More captions!

Why-so-shnerious from DeviantArt has sent a few more interesting lady-to-maid captions that I am happy to share with you. Two are actually short stories!  Reposting this with the creator's permission. 

“Mother! Father! W-what foul villainy is this?”, sprang forth the startled voice of the young man, his words echoing around the opulent parlour room as his senses righted in the glow of the candles, his body now feeling the perch of a hat at a jaunty angle and the stretch of bloomer cossetting his nethers.

“I see the laudanum has finally worn off Albert, you were never schooled enough in the art of tea to notice the despoiling of taste”, replied his Mother with vile tones fusing her snort as she sat across from him sipping her snifter of port.

“B-but……but why am I dress thusly!?”, he said with panic’s malevolent grasp ‘pon his soul feeling the soft rustle of petticoats on his thighs.

“If it were up to me you would not regain your senses ‘til woken in the carriage, bound and gagged, hurtling through the majestic mountains of Carpathia bearing down on your destiny”, growled his Father from his position leaning on the mantelpiece by the roaring hearth, brushing his moustache which stood as gloried as a privet hedge.

“Gadzooks Pater, what blasphemy is this?”, Albert coughed, his utterance bless’d by the haunting rasp of veiled masculinity.

“Hush child, you know well that the Abolition Act, passed this last month, hath set the flame of ruin to this family. Bankruptcy hath engulfed us, we are in the throes of desperation and it has left us with little choice which, in turn, has left you with no choice. You betrayed the family business with your ardent support of the preposterous act, pah, next you will be supporting the nonsensical notion of women being allowed to vote!”, his Father replied refilling his pipe forged from the finest Moroccan acacia wood as he let his hatchet faced spouse continue in the revelations to their son.

“Whilst you were ‘neath slumbers cloak I pluck’d each hair, scented the skin and donned you in the finest gown fit for a maiden freshly introduced to her twentieth year. The wrap and binds of the corset ensures the stiffness of your spine, the raising of your chin and your shoulders forced back to grant unto you a posture most suited to a soon-to-be betrothed Lady”

“Betrothed!? A-and …a-a Lady?! What ….forsooth, I be a man! Debonnaire a-and….”

“Pish and tosh, you be a weak willed vassal at best, enfeebled of body and fuddled of the mind, you do not even know the LBW rule, and you calleth yourself a man?”, spat his father, his military bearing lending credulity to his unfettered verbiage.

“The only salvation for our family is for you to marry, but the Abolition Act hath crippled the purse-strings of many a noble family across the continent. Our search for wedlock to a fortuned spouse has lead your father and I unto the company of a visiting gentleman of fine noble stock. Do you know of Barona Zyiekowski, the magnate of shipping on the Black Sea whose increasingly poor health is well-noted and is set for internment by the passing of Lammas Eve, he has a son of most peculiar and Godless savourings”

“You mean Grigori? Indeed I have heard whispers spun, he be a most bloated man of loathsome taste nearing his fortieth year”

“The very same. The rumours that hath spun from the banks of the Rhine to the gin parlours of Reykjavik be most true, that this Grigori liketh the guise of a lady but donned ‘pon the shell of a gentleman. He findeth glory in the boudoir in the company of feminised gentlemen”

“Glory be, father! A-another gentleman….y-you don’t mean….like….like the Earl of Doncaster!?”

“I mean exactly like the Earl of Doncaster”, Albert’s father snorted with disdain at such an ignoble thought.

“Mater! Pater! What you ask is against reason and God!”, blustered Albert, “That a man should yearn to gratify another whose gusset is bless’d by the presence of Adam’s gifted throb”

“Watch your tongue child, lest I cleanse it with soap and iron!”, his mother sneered  grasping for the near drained decanter, “The Barona’s son, Grigori, has taken receipt of our missives and is currently making hotfoot towards us cross the cobbled streets o’ Newgate and shall be here by the chiming of eight. The notion of a fair maiden, soft of face and short of stature, whilst nesting a bulging throng of manhood is most desirous to his foul tastes. His father, the ailing Barona, wishing to scupper the rumours once and for all and to return honour to his family name, hath offered a dowry for our daughter of one hundred guineas a month for your father and I”

“You? But what of me!?”

“By the end of the week you are to be wed, and no doubt soon ordained as the new Baroneasã of Suceava in a vast house overlooking the isolated farmsteads in fealty to the crowned noggin of the realm. Grigori may be coarse of manner and queer of lustings, but he is deep of purse. See, he hath even forwarded you a gift”, his Father said delivering the shining gold unto the palm of what was once his son.

“Gadzooks, what manner of bejewelled trinket is this? Two rings but hinged to each other, both of which far too large for my fingers, what is his mind for this?”

