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Page 9 of this wiki is dedicated to the canal's fabulous literary works of Christmas 2022.

Grift and Griftability

A teatime period drama by @hooplifehero, inspired by an idea from @Valiofthedolls, title by @FourSeasonSoupObsessive

Chapter 1

As Christmas-time approached, there was much discussion in Highbury of the new arrival, Miss Monroe. She had struggled through unfortunate times, it was said, and then almost married felicitously once, was disappointed at the altar, and then through the most unlucky happenstance that had ever befallen woman, had been disappointed at the altar not once but twice more. Having sagely pawned her engagement-rings, Miss Monroe had found herself among the richest in Surry, and then, through what Emma could only consider the most unkind fortune, had come to lose every penny.

Miss Monroe was, in short, a mystery - it was rumoured she had once extinguished a blazing fire single-handed, that her father was a wealthy landlord, that her brother was in the Grenadier Guards and that she herself, disguised as a boy, had fought bravely against Napoleon's forces - that she could cook a banquet for Ninepence, that she could lift Queen Victoria herself a full inch from the ground.

Emma, who had tasted Miss Monroe's baked wares at one memorable breakfast and decided not to repeat the experience, decided to reserve her judgement. In person, she found Miss Monroe a rather swaggering and vulgar figure, given to addressing those she had barely met as if they were friends, or even - unforgivably- as 'shipmates'.

'I'll sort it, Pal', she had declared to Mr Woodhouse, when he complained that he was worried the festive Goose would be cold before it reached the table, for it had to travel through the winter air from kitchen to Dining-Room, and 'it is so far, you know, Emma.'

'I think Mr Woodhouse will manage,' Emma told the newcomer politely. 'We shall have Cook and half-a-dozen servants.'

'Servants!' responded Miss Monroe, standing with her legs apart like a buccaneer. Emma could not fail to note - indeed, a blind dog would have observed - that the new arrival's garments were of the most curious design and in apparent disarray, patched from rough material and dull cotton, hanging loosely in places and ending abruptly in others. 'You won't be needing them with me around. I'm...' And she paused here to count on her hands. 'Cook, waitress, milkmaid, carpenter, painter, fighter, Mama and Papa.'

'Goodness,' was all that Emma could exclaim in reply. 'You must be extremely busy.' She took the opportunity to sip at her tea as she gathered her thoughts and composure. 'And what is it that you do, Miss Monroe?'

'What I do, ship-mate? I run a small shop, some might say. Other might call me Saviour of the Nation. I sew passing well, and I can fix a brass thimble or polish a kettle. If you want a dress run up for next week's ball, I'm your local non-binary lesbian single parent.'

'Remarkable.' Emma was not certain she had understood every word of the newcomer's explanation.

'It takes its toll, mate. It takes its toll.' And indeed, Miss Monroe's head was swinging from side to side rather like a tolling bell. 'Me crazy old head has been so mixed up cause of all those who wants to harm and hurt old Jack.'

'Oh dear,' Emma declared. 'I think Miss Monroe is unwell.'

Knightley stepped forward and commanded that the newcomer be conveyed back to her dwellings, with smelling-salts and many blankets for comfort, and that a long trip to the sea-side or the spa at Bath might be planned for her, far from Highbury.

'If you could just spare the cost of a warming cup on a cold night,' wailed Miss Monroe, her hand extended.

Mr Knightley pushed a coin roughly into it and ushered her from the room. 'There, and be off with you.'

'Thankyou,' Emma heard, a faint cry like a Banshee of the moors, as the door was slammed and firmly locked. 'Thankyou.'

Chapter 2

Miss Monroe's intimacy at Highbury was soon a settled thing, as the newcomer wedged herself into the familiar society of the village. 'She is always the first to arrive at a ball, and yet the last to leave!' lamented Mr Woodhouse, 'and yet she suffers so with the gout, with indigestion, with every ill humour known to Man, and she will not go to Mr Perry for she claims she knows better than any doctor. I do worry for her, Emma,' fretted her kind-hearted father.

'I am sure Miss Monroe knows best, that is to be sure,' was Emma's considered reply.

'Do you know, Emma, she hit her head on a bathroom-tap, and fell so heavily that she was concussed for a full twelve hours?'

'I did hear her recount that story,' Emma replied merrily. 'And yet she was at our home for Sunday dinner not two hours after her fall, so the damage cannot have been so great.' She did not add that the bandage Miss Monroe wore on her forehead, stained a striking crimson that attracted the sympathy of every other guest, had the distinct fragrance of strawberry jam.

Yes, Miss Monroe was now very much a part of Highbury company, Emma reflected with a ghost of a sigh -- and yet she was nevertheless surprized to see the new neighbour as she set off, one clear and fresh morning in the New-Year, to dispense charity among the poorer families of the district.

'Miss Monroe,' she declared, curtseying. Miss Monroe raised a hand with a gesture rather like a farmer hailing a carriage.

'Hi, Emma,' she cried.

Emma froze and for a few moments wondered genuinely whether one of the local tradesmen's daughters had appeared behind her, and had the fortune of sharing that name. But Miss Monroe was staring directly at her, and seemed to be addressing her. A ragged mother and daughter were in full earshot. Really, this was intolerable. But what could Emma do except bear the insult with grace?

'Indeed, it is I, Miss Woodhouse,' she corrected gently but clearly, so that the poor villagers would hear, and not be led astray. 'And I see you are kindly donating...' She trailed off, eyeing what looked like the kind of barrel found behind an inn, or perhaps in a stables, which appeared to be full of bubbling mud.

'Warming chick-pea and daffodil stew,' Miss Monroe smiled gaily, dipping a rusty spoon into the mixture and ladling it into the cupped hands of the poor mother, who tried to raise the liquid to her lips, but found much of it dripping onto her dull and tattered clothes, and looked relieved that there was far less of it remaining to eat. 'Cost, only a ha'penny, and ten hours of my time, but it's served with Love, and eaten with Smiles and Warmth.'

'Is she not remarkable?' declared a man's voice from inside the dwelling, and Mr Elton emerged, his face wreathed in smiles. Emma curtseyed and agreed that Miss Monroe was indeed remarkable, although perhaps not quite in the way that Mr Elton had intended. Indeed, she was dressed in a ragged costume herself, as if performing as a beggar in a theatrical play - her hands dirty, with soil streaked under her cheek-bones and sailor's trousers under a thick tunic; and yet the scarf that covered her shiny dark hair was of a fine material, and strikingly familiar.

'I do so admire your... scarf,' Emma managed, as Miss Monroe spooned the lumpy gruel directly into the mouth of the unfortunate pauper girl before her. 'Indeed, I believe Miss Jane Fairfax has one very similar.' If not the same, she added to herself, for the pattern was identical.

'Found it in a muddy puddle!' Miss Monroe exclaimed. 'I am poor myself, ship-mate, but I gives what I can to those with less.'

'She does so much,' Mr Elton beamed, taking a bag of jangling coins from his own vestment and tucking it into Miss Monroe's ample pocket. 'You must, Miss Monroe. You must take it. I'll brook no refusal.'

Emma noted no attempt at refusal, as Miss Monroe shook the bag deftly and dropped it into her garment, where it seemed to clatter as though she was already laden with similar treasures.

'Such a rare creature,' Mr Elton confided as Miss Monroe strode past them.

'Most rare,' Emma was able to agree.

'Miss Woodhouse.' Mr Elton took her arm, and Emma gave a start. 'I know that you have quite the talent at drawing. I have seen your portraits at the home of Mrs Weston.'

'You are too kind,' murmured Emma, 'for I have enthusiasm, and too little talent.'

'No, to the contrary,' Mr Elton enthused. 'You capture beauty to the life. And it is for that reason, I beseech you, Miss Woodhouse... would you draw the divine Miss Monroe, to preserve her likeness?'

Close on EMMA's startled expression, then BLACK
THEME MUSIC!

Chapter 3 Part 1

Emma Woodhouse was not much deceived as to her own skills either as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved; and as such, she had perhaps more in common with Miss Monroe than she supposed or would have liked, for Miss Monroe, too, was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know that her reputation for accomplishment was higher than it deserved. And yet there the similarities ended, for while Emma prided herself only on her musicianship and drawing, Miss Monroe’s supposed talents included not just art and song, but writing, cooking, the ways of Love, Motherhood (it was said, certainly, that she had a child, yet nobody had seen him in Highbury), Charity-Work, and indeed some talents that had not yet been invented, such as Photography and Political Activism.

‘I’m very shy,’ she confessed to Emma, as the latter prepared her canvas and paints. ‘But I’m trying to do things that make me brave.’

‘That is a virtue,’ Emma kindly assured her, for she had decided to take Miss Monroe under her wing as a hobby, and a virtuous project of improvement. It was rumoured that Miss Monroe was the daughter of a gentleman and wealthy land-owner, and surely, with the deft hand of a caring friend, this ragged weed could flourish into a bloom worthy of the nicest society, one who reflected not only upon herself, but on the guidance of her mentor – that is, of course, Emma. Emma had, in fact, recently turned down the opportunity to offer her company to another local girl, Miss Harriet Smith, feeling that Miss Monroe was the more deserving.

‘Indeed,’ she went on softly, ‘I heard Mr Elton declare that modesty was the most womanly of the virt- Oh!’

She raised her hand to her mouth as Miss Monroe rose from the sofa wearing very little more than undergarments, and of a most peculiar kind; a sagging grey vest of the kind that Emma’s dear grandfather used to wear, and the briefest of black short trousers, and her arms decorated with inky sigils like a jolly jack tar who had spent decades in Her Majesty’s Navy.

‘Yes, Pal, they’re called birthmarks and I’ve had ‘em all me life,’ Miss Monroe sneered.

‘Your...those designs upon your arms have been there since birth?’

The other relaxed. ‘No, shipmate! Each of these tells a story of Life, Love and Struggle. I meant the marks upon me legs.’

‘Forgive me, I cannot see...’ Emma glanced, and for the life of her could make out no disfigurement to Miss Monroe’s limbs, though she could see a great deal of those limbs, and rather more than she ever hoped to have seen. Indeed, she had also seen far of Miss Monroe’s chest in the last minute than she had of her own sister during the hours of quiet conversation while Isabella was feeding her infant babies in the way that Nature intended.

‘I’ll hop up on here,’ suggested Miss Monroe, hoisting herself with difficulty onto an oak table. ‘Though it’s a trial for me, you know. Arthritis, brittle bones and holes in me teeth.’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ ventured Emma, though she failed to understand how teeth, with holes or without, could hamper Miss Monroe’s attempts to mount a table. ‘You need not pose in quite such a... well, such an awkward way, if it is painful for you.’

‘I’ve been an artist’s model for the last fifteen years,’ the other assured her blithely. ‘If I was good enough for William Blake to call me his muse, I’m good enough for you, I daresay.’

And so Emma began to sketch, trying to ignore Miss Monroe’s grimace, rather like a Sabre-Toothed Tiger trying to smile, and her arms and legs stretched into what looked very uncomfortable positions, as if she was being tortured on an invisible rack.

‘Something’s simmering!’ a voice warmly declared from behind her, and Emma looked away from her canvas with undisguised relief. She had never expected to be so pleased to see Mr Elton.

‘It certainly is, Lover!’ called Miss Monroe, arching her neck and pointing her toe like a child just starting to clumsily learn the steps of ballet.

‘I think Mr Elton means this soup,’ Emma said gently, for the newcomer had arrived bearing a steaming tureen, which he now set down heavily, with a great clatter, as he covered his eyes against the view of Miss Monroe in her undergarments.

‘Forgive me, ladies,’ he muttered, and Emma saw him cast his eyes upwards, too, with a whispered ‘forgive me’ to someone Higher, as if that Power could rob him of all memory of the sight he had just witnessed. Again, Emma had never considered Mr Elton especially aimable or easy to like, but at this moment, she sensed a bond with him as if he was her brother in misfortune.

‘Mr Elton, I quite understand,’ she said feelingly. ‘Perhaps you should be the first to avail yourself of the broth, for Sir, you look quite pale.’

‘Indeed.’ Mr Elton wiped his brow and cleared his throat. ‘Indeed. Lord, in all thy might and majesty, let me ne’er gaze on the likes of that again.’

