Evangeline Elliot, of the highly-reknowned fashion-house, The House of Elliot, has very generously agreed to let me have the loan of this gorgeous number for the now-famous Annual Willow Manor Ball.(Please see my sidebar for the "King and I" image and link.)
Thanks to Evie (we’re such good friends), I will be ideally attired to be on the arm of the ever-dapper and most congenial (if a bit dim) gentleman, Mr. Bertram Wooster (Bertie to all his friends).
Here he is, getting ready for our big date:
(You see what I mean about the “dim” bit.) He does look quite spiffy in his monkey-suit, doesn’t he? Ah, here’s a shot of him in a much better disposish:
The snag however, is that sadly, I will not be able to dance at all. (I know! And my dance card was really filling up with Subby and Skip etc.) I had a rather nasty encounter with a chunk of curb that was placed inconveniently in my path up in old Gravenhurst and I did manage to contort my metarsal in a rather unnatural way that has left me quite at odds with any sort of perambulation.
Fortunately, Jeeves (that inimitable godsend of Bertie’s) has agreed to bring a divan for me to lounge on in a corner where I can have a good view of the dance floor. He will be giving my good foot a massage and plying me with expert hand-mixed martinis (strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand).
By the way chums, please refer to me only as Kitty Mangleword for the duration. I don’t want Bertie to feel out of his depth, so I thought a name more in keeping with his usual coterie would be helpful.
Oh, and Willow Darling, Bertie had the most divine idea! He thinks you should hold a seance so we can see if we can conjure up some of your Willow Manor ghosts for a bit of a spooky natter. Jeeves thinks it’s inadvisable, but you really can’t blame the poor man for his failure to see the immensely fun possibilities. He doesn’t touch a drop of drink and his own revelry is really impaired as a result.
Bertie is hoping we can channel his Great-Great-Godfather, once-removed (on his mother’s side), Colonel Ricketts Adelaide Plimsole. Apparently, he was some sort of naturalist explorer in search of a rare desert lizard in North Africa when he was swallowed up by a desert storm, never to be seen again! They did however, find his pith helmet. You might wonder how anyone knew it was his, but it seems he always kept a note secreted away in the crown, in the event of his demise. It read: “C.R.A.P. was here”. The Bedouin boy who found the helmet was hard-pressed to give it up since his camel looked quite dashing in it, but a few baubles soon turned his head.
Well, I must dash! (Not really, but you know what I mean.) Jeeves is just cranking up the car and Bertie is putting the finishing touches on a new composish at the Steinway.
We’ll see you all very soon!
Love,
“Kitty”
P.S. Be a love. If you happen to see any of the following fellows floating around the dance floor, send them over to my chaise, will you?
Jason O’Mara, Robert Carlyle, Nathan Filion, Bradley Walsh, Michael Kitchen
