On this date last year, the denizens * of Marlinspike Hall played host to a not-so-dashing duo of home invaders. Whether mere thieves or professional hitmen on the run from Interpol and the Orange County Sherriff's Department, their identity and true purpose remain a mystery.
The Castafiore thinks she knows. They were after her, of course.
But she doesn't know, not really.
The Manor incident was the second home invasion to which I've been witness. There was no theft, just substantial breakage (of things, of confidence). The first time around, some odd 20 years ago, there was theft, but not of my stuff, just of Fred's stuff, as my sole valuable was too large to load into a pillowcase. Fred lost several Leicas, most of his Nikons, and a mountain bike -- a handy getaway vehicle. My pen and ink triptych entitled "Quand Salomé danse" in a specially commissioned antique gilt frame? Not taken. Not damaged.
Go figure!
Anyway -- I will be on high alert later today, especially when Fred tootles off to congregate with the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists, just in case those Break-In Bozo Bastards are anniversary freaks. The Indentured Domestic Staff has the day off. They've been working very hard in preparation for the opening of ManorFest next weekend. La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore has two performances of Faust, one a matinee, so she will not be in residence either. It looks like it's me and the Feline Remnant against the Sentimental Evildoers.
* And mavens, don't forget the mavens!
*******************************************************************************
Just minutes before Universal Worship Time, somewhere around 10:56 AM, without even the benefit of fortifying coffee, poor Fred scratched off down the unpaved country road, late for Sunday morning services with the
Militant Existential Lesbian Feminists.
Scratching off in a Honda is an accomplishment, you know!
That left me all alone in Marlinspike Hall -- except for a Slumbering Castafiore. La Bonne et Belle Bianca is worn to a frazzle with all the rehearsing and costume fittings involved in the new mounting of Gounod's Faust. [All I know is that the new set designs approximate some sort of New Wave, 1980s nod to
Miami Vice.]
It is Manor Tradition that domestics have [the daylight hours of] every third Sunday off, barring the presence of The Captain, of any of the Haddock Clan, which dictates full staffing at all times -- and usually, we have to bolster the blue-blood-to-hireling ratio by employing local temps. Fortunately, there is a robust Domestics 'R Us franchise a few towns over, in East Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs).
Anyway, I was essentially alone. Just me, the Manor Petting Zoo denizens, a small herd of Miniature Buffalo -- and the Three Felines.
Of course, being inside manor walls, with the drawbridge up, it seemed like it was just me and the cats.
{cough}
I had just decided to begin the intricate process of settling down up in the
Computer Turret * for some juicy DM-action with an internet buddy when the loud sound of glass breaking destroyed Sunday's silence.
We don't have windows in the traditional sense, of course. Not glass, is what I mean. No glazier in his right mind would undertake to install panes of actual glass in any of our Fresh Air Access Modules. We did try, once, putting in a dual-paned insulated unit in one of the more regular-sized FAAMs in the Spinet Chamber -- 78-3/5″ wide and 121-1/2″ tall (never mind the depth -- we had to put in a sash and frame assembly to somewhat normalize the process -- that was tricky, let me tell you!) Darned if we didn't spend all our time trying to keep our one and only window defogged enough to see out. You would think the Spinet Collection, which includes three attributed to Hieronymus de Zentis, himself, would show signs of harm from all the moisture but oddly enough, these 370-year-old, poor-man, stripped-down harpsichords have held up better than the finer instruments in the Haddock Clan's holdings. They're a big hit during ManorFest!
You are probably wayyyyy ahead of me in this narrative. I guess that I tend to ramble, inchoate,
à la H. P. Lovecraft, under duress.
It was not mere glass that broke, unfortunately, but rather a Roseville vase -- from the (Rozane) Morning Glory Collection. There are hundreds of such things that decorate The Manor, but I was particularly fond of this relatively unknown American Cousin.
Yes, we had an intruder, a particularly young and clumsy one, possibly still in training (I imagine there is some sort of apprenticeship for these sorts of
métiers). He managed to traipse across the property unheeded, swim the moat (we found his carefully rolled and stored wet suit), and stroll through an entire wing of Marlinspike Hall before meeting another soul, and then, only because he knocked over that beautiful vase from Ohio.
Listen to the names of all the
Roseville lines from the same period of production -- 1930 to 1939; It's pure poetry, buckeye, conker, ohioan:
Baneda, Blackberry, Bleeding
Heart, Cherry Blossom, Clemana, Crystal
Green, Dawn!
Earlam, Falline, Ferella,
Fuchsia, Iris, Ivory Two,
Ixia, Jonquil, Laurel.
Luffa, Moderne, Monticello,
Morning Glory,
Moss!
Orian, Peony, Pinecone,
Poppy,
and Primrose.
Russco, Sunflower, Teasel, Thorn
Apple, Topeo, Tourmaline...
Velmoss and Velmoss Two:
Windsor,
Wisteria.
I used this chant to calm myself, once our intrepid, young (and clumsy) intruder had fled.
Once I tracked down a fully-charged phone, I called the local version of 911. In Europe, the emergency phone number is often 112. Here, in our very unique area of Tête de Hergé, it often suffices to call up Tante Louise --
who is a story in and of herself. I gave a good description of the guy, proud of myself for having noticed his missing left pinky and the tattoo of a wall-eyed parrot on his right forearm. Still, I was frustrated at my inability to estimate height -- something definitely compromised by the vantage point of a wheelchair.
