating; it must be decidedly wondrous to perform one oneself. If you would accept, I would gladly dance with you a second time, although if you find my request most presuming then I would, of course, understand.”Mr Pinkerton-Smythe likes you slightly more!Miss Villar likes you slightly more!Find a few other ladypigeons. Engage in smearing Mr. Arcy's reputation, and clean my beautiful wings.
It was, in most of the gathered ballgoers’ estimation, at approximately this time that a loud screeching commotion broke out in the centre of the ballroom. Miss Fantail was rather thoroughly occupied in breathing quite heavily and heaving in the direction of Mr Arcy, who was gazing upon her resplendent beauty with wonder and joy and several quivering hairs when suddenly Lady Rosanne Meyerschmidt-Cripeton tiptoed up behind the young ladypigeon, and loudly proclaimed in her ear that Mr Arcy, if Miss Fantail should ever have the displeasure of meeting him, was a villainous cad: it was true indeed that he possessed a considerable estate in the north of the country and a wealth statistic of over three a year, but it was equally true that the weasel consorted with farm animals in the night, and was fond of going outside – to perform who knows what manner of repulsive and probably blasphemous actions, all of which would be bound to pervert a young ladypigeon’s innocence merely by being in the same room as the wretched creature that carried them out; and Lady Rosanne Meyerschmidt-Cripeton began to screech and cry with increasing vigor, entirely ignorant of, or ignoring, the victim of her slander’s being right beside her, looking on with ever-reddening face, and ever more burning anger expressing itself in a mild - no! a moderate - shuffling of his left foot.
She continued to describe the hideous-faced gentleman to Miss Fantail, accusing him of violent onanism, and other such biblical sins; of disliking tea and even of liking the French:
…at this, finally, he could take no more, and Mr Arcy struck Lady Rosanne Meyerschmidt-Cripeton a cruel blow to the chin, sending her flying backwards at great speed, whereupon she crashed into Miss Feckerby, more than slightly crushing one of the folds of her gown.
Realising what he had just done, yet still enraged to the point of incoherence, he stormed towards the exit of the room. He turned, and denounced his now sworn enemy vehemently.
”I say,” he said.
”I… I…”So saying, Mr Arcy walked out of Miss Villar’s summer mansion and into the nearby wood, and shot himself.
Miss Arcy likes you less!Mr Pinkerton-Smyth likes pigeons slightly less!Mr Arbury likes pigeons slightly less!Miss Arcy likes pigeons slightly less!Miss Villar likes pigeons slightly less!One more turn of this Ball left!
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Topic: Pigeons & Prejudice: Definitely deceased. (Read 23372 times)