Emma busied herself at the tureen. ‘I think it is potato, carrot and turmeric,’ she announced. ‘With cream and peppercorns.’

‘Oh, I used to live on that,’ Miss Monroe shouted from across the room as she dressed in a loose grey tunic that bore a unique pattern of stains almost as if it had enjoyed its own share of soup itself, and on many occasions. ‘I made gallons of it. Gave it to two dozen friends, and they came back knocking for more. I served it to Queen Anne on her coronation’ (Emma was quite sure that Queen Anne had died long before either of them were born, but she thought it best not to contradict). ‘Sick of it now though, and I doubt your cook’s version is a patch on my own. Any raw onions and gravel in there?’

Emma stirred the broth and guessed that there wasnot.

‘Raw onions and gravel is how they make it in France. I won’t eat it without raw onions and gravel. Or crab-apple and sand, at a pinch, if you don’t have the onion and gravel in stock. Much the same flavour and texture, at a third of the price.’

‘I am sorry... that is, I am very glad to hear it,’ replied Emma, her attention distracted. ‘Mr Elton, I must insist that you see Mr Perry. You seem quite overcome.’

‘I think I shall,’ gasped the good gentleman, staggering from the room, with a final mutter of ‘All saints preserve us.’

Chapter 3 Part 2

‘Well!’ Emma gathered herself and surveyed the canvas. She had altered Miss Monroe’s lips a little, and made slight improvements to her eyes, and to her hair, and redesigned the tattoos upon her arms, and removed some of the dirt on her feet, and dressed her in more appropriate clothing, and while it did not look so much like Miss Monroe now, it was undeniably a pretty drawing, worthy of display above any mantlepiece.

‘You have made me too tall!’ the painting’s subject complained, appearing suddenly at Emma’s shoulder. ‘I am barely four-feet-tall, and you draw me as a giant.’

‘I... I think not, dear. For I am five-feet-three, and you are surely taller than me.’

The other ignored her, and leaned forward to the canvas, rubbing the surface with her fingertips to blur and soften the pencil drawing, until all details were lost and it looked as though it was being viewed through a smeared pair of eye-glasses.

‘That’s more like me,’ she declared, standing back.

‘I am sure Mr Elton will love it, when he has regained his health.’ Although even as she spoke, Emma wondered at the wisdom of pairing Mr Elton with Miss Monroe. He had seemed to her a foolish, harmless individual, an ideal pawn for her idle games of match-making, but now for the first time she hesitated and wondered if her schemes were folly; worse, if they were cruelty. To place Miss Monroe into matrimony with Mr Elton would be like throwing a mouse to a cheetah and instructing them to play together as friends.

‘Elton? I care not for his opinion,’ scorned Miss Monroe. ‘His view is as trifling to me as a troll under a bridge.’ And from one of the pockets of her waistcoat she produced a miniature trumpet, blowing a fanfare. ‘Toot toot!’

‘Then why... why were you so keen to have your portrait painted at his insistence?’ Emma asked, genuinely at a loss for once in her life.

‘I was keen to have my portrait painted by You, Emma. It is You I care for, You I admire, You whose ample charms I wish to cup in these hands of toil. Order me a bonnet, buy me a ring and invite Mr Elton to announce the banns, for I am in love and see Marriage on the near horizon! Am I right in thinking your father has an income of over ten thousand pounds per year, by the way?’

‘Miss Monroe!’ exclaimed Emma. ‘Of course, in time I was prepared to love you as a Sister, and welcome such intimacy as I have enjoyed with Mrs Weston when she was dear Miss Taylor, but the improprieties you speak of are unconscionable at present and will only become socially acceptable in one hundred-and-fifty years time, or more. Were I to live until such a brave new era arrived, I would count myself as an ally of such women – why, I could even... if the law and society allowed it, I could perhaps contemplate...’ – and here she thought of Miss Jane Fairfax with such warm regard that her cheeks flushed – ‘but no, Miss Monroe. Such a union between us is quite impossible.’

Miss Monroe drew herself to her full height, which Emma was secretly pleased to note was far taller than four feet. ‘Fie and shame upon you for a hypocrite,’ said she. ‘You are no more an ally to my kind than the Holy Roman Empire is an ally to France. I know where you live – ‘

‘That surprises me not,’ Emma responded pertly, ‘For you have spent the last fortnight in my father’s house, sleeping in every spare bed, and by daytime emptying his larder and cellars.’

‘That is my Work!’ cried the other. ‘That is what I do. The D_vil take me if I ever give up on my war against privileged society – ‘

‘You wage your War by consuming the ham and salmon, the veal and chickens, of a man who has been nothing but good to you?’

‘D__n you and your household, for I consume nothing but vegetables,’ declared the proud Miss Monroe. ‘

‘Because you have left us nothing in the kitchen but vegetables,’ Emma protested, gathering herself. ‘You have outstayed your welcome here, Miss Monroe. I must request that you leave us.’

‘Aye, you’d love that, Emma. To see me crawl in the gutter and walk in front of a carriage, leaving a small boy as an Orphan.’ (Emma had seen no evidence of a small boy during Miss Monroe’s extended residence in Highbury, and sometimes wonder whether this mythical infant even existed).

‘But why should you be reduced to the gutter? You have a large house yourself, I have heard, in Hertfordshire.’

‘A mere hovel!’

‘A hovel, I have heard, with a dozen rooms and twenty servants.’

‘Scurrilous lies! Who told you such falsehoods?’

Emma blushed a little at this, for she had overheard the maid, Molly, whispering it in the scullery, and did not like to admit that she took any account of tattle from the working classes, especially if, as she suspected, Molly was repeating it second-hand from other sources to claim her own glory.

‘I thought as much. Don’t worry, Pal, I’ll trouble you no more. And I’ll trouble Life no more, neither!’

With those words, she was gone, and Emma experienced a wave of absolute relief, combined with a pang of concern. ‘Where will you go?’ she called.

‘To H_ll, I expect!’ came the bold reply.

Emma could not allow even such a miserable creature to venture out aimlessly and alone.

‘Miss Monroe,’ she called after the departing figure. ‘My friend Miss Bennet lives on the Longbourn Estate in Hertfordshire. If you are in that area, call on her and mention my name, and she will help you, I am sure.’

‘Thankyou...’ replied a mournful hoot, like a lost owl.

But as she watched Miss Monroe stride away -- with no visible sign of arthritis or brittle bones, Emma was pleased to note – she wondered if she had just cursed poor Miss Elizabeth Bennet and her family.

Chapter 4 Part 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a grifter denied the continued opportunity to make a good living for very little work in one place, will swiftly relocate to another, and so it was that good Mrs Bennet of Longbourne House, near Meryton in Hertford-shire, announced with great excitement to her husband and their four daughters that they were to have a new neighbour.

‘If you mean Mr Bingley, dear, I am sure we have heard quite enough of him over the past se’ennight. Indeed, I feel I have heard his name more often than my own.’

‘No, Mr Bennet, not that gentleman at all,’ declared his wife with the pride that would become a running theme in this tale, were it only to continue beyond the length of a single chapter.

‘Well, Netherfield Park has been taken by Bingley, so how in the heavens can anyone else have recently moved to the area?’

‘Not Netherfield Park, sir, but Sloppington House. And it has been taken by a fine young man of uncertain age – at least, I think it is a man.’

‘A curious personage! Uncertain age and also uncertain Sex!’ mused Mr Bennet, using the word in the manner of his time to mean ‘gender’.

‘Weeelll…that is to say, Mrs Long swears that she saw a handsome gentleman, wearing trousers, a coat and cravat, and yet-’

‘And yet Charlotte Lucas assured me she saw a lady in the most striking scarlet dress,’ smiled Elizabeth.

‘Might one solve this mystery by supposing that the new inhabitant is a lady who occasionally wears trousers?’ Mr Bennet ventured.

‘Oh, sir!’ cried his wife. ‘A lady in trousers? Really, must you fill the girls’ heads with such stuff and nonsense?’

‘I fear their heads are already quite full with such stuff,’ observed Mr Bennet, rising wearily, ‘except for my dear Lizzy, who is comparatively bright for a female, though that is saying no more than that a dog is relatively alert for its species. Now, who would be knocking at the door and disturbing a man’s peace at this time of the evening?’

‘Ahoy!’ came a bold cry from the front step, and without warning, a stranger stepped into the cosy living-room, bringing a blast of frost and a flurry of snow, and carrying a large sheet of paper that flapped like a sail in full winds.

‘My dear Sir-‘ Mrs Bennet began, and then quickly corrected herself as the newcomer removed a heavy coat, and a womanly figure, quite as fulsome in its contours as the figurehead on a clipper ship, was clearly revealed. ‘I mean to say – forgive me – Madam!’

‘I get that a lot,’ replied the stranger with an alluring smile. ‘Let’s just say that my unique style of fashion plays with people’s heads!’ And she broke into a thin shanty: ‘Where’er I be and where’er I’ll go… I’ll tell ye my name is Mx Jack Monroe.’ This last was punctuated with a hearty stamp to the floor like a Pantomime Boy, which rattled the vases Mrs Bennet’s mantlepiece and the glasses in her cabinets.

‘Ahoy, it’s me… Jack Monroe, Fire-lighter, Fire-fighter, the Nation’s Schoolmarm, Warrior, Enemy of the State, Former Slave and Secret Lover of Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, may she rest in peace. I’m most peculiar shy, and trying to do things that make me brave, so I’m glad none of you have been cruel about me little song.’

Lydia was driven to giggles at the bold declaration, which set Kitty to laughter that in turn became a paroxysm of coughing.

‘Kitty, you will drive me to distraction,’ complained her father.

‘It is the snow,’ protested poor Kitty, for indeed, Miss Monroe seemed to carry with her a blizzard. Mrs Bennett hastily brushed the visitor down, wiping crystals and flakes from her shoulders and hair.

‘You have some on your face, dear,’ she said kindly. ‘There, under your nose.’

‘Oh, that’s not snow,’ remarked Miss Monroe. ‘Salt, spices and sugar, I’ll warrant. For I’m a famous Cook, too.’

Kitty caught Lydia’s eye and again fell into a spasm of coughing.

‘Coughs?’ Miss Monroe cocked her head contemptuously. ‘Oh, I’ve had ‘em. I’ve had coughs that rocked the foundations, rattled the walls and brought a dozen of my finest Geologist friends to my house, fearing an Earthquake.’

‘Have you tried- ’ Mrs Bennet timidly began.

‘Tried it, done it, used it. I’ve had thirteen of the best Doctors in England write me up as a medical curiosity, for I’m immune to all cures.’

‘Mr Jones,’ Elizabeth interrupted in a low voice, naming the local doctor, ‘Has warned that my sister Kitty’s illness may threaten her very life.’

‘Been there, shipmate,’ retorted the visitor. ‘Been there, died, come back. I’ve had coughs compared to which that’s a mere trifle. Talkin of which…’ She produced, like a conjuror, an object that looked for all the world like a rusted Bird-Bath, laden with layers of grit and snow, with a topping of grey ash. ‘My old father’s recipe for Christmas-Trifle. Happy to share it with ye, and it comes with a promise of full stomachs and warm hearts.’

‘I think our hearts are warm enough,’ Mr Bennet said politely.

‘No? Then I’ll donate it to the needy, sir. Ten pounds from you will see this reaching a poor soul who needs it.’

Mr Bennet was by this time so keen to see the stranger depart that he reached into his pocket, but Elizabeth stayed him.

‘Miss?...Monroe,’ she began. ‘Pray, tell us what is that intriguing sheet of paper you bear?’ For Elizabeth’s quick wits had detected that she could distract Miss Monroe by bringing her attention to any new topic, as long as it concerned Miss Monroe herself.

‘Aye, you noticed me modest little announcement?’ The visitor unfurled it, and read it aloud like a Circus barker. ‘Yard Sale! This Saturday at Sloppington House. I am Selling Everything From My Home! Twenty-Four Years Worth of Vintage Treasures Dating Back to the Days of Good Queen Anne. Plates from the Royal Household. Maps of Undiscovered Isles. Crumpled Bus Tickets and Children with Rickets. Ladies’ Gentlemen’s, Children and Baby Garments – all pre-worn by myself. Books, books, books…’

‘Books?’ Mary’s eyes lit up behind her spectacles. ‘Oh, I should love a library of my own. Father, may I?’