I also reached Fred, via
The Church Lady, The Mousse, the only Straight Female in the Militant Existential Lesbian Feminist Congregation, managing to stifle a snide remark when she LOUDLY whispered, "Fred, oh yes, Retired Educator, he's right here... next to me..."
Having made the necessary calls, I went about the business of making sure La Bonne et Belle Bianca and The Felines were all safe and sound. The Castafiore cursed at me in French and Italian, not comprehending my protestations of an intruder in The Manor, and the cats all gamely meowed.
I found no further signs of damage, and noticing nothing missing, I started to relax. But as I headed into the closest kitchen to start some coffee brewing, the unmistakeable dulcet tones of someone banging on an exterior door rang out. Rang out, insistently.
Unless they were camped out down the road at the
Cistercian's place -- our equivalent, I guess, of cops at a donut shop -- there's no way that could have been the police, thought I.
There's no such thing as a peephole when you are dealing with massive medieval doors, especially when they are made of bronze and cast as single units -- not just bronze panels decorated and secured to a flimsy wooden frame, no! Scholars generally divide the History of Medieval Bronze Doors into those made in Constantinople and those made in Italy. Symeon of Syria is presumed to be the maker of the doors in question, as he is famous for adding inlays of silver to his decorated story-panels depicting Lives of the Saints.
These were some heavy, dense doors, is what I am trying to say. I did my best to decipher the muffled responses to my shouted queries, but it was hopeless. Thinking that maybe some Festival Hounds were under the impression that we were open for ManorFest, I heaved open the doors.
There stood Intrepid Young Intruder, even more dirty, sweaty, and panicked-looking than the last time I saw him. Next to him was an older man, neat as a pin and grinning a leering grin my way. "Is Hassan home, Decrepit Lady in a Wheelchair, whose neck I could snap, like *that*?" he asked.
Okay, all he really said was:
Is. Hassan. Home. Lady.
All the while, Intrepid Young Intruder was on the verge of Spontaneous Combustion, his four digit-hand crossed over his body, gripping his inked arm so tightly his four fingers blanched white.
"The Police are on the way," was the only thing I could think to say. And I said it as I was swinging those damned doors closed, as my heart occupied my throat, as my life flashed before my eyes, and as annoying worry about the well-being of the Somnolent Diva and the Manor animals asserted itself in my forebrain.
What I would have given for a normal house window to peer out of...
And... how could it be that Leering Old Guy was bone dry and cool as a cucumber if the drawbridge was up? (and the submarine disabled! I forgot about the submarine.)
I kept yelling optimistic yells about the police, the cops, the fuzz -- and how I thought I heard 'em coming, how I had 'em on the phone, how amazingly prompt they always were to the inhabitants of Marlinspike Hall.
I might have implied, at one point, that the Haddocks *owned* the police.
Fred made it to my side in under 20 minutes. He saw no sign of the pair, though he did find Tools of the Burglar Trade and an empty knapsack near where Intrepid Young Intruder had stashed his wetsuit.
There was a hammer by Symeon of Syria's bronze doors.
The Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs) Metro Police? Sixty-seven minutes. After two phone calls. Sixty-seven minutes.
It took us hours to find Our Little Idiot, Dobby -- he finally issued a small squeak that led us to a cherry wardrobe in a rarely-used bedroom off of Bianca's Suite in the West Wing. He had carefully pried the door open, using the floral frieze molding for good paw grip.
It's almost evening, now, and his pupils are still shot wide in terror, poor thing.
So that has been my Strange Sunday, and really I was doing quite well, having made a police report, and served tea to The Detective. I listened, shaking my head, trying to laugh, as Fred swore that I must assent to having a gun. I calmed a hysterical Castafiore who is now convinced that the two men were obviously after *her* and that she had only barely eluded their grasp.
Yes, I was doing quite well.
Until The Detective licked his lips, casually crossed his legs, and said:
"So... why
do you think they came back, hmm?"
*We get more questions about The Computer Turret than about any other architectural feature of the architectural conundrum that is The Manor:
The only way in or out, up or down, the pesky turret is via a thick rope ladder, dyed caution yellow, that extends down (but mostly sideways) out to the Manor Stables -- a remarkable outbuilding that is an alarming replica, as we pointed out in our last post, of the Knoppenburg Manor Stables. The proper term today is "agricultural building." You won't catch me calling it a barn if there are any prying ears about. Of course, the last outsider who dropped by was The Technician Overlord of Our Telecommunications Bundle, which he so wisely decided was best centered in the Hobby Room at the top of the Turret Tower. We had concocted a cover story about the rope bridge ("It's more a bridge than a ladder," Fred just said), which consists of the baldfaced lie that we are a new off season venue for those Cirque du Soleil performers who are fresh out of rehab. So the hefty diameter of that hemp monster, see, is easily explained away as necessary gear for these poor, troubled acrobats.
I'm usually not subject to such heights of embarrassment (heights, and, lately, riches) but I just don't want anyone to think that I have to zig zag my way from one Manor Wing to another, make it to the Grand Ballroom, out the entrance, patterned after Brunelleschi's bronze baptistery doors, over the drawbridge (Provided it is down! Men!), across the moat, down the lane, over the hedge, into the damned agricultural outbuilding, up the custom wheelchair ramp into the hayloft, and then, lickety-split, go hand-over-fist on the rope bridge for a good half mile... all just to get my email.