“’Tis not for your hands child for it be a tool of chastity. It seems Grigori hungers that the tickle gizzard of his intended to be locked in gilded cage”

“Nay!”

“Aye. Once you take his hand our family need not go poor or hungry again, the wedding will be a grandiose and most salubrious affair to festoon the annals of Romanian affairs. Songs shall be sung and peasants shall slaughter both a mule and a gypsy in celebration”, Albert’s mother said in gay spree as the warmth and generosity of Bacchus swelled her enthuse.

“I-I shall refuse such heresy! I shall rebuke his hand in the church and reveal myself as a man!”

“Poppycock, if you refuse then the Barona, as most High Judge in Suceava, will not hesitate to claim you as a fraudulent swine for in his land ‘tis a sin to refute the attentions of the ruling class. He hath the power to proclaim you as possessed by Lucifer himself and have you hanged, drawn and quartered for such a region is still embedded in the law of the Middle Ages”

“I…I….”

“The region you shall be Baroneasã over is cruel and unjust, ‘tis a place where teeth are still used as currency and failure to satisfy in the marital bed is still punishable by ducking stool”, said his father with glee at the thought that such a fate would ne’er greet any dawn in the future of his child for he knew Albert, though fervent in speech for the equality of man, was fragile of spirit and any misgivings would soon falter ‘neath the swift and determined discipline of his intended.

“Nay, nay, and thrice nay! I have friends here in old London Town, they shall enquire of my whereabouts”, Albert coughed for his breath was most shortened by the laced clasp of corset as he heard the dreaded ringing of the clock eight times. Each chime acting as a nail for a coffin forged from finest mechlin lace and swishing silks.

“Your mother has already inked her quill and sent word to the The Times that our son Albert hath perished at sea, caught in a merciless squall off the Azores, at the same time our daughter Arabella is freshly returned from the impunity of the colonies and is to wed Grigori Zyiekowski, the future Baronã of Suceuva in the year of our Lord 1833. Our grief for our son shalt be buoyed by the impending marital bliss of our daughter”

“Immoral hues besmirch such a canvas of deceit!”, cried Albert in desperate tones, “This notion is doomed to failure for I know not of the language of Romania, nor their customs”

“Grigori was educated at Eton before returning to his Carpathian lands, but his firm guiding hand will ensure that soon his lady Arabella will be sat at his side in their sprawling rural Palais. Now sweeten your words and plumpen that smile for I do declare he shall be greeted by a maiden of virtue and servile manner”

“You shalt not dare cock a snook at his courting! Mayhaps you can get to know each other over a glass of Madeira and a game of cup and ball”, his mater said with a cooed support aware that the displeasure wrought by her son would soon be made right, amended by their new discomforted daughter.

“P-please, I beg of thee…this cannot be!”, Albert beseeched, though unable to find bended knee through the plumes of laced underskirt.

“Hold your tongue wench, lest I bind it greatly”, came a voice anew to the discourteous converse.

Three pairs of eyes snapped cross the candlelit room. Two pairs affronted by the veil of drink welcomed the assertive voice with joy, one pair did bathe in fear and blasphemous intent. 

In the parlour, having been ushered in by a most amused maid, stood Grigori clad in new weskit and pantaloons, who bore a most ungentlemanly smile on his gin blossomed face.

 “Ah Grigori, welcome to our home. ‘Tis time your met your intended. Arabella, greet your guest young lady”, said Albert’s mother whose vindictive pitch left no room for interpretation.

Albert struggled to his heeled poise, the rustle of petticoats sounding like feminine thunder in his ears as he noticed Grigori stood a good ten inches taller than he. Glancing to his mother and father Albert felt the noose tighten around his svelte neck as their eyes spat undisclosed commands.

“’T-Tis a pleasure to m-meet you, S-Sir”, Albert said as he fell into a curtsy sealing his fate.

In his vociferous support of the Abolition Act young Albert had bartered himself into the slavery of wedlock and the bondage of the marital bed.

---------------------------

Maggie’s nimble fingers, once festooned by the lustre of gold and the simple majesty of pearl, held the cup still as the rich stream of hot tea poured from the pot steadily for she knew well the sharp stinging punishment which would paint her buttocks if but a drop spilled. Watching the dark brown spirals in the unblemished cup seemed to fixate her tired eyes, the swirls of flavour ignited in her memories she sought not to revisit. Memories of her old life, of the grandiosity and abundance which, as the grand-niece of the Empress Dowager, she felt she richly deserved.