Chapter 4 Part 2

‘Reading is edifying,’ Mr Bennet admitted, ‘and as you will surely never marry with a face like that, Mary, I do not object to you developing your mind as you journey slowly towards the shame and hardship of becoming an Old Maid.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ the girl exclaimed. ‘Miss Monroe, what kind of books do you offer from your collection?’

‘Weeelll…’ Miss Monroe hesitated, almost as if – Elizabeth thought – she had treated the books themselves as furniture, rather than actually reading them. ‘I was once asked to feed a household of four-hundred, using just Turnip-Tops and a tin of treacle, and I astonished them with French cuisine so rare, they swore it must have come from Paris.’ And from somewhere about her person she produced a volume with the embossed title ‘Paris Suppers.’

‘I got it all from here. An absolute banger.’

‘May I?’ Mary took the book eagerly and turned its pages, while Elizabeth noted that they were coated with dust as if they had not been opened for many years, and Kitty coughed anew. ‘Oh, the food in France is so exotic! I cannot say it… Quesa… Quesadilla? Rack of Ribs and… B…B..Q Fries? Oh, it is beyond my understanding I am sure.’

‘I have never heard of such food in France myself,’ Mr Bennet mused. ‘Though I believe there is another Paris… in Texas, in far-off America, where that form of cuisine may be more popular.’

‘Do you mean to interrogate me, as if I were a very prisoner in the Dock?’ snapped Miss Monroe, snatching the book from Mary’s hands. ‘Sir, you have me at the point of ending my very existence with your constant bullying. It is insupportable, Sir. It will not stand!’

‘Indeed, I… I can only apologise,’ said good Mr Bennet, taken aback by the newcomer’s passion.

‘Warned!’ announced Miss Monroe, levelling a finger at him as if she were now the Judge in a Courtroom.

‘Miss Monroe,’ Elizabeth began gently, determined to save what she could from the situation. ‘I am most sorry that you must be in need of urgent funds. If I may... how did it come to pass that you were abandoned in this position?’

‘My family are all officers in the ---shire Regiment,’ Miss Monroe began.

‘Officers! And soldiers?’ exclaimed Lydia with renewed excitement.

‘Well... adjacent,’ Miss Monroe clarified. ‘I grew up within full view of two military barracks – three, if I used me trusty telescope – and still leap out of bed if ever I hear the trumpet reveille, polishing my shoes to a fine shine and swearing allegiance to the King. My father salutes in full dress whenever he even hears the name of Royalty, however minor. Toot! Toot!’

‘A distinguished tradition,’ nodded Mr Bennet.

‘But then, alas, I ... I fell into debt, and from there into disrepute.’

Mrs Bennett clapped a hand to her mouth in shock, then thought better of it and used both hands to cover the eyes of both Kitty and Mary, then decided again and covered their ears instead, and looked as though she wished she had several more pairs of hands so she could shield all her daughters from the import of these words.

‘Aye...’ Miss Monroe shook her head. ‘Driven into penury, in desperation I sold the one item a Woman and Mother should never give away at any price.’

‘My dear!’ Mrs Bennett now reached out her hand in pity to the unfortunate woman.

Miss Monroe nodded. ‘My son’s Dinosaur-Toy,’ she admitted.

And Mrs Bennett withdrew her hand in confusion, looking to her husband and daughters for guidance. Elizabeth persevered.

‘And how, pray, did a person of such refined family come to bear such debts?’

‘I was married,’ Miss Monroe admitted. ‘Or near enough. And then... Mrs J LEFT.’

‘So inconvenient,’ murmured Mrs Bennet, assuming that Mrs J must be a housekeeper or head cook.

‘She accepted a position without warning in another household?’ asked Elizabeth sympathetically.

Miss Monroe mumbled something about a man called Leon or Lyon, which Elizabeth guessed must be the name of the scoundrel who had seduced the housekeeper from steady employment, while Mrs Bennet speculated that she must mean the place in France, which was no doubt quite close to Paris.

Elizabeth brightly changed the subject again. ‘Nevertheless, I hear that Sloppington House is large, with-‘

‘Small,’ muttered Miss Monroe.

‘Well, as you say, of course,’ Elizabeth went on with a smile, ‘Small, it must be, then, but with five-and-twenty rooms…’

‘If you can call them that! The size of matchboxes! They barely sleep a mouse.’

‘…Indeed, and I hear that there is a goodly spread of farmland surrounding it, with stables and henhouses…’

‘That scabby patch of ground?’ exclaimed Miss Monroe. ‘I would not let a Dog run there, unless – for I am incapable of lying – unless it was for a paid promotional opportunity.’

Elizabeth took a thoughtful breath. ‘Then I fully understand and sympathise with your misfortune, Miss Monroe. But, forgive me, I had heard tell that perhaps you had a wealthy Patron who supported you.’ In fact, Elizabeth had heard from Charlotte Lucas that Miss Monroe had many hundreds of generous patrons, but she felt that information was best withheld.

‘A pittance!’ exclaimed the other. ‘Peppercorn and chicken-feed. What, do you want me to live on Nothing, Lizzy?’

‘I… Miss Monroe, you have the advantage on me, but I think we are not yet on such familiar terms.’

‘You want me to starve, do you, Eliza? Already I have no fridge, no light-bulbs…’

‘Madam, we have no “Light-Bulbs” ourselves,’ Elizabeth replied with amusement, for the year was some time during the Napoleonic Wars, and no later than 1815.

‘No Netflix, no broadband, no shower gel,’ the stranger went on, like a sooth-sayer speaking in tongues of a dark future.

Now Elizabeth’s sister Jane took her turn, for her sweet manner could cool the hottest temper.

‘Miss Monroe, I trust you have heard there will be a ball this weekend, at the Assembly-Rooms in Meryton, and that Mr Bingley will be there, with his sisters and with his close companion Mr Darcy.’

‘I care not for Bingleys or Darcys,’ Miss Monroe sniffed.

‘Is it not the case, dear Jane, that Mr Darcy commands ten thousand pounds per year?’ Elizabeth pursued, barely keeping the smile from her lips.

‘I care not for ten…ten thousand pounds?’ Miss Monroe exclaimed.

‘So it is said,’ Elizabeth continued, exchanging amused glances with her sisters.

‘I believe the ball will be held on November 5th,’ Mr Bennet commented.

‘Rightly so,’ declared Miss Monroe, pulling on her coat and rubbing her nose with a determined sniff. ‘Well, my life is at its nadir of hopelessness and despair, but for at least three hours of Saturday night… I shall be a Banger, and I declare you’ll all see sparks and fireworks.’

Chapter 5

That Saturday, two gentlemen were to be found in conversation at the ball. They presented a fascinating contrast, for one was as open as the sun, with a bright disposition, while his companion scowled like an approaching storm, and seemed to glower over the entire gathering. They were, of course, Mr Bingley, the new occupant of Netherfield, and his old friend Mr Darcy, a fine figure of a man but one who regarded himself as above this particular society, and glared as though he should rather be anywhere else.

‘Come, Darcy,’ said the cheerful young man, ‘I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing by yourself in this stupid manner.’

‘At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable,’ sneered his friend. ‘You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room.’

‘Oh, she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!’ declared Mr Bingley, catching the eye of Jane Bennet, who cast her own gaze modestly down. ‘But there are a number of agreeable girls here. Look, there is one of her sisters. She looks almost tolerable.’

‘I am in no mood to entertain the merely tolerable,’ came the retort. ‘Your sisters are occupied, and the girl I have set my mind on is not present. To dance with anyone else would be torture.’

‘But who can you mean, Darcy?’ exclaimed his good-hearted companion.

‘I refer to Miss Monroe, of Sloppington House,’ replied Mr Darcy, curling his lip sexily. ‘She interests me greatly. However, I gather she is away in Bath, and will not be joining the party tonight, rendering the entire evening wasted.’

‘Why, no, my friend, you must be mistaken,’ declared Mr Bingley. ‘The ill weather has closed all roads to Bath. There will be no travel there this week-end.’

‘And if I cannot go to Bath,’ cried a bold voice, ‘I will bring the Bath… to me!’

And with that, the doors were flung open, and those assembled gazed upon an extraordinary sight.

‘Good Lord,’ murmured Mr Darcy, as he beheld Miss Monroe, dressed in humiliating men’s trousers and a white shirt that was fully drenched through and clung to her skin, revealing features of her person that would have put Adam and Eve to shame. To complete the lewk, Miss Monroe sported a pirate eyepatch and brandished a bottle of orange liquid.

‘I just jumped in the lake for a refreshing dip!’ declared the newcomer, draining the bottle. ‘Orange squash, but the total vibe was there.’

‘The lake?’ Miss Bingley gasped. ‘Surely it has not rained so hard that a lake has appeared in the grounds of Meryton Hall.’

‘Lake, sea, pool… I use words with painstaking precision! All bodies of water are interchangeable,’ snapped Miss Monroe.

Her sister, Mrs Hurst, rushed to close the doors against the rain and cold air, peering into the grounds as she did so.

‘I see only the… the Bird-Bath,’ she remarked in puzzlement. ‘Surely, Miss Monroe, you did not climb into a bath for sparrows, fully clothed.’

‘You quiz me as though I were on the Witness-Stand, and as if you wanted to see me walk to the Scaffold,’ exclaimed Miss Monroe, her white cotton blouson still clinging to her and displaying aspects of the female form that most of the gentlemen present had only previously viewed within a Book of Anatomy.

‘Really,’ complained Mr Darcy, ‘This is quite intolerable.’

‘Intolerable, Darcy?’ breathed his friend. ‘No, better say… incredible. If I claimed before that I had seen beauty, may I be struck blind for my foolishness. This creature is surely an Angel fallen to Earth!’

With a ghastly realisation, Mr Darcy recognised that his friend had been awed by the sight of Miss Monroe’s figure so proudly revealed, and was now consumed by a Lust that he, in his innocence, mistook for Love.

‘Miss Monroe,’ said he with stern command, ‘I will not countenance the frivolities of the middle-classes.’

‘Middle-class, Fitz mate?’ the other replied hotly, as a gasp of shock rippled around the assembled guests at such rank impudence. But Miss Monroe drew herself erect like a dandy highwayman, legs akimbo and hands on her hips. ‘I am of humble working stock by way of Ireland, Pit-Sea, the Scottish Lowlands, the ----shire regiment (adjacent), and the mines of Moria. I detest the middle-classes, the Tories, the Whigs, and the entire Monarchy save for the bonny Prince Regent, nnnngh!’ And here she grimaced like an ape with Constipation.

‘This insult cannot be borne,’ muttered Mr Darcy, clenching his fist in a subtle but horny way. ‘Miss Bingley, Mrs Hurst. If I may…’ His friend’s two sisters flocked to him like faithful birds returning to their keeper. ‘I believe you recently had the pleasure of travelling to Italy. Perhaps you could regale the Misses Bennett with tales of that nation’s curiosities and sites of interest… in the drawing-room.’

And he beckoned Jane, who rose with her own sister Elizabeth and seemed glad to follow his suggestion, retiring towards the adjoining room away from the alarming sights and sounds of the new arrival.

‘Italy?’ bellowed Miss Monroe, sensing the attention drift from her, and beginning to shiver as the blouson grew chilly against her skin. ‘Been there, done it, written seven and a half cookbooks about it! You haven’t lived unless you’ve visited Vienetta!’

Mr Darcy had grasped a stout ash rod and looked ready to step forward with it raised in a manner that was very patriarchal, undeniably problematic but actually also quite hot, when he was interrupted by the scuttling arrival of another guest, who approached Miss Monroe while brushing oily hair from his high forehead.

‘Miss Monroe,’ he wheedled, ‘If I may introduce myself. My name is Collins. A cousin of the distinguished family you see before you. And if may flatter myself that my overtures are not discouraged… I might venture to, hem, to “pour oil upon troubled waters” and offer what I might describe as an Olive-Branch, rather than the rather more punitive wooden stick now brandished by the estimable Mr Darcy, hem. I propose, dear Miss Monroe, that while I visit this neighbourhood, I shall reside with you for the duration, and trust that this will meet with your favourable approval. I shall require only modest sustenance, hem, breakfast, lunch, dinner and a humble stipend of fifty pounds per week, and I may assure you that Lady Catherine De Bourgh will fully approve of any forthcoming union that may result.’

