Sentence The Fivehundredandtwentysecond

 

Well, Fancy That! Who came in and woke me with a cup of tea and toast but Isa together with her new partner, Milly Millican (and I mean partner in the WPC sense, in that they are working together

with Milly covering Gertie's absence – and Isa is quite adamant that if that two-faced or should it be one-faced? Professor Sir Clement Dane can come back even before he went missing, so that there are now two of him walking about the town when one was always bad enough, then surely our other missing friends and relatives who appear to have come under the spell of the Eildon Charm will return too - after all, some of the Appeared as they are beginning to be called, do not deserve to have re-appeared, but I am not supposed to know that, so least said, least having to be denied later in 'Teri's Famous Last Words' on the scaffold!) and I am trying to forget the scene we had a couple of years ago when one of my Aunties, and I'm not saying which, misheard me when I introduced Milly to her and she then mortified everyone by asking Milly in her loud, imperious voice (yes, it was Aunt Daphne) "are you related to Spike?" the silence which followed was almost palpable and I hoped that

Aunt Daphne would forget what she had asked, as she often does, and talk about something else, but instead she said: "are you related to Spike Milligan, dear?" at which Milly blushed to her roots and said, in a loud voice: "my name is Millican!" at which Aunt Daphne said: "that's right dear, but are you related to him?" and added, "he was Irish too," and before Milly could say anything else, Aunt Maude asked Daphne: "wasn't he from Enniscorthy, dear heart?" so that now they began to discuss the possible birthplaces of the comedian and quickly forgot about Milly, which was something of a relief, until Milly spoke up again: "my name, Miss Dumbiedykes, Aunt Daphne, is Millican, with a 'c' not Milligan with a 'g'," and Daphne laughed, and said: "well, of course Milligan is spelt with a 'g' it can hardly be otherwise; and are you from Enniscorthy?" at which Milly, admirably on her mettle, stoutly replied: "certainly not, I am from Jedburgh!" which might have been the end of it if Isa hadn't chipped in with: "you must remember Milly, Aunt Daphne. she is your Third Niece, twice removed and once returned," at which Daphne put on her glasses and, looking up closely at Milly, said: "you must be Rosalind's daughter," and Milly replied: "my mother is Rosamund!" at which Aunt Maude stood up, embraced Milly and, turning to Daphne who remained seated, said: "you may not be able to hear a word, my dearest, but Milly can, so she and I are going to brew a pot of tea – if Cristo permits us to enter her Sanctum," at which Daphne laughed and said, "Milly can, indeed, she most certainly can and undoubtedly will, I'm so sorry for your misunderstanding my sweet, but now that Maude has put the lid on it, we, too, can look forward to lovely cup of tea, with my dearest cousin Maude at the helm – I do so love mixed metaphors, they confuse eavesdroppers and tittle-tattlers and are one of the few remaining pleasures when you reach our advanced age," and that was it – the tension burst like an old balloon, not with a POP but a PFFFART and we had a lovely evening debating the merits of a

Clerisy against those of a Plutocracy, with my Aunts each taking diametrically opposed views they had held so dearly on a previous occasion – which prompted Milly to observe that our family argues for pleasure, not profit, which Auntie Crist declared should be the Family Motto and put up over the front door – and never again did Aunt Daphne think that Milly was in some distant way related to Spike!