A life awash with luxury and avarice as she sipped tea in her grand house off Grosvenor Square, the lease of which as well as the staff, as with all her extravagances, paid for by her family residing in the grandest house in Shikai overlooking endless fields where the heavily taxed serfs broke their backs for their Masters. For these four years past Tai Ling had lived in lavish surroundings and bedecked with the finest bespoke clothing bringing her lavish influences of the Orient to inflame the monotony of fashion in Olde London Towne, her life of sumptuous excess had made her name in the City. 

But she cared not a jot that her monies were drawn from the opiates which flooded the deviant markets of the land from the glamour of Maythorpe to the soot smothered back allies of Billingham Court Road. The plague of opiates seeping into Blighty fuelled her life of old and ‘twas a life which any visiting Austrian dignitary or attaché to a cultural Ambassador would envy.

The old life of Tai Ling was one of avarice not servitude. 

Of luxury not poverty.

Of gowns woven from the finest of silks and not merely the thick cotton of her maid’s uniform. In her ever fading memories it was she, a glamorous imperatrix, who would mete out fierce discipline to the staff whom she deemed lazy or incompetent, they would cower in a shroud of timidity as her leather gloved hand sliced the air in twain with her thin rattan cane as it sought the striking of flesh. 

Where once the upper echelons of society politely overlooked her vulgar extravagances and notoriously unrestrained revelries, now Tai Ling’s every movement and utterance of fractured attempts at the Queen’s English were decried as sin for now she was but a servant and was made to curtsy to her betters from her cocoon of shame. To shrink her form as apprehension’s vile gift seized her soul and made her suffer the humiliation of punishment with bloomers drawn and wheeze of thanks to the defiler of her pride. 

But those memories were torn asunder that summer when Her Majesty’s Army overthrew the antiquated Qing Dynasty in her homeland; the Second War for the control of Opiates had ruined her family and left them in the grip of destitution. Severing all funds to Tai Ling she found herself swathed in paupers image, her leased home slipped from her grasp and her every garment and bejewelled trinket seized by Officers of The Crown who had daubed her name with the slur of treason. Though no law could imprison the former doyenne of gaudy elaborate soirees, ‘twas seen by most that her plight was seen as well-deserved, each ignored plea from her was martyred on the altar of snuffed hope.

The elite of London society shunned her thusly for ‘twas her kith and kin who dared raise arms against Her Majesty, she was but an outcast adrift in a maelstrom of misfortune. Unable to return to Shikai where Colonel Sharp now resided in the family dwelling having wrested favourable lands and monies for himself, and yet Tai Ling was unable to stay in London for she had but two farthing to her name, the same name, now bathed in the rumour of sedition, was but poison to the lips of her peers 

“Maggie, where are you girl? Fetch my tea you slovenly wretch!”, bellowed the voice of the Lady of the house dragging the former Tai Ling from her pained recall, her spirit eroding with each use of the name she now had to reply to. For the Lady of the house liked not a foreign name in her home, especially one with such sinful aconnotation, and so rechristened the new maid Maggie.

Tai Ling, penniless and stripped of pride and name alike, wished for an escape from this purgatory. In desperate throe she fled from the cobbled streets of the City and sought mercy from the only acquaintance she had who had not publically decried the pitiful young lady. Setting quill to parchment Tai Ling, with her only other option being the chill of the grave, agreed to indentured life hoping one day an accord could be found in her homeland and her wealth restored.

Mrs Arnshaw, the Lady of Thackeray House set deep in the heart of Sussex, ruled the Manor with a draconian will for she wished to instil the true value of a feudal spirit in the lower classes, especially those borne in distant climbs whom she delighted in belittling and degrading on an hourly basis. The noble birth of Tai Ling meant for naught for she was now merely Maggie, and felt the wash of shame with each bobbed curtsy unto her Mistress who revelled in displaying her uniformed and contrite maid nightly to her honoured dinner guests, many of whom were battle hardened officers and Imperialists.

‘Twas akin to having Spoils-Of-War on show, Mrs Arnshaw’s nouveau riche guests did mock and taunt the new maid at how feeble the efforts of her conquered kith and kin when opposing the might of Her Majesty’s Forces. As Maggie curtsied in pained deference she flitted from guest to guest serving platters of gastronomic wonder knowing her own repast that eve would consist of the left overs.

Each passing day Tai Ling felt her spirit become as broken as her grasp on our post-Norman tongue. She had lost her home, her treasures; even her name was stole from her. Her shame did burn her skin as did her punishments for Mrs Arnshaw was not bless’d with mercy nor leniency

“Maggie, you blithering idiot! Tea! Now!”, came the haughty command echoing from the parlour room of Thackeray House snapping the maid back to her morose, brooding and anguished existence.

“Yes Mistress, right away Mistress”, Maggie said timidly and went to serve the Lady her afternoon drink.

For Tai Ling was truly lost. Engulfed by the tenacity of despair.

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