But by the time he had delivered his speech, Miss Monroe was nowhere to be seen; for there is nothing a grifter fears and detests more than another grifter, and in Mr Collins she quickly recognised one of her own kind.

‘I see that our guest has departed,’ remarked Elizabeth to her sister, with a wry smile, as they turned at the drawing-room door.

‘Oh,’ cried kind-hearted Jane. ‘I hope she has somewhere to go, in this dreadful weather.’

‘I believe she found the ripe fruit of Meryton rather harder to pluck from the vine than she expected,’ mused Elizabeth wittily, ‘and will be on her way, as we speak, towards easier pickings.’ And she seemed to turn towards the camera rather like a Regency Fleabag, her eyes sparkling. ‘I feel quite sure, dear Jane, that Miss Monroe is returning… to Emma.’

Chapter 6 Part 1

Christmas came again to Highbury, and while it fulfilled the festive promise of the season in every regard, bringing peace, prosperity and privilege to all those who lived there -- except for the Servants and the Poor, and any French or other Foreigners who might have wandered into the vicinity -- still Emma Woodhouse, a full twenty-one years old now and engaged to Mr George Knightley, having learned her lesson and changed her behaviour, could not help but feel a twinge of regret at the lack of any excitement. Mr Elton was married, as of course was dear Mrs Weston; Emma herself was joyfully, blissfully engaged, and there were other, more rustic weddings planned also, as Harriet Smith was due to become Mrs Robert Martin in the Spring; yes, she told herself, I feel joyful, I feel blissful! But also, in her heart of hearts, she felt bored.

Miss Monroe, who had been such a source of entertainment earlier in the year, was a mild shadow of her former self, having returned to Highbury with tales of her many friends in Meryton and how their gentle care and casseroles had saved her from penury.

She now spent most of her days in her tiny mansion, where she complained about the cold and the costs of things, but otherwise made very little nuisance of herself. Indeed, it was said that she had Debtors after her, and that her habit of scurrying through town in one peculiar disguise or another, with a sack over her head, wearing a child’s coat or a man’s suit, was due to her avoidance of financial obligations. Harriet Smith had certainly reported to Emma, in a thrilled whisper, that the words ‘what about the Twenty Pounds you owe’ had been shouted over a wall at Miss Monroe by one ruffian.

‘I cannot believe that Miss Monroe would owe any body Twenty Pounds,’ Harriet had confided during one of their regular walks. ‘Twenty Pounds! A man could buy Pemberley for that.’

‘I rather think he would need more,’ mused Emma. ‘But –’ looking across the nearby River Tee towards the local granary – ‘were he a farmer, he could perhaps invest in a mill, like that one.’

‘You mean the Tee Mill?’ enquired Harriet.

‘Yes,’ said Emma, looking out knowingly towards the reader as if she was in a Regency The Office.

A passing urchin seemed to groan.

In Emma’s company, however, Miss Monroe was quiet as a mouse at social gatherings, almost as dull and docile as Miss Bates, to the point that Emma developed a mischievous urge to provoke her into her old behaviour, as if prodding a snake. Surely Miss Monroe could not be fully transformed? (For Emma, despite her good intentions and her genuine commitment to Mr Knightley, was not at heart a changed woman, and found it difficult to believe that any one could rid themselves so easily of their previous habits).

So it was, one cosy evening at Hartfield, when the conversation dragged and the assembled company seemed almost ready to collectively doze in front of the fire. Mr Frank Churchill attempted to entertain them with an anecdote about how he had ridden all the way to London to have his hair cut, which had prompted Miss Monroe briefly to extol the virtues of a local Turk who had cut her hair for sixpence, mistaking her for a boy (and Emma had to hold her tongue so as not to declare that the cut was barely worth threepence). But with everyone keeping their best manners, a dreary peace reigned over the proceedings.

‘I propose,’ said Mr Frank Churchill, rising again to his feet with a twinkle in his eye, ‘to liven the occasion with a game.’

‘A game! Oh dear, I hardly think we can be in the right spirits for that, Sir,’ worried Mr Woodhouse. ‘We should surely be fearful of our very lives, and if not that, then our possessions.’

‘Sir, you speak of the articles that have gone missing this past month?’ the merry young man enquired.

‘They will all be with you by deadline!’ blurted Miss Monroe. ‘I have five other opinion pieces due by ten o’clock, so I’m setting eleven alarms for eight AM tomorrow, but I’m also dealing with a Baby who has Pleurisy, a labourer with Consumption and a Black Mass in my temple that has confounded every Priest, Imam, Magus and Physician from here to Timbuktu, so give me a chance, I beg of ye.’

‘I believe, Miss Monroe, that Mr Frank Churchill meant the few items that have been stolen recently from the neighbourhood, and not your errant Journalism,’ Emma noted gently.

‘A few items? A precious few, indeed,’ lamented Mr Woodhouse. ‘A shawl that belonged to Miss Jane Fairfax, snatched from the line where it dried –‘

‘Snatched by a Jackdaw?’ suggested Mr Frank Churchill, earning peals of laughter from Miss Smith, who was easily amused.

‘Sir, please forbear,’ begged Jane Fairfax. ‘I saw the man who stole it, and I shall never forget his face or garb.’

‘A new pianoforte, belonging to Colonel Campbell, which was inscribed with his name...’ continued Mr Woodhouse.

‘I declare, that is most serious,’ Mr Frank Churchill decided, his sombre expression soon taking on a new, twinkling regard. ‘Did this pianoforte... leave a note?’

‘Oh! Do you see?’ Miss Smith exclaimed. ‘Mr Frank Churchill said note, Miss Bates, and I thought he meant... but then he meant...’

‘How delightful,’ agreed Miss Bates. ‘Although I am sure I do not understand.’

‘So the standard of wit has been set!’ declared Mr Churchill. ‘Who can create for me another conundrum?’

Miss Monroe laid down her sewing and gazed gently into the middle distance with her eyes unfocused and lips slightly parted, her face bearing an expression Emma had seen before on her sister’s babies, during the years when they were being trained in the difficult art of Relieving the Bowels.

Emma’s spirits leapt, anticipating a new Chaos, or at least a Disruption. But Miss Monroe continued to stare into space and her expression changed, as if her intestines relaxed, or as if perhaps she saw in the air, in flaming letters like those presented to Belshazzar at his Feast, the words of a Divine Agent, advising her that she had a new book coming out in January and had better cause no fuss until publication. She clenched her guts, pursed her lips and smiled softly.

‘Not I,’ said she at last, returning to her embroidery.

Chapter 6 Part 2

‘Why is an unfinished thread like Miss Monroe?’ Emma murmured to herself, though nobody would understand this joke for another few centuries.

‘Miss Monroe, I understand you also play the pianoforte?’ asked Jane Fairfax politely.

‘Oh, I finger-frig the ivories a fair bit,’ declared Miss Monroe, extending her hand and wriggling the digits.

‘Bit gauche, darling,’ muttered Mr Knightley, at Emma’s side, but Emma bade him hush: finally, this was a promise of the old Miss Monroe.

‘These hands have hewn corn, and builded Jerusalem...’

Indeed, thought Emma, they seemed to have much of the nation’s soil beneath their nails.

‘...they have borne Babies, and their touch has healed the Poor... aye, and they can play A New England, too, if ye’ll tolerate a non-binary revolutionary Monarchist singing in a raw and honest tone, for that’s the only voice I have.’

‘I know the song not, but I should love to hear –’ Jane Fairfax began, but Mr Knightley spoke first.

‘No. May Doomsday come first, and may my soul be claimed by the Adversary of all that is Good, before I hear Miss Monroe sing again,’ he proclaimed hotly. ‘Forgive me, Miss Fairfax,’ he went on with a bow, his voice grave. ‘It is an experience that no man can suffer twice, and I cannot allow it to be inflicted on you.’

Miss Fairfax nodded, and while Emma swelled with pride and no small measure of desire at this display of masculine command, she looked also at Miss Monroe with dismay, for there was no reaction.

‘Miss Monroe, are you not disappointed not to sing for us tonight?’ she prompted.

‘No, Pal,’ smiled Miss Monroe. ‘I’m living life beyond my wildest dreams here, and may those who hate me consume themselves in jealous rage.’

‘Well,’ Emma stammered, ‘we, we must raise a glass, then, to celebrate this new-found Happiness.’

‘No drink for me, Shipmatey!’ Miss Monroe raised her palm. ‘I have tasted the most intoxicating draught this humble earth can offer. Ay, I have been gently and gradually falling in love with my very best friend.’

‘But this is delightful!’ Emma gasped, her love of matchmaking newly animated. ‘Miss Monroe, you must tell us his name.’

‘That I cannot reveal,’ Miss Monroe warned (WARNED), ‘for this person, they are delightfully normal, and they shun the limelight.’

‘Then we must guess it!’ Mr Churchill cried. ‘Let me see... with which two initials can it begin? Could it be “A”? I see from your face that it is not. “B”, perhaps? Ah, Miss Monroe, you reveal yourself. “B” it is, for...’

‘Was there not a gentleman named Bingley, newly come to Meryton?’ Mr Woodhouse suggested.

‘Let nobody assume this person, they, are a gentleman,’ Miss Monroe reminded the company provocatively. ‘They, this person, could also be a Lady.’

‘How tall is this person?’

‘About six foot and six,’ replied Miss Monroe promptly, ‘with hands like hams and a member the size of a Maypole.’

‘You will forgive me, Miss Monroe, if I suggest that your friend sounds to be of the male gender.’

‘I forgive you nothing,’ came the retort. ‘Must you know every detail of my life?’

‘Indeed, no,’ Emma and Jane interrupted swiftly and unanimously.

‘I guard my privacy fiercely,’ Miss Monroe went on. ‘Who need know that my chamber-pot shattered when I squatted upon it at just after 2 o’clock this Afternoon, covering me with nightsoil, or that I store the rags for my irregular Women’s Courses within a hollowed-out pineapple? Who need know that my teenage Boy still clings to me in drenched sheets when his Bladder fails, or that this fist -’ and she raised it dramatically, ‘this very fist, has been deep inside the –’

‘Nobody,’ chorused the company, the ladies covering their mouths with perfumed handkerchiefs, and poor Mr Woodhouse looking pale. ‘Nobody, honestly, nobody need know or wants to know. Please. Nobody wants to know. No more.’

‘My house, my rules,’ nodded Miss Monroe with satisfaction, and with such confidence that Emma did not think to observe that they were all sat within her house, as Miss Monroe had firmly declared her mansion far too small for entertaining.

‘E’en so,’ said Mr Churchill doubtfully. ‘Well let us return to our game. We shall be satisfied with this one letter as forename and surname for Miss Monroe’s fortunate new friend... “B... B”, we shall call them.’

And as if in answer, there were two sharp raps at the door.

‘He comes!’ Miss Monroe exclaimed, leaping from her chair. ‘I mean, they, this person comes. Or they will do, soon,’ she added with a wink.

‘Bit gauche, darling,’ Mr Knightley muttered, but Emma frowned at him, seeing no double meaning in the words.

Mr Woodhouse duly opened the door and beheld a boy laden with bags of food and wine, which Miss Monroe promptly snatched.

‘Ah! It is not my Lover. Just a delivery of goodly Christmas fare.’

‘Miss Monroe, you are too generous,’ exclaimed Emma. ‘We had enough food here without your kind donation.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Monroe blithely. ‘It is not for you, Pal. This is for me to take home. I just knew I’d be out this afternoon so I had it delivered to your address. Wait until I tell all my friends about the adventure my Christmas Dinner has had! There will be helpless giggles and laughs until we weep.’

She dragged the bags into Mr Woodhouse’s kitchen, peering at the topmost bag of baked goods and muttering ‘What substitution is this? Eck-and-feck-ham Pies?’

Another knock, heavier than the previous.

‘Come!’ sang Miss Monroe from the larder, for all the world as if she was the lady of the house.

The door was flung open again, and Emma saw Jane Fairfax turn pale with shocked recognition as a man stepped in, bringing the night’s chill. He wore a series of cardigans, a distinctively patterned scarf and a flat peaked cap, and he carried in one hand a bag of greaseproof paper.

