Mrs Poo decides the time is right to take Mrs Miggins to
meet her great-great-great grandhen the Grand Duchess Yekaterina.
‘I’m sure she’ll be able to help us,’ she says. ‘She has a
strange and ancient magic at her fingertips. Did you know she managed to
deliver seventy million Christmas cards without using the Royal Mail?’
Mrs Miggins rolls her eyes. ‘Of course there’s magic
involved. It wouldn’t be a Much Malarkey Manor Christmas Story without some
sort of magical interlude. Personally,’ she adds in a faux whisper, ‘I think
it’s narrative laziness on the part of the Lady Author as a way of getting her around tricky plot points. ‘
‘Oi!’ says the Lady Author, ‘I heard that!’
Mrs Miggins shrugs. ‘So, where is this Grand Duchess, then?’
Mrs Poo isn’t sure. She could be anywhere in the Palace. ‘I
suppose we just keep walking around until we find her,’ she says. ‘Or she finds
us.’
‘Most considerate of my old knees,’ says Mrs Miggins.
‘Zay are nothing compared wiz ze age of MY knees,’ comes an
imperious-toned response from the far end of the corridor. ‘Ven you haf knees
zat are over vun hundred years old, zen you vill haf somesing to complain
about…’
‘Is that you, Grand Duchess Yekaterina?’ says Mrs Poo.
‘Vell, who else do you expect it to be?’ says the Grand
Duchess, emerging, like all good ghosts, from the shadows. ‘Who I zis?’ she
continues, pointing her wing at Mrs Miggins.
‘This is my close friend, Mrs Laetitia Miggins,’ says Mr
Poo, making a simple introduction because she can’t be doing with all that
etiquette stuff. ‘Miggins, this is my great-great-great grand-hen the Grand
Duchess Yekaterina of Polovitska.’
The ghostly shadow of the Grand Duchess descends on Mrs
Miggins and peers at her through a pearl encrusted monocle. ‘Vell, vell,’ she
says. ‘I can zee you are a true Royalist, unlike my vayward and Bolshevik
great-great-great grandhen here.’
‘How can you tell I’m a Royalist?’ says Mrs Miggins.
The Grand Duchess pokes Mrs Miggins in the chest with her
monocle. ‘Zis,’ she says. ‘Vy else vould you wear an ‘I Heart Charles and
Camilla’ t-shirt?’
(N.B If you’ve ever been poked by a ghost, you’ll know it
can make you feel slightly bilious.)
Mrs Miggins is feeling slightly bilious. She doesn’t know
why because she never reads any of the very useful N.Bs the Lady Author writes.
Mrs Miggins says she has way better things to do with her time. Anyway, it is
true – Mrs Miggins is wearing the aforesaid Royalist t-shirt, which she purchased
from the Palace online shop using the 20% discount code kindly given to her by
Queen Camilla.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Grand Duchess,’ says Mrs
Miggins, making a slight curtsey. ‘Mrs Poo says you might be able to help us
with a problem. You see, what’s happened is…’
‘Yes, yes, I know vot has happened,’ says the Grand Duchess,
waving her wing in a dismissive manner. ‘Do you know nothing about vot it means
to be a ghost? Ve have great skills of omnipresence. Ve are all-seeing and
all-knowing…’
Mrs Miggins, of course, DOES know about the whole
omnipresent nature of ghosts. She still has regular chats with her long-time
and dear departed friend, Mrs Bennet, who fills her in on all sorts of goings
on, both at the Manor and in the local village. It’s why Mrs Miggins seems to
have a knack for knowing EXACTLY what is happening at any given moment, which
annoys the other hens enormously, especially when it comes to keeping Christmas
presents a secret.
‘…and vot is going on,’ continues the Grand Duchess, like a
galleon in full sail, ‘iz zat your pretend King Charles has been so-called ‘kidnapped’,’
- she scribes the air with pretend quotation marks - ‘and you vant me to help
you to find him. Alzough, vy you are bothered about ze recovery of a commoner
ven ze real King is safe as houses, I do not know.’
‘Gosh, you’re good,’ says Mrs Poo. ‘That’s exactly vot, I
mean, what has happened. However, I know that the old way of thinking was to
not worry about the plebians in society…’
‘Which is basically what Kenneth is,’ adds Mrs Miggins.
‘…but these days we value all life and all people, so the
Phantomime deserves to be rescued as much as any person,’ finishes Mrs Poo.
‘Vatever,’ says the Grand Duchess, dismissively. ‘Ze sing
is, I know EXACTLY vere your King Kenneth Phantomime iz.’
‘You do?’ says Mrs Poo. ‘But this is amazing. We could have
him rescued by tea time. Where is he?’
‘In ze throne room,’ says the Grand Duchess.
‘Oh well, in that case I think the rescue can wait a while,’
says Mrs Miggins. ‘There is NO way I am going to lead a raid into a toilet,
especially when it is occupied by a human of the male persuasion.’
‘Vot IZ she talking about?’ says the Grand Duchess, sending
a puzzled look in the direction of Mrs Poo.
‘Oh,’ says Mrs Poo. ‘Just a simple idiomatic confusion here.
‘The throne room’ is a euphemism for a bathroom.’
The Grand Duchess ponders this. ‘How bizarre,’ she says. ‘In
my vocabulary, a throne room is a room containing the thrones upon vich a king
and a queen may sit during State occasions. Oh, you modern hens and your modern
vays…’
Mrs Miggins has just realised the implication of what the
Grand Duchess has just said. ‘You mean, the Phantomime and the kidnap gang are
here? In Buckingham Palace?’
The Grand Duchess nudges Mrs Poo. ‘She iz very quick, is she
not? Your friend?’
Mrs Miggins ignores the sarcasm. There is, after all, no
point or value in picking an argument with a ghost. All she knows is that,
suddenly, what appeared to be a tricky problem, doesn’t seem as tricky any
more.
‘Let’s call the police and let them know,’ she says. ‘As you
say, Mrs Poo, we could have this sorted out by tea-time.’
‘We can’t call the police,’ says Mrs Poo. ‘We have to keep
the Press from finding out anything about this, don’t we?’
‘I agree,’ says the Grand Duchess. ‘Ze police are full of ze
Press, what do you call zem – voles?’
‘Moles,’ says Mrs Miggins. ‘Hmmm…I suppose you’ve got a
point there. What do YOU suggest we do?’
The Grand Duchess folds her wings across her chest. ‘There iz
no need to make an elephant out of a fly, as ve like to say in Russia. Ve haf
vays of dealing vith criminals zat vill keep everysing qviet, hush hush and on
a strictly need to know basis. Discretion iz ze vord.’
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