Chapter 6 Part 3

‘Got you summat,’ he grunted to Miss Monroe, who swooned as she pulled out a dripping slab of beef wrapped between two hunks of bread.

‘My own Burger Boy,’ she uttered. ‘I’ll give you a couple of baps in return.’

‘Bit gauche, darling,’ Emma and Mr Knightley murmured in unison, and looked at each other with renewed pleasure.

But by now, Miss Monroe had disappeared, dragging her new friend by one grubby hand, and within seconds, the quiet household was filled with a sound from the depths of H_ll, like a four-headed dog being impaled by a Banshee and wailing with all of its piteous mouths. This infernal sound continued for a full six minutes while the assembled guests looked around the room at everything – at the mantle-piece, at an interesting Vase, at a curious Candle-Stick, at a speck of Dust on the carpet, at everything the human eye could possibly fix on, everything except each other. Emma, for her part, studied the fire as though it could tell her the mysteries of the world, while in the neighbouring room the rhythmic screaming continued, and then... stopped, bringing such an abrupt peace that it was as though a miraculous deafness had suddenly befallen them all.

The door to the adjoining room opened, and the man – Emma could hardly bring herself to call him a gentleman – stepped out swiftly, followed by Miss Monroe with her hair awry.

‘Oops! Glad nobody heard me getting the horn. This one has to go to work now, don’t you, my Only Darling,’ Miss Monroe cooed.

‘Yer,’ assented the other; but Miss Fairfax had gained Mr Knightley’s attention, and he moved swiftly to the door, barring any exit.

‘Sir, that scarf you wear. I believe it belongs to a Lady here present, Miss Jane Fairfax.’

The man known only as Burger scowled and relieved himself of the garment, while Miss Monroe protested.

‘You told me you’d found it in a muddy puddle, My Tender One.’

‘Give over, won’t you?’ Burger attempted to push his way past Mr Knightley, but met an obstacle solid as any wooden door. ‘I got to get back to the Wife and Nippers before daybreak.’

‘My own Artichoke Heart, do not tell me that the pianoforte you gifted me is also stolen?’

‘Don’t it say your name on it?’

‘Well, yes, in hurriedly scrawled marker pen, over the name Colonel Campbell,’ agreed Miss Monroe uncertainly, but it was clear that her faith in Love had been not just lost but devastated.

‘More Burglar Bill than Burger Boy,’ Mr Churchill suggested wryly. Harriet Smith showed her appreciation of the remark by holding her hands up in a heart shape, while Mr Woodhouse raised a thumb, uttering the simple approval ‘Like!’ Jane Fairfax said merely ‘Ha ha’, and Mr Churchill looked appropriately pleased.

Meanwhile, Mr Knightley stood aside to let the miscreant depart, while Miss Monroe sank to her knees.

‘Now,’ she declared, ‘I truly know Grief. The mother who has lost a beloved Infant... the child weeping at the orphanage gate... they could not have felt heartbreak worse than my own.’

‘Miss Monroe, I beseech you,’ cried Emma, mindful of those present who had suffered genuine loss: Jane Fairfax and Harriet Smith were without both parents, while Emma still clung to indistinct memories of her own dear mother.

Miss Monroe replied only by adopting a deeper tone, and taking on the resonant accent of the American South, as if ventriloquising the voice of a Lady with quite radically different cultural experience. ‘Does my Sassiness Upset Y’All? Does my Haughtiness Offend Y’all? Lord, Lord, forgive these poor White Folks...still I rise, Lord... Thank God Almighty... free at last, still I rise.’

And she clambered to her feet, expressing great discomfort with every movement, while in turn a wince of pain seemed to pass around the other guests – not the pain of imaginary Arthritis but the deeper agony of second-hand embarrassment.

‘Come,’ and Mr Frank Churchill clapped his hands. ‘Let us not finish the evening in an ill mood. I propose another game. I command you all to invent new recipes. You may give me one excellent dish, two mediocre, or three dire.’

In a flash, Miss Monroe was leaping to the centre of the room, all Southern spiritual melancholy and romantic disappointment forgotten. ‘Three dire! That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to invent three dire recipes as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan’t I? Do not you all think I shall?’

Emma could not resist.

‘Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me—but you will be limited as to number—only three dire recipes will be allowed.’

Miss Monroe understood full well the import of her words, and her face darkened with menace, and in turn Emma’s own heart sank, for she remembered another, similar time, on Box Hill in the Summer (see Austen, 1815) when her quick-witted barb had so wounded Miss Bates that Mr Knightley – not then her beloved George Knightley, but a stern friend and guide – had approached her after the party and scolded her that it was ‘badly done, Emma. Badly done, indeed.’

But now he drew her to him, and looked into her eyes, and murmured only to her ‘That was nicely done, Emma. Nicely done, indeed.’

And Emma turned wryly to camera and looked into your eyes, and wished you a merry Christmas, one and all, yes even you Miss Monroe because she knew you were reading.

A Griftmas Carol

A delightful seasonal story by dearest of hearts @Smol Pixel

Part 1

Marley was dead to begin with. As dead as a door nail. His death had been suspicious and the inspectors of Scotland Yard were pursuing a suspect known as Little OJ. Marley’s business partner, Jackeneezer Slops, had thus far evaded scrutiny.

Slops lived in a fine house near the sprawling beaches of Southend-on-Sea. Despite claims of poverty, Slops’ house was a treasure trove of curios and trinkets, displayed in a haphazard manner across the number of sideboards and dressers Slops had commissioned from a master carpenter in the Cotswolds.

It was Christmas Eve and Slops had spent a busy day in the markets berating the stallholders for their prices, creating something of a scene by howling and clawing at the cobbles before a brief rendition of a popular music hall number, and appealing to passersby for spare change and sympathies. A light snow was beginning to fall as Slops approached the front door of the three-storey townhouse she insisted was a bungalow. Snowflakes glittered in the early evening lamplight and the golden pineapple door knocker seemed to effervesce unnervingly as Slops reached up to open her front door. For a moment, the door knocker seemed to resemble the visage of Marley and Slops took an uncertain step backwards.

She shook her head. “Humbug,” she muttered to herself, opening the door and entering the house.

Despite Slops’ wealth, and her propensity for spending untold amounts on furnishings and apparel, the house was warmed only by a very small shovel of coal, despite the visible draught that swept through the rooms. Slops kept the lamps dimmed and would eat only the strange concoxions she made from the cheapest purchases as the market stallholders tried to rid themselves of the last of the day’s stock. Slops would combine the foodstuffs in a large pan and leave it slowly simmering over a small fire for hours before guzzling it down with a stained and rusty spoon.

Slops dozed under a blanket in a chair shaped like an egg, hunkered down by the small fire that struggled to provide any warmth. The nearby lamp flickered and the clock on the mantel rang out the hour as strange shadows flitted across the walls and a creaking sound made the hairs on the back of Slops’ neck stand on end.

Part 2

A low whisper echoed through the small parlour and the fire in the grate guttered and died.

“Sloooooppssss.”

Slops started and glanced around the shadowy parlour before shaking her head decisively at the darkness. “Humbug. Toot toot.”

The voice came again, louder this time. “Jackenezer Slops.”

“Who’s there? Burger Boy, is that you?”

A laugh echoed around the draughty room and a shadow in the corner swelled and shifted, forming a figure Slops could scarcely take in.

“M..M…Marley?”

“Indeed Slops. It is I, your old business partner, Jacob Marley.”

Slops grunted in a most unbecoming way and shook her head stubbornly. “Marley is dead. You are a mere figment of my tortured mind. An apparition caused by my all-consuming bleak and crushing depression”

“No, Slops,” the spirit countered, “I am the ghost of Jacob Marley, come to warn you of the dangers of the path you tread.”

Marley’s voice disturbed the very marrow in Slops’ bones, but she rallied against the fear. “A slight disorder of the stomach can make the senses cheats. You could be a fragment of chickpea, a blot of rinsed hoop, an undigested crumb of raw cake, a bit of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you.”

The spirit shook its awful head. “Oh Slops,” it said. “Trying to deflect with humour was never your strong point. Take heed.”

The spectre raised its hands and Slops could see that it was chained, hands shackled and weighed down by countless charity t-shirts, Patreon and Kickstarter emails and begging tweets.

“You are fettered,” Slops remarked, a tremble in her voice. “Tell me why.”

“I wear the chains I forged in life,” the spirit told her. “I formed them link by link, through my own lying grifting deeds. You have laboured on your own chains these last ten years or so. I fear they are twice as long and weighty as my own.”

“But, is there no hope? I am but a smol and meek pixie, surely I cannot suffer this same fate?” Slops beseeched the spectre.

“You will be visited tonight by three spirits,” Marley continued. “Mark their words and change your ways.”

“Oh I have had enough of spirits already this evening,” cried Slops. “Won’t you think of my bleak and crushing depression?”

“Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one!” Marley insisted, rattling his heavy chains as he drifted slowly into nothingness.

“Humbug,” muttered Slops. “Toot…” But the second “toot” died on her lips. And being, from the emotion she had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or her glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without removing her three-day-old tights or leggings, and fell asleep upon the instant.

Part 3

As the clock struck the hour with a resounding chime, Slops stirred and then suddenly recalled Marley’s words. Would a spirit really appear?

Beyond the drapes of her four-poster bed, a gentle glow filled the chamber and Slops trembled at the sight that might befall her. Cautiously she drew back the drapes, her breath held and her heart pounding.

A small child stood before her, luminescent in the dark of the bedroom. “Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Slops, bewildered at the sight.

“I am the ghost of Griftmas Past,” said the child in a delicate lilting voice.

“But you are just a child!” exclaimed Slops.

“I have lived for over nineteen hundred years,” the spirit said. “Come, I have much to show you.”

She took Slops to the window, which flung wide as if by witchcraft. The spirit reached her tiny hand towards Slops, who hesitated but then grasped the cold fingers in her own. “Spirit, I am mortal and liable to fall,” Slops protested, indicating the window towards which the spirit moved.

“A touch of my hand and you shall fly,” explained the tinkling voice. And before she knew it, Slops was soaring above the Essex coastline.

“Spirit, what is that light up ahead? It cannot be dawn.”

“It is the past.” And with that, Slops and the spirit flew into the light and came to rest in a place Slops remembered very well indeed.

“This is my school!” exclaimed Slops. “Oh it was a horrible place for a child like me.”

Slops and the spirit watched as caring teachers gently tried to cajole the young and obstinate Slops into putting more effort into her schoolwork. Their frustration and disappointment was palpable.

The pair watched the young Slops walk home to be greeted warmly by Mama Slops and Big Dave Slops MBE, who, the spirit noted not unkindly, was wearing slightly humiliating trousers.

The table was set for a feast, with the other Slops youngsters tucking in and talking excitedly. An older man in grubby overalls was smoking by the back door and flicking the ash from his pipe in the direction of Mama Slops whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The room was warm and welcoming but the figure of young Slops sat petulantly, poking at the food with a fork and ignoring entreaties from everyone except the elderly pipe-smoker. He goaded young Slops into uttering insolent words and crude retorts at Mama Slops, before slipping a shiny crown into young Slops’ eager hand.

The spirit glanced at her companion but saw no indication of remorse in the older Slops’ face.

“I’ve seen enough here,” Slops said, noticing the spectre’s gaze. “Shall we go somewhere else?”

“Of course,” replied the spirit. And in a moment they were outside a modestly sized letting on Royal Mews.

“Ah. The poverty years,” said Slops, sagely. “This was a hard time for me, to be sure.”

The pair watched a procession of young mothers entering Slops’ abode to be greeted with cake and festive music whilst the babes played on the floor with Slops’ own child.

“Well, the real poverty came a bit later,” explained Slops, hastily. “I think I probably had emptied a few oil lamps by then though.”

Slops watched as the years performed their terrible dance. She saw herself move from one letting to another, packing her belongings in a cart pulled by a horse called Yaris. At one point a bereft looking man of Asian descent walked past them carrying bags that smelled of excrement. “That had nothing to do with me!” insisted Slops, willing the spirit to continue the journey through the years with greater speed.

“Oh look! There I am dragging trunks filled with Practical Cookery on a Bootstrap to the Post Office!” Slops exclaimed, excitedly. “I really don’t understand why people were so ungrateful about that. Look at how hard it is for me!”

The spirit did not reply.

Slops saw suitors come and go, each departure hitting her like a punch to the face. “Why do you delight in torturing me?” she beseeched the ghost. “Haven’t I suffered enough from all the people who LEFT?”

“These are the shadows of what has been. They are what they are, do not blame me. Our time here is almost done,” said the spirit, wondering if Slops had learned anything at all from viewing the reality of her past.

“I think I should like to go back now,” Slops told the spirit, in a manner reminiscent of the young Slops they had seen at the family table some moments before.

“As you wish,” replied the spectre. “There are still two more spirits to visit with. Listen and learn. Your fate depends upon it.”

Slops was quite overcome at this suggestion and fell to her knees in a dramatic fashion, weeping loudly and - the spirit thought - a little excessively.

When Slops opened her eyes the spirit was gone and Slops found herself back in her own bedchamber. She tossed and turned, wracked with anxiety for the visit of the next spirit, but soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

Part 4

Slops’ fitful sleep was disturbed once again by the chiming of the clock. She sat up, wondering what on earth the next spirit would show her.

A deep and jolly laugh resounded from beyond the chamber door and, although Slops was still somewhat afraid, she could not help but allow a small smile to grace her lips as the laugh was so warm and joyous. Slops opened the chamber door and stared in wonder, for heaped up on the floor were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In amongst all this, to form a sort of throne were piles of perfectly roasted potatoes, each one glistening in its crisp skin.

Atop this potato throne sat a giant of a man in black and white checked trousers and a pristine white coat. His bald head gleamed, his round rosy cheeks glowed and his eyes sparkled as he beckoned Slops in with another resounding chuckle. “Come in, come in and know me better.”

Slops tentatively entered the room, awestruck at the feast before her. Never before had she seen food like it, neither sloppy like gruel, nor solid like an over cooked loaf, but succulent and crisp and filling the room with a thousand delectable scents.

“Come in,” repeated the spirit. “I am the Ghost of Griftmas Present, although those close to me may call me Fingers. Would you like a potato?”

“No, thank you,” replied Slops, admiring the spirit’s handsome clothing.

“Well,” said the spirit, placing his hands on his knees and rising to his full height which reached the very ceiling of Slop’s house, “we have much to see and the day grows short.”

“What shall we see?” asked Slops, eager to understand what the spirit would show her.

“Why, it is Christmas Day, of course. We shall see the celebrations of Christmas.”

Slops was unconvinced but uttered her, “Humbug. Toot toot,” quietly, under her breath, so that the spirit might not hear it.

The spirit led Slops outside into the snowy streets of Southend, where many a reveller was preparing for a Christmas spent with friends and family.

Inside a festive ale house, a small group of friends were celebrating. “Here’s to you,” one woman said to another, “And may the new year bring you peace.”

“Oh,” cried Slops. “That’s my old agent, Rosemary. And my landlady. And there’s CarolineWhoHasHands. I didn’t know they were friends.”

Slops watched the group exchange gifts and laugh together, wondering why she had never attended any of the Christmas drinks her agent had invited her to. They were having such a jolly time.

Rosemary raised her glass to make a toast and the others quietened down. “I would just like to say,” Rosemary began, “That the last few years have been hard toil, as we all know. But the future is looking brighter for us all now we have all cut ties — or almost done so —“ She looked at the landlady. “With Jackenezer Slops. May our years be long and our days free of Slops!”

Everyone cheered and clinked their glasses. Slops was silent for a moment.

“Perhaps we might see some other Christmas celebrations now,” Slops suggested to the spirit, who had produced a large roast potato from his pocket and was eating it like an apple. “This one has left a slightly sour taste in my mouth.”

“Indeed, indeed, my time grows short,” agreed the spirit through a mouthful of potato, and soon they were walking through a rather drearier part of town.

“What place is this?” asked Slops, shocked at the true poverty signified by the damp walls and meagre portions enjoyed by those within.

“This is Patrons’ Alley,” the spirit replied. “All who live here are your Patrons, although not all of your Patrons live here.”

Slops stared in wonderment for she did indeed have many Patrons who supplied a considerable stipend for her every month. She had never really considered who they were or what their own lives were like.

Slops and the spirit watched through the windows of one house where warmth and love and Christmas cheer filled every inch from the mismatched chairs to the threadbare carpets. “How can they be so cheerful when they have so little?” Slops remarked.

“To many, the true meaning of Christmas is time with loved ones and gifts of time and charity,” explained the spectre. “They do not have much, but what they do have they share.”

“I do not think I ever understood that,” said Slops, thoughtfully. “But their joy and companionship is clear, even though they want for so much.”

“My time here is almost at an end,” the spirit said. “One more ghost yet remains.”

The town clock began to strike midnight and a chill wind whipped through Slops’ hair as the figure before her grew fainter and fainter.

“Spirit, wait!” she cried. “I think I understand now.”

But the spirit was gone and Slops was alone

Part 5

Slops stared blankly at the space where the jolly ghost had been just moments before. The clock struck a final time, marking the twelfth hour, and Slops glanced nervously around the darkness. A shadowy figure slowly emerged from the gloom. When it came near her, Slops bent down upon her knee, unable to stand; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved, it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

“Spirit,” began Slops, her voice trembling. “What do you have to show me?”

The spirit said nothing, but raised its bony hand and pointed with one long finger towards a group assembled in the town square.

Slops moved towards them with great caution, afraid not of being seen, for she knew the spirits’ magic, but of what she might hear of what was Yet to Come.

The crowd had spilled out from a pub called The Canal, which was a warm and festive place despite the gloom of the wintry streets and they chatted and tattled with seasonal good cheer. “…Denounced by the Queen herself,” Slops overheard one voice remark.

“Someone was saying in the Blue Bird that she will have no more public speaking engagements. Even the workhouses she claimed to speak for have distanced themselves from her untruths,” another announced.

“I heard that the Blue Bird have barred her from the premises. Probably for public drunkenness. Although that’s purely speculation m’lud,” the first reveller added, and the group hooted and fizzed like owls supping champagne.

“She’ll certainly never work in this town again,” a third voice confirmed.

“The word “work” is doing a great deal of heavy labour there,” the second retorted. And the entire group once again fell about laughing until they were interrupted by another who had clearly run from the other side of town and was quite short of breath.

“I have just come from the Blue Bird,” the newcomer offered excitedly. “The word is that the Chancellor himself has asked the Inland Revenue to pursue a great number of back taxes. It may indeed result in her bankruptcy.”

“What sweet irony,” cried another. “I understand all of her Patrons have ceased their stipends.”

“Those in the Blue Bird say that the Peelers have opened an investigation into the occurrences at the Tee Mill,” added the newcomer. “And I’ve heard tell that bailiffs are right now at the “hovel” as she so describes it.”

“What a time to be alive!” cried another and the assembled crowd all raised their glasses in a celebration of Schadenfreude.

Slops looked at the spirit, disheartened. “I understand, spirit. These chaps could easily be discussing my own fall from grace. This fate could be my own.”

The spirit said nothing, its face hidden in the folds of its dark cloak, and simply raised its finger to point once again. Slops saw a ramshackle storefront with a weathered sign that said, “Old Joe’s Rag and Bone. We buy, we sell.”

Slops moved towards the shop and peered through the grimy windows to see Old Joe himself, surrounded by customers and traders.

“These are Viv (RIP) breeches,” a woman insisted, laying the brightly coloured garment out in front of Old Joe. “Very fine indeed.”

Joe picked them up between a single finger and thumb. “That’s as may be,” he agreed. “But this lingering honk will drive down the sale price. I’ll not give you more than half a shilling for them.”

“Oh Joe,” the woman protested. “I can throw in this fine Burberry frock coat and this jerkin made of finest leather.”

“This odd attire will not fetch a decent price, as well you know,” Old Joe replied. “I’ll give you two shillings for the lot and not a penny more.”

The woman grumbled but accepted the offered price. Another shuffled forward, a collection of spoons cradled in her arms. She ceremoniously dumped them on the table in front of Old Joe. “Mrs Dilber, these spoons are all rusty. What am I supposed to do with these?” Old Joe sneered.

“I’m sure they’ll polish up right nice,” Mrs Dilber protested. “A bit of vinegar and some baking soda they’ll be good as a new shiny penny.”

“Some dirt never scrubs off, Mrs Dilber,” Old Joe countered. “These spoons are tarnished by reputation as well as rust.”

Slops could watch no longer. She backed away and was shocked to discover her cheeks were damp with genuine tears. It had been some time since her grief had not been counterfeit and performative.

“Spirit,” she entreated. “I understand this fate could be my own, but please, tell me, who is the poor wretch of whom these people speak.”

The spirit once again raised its ghastly hand and extended its bony finger towards the newspaper seller upon the street corner.

Slops moved towards the stall, feeling as though her boots were wading through treacle. “Read all about it,” cried the young stallholder. “Extra! Extra!”

Slops seized up a paper and clutched it in her own bony hands. The headline made her shudder and her knees quite gave out beneath her. “Jackenezer Slops: Cancelled.”

Slops howled and turned to the spirit once more. “Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

"Spirit!" she cried, clutching tight at its robe, "hear me. I am not the woman I was. I will not be the woman I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"

Slops was near inconsolable. “A path can be changed. The future can be altered. Please, Spirit, say it is so!”

The spirit’s silence caused Slops to weep and as she closed her eyes and clutched the spirit’s robes she felt the air around her change.

Opening her eyes, Slops found herself once again in her own bedchamber. “I’m alive!” Slops cried. “I’m… not cancelled?”

She rushed to the window and threw it wide open. “You there! Boy! What day is it?”

The boy on the snowy street looked up in great surprise. “What day is it? Why it’s Christmas Day, of course.”

“It’s Christmas Day. The spirits did it all in one night!”

The boy looked bewildered, but Slops was overjoyed. “Boy,” she called, “Take these five shillings and buy the prize turkey the butcher has in his window!”

The boy was quite taken aback, but caught Slops’ purse as it came sailing out of the window and ran off to buy the turkey for her.

Slops was giddy as a schoolgirl as she dressed for Christmas Day. She ran down to the street and wished everyone she saw a merry Christmas.

She visited the Tee Mill and arranged for the charity donations to be paid in full and the receipts to be published in the newspaper the very next day. She visited the Blue Bird pub and apologised profusely to the landlord and his customers before buying everyone a drink. She visited the Canal and thanked them all for holding her to account.

Finally, Slops arrived in Patrons’ Alley, followed by a procession of merrymakers and the young boy carrying the prize turkey.

“My dear Patrons,” Slops announced to the entire street. “Thank-SPACE-you for all you have done. I now release you from your pledges and ask that you please join me, on this fine day of Christmas, for a little turkey dinner.”

A great cheer went up and the assembled crowd set about bringing together a fine Christmas dinner that was not at all sloppy, but indeed resembled the feast Slops’ had witnessed when she encountered the Ghost of Griftmas Present, right down to the perfectly crispy roast potatoes.

And Little Owen Jones, who - it turned out - was NOT a murderer, raised a glass and said, “Merry Christmas, and god bless us, every one.

The Patrons and the Bootstrap Cook

By @SmolWarrior
Link

There was once a bootstrap cook, who worked very hard and was very honest, honestly: but still she could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all she had in the world was gone.

So she set up a Patreon account, all ready to fulfil the promises she made to her patrons the next day year, meaning to rise early in the morning at some point in the far future to do the work. Her conscience was clear and her heart light amidst all her troubles; so she went peaceably to bed, left all her cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after she had said her prayers to Mammon, she sat herself down to her 100 hour per week's work on Twitter; when, to her great wonder, there stood a tidy sum of money, upon the table. The good woman knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. She looked at the pile of cash; there was not one dodgy note in the whole job; all was so neat and bountiful, that it was quite a masterpiece.

The same day she went shopping, and she found some vintage Vivienne Westwood (RIP) that suited her so well that she willingly paid a price higher than usual for it; and the poor bootstrap cook, with the leftover money, bought herself a short city break to Edinburgh. On the first day of the next month, she went to bed early, that she might get up and begin to do some work the next day; but she was saved all the trouble, for when she got up in the morning there she found another pile of money, ready to her hand. So she went shopping again and paid handsomely, in fact she had enough for four more Cotswold Company sideboards! On the first day of the next month, in the morning, there was even more money; and so it went on for some time, and the bootstrap cook soon became thriving and well off again.

One evening, about Christmas-time, as she and her Small Boy were sitting over the fire chatting together, she said to him, ‘I should like to sit up and watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and leaves money for me.’ The Small Boy liked the thought; so they left a solar light burning, and hid themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up there, and watched what would happen.

As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little squigs; and they sat themselves upon the bootstrap cook’s table, took out a huge wodge of money, and began to lay it out with their little fingers, counting away at such a rate, that the bootstrap cook was all wonder, and could not take her eyes off them. And on they went, till the job was quite done, and the cash stood upon the table ready to be spunked away. This was long before daybreak; and then the squigs bustled away as quick as lightning.

The next day the Small Boy said to the bootstrap cook. ‘Mamapapa, these little squigs have made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good turn if we can. I am quite sorry to see that they have not had any of the promised rewards for two years; and indeed it is not very decent, for I know some of them have nothing upon their backs to keep off the cold, yet still they donate to us. I’ll tell you what, I will prepare all of the postcards; and you make each of them a little set of recipes and update your Patreon to say you are fulfilling your obligations and suspending your account.’

By some Christmas miracle, the thought pleased the bootstrap cook very much; and one evening, when all the rewards were ready, they laid them on the table, and then went and hid themselves, to watch what the little squigs would do.

About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they saw the rewards all laid out for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed mightily delighted.

Then they took the rewards in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and capered and sprang about, as merry as could be; till at last they danced out at the door, and away over Thorpe Bay.

The good bootstrap cook received no more money from Patreon and she got a proper job; but everything went well with her from that time forward, as long as she lived. And she and her Small Boy lived happily ever after.

'Twas the Night Before Griftmas

By @LadyGarden
Link

'Twas the night before Griftmas, when all through the bungalow
Not a creature was stirring, not even a designer puppy-o;
The stockings were hung by the chimney to air,
Along with the leggings - worn for 3 days without care.

The puppy was nestled all snug in Jack's bed;
While nightmares of slop danced in their knotted fur head;
And mamma(pappa) in her 'kerchief, or wearing a BOY cap,
Had just settled down for her usual long grift nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
Jack sprang from her sofa/bed to see what's the matter,
Away to the window she creakily hobbled,
Tore open the shutters - she screamed and then wobbled,

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Highlighted the shape of her dealer below,
When what to her wondering eyes did appear,
But a dodgy new agent trying to revive her career.

Jacky Cooper

By @Pocahontas
Link

The handsome and esteemed Conservative MP for Rutshire Julian Whitby-White rolled off Jackie for the third time that morning; finally satiated but now feeling hungry in the non-carnal way.

‘That was lovely, my angel. All that exercise has left me absolutely famished, do you have anything to eat? Apart from you that is?’ he inquired, grinning down at her wolfishly.

Jackie nodded her tousled head towards a rather grimy looking saucepan still sitting on the hob.

‘My supper from last night’s still in there. It’s got to last me all week, mind you, so don’t have too much.’

He got up to have a look, tucking his Oxford blue shirt into his pinstriped suit trousers as he did so.

‘Christ, you’re a dirty bitch,’ he growled, wondering if he had time for another roll in the hay with this slovenly creature. Yes, her fingernails looked as though they housed the creature of the black lagoon, but if he lay back and thought of England, the experience was pleasing in a decidedly ghetto-ish way.

‘You really ought to pay for a cleaner,’ he told her, stepping over an overflowing litter tray and piles of unopened mail and weeks-old copies of The Daily Mail. Opening her fridge to find nothing but empty bottles of Yakult and an open tin of sardines bearing a layer of fur, he grimaced, his privileged Eton delicacies curling in disgust. ‘And someone to cook you a decent meal, for Christ’s sake.’

‘It’s not like I’ve got a choice,’ she protested, pouting her chemically enhanced lips in what she thought was an appealing manner. He idly observed her likeness to the ceramic toad his mother-in-law kept next to her duck pond. ‘I get paid an absolute pittance. I can’t afford paid help,’ she whined. ‘Bloody Tories,’ she added, hoping to goad him.

‘Come and work for me,’ he said casually. ‘There’s always call for more secretaries in the typing pool - be nice to have some new talent brightening up the place, especially one as eye-catching as you. You could show off all your delightful wigs, one for each day of the week.’ It would also be nice and convenient, he thought to himself. I wouldn’t have to keep telling Lavinia I was out late looking at yet another brood mare. She’s bound to be suspicious, and she’ll take me to the cleaners if she finds out about my trysts with this grubby little socialist.

‘I already work my fingers to the bone as it is. I have three jobs, remember? It costs most of my hard-earned money to look this good,’ Jackie reminded him petulantly, lying back on her sofa cushion, picturing her vintage Vivienne Westwood dress hanging in her bedroom closet. She got it for a steal in some off-the-beaten-track charity shop - nearly sent a pensioner to hospital in her haste to be the one to snag it.

She hoped Julian would take pity on her and invite her to Harrods for a slap-up lunch. Lord knows, she deserved a pampering; life had been throwing all sorts of slings and arrows at her recently. She also needed another backer for her most recent painful memoir project. Her money was running low and she hadn’t managed to write more than a page since Easter. Not to mention, her ancient Polo was on the fritz again; she’d somehow buggered up the gears on the roundabout next to Waitrose the other day. Sooner or later she’d have to bribe someone for an actual driver’s licence.

She tried for sympathy. ‘Besides, Jonty spilled his cocoa on my favourite sideboard last week and it must be replaced. I’ve nowhere to keep granny’s old Denby collection, dear old thing that she was.’ It wasn’t her grandmother’s collection, it was hers, and she also had some carefully chosen Wedgwood blue scattered around her dormer bungalow. No harm in acquiring key insurance pieces for her future, should her horse not do so well in the next Hunt Fixtures they would prove very prudent investments.

‘How on earth have you managed to choose a favourite sideboard?’ he teased. ‘There’s at least three populating every room. Perhaps time to realise this house is more stuffed to the gills than a Sotheby’s showroom.’ He chuckled at her indignant expression as he fastened his gold cufflinks, a present from Princess Margaret. ‘Short of furniture, you are not, angel. You need a clear out, not an addition to the treasure trove. Besides,’ he added, a spiteful glint creeping into his dissipated, cornflower blue eyes. ‘And don’t pretend this isn’t common knowledge … you’ve always got Daddy to bail you out should the going get really tough.’

‘How dare you!’ she screeched, hurling a half-full glass of last night’s Nosecco at him. ‘You know I’m estranged from my family! Get out!’

She fumed, despairing at yet another man taken to her bed turning out to be a crashing disappointment. ‘And to think I introduced you to the animals.’

Little Grifters

By @LadyGarden
Link

‘Griftmas won’t be Griftmas without any tip jar rattles,’ grumbled Jack lying on the slop-covered rug. ‘

It’s so dreadful to be poor!’ sighed Jack2, looking down at her old Viv (RIP) dress.

‘I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,’ added smol little Jack3, with an injured sniff (toot toot!).

‘We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,’ said Jack4 contentedly from her corner.

The four young filtered faces on which the solar light shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jack said sadly, ‘We haven’t got FatherMotherMamaPapa, and shall not have him for a long time.’ She didn’t say ‘perhaps never,’ but each silently added it, thinking of Big Dave and his humiliating trousers far away, where the firefighting was.

Nobody spoke for a minute; then Jack2 said in a honking tone, ‘You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought to claim that £49 fuel voucher Jack mentioned. We can’t do much, but other people can make little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don’t.’ and Jack2 shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the spendy things she wanted.

"But I don't think the little we should spend would do any good. We've each got a pound coin, and the homeless wouldn't be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect any royalties from my agent, but I do want to buy 100 copies of Grifty Kitchen for myself. I've wanted it so long," said Jack, who was a bookworm.

"I planned to spend mine on Billy Bragg's music," said Jack4, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the Cotswold sideboard and shiny copper kettle.

"I shall get a nice box of marker pens and an expensive moleskin notepad; I really need them," said Jack3 decidedly.

"Mother didn't say anything about our Patrons money, and she won't wish us to give up everything. Let's each buy what we want, and have a little fun; I'm always working 100 hours a week to grift it," cried Jack, examining the heels of her Doc Martins in a gentlemanly manner.

"I know I do––scamming those tiresome Patrons nearly all day, when I'm longing to enjoy myself on Twitter," began Jack2, in the nasal complaining tone again.

"You don't have half such a hard time as I do," said Jack. "How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps on chaosing, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out the window or cry? Well that's what it must be like for SB when he comes to stay with me"

"It's naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me howl and claw, and my hands get so stiff, I can't cook well at all. Hnnnngggg" And Jack4 looked at her rough and premature baggy hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time.

"I don't believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Jack3, "for you don't have to go to grammar school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't steal a scalpel, and laugh at your pov jumper, and label your father if he's a Marxist Leninist landlord, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."

"If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if PapaMama was an Asda Smartprice pickle bottle," advised Jack, honking.

Jackarella

By @threetintender
Link

May I present Jackarella, a modern fable of love and redemption? Or it would be, if anyone else was the subject?
The background: Jackarella is the beloved but neglected ward of Baron Hardup (played by Adrian, her new / previous agent). The Baron has married wicked agent Rosemary who has forced Jackarella into servitude in favour of the Ugly Sisters (played by Fingers and Sir Matt of the Forearms). Poor Jack is forced to live in a freezing hovel wherein the draughty are inexplicably visible (there will be panto lighting effects to demonstrate), subsisting on slops for a meagre £5k a month. She has only the company of mice (played by Borbora, the Asda manager who she watched putting her bestselling book on display and the school governor who wanted to take her down a peg or two, some Tory mice whose only line is a squeaky ‘should have kept your legs shut!’) This is torture for our poor heroine, listening to their constant attempts to diminish her greatness. Fortunately she has Cooper and Content (who doesn’t appear on stage but is heard whining offstage) Poor Jack relies upon the comfort offered by her friend / enabler Buttons (played by Carole the publisher/ therapist) and the reliable presence of her trusty shopping trolley bag. She makes the best of her miserable existence, in the cold shadow of 9 sideboards and shelves of unwanted and unlovely rusting cutlery and tat from charity shops, by sharing intensely personal information online with strangers in exchange for donations to charity.
So. One day Baron Hardup and Rosemary appear at the lonely hovel with Fingers and Sir Matt to tell Jackarella that they are all going to an awards ceremony hosted by Prinx Charming (played by Matt Gloss) for the Most Accurate Recipe Resembling Farrow and Ball paint colours. Jack excitedly presents her bright green and only slightly mouldy liquor sauce, sure and certain of her supremacy. Rosemary laughs evilly, telling Jack she will not be attending the awards as nobody has paid for her to be there. She, the Baron, Fingers and Sir Matt all cackle before disappearing in a cloud of makeup and hairspray to ready themselves for the award ceremony.
Alone, Jack howls and claws at the floor and is about to pull the radiator off the wall before Buttons/ Carole appears and reminds her that radiators are full of gas and therefore ripping them free is against any meaningful risk assessment. Buttons is bereft that the total absence of a promotional budget means that Jack cannot be funded to attend the awards. ‘Oh no you won’t go to the awards’
Suddenly….
In as much of a flash of light as the solar lights permit, a glowing woman arrives and tells Jack she is her Fairy GodMom (played by…oh yeah, you already guessed) and says ‘Jack! You SHALL go the awards!’ And Jack responds, misreading the audience response, ‘Oh no, I SHANT’.

Fairy GodMom smiles suggestively at the pots and pans and tells Jack she has an award nomination from The Grocer for literally NO REASON and that transport has been arranged so Jack will not have the indignity of trains into London. With a mighty sniff, Fairy GodMom transforms the wheely shopping trolley into a Lovely Big Car, and with another sniff, Cooper morphs into a liveried chaffeur (or however that is spelt for people not incapacitated by a very rare large Jamesons) Content barks approval from the wings.
Jackarella wrenches open the door of the Lovely Big Car. Fairy GodMom looks perplexedly at some utensils. ‘You need something to wear!’ Jack responds, like the smol renegade she has insisted on describing herself as in the panto program, and says ‘what’s wrong with these primark joggers? And the T-shirt rolled up into my bra has only been worn for three days!’ GodMom regards a rusty spoon with great affection and shakes her head charmingly. ‘look over there’ she says. Jack is puzzled until the audience all howl and claw ‘ITS BEHIND YOU!’
Sure enough, a magic puddle has appeared downstage and Jackarella is amazed to find in it a perfectly fitting Vivienne Westwood gown. She puts it on and takes many many selfies because it’s what Viv would have wanted. Also in the puddle are a pair of Nike trainers, made of something absolutely fucking horrible and the colour of pale shite . Finished with a Burberry scarf and a studded leather jacket,
Jack is ready for the awards! Just before leaping into the Lovely Big Car, she asks GodMum about Borbora and the rest of the tiresome mice. GodMom laughs charmingly at a cheese grater because she has arranged for all the mice to be eaten by a sentient kitchen rug. ‘So needless to say’, Jack and Mom say in unison, ‘We had the last laugh’.
‘WAIT!’ Says Mom, ‘there is a condition upon this magic! You MUST return by midnight….’

The Lying The Grift and The Poordrobe

By @BlendedSlop

Part 1

Once there were three children whose names were Thomas, James and Nigella. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of their aunt, uncle and younger cousin Jack, who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest Asda.

As soon as they had said goodnight to their aunt and uncle and gone upstairs on the first night, the boys came into Nigella's room and they all talked it over.

"We've fallen on our feet here and no mistake," said James. "This is going to be perfectly pukka. That old Marxist-Leninist chap will let us do anything we like."

"I think he's an old dear," said Nigella.

"What's that noise?" said Thomas suddenly. It was a far larger house than he had ever been in before, and the thought of all those long passages and rows of doors leading into empty rooms was beginning to make him feel a little creepy.

"It's only a bird, silly," said James. "I say, let's go and explore tomorrow. This is going to be a wonderful place for nature. There might be eagles. There might be stags. There'll be hawks."

"Foxes!" said Thomas.
"Brambly mice!" said Nigella.
"Dead gloves!" said James.

But when the next morning came there was a steady rain falling, so the children agreed to explore in the house instead, and that was how the adventures began. It was the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was full of unexpected places. The first few doors they tried led only into spare bedrooms, but soon they came to a very long room full of their cousin's self-portraits, and after that there was a room all hung with green, with a piano in one corner; and then a kind of little upstairs hall and a reading nook, filled with books which appeared to be completely untouched, and then a whole series of rooms that led into each other and were lined with crockery - most of it old, stained and chipped. And shortly after that they opened the door into the bedroom of their cousin, Jack.

Neither James nor Thomas liked Jack much; they found her quite peculiar and, despite trying to be nice to her on the rare occasions she visited with her parents, they had soon grown weary of her accusing them of stealing her toys. Nigella, on the other hand, felt rather sorry for Jack and had attempted to take the younger girl under her wing. This had been repaid with a queer devotion, something Nigella was apparently unaware of, or perhaps simply pretended to be out of politeness.

Jack's bedroom was filled with expensive oak furniture, the walls painted in gay shades of Eau de Nil and what one might describe as "Opal Fruit orange", if indeed Opal Fruits had been invented at the time of this story. Thomas thought this quite odd as Jack had been at great pains to point out how her parents forced her to sleep in a plain, unfurnished room of plain white.

"I say, stay away from that wardrobe. It's from the Cotswold Company, you know." The strangely shrill honk came from Jack, who had crept into the room behind her cousins on her smol pixie feet.

"Don't worry, I shouldn't go near your clothes anyway," replied James scornfully, casting a pointed glance at Jack. "Why are they all such a funny shade of grey, anyway?"

"I've been dyeing them all black with coal-dust and water," Jack answered proudly, "Because I've been in the deepest, darkest pit of depression since my mother brought me into this cruel, mendacious world and I've quite forgotten how to dress myself."

"You do say some funny things, tender one," Nigella said kindly. "Why don't we all play a game of hide-and-seek? I imagine there are some splendid places to hide in this big house."

"It's not that big, actually," snapped Jack, although it was quite obvious to the others that the house was closer to a mansion than the humble shack she had led them to believe. "Now go away, I'm BUSY and in the middle of a complete mental breakdown."

"Another one..." observed James, under his breath, and the children left the bedroom to play without her. But after a few mere moments Jack was craving attention, and so she shouted to the others that she had changed her mind and wanted to play with them after all.
They were all having far too much fun to hear her nasal whine, and so she began to softly, gently, concoct a plan. She would find somewhere to hide, a hiding place so good that nobody would think to look for her there, and then when teatime arrived everyone would be so worried that they would have to telephone the police to look for her. The thought made her giddy with anticipation.

Feeling quite sure that her cousins would stay away from her grand wardrobe after the telling-off she had given them, Jack pulled open the doors and stepped inside. She walked as far as she could, pushing the soft folds of the pov jumpers aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. "I wonder if that is crumpled bus tickets?" she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. She brought a small pile of the substance to her nose using her finger, but alas, it was merely snow.

Next moment, she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer scritchy denim or butter-soft leather, but something hard and rough and even prickly. "Why, it is just like the branches of trees!" exclaimed Jack. And a moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.

Jack felt a little frightened, and allowed herself a brief episode of howling and clawing, then slipped out of her shoes and socks to scamper barefoot through the snow, as she was wont to do. In about ten minutes she reached a most curious sight - a lamp-post, which she had not seen beforehand, for someone had removed the light-bulb and replaced it with a solar one which cast barely a flicker of light in the shadow of the trees. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of rattling. She listened and the sound came nearer and nearer and at last there swept into sight a skip drawn by two enormous Goldendoodles.

The dogs were about the size of Shetland ponies and their hair was so matted Jack wondered how they could even see where they were going. Their harness was of black pleather and adorned with empty tin cans. On the edge of the skip, driving the dogs, sat a fat dwarf who would have been about three feet high if he had been standing. But behind him, on a much higher seat in the middle of the skip sat a very different person - a great lady, taller than any woman that Jack had ever seen (Jack idly wondered at this point whether the woman had a massive fucking car). She was covered in white fur up to her throat and held a wooden For Sale sign in her right hand and wore a golden crown on her head. Her face was beautiful in many respects, but also proud and cold and stern. The skip drew to a halt at the Lady's command.

"And what, pray, are you?" said the Lady, looking hard at Jack.

"I'm Jack Monroe, child prodigy, in the top 100 pupils in the entire COUNTRY-" began Jack, but was cut off by the Lady's icy glare.

"Is that how you address a landlady?" the Lady asked, looking more stern than ever.

"I beg your pardon, your Majesty, I didn't know," said Jack through gritted teeth, for she hated landlords and landladies, apart from those within her own family of course. She did not like the way the Lady looked at her.

"Not know the Landlady of Narcia?" cried she. "Ha! You shall know us better hereafter. But I repeat - what are you?"

"Please, your Majesty," whined Jack. "I don't know what you mean. I'm at school - at least I was before I was expelled for stealing a scalpel - and the teachers all told me I'd never amount to anything and to shut my legs because they were jealous of my endless potential."

"But what ARE you?" said the Landlady again. "Are you a great overgrown dwarf that has cut off its beard?"

"No, your Majesty," said Jack. "I never had a beard - well, except for the time I was on T. I'm a girl. At this moment in time. Although I do wear trousers and have intimate physical abnormalities."

"A girl!" said she, wisely ignoring the latter parts of Jack's reply. "Do you mean you are a Daughter of Eve?"

"I'm a daughter of Eve and Big Dave," Jack replied, not quite sure what the question meant.

"I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be," said the Landlady. "Answer me, once and for all, or I shall lose my patience. Are you human?"
Jack confirmed she was, and then the Landlady asked how she came to be in this strange place. She seemed quite interested when Jack told her about the wardrobe, and called it "a door from the world of men." As she spoke these words she rose from her seat and looked Jack full in the face, her eyes flaming; Jack felt sure that she was going to do something dreadful but she seemed to change her mind.

"My poor child," she said in quite a different voice, "how cold you look! Come and sit with me here in this skip and I will put my mantle around you and we will talk." Jack did not like this arrangement at all but she dared not disobey.
"Perhaps something hot to drink?" said the Landlady. "Should you like that?"

"Yes, absolutely x" said Jack, whose teeth were chattering with the cold and crumbling in her mouth after so many years of grinding poverty. The Landlady took from somewhere among her wrappings a very small bottle, from which she poured a single drop. Jack saw the drop for a second in mid-air, shining like a pawned engagement ring. But the moment it touched the snow there was a hissing sound and there stood an ombre carafe full of something that steamed. The dwarf immediately took this and handed it to Jack with a smile and a whispered "Thanks for all you do." Jack briefly basked in this praise before beginning to sip the hot drink. It tasted all at once like the slow cooker tea she so adored, the coffee she didn't drink, the kombucha she brewed and the sewage water she stored in jars.

"It is dull, Daughter of Eve and Big Dave, to drink without eating," said the Landlady presently. "What would you like best to eat?"

"Alcohol-free mince pies!" cried Jack. "And fish, and eggs - real ones, not powdered - and prunes, and black pudding, and bollock sausages, and cat food. Hnnnnngggggghhh."

Each foodstuff she honked out was punctuated with a thick, wet sniff, and revulsion briefly clouded the Landlady's face. But she quickly recovered her smile, and let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow. From this one appeared a bowl filled with a thick brown slop. To most people's eyes, the contents of the bowl would have seemed most unpleasant, but Jack's eyes lit up and she began inhaling the unidentified substance like a greedy goblin. She had never tasted anything so delicious. She was warm now, and very comfortable.

While she was eating, the Landlady kept asking her questions. The more she ate the more she wanted to eat, and she never asked herself why the Landlady should be so inquisitive. She got Jack to tell her that she had three cousins, two boys and one girl, and that no one except herself knew anything about Narcia. She seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them, and kept coming back to it. "You are sure there are just four of you?" she asked. "Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more nor less?" and Jack wanted to tell the Landlady that her questions were harassment and that she clearly wanted her to STOP BREATHING, but instead found herself nodding so she could eat more of the slop.

At last the bowl was empty and Jack was wishing that the Landlady would ask her whether she would like some more, or perhaps some money instead. Probably the Landlady knew quite well what she was thinking, for she knew, although Jack did not, that the slop was enchanted and that anyone who had once tasted it would become obsessed with the pursuit of money, and would even, if they were allowed, go on grifting for it until they committed charity fraud and ruined their reputation. But she did not offer Jack any more. Instead, she said to her, "Daughter of Eve and Big Dave, I should so much like to see your cousins. Will you bring them to see me?"

"I'll try," droned Jack, still looking at the empty bowl.
"Because if you did come again - bringing them with you, of course - I'd be able to give you some more slop. I can't do it now, the magic will only work once. In my house it would be another matter. It is a lovely place, my house. I am sure you would like it. There are whole rooms filled with Smeg freezers, Cotswold sideboards and Burberry jackets, and what's more, I have no tenants of my own. I want a nice girl whom could live in my house and who would be Landlady of Narcia when I am gone. While she was a tenant she would wear cheap wigs and eat slop all day long; and you are much the cleverest and most forensic young woman I've ever met. I think I would like to make you my tenant - some day, when you bring the others to visit me."

"There's nothing special about them," said Jack. "But I'll do my best."

"And, by the way," said the Landlady. "You needn't tell them about me. It would be fun to keep it a secret between us two, wouldn't it? Make it a surprise for them. Just bring them along to my house between the two hills - a gifted girl like you will easily think of some excuse for doing that - and I'll give you all the slop you can eat."

"Please, please," said Jack suddenly, "please couldn't I just have one spoonful of slop to eat on the way home?"

As the skip swept away out of sight, the Landlady waved to Jack, calling out, "Next time! Next time! Don't forget. Come soon."
Jack was still staring after the skip when she heard someone calling her own name, and looking round she saw Nigella coming towards her from another part of the wood.

"Oh, dear heart!" she cried. "We've all been so worried about you. What on Earth is this place? Do tell me what you've been up to."

"Shan't," replied Jack, the addictive taste of slop lingering in her mouth. "And let's go home at once - this snow is playing havoc with my severe arthritis."